BAREILL Y.
138 the
of the
feature
characteristic
possesses an abundant supply of
Almost every
landscape.
mango and
village
shishai?i trees, while
many
have beautiful plantations of bamboos. In seasons of drought elsewhere, the khddar or alluvial tract of Bareilly is clothed with magnificent Inundations do more good than harm, by destroying the white crops. ants
and depositing
layers
of fresh
soil,
which supply the place of
manure.
The
District
is
naturally
by
traversed
streams, of which the chief are the
sub-Himalayan
several
Ramganga and
the Baigul.
The
former river has deep and well-defined banks, but frequently changes its course through the friable alluvial channel in which it runs. Some twenty years since, the main stream passed below Gaini, 10 miles west of the city
then
it
cut itself a path into the Dojora,
the outskirts of Bareilly;
returned to
and during the
The
ancient bed.
its
and ran beneath it once more
rains of 1871,
other principal streams are the
Nakatia, the Dioranian, the Sanka, the Dojora, the Kicha, and the Arail,
many
History
.
known
of which are used for purposes of irrigation.
— In the
earliest times, the
country east of the Ganges,
as Rohilkhand, bore the general
name
of Kather
now
but when
Sambhal and Budaun were erected into separate governments by the Musalmans, this term was restricted to the territory lying east of the Ramganga. A highly civilised Aryan race appears to have occupied the tract from the 8th to the nth century, when they were probably driven out by Ahi'rs from the Nepal Hills, Bhi'ls from the jungles to the south,
and Bhars from the
forests of
Oudh, during the general expulsion About 1200 a.d.
of the Aryan settlers from the sub-Himalayan border.
the greater part of the District had relapsed into forest; but large primitive bricks, fragments 'of
prosperity
still
lie
Buddhist sculpture, and other evidences of ancient
scattered about the country, especially in the neigh-
bourhood of Fatehgarh and Ramnagar. Shahab-ud-din, or his general Kutb-ud-dm, captured Bangarh about the year 1194; but nothing more is
heard of the
Muhammadans
his way along the foot of the
in the District
hills to
the
till
Ramganga
Mahmud in 1252.
11.
made
Fourteen
who succeeded
him, marched to Kampil, put all the and utterly crushed the Katheriyas, who had In 1290, Sultan Firoz invaded hitherto lived by violence and plunder. Kather again, and brought the countr)- into final subjection to the Musalman rule, which was not afterwards disputed except by the usual local revolts. Under the various dynasties which preceded the Mughal Empire, the history of Kather consists of the common events which make up the annals of that period constant attempts at independence
years later, Balban,
Hindus
to the sword,
—
on the part of the District governors, followed by barbarous suppressions on the part of the central authority. The city of Bareilly itself was founded in 1537 by Bas Deo and Barel Deo, from the latter of whom
