Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/441

MAL 433 Emperor of Delhi, but were angrily confiscated by Shujá-ud-daula on witnessing the saint's grief at the sight of the head of the Ruhela chief, Hafiz Rahmat Khan. The latter had been a disciple of the pir's, and when, after his defeat and fall, his head was brought before the Nawab, and no one recognized it, some one suggested that the pír would know, and he was called. The pír on beholding it at once recognized the head, and burst- ing into tears shared the ruin that had befallen his friend. The tribe of Gahilwárs of Mál (Gotr Bach) inhabit fifty-five villages towards the north-east of the pargana, and are said to have migrated here under Ráe Paitawan Singh from Manda-Bijepur, near Benares. The ráe was the brother of the rája of that country, whose seat of power was originally Benares, but giving this city in shankalp (a religious gift) to the Brahmans he retired to Manda-Bijepur. Ráe Paitawan went on a pilgrimage to Nímkhár Misrikh to bathe, and rested in the village now known as Paitauna. Striking his tents and pursuing his journey his attendants forgot to pull up a peg of one of his tents. But it happened that the ráe returned from his pilgrimage by the same way; and halting at the same place bis eye fell upon the peg, and he saw that it had sprouted. He looked upon this as an omen of good for- tune, and an invitation to settle in the country. He continued his journey, but soon returned and took service with the Thozha tribe, who were then masters of the country. They are said to have been old Musalman con- verts from the Hindu faith, and the part of the country they lived in was called the tappa Ratau. They had two large forts—one in Mál and the other in Ant. In the latter there is an enormous well at which four pairs of bullocks can work at a time called a chaupura well, which is said to have been built by them, and there is an old wall reaching from Mál to Amlauli, the foundations of which still crop out of the ground here and there, which is attributed to them. It seerns probable that this Jhojha tribe were once the aboriginal Blars who, with no leaders of their own, after the invasion and defeat of their Raja Kans, of Kansmandi, by Sayyad Sálár, yielded to the threats of the Musalmans, and embraced their faith. This is the only way of accounting for them. They are the last people that remain in tradition, and no other Musalman invasion taking the form of a crescentade is known. Any way the Gahil wárs made themselves masters of their country, and became very powerful and well-to-do. On one occasion, in the time of Mansur Ali Khan, the Nawab Wazir, they fought. with Abdun Nabi Khan, the Pathán of Garhi Sanjar Khan, who had come to the borders of their territories to hunt. : They got worsted, and the Pathán took from them some land in which he founded Nabipanáh, and planted a grove which he called the Ranjit Bagh or 'Grove of Victory. But Abdun Nabi subsequently fell into disgrace, and they recovered the village, and hold it to this day. They separated into several branches, with headquar- ters respectively at Mál, their parent village, and Atári, Sálinagar, Amlauli, Masíra, Hamirpur, and Nabipanáh. They tried on one occasion to extend their borders into the Dakhlával tappa, lying on the east of their own towards the Gumti; but the fight between them and the Baises was so