£AJ?D IVAJV.
130
Of
tion.
the 3667 villages and towns,
1280, from 200 to 500;
inhabitants;
1554 contain
less
than 200
622, from 500 to 1000;
182,
from 1000 to 2000 ; 19, from 2000 to 3000 ; 5, from 3000 to 5000 ; 2, from 5000 to 10,000; 2, from 10,000 to 15,000; and i, from 20,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. Bardwan is the principal town and civil station of the District, and was formerly the head-quarters of the Commissioner of the Division ; it contains the palace and fine gardens of the Maharaja
the Sivalaya, a
two circles ; and the shrine of Pi'rbaharam. The municipality of Bardw'an is composed of 93 little villages lying close to each other and surrounding the towm proper. collection of 108 temples arranged in
Kalna (Culna), the port and principal seat of trade of the District, is on the Bhagfrathf ; in Muhammadan times it must have been a place of importance, as the ruins of a large fort are still to be seen the Maharaja of Bardwan has a palace here. Raniganj, on the Damodar,
is
principally interesting as being the centre of the coal industry of the
District,
Katwa rivers,
times
an account of which
(Cutw'a)
is
be found in another section
(infra).
and Ajai
and is one of the chief centres of trade in the District ; in former was defended by a fort of which scarcely a vestige remains, and
it
was regarded as the key later
w’ill
situated at the confluence of the Bhagirathi
Muhammadan
himself the ascetic
Murshidabad, the capital of Bengal under the It was here that Chaitanya took upon and the place is consequently considered sacred to
governors.
life,
by the Vaishnavs. Agriculture.
reaped crop
is
Aman
—The
principal crop in Bardwan, as in other Districts
or autumn crop is sowm in May and August or September and the dman or hainiantik (winter) sown in June or July and reaped in November or December. rice requires much water, and is always sown on sdli or low-
of Bengal,
is
The dus
rice.
in
more or less moisture all the time the crop is ground; it is always transplanted. Atts rice, on the other hand, grown on send land, which is higher and therefore drier than sdli.
lying land, w’hich retains in the is
The Eden
Canal, constructed for irrigation purposes, runs for a distance
of about 20 miles from Bardwan town to Selimabad, in the south of the
A
District.
scheme
for clearing out the silted-up
channels over extensive tracts of country,
Among
sideration.
the
hemp, cotton,
spring
indigo
beds of old drainage
now' (1883) under con-
the other crops raised in the District, are wheat,
barley, gram, peas, mustard,
potatoes,
is
gives
til,
the
mulberry, pdn, There are two indigo crops
castor-oil, sugar-cane,
and indigo. best
out-turn,
but
the
yield
is
very
depending almost entirely on a regular alternation of sunny and showery weather during the time the plant is on the precarious,
ground.
Scientific irrigation
common custom
to
dam up
is
unknown
in the
District,
but
it
is
a
the lesser streams with a view to the irriga-
