Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/436

 428 MAL Government schools are held at the largest of these at Malihabad, Mir- záganj, Kenwalbár, Khálispur, Rahímabad, and Mál. At Malihabad are fixed the tahsil, post, and registration offices, and the police station, where is stationed a force of one inspector and twenty-four subordinates. The area in their charge is not quite conterminous with the pargana, for it includes also the corner of Lacknow that penetrates into the pargana, and part of Kakori. It amounts to two hundred and twenty square miles. The pargana is well wooded and generally very well cultivated. But it is crossed by large waste and unculturable tracts that follow the course of the Baita and two other small streams, called the Jhandi and Akrahdi, which take a south-easterly direction through the pargana and fall into the river Gumti. But little irrigation is carried on from them. The irriga- tion in the pargana is hardly up to average. It amounts to only thirty-four per cent. and nearly forty per cent. of this is from wells. But water is generally procurable if wells be dug. It can be found at an average depth of eighteen feet from the surface of the soil, and a depth of twelve feet of water can be secured. In general fertility it is perhaps one of the best parganas of the district, and while its percentage of cultivation is higher than in any other pargana its density in population is least. It has also very little uocultura ble land, It amounts only to 13:92 per cent., balf of which is taken up by homesteads, roads, and tanks. The culturable land amounts to 265 per cent., and some of it is of a very good quality. The population falls on the cultivated area at the rate of 786 per square mile, showing a vast difference between this and the Lucknow and Mohanlal- ganj parganas, where it falls at a rate of 1,229 and 1,003 per square mile. The holdings of cultivators in the pargana are in consequence much larger. For the Brahmans, Chhattris, and Ahirs, who furnish the greater part of the cultivators, they vary from four and three-quarters to five and three- quarters of an acre, and for the Chamars they are from three and a half to three and three-quarters of an acre. The rents are very low and uni- form; they range from Rs. 3-11 to 4-1, the latter being paid by Chamárs. Káchhis pay Rs. 6-1, not half of what they pay in Lucknow and Mohan- lalganj. The assessment of the pargana was by the summary settlement Rs. 1,18,644. By the revised demand it is Rs. 1,52,595, revenue rate falls at Rs. 2-2 on cultivated, Re. 1-8 on cultivated and culturable, and Re. 1-4 throughout. The early history of the Pargana bas been indicated. It is said to have been inhabited by Pásis and Arakhs. Two Pási brothers, Malia and Salia, are said to have founded Malihabad and Sandila in Hardoi. Local tradi- tion says that Malia was not driven out till the time of Akbar, but this must be a mistake. Munshi Fazl Rasul, taluqdar of Jalálpur in Hardoi, asserts that his ancestors drove out a tribe of Arakbs from Sandila in 602 Hijri (A.D. 1205), and pursued them through Kákori to Lucknow. Pathans have long been celebrated as very powerful in Malihabad, and outside Malihabad is the old village of Bakhtiárnagar, still beld by a colony of Patháns-though of another and more recent date—which very probably