Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/26

 18 NIG between them; the pargana possesses certain geographical features which may be now described. The Sarju is a narrow stream of an average width of 50 yards; the depth of water at the fords is only a few feet, and the fords are numerous ; the current is slower than that of the Chauka; the banks are generally about 20 feet high, both on the north and south side, or even higher; sometimes they follow close along the edge of the river, and sometimes reach to a distance of a mile or two miles from it, leaving a low tarái along the river side. Innumerable small tributary strearas flow down into the Sarju from the higher land to the south, but many of these are backwaters through which the autumnal floods often escape out of the Sarju and inundate the tarái; occasionally but seldom rising to the level of the higher lands. This tarái is generally covered with a jungle of khair, shisham, and gúlar trees, and is subject to inundation during the autumnal rains. After the reconquest of Oudh a large portion of this jungle was appropriated by Government, and was afterwards made over to the Forest Department'; for the first 28 miles of the river's course, after entering the pargana at Dudhua Ghát, the jungles along its banks belong to the Forest Depart- ment; for the next 17 miles they belong to revenue-paying villages. The course of the Sarju is so winding that its distance from the Chauka and consequently the width of the pargana varies from 4 to 14 miles. Between the two rivers there exists a long high ridge of land, with a good loamy soil, forming a central plain varying in width from one to nine miles, the greatest width being at the east. This plain can only be called high by comparison with the lower lands along the rivers to the north and south. There is probably no part of it where water is not found 14 feet below the surface; and the soil is so moist that except vegetables, poppy, and tobacco no crops need irrigation. It is intersected by * sotas" or backwaters of the Sarju and Chauka, which frequently communicate with each other; and it is covered with jhils of the curious formation called " bhaggbar," which have been already described under the head of pargana Blur. One of these sotas is called the Bahatia; it has a wide bed, and in the autumn carries a large volume of water; it crosses the pargana in the centre, flowing at right angles to the Sarju and Chauka from north to south, or from south to north, according as the floods from the Sarju or that from the Chauka be the stronger. The bhagghars assume the most fantastic shapes, but always retain the one characteristic attribute-a very high bank on one side and a low marsh on the other, In addition to the bhagghars and sotas, large shallow jhils are scatter- ed over the whole surface of the central plain, while dry water-courses and ravines intersect it in every direction, running into the jhils, sotas, and bhagghars at every imaginable angle. In the higher parts of the central plain the soil consists of a very thin loam, mixed with much gritty earth and very small stones. This soil