Punjab.

Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Punjab. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    91/486 page 59
    The wild animals include the leopard, wolf, wild cat, hyena. Fauna, hog, and deer, found chiefly in the Pathankot tahsiL Nilgai are also common. Owing to the drying up of the jliils^ the water-fowl for which the District was once famous have largely disappeared. The climate is on the whole good, and, because of the proximity Climate of the hills, the heat is never excessive. The Pathankot iahsll is decidedly malarious, owing to its heavy rainfall, and to the large proportion of its soil which is saturated with canal irrigation. Goitre is common here and spleen disease in all parts. The rainfall is abundant. Excluding Dalhousie, where the Rainfall, annual fall averages 8o inches, the average varies from 24 inches at Allwal in the Batala tahsll, to 51 inches at Madhopur, where 11 inches fall in the winter and 40 in the summer. The greatest rainfall recorded during' the twenty years ending 1901 was 99 inches at Dalhousie in 1882-3, and 80 inches at Madhopur in 1881-2. Only 9*6 inches fell at Allwal in 1899-1900. In 1870 the Ravi altered its course, and began to threaten the town of Dera Nanak. In spite of strenuous efforts made to divert the channel, the river carried away the Tali Sahib temple, and the town itself was only saved by the erection of a strong embankment. There were heavy floods in 1892 and 1894. The earliest relics of antiquity are the cave-temples of Mukh- History, eshwar, attributed to the Pandavas, on the Ravi. Pathankot was the seat of an ancient Hindu kingdom whose history is re- lated in the article on that town. During the Saiyid dynasty the District was in the heart of the Khokhar country, and Kalanaur was twice attacked by Jasrath Khokhar. Akbar was at Kalanaur wEen he received the news of Humayun’s death, and he was here installed by Bairam Khan on February 15, 1556, and seems often subsequently to have held his court here. He had to retake the District from Sikandar Shah, Suri, in the following year. Under Akbar the Afghans who had been settled at Kahnuw^an by Sher Shah were driven out, and the place became a favourite resort of Jahangir. In the reign of Shah Jahan the Shah Nahr or ‘royal canal’ was begun, in order to conduct water from the Ravi to the gardens at Shalamar, near Lahore; and prince Murad’s army assembled at Bahram- pur, the head-quarters of the chakladdr or governor of Jammu and Kangra, for his campaign against Raja Jagat Chand. The chief historical importance of the District, however, lies in its connexion with the rise of the Sikhs. Dera Baba Nanak on the Ravi preserves the name of the founder of Sikhism, who died in 1538 on the opposite bank. Both Guru Amar Das
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