1844.] the Kumaon and Rohilcund Turaee. 91 1 



the Terrai a greater number of inhabited spots than there existed 

 30 years afterwards in the same tract ; that more, and more careful, 

 cultivation was visible in every direction ; that the prairie, if not the 

 forest, had retreated to a greater distance ; that the gools or canals 

 of irrigation were more frequent and better made ; that more atten- 

 tion was paid to the construction and management of the bunds 

 on the several streams ; and that, finally, on account of all these cir- 

 cumstances, the naturally bad climate, now again deteriorated, had 

 somewhat improved. While recording this statement, I must not 

 omit to add, that I myself possess no positive separate proofs that 

 my assertions are correct ; but that I write under the influence of 

 almost universal oral testimony, supported, nevertheless, by this 

 circumstance ; viz,, that the revenue statistics of the tract under dis- 

 cussion, shew a descending scale in regard to the income of the state, a 

 product which under general rules, bears an approximately regular 

 proportion to the amount of prosperity in a country. Nor, must I omit 

 the fact, that the Boksa and Tharoo tribes are extremely migratory 

 in their habits, and are peculiar in requiring at their several locations 

 more land for their periodical tillage, than they can shew under culti- 

 vation at one time, or in one year. To these tribes, is in a great mea- 

 sure now left the occupation of the Terrai territory, so that now for 

 every deserted village, there may be perhaps found a corresponding 

 newly cultivated one, within the same area ; and large spaces of waste 

 may intervene, where under the present system, no room for contem- 

 poraneous cultivation is supposed to exist ; the periodical waste or 

 fallow, also, in that peculiar climate, presenting as wild and jungly an 

 appearance as the untouched prairie. In the times, on the contrary, 

 which I have advantageously compared with our own, the fickle and 

 unthrifty races whom I have named, were not the sole occupants of 

 the soil, and the number of contemporaneous settlements was therefore 

 greater, and the extent of land required for each was less. I, there- 

 fore, come round in due course to the next fact, (the obverse of that 

 first stated,) that, as bad government in the ordinarily habitable parts 

 of the country introduced an extraordinary number of ploughs into 

 the borders of the forest tract, so, the accession of the British rule, by 

 affording a good government to Rohilcund, re-attracted the agricultu- 

 ral resources to that quarter, and proportionately reduced the means 



