358 NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH. AGRA, MAINPURI, ETAH, FARUKHABAD, ETAWAH, CAWNPUR, FATEHPUR, and part of ALLAHABAD. The irregular hor 11-shaped tongue of country thus enclosed runs in a sweeping south-eastward curve, following the general direction of the Ganges, from the Siwáliks to Allahábád. On either side, the great rivers flow through low-lying valleys, fertilized by their overflow or percolation; while a high bank leads to the central upland, which consists of the older deposits. The western and southern portion of this central plateau, though naturally dry and unproductive, except when irrigated by wells, has been transformed into most unbroken sheet of cultivation by the great systems of irrigation works, consisting of the UPPER and Lower GANGES and the EASTERN JUMNA CANALS. The East Indian, the Sind Punjab and Delhi, the Oudh and Rohilkhand, and the recently constructed State Railways, pass through the Doáb in several directions, and afford an outlet for its surplus agricultural produce. Altogether, this favoured inter-fluvial region may be fitly regarded as the granary of Upper India. A considerable strip of country on the west bank of the Jumna, above its junction with the Chambal, belongs historically and ethnographically to the North-Western Provinces, and contains the ancient Mughal capital of Delhi, together with many other important towns. Since the reorganization after the Mutiny of 1857-58, however, the greater part of this trans-Jumna tract has been made over to the Punjab; and the only portion north of the Chambal now retained under the Government at Allahábád consists of two outlying portions of Muttra and Agra Districts (including the two cities from which they take their names), together with a small section of Etawah. This is chiefly a flat and naturally arid plain, now enriched by distributaries of the AGRA CANAL. North of the Ganges, and closed in between that river, the Garhwal and Kumaun Himálayas, and the Chief Commissionership of Oudh, lies the triangular plain of ROHILKHAND- the Katehr of Muhammadan chronicles. This Division presents the general level features of the Gangetic valley, only slightly varied by the submontane tract on the north-east. It is in process of irrigation by the Bijnaur and Rohilkhand Canals now under construction. Close below the feet of the Kumaun Hills stretches the pestilential region of the Tarai, which extends into the neighbouring Districts. The tarái is a tract of marshy forest about 10 miles wide, overrun with jungle and luxuriant undergrowth, sufficient to conceal a man on horseback. The air ceases to be inalarious only during the coldest parts of winter, and while the rains are in progress. From the tarii, the plains gradually decrease in slope to three or four inches per mile in the Doáb. The bhábar, which separates the tarii from the hills, is formed of the boulders and débris on the lower ranges of the
