1850.] Report on the Statistics of Banda* 99 



the alluvium becomes solid enough to bear the weight of a plough, 

 experimental furrows are made to ascertain if the deposit be deep 

 enough to be available for cultivation ; it is so considered, if it be a 

 foot deep. When thoroughly dried the Now lewa separates into cakes 

 of great tenacity, like tiles or bricks according to its depth ; in places 

 where the alluvium does not bear the weight of a man in November, — 

 not only on the Jumna but along the Ken, Baghin and Pysunee, — 

 cultivators, especially the Khewuts (or boatmen), sow a crop of barley 

 or wheat, scattering the seed as far as they can, above the surface of the 

 quicksand ; by the time the corn is ripe, the deposit assumes a suf- 

 ficient degree of solidity to allow of the reapers goiug on it. 



23rd. Usar is a peculiar soil very dark in color, found only in low 

 situations ; — it will not produce any crop but rice, and that only in 

 seasons of extraordinary wet. 



24 th. The soils peculiar to the Patha are Setwuri, — a greenish 

 sandy loam, and Gorowte, a light soil easily pulverized (I suspect highly 

 aluminous) . 



25 th. The general aspect of the country is extremely rich, the low 

 country being generally well cultivated and well wooded, not only with 

 groves of mangoes and mowhas, but with noble trees of the latter 

 species standing in the fields ; hedges or enclosures are rare, except such 

 fences of dry thorns in the neighbourhood of jungles and just round 

 the village itself. Where deer are very numerous I have observed a 

 fence made of a single string with bits of straw or feathers tied in it 

 struck on poles. Some parts have been denuded of trees either during 

 the troubles preceding our acquiring possession of the country, as in 

 the immediate neighbourhood of Banda, or subsequently owing to the 

 demand for timber and the impolitic over-exaction of revenue, to meet 

 which timber was felled to a lamentable extent. In the southern and 

 eastern portion of the district, the scenery in the low land is of great 

 beauty, consisting of rich cultivated plains dotted with noble trees, 

 and broken by rugged hills, and occasionally by large tanks or clear 

 streams. The top of the table-land, diversified with hills, forest and 

 rocky streams, is less rich but by no means devoid of beauty. 



Climate, 26th. — The climate of the low land of Banda differs in 

 some important respects from that of the Doab. The cold is less 

 intense in the cold season, frost being rare except in the moist land 



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