22 Notes of a tour in the Tributary Mehals. [No. 1, 



The production of the precious metal is restricted hy the limited 

 number of gold-washers. There are now only six families of that pro- 

 fession on the estate. The same cause may be assigned for the limited 

 production of iron, as there are not more than ten families of smelters 

 in all Oodeypore. I saw the gold-washers at work in pits similar to 

 those I inspected at Jushpore. The deposit sought and the method of 

 working it is the same in both mehals, but the deposit in Jushpore is 

 supposed to be the richer of the two. In Oodeypore, the gold-washers 

 produced, as the result of a day's labour, only 3 grains of gold to each 

 " Doom" or trough, but I am satisfied from what I saw of the cman- 

 tity of gold exhibited at each washing-out of the trough, that they 

 must have obtained very much more than they thought proper to pro- 

 duce. The Rajah was with me ; he wishes to obtain a monopoly of 

 the gold trade ; and it did not suit them that he should see a better 

 yield. 



The export of ' lac' from Oodeypore is said to amount to about 

 2000 inaunds annually. I have not been able to gain any information 

 in regard to other produce, but the heavy expense of carriage and 

 consecpient low prices offered, are very discouraging to the producers. 

 Amongst the mineral resources not yet utilized, is coal ; seams have 

 been observed at Baisi south-west of Rabcobe, and other places. Lime- 

 stone is found under the Mynepat, 



Sirgoojah. 



I entered Sirgoojah from the north-west corner of Oodeypore, as- 

 cending the Metringa Grhat and passing along a ridge, a cyclopean wall 

 of sandstone that actually divides the sources of the Rehur, an affluent 

 of the Soane, from some feeders of the Mand, an affluent of the Maha 

 Nuddee ; and near the same point the boundaries of Sirgoojah, Oodey- 

 pore and Chutteesgurh meet. Clear of the Grhat, which is very steep 

 and difficult, I find myself at the western extremity of the great Myne- 

 pat, which rises majestically from the plain in a succession of bold 

 headlands and promontories, as our own proud islands rise from the 

 sea ; and as the eye follows what so much resembles a long coast line, 

 the mind is filled with the idea that the ocean must once have rolled 

 where the Sal trees now wave, and this is strengthened when we turn 

 to the isolated bluffs having all the features of the mainland, from 

 winch they appear to have been cut off, rising abruptly like islands 



