LL'CA'J‘O ll" DISTRICTE 493
stretch extensive barren sandy tracts (Muir), and there are many hrgc sterile wastes of saline eflloresaencc (:imr). The country is an almost dead level throughout, the average slope, which is from north-west to southeast, being less than a foot per mile. The principal llVCl‘4 are the 6mm and the Sn, with their tributaries. The former enters the District from the north, and, after passing larcltnnw city. turns to the east and enters Barn Banki. Its chief tributaries are tht: Bchlti and Nagwa, two small streams, which join it on its right hank. The Sal forms the south-west boundary of the District, running almmt parallel with the Glimti, receiving as tributaries in Lucknow the Loni and Brink nadir.
Ili:!ory.—Thc following paragraphs on the history of the District at: condensed from the Official Settlement Repon :—
‘ Very few of the existing clans arc of ancient date. Lucknow itSt-lr was not1 by the ntost probable accounts. founded before the time of Mid Jai Chand of Kanauj, the downfall of whose kingdom at tht hands of Shahabud-din, in 1:94 an, saw the last of the Hindu dynasties of Northern India passing away ; and the colonization of the whole of this part of the country seems due to the dispersion of the Rajputs, which the Mnsalmfin conquest cfl‘ccted. There are, so far as I have been able to gather, only two 0r three exceptions to this—in the Jenn-it's of Saindar in Dewa; in the ParihArs of Ghugn'r in Ktirsi, since driven back to Ahmamnu; and in the Gautamas of Sassaindi in the Mohanlalganj pargand. The history of the former is Very ancient, and seems strangely blended with that of the Bhars and llahraich. The traditions of the Gautamas of Sassaindi connect them with the kingdom of Kanallj, and the Bais of Biisu‘drfi, to whose powerful kingdom they became subject, subsequent to their own occupation and owner ship of the soil. Some few of the Rajput colonies—as the Punwdrs of ltaunji (Mahona) and the Chauhcins of Amosi—conducted their invasions under the auspices, and with the sanction, of the Delhi Emperors; for at that time the Muhantmadan rule in this Province was little more than nominal, and all that the Rijputs ell'cctcd seems to have been due to their own strength and exertions.
‘The Rajputs, alter the tide of their immigration had once set in. made themselves masters of the whole country. Amethias and Gautalnas possessed themselves of Mohanlalganj and Nighohan. Subsequently there came to the former pargané a colony of janwfirs from lkauna in Bahraich ; but they settled peaceably under the Shaikhs, who had invaded and driven out the Amethias from the north of the purgami—then known as Amethi—in the middle of the 16th century.
‘Biis to the south, and Chauhzins through the centre, of the yargaud held Bijnaur; and Bais invaded and possessed themselves
