Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/348

 340 LUC The Gararias (shepherds) number 1,899, or nearly equal to the Ahirs (herdsmen). The number of sheep and goats is said to be 34,970,* but little stock of any kind is to be seen in the district. The sheep ale principally reared for their wool, which is made into blankets. They are usually sbeared twice in the year—in Chait or March and Kuár or Sep- tember. The wool obtained at both cuttings will not exceed balf a ser; a blanket will not be made from less than a ser, and is sold for a rupee. The above number of sheep then represent 17,485 blankets and the same number of rupees. The Pásis tend pigs, and of these animals there appear to be in the district 13,674. They do not ever strike one as particularly numerous, and if this calculation is correct there are not ten pigs to a village. Swine's flesh is an abomination to all but the Pásis, by whom only it is consumed. The Juláhas also include the Koris. It has been shown above tbat their trade has been almost driven out of the market. Probably the Mu- hammadans will cling to it longest. They are pure labourers in their trade, but the Koris eke out their liviog by reaping and barvesting the crops at harvest time. All the Baniáns and Baqqáls are not shopkeepers. A good deal of the trafficking and carrying is in their hands, and they may be seen in small bands wending their way to the nearest market, each with a well loaded country tat or bullock, and not meanly burdened himself. The Tambolis or growers of páu leaves are a most industrious class. They have to prepare artificially the bed which the plant is grown, and are occupied in incessantly watering and tending the plant. These beds are laid on the top of artificially formed banks. They are made of a fine dumat soil, which is dug from the bottom of tanks and spread out on the beds to the depth of two or three inches. The plant is grown from cut- tings or buds, and is sown in Chait (March), and comes to maturity in about four months The plant, which is a creeper, climbs up a pole of some four feet high, and the leaves when ready are stripped from the bottom. It is planted in rows, called mends, across the convex top of the bed, and the whole is walled in by low screens of fencing made from patáwar grass, and a roofing of the same is spread over the tops of the bed. They are generally from sixteen to ten yards long and six to eight broad. The rents are paid on the mend, eight annas per mend for the first year, twelve annas for the next, one rupee for the third, and so on. The Bhurjis or grain-parchers are a class largely occupied in the pre- paration of food. Chabena is a favourite article of food with the natives, and in a bazar every other shop seenıs to belong to the Bhurji. They used to be formerly, and are now where the custom of payments in kind is pre- served, employed in the weighment of grain, and they usually get half a ser of grain on every field of grain they weigh.
 * Oudh Administration Report for 1869-70, page cxzti.