Name: A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II
Author: Sir W. H. Sleeman

Chapter VI

Nawabgunge, midway between Cawnpoor and Lucknow--Oosur soils how produced--Visit from the prime minister--Rambuksh, of Dhodeeakhera-- Hunmunt Sing, of Dharoopoor--Agricultural capitalists. Sipahees and native offices of our army--Their furlough, and petitions-- Requirements of Oude to secure good government. The King's reserved treasury--Charity distributed through the Mojtahid, or chief justice--Infanticide--Loan of elephants, horses, and draft bullocks by Oude to Lord Lake in 1804--Clothing for the troops--The Akbery regiment--Its clothing, &c.,--Trespasses of a great man's camp in Oude--Russoolabad and Sufeepoor districts--Buksh Allee, the dome-- Budreenath, the contractor for Sufeepoor--Meeangunge--Division of the Oude Territory in 1801, in equal shares between Oude and the British Governments--Almas Allee Khan--His good government--The passes of Oude--Thieves by hereditary profession, and village watchmen-- Rapacity of the King's troops--Total absence of all sympathy between the governing and governed--Measures necessary to render the Oude troops efficient and less mischievous to the people--Sheikh Hushmut Allee, of Sundeela.

January 8, 1850.--Nawabgunge, eleven miles over a plain, the soil of which, near the road, is generally very poor oosur. No fruit or ornamental trees, few shrubs, and very little grass. Here and there, however, even near the road, may be seen a small patch of land, from which a crop of rice has been taken this season; and the country is well cultivated all along, up to within half a mile of the road, on both tides [sides]. Nawabgunge is situated on the new metalled road, fifty miles long, between Lucknow and Cawnpoor, and about midway between the two places.* It was built by the late minister, Nawab Ameen-od Dowlah, while in office, for the accommodation of travellers, and is named after him. It is kept up at his expense for the same purpose now that he has descended to private life. There is a small house for the accommodation of European gentlemen and ladies, as well as a double range of buildings, between which the road passes, for ordinary travellers, and for shopkeepers to supply them.

[* The term Gunge, signifies a range of buildings at a place of traffic, for the accommodation of merchants, and all persons engaged in the purchase and sale of goods and for that of their goods and of the shopkeepers who supply them.]

Some people told me, that even the worst of this oosur soil might be made to produce fair crops under good tillage; while others denied the possibility, though all were farmers or landholders. All, however, agreed that any but the worst might be made so by good tillage--that is, by flooding the land by means of artificial embankments, for two or three rainy seasons, and then cross- ploughing, manuring, and irrigating it well. All say that the soil hereabouts is liable to become oosur, if left fallow and neglected for a few years. The oosur, certainly, seems to prevail most near the high roads, where the peasantry have been most exposed to the rapacity of the King's troops; and this tends to confirm the notion that tillage is necessary in certain soils to check the tendency of the carbonates or nitrates, or their alkaline bases, to superabundance. The abundance of the chloride of sodium in the soil, from which the superabounding carbonates of soda are formed, seems to indicate, unequivocally, that the bed from which they are brought to the surface by capillary attraction must at some time have been covered by salt water.

The soil of Scind, which was at one time covered by the sea, seems to suffer still more generally from the same superabundance of the carbonates of soda, formed from the chlorides of sodium, and brought to the surface in the same manner. But in Scind the evil is greater and more general from the smaller quantity of rain that falls. Egypt would, no doubt, suffer still more from the same cause, inasmuch as it has still less rain than Scind, but for the annual overflowing of the Nile. The greater part of the deserts which now disfigure the face of the globe in hot climates arise chiefly from the same causes, and they may become covered by tillage and population as man becomes wiser, more social, and more humane.

January 9, 1850.--Halted at Nawabgunge. A vast deal of grain of all sorts has for the last two years passed from Cawnpoor to Lucknow for sale. The usual current of grain is from the northern and eastern districts of Oude towards Cawnpoor; but for these two years it has been from Cawnpoor to these districts. This is owing to two bad seasons in Oude generally, and much oppression in the northern and eastern districts, in particular, and the advantage which the navigation of the Ganges affords to the towns on its banks on such occasions. The metalled road from Cawnpoor to Lucknow is covered almost with carts and vehicles of all kinds. Guards have been established upon it for the protection of travellers, and life and property are now secure upon it, which they had not been for many years up to the latter end of 1849. This road has lately been completed under the superintendence of Lient. G. Sim of the engineers, and cost above two lacs of rupees.

The minister came out with a very large cortège yesterday to see and talk with me, and is to stay here to-day. I met him this morning on his way out to shoot in the lake; and it was amusing to see his enormous train contrasted with my small one. I told him, to the amusement of all around, that an English gentleman would rather get no air or shooting at all than seek them in such a crowd. The minister was last night to have received the Rajahs and other great landholders, who had come to my camp, but they told me this morning that they had some of them waited all night in vain for an audience; that the money demanded by his followers, of various sorts and grades, for such a privilege was much more than they could pay; that to see and talk with a prime minister of Oude was one of the most difficult and expensive of things. Rajah Hunmunt Sing, of Dharoopoor, told me that he feared his only alternative now was a very hard one, either to be utterly ruined by the contractor of Salone, or to take to his jungles and strongholds and fight against his Sovereign.*

[* The Rajah was too formidable to be treated lightly, and the Amil was obliged to give in, and consent to take from him what he had paid to his predecessor; but to effect this, the Rajah was, afterwards obliged to go to Lucknow, and pay largely in gratuities.]

Rajah Rambuksh, of Dondhea Kheera, is in the same predicament. He tells me, that a great part of his estate has been taken from him by Chundun Lal, of Morowa, the banker already mentioned, in collusion with the Nazim, Kotab-od Deen, who depends so much on him as the only capitalist in his district; that he is obliged to conciliate him by acquiescing in the spoliation of others; that he has already taken much of his lands by fraud and collusion, and wishes to take the whole in the same way; that this banker now holds lands in the district yielding above two lacs of rupees a-year, can do what he pleases, and is every day aggrandizing himself and family by the ruin of others. There is some truth in what Rambuksh states, though he exaggerates a little the wrong which he himself suffers; and it is lamentable that all power and influence in Oude, of whatever kind or however acquired, should be so sure to be abused, to the prejudice of both sovereign and people. When these great capitalists become landholders, as almost all do, they are apt to do much mischief in the districts where their influence lies, for the Government officers can do little in the collection of the revenue without their aid; and as the collection of revenue is the only part of their duty to which they attach much importance, they are ready to acquiesce in any wrong that they may commit in order to conciliate them. The Nazim of Byswara, Kotab-od Deen, is an old and infirm man, and very much dependent upon Chundun Lal, who, in collusion with him, has certainly deprived many of their hereditary possessions in the usual way in order to aggrandize his own family. He has, at the same time, purchased a great deal of land at auction in the Honourable Company's districts where he has dealings, keeps the greater part of his wealth, and is prepared to locate his family when the danger of retaining any of either in Oude becomes pressing. The risk is always great; but they bind the local authorities, civil and military, by solemn oaths and written pledges, for the security of their own persons and property, and those of their families and clients.

January 10, 1850.--At Nawabgunge, detained by rain, which fell heavily yesterday, with much thunder and lightning, and has continued to fall all night. It is painful and humiliating to pass through this part of Oude, where the families of so many thousands of our sipahees reside, particularly at this time when so large a portion of them are at their homes on furlough. The Punjab war having closed, all the corps engaged in it have this year been sent off to quiet stations in our old provinces, and their places supplied by others which have taken no share in that or any other war of late. As a measure of economy, and with a view to indulge the native officers and sipahees of the corps engaged in that war, Government has this season given a long furlough to all the native army of Bengal. Some three hundred and fifty native officers and sipahees from each regiment are, or are to be, absent on leave this season. This saves to Government a very large sum in the extra allowance which is granted to native officers and sipahees, during their march from one station to another, and in the deductions which are made from the pay and allowances of those who go on furlough. During furlough, subadars receive 52 rupees a- month instead of 67; jemadars 17, instead of 24; havildars 9, instead of 14; naicks 7, instead of 12; and sipahees 5-8, instead of 7.

These native officers and sipahees, with all their gallantry on service and fidelity to their salt, are the most importunate of suitors, and certainly among the most untruthful and unscrupulous in stating the circumstances of their claims, or the grounds of their complaints. They crowd around me morning and evening when I venture outside my tent, and keep me employed all day in reading their petitions. They cannot or will not understand that the Resident is, or ought to be, only the channel through which their claims are sent for adjustment through the Court to the Oude tribunals and local authorities; and that the investigation and decision must, or ought to, rest with them. They expect that he will at once himself investigate and decide their claims, or have them investigated and decided forthwith by the local authorities of the district through which he is passing; and it is in vain to tell them that the "law's delay" is as often and as justly complained of in our own territory as in Oude, whatever may be the state of its uncertainty.

The wrongs of which they complain are of course such as all men of their class in Oude are liable to suffer; but no other men in Oude are so prone to exaggerate the circumstances attending them, to bring forward prominently all that is favourable to their own side, and keep back all that is otherwise, and to conceal the difficulties which must attend the search after the truth, and those still greater which must attend the enforcement of an award when made. Their claims are often upon men who have well-garrisoned forts and large bands of armed followers, who laugh at the King's officers and troops, and could not be coerced into obedience without the aid of a large and well-appointed British force. For the immediate employment of such a force they will not fail to urge the Resident, though they have, to the commanding officer of their company and regiment represented the debtor or offender as a man of no mark, ready to do whatever the Resident or the Oude authorities may be pleased to order. On one occasion no less than thirty lives were lost in attempting to enforce an award in favour of a sipahee of our army.

I have had several visits from my old friend Sheikh Mahboob Allee, the subadar-major, who is mentioned in my Essay on Military Discipline. He is now an invalid pensioner in Oude, and in addition to the lands which his family held before his transfer to the invalids, he has lately acquired possession of a nice village, which he claimed in the usual way through the Resident. He told me that he had possession, but that he found it very difficult to keep cultivators upon it.

"And why is this, my old friend?" I asked. "Cultivators are abundant in Oude, and glad always to till lands on which they are protected and encouraged by moderate rents and a little occasional aid in seed, grain, and stock, and you are now in circumstances to afford them both."

"True, sir," said the old subadar, "but the great refractory landholder, my neighbour, has a large force, and he threatens to bring it down upon me, and my cultivators are afraid that they and their families will all be cut up some dark night if they stay with me."

"But what has your great neighbour to do with your village? Why do you not make friends with him?"

"Make friends with him, sir!" replied the subadar; "the thing is impossible."

"And why, subadar sahib?"

"Sir, it was from him that the village was taken by the orders of the Durbar, through the interposition of the Resident, to be made over to me, and he vows that he will take it back, whatever number of lives it may cost him to do so."

"And how long may he and his family have held it?"

"Only thirty or thirty-five years, sir."

"And neither you nor your family have ever held possession of it for that time?"

"Never, sir; but we always hoped that the favour of the British Government would some day get it for us."

"And in urging your claim to the village, did you ever tell the Resident that you had been so long out of possession?"

"No, sir, we said nothing about time"

"You know, subadar sahib, that in all countries a limit is prescribed in such cases, and at the Residency that limit is six years; and had the Resident known that your claim was of so old a date he would never have interposed in your favour, more especially when his doing so involved the risk of the loss of so many lives, first in obtaining possession for you, and then keeping you in it." Cases of this kind are very numerous.

The estate of Rampoor which we lately passed through belonged to the grandfather of Rajah Hunmunt Sing. His eldest son, Sungram Sing, died without issue, and the estate devolved on his second son, Bhow Sing, the father of Rajah Hunmunt Sing. The third brother separated from the family stock during the life of his father, and got, as his share, Sursae, Kuttra Bulleepoor, and other villages. He had five sons: first, Lokee Sing; second, Dirguj Sing; third, Hul Sing; fourth, Dill Sing; and fifth, Bul Sing, and the estate was, on his death, subdivided among them. Kuttra Bulleepoor devolved on Lokee Sing, the eldest, who died without issue; and the village was subdivided among his four brothers or their descendants. But Davey Buksh, the grandson, by adoption of the second brother, Dirguj Sing, unknown to the others, assigned, in lieu of a debt, the whole village to a Brahmin named Bhyroo Tewaree, who forthwith got it transferred to Hozoor Tehseel, through Matadeen, a havildar of the 5th Troop, 7th-Regiment of Cavalry, who, in an application to the Resident, pretended that the estate was his own. It is now beyond the jurisdiction of the local authorities, who could ascertain the truth; and all the rightful co-sharers have been ever since trying in vain to recover their rights. The Bramin [Brahmin] and the Havildar, with Sookhal a trooper in the same regiment, now divide the profits between them, and laugh at the impotent efforts of the old proprietors to get redress. Gholam Jeelanee, a shopkeeper of Lucknow, seeing the profits derived by sipahees, from the abuse of this privilege, purchased a cavalry uniform--jacket, cap, pantaloon, boots, shoes, and sword--and on the pretence of being an invalid trooper of ours, got the signature of the brigadier commanding the troops in Oude to his numerous petitions, which were sent for adjustment to the Durbar through the Resident. He followed this trade profitably for fifteen years. At last he got possession of a landed estate, to which he had no claim of right. Soon after he sent a petition to say that the dispossessed proprietor had killed four of his relations and turned him out. This led to a more strict inquiry, when all came out. In quoting this case to the Resident, in a letter dated the 16th of June 1836, the King of Oude observes: "If a person known to thousands in the city of Lucknow is able, for fifteen years, to carry on such a trade successfully, how much more easy must it be for people in the country, not known to any in the city, to carry it on!"

The Resident communicated to the King of Oude the resolution of the Honourable the Court of Directors to relieve him from the payment of the sixteen lacs of rupees a-year for the auxiliary force; and on the 29th of July 1839, he reported to Government the great gratification which his Majesty had manifested and expressed at this opportune relief. But his gratification at this communication was hardly so great as that which he had manifested on the 14th of December 1837, when told by the Resident that the British Government would not insist upon giving to the subjects of Oude who might enlist into that force the privilege of forwarding complaints about their village affairs and disputes, through their military superiors and the Resident; and it appeared to the Resident, "that this one act of liberality and justice on the part of the British Government had done more to reconcile the King of Oude to the late treaty, in which the Oude auxiliary force had originated, than all that he had said to him during the last three months as to the prospective advantages which that treaty would secure to him and his posterity." The King observed: "This kindness on the part of the British Government has relieved my mind from a load of disagreeable thoughts." The prime minister, Hakeem Mehndee, who was present, replied: "All will now go on smoothly. When the men have to complain to their own Government, they will seldom complain without just cause, being aware that a false story will soon be detected by the native local authorities, though it could not be so by European officers at a distance from the villages; and that in all cases of real grievances their claims will soon be fairly and speedily adjusted. If," added he, "the sipahees of this force had been so placed that they could have enlisted their officers on their side in making complaints, while such officers could know nothing whatever of the circumstances beyond what the sipahees themselves told them, false and groundless complaints would have become endless, and the vexations thereby caused to Government and their neighbours would have become intolerable. These troops," said he, "will now be real soldiers; but if the privileges enjoyed by the Honourable Company's sipahees had been conferred upon the seven regiments composing this force, with the relations and pretended relations of the sipahees, it would have converted into corrupt traders in village disputes sixteen or seventeen thousand of the King's subjects, settled in the heart of the country, privileged to make false accusations of all kinds, and believed by the people to be supported in these falsehoods by the British Government." Both the King and the minister requested the Resident earnestly and repeatedly to express to the Governor-General their most sincere thanks for having complied with his Majesty's solicitations on this point.*

[* See King of Oude's letter to the Governor-General, dated 5th October, 1837, and Residents letters of the 7th idem and 14th December, 1837.]

This privilege which the native officers and sipahees of our native army enjoy of petitioning for redress of grievances, through the Resident, has now been extended to all the regular, irregular, and local corps of the three Presidencies--that is, to all corps paid by the British Government, and to all native officers and sipahees of contingent corps employed in and paid by native States, who were drafted into them from the regular corps of our army up to a certain time; and the number cannot be less than fifty or sixty thousand. But European civil and political functionaries, in our own provinces and other native States, have almost all some men from Oude in their offices or establishments, whose claims and complaints they send for adjustment to the Resident; and it is difficult for him to satisfy them, that he is not bound to take them up in the same manner as he takes up those of the native officers and sipahees of our native army; and he is often induced to yield to their importunity, and thereby to furnish grounds for further applications of the same sort. This privilege is not recognized or named in any treaty, or other engagement with the Sovereign of Oude; nor does any one now know its origin, for it cannot be found in any document recorded in the Resident's office.

If the Resident happens to be an impatient, overbearing man, he will often frighten the Durbar and its Courts, or local officers, into a hasty decision, by which the rights of others are sacrificed for the native officers and sipahees; and if he be at the same time an unscrupulous man, he will sometimes direct that the sipahee shall be put in possession of what he claims in order to relieve himself from his importunity, or that of his commanding officer, without taking the trouble to inform himself of the grounds on which the claim is founded. Of all such errors there are unhappily too many instances recorded in the Resident's office. This privilege is in the hands of the Resident an instrument of torture, which it is his duty to apply every day to the Oude Durbar. He may put on a screw more or a screw less, according to his temper or his views, or the importunity of officers commanding corps or companies, and native officers and sipahees in person, which never cease to oppress him more or less.

The most numerous class of complaints and the most troublesome is that against the Government of Oude or its officers and landholders, for enhanced demands of rents; and whenever these officers or landholders are made to reduce these demands in favour of the privileged sipahees, they invariably distribute the burthen in an increased rate upon their neighbours.

Officers who have to pass through Oude in their travels or sporting excursions have of late years generally complained that they receive less civility from villages in which our invalid or furlough sipahees are located than from any others; and that if they are anywhere treated with actual disrespect, such sipahees are generally found to be either the perpetrators or instigators. This complaint is not, I fear, altogether unfounded; and may arise from the diminished attachment felt by the sipahees for their European officers in our army, and partly from the privilege of urging their claims through the Resident, enjoyed by native officers and sipahees, now ceasing on their being transferred to the invalid establishment.

But the privilege itself is calculated to create feelings of dissatisfaction with their European officers, among the honest and hard-working part of our native army. Such men petition only when they have just cause; and not one in five of them can obtain what they demand, and believe to be their just right, under an administration like that of Oude, whatever efforts the Resident may make to obtain it for them; and where one is satisfied, four become discontented; while the dishonest and idle portion of their brother soldiers, who have no real wrongs to complain of, and feign them only to get leave of absence, throw all the burthen of their duties upon them. Others again, by fraud and collusion with those whose influence they require to urge their claims, often obtain more than they have any right to; and their unmerited success tends to increase the dissatisfaction felt by the honest, and more scrupulous portion of the native officers and sipahees who have failed to obtain anything.

