Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/286

 278 SAD and is of use both for building and burning, the only tree of any conse- quence is the nahua, whose flowers and fruit are leased out at consider- able sums for the manufacture of spirits and oil, and whose wood is largely employed in roofing the mud huts of the neighbouring villages. Game is not particularly plentiful, though spotted deer and níl-gue, and even an occa- sional panther, may be found in the remoter thickets, and the jungle clear- ings swarm in places with hares and grey partridge. The centre of the pargana is a flat ugly plain, underwooded and covered with fair cultivation alternating with tracts of the long khar grass, the home here and there of an unfrequent black buck. The soil is of a light dry loam, and, as the whole is included in the central table-land of the district, the constant moisture of the southern tarhar and the stiff clay of the Sub-Himalayan tarái are equally unknown. Water may be struck almost anywhere at a depth of from Šfteen to twenty feet from the surface, and irrigation is very common both from wells and from the small tanks which stud the whole pargana, and form natural storage reservoirs for the rain water. Brick wells comented with mud are most usual; but in the jungle clearing they are often square holes walled with planks of sál wood dovetailed at the corners. There are practically only two crops, the winter harvest being as elsewhere on the uparhár hardly known. The cultivated area is 37,406 acres, or rather more than 56 per cent of the whole. In this 12,025 acres are under both crops, and 22,040 under kharíf, and 24,675 under rabi; the small balance having been fallow at the time of survey. The only impor- tant autumn products are rice and kodo, covering respectively 10,545 and 1,890 acres. In the spring wheat takes the lead with 8,060, and is closely - followed by gram which grows most luxuriantly on the land lately reclaimed from jungle with 6,670 acres. The remaining crops of any consequence are arhar, peas, and linseed. Cultivation is nowhere, except in a very few villages in the centre of the pargana, of a high class, and the settlement returne give an average area of nine cultivated acres to each plough. After the mutiny the larger tracts of jungle were declared Government property, and sold in six separate parcels aggregating an area of 8,489 acres. The remaining 57,387 acres have been demarcated in 106 villages, and there are 401. hamlets and outlying houses. Floods being unknown, there is no necessity for selecting high spots, and habitations are scattered closely all over the cultivated area.. The only bazars are at Rahra and Sadullabnagar, and they are merely small collections of mud huts, where it is often difficult to get even grain for a moderately sized encampment. Owing to the extent of jungle the population is for Oudh thin, being only 35,152 or 341 to the square mile; of these 6,931 are Muhammadans, and the high proportion of nearly a fifth of the inhabitants is due to the religion of the ruling Musalman house of Utraula. Many are Patháns, but the majority are either low-caste weavers, or new converts to the creed of the prophet from among the agricultural Hindus. Kurmis and Muráos are the most numerous castes of Hindus with a total of 7,146, and next to them come the Koris with 3,349 and Ahirs with 3,442 souls ; Brahmans number 2,219, and there are 1,048 Chhattris, mostly Bisens and Bandhal- gotis, of the large coparcenary communities of Itua and Khera Díh. The most active classes in subduing to the plough the fever-stricken jungles,