OITDH, a province of British India under the administration of a Chief Commissioner, who is also the Lieut.-Governor of the N.W. Provinces. It con sists of twelve revenue districts, in four divisions, and it lies between lat. 25° 34' and 28° 42' N., and between long. 79° 44' and 9' E. Four great rivers traverse or skirt the plain of Oudh in courerging courses,—the Ganges, the Gumti, the Gogra, and Rapti, with the smaller rivers, the Babai, Girwa, Katna, Kauriali, Mohana, Sai, Sarda, Soheli, and UI. All these, except the Ul, Katua, Gumti, and Sai, are hill streams descending from the Hima laya, and subject to sudden freshes. The Rapti is a rapid, second-class river, navigable for boats up to Bhinga. It is used for rafting timber in the rains. It swarms with crocodiles. The Babel is rapid and shallow in its upper course, and useless for navigation or for rafting. The Girwa is a mountain stream with a great fall, rushing in rapids and pools over a stony and sandy bed. It is useless for navigation. It is a branch of the Kauriali, from which it issues by percolation, and to which it is reunited lower down. The Kauriali is tho largest of the affluents of the Ganges. Its discharge is 13,082 cubic feet per second. It is more than twice the size of the Ganges where it leaves the hills, and is navigable for boats through out the year within British territory. It is called Karnali in the hills ; Kauriali, after it enters the plains to its confluence with the Sarju a little below Bhurtpur ; Gogra, thence to Fyzabad Sarin, about Ajodhya ; and Dewa or Gogra again below this, down to its confluence with the Ganges at Revelganj, near Chupra. The Materna is the boundary of the British territor7 from Gwari Ghat to its confluence with the lunuiali, rather more than half its course in the plains. It is a shallow and rapid stream, not navigable, but timber is floated down it in the rains to the Kauriali. This river swarms with crocodiles, both the magar or broad-nosed, and the gaurial or long-nosed species. The Sarda is a river about the size of the Ganges where it leaves the hills ; 9 miles below, its discharge is 6416 cubic feet per second. It is the boundary between British terri
tory and Nepal out of Oudh. It has lost the character of a hill stream, and flows in a sandy bed. The Gumti is a river rising in some rice fields, from which its head - waters appear to trickle. Its water is sweet, and its banks are cultivated throughout the province. It is navi gable throughout the greater part of its course in Oudh, but it is extremely tortuous, and the navigation is impeded at Sultanpur by rocks. Oudh has no lakes, though some of the jhils are very extensive sheets of water. The country between the Gumti and the Ganges is well sup plied with them. They lie in two parallel elevated hollows on either side of the Sai, and about midway between that river and the Gumti and Ganges respectively. They are drained by lateral nald or branches, which fall mainly into the Sai, and which cause the occasional floods in that river after heavy rain. They are a striking feature of the country, stretching in a continuous series, on both sides of the Sai, from the Shahjahanpur boundary to, that of Jounpur and Allahabad, and often connected when the rain has been heavy. They are covered with all kinds of wild fowl, and some of them are fairly stocked with snipe. Behti jhil, in Partabgarh district, is 14 square miles; and the Sandi, in Hardoi, is 10 square miles.
The Oudh forests are in three divisions. The first, or Khairigarh division, lies between the rivers Soheli and Mohana. The reserved trees are Shorea robusta, Dalbergia sissoo, Cedrela toona, ebony, Diospyros melanoxylon, Conocarpus latifolia, Terminalia tomentosa, Acacia catechu, and Nauclea cordifolia. There is a very small tract under sissoo reserved for the use of the gun carriage agency at Futtehghur. Other trees are dEgle marnielos, Ailanthus excelsa, Bassia latifolia, Eugenia jambolana, Feronia elephants, Ficus Indica, F. glomerata, Mangifera Indica, Melia azadirachta, Mimusops elengi, Terminalia bel ]erica, Zizyphus jujuba. Shorea, cedrela, ebony, conocarpus, and terminalia are found in the higher forest, called Bhabar, or, locally, Domar. The other trees are found on the lower ground or terai.