Government will not do away with the privilege without first ascertaining the views and wishes of the military authorities. They are not favourable to the abolition, for though the honest and hard- working sipahees may say that it is of no use to them, the idle and unscrupulous, who consider it as a lottery in which they may sometimes draw a prize, or a means of getting leave of absence when they are not entitled to it, will tell them that the fidelity of the whole native army depends upon its being maintained and extended. I am of opinion, after much consideration, and a good deal of experience in the political working of the system, that the abolition of the privilege would be of great advantage to the native army; and it would certainly relieve the European officers from much importunity and annoyance which they now suffer from its enforcement. It is not uncommon for a sipahee of a regiment in Bombay to obtain leave of absence for several times over for ten months at a time, on the pretence of having a case pending in Oude. When his leave is about to expire, he presents a petition to the Resident, who obtains for him from the Court an order for the local authorities to settle his claim. This order is sent to the officer commanding his regiment. The man then makes up a piteous story of his having spent the whole ten months in prosecuting his claim in vain, when, in reality, he has been enjoying himself at home, and had no claim whatever to settle. The next year, or the year after, he gets another ten months' leave, for the same purpose, and when it is about to expire, he presents himself to the Resident, and declares that the local authorities have been changed, and the new officers pay no regard to the King's orders. New orders are then got for the new officers, and sent to his regiment, and the same game is played over again.

Native officers and sipahees, in the privilege of presenting petitions through the Resident, are now restricted to their own claims and those of their wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. They cannot petition through the Resident for the redress of wrongs suffered, or pretended to have been suffered, by any other relations. In consequence, it has become a common custom with them to lend or sell their names to more remote relations, or to persons not related to them at all. The petition is made out in their own name, and the real sufferer or pretended sufferer, who is to prosecute the claim, is named as the mookteear or attorney. A great many bad characters have in this way deprived men of lands which their ancestors had held in undisputed right of property for many generations or centuries; for the Court, to save themselves from the importunity of the Residency, has often given orders for the claimant being put in possession of the lands without due inquiry or any inquiry at all. The sipahees are, in consequence, much dreaded by the people among whom they reside; for there really is no class of men from whom it is more difficult to get the truth in any case. They have no fear of punishment, because all charges against them for fraud, falsehood, or violation of the rules laid down by Government have to be submitted either to a court-martial, composed of native officers, or to the Governor-General. Both involve endless trouble, and it would, I fear, be impossible to get a conviction before a court-martial so composed. No Resident will ever submit to a Governor-General the scores of flagrant cases that every month come before him; still less will he worry unoffending and suffering people by causing them to be summoned to give evidence before a military court.

In a recent instance (July 1851), a sipahee in a regiment stationed at Lucknow was charged before a court-martial with three abuses of the privilege. He required no less than seventy-four witnesses to be summoned in his defence. The Court had to wait till what could be got out of the seventy-four appeared, and the man became an object of sympathy, because he was kept so long in arrest. He named the first Assistant to the Resident, who has charge of the Sipahee Petition Department, as a witness; and he was not, in consequence, permitted to attend the Court on the part of the Resident, who preferred the charges, though he was never called or examined by the Court on the part of the defence. The naming him, and the summoning of so many witnesses were mere ruses on the part of the sipahee to escape. No person on the part of the Resident was allowed to attend the Court and see that his witnesses were examined; nor had he any means of knowing whether they were or not. He had reason to believe that the most important were not. The sipahee was of course acquitted, as sipahees charged with such abuses of the privilege always will be. This man's regiment was at Lucknow, and near the place where the cause of action arose, his own village, and the Resident's office. How much more difficult would it be to get a conviction against a sipahee whose regiment happens to be many hundred miles off!

The transfer of their lands from the jurisdiction of the local authorities to that of the Hozoor Tehseel is often the cause of much suffering to their copartners and neighbours. Their co-sharers in the land often find much inconvenience from it, and apprehend that, sooner or later, the influence of the sipahee will enable him to add their shares to his own. The village so transferred, being removed from the observation and responsibility of the local authorities, often becomes a safe refuge for the bad characters of the district, who thence depredate upon the country around with impunity. Claims to villages, to which the claimant had really no right whatever, have been successfully prosecuted by or through sipahees, for the sole purpose of having them transferred to the Hozoor Tehseel, and made dens of thieves and highway robbers. The person in charge of the Hozool Tehseel villages has generally a good deal of influence at Court, and this he lends to such claimants, for a consideration, without fear or scruple, as he feels assured that he shall be able to counteract any representations on the part of the local authorities of the evils suffered from the holders and occupants of such villages. He never pretends to be able to watch over or control the conduct of the holders and occupiers of the villages under his charge, situated, as they mostly are, in remote districts. The transfer of such villages can be justified only in districts that are held in contract, and even in them it might be easy to provide effectually for the protection of the holders from over-exactions on the part of the contractors.

This privilege is attended with infinite difficulty and perplexity to the Resident and Government; and is at the same time exceedingly odious to the people and Government of Oude. Officers commanding regiments and companies have much trouble with such petitions. Able to hear only one side of any question, they think that the evils suffered by the sipahees are much greater and more numerous than they really are, and grant leave to enable them to prosecute their claims to redress more often than is necessary. Men who want leave, when they are not otherwise entitled to it, feign wrongs which they never suffered, or greatly exaggerate such as may really have been inflicted on them in order to obtain it; or, as I have stated, lend their names to others and ask leave to prosecute claims with which they have really nothing whatever to do. The sipahees and native officers of our army are little better with than they would be without the privilege; and a great many enlist or remain in the service solely with the view of better prosecuting their claims, and resign or desert as soon as they have effected their purpose, or find that the privilege is no longer necessary. They make a convenience in this way of our service, and are the most useless soldiers in our ranks. I am persuaded that we should have from Oude just as many and as good recruits for our army without as with this privilege.

The regiments of the Gwalior Contingent get just as good recruits from Oude as those of the Line, though they do not enjoy the privilege. I believe that those corps which did not enjoy the privilege till within the last two years got just as good recruits from Oude as they now do, since it has been extended to them. Till 1848 the privilege was limited to the native officers and soldiers of our regular army, and to such as had been drafted from our regular army into local corps up to a certain date; but in July of that year the privilege was extended to all corps, regular and irregular, attached to the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Presidencies, which are paid by the British Government. The feelings and opinions of the Oude Government had not been consulted in the origin of this privilege, nor were they now consulted in the extension given to it.

Officers commanding regiments and companies complain that the sipahees and native officers never get redress, whatever trouble they take to obtain it for them; and, I believe, they hardly ever hear a sipahee or native officer acknowledge that he has had redress. A sipahee one day came to the first Assistant, Captain Shakespear, clamouring for justice, and declared that not the slightest notice had been taken of his petition by the Oude Government or its local authorities. On being questioned, he admitted that no less than forty persons had been seized and were in prison on his requisition; but he would not admit that this was any proof of the slightest notice having been taken of his complaint. All are worried, and but few benefited by the privilege, and the advantage of it to the army never can counterbalance all the disadvantages. Invalid pensioners do not now enjoy the privilege, but are left to prefer their claims direct to the King's Courts, like others of the King's subjects, on the ground that they cannot--like sipahees still serving--plead distance from their homes; but a large proportion of the sipahees still serving who have, or pretend to have, claims, obtain leave of absence from their regiments to prosecute them in person.

The objection once raised by Lord William Bentinck against our employing troops in support of the Government of Oude against refractory landholders, is equally valid against our advocacy of the claims of sipahees to lands. "If," said his Lordship, "British troops be lent to enforce submission, it seems impossible to avoid becoming parties to the terms of submission and guarantees of their observance afterwards on both sides; in which case we should become mixed up in every detail of the administration." If the sipahee does not pay punctually the assessment upon the lands which he has obtained through the Resident, the Oude Government calls upon the Resident to enforce payment; and if the Oude Government ventures to add a rupee to the rate demanded for the year, or for any one year, the sipahee, through the commandant of his corps, and, perhaps, the Commander-in- Chief and Governor-General, calls upon the Resident to have the rate reduced, or to explain the grounds upon which it has been made; or if the sipahee has a dispute with his numerous co-sharers, the Resident is called upon to settle it. If the King's troops have trespassed, if the crops have suffered from calamities of season or marauders, or the village has been robbed, the sipahee refuses to pay, and demands a remission of the Government demand; and if he does not get it, appeals in the same manner to the Resident. If a sipahee be arrested or detained for defalcation, a demand comes for his immediate release; and if his crops or stock be distrained for balance, or lands attached, the Resident is called upon to ascertain and explain the reason why, and obtain redress. All such distraint is represented as open robbery and pillage.

It is not at all uncommon for a sipahee to obtain leave of absence from his regiment three or four times to enable him to prosecute the same case in person at Lucknow, though he might prosecute it just as well through an attorney. He often enjoys himself at his home while his attorney prosecutes his claim, if he really has any, at Lucknow. The commanding officers of his regiment and company of course believe all he says regarding the pressing necessity for his presence at Lucknow; and few of them know that the cases are derided in the King's Courts, and that the Resident could not possibly decide them himself if he had five times the establishment he has and full powers to do so. If the Resident finds that a sipahee has lent his name to another, and reports his conduct, he makes out a plausible tale, which his commanding officer believes to be true; the Commander-in- Chief is referred to; the case is submitted to the Governor-General, and sometimes to the Court of Directors, and a voluminous correspondence follows, till the Resident grows weary, and the sipahee escapes with impunity. In the mean time, troops of witnesses have been worried to show that the sipahee has no connection whatever with the estate, or thing claimed in his name, or with the family to whom his name was lent. Many a man has, in this way, as above stated, been robbed of an estate which his family had held for many generations; and many a village which had been occupied by an honest and industrious peasantry has been turned into a den of robbers. In flagrant cases of false claims, the Resident may get the attorney, employed by the sipahee in prosecuting it, punished by the Durbar, but he can rarely hope to get the sipahee himself punished.

In a case that occurred shortly before I took charge, a sipahee complained that a tallookdar had removed him, or his friends, from their village by over exactions, demanding two thousand eight hundred rupees a-year instead of eight hundred. An ameen was sent out to the district to settle the affair. Having some influence at Court, he got the sipahee put into possession, at the rate of eight hundred, and obtained from him a pledge to pay to him, the ameen, a large portion of the two thousand profit! The tallookdar, being a powerful man, made the contractor reduce his demand upon his estate, of which the village was a part, in proportion; and the contractor made the Government give him credit for the whole two thousand eight hundred, which the estate was well able to pay, in any other hands, and ought to have paid. The holder continued, I believe, to pay the ameen, who continued to give him the benefit of his influence at Court. Cases of this kind are not uncommon. The Resident is expected by commandants of corps and companies to secure every native officer and sipahee in the possession of his estate at a fixed rate, in perpetuity; and as many of their relations and friends as may contrive to have their claims presented through the Resident in their names. He is expected to adjust all disputes that may arise between them and their co- sharers and neighbours; or between them and their landholders and Government officers; to examine all their complicated accounts of collections and balances, fair payments, and secret gratuities.

Sipahees commonly enter the service under false names, and give false names to their relatives and places of abodes, in order that they may not be traced if they desert; or that the truth may not be discovered if they pretend to be of higher caste than they really are, or otherwise offend. When they find, in the prosecution of their claims through the Resident, that this is discovered, they find an alias for each name, whether of person, place, or thing: the troubles and perplexities which arise from this privilege are endless.

The Court of Directors, in a despatch dated the 4th March, 1840, remarking on a report dated the 29th November, 1838, from the Resident, Colonel Low, relating to abuses arising from the interference of the Resident in respect to complaints preferred by subjects of Oude serving in our army, observes, "that these abuses appear to be even more flagrant than the Court had previously believed them to be, and no time ought to be lost in applying an effectual remedy: cases are not wanting in which complaints and claims, that are utterly groundless, meet with complete success, the officers of the Oude Government finding it less troublesome to comply with the unjust demand than to investigate the case in such a manner as to satisfy the Resident; and the Oude Government, for the purpose of getting rid of importunity, reduces the assessment on the lands of these favoured individuals, making up the loss by increased exactions from their neighbours." The Court orders the immediate abolition of the privilege in the case of invalided and pensioned sipahees, and directs that those still serving in our army be no longer allowed to complain in respect of all their relatives, real or pretended, but only in cases in which they themselves, their parents, wives, or children are actually interested. "All unfounded complaints, and all false allegations made in order to render complaints cognizable, ought to be, when discovered, punishable by our own military authorities, who ought not to be remiss in inflicting such punishment when justly incurred." "Under the restrictions which we have enjoined," continues the Court, "the trial may once more be made whether this privilege is compatible with good government in Oude, and with the rightful authority of the King of Oude and his officers. Should the abuses which have prevailed still continue under the altered system, the whole subject must be again taken into consideration, and the Resident is to be required to submit a report on the operation of the privilege after the expiration of one year."

How the rule with regard to relationship is evaded has been already stated, and among the numerous instances of this evasion that have been discovered every year since this order of the Honourable Court was passed, the offence has never been punished by any military authority in one. The Resident has no hope, nor the sipahee any fear, that such an offence will ever be punished by a court-martial; and the former feels averse to trespass on the time and attention of the Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief with such references. He hardly ever submits them till the necessity is forced upon him by references made to the Commander-in-Chief, by officers commanding regiments, in behalf of offenders in whose veracity they are disposed to place too much confidence.

In one of the cases quoted by Colonel Low in his letter of the 29th November, 1838, Reotee Barn, a sipahee, claimed a village, which was awarded to him by the Court, without due inquiry, to avoid further importunity. The owner in possession would not give it up. A large force was sent to enforce the award; lives were lost; the real owner was seized and thrown into gaol, and there died. Reotee Ram had no right whatever to the village, and he could not retain possession among such a sturdy peasantry. His commanding officer again appealed to the Commander-in-Chief, and the case was referred to the Governor- General and to the Honourable the Court of Directors, and a voluminous correspondence took place. It was afterwards fully proved, that the sipahee, Reotee Ram, had never had the slightest ground of claim to the village; and had been induced to set up one solely at the instigation of an interested attorney with whom he was to share the profits.

In another case quoted by Colonel Low in that letter, a pay havildar of the 58th Regiment complained, jointly with his brother Cheyda, through the Commander-in-Chief, to the Governor-General, in June 1831, stating, that Rajah Prethee Put had murdered two of his relations, plundered his house, burnt his title-deeds, cut down five of his mango-groves, seized seventy-three beegahs of land belonging to him, of hereditary right, turned all his family out of the village, including the widows of the two murdered men, and still held in confinement his relative Teekaram, a sipahee of the Bombay army. On investigation before the Assistant Resident, Captain Shakespear, the havildar and Cheyda admitted-first, that Teekaram had rejoined his regiment before they complained; second, that of the two murdered men, one had been killed fifty-five years before, and the other twenty years, and that both had fallen in affrays between landholders, in which many lives had been lost on both sides; third, that he had never himself held the lands, and that his father had been forty years before deprived of them by the father of Cheyda, who had the best claim to them, and had mortgaged them to a Brahmin, from whom Prethee Put had taken them for defalcation; fourth, that it was not his own claim he was urging, but that of Cheyda, who was not his brother, but the great grandson of his grandfather's brother, and that he had never been in the British service; fifth, that the lands had been taken from his father by Cheyda's father fourteen years before he, the havildar, entered the British service twenty-eight years ago; sixth, that his family had lost nothing in the village, by Prethee Put, and that the persons deprived of their mango-groves were only very distantly related to him.

Fuzl Allee, a notorious knave, having, in collusion with the local authorities of the district, taken from Hufeez-ollah the village of Dewa, which had been held by his family in proprietory right for many generations, and tried to extort from him a written resignation of all his rights to the lands, Hufeez-ollah made his escape, and went to Lucknow to seek redress. During his absence his relations tried to recover possession, and in the contest one of Fuzl Allee's followers was killed. Fuzl Allee then prevailed upon Ihsan Allee, a pay havildar in the 9th Regiment of our Cavalry, who was in no way whatever connected with the parties, and had no claim whatever on the lands, to present a petition to the Resident, charging Hufeez-ollah with having committed a gang-robbery upon his house, and murdered one of his servants. Hufeez-ollah was seized and thrown into prison, and the case was made over for trial to Zakir Allee. No proof whatever having been adduced against him for four months, Zakir Allee declared him innocent, and applied for his release; but before his application reached the Durbar, another petition was presented to the Resident, Colonel Richmond, in the name of the pay havildar; and the Durbar ordered that the case should be made over to the Court of Mahommed Hyat, and that the prisoner should not be released without a settlement and the previous sanction of the Durbar, as the affair related to the English.

The prisoner proved that he was at Lucknow at the time of the affray, and that the lands in dispute had belonged to his family for many generations. No proof whatever was produced against him, but by frequently changing the attorneys of the pay havildar, pretending that he required to attend in person but could not get leave of absence, and other devices, Fuzl Allee contrived to postpone the final decision till the 27th of February, 1849, when Mahommed Hyat acquitted the prisoner, and declared that the pay havildar had in reality no connection whatever either with the parties or with the lands; that his name had been used by Fuzl Allee for his own evil purposes; that he had become very uneasy at the thought of keeping an innocent man so long in prison merely to gratify the malice and evil designs of his enemy; and prayed the Durbar to call upon the prosecutor to prove his charges before the Minister or other high officer within a certain period, or to direct the release of the poor man.

On the 16th of January, 1852, the prisoner sent a petition to the Resident, Colonel Sleeman, to say, that after he had been acquitted by Mahommed Hyat on the 27th of February, 1849, his enemy, Fuzl Allee, had contrived to prevail upon the Durbar to have his case made over to the Court of the Suder-os Sudoor, by whom he had been a third time acquitted; but that the Durbar dared not order his release, as the case was one in which British officers were concerned. He therefore prayed that the Resident would request the King to order his release, on his giving security for his appearance when required, as he had been in prison for more than four years. On the 24th of January, 1852, the Resident requested the King to have the prisoner immediately released. This was the first time that the case came to the notice of Colonel Sleeman, though Hufeez-ollah had been four years in prison, under a fictitious charge from the pay havildar.

January 11, 1850.--At Nawabgunge, detained by rain, which fell heavily all last night, to the great delight of the landed interest, and great discomfort of travellers. Nothing but mud around us--our tents wet through, but standing, and the ground inside of them dry. Fortunately there has been no strong wind with the heavy rain, and we console ourselves with the thought that the small inconvenience which travellers suffer from such rain at this season is trifling, compared with the advantage which millions of our fellow-creatures derive from it. This is what I have heard all native travellers say, however humble or however great--all sympathise with the landed interests in a country where industry is limited almost exclusively to the culture of the soil, and the revenue of the sovereign derived almost exclusively from the land. After such rains the cold increases--the spirits rise--the breezes freshen--the crops look strong--the harvest is retarded--the grain gets more sap and becomes perfect--the cold season is prolonged, as the crops remain longer green, and continue to condense the moisture of the surrounding atmosphere. Without such late rain, the crops ripen prematurely, the grain becomes shrivelled, and defective both in quantity and quality. While the rain lasts, however, a large camp is a wretched scene; for few of the men, women, and children, and still fewer of the animals it contains, can find any shelter at all!

January 12, 1850.-At Nawabgunge, still detained by rain. The Minister had ordered out tents for himself and suite on the 8th, but they had not come up, and I was obliged to lend him one of my best, and some others as they came up, or they would have been altogether without shelter. When he left them on the 10th, his attendants cut and took away almost all the ropes, some of the kanats or outer walls, and some of the carpets. He knew nothing about it, nor will he ever learn anything till told by me. His attendants were plundering in all the surrounding villages while he remained; and my people tried in vain to prevent them, lest they should themselves be taken for the plunderers. Of all this the Minister knew nothing. The attendants on the contractors and other local officers are, if possible, still worse; and throughout the country the King's officers all plunder, or acquiesce in the plunder, utterly regardless of the sufferings of the people and the best interests of their Sovereign. No precaution whatever is taken to prevent this indiscriminate plunder by the followers of the local authorities; nor would any one of them think it worth his while to interpose if he saw the roofs of the houses of a whole village moving off on the heads of his followers to his camp; or a fine crop of sugar-cane, wheat, or vegetables cut down for fodder by them before his face. It is the fashion of the country, and the Government acquiesces in it.

