A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & IISleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
History
A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II
Sleeman, W. H. (William Henry), Sir
Oudh (India) -- Description and travel
of what falls over the districts, supplied from the Bay of Bengal, or
to one-fourth of what falls in those supplied from the Gulf of
Cambay. Our own districts of the N. W. Provinces, which intervene
between those north of the Ganges and Rajpootana, have the advantage
of rivers and canals; but their atmosphere is not so well supplied
with moisture from the sea, nor are they so well studded as they
ought to be with trees. The Punjab has still greater advantages from
numerous rivers, flowing from the Himmalaya chain, and is, like
Egypt, in some measure independent of moisture from the atmosphere as
far as tillage is concerned; but both would, no doubt, be benefited
by a greater abundance of trees. They not only tend to convey to and
retain moisture in the soil, and to purify the air for man, by giving
out oxygen and absorbing carbonic acid gas, but they are fertilizing
media, through which the atmosphere conveys to the soil most of the
carbon, and much of the ammonia, without which no soil can be
fertile. It is, I believe, generally admitted that trees derive most
of their carbon from the air through their leaves, and most of their
ammonia from the soil through their roots; and that when the trees,
shrubs, and plants, which form our coal-measures, adorned the surface
of the globe, the atmosphere must have contained a greater portion of
carbonic acid gas than at present. They decompose the gases, use the
carbon, and give back the oxygen to the atmosphere.
_December_ 30, 1849.--Ten miles to Salone, over a pretty country,
well studded with fine trees and well tilled, except in large patches
of oosur land, which occur on both sides of the road. The soil,
doomuteea, with a few short intervals of muteear. The Rajah of
Pertabghur, and other great landholders of the Sultanpoor division,
who had been for some days travelling with me, and the Nazim and his
officers, took leave yesterday. The Nazim, Aga Allee, is a man of
great experience in the convenances of court and city life, and of
some in revenue management, having long had charge of the estates
comprised in the "Hozoor Tehseel," while he resided at Lucknow. He
has good sense and an excellent temper, and his manners and
deportment are courteous and gentlemanly. The Rajah of Pertabghur is
a very stout and fat man, of average understanding. The rightful heir
to the principality was Seorutun Sing, whom I have mentioned in my
_Rambles and Recollections_, as a gallant young landholder, fighting
for his right to the succession, while I was cantoned at Pertabghur
in 1818. He continued to fight, but in vain, as the revenue
contractors were too strong for him. Gholam Hoseyn, the then Nazim,
kept him down while he lived, and Dursun Sing got him into his power
by fraud, and confined him for three years in gaol.
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