Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/116

 ;

BA/? A BANKI.

io6 15" X.

lat.,

and between 80°

58'

and 81°

54'

e.

long.

area,



1768 square

miles; population in 1881, 1,026,788 souls. The easternmost of the Bara Banki is three Districts which make up the Lucknow Division.

bounded on the north and west by by Rai Bareli and Sultanpur, on

and Lucknow, on the south and on the north-east by the broad streams of the Chauka and Gogra (Ghagra), which separate it from Bahraich and Gonda. Like the rest of the Oudh portion of the Ganges Physical Aspects basin, Bara Banki consists of an almost level plain, falling gradually from north-west to south-east towards the Bay of Bengal, at a gentle .

Si'tapur

the east by Faizabad,

—

gradient of 3 feet in the mile ; with lateral inclinations at a gradient of 6 feet in the mile towards the beds of its main rivers, the Gogra and the Giimti.

The

regularity of this gentle seaward slope suggests the

belief that the plain

was originally levelled by marine denudation



then

slowly raised above the waters by the gradual silting up of the mouths

of some, ancient Himalayan river debouching upon

it



next, covered

washed down from the mountains and fashioned at last to its present configuration by the scour of a tropical rainfall. The floods of ages, fed by mountain glaciers, and pouring over this slanting plain, have cut through it two great channels to the sea, the valleys of the Ganges and the Gogra. Along the right bank of the latter river, Bara Banki District stretches for 48 miles, and spreads inland for about 30 miles, over the water-parting which divides the immediate basin of the Gogra from that of its affluent the Giimti it then slopes down the Crossing the District from watershed and into the Giimti valley. with sand and

soil





stream to stream, each of

its

leading features presents

itself in turn.

Leaving behind the broad Gogra, known here as the Chauka, until at Bahramghat it meets the Sarju, a strip of loose, ivhite river sand is crossed, hot and glaring even under a morning sun ; then a tangle of tamarisk and tall sarpat grass (Saccharum moonja), the haunt of wild and farther on, a cool green champaign, dotted boar, deer, and nilgai with groups of grazing cattle, and chequered with patches of rice and

clumps of stunted acacia

(babul).

Thence out of the flat alluvial some 25 feet up a broken sandy over an uneven undulating region,

valley of the Gogra, the road leads for ridge, the western

edge of the

valley,

poorly cultivated and timbered, to a broad sheet of level cultivation, brisk with

crowded

villages,

and

set so thick with groves of

mango

that

everywhere they meet the sky, and form a near background to a landscape full of quiet charm. In the heart of this tract

lies

a chain of small shallow lakes (taldbs)

and marshes (jhils), which fill a series of slight depressions in the Unconnected in dry level plain, and testify to its alluvial origin. weather, in the rains they fill and spread and link together in a long line,

stretching

for

many

miles parallel

to

the course of the river.