Fiscal Division, remarkable merely as being the seats of large fairs held during the Durgá-pujá, Dol and Rath játrá, and which are numerously attended.
Magrahat, a market village carrying on an important produce trade, in Barídhátí Fiscal Division, Báruipur Subdivision. It also contains a Christian Church for native converts, and in 1857 was one of the stations of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Church is capable of holding about a hundred and fifty persons, and was erected at a cost of £666, 10s. 0d. The Christian community in the village and vicinity numbered in 1857 about two thousand souls.
Basra, a village in Maidánmal Fiscal Division, Báruipur Subdivision, situated on the Bidyádharí river, is an important depot of the timber trade of the Sundarbans, and also a station on the Calcutta and South-Eastern State Railway running to Port Canning. The following local legend accounts for the rise of the present wealthy family of landholders in the Subdivision, and is extracted irom the Revenue Surveyor’s Report, page 71:—‘It appears that a great part of Maidánmal Fiscal Division was formerly a dense jungle, overrun with wild beasts, and that the ancestor of the present zamíndár, Sadánand Chaudhrí, obtained a grant of it from the Emperor of Dehli. A fakír, by name Mobrah Ghází, took up his residence in a part of this jungle called Básrá. This fakír overawed the wild beasts to such an extent, that he always rode about the jungle on a tiger. The zamíndár found himself unable one year to pay his revenue, when the Emperor ordered him to be arrested and brought to Dehli; on which his mother sought the fakír's assistance in getting her son released, who promised to help her. He thereon caused the Emperor to dream as follows:—Mobrah Ghází, surrounded by wild beasts, appeared to him, saying that he was the proprietor of the Maidánmal jungle, that the revenue due by the zamíndár would be paid from his treasures buried in the jungle, and desired the Emperor to release the zamíndár, threatening him with every misfortune if he disobeyed. The Emperor awoke and had the dream written down, but paid no attention to it . The next morning he ascended his throne, but instead of his usual attendants and courtiers, he found himself surrounded with wild beasts. This brought the subject of the dream to his mind, and in great fear he at once ordered the release of the landholder, and sent him back to Maidánmal with an escort, instructing him at
