Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/445

MAL 437 town. The mangoes here are celebrated, and the ber fruit which are giown in orchards of ber trees called Beriána. During the Nawabi there was properly no proprietor of the township: The town or qasba was one of the old Musalman encamped settlements of which a description has thus been given. “A qasba is a Musalman settle- ment in a defensible military position generally on the site of an ancient Hindu headquarters, town, or fort, wbere for mutual protection a Musal- man who had overrun and seized the proprietary of the surrounding villages resided, where the faujdár and his troops, tbe pargana qánúngo and chaudhri, the mufti, qázi, and other dignitaries lived, and as must be the case where the wealth and power of the Moslem sect was collected in one spot a large settlement of Sayyad's mosques, dargáhs, &c., sprang up. . As a rule, there was little land attached, and that was chiefly planted with fruit groves and held free of rent; whilst each man really had a free hold of the yard of his house and the land occupied by his servants and followers. And to crown the description there are 194 separate plots and pieces of land in the villages. The whole has been assessed at Rs. 1,325. Though the earliest Musalman invader, Sayyad Sálár, is said to have paid this place a visit from Kasmandi Kalán, which was the more immediate object of his attacks, it does not seem to have been regularly occupied by Musalmans till the time of the Emperor Akbar. It is said then to have been inhabited by a tribe of Pásis whose head, Malia Pási, founded the village, though it seems doubtful if its origin cannot be traced much further back. Pasis and Arakhs are said to have held sway over this and the surrounding villages from the earliest times. The Pásis were succeeded by Thatheras, and the latter by the Bhars, who were driven out by the first Musalman invasion, But all this is wrapped in uncertainty, and nothing more can be said than there are vague traditions of a Pási and Bhar ráj, of which Malihabad was the centre. It is said that the Bhas had a mint here, and that silver coin of a bad quality has sometimes been found. From this the town is sometimes called Khontá Shahar, the town of the bad níoney. The earliest governors of Oudlı seem to have often encamped or settled here. Nawab Shahím Khan, was one. And just outside the village, on an elevated spot of ground is a tomb erected to his wife ; it is called a Zachcha-bachcha tomb, in which she was buried with her child. The only buildings of note in the town are the large houses of the taluqdars, Nasim Klian and Ahmad Khan, and a few small mosques and tombs. But the town is picturesquely built on broken ground on the left bank of the Sai, and extends over a considerable area. No particular religious sect flourishes here. There is one Nánakshábi faqir, and a tribe of Upáddhia Brahmans, who were said to have been the Parohit (priest) of the original Pási inhabitants, and to have thence spread through the whole pargana in which none þut members of this family are allowed to officiate, 56