Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/76

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FAR

G8

The present town appears to have been founded some seven hundred years or more ago by a body of Chamar Gaurs from Narkanjari, near Indore, who, under their leader Sale Singh, drove out the Thatheras, destroyed their fortress, and, as usual, settled themselves down close to its ruins.

place had no local importance before it was made a civil station. there are the usual civil buildings, cutcherry, police station, jail, school, dispensary, and sessions-house, as well as the subdivisional office of the tahslldar. The school is an Anglo-vernacular one averaging 109 bi-weekly market is pupils. There is a branch school with 44 boys. held on Sundays and Wednesdays in Hardeoganj.

The

Now

A

There are 19 masonry and 1,294 mud houses in the town. The climate healthy, and seems to be specially adapted to the production of fine fruit. Peaches, mangoes^ grapes, and oranges are exceptionally good. is

There

is

the usual municipal committee, and

its

income

is

raised by

an

octroi.

The railway journey from Lucknow pur two hours and a quarter.

HAEDOI little

Eae

four hours,

and from Shahjahan-

This Tahsil Digbijaiganj District Rae Baeeli. bounded on the west by Bachhrawan, and on the south by The little river Naiya flows to the north of it, and proceeds

Pargana

pargana

Bareli.

is

is

eastward to pargana Simrauta it is not used for irrigation. The area is 15,561 acres, the land tax Rs. 39,965, being at the rate of Rs. 2-9 per acre. The soil is very fertile, and the rent in consequence high. In one township Asni, celebrated for tobacco—the rents reach Rs. 48 per acre. The country is level, and its fertility is taken advantage of by the Kurrais, who form the chief cultivating caste. Water is met with at a depth of 30 feet, the soil is a fine loam, and the very best crops are raised. Saltpetre and salt were formerly manufactured in eight villages, but this has been stopped since annexation.

The population is 15,706, which is at the rate of 640 They reside in 23 villages, two having been transferred

to the square mile. Rae Bareli. Of

to

these 15 are taluqdari, and the rest belong to village communities.

There are two small markets, one at Belanganj, in Atehra, the second Phulganj, in Para Khurd. About 15,000 maunds of wheat, rice, and gram are annually exported md the Rae Bareli road to Lucknow, or vid, Pursva to Cawnpore. There is

on

is a nilned fort here which was built by Ibrahim Sharqi. There tomb here erected to one Agha, who accompanied Sayyad Masafid crescentade and was killed at this place. A strange superstition

also a

his

hallows

it. If, in the course of any dispute between two parties, a deed produced whose genuineness is denied, the propounder places it on the tomb whoever impugns it has to take it off the tomb and tear it. History, more or less authentic, relates that whoso thus treats a genuine document loses his thumb, which gives way instead of the parchment.

is