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Monghyr

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a town and district of British India, in the Bhagalpur division of Bengal. The town is on the right bank of the Ganges, and has a railway station, with steam ferry to the railway on the opposite bank of the river. Pop. (1901), 35,880. In 1195 Monghyr, a fortress of great natural strength, appears to have been taken by Mahommed Bakhiyar Khilji, the first Moslem conqueror of Bengal. Henceforth it is often mentioned by the Mahommedan chroniclers as a place of military importance, and was frequently chosen as the seat of the local government. After 1590, when Akbar established his supremacy over the Afghan chiefs of Bengal, Monghyr was long the headquarters of his general, Todar Mal; and it also figures prominently during the rebellion of Sultan Shuja against his brother, Aurangzeb. In more recent times Nawab Mir Kasim, in his war with the English, selected it as his residence and the centre of his military preparations. Monghyr is famous for its manufactures of iron: firearms, swords, and iron articles of every kind are produced in abundance but are noted for cheapness rather than quality. The art of inlaying sword-hilts and other articles with gold and silver affords employment to a few families.

The District of Monghyr has an area of 3922 sq. M. The Ganges divides it into two portions. The northern, intersected by the Burhi Gandak and Tiljuga, two important tributaries of the Ganges, is always liable to inundation during the rainy season, and is a rich, flat, wheat and rice country, supporting a large population. A considerable area, immediately bordering the banks of the great rivers, is devoted to permanent pasture. Immense herds of buffaloes are sent every hot season to graze on these marshy prairies; and the ghi, or clarified butter, made from their milk forms an important article of export to Calcutta. To the south of the Ganges the country is dry, much less fertile, and broken up by fragmentary ridges. Irrigation is necessary throughout the section lying on the south of the Ganges. The population in 1901 was 2,068,804, showing an increase of 1.6% in the decade. The principal exports sent to Calcutta, both by rail and by river, are oil-seeds, wheat, rice, indigo, grain and pulse, hides and tobacco; and the chief imports consist of European piece-goods, salt and sugar. The southern portion of the district is well provided with railways. At Lakhisarai junction the arc and chord lines of the East Indian railway divide, and here also starts the branch to Gaya. At Jamalpur, which is the junction for Monghyr, are the engineering workshops of the company. In the early years of British rule Monghyr formed a part of Bhagalpur, and was not created a separate district till 1832.

See Monghyr District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1909).

MUG NAI (called by the Burmese and on most old maps Moue), one of the largest and most important of the states in the eastern subdivision of the southern Shan States of Burma. The state of Keng Tawng (Burmese Kyaing Taung) is a dependency of Mang Nai. It lies approximately between 20° Io' and 21° N. and between 97° 30' and 98° 45' E., and occupies an area of 2717 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 44,252, of whom more than five-sixths are Shans. The Salween river bounds it on the east. The main state and the sub-state of Keng Tawng consist of two plains with a ridge between them. There is much flat rice bottom, but a considerable portion consists of gently undulating plainland. In the central plain rice is the only crop. Outside this considerable quantities of sugar are produced. Tobacco of a quality highly esteemed by the Shams is grown in the Nawng Wawp circle at an altitude of 3100 ft. above sea-level; gram, thanatpet (a leaf used for cigar-wrappers), and garden crops are the chief produce otherwise. In the outlying tracts quantities of coarse native paper are manufactured from the bark of a species of mulberry, and much is exported to other parts of the Shan States.