Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/286

 278 KUK singularly free from such visitors; some damage is done by peacocks ; but there is nothing else. The population is 12,236 inhabiting 49 villages; of these 2,005 are Musalmans, principally Pathans. None of the other resident eastes call for any notice. The proprietary body was formerly Abban, but many of them have lost all their possessions. There are forty townships, of which Ahban Musalmans hold 19, Chhat- tris 13, Government 4. The Thákur of Mahewa has a large estate acquired about five years before annexation. The estates of Kukra, Ro- shannagar, Sauklıia, Sansárpur, besides others--in all thirty-six out of the forty in this pargana—have changed hands since annexation, having been transferred to the rightful owners after long and costly litigation, covering from three to ten years in each case. In consequence of this the present inhabitants are poverty-stricken, and further transfers are imminent, as those who succeeded in the law courts have been so much impoverished that they cannot manage their estates. There is a road from Gola Gokaran tráth, partially bridged but not metalled, leading to Bhira and Marauncha Ghát; also another from Mailiui to Kukra. These are both impassable in the rains, as the Ul and Barauncha are not bridged; a third road from Aliganj to Khatái is not metalled either. Traffic is quite impossible during the rains, and the prices of grain are consequently much lower here--sometimes 100 per cent. less than at Lakhimpur, twenty-five miles off. Rice is still the principal crop, but barley and gram have been of late years sown largely. There would be a large trade in timber if there were any means of carriage. History. This forest-covered tract has been certainly for centuries the favourite refuge of dacoits and rebels from both Oudh and Rohilkhand. The Katebria chiefs of Khatái used to take refuge in these impenetra- ble woods, and thence commit the atrocities which resulted in the forfeiture of that estate in 1840 (see pargana Palia). Hither the Albans filed when hard pressed by the Government. The Kukra woods are fairly healthy, being all in high ground; in fact, the area of the forest grants, 126 square miles, also defines the extent of the upper lanıls, and the revenue paying land, 51 square miles, consists mainly of the basins of three or four ancient lakes into which the high lands drained. The aspect of these mere pits in the huge surface of the forest is very peculiar. The largest (Kukra) may be taken as a type of all; a flat plain about seven miles long and four broad, covered with rice fields and prairies of long coarse grass through which breast-high the foot-passenger moves with difficulty in pursuit of the game which lies concealed in herds. A few mango groves adjoin the mud-walled villages ; here and there a slight depression allows the rain water to gather in stagnant marshes; all round the horizon the traveller sees the high bluffs--once the shores of this in- land sea-rising crowned with a ring of lofty and dense sál forest. This wall of verdure is only broken at places where it has been levelled to