io6 s BASODA
About io square miles, or 25 per cent. of the total area, are cultivated,
126 acres being irrigated. The chief exercises the criminal powers
of a first-class magistrate, all heinous crimes being dealt with by the
Political Agent. The normal revenue of the State is Rs. I9,000, of
which Rs. I6,ooo is derived from land. The incidence of the land
revenue demand is Rs. 2-9-3 per acre of cultivated area. Basoda,
the chief town, is situated in 23° 51′ N. and 77° 56′ E. Population
(I901), 1,850. It contains a British post office, a jail, a school, and a
dispensary.
Basrur (the Barcelore or Barkalur of early geographers).-Village in
the Coondapoor ta/uk of South Kanara District, Madras, situated in
13° 38′ N. and 74° 45′ E., 4 miles east of Coondapoor. It was once
a large walled town with a fort and a temple, and carried on an
important trade with Malabar and the Persian Gulf; but its decline set
in after the establishment of the Portuguese at Coondapoor in the
eighteenth century, and it is now an insignificant place. The ruins of
Sir Thomas Munro's courthouse are still pointed out. As Major Munro
he was the first Collector of the District. Population (I901), 1,757.
Bassein District.-District of the Irrawaddy Division, Lower
Burma, lying between 15° 50′ and 17° 30′ N. and 94° 11′ and 95° 28′ E.,
with an area of 4,127 square miles. It forms an irregular wedge-shaped
strip of coast land and delta country, narrowing from north to south, in
the extreme south-west corner of the Province. It is bounded on the
north by Henzada and Sandoway Districts; on the east by Ma-ubin
and Myaungmya; and on the south and west by the Bay of Bengal,
which curves round its southern and western edges at the elbow
formed by Pagoda Point. The District is divided into unequal parts
by the Arakan Yoma, which enters Bassein at its
aspects. north-western corner, and runs down its western side
at no great distance from the sea. The main portion
lies to the east of this range, consisting of a flat alluvial plain, the
northern end of which is rich rice land. Farther south, between the
Ngawun and Daga rivers, it is flooded and poor. To the east of
the Daga and southwards towards Bassein town the land is slightly
higher and more fertile. To the west of the Ngawun, as far as the
bifurcation of the Daga, the land is flooded and generally uncultivable.
Below that point it is higher and of fair quality, while south of the town
of Bassein it is typically deltaic, intersected by innumerable tidal creeks,
marshy, and covered with mangrove jungle, with some stretches of rice
land here and there. In the south the coast-line consists for the most
part of a gently shelving sandy beach, backed by swampy forest land;
in the west beyond Pagoda Point, where the hills enter the sea abruptly,
the coast is rocky and difficult of approach. With the exception of the
Arakan Yoma, which here is comparatively low, there is no high land
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