Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/301

 SAN 293 unnecessary. The deposit brought down by the Rámganga is considered the richest. In heavy foods it is sometimes spread two feet thick over the fields. Besides its ricbgess it has this further advantage, that its pre- paration for seed involves only a quarter of the labour required for ordinary land. The autumn crops in this part of the district cannot be depended on, and if the floods are late in running off, the spring sowings suffer. Along the Garra, which flows between well defined banks of from fifteen to twenty feet high, irrigation is carried on by the pot and lever (dhenkli) or by the lift (beri). Opposite Sándi I have seen five lifts at work to fetch the water up to the fields. Wheat and even opium are grown up to the very edge of the bank. Watering from the Sendha is very difficult and expensive owing to the depth of the stream below its banks. Much of the soil in this rivered tract is a hard stiff cold clay requiring large and powerful bullocks to force the plough through it and heavy rains to softed it. A natural consequence of the moisture of the surface and slight need of artificial irrigation is that irrigated and unirrgated lands in many villages fetch much the same rent. Away from the Garra the country is poorly wooded. There is little jungle except a patch full of níl-gáe at Jeori on the Sendha. In some vil- lages, especially those along the Rámganga, a rank deep rooted grass called sarai is very bapeful. Every flood brings down fresh seeds of it, and not improbably it will in time be as bad a pest as the “kans" of Bundelkand. In this low river swept tract the soil of the bangar has here and there withstood the fluvial action, and has left a high isolated bluff overlooking the surrounding champaign. The views from these "coigns of vantage" is very striking. Thus from Malanthu Khera the eye can range from the Christian spire of Fatehgarh Churcb, twelve miles away across the Ganges; on the west, to the pagan pinnacle of Báwan Shiwála, fourteen miles to the east, or from Sandi fort on one hand to the groves of Siwaichpur on the other. Another grand view is to be had from Sándi fort. The Sándi lake, called Dahar,' has been formed, I suppose, by the silting up of the channel of the great river which must have flowed close up to the sandy ridge on the east of it, much in the same way as the snipe-fained Baghar Túl near Bahramghat has been formed by the silting of the Sarju. It is two miles long, with a breadth of from four to six furlongs, and abounds in fish and water-fowl. The beauty of the groves round Sándi attracted Sir W. Sleeman's atten- tion. Writing in 1850, he says* :-"I observed very fine groves of mango trees close to Sandee planted by merchants and shopkeepers of the place. The oldest are still held by descendants of those by whom they were first planted more than a century ago; and no tax whatever is imposed upon the trees of any kind, or upon the lands on which they stand. Many young groves are growing up around to replace the old ones as they decay; and the greatest possible security is felt in the tenure by which they are held
 * Vol. II, pages 31-32, Tour through O dh.