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Rh originated from Satrikh. The Musalmans frequently made short incursions from this place. One of the first places they attacked was the town of Dewa, where they seem to have established themselves under Shah Wesh, a captain of Sayyad Masaud's; and they penetrated in the direction of Lucknow as far as the town of Mariáon, where they met with a repulse, and their leader fell. In a village is still a tomb of portentous length, in which a nau gaza pir, so called from his height, is said to have been buried.

By far the greater part of the Musalman proprietorship of villages in the district dates from the time when a Musalman government was firmly established within the limits of the province. They were naturally attracted towards the settlements of their own countrymen, and Musalman villages stretch through the south of parganas Dewa, Kursi, and Lucknow up to Kakori,

Out of the one thousand four hundred and sixteen villages of the old district, five hundred and fifty-five are held by Musalmans, eight hundred and thirty-four by Hindus, and of the latter five hundred and forty-six belong to Chhattris, and one hundred and thirty-two to Brahmans, leaving one hundred and fifty-six to be divided amongst other castes, the chief holders amongst whom are the Káyaths with forty-one, and Ahírs and Kurmis with thirty-eight villages. Thus Musalmans, Thákurs, and Brahmans are the chief holders; and being but twenty-seven per cent. of the whole population hold nine-tenths of the soil, and even the proprietorship of the remaining castes in one-tenth is due to adventitious causes, and not their original ownership of the land.

Earlier tribes of Bhars, Arakhs, and Pásis, and ancient state of the country.—Next comes the question of the ownership of the soil previous to the colonization of these early Rajput and Musalman settlers. Their traditions everywhere state that they expelled certain low caste tribes of Bhars, Árakhs, and Pásis. Who the Bhars were is a question that still remains unanswered. Mr. Elliot says that they overran the country after the loss of Ajodhya by the Surajbansi tribes. The country had then apparently relapsed into primeval wilderness. The native's only conception of it is that of a vast uninhabited jungle, in which none but saints and anchorites lived, who passed their time in prayer and meditation. Rája Janimijai, son of Parikshit, grandson of Rája Judhishtir, of mythical times, granted them the land in jágír.

The foundation of many of the towns is attributed to devotees, as Mariaon to Mandal Rikh, Mohán to Mohan Gir Gosháín, Juggaur to Jagdeo Jogi, and they may belong to these times.

The Bhars then found the country open to them, and in this district they were certainly a dominant clan that ruled the country, so far south as the Sai, up to the end of the twelfth century. Their total extermination does not favour the belief that they could have belonged to the mass of the people, but as a proprietary body their disappearance, with the loss of their land, seems intelligible, and as a fact is common enough. They seem to be of aboriginal origin, and some say belong to the forest