Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/461

MAN 453 Oudh are, however, apt to associate with Sayyad Sálár every object or tradition of antiquity, to which they can ascribe no certain origin. This road abounds with alleged mementoes of the prince's march. As it passes out of the sandy kuolls which mark the country in the environs of Ronáhi, it comes upon an old mosque shrouded in thorns, and the tombs of two "martyrs" — Aulia Shahíd and Makan Shahid-reposing under the shade of a far-spreading banyan. The men of Ronahi will not pass this way after night falf. They say that by night the road is thronged with troops of headless horsement, the dead of the army of Prince Sayyad Sálár. The vast array moves on with a noiseless tread. The ghostly horses make no sound, and no words of command are shouted to the headless host. But when the last of the dead spirits has passed by, the Jins, who frequent the gloomy mosque, rush to the close of the procession with unearthly shrieks, and the townsmen, awe-struck as they listen, cower in terror at their hearths. Ronahi is and has for some time been the principal town of the pargana. It is twelve miles from Fyzabad, and there is an encamp. ing ground to the south. It seems to have been originally colonized by settlers from Sihbár, but it is now owned by a strange mixture of families. The principal owners are relations of the Shekhs of Mangalsi whom I have already mentioned, but it is not very clear how they acquired their rights. The Káyaths, the family of the pargana qanungos who own a third, are in the 14th generation from Khwaja Már Sáh, who purchased his share from the Sayyad colonists. A family of Khattris, the only one I have met in the pargana, has had a small share for eleven generations; the Patháns of Sálehpur usurped it is said another; and Mir Ahmad Ali, a complete stranger to the town, has recently acquired another. There are fönr muáfi tenures in Ronahi, all of old standing, but small extent, granted to faqirs or servants of the Nawabs, while Fyzabad was the capital. Under the kings an ámil was stationed at Ronáhi, and part of his official residence is now made use of as a police post. Far out on the west of the town an idgah still stands, which was built by one of the ámils of Asif-ud-daula's time, and in Sukháwan there is a "purwa" (hamlet) which bears the name of another, but these officers were so frequently changed that even the names of few of them aro recollected, and still less their personal characters. A couple of miles east is Mangalsi. On the ancient traditions regard- ing this place I have already commented. Its Shekh proprietors are not in very flourishing circumstances, and the town has now for many years lost its position as the chief place in the pargana. It has an idgáh of the last century, and an imámbára, to the support of which a considerable tract of land has been released by the Government in rent-free tenure, The town overlooks the river from a cliff, and the vicinity is seamed with ravines. The old road keeps well to the south. It crosses one of the nálas by a bridge, built by Turáb Ali, Díwán of the Bahá Begam, one end of which, however, lately fell partially in. Passing through the villages of Ibrahimpur and Firozpur, which belong to cadets of the Mangalsi family of Shekhs, the road comes up close to 58