Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/322

 314 SAR "Up to about forty years ago the Chauka seems to have fowed froni Buseha to Pachperi, and so on in its present channel along the frontier of Srinagar and Dhaurahra. In those days a small back-water of the river left it at Buseha, and passed under Srinagar to the south, and after & winding course of about 12 miles, it was joined by the river Kundwa under the old village of Mahewa, the headquarters of the Mahewa taluqa. Those two villages were large, populous, and prosperous places, both had bazars and temples and mango groves; the former had a large brick fort, built at a time when Srinagar gave its name to a taluqa of Muham- madan Bisens of which it was the headquarters, about forty years ago an upusually heavy rainfall caused the Chauka to rise about Buseha beyond its banks. It swept over into the back-water communicating with the Kundwa, rushed up it, and covered the surrounding low country with deep floods over an extent of about 50 square miles. These floods caused wide- spread ruin; Mahewa and Srinagar and several intervening villages were completely destroyed, and a large tract of country was depopulated, and remained for many years a desolate waste. to flow down the bed of the back-water, partially deserting the old chan- nel on the north. The Kundwa, which flowed into the back-water at Mahewa, had up to this time given its own name to the united streams from that point, and they had towed on till they rejoined the Chauka at Robria, 16 miles east of Mahewa. But from this time the little Kundwa lost its identity by its connexion with its big neighbour, and for the last 16 miles of its course, the united streams became known as the Chauka, and by way of distinction I will now call it the southern Chauka. It is generally called the Chauka in this pargana while the name Sárda-is reserved for the more northerly stream. “After this for about thirty years the Chauka flowed in two large streams, its own channel to the north and that of the Kundwa or south Chauka to the south which channels now average about six miles apart. About ten years ago the fickle waters again completely returued into their old bed and left the back-water communicating with the Kundwa quite dry. The great change which occurred, when the waters of the Sárda-cum-Chauka abandoned their westerly channel and bursting into the Dah-aura with it joined the Kauriála at Mallápur, has already been referred to. This was in pargana Firozabad." The next change was in pargana Dhaurahra. At the south-west corner the river up to 1866 ran three miles south of village Aira past the temple of Marwa and the fort of Umarnagar, taking a very circuitous course; but about 1869 it abandoned that channel after haviug, it is said, cut away a part of the Marwa temple wall and been propitiated by the priests into diverting its waters. It cut a more direct channel for itself about three miles to the north, sweeping away several villages; the river is in fact slowly selecting for itself a permanent channel. The Chauka bas a very considerable slope, and its current is consequently rapid. Rising near Mina Koth in Pilibhit, at an elevation of about 630 feet above the sea, at Mothia Ghát, where the Sárda joins its channel and it enters Oudh, the water level is 540 feet above the sea; from this point to Mallápur, a distance of about
 * After the autumn rains had ceased, the main body of water continued