58
Timureea, one mile from Kymore, lost 23, out of a population of 360.
Here the water-supply was partly drawn from a well, but the greater part of
the population resorted to the river.
At Sukra, a village densely crowded round a small tank, 92 died, out of a
population of 890. The people say they used the tank water for cooking, but
drew water for drinking from the river.
203. A mile east of Sukra is the Mootureea, a small stream, which, flowing
northward, and converging towards the Hirun, joins that river a little above
kymore. I inspected seven villages situated closely together along this stream,
at distances varying from three miles to less than a mile from Kymore and the
villages of Timureea and Sukra ; not one of these had been visited by cholera.
Two or three had wells from which they drew their water, others were dependent
on the stream, but as the banks are muddy, and the stream is rendered muddy
with every shower, the people sink jeerahs or small surface wells, in the clay
bank, a few feet from the streams and used the water that filters into them.
One of these villages (Doonguria) is situated within a mile of Kymore, where
the road to Kuttunghee crosses the Mootureea, just before the latter joins the
Hirun. This was the only village on the road that escaped cholera.
204. The out-break of cholera at Konee, seven miles below Kymore, has been
already described. At the village of Hurdooa, three miles below Konee, cholera
was first reported on the 4th July ; and 9 persons died, out of a population of 165.
Below Konee the river is unfordable ; the Bhanuer hills rise precipitously on one
side, and on the other the bank becomes more precipitous, and the margin of dry
uncultivated waste widens, so that the villages on the bank and dependent on
the stream for water become few and far between. For the 25 or 30 miles oí
river that extend between Konee and the junction with the Nerbudda, there aro
not more than 10 or 12 villages on both banks of the river ; all on the left bank
suffered more or less; but the out-break at Kutra-Belkera only requires special
mention.
205. Belkera is a large village on the Hirun, seven miles south of Patun, be-
longing to Thakoor Jowaher Sing; it lies in a hollow in a bend of the river, from
which it is shut out by the high bank. The site is low, and almost on a level with
the stream; the sub-soil water is therefore not far from the surface of the ground
at all seasons of the year, and there is no difficulty in obtaining water from wells;
and the river being very inaccessible to them, the people depend entirely on well
water for domestic use. Not a single death from cholera was reported from this
village. On the bank of the river, and separated from the village by a deep
ravine, is the Thakoor's Kutra, or fort ; the Kutra is built quite on the edge of
the bank, which here rises perpendicularly above the stream to a height of 120
feet ; and around the Kutra is a cluster of huts, occupied by the Thakoor's
retainers, and a small bazaar, containing altogether little more than 100 persons.
These people draw water from the river, which they reach by a cutting in the
bank by the, side of the Kutra ; the place where they draw water is a deep
pool ; into this pool, close above the ghat, the ravine between the village and
Kutra leads, and this is apparently used as a latrine by the inhabitants of both
places ; the cattle also of both places are watered in the upper part of the pool.
Cholera broke out here on the 4th June, and carried off 23 persons ; the people
say that the pestilence raged very severely for about six days, but that afterwards
there was an interval of a day or two between each case. None of the Thakoor's
own family died, but there were one or two deaths among the servants living in
his house. The first person attacked was a woman of the place, and there is no
evidence 01 the disease having been imported from elsewhere ; cases however,
had been reported a day or two earlier from two villages, five and six miles distant.
There was a fall of ram on the 2nd, which would have washed the sewage froto