222 Further account of the [May, 



(Ficus Indica) and other jungle trees ; at Raipur, Nyashahr, Fyzabad, 

 and other places between Behat and this palace are remains of the 

 same period in mosques, tombs, &c. and the forests in the neighbour- 

 hood contain marks of a more extended cultivation, and of a country 

 more thickly inhabited than it is at present ; it may be fairly presumed 

 that all the Musulman buildings now in existence here are dependent on a 

 period posterior to the middle of the 17th century. Behat itself con- 

 tains a mosque and tomb near it, with only one brick house orenclosure, 

 but a number of pukka wells, and is said to have been a large town at 

 the period alluded to ; but the ruins and tombs pointed out as the 

 remains of this era are south of the present town, and in quite a different 

 direction to the antiquities that have been now discovered. 



To a person at all acquainted with the strange revolutions that take 

 place on the surface, in the proximitv of these mountain torrents provin- 

 cially termed rows, the mere change of the river's course, or an 

 extensive deposit of sand on a wide surface, thereby laying waste large 

 tracts of cultivable soil, would not be at all surprising : such changes 

 are in constant progress, and things of annual occurrence ! The course 

 of the Nogaon row, as shewn in the map, has been so altered within 

 the last half century, agreeably to the information of a respectable ze- 

 mindar, or landholder who resides at Behat, that the features of the 

 country are perfectly changed since his childhood : he mentions ( a cir- 

 cumstance borne out by my excavations) that in his recollection, "all 

 the country between the two rivers through which the present canal 

 runs, and on which the Belka falls are now constructed, was a low clay 

 soil (dhaka), with rice cultivation ; that this tract now is raised five hat'hs 

 by a deposit of sand, caused by one very severe rainy season, in which 

 the present town of Behat was in jeopardy ;" this exactly corresponds 

 with the canal excavations, the superficial 5 to 7 feet of which was 

 sand, reposing on a reddish sandy clay, the section at the point where the 

 ancient town is buried shews the same deposit of 4| feet with the same 

 sub-stratum of clay ! The Behat khala or ravine opening out into the 

 Muskura river is said to have been much enlarged by the ancient canal, 

 when great mischief was done to the neighbourhood ; referring to the last 

 attempt at making use of this line as a canal by the Rohilla Zabitha 

 khan, who has the credit of having carried water to the town of Jelala- 

 bad and his fortified camp Gousgurh. I take the liberty of referring 

 you to the strange tortuous outline of this ravine, of which the map 

 gives a faithful representation, (PI. xvii.) as near this ravine lies the old 

 Town at a depth of 17 feet from the surface, with a super deposit of 12£ 

 feet of a reddish sandy clay. 