Among the people no man feels mortified, or apprehends that he shall stand the worse in the estimation of the Government or its officers, for being called and proved to be a robber. It is the trade of every considerable landholder in the country occasionally, and that of a great many of them perpetually; the murder of men, women, and children generally attends their depredations. A few days ago, when requested by the King to apply to officers commanding stations, and magistrates of bordering districts, for aid in the arrest of some of the most atrocious of these rebels and robbers, I told his Majesty, that out of consideration for the poor people who suffered, I had made a requisition for that aid for the arrest of three of the worst of them; but that I could make no further requisition until he did something to remove the impression now universal over Oude, that those who protected their peasantry managed their estates well, obeyed the Government in all things, and paid the revenue punctually, were sure to be oppressed, and ultimately ruined by the Government and its officers, while those who did the reverse in all these things were equally sure to be favoured and courted.

As an instance, I mentioned Gholam Huzrut, who never paid his revenues, oppressed his peasantry, murdered his neighbours, and robbed them of their estates, attacked and plundered the towns around with his large band of robbers, and kept the country in a perpetual state of disorder; yet, when seized and sent in a prisoner to Lucknow by Captain Bunbury, he managed to bribe courtiers, and get orders sent out to the local authorities to have his son kept in possession of all his ill-gotten lands, and favoured and protected in all possible ways. I knew that such orders had been obtained by bribery; and the Minister told me, that he had ordered nothing more than that the son should have the little land which had been held of old by the family, and should be required to give up all that he had usurped. I showed him a copy of the order issued by his confidential servant, Abid Allee, to all commanders of troops in the district, which had been obtained for me for the occasion of the Minister's visit to my camp; and he seemed much ashamed to see that his subordinates should so abase the confidence he placed in them. The order was as follows:-

"_To the Officers commanding the Forces in the District of Sidhore, Nawabgunge, Dewa, &c._

"By Order of the Minister.--The King's chuprassies have been sent to Para to invite in Bhikaree the son of Gholam Huzrut; and you all are informed that the said Bhikaree is to be honoured and cherished by the favour of the King; and if any of you should presume to prevent his coming in, or molest him in the possession of any of the lands he holds, you will incur the severe displeasure of his Majesty. You are, on no account, to molest or annoy him in any way connected with his affairs.

(Signed) "ABID ALLEE."

The thing necessary in Oude is a system and a machinery that shall inspire all with a feeling-first, of security in their tenure in office so long as the duties of it are performed ably and honestly; second, in their tenure in their lands assessed at moderate rates, as long as the rents and revenues so assessed are fully and punctually paid, and the duties of the holders towards the Government, their tenants, and the public, are faithfully discharged; third, in the safety of life, person, and property on the roads and in the towns, villages, and hamlets scattered over the country. This good can never be effected with the present system and machinery, whatever be the ability and diligence of the King, the Minister, and the Resident; be they of the highest possible order, the good they can effect must be small and temporary; there can be, under such a system, no stability in any rule, no feeling of security in any person or thing!

A tribunal, formed under the guarantee of the British Government, might, possibly--first, form a settlement of the land revenue of the whole country, and effectually enforce from all parties, the fulfilment of the conditions it imposed; second, decide, finally, upon all charges against public officers--protect the able and honest, and punish all those who neglect their duties or abuse their authority; third, reform the military force in all its branches--give it the greatest possible efficiency, compatible with the outlay-- concentrate it at five or six stations, and protect the people of the country from its rapacity; fourth, raise and form a police, distinct altogether from this military force, and efficient for all the duties required from it; fifth, create and maintain judicial courts to which all classes might look up with confidence and respect. But to effect all this it would require to transfer at least twenty-five lacs of rupees a-year from the pockets of official absorbants and Court favourites to those of efficient public officers; and, finally, to set aside the present King, Minister, and Commander-in-Chief, and take all the executive upon itself.

The expenditure is now about twenty lacs of rupees a-year above the income, and the excess is paid out of the reserved treasury. This reserved treasury was first established by Saadut Allee Khan in A.D. 1801, when he had serious thoughts of resigning the government of his country into the hands of the Honourable Company, and retiring into private life. Up to this time he used to drink hard, and to indulge in other pleasures, which tended to unfit him for the cares and duties of sovereignty; but, in 1801, he made a solemn vow at the shrine of Huzrut Abbas at Lucknow to cease from all such indulgences, and devote all his time and attention to his public duties. This vow he kept, and no Sovereign of Oude has ever conducted the Government with so much ability as he did for the remaining fourteen years of his life. On his death, which took place on the 12th of July, 1814, he left in this reserved treasury the sum of fourteen crores of rupees, or fourteen millions sterling, with all his establishments paid up, and his just debts liquidated. When he ascended the musnud on the 21st January, 1798, he found nothing in the Treasury, and the public establishments all much in arrears.

Out of this reserved treasure, the zukaat, or two and a-half per cent., is every year paid to the mojtahid for distribution among the poor of the Sheea sect at Lucknow. No person of the Sonnee sect is permitted to partake of this charity. Syuds or lineal descendants of the Prophet are not permitted to take any part of this charity, except for the bonâ fide payment of debt due. The mojtahid is, at the same time, the high priest and the highest judicial functionary in the State. Being a Syud, neither he nor any member of his family can legally take any part of this charity for themselves, except for the bonâ fide purpose of paying debts; but they get over the difficulty by borrowing large sums before the money is given out, and appropriate the greater part of the money to the liquidation of these debts, though they all hold large sums in our Government securities. To his friends at Court he sends a large share, with a request that they will do him the favour to undertake the distribution among the poor of their neighbourhood. To prevent popular clamour, a small portion of the money given out is actually distributed among the poor of the Sheea sect at Lucknow; but that portion is always small.

Saadut Allee's son and successor, Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, spent four crores out of the reserved treasury over and above the whole income of the State; and when he died, on the 20th of October, 1827, he left ten crores of rupees in that treasury. His son and successor, Nusseer-od Deen Hyder, spent nine crores and thirty lacs; and when he died, on the 7th of July, 1837, he left only seventy lacs in the reserved treasury. His successor, Mahommed Allee Shah, died on the 16th of May, 1842, leaving in the reserved treasury thirty-five lacs of rupees, one hundred and twenty-four thousand gold mohurs, and twenty-four lacs in our Government securities--total, seventy-eight lacs and eighty-four thousand rupees. His son and successor, Amjud Allee Shah, died on the 13th of February, 1847, leaving in the reserved treasury ninety-two lacs of rupees, one hundred and twenty- four thousand gold-mohurs, and twenty-four lacs in our Government securities--total, one crore and thirty-six lacs. His son and successor, his present Majesty, Wajid Allee Shah, is spending out of this reserved treasury, over and above the whole income of the country, above twenty lacs of rupees a-year; and the treasury must soon become exhausted. His public establishments, and the stipendiary members of the royal family, are, at the same time, kept greatly in arrears.*

[* November 30, 1851.--The gold-mohurs have been all melted down, and the promissory notes of our Government all, save four lacs, given away; and of the rupees, I believe, only three lacs remain; so that the reserved treasury must be entirely exhausted before the end of 1851; while the establishments and stipendiary members of the royal family are in arrears for from one to three years. Fifty lacs of rupees would hardly suffice to pay off these arrears. The troops on detached duty, in the provinces with local officers, are not so much in arrears as those in and about the capital. They are paid out of the revenues as they are collected, and their receipts sent in to the treasury. For some good or pleasing services rendered by him to the minister this year, in the trial of offenders whom that minister wished to screen, three lacs of rupees have been paid to the mojtahid as zukaat for distribution to the poor. This has all been appropriated by the mojtahid, the minister, and Court favourites.

The State, like individuals, is bound to pay this zukaat only when it is free from debts of all kinds. The present King's father was free from debt, and had his establishments always paid up; and he always paid this charity punctually. The present King is not bound to pay it, but the high-priest, minister, and Court favourites are too deeply interested in its payment to permit its discontinuance; and the king, like a mere child in their hands, acquiesces in all they propose. The zukaat has, in consequence, increased as the treasury has become exhausted.]

January 13, 1850.--Russoolabad, twelve miles, over a country better peopled and cultivated than usual, where the soil admits of tillage. There is a good deal that requires drainage, and still more that is too poor to be tilled without great labour and outlay in irrigation, manure, &c. The villages are, however, much nearer to each other than in any other part of the country that we have passed over; and the lands, close around every village, are well cultivated. The landholders and cultivators told me, that the heavy rain we have had has done a vast deal of good to the crops; and, as it has been followed by a clear sky and fine westerly wind, they have no fear of the blight which might have followed had the sky continued cloudy, and the winds easterly. Certainly nothing could look better than the crops of all kinds do now, and the people are busily engaged in ploughing the land for sugar-cane, and for the autumn crops of next season.

I had some talk with the head zumeendar of Naraenpoor about midway. He is of the Ditchit family of Rajpoots, who abound in the district we have now entered. We passed over the boundary of Byswara, about three miles from our last encampment, and beyond that district there are but few Rajpoots of the Bys clan. These Ditchits give their daughters in marriage to the Bys Rajpoots, but cannot get any of theirs in return. Gunga Sing, the zumeendar, with whom I was talking, told me that both the Ditchits and Byses put their infant daughters to death, and that the practice prevailed more or less in all families of these and, he believed, all other clans of Rajpoots in Oude, save the Sengers.* I asked him whether it prevailed in his own family, and he told me that it did, more or less, as in all others. I bade him leave me, as I could not hold converse with a person guilty of such atrocities, and told him that they would be all punished for them in the next world, if not in this.

[* The Sengers are almost the only class of Rajpoots in Bundelkund, and Boghilcund, Rewa, and the Saugor territories, who used to put their female infants to death; and here, in Oude, they are almost the only class who do not.]

Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, who was on his horse beside my elephant, said, "They are all punished in this world, and will, no doubt, be punished still more in the next. Scarcely any of the heads of these landed aristocracy are the legitimate sons of their predecessors; they are all adopted, or born of women of inferior grade. The heads of families who commit or tolerate such atrocities become leprous, blind, deaf or dumb, or are carried off in early life by some terrible disease. Hardly any of them attain a good old age, nor can they boast of an untainted line of ancestors like other men. If they get sons, they commonly die young. They unite themselves to women of inferior castes for want of daughters in families of their own ranks, and there is hardly a family among these proud Rajpoots unstained by such connections.* Even the reptile Pausies become Rajpoots by giving their daughters to Powars and other Rajpoot families, when by robbery and murder they have acquired wealth and landed property. The sister of Gunga Buksh, of Kasimgunge, was married to the Rajah of Etondeea, a Powar Rajpoot in Mahona; and the present Rajah--Jode Sing--is her son. Gunga Buksh is a Pausee, but the family call themselves Rawats, and are considered to be Rajpoots, since they have acquired landed possessions by the murder and ruin of the old proprietors. They all delight in murder and rapine--the curse of God is upon them, sir, for the murder of their own innocent children!"

[* A great number of girls are purchased and stolen from our territories, brought into Oude, and sold to Rajpoot families, as wives for their sons, on the assurance, that they are of the same or higher caste, and that their parents have been induced to part with them from poverty. A great many of our native officers and sipahees, who marry while home on furlough, and are pressed for time, get such wives. Some of their neighbours are always bribed by the traders in such girls, to pledge themselves for the purity of their blood. If they ever find out the imposition, they say nothing about it.]

"When I was sent out to inquire into the case of Brigadier Webber, who had been attacked and robbed while travelling in his palkee, with relays of bearers, from Lucknow to Seetapoor, I entered a house to make some inquiries, and found the mistress weeping. I asked the cause, and she told me that she had had four children, and lost all-- that three of them were girls, who had been put to death in infancy, and the last was a fine boy, who had just died! I told her that this was a just punishment from God for the iniquities of her family, and that I would neither wash my hands nor drink water under her roof. I never do under the roof of any family in which such a cruel practice prevails. These Rajpoots are all a bad set, sir. When men murder their own children, how can they scruple to murder other people? The curse of God is upon them, sir.

"In the district of Byswara," he continued, "through which we have just passed, you will find at least fifty thousand men armed to fight against each other, or their government and its officers: in such a space, under the Honourable Company's dominion, you would not find one thousand armed men of the same class. Why is this, but because you do not allow such crimes to be perpetrated? Why do you go on acquiring dominion over one country after another with your handful of European troops and small force of native sipahees, but because God sees that your rule is just, and that you have an earnest desire to benefit the people and improve the countries you take?"

He told me that he had charge of the cattle under Saadut Allee Khan when Lord Lake took the field at the first siege of Bhurtpoor; that his master lent his Lordship five hundred elephants, eight thousand artillery bullocks, and five hundred horses; that two hundred and fifty of the elephants returned; but whether any of the bullocks and horses came back or not he could not say.

The country we came over to-day is well studded with groves and fine single trees, but the soil is generally of the lighter doomuteea kind, which requires much labour and outlay in water and manure. The irrigation is all from wells and pools. In the villages we came through, we saw but few of the sipahees of our army home on furlough; they are chiefly from the Byswara and Bunoda districts. We found our tents pitched upon a high and dry spot, with a tight soil of clay and sand. After the heavy rain we have had, it looked as if no shower had fallen upon it for an age. The mud walls of the houses we saw on the road were naked, as usual. The rapacity of the King's troops is everywhere, directly or indirectly, the cause of this: and till they are better provided and disciplined the houses in the towns and villages can never improve.

The commandant, Imdad Hoseyn, of the Akberee or Telinga Regiment, on duty with the Amil of the Poorwa district, in which our camp was last pitched, followed me a few miles this morning to beg that I would try to prevail upon the Durbar to serve out clothing for his corps. He told me that the last clothing it got from the Government was on the occasion of Lord Hastings' visit to Lucknow, some thirty-three years ago, in 1817; that many orders had been given since that time for new clothing, but there was always some one about Court to counteract them, from malice or selfishness; that his father, Zakir Allee, commanded the corps when it got the last clothing, and he succeeded him many years ago. The Telinga Regiments are provided with arms, accoutrements, and clothing by Government. The sipahees formerly got five rupees a-month, but for only ten months in the year; they now get four rupees and three and a-half annas a-month for all the twelve months. 'He is, he says, obliged to take a great many sufarashies, or men put in by persons of influence at Court, out of favour, or for the purpose of sharing in their pay; and, under the deductions and other disadvantages to which they are liable, he could get no good men to enlist. The corps, in consequence, has a wretched appearance, and certainly could not be made formidable to an enemy. The "Akbery" is one of the Telinga corps of infantry, and was intended to be, in all things, like those of Captains Barlow, Bunbury, and Magness; but Imdad Hoseyn told me that they had a certain weight at Court, which secured for their regiments many advantages necessary to make the corps efficient, while he had none: that they had occasional intercourse with the Resident, and were all at Court for some months in the year to make friends, while he was always detached.

January 14, 1850.--Halted at Russoolabad, for our second set of tents, which did not come up till night, when it was too late to send them on to our next ground. We have two sets of sleeping and dining tents--one to go on and the other to remain during the night--but only one set of office tents. They are struck in the afternoon, when the office duties of the day are over, and are ready by the time we reach our ground the next morning. This is the way in which all public functionaries march in India. Almost all officers who have revenue charges march through the districts under their jurisdiction during the cold season, and so do many political officers who have control over more than one native principality. I have had charges that require such moving ever since the year 1822, or for some twenty-eight years; and with the exception of two intervals of absence on medical certificate in 1826 and 1836, I have been every cold season moving in the way I describe.

No Resident at the Court of Lucknow ever before moved, over the country as I am doing to inquire into the condition of the people, the state of the country, and character of the administration; nor would it be desirable for them to do so unless trained to civil business, and able and disposed to commune freely with the people of all classes. The advantages would hardly counterbalance the disadvantages. When I apologize to the peasantry for the unavoidable trespasses of my camp, they always reply good-humouredly, "The losses we suffer from them are small and temporary, while the good we hope from your visit is great and permanent." Would that I could realize the hopes to which my visit gives rise.

January 15, 1850.--To Meeangunge, five miles, over a plain of good doomuteea soil, well studded with trees; but much of the land lies waste, and many of the villages and hamlets are unoccupied and in ruins. We passed the boundary of the Russoolabad district, about two miles from our last ground, and crossed into that of Meeangunge or Safeepoor. The Russoolabad district was held in contract for some years by one of the greatest knaves in Oude, Buksh Allee, a dome by caste, whose rise to wealth and influence may be described as illustrative of the manners and customs of the Lucknow Court and Government. This man and his deputy, Munsab Allee, reduced a good deal of the land of the district to waste, and depopulated many of its villages and hamlets by over-exactions and by an utter disregard of their engagements with the landholders and cultivators; and they were in league with many atrocious highway robbers, who plundered and murdered so many travellers along the high road leading from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, which runs through the district, that it was deemed unsafe to pass it except in strong bodies.

When I took charge of my office in January last, they used to seize every good-looking girl or young woman, passing the roads with parents and husbands, who were too poor to purchase redress at Court, and make slaves or concubines of them; and, feeling strong in the assurance of protection from the fiddlers in the palace, who are of the same caste--domes--Buksh Allee defied all authority, and kept those girls and women in his camp and house at Lucknow, while their parents and husbands, for months and years, in vain besought all who were likely to have the least influence or authority to interpose for their release. Some of them came to me soon after I took charge, and, having collected sufficient proof of these atrocities, and of some robberies which he had committed or caused to be committed along the high road, I insisted upon his being deprived of his charges and punished. He remained for many months concealed in the city, but was at last seized by some of the Frontier Police, under the guidance of an excellent officer, Lieutenant Weston, the Superintendent.

I had prevailed on the King to offer two thousand rupees for his apprehension, and the two thousand rupees were distributed among the captors. The girls and young women were released, their parents and husbands compensated for the sufferings they had endured, and many of the persons who had been robbed by him and his deputy had the value of their lost property made good. Great impediments were thrown in the way of all this by people of influence about Court; but they were all surmounted by great skill and energy on the part of Lieutenant Weston and steady perseverance on mine; and Buksh Allee remained in gaol, treated as a common felon, till all was effected. All had, in appearance, been done by the King's officers, but in reality by ours, under his Majesty's sanction, for it was clear that nothing would be done unless we supervised and guided their proceedings. The district is now held in contract by a very respectable man, Mahommed Uskaree, who has taken it for four years.

The district of Safeepoor, in which we are now encamped, has been held in contract for five years by Budreenath, a merchant of Lucknow, who had given security for the former contractor. He could not fulfil his engagements to Government, and the contract was made over to him as surety, on condition that he paid the balance. He has held it ever since, while his younger brother, Kiddernath, has conducted their mercantile affairs at Lucknow. Budreenath has always considered the affair as a mercantile speculation, and thought of nothing but the amount he has to pay to Government and that which he can squeeze out of the landholders and cultivators. He is a bad manager; the lands are badly tilled, and the towns, villages, and hamlets are scantily peopled and most wretched in appearance.

