II.-THE DUARS AND MALARIA.
The Duars, as popularly understood, is a portion of terai land stretch.
ing for about ninety miles along the foot of the Eastern Himalayas. It
extends at most fifteen miles from the foot of the hills and in total area
does not exceed a thousand square miles. But in spite of its small ex-
tent it is one of the chief of the tea districts, producing more than one-
fifth of the tea produced in India. Otherwise this distirct is of little im-
portance since it possesses no townships and few villages of any size;
in fact, but for the land which has been cleared for tea cultivation, it is
almost entirely forest and jungle.
In official matters the Duars includes more extensive portions of the
thanas of Dam Dim, Mainaguri, and Phalakata; but the southern por-
tion of these thanas, composed of rich agricultural and thickly populated
by Rajbansis and other cultivators, has little in common with the
northern or tea-growing portions with which we are concerned.
Scattered throughout the district, but most closely aggregated in the
western portions, are the various tea gardens. The gardens, like those
of Assam, are large and are worked by various tea companies, only a few
small gardens being owned by resident planters.
The gardens number about one hundred. All but about a dozen
of these have European managers and from one to four or even more
European assistants. In addition each garden employs a certain num-
ber of Bengali clerks or other subordinates, and upon each garden (living
in lines) is a considerable coolie population. These populations, in-
cluding men, women and children, are rarely below one thousand in
number and on larger gardens consist of from four to six thousand per-
sons.
It is these lines which form the villages, so to speak, of the tract
under discussion, and the garden populations which, taken collectively,
constitute for all practical purposes the population of the Duars. There
are, it is true, a certain number of aboriginal Meches still living in the
Duars, but these have almost disappeared from the western
portions and are only found in any number to the east where tea culti-
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