excavated at the village of Basārh (the ancient Vaisāli) in the Muzaffarpur district. Tirhut used to be pre-eminently the land of indigo, but the industry has declined very rapidly since synthetic indigo was put on the market in 1897, and the area under the plant is now only a third of what it was before that year.
South Bihar is the portion of Bihar lying south of the Ganges within the districts of Shāhābād, Patna, Gaya, and Monghyr. The greater part of it is an alluvial plain
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Fig. 5. Umga Hill in Gaya District
sloping gently northwards to the Ganges, but the south of Shāhābād is occupied by the Kaimur Hills, which form a rocky plateau mainly used for pasturage. Further east, in the south of Patna, Gaya and Monghyr, there are a number of ridges and spurs projecting from the plateau of Chota Nagpur, as well as semi-detached ridges and isolated peaks that rise abruptly from the level plain and appear to form irregular links between the ridges. Much of the southern area is broken country with a fringe of brushwood