Near the border, we passed one village, Mahommedpoor, entirely in ruins. After some search we found a solitary man of the Pausee tribe, who told us that it had been held for many generations by the family of Rugonath, a Gouree Rajpoot, who paid for it at an uniform rate of six hundred rupees a-year. About three years ago the contractor demanded from him an increased rate, which he could not pay. Being sorely pressed, he fled to the jungles with the few of his clan that he could collect, and ordered all the cultivators to follow his fortunes. They were of a different clan--mostly Bagheelas--and declined the honour. He urged that, if they followed him for a season or two, the village would be left untilled, and yield nothing to the contractor, who would be constrained to restore him to possession at the rate which his ancestors had paid; that his family had nothing else to depend upon, and if they did not desert the land and take to the jungles and plunder with him, he must, of necessity, plunder them. They had never done so, and would not do so now. He attacked and plundered the village three times, killed three men, and drove all the rest to seek shelter and employment in other villages around. Not a soul but himself, our informant, was left, and the lands lay waste. Rogonath Sing rented a little land in the village of Gouree, many miles off, and in another district, still determined to allow no man but himself to hold the village or restore its tillage and population. This, said the Pausee, is the usage of the country, and the only way in which a landholder can honestly or effectually defend himself against the contractor, who would never regard his rights unless he saw that he was prepared to defend them in this way, and determined to involve all under him in his own ruin, depopulate his estate, and lay waste his lands.

Meean Almas, after whom this place, Meeangunge, takes his name, was an eunuch. He had a brother, Rahmut, after whom the town of Rahmutgunge, which we passed some days ago, took its name. Meean Almas was the greatest and best man of any note that Oude has produced. He held for about forty years this and other districts, yielding to the Oude Government an annual revenue of about eighty lacs of rupees. During all this time he kept the people secure in life and property, and as happy as people in such a state of society can be; and the whole country under his charge was, during his life- time, a garden. He lived here in a style of great magnificence, and was often visited by his sovereign, who used occasionally to spend a month at a time with him at Meeangunge. A great portion of the lands held by him were among those made over to the British Government, on the division of the Oude territory, by the treaty of 1801, concluded between Saadut Allee Khan and the then Governor-General Lord Wellesley.

The country was then divided into equal shares, according to the rent-roll at the time. The half made over to the British Government has been ever since yielding more revenue to us, while that retained by the sovereign of Oude has been yielding less and less to him; and ours now yields, in land-revenue, stamp-duty, and the tax on spirits, two crore and twelve lacs a-year, while the reserved half now yields to Oude only about one crore, or one crore and ten lacs. When the cession took place, each half was estimated at one crore and thirty- three lacs. Under good management the Oude share might, in a few years, be made equal to ours, and perhaps better, for the greater part of the lands in our share have been a good deal impoverished by over-cropping, while those of the Oude share have been improved by long fallows. Lands of the same natural quality in Oude, under good tillage, now pay a much higher rate of rent than they do in our half of the estate.

Almas Allee Khan, at the close of his life, was supposed to have accumulated immense wealth; but when he died he was found to have nothing, to the great mortification of his sovereign, who seized upon all. Large sums of money had been lent by him to the European merchants at Lucknow, as well as to native merchants all over the country. When he found his end approaching, he called for all their bonds and destroyed them. Mr. Ousely and Mr. Paul were said to have at that time owed to him more than three lacs of rupees each. His immense income he had expended in useful works, liberal hospitality, and charity. He systematically kept in check the tallookdars, or great landholders; fostered the smaller, and encouraged and protected the better classes of cultivators, such as Lodhies, Koormies, and Kachies, whom he called and considered his children. His reign over the large extent of country under his jurisdiction is considered to have been its golden age. Many of the districts which he held were among those transferred to the British Government by the treaty of 1801; and they were estimated at the revenue which he had paid for them to the Oude Government. This was much less than any other servant of the Oude Government would have been made to pay for them; and this accounts, in some measure, for the now increased rate they yield to us. Others pledged themselves to pay rates which they never did or could pay; and the nominal rates in the accounts were always greater than the real rates. He never pledged himself to pay higher rates than he could and really did pay.

Now the tallookdars keep the country in a perpetual state of disturbance, and render life, property, and industry everywhere insecure. Whenever they quarrel with each other, or with the local authorities of the Government, from whatever cause, they take to indiscriminate plunder and murder over all lands not held by men of the same class; no road, town, village, or hamlet is secure from their merciless attacks; robbery and murder become their diversion-- their sport; and they think no more of taking the lives of men, women, and children who never offended them, than those of deer or wild hogs. They not only rob and murder, but seize, confine, and torture all whom they seize, and suppose to have money or credit, till they ransom themselves with all they have, or can beg or borrow. Hardly a day has passed since I left Lucknow in which I have not had abundant proof of numerous atrocities of this kind committed by landholders within the district through which I was passing, year by year, up to the present day. The same system is followed by landholders of smaller degrees and of this military class--some holders of single villages or co-sharers in a village. This class comprises Rajpoots of all denominations, Mussulmans, and Pausies. Where one co-sharer in a village quarrels with another, or with the Government authorities, on whatever subject, he declares himself in a state of war, and adopts the same system of indiscriminate plunder and reckless murder. He first robs the house and murders all he can of the family of the co-sharer with whom he has quarrelled, or whose tenement he wishes to seize upon; and then gets together all he can of the loose characters around, employs them in indiscriminate plunder, and subsists them upon the booty, without the slightest apprehension that he shall thereby stand less high in the estimation of his neighbours, or that of the officers of Government; on the contrary, he expects, when his pastime is over, to be at least more feared and courted, and more secure in the possession of increased lands, held at lower rates.

All this terrible state of disorder arises from the Government not keeping faith with its subjects, and not making them keep faith with each other. I one day asked Rajah Hunmunt Sing how it was that men guilty of such crimes were tolerated in society, and he answered by quoting the following Hindee couplet:--"Men reverence the man whose heart is wicked, as they adore and make offerings to the evil planet, while they let the good pass unnoticed, or with a simple salute of courtesy."*

[* There is another Hindee verse to the same effect. "Man dreads a crooked thing--the demon Rahoo dares not seize the moon till he sees her full." They consider the eclipse to be caused by the demon Rahoo seizing the moon in his mouth.]

The contractor for this district, Budreenath, came to call in the afternoon, though he is suffering much from disease. He bears a good character with the Government, because he contrives to pay its demand; but a very bad one among the people, from whom he extorts the means. He does not adhere to his engagements with the landholders and cultivators, but exacts, when the crops are ripe, a higher rate than they had engaged to pay at the commencement of tillage; and the people suffer not only from what he takes over and above what is due, but from the depredations of those whom such proceedings drive into rebellion. Against such persons he is too weak to protect them; and as soon as the rebels show that they can reduce his income by plundering and murdering the peasantry, and all who have property in the towns and villages, he re-establishes them on their lands on their own terms. He had lately, however, by great good luck, seized two very atrocious characters of this description, who had plundered and burnt down several villages, and murdered some of their inhabitants; and as he knew that they would be released on the first occasion of thanksgiving at Lucknow, having the means to bribe Court favourites, he begged my permission to make them over to Lieutenant Weston, superintendent of the Frontier Police, as robbers by profession. "If they come back, sir, they will murder all who have aided in their capture, or given evidence against them, and no village or road will be safe."

Some shopkeepers in the town complained that the contractor was in the habit of forcing them to stand sureties for the fulfilment, on the part of landholders, of any engagements they might make, to pay him certain sums, or to make over to him certain land produce at the harvest. This, they said, often involved them in heavy losses, as the landholders frequently could not, or would not, do either when the time came, and they were made to pay. This is a frequent practice throughout Oude. Shopkeepers and merchants who have property are often compelled by the contractors and other local officers to give such security for bad or doubtful paymasters with whom they may happen to have had dealings or intercourse, and by this means robbed of all they have. All manner of means are resorted to to compel them: they and their families are seized and confined, and harshly or disgracefully treated, till they consent to sign the security bonds. The plea that the bonds had been forced from them would not avail in any tribunal to which they might appeal: it would be urged against them that the money was for the State; and this would be considered as quite sufficient to justify the Government officer who had robbed them. The brief history which I propose to give of Buksh Allee, the late contractor for the Russoolabad district, is as follows:--

Mokuddera Ouleea, one of the consorts of the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, was the daughter of Mr. George Hopkins Walters, a half-pay officer of one of the regiments of British Dragoons, who came to Lucknow as an adventurer. He there united himself (though not in marriage) to the widow of Mr. Whearty, an English merchant or shopkeeper of that city, who had recently died, leaving this widow, who was the daughter of Mr. Culloden, an English merchant of Lucknow, and one son, now called Ameer Mirza, and one daughter, now called Shurf-on Nissa. By Mr. Walters this widow had one daughter, who afterwards became united to the King in marriage (in 1827), under the title of "Mokuddera Ouleea." Mr. Walters died at Lucknow, and the widow and two daughters went to reside at Cawnpoor. The daughters were good-looking, and the mother was disposed to make the most of their charms, without regard to creed or colour.

Buksh Allee, a dome by caste, who had been by profession a drummer to a party of dancing-girls, served them as a coachman and table attendant. At Cawnpoor he cohabited with Mrs. Walters, and prevailed upon her to take her children back to Lucknow as the best possible market for them, as he had friends at Court who would be able to bring them to the notice of the sovereign. They were shown to the King as soon as he succeeded his father on the throne in 1827. He was captivated with the charms of Miss Walters, though they were not great, demanded her hand from the mother, and was soon after united to her in marriage according to the Mahommedan law. A suitable establishment was provided by the King for her mother, father-in-law, brother, and sister; and as his Majesty considered that the manner in which Buksh Allee and her mother had hitherto lived together was unsuitable to the connection which now subsisted between them, he caused them to be married in due form according to the Mahommedan law. The mother and her three children now changed their creed for that of Islamism, and took Mahommedan names.

By a deed of engagement with the British Government, hearing date the 1st of March 1829, the King contributed to the five per cent loan the sum of sixty-two lacs and forty thousand rupees, the interest of which, at five per cent., our Government pledged itself to pay to the four females.*

[* Mulika Zumanee, 10,000; Taj Mahal, 6,000; Mokuddera Ouleea, 6,000; Zeenut-on Nissa, the daughter of Mulika Zumanee, 4,000.]

These pensions were to descend in perpetuity to their heirs, if they left any; and if they left none, they were to have the power to bequeath them by will to whomsoever and for what purposes soever they chose, the British Government reserving to itself the power to pay to the heirs the principal from which the pensions arose, instead of continuing the pensions.

The King died in July 1837, and Mokuddera Ouleea went to reside near her mother and Buksh Allee, taking with her great wealth in jewels and other things, which she had accumulated during the King's lifetime. Her sister, Ashrof--alias Shurf-on Nissa--resided in the same house with her mother and Buksh Allee. Mokuddera Ouleea had from the time she became estranged from her husband, the King, led a very profligate life, and she continued to do the same in her widowhood. On the 14th of September 1839, the mother died; and the sister, Shurf-on Nissa, supplied her place, as the wife or concubine of Buksh Allee.

Mokuddera Ouleea became pregnant, and on the 9th of November 1840, she was taken very ill from some violent attempt to produce abortion. She continued insensible and speechless till the evening of the 12th of that month, when she expired. The house which Buksh Allee occupied at that time is within the Residency compound, and had been purchased by Mr. John Culloden, the father of Mrs. Walters, from Mr. George Prendergast on the 22nd of February 1802. Mr. Prendergast purchased the house from Mr. S. M. Taylor, an English merchant at Lucknow, who obtained it from the Nawab Assuf-od Dowlah, as a residence. The Nawab afterwards, on the 5th of January 1797, gave him, through the Resident, Mr. J. Lumsden, permission to sell it to Mr. Prendergast. The remains of Mokuddera Ouleea were interred within the compound of that house, near those of her mother, though the King, Mahommed Allee Shah, wished to have them buried by the side of those of her husband, the late King. The house is still occupied by Shurf-on Nissa, who succeeded to her sister's pension and property, under the sanction of the British Government, and has built, or completed within the enclosure, a handsome mosque and mausoleum.

On the death of Mr. Walters, Mrs. Whearty made application, through the house of Colvin and Co., for the arrears of pension or half-pay due to him up to the time of his death, and for some provision for herself as his widow; but she was told that unless she could produce the usual certificate, or proof of her marriage with him, she could get neither. No proof whatever of the marriage was forthcoming, and the claim was prosecuted no further. Shurf-on Nissa, and her brother and his son, continued to live with Buksh Allee, who, upon the wealth and pension left by Mokuddera Ouleea to her sister, kept up splendid establishments both at Lucknow and Cawnpoor.

At the latter place he associated on terms of great intimacy with the European gentlemen, and is said to have received visits from the Major-General commanding the Division and his lady. With the aid of his wealth and the influence of his brother domes (the singers and fiddlers who surround the throne of his present Majesty), Buksh Allee secured and held for some years the charge of this fertile and populous district of Russoolabad, through which passes the road from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, where, as I have already stated, he kept up bands of myrmidons to rob and murder travellers, and commit all kinds of atrocities. This road became, in consequence, the most unsafe of all the roads in Oude, and hardly a day passed in which murders and robberies were not perpetrated upon it. Proof of his participation in these atrocities having been collected, Buksh Allee was, in October 1849, seized by order of the Resident, tried before the King's Courts, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, and ordered to restore or make good the property which he was proved to have taken, or caused to be taken, from travellers. His house had become filled with girls of all ages, whom he had taken from poor parents, as they passed over this road, and converted into slaves for his seraglio. They were all restored to their parents, with suitable compensation; and the Cawnpoor road has become the most safe, as well as the best, road in Oude.

On the death of Mokuddera Ouleea, a will was sent to the Resident by her sister, who declared that it had been under her sister's pillow for a year, and that she had taken it out on finding her end approaching, and made it over to her, declaring it to contain her last wishes. By this document pensions were bequeathed to the persons mentioned in the note below* out of one-third, and the other two- thirds were bequeathed to her sister and brother. In submitting this document to Government, the Resident declared that he believed it to be a forgery; and in reply he was instructed to ascertain whether the persons named in the document had any objections to consider Shurf-on Nissa sole heir to her sister's property and pension. Should they have none to urge, he was directed to consider her as sole heir, and the pretended will as of no avail. They all agreed to consider her as sole heir; and the Resident was directed to make over to her the property, and pay to her the pension or the principal from which it arose. The Resident considered the continuance of the pension as the best arrangement for the present, and of this Government approved.

[* Buksh Allee, 1,000 rupees per month; Allee Hoseyn, 75; Sooraj Bhan, 40; Syud Hoseyn, 30; Sheik Hingun, 20; Mirza Allee, 30; Ram Deen, 12; Meea Sultan, 15; Sudharee, 10; Imam Buksh, 3; Ala Rukhee, 10; Sadoo Begum, 20; Akbar, 15; Mahdee Begum, 30.]

Shurf-on Nissa has no recognised children, and her brother and his reputed son are her sole heirs, so that no injury can arise to him from the omission, on the part of Government and the Resident, of all mention of his right as co-sharer in the inheritance. Neither brother nor sister had really any legal right whatever to succeed to this pension, for Mokuddera Ouleea was an illegitimate child, and had no legal heirs according to either English or Mahommedan law. This fact seems to have been concealed from the Resident, for he never mentioned it to Government. It was the dread that this fact would cause the whole pension to be sent to the shrines in Turkish Arabia, that made them forge the will. All readily consented to consider Shurf-on Nissa the heir, when they found that our Government had no objection to consider her as such. The King wished to have the money to lay out on bridges and roads in Oude, and the Resident advocated this wish; but our Government, ignorant of the fact of the illegitimacy of the deceased, and with the guaranteed bequest of the late King before them, could not consent to any such arrangement.

Government has long been strongly and justly opposed to all such guarantees, and the Resident was told on the 14th November 1840, "that the Governor-General in Council could not consent to grant the absolute and unqualified pledge of protection which the King was solicitous of obtaining in favour of four other females; and directed to state to his Majesty that, although in the instances he had cited, such guarantees had certainly been afforded in former times, yet they were always given either under the impression of an overruling necessity, or in consequence of some acknowledged claims, or previously existing engagements, the force of which could not be avoided; that their existence had often operated practically in the most embarrassing manner, while it constituted a standing and perpetual infringement of the rights of the Government of Oude; and that his Lordship in Council was, consequently, decidedly opposed to the continuance of a system so plainly at variance with every just principle of policy." The objections of the British Government to such guarantees are stated in letters dated 18th February, 28th March, 20th May, 3rd October, and 19th December 1839, and 11th May 1848.

In a despatch from the Honourable the Court of Directors, dated 4th March 1840, their just disapprobation of such guarantees is expressed; and reference is made to former strong expressions of disapprobation. In their despatch of the 28th March 1843, the Honourable Court again express their disapprobation of such guarantees; and refer to their letter of the 16th March, in which they gave positive orders that no such engagement should ever be concluded without a previous reference to the Court. The argument that the arrangement did not, in any particular case, add to the number of guaranteed persons, such persons being already under guarantee, did not in the opinion of the Court touch the stronger objection to such a measure, that of the impropriety of our aiding, especially by the grant of peculiar privileges, the appropriation of the resources of the State to the advantage of individuals. The Court expresses a hope that they shall never have occasion to notice any future violation of their orders as respects such engagements.

January 16, 1850.--We were to have gone this morning to Ouras, but were obliged to encamp at Burra, eight miles from Meeangunge, on the left bank of the Saee river, which had been too much increased by the late rains to admit of our baggage and tents passing over immediately on anything but elephants. As we have but few of them, our tents were pitched on this side of the river, that our things might have the whole day before them to pass over on carts and camels, as the river subsided. Ouras is three miles from our camp, and we are to pass through it and go on to Sundeela to-morrow. There is no bridge, and boats are not procurable on this small river, which we have to cross and recross several times.

The country from Meeangunge is scantily cultivated, but well studded with trees, and generally fertile under good tillage. The soil is the light doomuteea, but here and there very sandy and poor, running into what is called bhoor. The villages and hamlets which we could see are few and wretched. We have few native officers and sipahees in our army from the districts we are now in, and I am in consequence less oppressed with complaints from this class of the Oude subjects.

We met, near our tents, a party of soldiers belonging to Rajah Ghalib Jung, a person already mentioned, and at present superintendent of police, along the Cawnpoor road, escorting a band of thieves, who robbed Major Scott some ten months ago on his way, by dawk, from Lucknow, and an European merchant, two months ago, on his way, by dawk, from Cawnpoor to Lucknow. They had been seized in the Sundeela districts, and the greater part of the stolen property found in their houses. They are of the Pausie tribe, and told me that thieving was their hereditary trade, and that they had long followed it on the Cawnpoor road with success. The landholder, who kept them upon his estate and shared in their booty, was also seized, but made over to the revenue contractor, who released him after a few days' imprisonment for a gratuity.

