Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/460

 BILASPUR.

450

and vegetables cooked with ghi

in the evening,

and

morning,

in the

before beginning work, a rice gruel called bdsi, which consists simply of filled up with water and served have of course a greater variety and the abundance of milk and giir enables a clever matron to

the remains of the last evening’s repast cold.

The

of diet



castes

who

eat fish

On

provide occasional sweets. live well



and

flesh

the whole, the great

body of the people

but their simplicity and superstition render them an easy

An instance may be mentioned. About named Mangal, gave out that a deity had

prey to designing persons.

twenty years ago a Pankd, entered into him

and, sitting with a light before him, he received the



adoration and offerings of crowds of worshippers.

It happened to be and Mangal proclaimed that good men’s crops would spring up without sowing. Thousands believed his teaching, till, finding the revenue falling off, the Native Government arrested Mangal, and committed him to Rdipur jail. The language spoken in the Dis-

the cultivating season,

trict

PUR

corrupt Hindi', wdth an admixture of aboriginal words.

is

largest

towns

(5615),

in the District are

The

— Bilaspur (population, 7775), Ratan-

and Mungeli (4757); 84 other towns have a population Townships of from 200 to 1000 inhabitants, 1720;

exceeding 1000.

villages of fewer than

200 inhabitants, 1917.

The only

municipality

is

Bilaspur.

Agriculture

.

— Of

the total area of 7798 square miles, 2121

were

returned in 1881 as under cultivation, 4164 square miles as cultivable, and 1063 square miles as uncultivable waste. About one-fifth of the area

under cultivation is irrigated, entirely by private enterprise. Rice forms the staple crop of the District, occupying in 1881, 751,529 acres, the other principal crops being

291,680

acres; oil-seeds,

33,070 acres;

cotton,

—

wheat, 537,470 acres; other food-grains, 112,500 acres; sugar-cane, 13,843 acres;

fibres,

These

vegetables, 4031 acres.

2763 acres; tobacco, 4345 acres; and figures include land bearing two crops

Either the black earth, consisting of the debris of trap, or

in the year.

probably decomposed

laterite, is most suitable for and aspect of the rice fields, which are excessively small, are considered of more importance than the nature of the soil. It Sugar-cane and garden produce grow well on the sandy patches. is only for these crops that irrigation is resorted to and manure used.

the red, which

is

rice; but the situation

Where

rice is

grown, rotation of crops

allowed to remain fallow. cent, extra,

till

The

in four or five years

other crops rotation

is

is left

fallow.

The

falls to

Cotton

inasnr,

the land

it

not practised, nor

new land averages the

common

Thus, after wheat

in use.

and then perhaps kodo. some other oil-seed ; and where

is

yield of

this is

is

will

is

the land

25 to 30 per level.

With

come gram

often succeeded by

not done, after four or

til

or

or

five years

cultivation of cotton continues to increase-,

having nearly doubled within the

last

few years.

'I'he

Census of 1881