Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/276

 268 KHE nally. A very peculiar image of the Ardhanári type, but exhibiting a com- bination of symbols unprecedented in my reading or observation, was also discovered. The figure carries the couch shell; the quoit, tho trident, and Nandi is at its feet. These mounds have not been touched : nor indeed have any of the much larger mounds in this district. At Barkhár, in Muhamdi pargana, for instance, some of them are certainly stupas, and it is very probable that a few excavations would be rewarded. Buddhists always buried more or less valuable matter in these buildings, and it might reasonably the expected that Oudh would be as fruitful as other places. Gold coins of the Gupta series have repeatedly been picked up in Bhúrwára and Kot- wára near this place. KHERI Pargana-Tahsil LABHYMPUR— District KHERI.—Pargana Kheri lies between the Ul on the east and the Geographical features. Jamwári on the south-west; artificial boundaries separate it from pargana Paila on the north-west and the district of Sitapur on the south. Its area is 192.69 square miles; its population is 104,916 in 193 villages; its extreme length is 24 and breadth 15 miles. The pargana is roughly divided into two parts. One is an upper plateau which is largely irrigated from jhíls and wells; its level is about 480 feet above the sea ; it contains three quarters of the pargana, nearly all high class loam soil. To the north-cast of this plateau, along its whole length, lies a slope, one or two miles in breadth, of lighter soil, which suddenly sinks into the tarái of the Ul. Further, to the south-east of this plateau the Kewani river has formed a very extensive tarái of first-class land, sepa- rated from the Ul tarái, as far as the borders of this district, by a pro- montory of high land running south-east from the main plateau. This tarái is at a level nearly sixty feet beneath the upper ground; Lakhimpur station being 483 feet above thc sea, and the UI 425 feet. Down the centre of the pargana runs a series of marshy lakes, which collect the water of the plateau which is slightly saucer-shaped. The southern edge is formed by the high bank of the Jamwári, as the northern is by the bank of the Ul. The lakes, commencing with that at Gumchaini, communicate in the rains, and generally there is a slight uniting stream running by Samitha, Atwa, Dharsa, Mahmudabad, Sarain, Samonia, Keshopur to Muhammad- pur, where the channel becomes a perennial stream and joins the Kewa- ni. Unfortunately, however, the outlet is not sufficient, and the overflow from these lakes spreads over a great area, as the lowest point of this plateau is only eleven feet lower than the highest. A part of the water also from these great jhils in heavy rain seeks an outlet through the Lakhim- pur station to the U1, and five persons were drowned or killed by the Hoorls and falling houses in 1870. This series of lakes offers a good situa- tion for small irrigation channels, which will be more required every year. Kheri is well supplied with groves. Water is obtained with difficulty at a depth of 30 feet along the border ridge of the plateau, but easily at a depth of about sixteen feet elsewhere on the plateau, and at eight feet in the tarái. The old pargana of Basára now joined Kheri lies on the west- of the Jam wari.