Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/342

 33+ LUC with Shábjahánpur, and passing the large and important towns of Kákori and Malihabad, traverses the Malihabad Pargana on its way through Hardoi to Shahjahanpur, Bareilly, and Moradabad. The entire length of railway communication is 52 miles. Carriage.-Traffic is carried on chiefly by means of country cartsa There are six hundred and thirteen of these carts belonging, generally to Brahmans, Baniáns, and zamındars, who take their own grain to the mar- ket. They are two-wheeled and about thirteen and a half feet long, with a bed which narrows to a point that passes between the two-wheeler bullocks, and is fastened to the yoke, broader at the top than at the bottom, and with low sides, which slope outward, and are formed of rope tightly bound up and down from the beam at the bottom to the rail at the top. They may be pulled by four bullocks or two, and if the bullocks be good, will carry from twenty to forty maunds, or sixteen to twenty-nine hundred- weight, according as they are drawn by two or four bullocks. The cost of these carts varies from forty to one hundred rupees, Theother means of conveyance are buffaloes, bullocks, and tattoos, or small ponies. The first will carry four and a half maunds, or three and a half bundredweights; bullocks from two to three maunds, if well kept; and the tattus from two and a half maunds to three maunds. These last are wretched beasts. These animals are mostly owned by Baqqáls, who trudge alongside weighted almost as heavily as their beasts, for they carry a maund on their backs, which they fasten by a band which passes round the bottom of the load and over the head. Cost of carriage.-A four-bullock cart will carry 38 or 40 maunds of grain on a metalled road, and 32 on an unmetalled track. With this load they will not travel much above twelve miles a day. For a journey of at least four or five days the rate will be about one rupee a day. One hundred maunds will then be carried one hundred miles for Rs. 20, which amounts to almost four pie per ten maunds per mile. The ordinary rate on the railway for grain is one-quarter of a pie per maund per mile, reduced in famine seasons to one-eighth. Railway carriage in ordinary seasons will be seven pie per ton for grain per mile, which is about 40 per cent. cheaper than road carriage. A buffalo will carry four or five maunds, an ass a maund, an average man 30 sers, but headloads for, short distances will reach 45 sers. There is still a very large traffic which has not been picked up by the railway. Gur and grain are exported, cotton and salt. imported in great quantities, and still mainly by the road.