Of these Pausies there are supposed to be about one hundred thousand families in Oude. They are employed as village watchmen, but, with few exceptions, are thieves and robbers by hereditary profession. Many of them adopt poisoning as a trade, and the numbers who did so were rapidly increasing when Captain Hollings, the superintendent of the Oude Frontier Police, arrested a great many of them, and proceeded against them as Thugs by profession, under Act III. of 1848. His measures have been successfully followed up by Captain Weston, his successor, and this crime has been greatly diminished in Oude. It prevails still, however, more or less, in all parts of India.

These Pausies of Oude generally form the worst part of the gangs of refractory tallookdars in their indiscriminate plunder. They use the bow and arrow expertly, and are said to be able to send an arrow through a man at the distance of one hundred yards. There is no species of theft or robbery in which they are not experienced and skilful, and they increase and prosper in proportion as the disorders in the country grow worse. They serve any refractory landholder, or enterprising gang-robber, without wages, for the sake of the booty to be acquired.

Many of the sipahees of the Mobarick Pultun, on detached duty with the king's wakeel in attendance upon me, were this morning arrested, while taking off the choppers from the houses of villages along the road and around my camp, for fuel and fodder, in what they called the "usual way." The best beams and rafters and the whole of the straw were fast moving off to my camp; and when seized, the sipahees seemed much surprised, and asked me what they were to do, as they had not received any pay for six months, and the Government expected that they would help themselves to straw and timber wherever they could most conveniently find it. All were fined; but the hope to put a stop to this intolerable evil, under the present system, is a vain one. The evil has the acquiescence and encouragement of the Government and its functionaries of all kinds and grades throughout the country. It is distressing to witness every day such melancholy proofs of how much is done that ought not to be done, and how much that ought to be done is left undone, in so fine a country.

A want of sympathy or fellow-feeling between the governing and governed is common in all parts of India, but in no part that I have seen is it so marked as in Oude. The officers of the Government delight in plundering the peasantry, and upon every local Governor who kills a landholder of any mark, rewards and honours are instantly bestowed, without the slightest inquiry as to the cause or mode. They know that no inquiry will be made, and therefore kill them when they can; no matter how, or for what cause. The great landholders would kill the local Governors with just as little scruple, did they not fear that it might make the British Government interpose and aid in the pursuit after them.

January 17, 1850.--Sundeela, about thirteen miles from our last camp, on the bank of the little River Saee, over a plain of good doomuteea soil, very fertile, and well cultivated in the neighbourhood of villages. The greater portion of the plain is, however, uncultivated, though capable of the best tillage, and shows more than the usual signs of maladministration. In this district there are only three tallookdars, and they do not rob or resist the Government at present. They distrust the Government authorities, however, and never have any personal intercourse with them. The waste is entirely owing to the bad character of the contractors, and the license given to the troops and establishments under them. The district is now held in amanee tenure, and under the management of Hoseyn Buksh, who entered into his charge only six weeks ago. He is without any experience in, or knowledge of, his duties; he has three regiments of Nujeebs on duty under him, and all who are present came out to meet me. Anything more unlike soldiers it would be difficult to conceive. They are feared only by the honest and industrious. Wherever the Amil goes they go with him, and are a terrible scourge to the country--by far the worst that the country suffers under.

The first thing necessary to effect a reform is--to form out of these disorderly and useless bodies a few efficient regiments; do away with the purveyance system, on which, they are now provided with fuel, fodder, carriage, &c.; pay them liberally and punctually; supply them with good clothing, arms, accoutrements, and ammunition; and concentrate them at five or six points in good cantonments, whence they can move quickly to any part where their services may be required. No more than are indispensably required should attend the local authorities in their circuits. All the rest should remain in cantonments till called for on emergency; and when so called for, they should have all the conveyance they require, and the supplies provided for them--the conveyance at fixed rates, and the supplies at the market price, in good bazaars. For police duties and revenue collections there should be a sufficient body of men kept up, and at the disposal of the revenue and police authorities. The military establishments should be under the control of a different authority. But all this would be of no avail unless the corps were under able commanders, relieved from the fear of Court favourites, and under a Commander-in-Chief who understood his duty and had influence enough to secure all that the troops required to render them efficient, and not a child of seven years of age.

Several of the villages of Sundeela are held by Syud zumeendars, who are peaceable and industrious subjects, and were generally better protected than others under the influence of Chowdhere, Sheik Hushmut Allee, of Sundeela, an agricultural capitalist and landholder, whom no local authority could offend with impunity. His proper trade was to aid landholders of high and low degree, by becoming surety for their punctual payment of the Government demand, and advancing the instalments of that demand himself when they had not the means, and thereby saving them from the visits of the local authorities and their rapacious and disorderly troops: but in an evil hour he ventured to extend his protection a little further, and, to save them from the oppressions of an unscrupulous contractor, he undertook to manage the district himself, and make good all the Government demand upon it. He was unable to pay all that he had bound himself to pay. His brother was first seized by the troops and taken to Lucknow. He languished under the discipline to which he was there subjected, and when on the point of death from what his friends call a broken heart, and the Government authorities cholera-morbus, he was released. He died immediately after his return home, and Hushmut Allee was then seized and taken to Lucknow, where he is now confined. The people here lament his absence as a great misfortune to the district, as he was the only one among them who ever had authority and influence, united with a fellow-feeling for the people, and a disposition to promote their welfare and happiness.*

[* Hushmut Allee is still in confinement, but under the troops at Sundeela, and not at Lucknow. July 20, 1851.]

END OF VOL. 1.

A JOURNEY

THROUGH THE

KINGDOM OF OUDE

IN 1849--1850;

BY DIRECTION OF THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE, GOVERNOR-GENERAL.

WITH PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO THE ANNEXATION OF OUDE TO BRITISH INDIA, &c.

BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W. H. SLEEMAN, K.C.B.

Resident at the Court of Lucknow

IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.

LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1858.

CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

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Chapter 1

Sundeela--The large landholders of the district--Forces with the Amil--Tallookdars, of the district--Ground suited for cantonments and civil offices--Places consecrated to worship--Kutteea Huron--Neem Sarang, traditions regarding--Landholders and peasantry of Sundeela-- Banger and Sandee Palee, strong against the Government authorities from their union--Nankar and Seer. Nature and character of-- Jungle--Leaves of the peepul, bur, &c., used as fodder--Want of good houses and all kinds of public edifices--Infanticide--Sandee district--Security of tenure in groves--River Gurra--Hafiz Abdulla, the governor--Runjeet Sing, of Kutteearee--Thieves in the Banger district--Infanticide--How to put down the crime--Palee--Richness of the foliage, and carpeting of spring-crops--Kunojee Brahmins--Success of the robber's trade in Oude--Shahabad--Timber taken down the little river Gurra to the Ganges, from the Tarae forest--Fanaticism of the Moosulman population of Shahabad; and insolence and impunity with which they oppress the Hindoos of the town.

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Chapter II

Infanticide--Nekomee Rajpoots--Fallows in Oude created by disorders-- Their cause and effect--Tillage goes on in the midst of sanguinary conflicts--Runjeet Sing, of Kutteearee--Mahomdee district--White Ants--Traditional decrease in the fertility of the Oude soil--Risks to which cultivators are exposed--Obligations which these risks impose upon them--Infanticide--The Amil of Mahomdee's narrow escape-- An infant disinterred and preserved by the father after having been buried alive--Insecurity of life and property--Beauty of the surface of the country, and richness of its foliage--Mahomdee district--State and recent history of--Relative fertility of British and Oude soil-- Native notions of our laws and their administration--Of the value of evidence in our Courts--Infanticide--Boys only saved--Girls destroyed in Oude--The priests who give absolution for the crime abhorred by the people of all other classes--Lands in our districts becoming more and more exhausted from over-cropping--Probable consequences to the Government and people of India--Political and social error of considering land private property--Hakeem Mehndee and subsequent managers of Mahomdee--Frauds on the King in charges for the keep of animals--Kunojee Brahmins--Unsuccessful attempt to appropriate the lands of weaker neighbours--Gokurnath, on the border of the Tarae-- The sakhoo or saul trees of the forest.

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Chapter III

Lonee Sing, of the Ahbun Rajpoot tribe--Dispute between Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, and a servant of one of his relatives--Cultivation along the border of the Tarae forest--Subdivision of land among the Ahbun families--Rapacity of the king's troops, and establishments of all kinds--Climate near the Tarae--Goitres--Not one-tenth of the cultivable lands cultivated, nor one-tenth of the villages peopled-- Criterion of good tillage--Ratoon crops--Manure available--Khyrabad district better peopled and cultivated than that of Mahomdee, but the soil over-cropped--Blight--Rajah Ajeet Sing and his estate of Khymara--Ousted by collusion and bribery--Anrod Sing of Oel, and Lonee Sing--State of Oude forty years ago compared with its present state--The Nazim of the Khyrabad district--Trespasses of his followers--Oel Dhukooa--Khalsa lands absorbed by the Rajpoot barons--Salarpoor--Sheobuksh Sing of Kuteysura--Bhulmunsee, or property-tax--Beautiful groves of Lahurpoor--Residence of the Nazim-- Wretched state of the force with the Nazim--Gratuities paid by officers in charge of districts, whether in contract or trust--Rajah Arjun Sing's estate of Dhorehra--Hereditary gang-robbers of the Oude Tarae suppressed--Mutiny of two of the King's regiments at Bhitolee-- Their rapacity and oppression--Singers and fiddlers who govern the King--Why the Amils take all their troops with them when they move-- Seetapoor, the cantonment of one of the two regiments of Oude Local Infantry--Sipahees not equal to those in Magness's, Barlow's, and Bunbury's, or in our native regiments of the line--Why--The prince Momtaz-od Dowlah--Evil effects of shooting monkeys--Doolaree, alias Mulika Zumanee--Her history, and that of her son and daughter.

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Chapter IV

Nuseer-od Deen Hyder's death--His repudiation of his son, Moona Jan, leads to the succession of his uncle, Nuseer-od Dowlah--Contest for the succession between these two persons--The Resident supports the uncle, and the Padshah Begum supports the son--The ministers supposed to have poisoned the King--Made to disgorge their ill-gotten wealth by his successor--Obligations of the treaty of 1801, by which Oude was divided into two equal shares--One transferred to the British Government, one reserved by Oude--Estimated value of each at the time of treaty--Present value of each--The sovereign often warned that unless he governs as he ought, the British Government cannot support him, but must interpose and take the administration upon itself--All such warnings have been utterly disregarded--No security to life or property in any part of Oude--Fifty years of experience has proved, that we cannot make the government of Oude fulfil its duties to its people--The alternative left appears to be to take the management upon ourselves, and give the surplus revenue to the sovereign and royal family of Oude--Probable effects of such a change on the feelings and interests of the people of Oude.

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Chapter V

Baree-Biswa district--Force with the Nazim, Lal Bahader--Town of Peernuggur--Dacoitee by Lal and Dhokul Partuks--Gangs of robbers easily formed out of the loose characters which abound in Oude--The lands tilled in spite of all disorders--Delta between the Chouka and Ghagra rivers--Seed sown and produce yielded on land--Rent and stock --Nawab Allee, the holder of the Mahmoodabad estate--Mode of augmenting his estate--Insecurity of marriage processions--Belt of jungle, fourteen miles west from the Lucknow cantonments--Gungabuksh Rawat--His attack on Dewa--The family inveterate robbers--Bhurs, once a civilized and ruling people in Oude--Extirpated systematically in the fourteenth century--Depredations of Passees--Infanticide--How maintained--Want of influential middle class of merchants and manufacturers--Suttee--Troops with the Amil--Seizure of a marriage procession by Imambuksh, a gang leader--Perquisites and allowances of Passee watchmen over corn-fields--Their fidelity to trusts--Ahbun Sing, of Kyampoor, murders his father--Rajah Singjoo of Soorujpoor-- Seodeen, another leader of the same tribe--Principal gang-leaders of the Dureeabad Rodowlee district--Jugurnath Chuprassie--Bhooree Khan-- How these gangs escape punishment--Twenty-four belts of jungle preserved by landholders always, or occasionally, refractory in Oude --Cover eight hundred and eighty-six square miles of good land--How such atrocious characters find followers, and landholders of high degree to screen, shelter, and aid them.

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Chapter VI

Adventures of Maheput Sing of Bhowaneepoor--Advantages of a good road from Lucknow to Fyzabad--Excellent condition of the artillery bullocks with the Frontier Police--Get all that Government allows for them--Bred in the Tarae--Dacoits of Soorujpoor Bareyla--The Amil connives at all their depredations, and thrives in consequence--The Amil of the adjoining districts does not, and ruined in consequence-- His weakness--Seetaram, a capitalist--His account of a singular Suttee--Bukhtawar Sing's notions of Suttee, and of the reason why Rajpoot widows seldom become Suttees--Why local authorities carry about prisoners with them--Condition of prisoners--No taxes on mangoe-trees--Cow-dung cheaper than wood for fuel--Shrine of "Shaikh Salar" at Sutrik--Bridge over the small river Rete--Recollection of the ascent of a balloon at Lucknow--End of the pilgrimage.

______________________

Private Correspondence subsequent to the Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, and relating to the Annexation of Oude to British India.

DIARY

A TOUR THROUGH OUDE.

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Chapter I

Sundeela--The large landholders of the district--Forces with the Amil--Tallookdars, of the district--Ground suited for cantonments and civil offices--Places consecrated to worship--Kutteea Huron--Neem Sarang, traditions regarding--Landholders and peasantry of Sundeela-- Banger and Sandee Palee, strong against the Government authorities from their union--Nankar and Seer. Nature and character of-- Jungle--Leaves of the peepul, bur, &c., used as fodder--Want of good houses and all kinds of public edifices--Infanticide--Sandee district--Security of tenure in groves--River Gurra--Hafiz Abdulla, the governor--Runjeet Sing, of Kutteearee--Thieves in the Banger district--Infanticide--How to put down the crime--Palee--Richness of the foliage, and carpeting of spring crops--Kunojee Brahmins--Success of the robber's trade in Oude--Shahabad--Timber taken down the little river Gurra to the Ganges, from the Tarae forest--Fanaticism of the Moosulman population of Shahabad; and insolence and impunity with which they oppress the Hindoos of the town.

The baronial proprietors in the Sundeela district are Murdun Sing, of Dhurawun, with a rent-roll of 38,000; Gunga Buksh, of Atwa, with one of 25,000; Chundeeka Buksh, of Birwa, with one of 25,000; and Somere Sing, of Rodamow, with one of 34,000. This is the rent-roll declared and entered in the accounts; but it is much below the real one. The Government officers are afraid to measure their lands, or to make any inquiries on the estates into their value, lest they should turn robbers and plunder the country, as they are always prepared to do. They have always a number of armed and brave retainers, ready to support them in any enterprise, and can always add to their number on emergency. There is never any want of loose characters ready to fight for the sake of plunder alone. A tallookdar, however, when opposed to his government, does not venture to attack another tallookdar or his tenants. He stands too much in need of his aid, or at least of his neutrality and forbearance.

January 18, 1850.--Halted at Sundeela. To the north of the town there is a large uncultivated plain of oosur land, that would answer for cantonments; but the water lies, for some time after rain, in many places. The drainage is defective, but might be made good towards a rivulet to the north and west. There is another open plain to the west of the town, between the suburbs and the small village of Ausoo Serae, where the Trigonometrical Survey has one of its towers. It is about a mile from east to west, and more from north to south, and well adapted for the location of troops and civil establishments. The climate is said to be very good. The town is large and still populous, but the best families seem to be going to decay, or leaving the place. Many educated persons from Sundeela in our civil establishments used to leave their families here; but life and property have become so very insecure, that they now always take them with them to the districts in which they are employed, or send them to others. I observed many good houses of burnt brick and cement, but they are going fast to decay, and are all surrounded by numerous mud- houses without coverings, or with coverings of the same material, which are hidden from view by low parapets. These houses have a wretched appearance.

The Amil has twelve guns with him; but the bullocks are all so much out of condition from want of food that they can scarcely walk; and the Amil was obliged to hire a few plough-bullocks from the cultivators, to draw out two guns to my camp to fire the salute. They get no grain, and there is little or no grass anywhere on the fallow and waste lands, from the want of rain during June, July, and August. The Amil told me, that he had no stores or ammunition for the guns; and that their carriages were all gone, or going, to pieces, and had received no repairs whatever for the last twelve years. I had in the evening a visit from Rajah Murdun Sing, of Dharawun, a stout and fat man, who bears a fair character. He is of the Tilokchundee Bys clan, who cannot intermarry with each other, as they are all of the sama gote or family. It would, according to their notions, be incestuous.

January 19, 1850.--Hutteeah Hurrun, thirteen miles. The plain level as usual, and of the loose doomuteea soil, fertile in natural powers everywhere, and well tilled around the villages, which are more numerous than in any other part that we have passed over. The water is everywhere near the surface, and wells are made at little cost. A well is dug at a cost of from five to ten rupees; and in the muteear, or argillaceous soil, will last for irrigation for forty years. To line it with burnt bricks without cement will cost from one to two hundred rupees; and to add cement will cost a hundred more. Such lining is necessary in light soil, and still more so in sandy or bhoor. They frequently line their wells at little cost with long thick cables, made of straw and twigs, and twisted round the surface inside. The fields are everywhere irrigated from wells or pools, and near villages well manured; and the wheat and other spring crops are excellent. They have been greatly benefited by the late rains, and in no case injured. The ground all the way covered with white hoar frost, and the dews heavy in a cloudless sky. Finer weather I have never known in any quarter of the world.

This place is held sacred from a tradition, that Ram, after his expedition against Cylone, came here to bathe in a small tank near our present camp, in order to wash away the sin of having killed a Brahmin in the person of Rawun, the monster king of that island, who had taken away his wife, Seeta. Till he had done so, he could not venture to revisit his capital, Ajoodheea. There are many legends regarding the origin of the sanctity of this and the many other places around, which pilgrims must visit to complete the pykurma, or holy circuit. The most popular seems to be this. Twenty-eight thousand sages of great sanctity were deputed, with the god Indur at their head, on a mission to present an address to Brimha, as he reposed upon the mountain Kylas, praying that he would vouchsafe to point out to them the place in Hindoostan most worthy to be consecrated to religious worship. He took a discus from the top-knot on his head, and, whirling it in the air, directed it to proceed in search. After much search it rested at a place near the river Goomtee, which it deemed to be most fitted for the purification of one's faith, and which thenceforth took the name of Neem Sarung, a place of devotion. The twenty-eight thousand sages followed, and were accompanied by Brimha himself, attended by the Deotas, or subordinate gods. He then summoned to the place no less than three crores and half, or thirty millions and half of teeruts, or angels, who preside each over his special place of religions worship. All settled down at places within ten miles of the central point, Neem Sarung; but their departure does not seem to have impaired the sanctity of the places whence they came. The angels, or spirits, who presided over them sent out these offshoots to preside at Neemsar and the consecrated places around it, as trees send off their grafts without impairing their own powers and virtues.

