SHAHABAD  , a

district of British India, in the Patna division of Bengal, with an area of 4373 sq. m . About three-fourths of the area to the north is an alluvial flat, planted with mangoes, bamboos and other trees; while the southern portion is occupied by the Kaimur hills, a branch of the great Vindhyan range, and is a densely wooded tract . The chief rivers are the Ganges and the Sone, which unite in the north-eastern corner of Shahabad . In the southern portion large game abounds . The annual rainfall averages 43 in . In Igor the population was 1,962,696, showing a decrease of 4.7% in the decade . The chief crops are rice, millets, wheat, pulses, oilseeds, poppy and sugarcane . Shahabad is protected against drought by a system of canals from the Sone, some of which are navigable . The district is traversed by the East Indian railway near the Ganges, and by a branch from Mogul Serai to Gaya, which crosses the Sone at Dehri-on-Sone, where are the workshops of the canal . The administrative headquarters are at Arrah . Among other historic sites, it includes the hill-fort of Rohtas, the tomb of Shere Shah at Sasseram and the battlefield of Buxar . See Shahabad District Gazetteer (Calcutta, 1906) .