clxxvi 



and fishing only the subsidiary, occupation. Two Tclisildars estimate 

 the fisliernieu at 4,500; tlie others give no answers. All the fish brought 

 to market are sold, so " it may fairly be jjresumed that more could be." 

 The percentage of fish-eaters is given at from 75 to 90 per cent, of the 

 population. The minimum size of the mesh is stated at " about the size 

 into which a finger could pass." One Tehsildar, however, limits this to 

 '' the little linger of a child ten years old." Damming i.s extensively 

 employed (see para. 331), as is also the use of every form of fixed engine. 

 " Where the bottom is too weudy to be netted with effect, and there is 

 no clear spot where a net can be drawn, but the depth is not great, and 

 the water clear, 's])caring' is much practised. The weapon is an ordinary 

 bamboo lathle, split into fifteen or twenty pieces, each of which is tipped 

 with iron. These are bound together again, and the centre one being 

 thickened by string wound round it, the others stand out and form a 

 bundle of spears, having a radius of eight or ten inches or more. The 

 men are expert enough with these to be almost certain of hitting a 

 fair-sized fish at 12 or 15 feut off, and if hit, it can hardly escape, so that 

 numbers are killed by this means, the waters being regularly beaten by a 

 line of five or six canoes, each with one man i)addling or jioling, 

 and another standing in front with his spear." In the Benares Col- 

 lectorate, the Tehuldars report about 450 fisliermen, who live almost, if not 

 solely, on their eainings as suca ; the number of Mullahs is about 8,000 ; 

 Ijut the majority have other occupations. Mullahs and Kaliars are the 

 fishing caste; many ]\lahomedi'iis and lliijputs, however, engage in fishing, 

 though seldom as the sole n cans of earning a living. " The supply in 

 the city of Benares is, and has )een for some time back, quite equal to the 

 demand ;" rwhen I was at Benares, the supply was unequal to the 

 demand, and very small fish were being exposed for sale^ ; large fish 

 obtaining from two to four, and small from one to oue-and-lia'f annas a 

 seer; about 75 per cent, of the people are given as fish-eaters; very small 

 fish are extensively caught during the rainy season in nets and traps, 

 the mesh being as small as tiuit in a purse. They are also taken in the 

 paddy-fields during the rains by means of a grating made of thatching- 

 grass stalks, termed pahra; and also towards the close of the rains hy 

 damming up the outlets for the water, they are caught with the hand by 

 the people wading in the fields. The i/ia/i is a fine meshed lave-net. The 

 lihaioai is a long conical bag used in small streams at ithc commence- 

 ment and end of the rains while there is still a current ; the mouth of 

 the net is kept open by stakes, and the space between the banks blocked 

 up with bamboo tatties; the force of the current drives the fish into the 

 bag, and on account of its long nose and the pressure of the water they 

 cannot get back. The pasha is a grating made of the stalks of 

 thatching-gTass, in the shape of a sloping plane. It is ]ilaeed at an 

 opening in the side of a tank or in a dam, or thrown across a nalla ; all the 

 water is made to flow through this opening by stopping up every other 

 outlet. The fish coming down with the flow of water are carried on to 

 the grating and left there dry, as the water passes through to underneath." 

 The chop is a conical basket open at both ends, and is much used by 

 fishermen in shallow y7/<Yji' and tanks. In the Ghazei-pur ('oUectorate the 

 six Tehsildars give the following replies. Four return about 10,000 

 fishermen, but they have other occupations as well; the markets are well 