Misrik, a few miles from this, and one of the places thus consecrated, is celebrated as the residence of a very holy sage, named Dudeej. In a great battle between the Deotas and the Giants, the Deotas were defeated. They went to implore the aid of the drowsy god, Brimha, upon his snowy mountain top. He told them to go to Misrik and arm themselves with the bones of the old sage, Dudeej. They found Dudeej alive and in excellent health; but they thought it their duty to explain to him their orders. He told them, that he should be very proud indeed to have his bones used as arms in so holy a cause; but he had unfortunately vowed to bathe at all the sacred shrines in India before he died, and must perform his vow. Grievously perplexed, the Deotas all went and submitted their case to their leader, the god Indur. Indur consulted his chaplain, Brisput, who told him, that there was really no difficulty whatever in the case-- that the angels of all the holy shrines in India had been established at and around Neemsar by Brimha himself; and the Deotas had only to take water from all the sacred places over which they presided, and pour it over the old sage, to get both him and themselves out of the dilemma. They did so, and the old sage, expressing himself satisfied, gave up his life. In what mode it was taken no one can tell me. The Deotas armed themselves with his bones, attacked the Giants forthwith, and gained an easy and complete victory. The wisdom of the orders of drowsy old Brimha, in this case, is as little questioned by the Hindoos of the present day as that of the orders of drunken old Jupiter was in the case of Troy, by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Millions, "wise in their generation," have spent their lives in the reverence of both.

There is hardly any sin that the waters of these dirty little ponds are not supposed to be capable of washing away; and, over and above this, they are supposed to improve all the good, and reduce to order all the bad passions and emotions of those who bathe in them, by propitiating the aid of the deity, and those who have influence over him.

A good deal of the land, distant from villages, lies waste, though capable of good tillage; and from the all pervading cause, the want of confidence in the Government and its officers, and of any feeling of security to life, property, and industry. Should this cause be removed, the whole surface of the country would become the beautiful garden which the parts well cultivated and peopled now are. It is all well studded with fine trees--single and in clusters and groves. The soil is good, the water near the surface, and to be obtained in any abundance at little outlay, and the peasantry are industrious, brave, and robust. Nothing is wanted but good and efficient government, which might be easily secured. I found many Kunojee Brahmins in the villages along the road, who tilled their own fields without the aid of ploughmen; and they told me, that when they had no longer the means to hire ploughmen, they were permitted to hold their own ploughs--that is, they were not excommunicated for doing so.

In passing along, with wheat-fields close by on our left, while the sun is a little above the horizon on the right, we see a glory round the shadows of our heads as they extend into the fields. All see these glories around their own heads, but cannot see them around those of their neighbours. They stretch out from the head and shoulders, with gradually-diminished splendour, to some short distance. This beautiful and interesting appearance arises from the leaves and stalks of the wheat being thickly bespangled with dew. The observer's head being in the direct rays of the sun, as they pass over him to that of his shadow in the field, he carries the glory with him. Those before and behind him see the same glory around the shadows of their own heads, but cannot see it round that of the head of any other person before or behind; because he is on one or other side of the direct rays which pass over them. It is best seen when the sky is most clear, and the dew most heavy. It is not seen over bushy crops such as the arahur, nor on the grass plains.

January 20, 1850.--Beneegunge, eight miles, over a slightly- undulating plain of light sandy soil, scantily cultivated, but well studded with fine trees of the best kind. Near villages, where the land is well watered and manured, the crops are fine and well varied. All the pools are full from the late rain, and they are numerous and sufficient to water the whole surface of the country, with a moderate fall of rain in December or January. If they are not available, the water is always very near the surface, and wells can be made for irrigation at a small cost. The many rivers and rivulets which enter Oude from the Himmalaya chain and Tarae forest, and flow gently through the country towards the Ganges, without cutting very deeply into the soil, always keep the water near the surface, and available in all quarters and in any quantity for purposes of irrigation. Never was country more favoured, by nature, or more susceptible of improvement under judicious management. There is really hardly an acre of land that is not capable of good culture, or that need be left waste, except for the sites of towns and villages, and ponds for irrigation, or that would be left waste under good government. The people understand tillage well, and are industrious and robust, capable of any exertion under protection and due encouragement.

The Government has all the revenues to itself, having no public debt and paying no tribute to any one, while the country receives from the British Government alone fifty lacs, or half a million a-year; first, in the incomes of guaranteed pensioners, whose stipends are the interest of loans received by our Government at different times from the sovereigns of Oude, as a provision for their relatives and dependents in perpetuity, and as endowments for their mausoleums and mosques, and other religious and eleemosynary establishments; second, in the interest paid for Government securities held by people residing in Oude; third, in the payment of pensions to the families of men who have been killed in our service, and to invalid native officers and sipahees of our army residing there, fourth, in the savings of others who still serve in our army, while their families reside in Oude; and those of the native officers of our civil establishments, whose families remain at their homes in Oude; fifth, in the interest on a large amount of our Government securities held by people at Lucknow, who draw the interest not from the Resident's Treasury, but from the General Treasury in Calcutta, or the Treasuries of our bordering districts, in order to conceal their wealth from the King and his officers. Over and above all this our Government has to send into Oude, to be expended there, the pay of five regiments of infantry and a company of artillery, which amounts to some six or seven lacs more. Oude has so many places of pilgrimage, that it receives more in the purchase of the food and other necessaries required by the pilgrims, during their transit and residence, than it sends out with pilgrims who visit shrines and holy places in other countries. It requires little from other countries but a few luxuries for the rich--in shawls from Kashmere and the Punjab, silks, satins, broad-cloth, muslins, guns, watches, &c. from England.

A great portion of the salt and saltpetre required is raised within Oude, and so is all the agricultural produce, except in seasons of drought; and the arms required for the troops are manufactured in Oude, with the exception of some few cannon and shells, and the muskets and bayonets for the few disciplined regiments. The royal family and some of the Mahommedan gentlemen at Lucknow send money occasionally to the shrines of Mecca, Medina, Kurbala, and Nujuf Ashruf, in Turkish Arabia; and some Hindoos send some to Benares and other places of worship, to be distributed in charity or laid out in useful works in their name. Some of the large pensions enjoyed by the relatives and dependents of former sovereigns, under the guarantee of our Government, go in perpetuity to the shrines in Turkish Arabia, in default of both will and heir. When Ghazee-od Deen succeeded his father on the musnud in 1814, contrary to his expectation and to his father's wish, he gave the minister about fifty lacs of rupees to be expended in charity at those shrines, and in canals, saraees, and other works of utility. Letters, full of expressions of gratitude and descriptions of these useful works, were often shown to him; but the minister, Aga Meer, is said to have kept the whole fifty lacs to himself, and got all these letters written by his private secretaries. Some few Hindoo and Mahommedan gentlemen, when they have lost their places and favour at the Oude Court, go and reside at Cawnpoor, and some few other places in the British territory for greater security; but generally it may be said, that in spite of all disadvantages Mahommedan gentlemen from Oude, in whatever country they may serve, like to leave their families in Oude, and to return and spend what they acquire among them. They find better society there than in our own territories, or society more to their tastes; better means for educating their sons; more splendid processions, festivals, and other inviting sights, in which they and their families can participate without cost; more consideration for rank and learning, and more attractive places for worship and religious observances. The little town of Karoree, about ten or twelve miles from Lucknow, has, I believe, more educated men, filling high and lucrative offices in our civil establishments, than any other town in India except Calcutta. They owe the greater security which they there enjoy, compared with other small towns in Oude, chiefly to the respect in which they are known to be held by the British Government and its officers, and to the influence of their friends and relatives who hold office about the Court of Lucknow.

January 21, 1849.--Sakin, ten miles north-west. The country well studded with fine trees, and pretty well cultivated, but the soil is light from a superabundance of sand; and the crops are chiefly autumn, except in the immediate vicinity of villages, and cut in December. The surface on which they stood this season appears to be waste, except where the stalks of the jowar and bajara, are left standing for sale and use, as fodder for cattle. These stalks are called kurbee, and form good fodder for elephants, bullocks, &c., during the cold, hot, and rainy season. They are said to keep better when left on the ground, after the heads have been gathered, than when stacked. The sandy soil, in the vicinity of villages, produces fine spring crops of all kinds, wheat, gram, sugarcane, arahur, tobacco, &c., being well manured by drainage from the villages, and by the dung stored and spread over it; and that more distant would produce the same, if manured and irrigated in the same way.

The head men or proprietors of some villages along the road mentioned, "that the fine state in which we saw them was owing to their being strong, and able to resist the Government authorities when disposed, as they generally were, to oppress or rack-rent them; that the landholders owed their strength to their union, for all were bound to turn out and afford aid to their neighbour on hearing the concerted signal of distress; that this league, 'offensive and defensive,' extended all over the Baugur district, into which we entered about midway between this and our last stage; and that we should see how much better it was peopled and cultivated in consequence than the district of Mahomdee, to which we were going; that the strong only could keep anything under the Oude Government; and as they could not be strong without union, all landholders were solemnly pledged to aid each other, to the death, when oppressed or attacked by the local officers." They asked Captain Weston, who was some miles behind me, what was the Resident's object in this tour, whether the Honourable Company's Government was to be introduced into Oude? He told them that the object was solely to see the state of the country and condition of the people, with a view to suggest to the King's Government any measures that might seem calculated to improve both; and asked them whether they wished to come under the British rule? They told him, "that they should like much to have the British rule introduced, if it could be done without worrying them with its complicated laws and formal and distant courts of justice, of which they had heard terrible accounts."

The Nazim of the Tundeeawun or Baugur district met me on his border, and told me, "that he was too weak to enforce the King's orders, or to collect his revenues; that he had with him one efficient company of Captain Bunbury's corps, with one gun in good repair, and provided with draft-bullocks, in good condition; and that this was the only force he could rely upon; while the landholders were strong, and so leagued together for mutual defence, that, at the sound of a matchlock, or any other concerted signal, all the men of a dozen large villages would, in an hour, concentrate upon and defeat the largest force the King's officers could assemble; that they did so almost every year, and often frequently within the same year; that he had nominally eight guns on duty with him, but the carriage of one had already gone to pieces; and those of the rest had been so long without repair that they would go to pieces with very little firing, that the draft-bullocks had not had any grain for many years, and were hardly able to walk; and he was in consequence obliged to hire plough-bullocks, to draw the gun required to salute the Resident; but he had only ten days ago received an order to give them grain himself, charge for it in his accounts, and hold himself responsible for their condition; that they had been so starved, that he was obliged to restrict them to a few ounces a-day at first, or they would have all died from over-eating." This order has arisen from my earnest intercession in favour of the artillery draft-bullocks; but so many are interested in the abuse, that the order will not be long enforced. Though the grain will, as heretofore, be paid for from the Treasury, it will, I hear, be given to the bullocks only while I am out on this tour.

In the evening some cultivators came to complain that they had been robbed of all their bhoosa (chaff) by a sipahee from my camp. I found, on inquiry, that the sipahee belonged to Captain Hearsey's five companies of Frontier Police; that these companies had sixteen four-bullock hackeries attached to them for the carriage of their tents and luggage; and that these hackeries had gone to the village, and taken all that the complainants had laid up for their own cattle for the season; that such hackeries formerly received twenty-seven rupees eight annas a-month each, and their owners were expected to purchase their own fodder; but that this allowance had for some years been cut down to fourteen rupees a-month, and they were told to help themselves to fodder wherever they could find it; that all the hackeries hired by the King and his local officers, for the use of troops, establishments, &c. had been reduced at the same rate, from twenty-seven eight annas a-month to fourteen, and their owners received the same order. All villages near the roads along which the troops and establishments move are plundered of their bhoosa, and all those within ten miles of the place, where they may be detained for a week or fortnight, are plundered in the same way.

The Telinga corps and Frontier Police are alone provided with tents and hackeries by Government. The Nujeeb corps are provided with neither. The Oude Government formerly allowed for each four-bullock hackery thirty rupees a-month, from which two rupees and half were deducted for the perquisites of office. The owners of the hackeries were expected to purchase bhoosa and other fodder for their bullocks at the market price; but they took what they required without payment, in collusion with the officers under whom they were employed, or in spite of them; and the Oude Government in 1845 cut the allowance down to seventeen rupees and half, out of which three rupees and half are cut for perquisites, leaving fourteen rupees for the hackeries: and their owners and drivers have the free privilege of helping themselves to bhoosa and other fodder wherever they can find them. Some fifty or sixty of these hackeries were formerly allowed for each Telinga corps with guns, now only twenty-two are allowed; and when they move they must, like Nujeeb corps, seize what more they require. They are allowed to charge nothing for their extra carriage, and therefore pay nothing.

January 22, 1849.--Tundeeawun, eight miles west. The country level, and something between doomuteen and muteear, very good, and in parts well cultivated, particularly in the vicinity of villages; but a large portion of the surface is covered with jungle, useful only to robbers and refractory landholders, who abound in the purgunnah of Bangur. In this respect it is reputed one of the worst districts in Oude. Within the last few years the King's troops have been frequently beaten and driven out with loss, even when commanded by an European officer. The landholders and armed peasantry of the different villages unite their quotas of auxiliaries, and concentrate upon them on a concerted signal, when they are in pursuit of robbers and rebels. Almost every able-bodied man of every village in Bangur is trained to the use of arms of one kind or another, and none of the King's troops, save those who are disciplined and commanded by European officers, will venture to move against a landholder of this district; and when the local authorities cannot obtain the aid of such troops, they are obliged to conciliate the most powerful and unscrupulous by reductions in the assessment of the lands or additions to their nankar.

To illustrate the spirit and system of union among the chief landholders of the Bangur district, I may here mention a few facts within my own knowledge, and of recent date. Bhugwunt Singh, who held the estate of Etwa Peepureea, had been for some time in rebellion against his sovereign; and he had committed many murders and robberies, and lifted many herds of cattle within our bordering district of Shajehanpoor; and he had given shelter, on his own estate, to a good many atrocious criminals, from that and others of our bordering district. He had, too, aided and screened many gangs of Budhuks, or dacoits by hereditary profession. The Resident, Colonel Low, in 1841, directed every possible effort to be made for the arrest of this formidable offender, and Captain Hollings, the second in command of the 2nd battalion of Oude local infantry, sent intelligencers to trace him.

They ascertained that he had, with a few followers, taken up a position two hundred yards to the north of the village of Ahroree, in a jungle of palas-trees and brushwood in the Bangur district, about twenty-eight miles to the south-west of Seetapoor, where that battalion was cantoned, and about fourteen miles west from Neemkar. Captain Hollings made his arrangements to surprise this party; and on the evening of the 3rd of July 1841, he marched from Neemkar at the head of three companies of that battalion, and a little before midnight he came within three-quarters of a mile of the rebel's post. After halting his party for a short time, to enable the officers and sipahees to throw off all superfluous clothing and utensils, Captain Hollings moved on to the attack. When the advanced guard reached the outskirts of the robber's position about midnight, they were first challenged and then fired upon by the sentries. The subadar in command of this advance guard fell dead, and a non-commissioned officer and a sipahee severely wounded.

The whole party now fired in upon the gang and rushed on. One of the robbers was shot, and the rest all escaped out on the opposite side of the jungle. The sipahees believing, since the surprise had been complete, that the robbers must have left all their wealth behind them, dispersed, as soon as the firing ceased and the robbers disappeared, to get every man as much as he could. While thus engaged they were surrounded by the Gohar, (or body of auxiliaries which these landholders send to each other's aid on the concerted signal,) and fired in upon from the front, and both right and left flanks. Taken by surprise, they collected together in disorder, while the assailants from the front and sides continued to pour in their fire upon them; and they were obliged to retire in haste and confusion, closely followed by the auxiliaries, who gained confidence, and pressed closer as their number increased by the quotas they received from the villages the detachment had to pass in their retreat.

All efforts on the part of Captain Hollings to preserve order in the ranks were vain. His men returned the fire of their pursuers, but without aim or effect. At the head of the auxiliaries were Punchum Sing, of Ahroree, and Mirza Akbar Beg, of Deureea; and they were fast closing in upon the party, and might have destroyed it, when Girwur Sing, tomandar, came up with a detachment of the Special Police of the Thuggee and Dacoitee Department. At this time the three companies were altogether disorganized and disheartened, as the firing and pursuit had lasted from midnight to daybreak; but on seeing the Special Police come up and join with spirit in the defence, they rallied, and the assailants, thinking the reinforcement more formidable than it really was, lost confidence and held back. Captain Hollings mounted the fresh horse of the tomandar, and led his detachment without further loss or molestation back to Neemkar. His loss had been one subadar, one havildar, and three sipahees killed; one subadar, two havildars, one naik, and fourteen sipahees wounded and missing. Captain Hollings' groom was shot dead, and one of his palankeen-bearers was wounded. His horse, palankeen, desk, clothes, and all the superfluous clothing and utensils, which the sipahees had thrown off preparatory to the attack fell into the hands of the assailants. Attempts were made to take up and carry off the killed and wounded; but the detachment was so sorely pressed that they were obliged to leave both on the ground. The loss would have been much greater than it was, but for the darkness of the night, which prevented the assailants from taking good aim; and the detachment would, in all probability, have been cut to pieces, but for the timely arrival of the Special Police under Girwur Sing.

Such attacks are usually made upon robber bands about the first dawn of day; and this attack at midnight was a great error. Had they not been assailed by the auxiliaries, they could not, in the darkness, have secured one of the gang. It was known, that at the first shot from either the assailing or defending party in that district, all the villages around concentrate their quotas upon the spot, to fight to the death against the King's troops, whatever might be their object; and the detachment ought to have been prepared for such concentration when the firing began, and returned as quickly as possible from the place when they saw that by staying they could not succeed in the object.

Four months after, in November, Punchum Sing, of Ahroree, himself cut off the head of the robber, Bhugwunt Sing, with his own hand, and sent it to the governor, Furreed-od Deen, with an apology for having by mistake attacked Captain Hollings' detachment. The governor sent the head to the King, with a report stating that he had, at the peril of his life, and after immense toil, hunted down and destroyed this formidable rebel; and his Majesty, as a reward for his valuable services, conferred upon Furreed-od Deen a title and a first-rate dress of honour. Soon after, in the same month of July 1841, his Majesty the King of Oude's second regiment of infantry, under the command of a very gallant officer, Captain W. D. Bunbury, was encamped near the village of Belagraon, when information was brought that certain convicts, who had escaped from the gaol at Bareilly, had taken refuge in the village of Parakurown, about fifty miles to the north-west of his camp. Captain Bunbury immediately detached three companies, with two six-pounders, under his brother, Lieutenant A. C. Bunbury, to arrest them. After halting for a short time at Gopamow, to allow his men to take breath. Lieutenant Bunbury pushed on, and reached the place a little before the dawn of day. He demanded the surrender of the outlaws from the chief of the village, named Ajrael Sing, a notoriously bad character, who insolently refused to give them up. A fight commenced, in which one of the convicts, and some others, were killed; but at last Lieutenant Bunbury succeeded in securing Arjael Sing himself, with some few of his followers, and the outlaws.

