55
Bhimkee, and died there on the 10th June (para, 181). The bodies of all that
died of cholera at Morai, excepting the very young children, were thrown into the
Hirun 1½ mile distant, in a large pool between the villages of Goncearee and
Donee.
193. As the villages along the Nerbudda and the Hirun suffered in greater
proportion than the villages scattered generally over the district, T will shortly
describe these rivers, and give the details of the spread of cholera in some of the
towns and villages on their banks.
194. The Hirun river rises in the hilly country of Koondum, and, flowing
northwards as far as Koombhi, receives there the Belowra and other minor
streams that drain the southern portion of that pergunnah; it then takes a wind-
ing but generally westerly course, skirting the Sehora pergunnah as far as the
southern point of the main Kymore range; in this part of its course it is joined
by the Sohar a few miles above, and the Pureyat a short distance below the
old town of indrana, where it touches the Kymore range; it is joined by the Kyr
river, and thence, taking a southwesterly course immediately under the Bhanner
range, falls into the Nerbudda at Sakur. In its whole course it is confined within a
narrow channel by steep clay banks, which rise seldom less than 40 feet above
the stream, while in the lower part of its course they range from 70 to upwards of
100 feet in height; the bottom is generally sandy, the current varies, butin
all parts of its course there are long deep pools. In the hot weather at the fords
the stream is from 2 to 3 feet deep. The banks are in many parts much scored,
by water-courses, and there is always a margin of from a few hundred yards to
half a mile or more from the edge of the bank, which, from want of moisture, is
unculturable. It is on this margin that the villages are generally built. There
is no sub-soil water, and wells are not attempted, excepting in a few instances
where a village may be situated in a hollow behind a tank, and more on a level
with the stream. By far the greater number of the villages within a mile of the
bank depend on the stream for water. The banks, or the ravines intersecting
them, are the common places of resort for the purposes of nature, and the stream
is from this cause very liable to pollution; but in addition to this source of pollu-
tion, the Hirun, as well as the Nerbudda and the other rivers in the Jubbulpore
district, were terribly polluted by the number of bodies thrown into them.
195. The Nerbudda, being a sacred river, has been at all times polluted
in this manner, bodies being brought to it from several miles distant. As re-
gards the Hirun and the smaller streams, the practice does not appear to be
habitually adopted, but only when cholera is present. The natives were not wil-
lingly communicative on this subject; but, besides being the quickest way of dis-
posing of the dead, they have a notion that it is also the safest,—that by burning
them, the air would become infected, but by committing them to the rivers they
,are devoured by the alligators, turtles, and fish. This is, no doubt, to a certain
extent, the case in the Nerbudda, and in the deep pools in the lower part of the
Hirun, in ordinary seasons, when there is no excessive mortality ; but in several
villages the people acknowledged that bodies had been seen not unfrequently
floating down the stream. The ordinary practice is to sink the bodies, but, no
,doubt, this is often not attempted, or done ineffectually.
Into the Hirun, between Khoombhi and its junction with the Nerbudda at
Sakur, a distance of about 80 miles, many hundreds of bodies must have been
thrown in the course of June and July ; and after the beginning of June the river
was never once flooded, the stream remaining lower than in the hot weather of
ordinary years.
196. From the Gosulpore pergunnah (which is bounded on the north by
the Hirun), and from Indrana and that portion of the Sehora pergunnah, no
reports were sent in ; but 60 villages situated on the banks of the Hirun appear
in the cholera reports of the different Police circles through which it flows; and,