Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/63

 PAL yards on each side, the grass is so dense and lofty that numerous herds of nil-gée, spotted deer, and black buck-when the grass is shorter---range over this primeval waste. A few villages, with narrow belt of cultivation, can be discovered by means of a guide; for such is the density of the vegetation that the low lands of the peasantry are quite buried in the prairie grass, and the traveller may be within a few yards of a large village without being aware of it. The pargana is not a healthy one. Even villages, which are well situated on dry and elevated spots far from marshes, seem to be affected by malaria, as well as those of the low-lying tracts. But, indeed, only about one-fourth of the pargana, the south-eastern portion, a belt about three miles broad skirting the Chauka from Marauncha Ghát, really can boast of such con- ditions of soil, elevation, and climate as conduce to health. To the west fever and cattle-murrain are frightfully prevalent, the people seem weak and emaciated, the cultivation is of a slovenly type, rice is the main crop, and turmeric the only staple to which any labour or pains are devoted. The population is ,370, of whom only 1,794 are Musalmans, and only 8,877 are females. The singular disproportion exists in all the Tarái par- ganas, and is quite unaccountable. It is the most thinly populated of all the parganas in the district except Khairigarh, falling at the rate of only 146 to the square mile. History.--The proprietors were originally Katebria Chhattris, and a number of the villages are still in their possession, but all are deeply em- barrassed. A number of Pahári Chhattris, relatives of the Rája of Khairi- garb, were originally lessees under the Raja of Khotár, the head of the Katehria clan. At the first settlement for thirty years (in 1839) these and others, who have occupied a similar position, were declared to be proprietors by the British Government. Not however on any title, real or pretended, of their own, but simply because the pargana was a waste wilderness; over it the Raja of Khotár had exercised titular authority for some years. These lessees had exerted themselves, and spent money in cutting down the forest and inducing cultivators to settle in regions which were then unhealthy, and still more terrible to the people's minds as the haunts of numerous tigers and wild elephants. The Suheli river, with the swamps on each side, and the numerous ancient river channels above described, are still the haunts of numerous tigers. And we can judge bow destruc- tive they must have been in former times by the pertinacity with which they cling to old haunts, now the resort of a numerous population. Near Newalkhảr the forest department has its timber depôts and saw-mills; some famed tiger swamps are in the vicinity; notwithstanding the pre- sence of armed men, the bullocks employed in carting the timber are con- stantly killed; numerous bands of sportsmen annually move against the tigers, and in 1870 several were shot by the Duke of Edinburgh. The following extracts bearing on the condition of the people are taken from the assessment report - “The circumstances of this pargana are very peculiar as appears from the history already given,