Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/409

 SRI-SUB 401 the Ul, just beyond the Ul river plain comes the low marshy tract which is watered by the little Kandwa and its still smaller tributa- ries, then still further to the north and east are the gánjar lands along the river Chauka. These naturally constitute two chaks. The one consists of the ridges along the north bank of the southern Chauka and the south bank of the Chauka ; the sther consists of the low plain between these ridges. In describing these chaks I take the gánjar country first. An explanation of the name appears necessary, but I am unable to give its etymology. It is applied generally to the low plains lying between the Chauka and the Kauriảla rivers and stretching away to the foot of the Himalaya range. Inhabitants of the country more to the south apply the term also to the plain between the Ul and the Chauka. But the residents of those parts for instance of Aliganj would repudiate the name. I am told that the word is derived from gåe (a cow) and means the cattle pasturing country. I have said that there is a high ridge along the nortli bank of the southern Chauka, and another high ridge along the southeru bank of the Chauka or Sárda. This follows the river along its southern bank throughout the whole length of the pargana. During the rains the waters rise and flow off out of the Chauka through various back waters towards the south and south-east; and as the surface of the land riscs up towards the ridges along the two rivers, and sinks into a wide low plain at a distance of a few miles from them, the floods discharged by the Chauka through these back waters first inundate the low plain, and then gradually in a very wet season rise up over the ridges to the north and south, and flow over either into the southern Chauka or back again into the Sárda; the whole of the two gánjar chaks is therefore more or less liable to inundations, but the waters do not stay so long in the land as they do in the low plains along the river in pargana Bhúr. The villages are large and contain many small hamlets scattered all over their areas; their sites as in Bhúr generally escape the floods ; but mango groves are here numerous, and the scattered khair and gúlar, i.e., catechu and wild fig trees so ahuudant in the more northern pargana do not form here a chief feature of the landscape. All over the gánjar country population has increased greatly during the last ten years, and prosperous fairly cultivated villages now stand in places where ten years ago there was nothing but grass jungle. The entire pargana contains an area of 229 square miles divided into 143 villages. of this area of 146,339 acres 76,962 are cultivated, 49,020 are arable, and 19,120 are barren; the population is 75,840 at the rate of 331 to the square mile; the proprietary rights are mainly divided between the taluqdars of Oel and Mahewa, who acquired possession as a revenne arrangement about thirty-five years before annexation. A few villages belong to the qánúngo of Kheri. SUBEHA Pargana--Tahsil HAIDARGARH-- District BARA BANKI.—This pargana is bounded on the north by the Gumti, on the east by pargana Jagdíspur of Sultanpur, on the west by pargana Haidargarh, and on the south by pargana Inhauna of Rae Bareli, Its area is 88 square miles or 56,467 acres. Of cultivated land there are 30,783 acres, and of uncultivated 51