Hearing the firing of the field-pieces, the surrounding villages concentrated their quotas of auxiliaries upon the place, and attacked Lieutenant Bunbury's detachment on all sides. He had taken possession of the village; but finding it untenable against so large and increasing a body of assailants, he commenced his retreat. He had scarcely reached the outskirts when he found himself surrounded by overwhelming numbers of these auxiliaries, through whom he was obliged to fight his way for a distance of fourteen miles to Pahanee. The armed peasantry of every village, on the right and left of the road as they passed, turned out and joined the pursuers in their attempt to rescue his prisoners. Lieutenant Bunbury's conduct of this retreat was most gallant and judicious; and his men behaved admirably. When the assailants appeared likely to overwhelm him, he abandoned one of his two guns, and hastened on, leaving three men lying under them apparently wounded, and unable to move. On this they pressed on, sword in hand, to despatch the wounded men, and seize the guns. When the assailants were within thirty or forty yards of the gun, they started up, and poured in upon the dense crowd a discharge of grape with deadly effect. A party then doubled back from the main body of the detachment, protected the artillery men in limbering up the gun, and escorting it to the main body, which again resumed its march. This experiment was repeated several times with success as they passed other villages, from which further auxiliaries poured out, till they approached Pahanee, where they found support. In this retreat Lieutenant Bunbury lost sixty men out of his three companies, or about one-third of his number; but he retained all his prisoners. Ajrael Sing soon after died of the wounds he had received in defending the convicts in his village; and the rest of the prisoners were all sent to the Oude Durbar. Lieutenant Bunbury is now in the Honourable Company's Service, and in the 34th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry.

On the 23rd of January 1849, Captain Hearsey, of the Oude Frontier Police, sent his subadar-major, Ramzan Khan, with a party of one hundred and fifty men of that police, to arrest a notorious robber, Mendae Sing, and other outlaws, from the Shajehanpoor district, who had found an asylum in the village of Sahurwa, in the Mahomdee district, whence they carried on their depredations upon our villages across the border. The party reached Sahurwa the next morning a little before sunrise. The subadar-major having posted his men so as to prevent the escape of the outlaws, demanded their surrender from the village authorities. They were answered by a volley of matchlock- balls; and finding the village too strong to be taken by his small detachment without guns, he withdrew to a more sheltered position to the westward, and detached a havildar with fifty men to take possession of a large gateway to the south of the village. During this movement the villagers continued to fire upon them; and the quotas of auxiliaries from the surrounding villages, roused by the firing, came rushing on from all quarters. Seeing no chance of being able either to take the village or to maintain his position against such numbers, the subadar-major drew off his detachment, and proceeded for support to Pahanee, a distance of twelve miles. He reached that place pursued by the auxiliaries, and with the loss of one havildar and one sipahee killed, and three sipahees very severely wounded. There are numerous instances of this sort in which the King's troops have been attacked and beaten back, and their prisoners rescued by the landholders of Bangur, and the adjoining districts of Mahomdee and Sandee Palee. They are never punished for doing so, as the King is too weak, and the aid of the British troops, for the purpose, has seldom been given.

It would be of advantage to remove the Regiment of Oude Local Infantry from Seetapoor to Tundeeawun, where its presence and services are much more required. The climate is as good, and all that native soldiers require for food and clothing are cheaper. The drainage is good; and to the east of the town there is one of the finest plains for a cantonment that I have ever seen. There are but few wells, but new ones can be made at a trifling cost; and the Oude Government would willingly incur the outlay required for these and for all the public buildings required for the new cantonments, to secure the advantage of such a change. The cost of the public buildings would be only 12,000 rupees; and the same sum would have to be given in compensation for private buildings-total 24,000. The refractory landholders would soon be reduced to order, and prevented from any longer making their villages dens of robbers as they now do; and the jungles around would all soon disappear. These jungles are not thick, or unhealthy, consisting of the small dhak or palas tree, with little or no underwood; and the surface they now occupy would soon be covered with fine spring crops, and studded with happy village communities, were people encouraged by an assurance of protection to settle upon it, and apply their capital and labour to its cultivation. The soil is everywhere of the finest quality, the drainage is good, and there are no jheels. A few ponds yield the water required for the irrigation of the spring crops, during their progress to maturity, from November to March: they are said all to become dry in the hot season. It is, I think, capable of being made the finest part of this fine country of Oude.

It was in contemplation to make the road from Lucknow to Shajehanpoor and Bareilly pass through this place, Tundeeawun, by which some thirty miles of distance would be saved, and a good many small rivers and watercourses avoided. Why this design was given up I know not; but I believe the only objection was the greater insecurity of this line from the bad character of the great landholders of the Bangur and Sandee Palee districts; and the greater number of thieves and robbers who, in consequence, reside in them. There has been but little outlay in works of any kind in the whole line through Seetapore; and when measures have been taken to render this line more secure, a good road will, I hope, be made through Tundeeawun. It was once a populous place, but has been falling off for many years, as the disorders in the district have increased. The Nazim resides here. The last Nazim, Hoseyn Allee, who was removed to Khyrabad, at the end of last year, is said to have given an increase of nankar to the refractory landholders of this district during that year, to the extent of forty thousand rupees a-year, to induce them to pay the Government demand, and desist from plunder. By this means he secured a good reputation at Court, and the charge of a more profitable and less troublesome district; and left the difficult task of resuming this lavish increase of the nankar to his successor, Seonath, the son of Dilla Ram, who held the contract of the district for some twenty years up to the time of his death, which took place last year. Seonath is a highly respectable and amiable man; but he is very delicate in health, and, in consequence, deficient in the vigour and energy required to manage so turbulent a district. He has, however, a deputy in Kidder Nath, a relative, who has all the ability, vigour, and energy required, if well supported and encouraged by the Oude Durbar. He was deputy under Dilla Ram for many years, and the same under Hoseyn Allee last year. He is a man of great intelligence and experience; and one of the best officers of the Oude Government that I have yet seen.

There are two kinds of recognised perquisites which landholders enjoy in Oude and in most other parts of India--the nankar and the seer land. The nankar is a portion of the recognised rent-roll acknowledged by the ruler to be due to the landholder for the risk, cost, and trouble of management, and for his perquisite as hereditary proprietor of the soil when the management is confided to another. It may be ten, twenty, or one hundred percent upon the rent-roll of the estate, which is recognised in the public accounts, as the holder happens to be an object of fear or of favour, or otherwise; and the real rent-roll may be more or less than that which is recognised in the public accounts. The actual rent which the landholder receives may increase with improvements, and he may conceal the improvement from the local authorities, or bribe them to conceal it from Government; or it may diminish from lands falling out of tillage, or becoming impoverished by over-cropping, or from a diminution of demand for land produce; and the landholder may be unable to satisfy the local authorities of the fact, or to prevail upon them to represent the circumstance to Government. The amount of the nankar once recognised remains the same till a new rate is recognised by Government; but when the Government becomes weak, the local authorities assume the right to recognise new rents, to suit their own interest, and pretend that they do so to promote that of their sovereign.

I may instance the Amil of this district last year. He was weak, while the landholders were strong. They refused to pay, on the plea of bad seasons. He could send no money to the Treasury, and was in danger of losing his place. The man who had to pay a revenue of ten thousand could not be induced to pay five: he enjoyed an acknowledged nankar of two thousand upon a recognised rent-roll of twelve thousand; and, to induce him to pay, he gives him an increase to this nankar of one thousand, making the nankar three thousand, and reducing the revenue to nine thousand. Being determined to render the increase to his nankar permanent, whether the Government consents or not, the landholder agrees to pay the ten thousand for the present year. The collector sends the whole or a part of the one thousand as gratuities to influential men at Court, and enters it in the public accounts as irrecoverable balance. The present Amil, finding that the increase to the nankar has not been acknowledged by Government, demands the full ten thousand rupees for the present year. The landholder refuses to pay anything, takes to the jungles, and declares that he will resist till his permanent right to the increase be acknowledged.

The Amil has taken the contract at the rate of last year, as the Government had sanctioned no increase to the nankar, and he pleads in vain for a remission in the rate, which he pledged himself to pay, or an increase of means to enforce payment among so turbulent and refractory a body of landholders. As I have before mentioned, the Oude Government has this season issued an order to all revenue collectors to refuse to recognise any increase to the nankar that has been made since the year A.D. 1814, or Fusilee 1222, when Saadut Allee died, as none has since that year received the sanction of Government, though the nankar has been more than doubled within that period in the manner above described by local authorities. The increase to the nankar, and the alienation in rent-free tenure of lands liable to assessment in 1814 by local authorities and influential persons at Court, are supposed to amount in all Oude to forty lacs of rupees a-year. None of them have been formally recognised by the Court, but a great part of them has been tacitly acquiesced in by the minister and Dewan for the time being. They cannot enforce the order for reverting to the nankar of 1814, and if they attempt to do so the whole country will be in disorder. Indeed, the minister knows his own weakness too well to think seriously of ever making such an attempt. The seer lands are those which the landholders and their families till themselves, or by means of their servants or hired cultivators. Generally they are not entered at all in the rent-rolls; and when they are entered, it is at less rates than are paid for the other lands. The difference between the no rent, or less rates, and the full rates is part of their perquisites. These lands are generally shared out among the members of the family as hereditary possessions.

January 23, 1850.--Behta, ten miles, over a plain of fine muteear soil. The greater part of the surface is, however, covered by a low palas jungle. The jungle remains, because no one will venture to lay out his capital in rooting up the trees and shrubs, and bringing the land under culture where the fruits of his industry, and his own life and those of his family, would be so very insecure, and because the powerful landholders around require the jungles to run to when in arms against the Government officers, as they commonly are. The land under this jungle is as rich in natural powers as that in tillage; and nothing can be finer than the crops in the cultivated parts, particularly in those immediately around villages. There are numerous large trees in the jungles, but the fine peepul and banyan trees are torn to pieces for the use of the elephants and camels of the establishments of the local officers, and for the cows, bullocks, and buffaloes of the peasantry. The cows and buffaloes are said to give greater quantities of milk when fed on the leaves of these trees than when fed on anything else available in the dry season; but the milk is said to be of inferior quality. All the cultivated and peopled parts are beautifully studded with single trees and groves.

No respectable dwelling-house is anywhere to be seen, and the most substantial landholders live in wretched mud-hovels with invisible covers. I asked the people why, and was told that they were always too insecure to lay out anything in improving their dwelling-houses; and, besides, did not like to have such local ties, where they were so liable to be driven away by the Government officers or by the landholders in arms against them, and their reckless followers. The local officers of Government, of the highest grade, occupy houses of the same wretched description, for none of them can be sure of occupying them a year, or of ever returning to them again when once removed from their present offices; and they know that neither their successors nor any one else will ever purchase or pay rent for them. No mosques, mausoleums, temples, seraees, colleges, courts of justice, or prisons to be seen in any of the towns or villages. There are a few Hindoo shrines at the half-dozen places which popular legends have rendered places of pilgrimage, and a few small tanks and bridges made in olden times by public officers, when they were more secure in their tenure of office than they are now. All the fine buildings raised by former rulers and their officers at the old capital of Fyzabad are going fast to ruin. The old city of Ajoodhea is a ruin, with the exception of a few buildings along the bank of the river raised by wealthy Hindoos in honour of Ram, who once lived and reigned there, and is believed by all Hindoos to have been an incarnation of Vishnoo.

I have often mentioned that the artillery draft-bullocks receive no grain, and are everywhere so poor that they can hardly walk, much less draw heavy guns and tumbrils. The reason is this, the most influential men at Court obtain the charge of feeding the cattle in all the different establishments, and charge for a certain quantity of grain or other food at the market price for each animal. They contract for the supply of the cattle with some grain-merchant of the city, who undertakes to distribute it through his own agents. The contractor for the supply of the artillery draft-bullocks sends an agent with those in attendance upon every collector of the land revenue, and he gives them as little as possible. The contractor, afraid of making an enemy of the influential man at Court, who could if he chose deprive him of his contract or place, never presumes to interfere, and the agent gives the poor bullocks no grain at all. The collector, or officer in charge of the district, is, however, obliged every month to pay the agent of the contractor the full market price of the grain supposed to be consumed--that is, one seer and half a- day by every bullock. The same, or some other influential person at Court, obtains and transfers in the same way the contract for the feeding of the elephants, horses, camels, bullocks, and other animals kept at Lucknow for use or amusement, and none of them are in much better condition than the draft-bullocks of the artillery in the remote districts--all are starved, or nearly starved, and objects of pity. Those who are responsible for their being fed are too strong in Court favour to apprehend any punishment for not feeding them at all.

In my ride this morning I asked the people of the villages through and near which we passed whether infanticide prevailed: they told me that it prevailed amongst almost all the Rajpoot families of any rank in Oude; that very poor families of those classes retained their daughters, because they could get something for them from the families of lower grade, into which they married them; but that those who were too well off in the world to condescend to take money for their daughters from lower grades, and were obliged to incur heavy costs in marrying them into families of the same or higher grade, seldom allowed their infant daughters to live.

"It is strange," I observed, "that men, who have to undergo such heavy penance for killing a cow, even by accident, should have to undergo none for the murder of their own children, nor to incur any odium among the circle of society in which they live--not even among Brahmins and the ministers of their religion."

"They do incur odium, and undergo penance," said Rajah Bukhtawur Sing; "do they not?" said he to some Brahmins standing near. They smiled, but hesitated to reply. "They know they do," said the Rajah, "but are afraid to tell the truth, for they and their families live in villages belonging to these proud Rajpoot landholders, and would be liable to be turned out of house and home were they to tell what they know." One of the Brahmins then said, "All this is true, sir; but after the murder of every infant the family considers itself to be an object of displeasure to the deity, and after the twelfth day they send for the family priest (Prohut), and, by suitable gratuities, obtain absolution. This is necessary, whether the family be rich or poor; but when the absolution is given, nothing more is thought or said about the matter. The Gour and other Rajpoots who can afford to unite their daughters in marriage to the sons of Chouhans, Byses, and other families of higher grade, though they cannot obtain theirs in return for their sons, commit less murders of this kind than others; but all the Rajpoot clans commit more or less of them. Habit has reconciled them to it; but it appears very shocking to us Brahmins and all other classes. They commonly bury the infants alive as soon as possible after their birth. We, sir, are helpless, living as we do among such turbulent and pitiless landholders, and cannot presume to admonish or remonstrate: our lives would not be safe for a moment were we to say anything, or seem to notice such crimes."

I do not think that any landholder of this class, in the Bangur district, would feel much compunction for the commission of any crime that did not involve their expulsion from caste, or degradation in rank. Great crimes do not involve these penalties: they incur them only by small peccadillos, or offences deemed venal among other societies. The Government of Oude, as it is at present constituted, will never be able to put down effectually the great crimes which now stain almost every acre of land in its dominions. It is painful to pass over a country abounding so much in what the evil propensities of our nature incite men to do, when not duly restrained; and so little in what the good prompt us to perform and create, when duly protected and encouraged, under good government.

January 24, 1850.--Sandee, fourteen miles, over a plain of light domuteea soil, which becomes very sandy for the last four or five miles. The crops are scanty upon the more sandy parts, except in the vicinity of villages; but there is a little jungle, and no undue portion of fallow for so light a soil. About five miles from our last ground, we came through the large and populous village of Bawun; about three miles further, through another of nearly the same size, Sungeechamow; and about three miles further on, through one still larger, Admapoor, which is three miles from Sandee. Sandee and Nawabgunge join each other, and are on the bank of the Gurra river, a small stream whose waters are said to be very wholesome. We passed the boundary of the Bangur district, just before we entered the village of Sungeechamow, which lies in that of Sandee.

There is a Hindoo shrine on the right of the road between Sandee and Admapoor, which is said to be considered very sacred, and called Barmawust. It is a mere grove, with a few priests, on the bank of a large lake, which extends close up to Sandee on the south. The river Gurra flows under the town to the north. The place is said to be healthy, but could hardly be so, were this lake to the west or east, instead of the south, whence the wind seldom blows. This lake must give out more or less of malaria, that would be taken over the village, for the greater portion of the year, by the prevailing easterly and westerly winds. I do not think the place so eligible for a cantonment at Tundeeawun, in point either of salubrity, position, or soil.

January 25, 1850.--Halted at Sandee. The lake on the south side, mentioned yesterday, abounds in fish, and is covered with wild fowl; but the fish we got from it yesterday was not good of its kind. I observed very fine groves of mango-trees close to Sandee, planted by merchants and shopkeepers of the place. The oldest are still held by the descendants of those by whom they were first planted, more than a century ago; and no tax whatever is imposed upon the trees of any kind, or upon the lands on which they stand. Many young groves are growing up around, to replace the old ones as they decay; and the greatest possible security is felt in the tenure by which they are held by the planter, or his descendants, though they hold no written lease, or deed of gift; and have neither written law nor court of justice to secure it to them. Groves and solitary mango, semul, tamarind, mhowa and other trees, whose leaves and branches are not required for the food of elephants and camels, are more secure in Oude than in our own territories; and the country is, in consequence, much better provided with them. While they give beauty to the landscape, they alleviate the effects of droughts to the poorer classes from the fruit they supply; and droughts are less frequently and less severely felt in a country so intersected by fine streams, flowing from the Tarae forest, or down from the perpetual snows of neighbouring hills, and keeping the water always near the surface. These trees tend also to render the air healthy, by giving out oxygen in large quantities during the day, and absorbing carbonic acid gas. The river Gurra enters the Ganges about twelve miles below Sandee. Boats take timber on this stream from the Phillibeet district to Cawnpoor. It passes near the town of Shajehanpoor; and the village of Palee, twenty miles north-west from Sandee, where we shall have to recross it.

January 26, 1850.--Busora, twelve miles north-west from Sandee, over a plain of light sandy soil, or bhoor, with some intervals of oosur. The tillage extends over as much of the surface as it ought in so light a soil; and the district of Sandee Palee generally is said to be well cultivated. It has been under the charge of Hafiz Abdoollah, a very honest and worthy man, for seven years up to his death, which took place in November last. He is said never to have broken faith with a landholder; but he was too weak in means to keep the bad portion under control; and too much occupied in reading or repeating the Koran, which he knew all by heart, as his name imports. His son Ameer Gholam Allee, a lad of only thirteen years of age, has been appointed his successor. He promises to be like his father in honesty and love of the holy book.*

[* He has been since removed, and was in prison as a defaulter, July 1851.]

About half way we passed the village of Bhanapoor, held by zumeendars of the Dhaukurree Rajpoot clan, who told me, that they gave their daughters in marriage to the Rykwars, but more to the Sombunsie Rajpoots, who abound in the district, and hold the greater part of the lands; that these Sombunsies have absorbed almost all the lands of the other classes by degrees, and are now seizing upon theirs; that the Sombunsies give their daughters in marriage only to the Rathore and Chouhan Rajpoots, few of whom are to be found on the Oude side of the Ganges; and, in consequence, that they take such as they preserve to our districts on the other side of that river, but murder the greater part rather than condescend to marry them to men of the other Rajpoot clans whom they deem to be of inferior grade, or go to the expense of uniting them in marriage to clans of higher or equal grade in Oude. Some Sombunsies, who came out to pay their respects from the next village we passed, told us, that they did not give their daughters even to the Tilokchundee Bys Rajpoots; but in this they did not tell the truth.

At the next village, the largest in the parish, Barone, the chief landholder, Kewul Sing, came out and presented his offering of a fine fighting-ram. He was armed with his bow, and "quiver full of arrows," but told me, that he thought a good gun, with pouch and flask, much better, and he carried the bow and quiver merely because they were lighter. He was surrounded by almost all the people of the town, and told me, that the family held in copartnership fifty-two small villages, immediately around Barone--that this village had been attacked and burnt down by Captain Bunbury and his regiment the year before last, without any other cause that they could understand save that he had recommended him not to encamp in the grove close by. The fact was, that none of the family would pay the Government demand, or obey the old Amil, Hafiz Abdoollah; and it was necessary to make an example. On being asked whether his family and clan, the Sombunsies, preserved or destroyed their daughters, he told me, in the midst of his village community, that he would not deceive me; that they, one and all, destroyed their infant daughters; but that one was, occasionally, allowed to live (ek-adh); that the family was under a taint for twelve days after the murder of an infant, when the family priest (Prohut) was invited and fed in due form; that he then declared the absolution complete, and the taint removed.

