Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/201

 KHE 193 trade, Gorias. They are hired out to the grain merchants at a rate per hundred maunds of carriage. Cost of carriage. This varies every year, and is now* Rs. 9 from Shítábi- ghát and Rs. 5 from Chahlári ghát per hundred maunds to Dinwán, and from Shitábighat to Chupra Rs. 15. These rates are more than double those ordinarily current. The rate to Simariaghát from Chahlári was Rs. 5; it is now 12 and Rs. 10 from Bahramghat. Even at this rate the railway cannot compete with river. traffic. The same amount of grain at the low rate of {th of a pie per mile per maund will cost about Rs. 10 to take to Patna by rail, the distance being about 400 miles, although it will be reduced to 300 when the Oudh and Rohilkhand line is completed. It is true that the voyage will last fifteen days by water and only three by rail, but that is no advantage, rather a loss to the shipper, who has his grain stored for him in the vessel while the price is rising. The abovementioned rates also include the return voyage, anul although the boats are often empty, yet they sometimes bring Bengal rice and salt from Patna. This is English salt, which up to 1872 came as far as Bahramghat, and sold there at Rs. 5 per maund, but the opening of the railway to Fyzabad has reduced the price of Punjab salt, and driven the English out of the market. Still it is evident that in ordinary years river carriage, as far as the traffic between Oudh and Bengal is concerned, is one hundred per cent. cheaper than railway. The present high rates for boat bire also prevailed in 1867, and were caused doubtless by the scarcity in Bengal. The traffic continues all the year. During the rains the east wind may generally be depended on, and boats go up-stream at the rate of 40 miles in a day if circumstances are favourable. An aver- age voyage from Dinwán to Chablári and back—a distance of 130 miles- should be completed in twelve days. Of the boat hire abovementioned half is taken by the owner of the boat and half goes to the four men who pull or pole it along. Two men will manage a small boat. The grain- dealers are of all castes, but the boat-owners are all Kahárs or Gorias. Boats engaged in the Bengal trade go up the Kewáni to Sándi, six miles beyond Jahángirabad, but only in the rains; it might easily be made navigable all the year round. The traders complain of many shallows above Rájpur near Chahl'ri on the Chauka. In the Nawabi the trade was almost confined to Khargughát in Nánpára and Bahramghat; every landbolder who had a fortalice on the bank made the boats pay transit dues. At Mallápur, Baundi, Chahlárighát, Bhitauli, every ten or twelve miles in fact, the vessel had to bring to and pay dues, The grain carried to Bengal was generally maize and millets of sorts, gram, wheat, oil-seeds, but in 1873, for the first time in the merchants memory, kodo was exported and formed the main article of traffic. This probably indicated that there was no other grain in any abundance, and That the Oudh people was trenching on its food stores. Minerals.-There are no mineral productions, except a little petro- leum in Khairigarh. Kankar of good quality in large slabs is met with near Gola. Saltpetre is manufactured in quantity at Dhaurahra,
 * 1874.