Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/508



496 OUDH. November. The women and children were then escorted to Cawnpur by the main body, while General Outram held the outlying post of the Alambágh with a small garrison. Lucknow itself remained in the hands of the rebels, who fortified it carefully under the direction of the Begam of Oudh. Early in 1858, General Franks organized a force at Benares for the reconquest of the Province, and cleared the south-eastern Districts of rebels. At the same time, Jang Bahadur, regent of Nepál, came to the British aid with a body of gooo Gúrkhas, and twice defeated the insurgents with great slaughter. On the last day of February, Sir Colin Campbell crossed the Ganges and marched on Lucknow. Occupying the Díl-khusha palace on 5th March, he effected a junction with Franks and the Nepalese army, and began the sicge the next day. The town was captured after a desperate resistance, and the work of reorganization of the Province was rapidly pushed forward. It included a new arrangement with the tálukdárs or great feudal landowners, whose title acquired a fresh basis, and whose appointment as honorary magistrates afterwards soothed their pride. Since the pacification in 1858, the Province has been administered by its new rulers without further vicissitudes. The opening of railways has afforded fresh outlets for its agricultural wealth; the institution of courts of justice, practically unknown under the Musalmán kings, has given unwonted security to life and property; and the spread of education has done much to develop the naturally keen intellect of the people. On the 17th of January 1877, Oudh was partially amalgamated with the North-Western Provinces by the unification of the two offices of Chief Commissioner and Lieutenant-Governor. Nevertheless, the country remains for most administrative purposes a separate Province. Population.–Oudh has probably the densest population of any equal rural area in the world. The Census of 1869 returned a total of 11,220,232 persons, spread over 23,992 square miles, yielding an average of 468 persons to the square mile : the more recent Census of 1881 returned a total of 11,387,741 persons, spread over an area of 24,246 square miles, dwelling in 24,337 towns and villages and 2,066,113 occupied houses, yielding an average of 469 persons to the square mile. The density of population varies from 704 per square mile in Lucknow District to 278 in Kheri District. The average density per square mile of cultivation is no less than 867 for the wholc Province, while in the seven southern Districts it rises to over 1000. Belgium, the most populous country of Europe, has a density of only 486 to the square mile, while in England and Wales the figures amount to no more than 445. The extraordinary pressure of population becomes still more remarkable from the fact, that whereas European countries contain numerous large scats of manufacture, and import immense quantities of food-stuffs, Qudh has but one