Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/148

 BAREILL Y.

138 the

of the

feature

characteristic

possesses an abundant supply of

Almost every

landscape.

mango and

village

shishai?i trees, while

many

have beautiful plantations of bamboos. In seasons of drought elsewhere, the khddar or alluvial tract of Bareilly is clothed with magnificent Inundations do more good than harm, by destroying the white crops. ants

and depositing

layers

of fresh

soil,

which supply the place of

manure.

The

District

is

naturally

by

traversed

streams, of which the chief are the

sub-Himalayan

several

Ramganga and

the Baigul.

The

former river has deep and well-defined banks, but frequently changes its course through the friable alluvial channel in which it runs. Some twenty years since, the main stream passed below Gaini, 10 miles west of the city



then

it

cut itself a path into the Dojora,

the outskirts of Bareilly;

returned to

and during the

The

ancient bed.

its

and ran beneath it once more

rains of 1871,

other principal streams are the

Nakatia, the Dioranian, the Sanka, the Dojora, the Kicha, and the Arail,

many

History

.

known

of which are used for purposes of irrigation.

— In the

earliest times, the

country east of the Ganges,

as Rohilkhand, bore the general

name

of Kather



now

but when

Sambhal and Budaun were erected into separate governments by the Musalmans, this term was restricted to the territory lying east of the Ramganga. A highly civilised Aryan race appears to have occupied the tract from the 8th to the nth century, when they were probably driven out by Ahi'rs from the Nepal Hills, Bhi'ls from the jungles to the south,

and Bhars from the

forests of

Oudh, during the general expulsion About 1200 a.d.

of the Aryan settlers from the sub-Himalayan border.

the greater part of the District had relapsed into forest; but large primitive bricks, fragments 'of

prosperity

still

lie

Buddhist sculpture, and other evidences of ancient

scattered about the country, especially in the neigh-

bourhood of Fatehgarh and Ramnagar. Shahab-ud-din, or his general Kutb-ud-dm, captured Bangarh about the year 1194; but nothing more is

heard of the

Muhammadans

his way along the foot of the

in the District

hills to

the

till

Ramganga

Mahmud in 1252.

11.

made

Fourteen

who succeeded

him, marched to Kampil, put all the and utterly crushed the Katheriyas, who had In 1290, Sultan Firoz invaded hitherto lived by violence and plunder. Kather again, and brought the countr)- into final subjection to the Musalman rule, which was not afterwards disputed except by the usual local revolts. Under the various dynasties which preceded the Mughal Empire, the history of Kather consists of the common events which make up the annals of that period constant attempts at independence

years later, Balban,

Hindus

to the sword,

—

on the part of the District governors, followed by barbarous suppressions on the part of the central authority. The city of Bareilly itself was founded in 1537 by Bas Deo and Barel Deo, from the latter of whom