The family priest was present, and I asked him what he got on such occasions? He said, that to remove the taint, or grant absolution after the murder of a daughter, he got little or no money; he merely partook of the food prepared for him in due form; but that, on the birth of a son, he got ten rupees from the parents. All the assembled villagers bore testimony to the truth of what the patriarch and the priest told me. They said, that no one would enter a house in which an infant daughter had been destroyed, or eat or drink with any member of the family till the Prohut had granted the absolution, which he did after the expiration of twelve days, as a matter of course, depending as he did upon the good-will of the landholders, who were all of the same clan, Sombunsies. Few other Brahmins will condescend to eat, drink, or associate with these family and village priests, who take the sins of such murderers upon their own heads.

The old patriarch rode on with me upon his pony, five miles to my tents, as if I should not think the worse of him for having murdered his own daughters, and permitted others to murder theirs. I told him, that I could hold no converse with men who were guilty of such crimes; and that the vengeance of God would crush them all, sooner or latter. For his only excuse he told me, that it was a practice, derived from a long line of ancestors, wiser and better than they were; and that it prevailed in almost every Rajpoot family in the country; that they had, in consequence, become reconciled to it, and knew not how to do without it. Family pride is the cause of this terrible evil!

The estate of Kuteearee, on the left-hand side of the road towards the Ramgunga and Ganges, is held by Runjeet Sing, of the Kuteear Rajpoot clan. His estate yields to him about one hundred and twenty thousand rupees a-year, while he is assessed at only sixteen thousand. While Hakeem Mehndee was in banishment at Futtehgurh, about fifteen years ago, he became intimate with Runjeet Sing, of Kuteearee; and when he afterwards became minister, in 1837, he is said to have obtained for him the King's seal and signature to a perpetual lease at this rate, from which is deducted a nankar of four thousand, leaving an actual demand of only twelve thousand. Were such grants, in perpetuity, respected in Oude, the ministers and their minions would soon sell the whole of his Majesty's dominions, and leave him a beggar. He has not yet been made to pay a higher rate; not, however, out of regard for the King's pledge, but solely out of that for Runjeet's fort of Dhunmutpoor, on the bank of the Ganges, his armed bands, and his seven pieces of cannon. He has been diligently employing all his surplus rents in improving his defensive means; and, besides his fort and guns, is said to have a large body of armed and disciplined men. He has seized upon a great many villages around, belonging to weaker proprietors: and is every year adding to his estate in this way. In this the old Amil, Hafiz Abdoollah, acquiesced, solely because he had not the means nor the energy to prevent it. He got his estate excluded from the jurisdiction of the local authorities, and placed in the Huzoor Tuhseel.

Like others of his class, who reside on the border, he has a village in the British territory to reside in, unmolested, when charged by the Oude authorities with heavy crimes and balances. He had been attacked and driven across the Ganges, in 1837, for contumacy and rebellion; deprived of his estate, and obliged to reside at Futtehgurh, where he first became acquainted with Hakeem Mehndee. The Oude Government has often remonstrated against the protection which this contumacious and atrocious landholder receives from our subjects and authorities.* Crimes in this district are not quite so numerous as in Bangur; but they are of no less atrocious a character. The thieves and robbers of Bangur, when taken and taxed with being so, say, "of course we are robbers--if we were not, how should we have been permitted to reside in Bangur?" All are obliged to fight and plunder with the landholders, or to rob for them on distant roads, and in distant villages.

[* See the Resident's letter to Government North-Western Provinces, 3rd August, 1837. The King's letter to the Resident, 7th April, 1837. The same to the same, 19th May, 1837. Depositions and urzies. Runjeet Sing was attacked by the King's troops and driven across the Ganges again in June 1851, and died during the contest, which is being continued by his son. 1851.--W. H. S.]

My camp has been robbed several times within the time I have been out, and the property has been traced to villages in the Sundeela and Bangur districts. In the Sundeela district it can be recovered when traced with a small force, and the thieves taken; but in the Bangur district it would require a large military force well commanded, and a large train of artillery to recover the one or seize the other.

A respectable landholder of this place, a Sombunsie, tells me, that the custom of destroying their female infants has prevailed from the time of the first founder of their race; that a rich man has to give food to many Brahmins, to get rid of the stain, on the twelfth or thirteenth day, but that a poor man can get rid of it by presenting a little food in due form to the village priest; that they cannot give their daughters in marriage to any Rajpoot families, save the Rhathores and Chouhans; that the family of their clan who gave a daughter to any other class of Rajpoots, would be excluded from caste immediately and for ever; that those who have property have to give all they have with their daughters to the Chouhans and Rhathores, and reduce themselves to nothing; and can take nothing from them in return, as it is a great stain to take "kuneea dan," or virgin price; from any one; that a Sombunsie may, however, when reduced to great poverty, take the "kuneea dan" from the Chouhans and Rhathores for a virgin daughter without being excommunicated from the clan, but even he could not give a daughter to any other clan of Rajpoots without being excluded for ever from caste; that it was a misfortune no doubt, but it was one that had descended among them from the remotest antiquity, and could not be got rid of; that mothers wept and screamed a good deal when their first female infants were torn from them, but after two or three times giving birth to female infants, they become quiet and reconciled to the usage, and said, "do as you like;" that some poor parents of their clan did certainly give their daughters for large sums to wealthy people of lower Clans, but lost their caste for ever by so doing; that it was the dread of sinking, in substance from the loss of property, and in grade from the loss of caste, that alone led to the murder of female infants; that the dread prevailed more or less in every Rajpoot clan, and led to the same thing, but most in the clan that restricted the giving of daughters in marriage to the smallest number of clans.

The infant is destroyed in the room where it is born, and there buried. The floor is then plastered over with cow-dung, and on the thirteenth day the village or family priest must cook and eat his food in that room. He is provided with wood, ghee, barley, rice, and tillee (sesamum). He boils the rice, barley, and sesamum in a brass vessel, throws the ghee over them when they are dressed, and eats the whole. This is considered as a hom, or burnt-offering, and by eating it in that place the priest is supposed to take the whole hutteea or sin upon himself, and to cleanse the family from it. I am told that they put the milk of the mudar shrub "asclepias gigantea," into the mouth of the infant to destroy it, and cover the mouth with the faeces that first pass from, the infant's bowels. It soon dies; and after the expiation the parents again occupy the room, and there receive the visits of their family and friends, and gossip as usual!

Rajah Bukhtawar Sing tells me, that he has heard the whole process frequently described in this way by the midwives who have attended the birth. These midwives are however generally sent out of the room with the mother when the infant is found to be a girl. In any law for the effectual prevention of this crime, it would be necessary to prescribe a severe punishment for the priest, as an accessary after the fact. The only objection to this is, I think, that it might deprive the Court of the advantage of an important witness when required at the trial of the parents, but when necessary he might be admitted as King's evidence. All the people here that I talk to on the subject, say that the crime has been put down in the greater part of the British territories, and that judicious measures honestly and firmly carried out would put it down in Oude, and do away with the scruples which one clan of Rajpoots have to give their daughters in marriage to another. Unable to murder their daughters, they would be glad to dispose of them in marriage to all clans of Rajpoots. It might be put down in Oude, as it was put down by Mr. Willoughby, of Bombay, in the districts under his charge, by making the abolition one of the conditions on which all persons of the Rajpoot clans hold their lands, and strictly enforcing the observance of that condition. The Government of Oude as now constituted could do nothing whatever towards putting it down in this or any other way.

January 27, 1850.--Palee, eight miles north-west. The road half way from Sandee to Busora, and half way from Busora to Palee, passes over a very light, sandy soil--bhoor. I have already stated that kutcha wells, or wells without burnt brick and cement, will not last in this sandy soil, while it stands more in need of irrigation. The road for the last half way of this morning's stage passes over a good doomuteea soil. The whole country is however well cultivated, and well studded with fine trees; and the approach to Palee is at this season very picturesque. The groves of mango and other fine trees amidst which the town stands, on the right bank of the Gurra river, appear very beautiful as one approaches, particularly now that the surrounding country is covered by so fine a carpet of rich spring crops. The sun's rays, falling upon such rich masses of foliage, produce an infinite variety of form, colour, and tint, on which the eye delights to repose. We intended to have our camp on the other side of the river, but no good ground could be found for it, without injury to the crops, within three miles from Palee, and we must cross it on our way to Shahabad to-morrow.

This small river flows along a little to the right of our march this morning. About half way we passed a very pretty village, held and cultivated by families of Kunojee Brahmins, who condescend to hold and drive their own ploughs. Other families of this class pride themselves upon never condescending to drive their own ploughs, and consider themselves in consequence a shade higher in caste. Other Brahmin families have different shades or degrees of caste, like the Kunojeeas; but I am not aware that any family of any other class of Brahmins condescend to hold their own ploughs. I told them, that "God seemed to favour their exertions, and bless them with prosperity, for I had not seen a neater village or village community." They seemed to be all well pleased with my compliment. At Palee resides Bulbhuder Sing, a notorious robber, who was lately seized and sent as a felon to Lucknow. After six months' confinement he bribed himself out, got possession of the estate which he now holds, and to which he had no right whatever, and had it excluded from the jurisdiction of the local authorities, and transferred to the "Hozoor Tuhseel." He has been ever since diligently employed in converting it into a den of robbers, and in the usual way seizing upon other people's lands, stock, and property of all kinds.

Hundreds in Oude are doing the same thing in the same way. Scores of those who suffer from the depredations of this class of offenders, complain to me every day; but I can neither afford them redress, nor hold out any hope of it from any of the Oude authorities. It is a proverb, "that those who are sentenced to six years' imprisonment in Oude, are released in six months, and those who are sentenced to six months, are released in six years." Great numbers are released every year at Lucknow for thanksgivings, or propitiation. If the King or any member of his family becomes sick, prisoners are released, that they may recover; and when they recover, others are released as a grateful, and, at the same time, profitable acknowledgment, since the Government relieves itself from the cost of keeping them; and its servants appropriate the money paid for their ransom. Those who are in for long periods are, for the most part, great offenders, who are the most able and most willing to pay high for their release; those who are in for short ones are commonly the small ones, who are the least able and least disposed to give anything. The great offenders again are those who are most disposed, and most able, to revenge themselves on such persons as have aided the Government in their arrest or conviction; and they do all they can to murder and rob them and their families and relatives, as soon as they are set at large, in order to deter others from doing the same. This would be a great evil in any country, but is terrible in Oude, where no police is maintained for the protection of life and property. The cases of atrocious murders and robberies which come before me every day, and are acknowledged by the local authorities, and neighbours of the sufferers, to have taken place, are frightful. Such sufferings, for which no redress is to be found, would soon desolate any part of India less favoured by nature.

In the valley of the Nerbudda, for instance, such sufferings would render a district desolate for ages. The people, driven off from an estate, go and settle in another better governed. The grass grows rankly from the richness of the soil, and the humidity of the air, and becomes filled with deer and other animals, that are food for beasts of prey. Tigers, leopards, wolves, wild dogs, &c. follow, to feed upon them; and they render residence and industry unsafe. Malaria follows, and destroys what persons the tigers leave. I have seen extensive tracts of the richest soil and most picturesque scenery, along the banks of the Nerbudda, which had been rendered desolate for ages by the misrule of only a few years. It is the same in the Tarae forest, which separates Oude from Nepaul. But in the rest of Oude, from the Ganges to this belt of forest, no such effects follow misrule, however great and prolonged. Here no grass grows too rankly, few deer fill it, few tigers, leopards, wolves, or wild dogs come in pursuit of them, and no malaria is feared. If a landholder takes to rebellion and plunder, he is followed by all his retainers and clansmen; and their families, and the cultivators of other classes, feeling no longer secure, go and till lands on other estates, till they are invited back. The cowherds and shepherds, who live by the produce of their cattle and sheep, remain and thrive by the abundance of pasture lands, from which the rich spring and harvest crops have disappeared. These cattle and sheep graze over them, and enrich the soil by restoring to it a portion of those elements of fertility, of which a long succession of harvests had robbed it. Over and above what they leave on the grounds, over which they graze, large stores of manure are collected for future use by the herdsmen, who now exclusively occupy the villages. The landholder and his followers, in the meantime, subsist and enrich themselves by the indiscriminate plunder of the surrounding country; and are at last invited back by a weak and wearied Government, to reoccupy the lands, improved by this salutary fallow, at a lower rate of rent, or no rent at all for some years, and a remission of all balances for past years, on account of paemalee, or treading down of crops, during the disorder that has prevailed.

The cultivators return to occupy their old lands, so enriched, at reduced rates of rent; and, in two or three years, these lands become again carpeted with a beautiful variety of spring and autumn crops. The crops, in our districts, on the opposite side of the river Ganges, bear no comparison with those on the Oude side. The lands are all overcropped and under-stocked with cattle and sheep from the want of pasture lands. There is little manure, the water is too far below the surface to admit of sufficient irrigation, without greater outlay than the farmers and cultivators can afford; the rotation of crops is insufficient, and no salutary fallow comes to the relief of the soil, from the labour of men living and working under the efficient protection of a strong and able Government. The difference in the crops is manifest to the beholder, and shown in the rate of rents paid for the lands where the price of land produce is the same in both; the same river conveying the produce of both to and from the same markets.

A Murhutta army, under the Peshwa, Ballajee, invaded the districts, about the source of the Nerbudda river, about one hundred and seven years ago, A.D. 1742. They ravaged these districts as they did all others which they invaded; but they, like the greater part of the Oude Tarae, remain waste; while the others, like the rest of Oude, soon recovered and become prosperous from the circumstances above stated. The soil of some of the districts, about the source of the Nerbudda, then ravaged, is among the finest in the world; but the long grass and rich foliage, by which it is covered, are occupied, like the pampos of South America, almost exclusively by wild cattle, buffaloes, deer, and tigers. The district of Mundula, which intervenes between them and the rich and highly-cultivated district of Jubbulpoor, in the valley of that river, was populous and well cultivated when we took possession of it in the year 1817; but it has become almost as waste under our rule by a more gradual but not less desolating process. Not considering the diminishing markets for land produce, our assessments of the land revenue were too high, and the managing officers never thought the necessity of reduction established, till the villages were partially or wholly deserted. The farmers and cultivators all emigrated, by degrees, into the neighbouring districts of Nagpoor and Rewa, where they had more consideration and lighter assessments, and the markets for land produce were improving. The lands of Mundula became waste, and covered with rank grass filled with deer; tigers followed to feed upon them, and carried off all the poor peasantry, who remained and attempted to cultivate small patches; malaria followed and completed the work.

Like the tharoos of the Oude forest, the Gonds born in this malaria are the only people who can live in it; and the ravages of tigers and endemial disease prevent their numbers from increasing. Those who once emigrate never come back, and population and tillage have been decreasing ever since we took possession, or for thirty-three years. The same process has been going on in other parts of the Nerbudda valley with the same results. In Oude, from the causes above described, lands of the same denomination and kind often yield double the rate of rent that they yield in our own conterminous districts, or districts on the opposite side of the Ganges, and other rivers that separate our territories from those of Oude. Under a tolerable Government, Oude would soon become one of the most beautiful countries in India; but the lands would fall off, in fertility, as ours do from over-cropping, no doubt.

January 28, 1850.--Shahabad, ten miles. We crossed, close under Palee, the little river Gurra, which continued for some miles to flow along, in its winding course, close by on our left. It is here some five or six miles to the south-west of the town. The soil we have come over is chiefly muteear, or the doomuteea, tightened by a mixture of clay, or argillaceous earth. Rich crops of rice are grown on this muteea, which retains its moisture so much better than the looser doomutea soil.

Half-way we came through a neat village, the lands of which are subdivided between the members of a large family of Kunojee Brahmins, who came out to see us pass, and pay their respects. The cultivation was so fine that I hoped they were of the class who condescended to hold their own ploughs. I asked them; and they, with seeming pride, told me that they did not--that they employed servants to hold their ploughs for them. When I told them that this was their misfortune, they seemed much amused, but were all well-behaved and respectful, though they must have thought my notion very odd.

The little Gurra flows from the Oude Tarae forest by the town of Phillibheet, where boats are built, to be taken down to Cawnpoor, on the Ganges, for sale. About four hundred, great and small, are supposed to be taken down the Gurra every year, in the season of the rains. They take down the timber of the Tarae forest, rice, and other things; and all are sold, with their cargoes, at Cawnpoor, or other places on the Ganges. The timbers are floated along on both sides of the boats. Palee is a good place for a cantonment, or seat of public civil establishments, and Shahabad is no less so. The approach to both, from the south-east, is equally beautiful, from the rich crops which cover the ground up to the houses, and the fine groves and majestic single trees which surround them.

Shahabad is a very ancient and large town, occupied chiefly by Pathan Mussulmans, who are a very turbulent and fanatical set of fellows. Subsookh Rae, a Hindoo, and the most respectable merchant in the district, resided here, and for some time consented to officiate, as the deputy of poor old Hafiz Abdoollah, for the management of the town, where his influence was great. He had lent a good deal of money to the heads of some of the Pathan families of the town, but finding few of them disposed to repay, he was last year obliged to refuse further loans. They determined to take advantage of the coming mohurrum festival to revenge the affront as men commonly do who live among such a fanatical community. The tazeeas are commonly taken up, and carried in procession, ten days after the new moon is first seen, at any place where they are made; but in Oude all go by the day in which the moon is seen from the capital of Lucknow. As soon as she is seen at Lucknow, the King issues an order throughout his dominions for the tazeeas to be taken in procession ten days after. The moon was this year, in November, first seen on the 30th of the month at Lucknow; but at Shahabad, where the sky is generally clearer, she had been seen on the 29th. The men to whom Subsookh Rae had refused farther loans determined to take advantage of this incident to wreak their vengeance; and when the deputy promulgated the King's order for the tazeeas to be taken in procession ten days after the 30th, they instigated all the Mahommedans of the town to insist upon taking them out ten days after the 29th, and persuaded them that the order had been fabricated, or altered, by the malice of their Hindoo deputy, to insult their religious feelings. They were taken out accordingly, and having to pass the house of Subsookh Rae, when their excitement, or spirit of religious fervour, had reached the highest pitch, they there put them down, broke open the doors, entered in a crowd, and plundered it of all the property they could find, amounting to above seventy thousand rupees. Subsookh Rae was obliged to get out, with his family, at a back door, and run for his life. He went to Shajehanpoor, in our territory, and put himself under the protection of the magistrate. Not content with all this, they built a small miniature mosque at the door with some loose bricks, so that no one could go either out or in without the risk of knocking it down, or so injuring this mock mosque as to rouse, or enable the evil- minded to rouse, the whole Mahommedan population against the offender. Poor Subsookh Rae has been utterly ruined, and ever since seeking in vain for redress. The Government is neither disposed nor able to afford it, and the poor boy who has now succeeded his learned father in the contract is helpless. The little mock mosque, of uncemented bricks, still stands as a monument of the insolence of the Mahommedan population, and the weakness and apathy of the Oude Government.

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Chapter VI

Chapter 1

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter I