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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude,
+Volumes I & II, by William Sleeman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II
+
+Author: William Sleeman
+
+Release Date: November 4, 2005 [EBook #16997]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINGDOM OF OUDE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Philip Hitchcock
+
+
+
+
+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. I.
+
+LONDON:
+RICHARD BENTLEY,
+Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
+1858.
+
+
+[Transcriber's note:
+The author's spelling of the names of places and people vary
+considerably, even within a single paragraph. The spelling of place
+names in the text varies from that shown on the map. The author's
+spelling is reproduced as in the printed text.]
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+My object in writing this DIARY OF A TOUR THROUGH OUDE was to
+prepare, for submission to the Government of India, as fair and full
+a picture of the real state of the country, condition, and feeling of
+the people of all classes, and character of the Government under
+which they at present live, as the opportunities which the tour
+afforded me might enable me to draw.
+
+The DIARY must, for the present, be considered as an official
+document, which may be perused, but cannot be published, wholly or in
+part, without the sanction of Government previously obtained.*
+
+                    W. H. SLEEMAN.
+Lucknow, 1852.
+
+* This permission was accorded by the Honourable Court of Directors
+in December last.
+
+[Transcriber's note: _Rambles and Recollections of an Indian
+Official_ by W. H. Sleeman 2nd Ed. 1915, p.xxxvi notes that the date
+of the permission was not December 1851, but December 1852.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+Biographical Sketch of Major-General Sir W. H. Sleeman, K.C.B.
+
+Introduction
+
+Private correspondence preceding the Journey through the Kingdom of
+Oude
+
+      ______________________________________________
+
+
+                   CHAPTER I.
+
+Departure from Lucknow--Gholam Hazrut--Attack on the late Prime
+Minister, Ameen-od-Dowla--A similar attack on the sons of a former
+Prime Minister, Agar Meer--Gunga Sing and Kulunder Buksh--Gorbuksh
+Sing, of Bhitolee--Gonda Bahraetch district--Rughbur Sing--Prethee
+Put, of Paska--King of Oude and King of the Fairies--Surafraz mahal
+
+
+                   CHAPTER II.
+
+Bahraetch--Shrine of Syud Salar--King of the Fairies and the
+Fiddlers--Management of Bahraetch district for forty-three years--
+Murder of Amur Sing, by Hakeem Mehndee--Nefarious transfer of
+_khalsa_ lands to Tallookdars, by local officers--Rajah Dursun Sing--
+His aggression on the Nepaul Territory--Consequences--Intelligence
+Department--How formed, managed, and abused--Rughbur Sing's
+management of Gonda and Bahraetch for 1846-47--Its fiscal effects--A
+gang-robber caught and hung by Brahmin villagers--Murder of
+Syampooree Gosaen--Ramdut Pandee--Fairies and Fiddlers--Ramdut
+Pandee, the Banker--the Rajahs of Toolseepoor and Bulrampoor--Murder
+of Mr. Ravenscroft, of the Bengal Civil Service, at Bhinga, in 1823.
+
+
+                   CHAPTER III.
+
+Legendary tale of breach of Faith--Kulhuns tribe of Rajpoots--Murder
+of the Banker, Ramdut Pandee, by the Nazim of Bahraetch--Recrossing
+the Ghagra river--Sultanpoor district, State of Commandants of
+troops become sureties for the payment of land revenue--Estate of
+Muneearpoor and the Lady Sogura--Murder of Hurpaul Sing, Gurgbunsee,
+of Kupragow--Family of Rajahs Bukhtawar and Dursun Sing--Their
+_bynama_ Lands--Law of Primogeniture--Its object and effect--Rajah
+Ghalib Jung--Good effects of protection to Tenantry--Disputes about
+Boundaries--Our army a safety-valve for Oude--Rapid decay of Landed
+Aristocracy in our Territories--Local ties in groves, wells, &c.
+
+
+                   CHAPTER IV.
+
+Recross the Goomtee river--Sultanpoor Cantonments--Number of persons
+begging redress of wrongs, and difficulty of obtaining it in Oude--
+Apathy of the Sovereign--Incompetence and unfitness of his Officers--
+Sultanpoor, healthy and well suited for Troops--Chandour, twelve
+miles distant, no less so--lands of their weaker neighbours absorbed
+by the family of Rajah Dursun Sing, by fraud, violence, and
+collusion; but greatly improved--Difficulty attending attempt to
+restore old Proprietors--Same absorptions have been going on in all
+parts of Oude--and the same difficulty to be everywhere encountered--
+Soils in the district, _mutteear_, _doomutteea_, _bhoor_, _oosur_--
+Risk at which lands are tilled under Landlords opposed to their
+Government--Climate of Oude more invigorating than that of Malwa--
+Captain Magness's Regiment--Repair of artillery guns--Supply of grain
+to its bullocks--Civil establishment of the Nazim--Wolves--Dread of
+killing them among Hindoos--Children preserved by them in their dens,
+and nurtured.
+
+
+                   CHAPTER V.
+
+Salone district--Rajah Lal Hunmunt Sing of Dharoopoor--Soil of Oude--
+Relative fertility of the _mutteear_ and _doomutteea_--Either may
+become _oosur_, or barren, from neglect, and is reclaimed, when it
+does so, with difficulty--Shah Puna Ata, a holy man in charge of an
+eleemosynary endowment at Salone--Effects of his curses--Invasion of
+British Boundary--Military Force with the Nazim--State and character
+of this Force--Rae Bareilly in the Byswara district--Bandha, or
+Misletoe--Rana Benee Madhoo, of Shunkerpoor--Law of Primogeniture--
+Title of Rana contested between Benee Madhoo and Rogonath Sing--
+Bridge and avenue at Rae Bareilly--Eligible place for cantonment and
+civil establishments--State of the Artillery--Sobha Sing's regiment--
+Foraging System--Peasantry follow the fortunes of their refractory
+Landlords--No provision for the king's soldiers, disabled in action,
+or for the families of those who are killed--Our sipahees, a
+privileged class, very troublesome in the Byswara and Banoda
+districts--Goorbukshgunge--Man destroyed by an Elephant--Danger to
+which keepers of such animals are exposed--Bys Rajpoots composed of
+two great families, Sybunsies and Nyhassas--Their continual contests
+for landed possessions--Futteh Bahader--Rogonath Sing--Mahibollah the
+robber and estate of Balla--Notion that Tillockchundee Bys Rajpoots
+never suffer from the bite of a snake--Infanticide--Paucity of
+comfortable dwelling-houses--The cause--Agricultural capitalists--
+Ornaments and apparel of the females of the Bys clan--Late Nazim Hamid
+Allee--His father-in-law Fuzl Allee--First loan from Oude to our
+Government--Native gentlemen with independent incomes cannot reside
+in the country--Crowd the city, and tend to alienate the Court from
+the people.
+
+
+                   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.
+
+
+
+
+BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
+of
+MAJOR-GENERAL SIR W. H. SLEEMAN. K.C.B.
+
+     _______________________
+
+
+This distinguished officer, whose career in India extended over a
+period of forty years, and whose services were highly appreciated by
+three Governors-General--Viscount Hardinge, the Earl of Ellenborough,
+and the Marquess of Dalhousie--evinced by their appointing him to the
+most difficult and delicate duties--was the son of Philip and Mary
+Sleeman, and was born at Stratton, Cornwall, 8th August, 1788. In
+early years he evinced a predilection for the military profession;
+and at the age of twenty-one (October, 1809), through the good
+offices of the late Lord De Dunstanville, he was appointed an
+Infantry Cadet in the Bengal army. Thither he proceeded as soon as
+possible, and was promoted successively to the rank of Ensign, 23rd
+September, 1810; Lieutenant, 16th December, 1814; Brevet-Captain,
+24th April, 1824; Captain, 23rd September, 1826; Major, 1st February,
+1837; Lieutenant-Colonel, 26th May, 1843; Colonel, 24th November,
+1853; and obtained the rank of Major-General 28th November, 1854.
+
+Early in his career he served in the Nepaulese war. The value of his
+talents soon became known, and in 1816, when it was considered
+necessary to investigate a claim to property as prize-money arising
+out of that war, Lieutenant Sleeman was selected to inquire into it.
+The report was accordingly made by him in February 1817, which was
+designated by the Government as "able, impartial, and satisfactory."
+
+In 1820 he was appointed junior Assistant to the Agent of the
+Governor-General at Saugur, and remained in the Civil Department in
+the Saugur and Nerbudda territories, with the exception of absence on
+sick certificate, for nearly a quarter of a century. Here he
+manifested that, if he had been efficient in an inferior position, he
+was also an able administrator in a superior post. He distinguished
+himself so much by his activity in the suppression of the horrible
+practice of Thuggism, then so prevalent, that, in 1835, he was
+employed exclusively in the Thuggee Department; his appointment in
+the Saugur and Nerbudda districts being kept open, and his promotion
+going on. The very valuable Papers upon Thuggism submitted to the
+Governor-General were chiefly drawn up by Sir William Sleeman, and
+the department specially commissioned for this important purpose was
+not only organised but worked by him. In consequence of ill-health,
+however, at the end of 1836, he was compelled to resign this
+appointment; but on his return to duty in February 1839, he was
+nominated to the combined offices of Commissioner for the Suppression
+of Thuggee and Dacoity.
+
+In 1842 he was employed on a special mission in Bundelcund, to
+inquire into the causes of the recent disturbances there, and he
+remained in that district, with additional duties, as Resident at
+Gwalior, from 1844 until 1849, when he was removed to the highly
+important office of Resident at the Court of Lucknow. Colonel Sleeman
+held his office at Gwalior in very critical times, which resulted in
+hostilities and the battle of Maharajpore. But for a noble and
+unselfish act he would have received this promotion at an earlier
+period. The circumstance was this: Colonel Low, the Resident at that
+time, hearing that his father was dangerously ill, tendered his
+resignation to Lord Auckland, who immediately offered the appointment
+to Colonel Sleeman. No sooner had this occurred, however, than
+Colonel Low wrote to his Lordship that, since he had resigned, the
+house of Gaunter and Co., of Calcutta, in which his brother was a
+partner, had failed, and, in consequence, every farthing he had saved
+had been swept away. Under this painful contingency be begged to
+place himself in his Lordship's hands. This letter was sent by Lord
+Auckland to Colonel Sleeman, who immediately wrote to Colonel Low,
+begging that he would retain his situation at Lucknow. This generous
+conduct of Colonel Sleeman was duly appreciated; and Lord Auckland,
+on leaving India, recommended him to the particular notice of his
+successor. Lord Ellenborough, who immediately appointed Colonel
+Sleeman to Jhansi with an additional 1000_l_. a-year to his income.
+
+Colonel Sleeman held the appointment of Resident at Lucknow from the
+year 1849 until 1856. During this period his letters and diary show
+his unwearied efforts to arrive at the best information on all points
+with regard to Oude. These will enable the reader to form a just,
+opinion on the highly-important subject of the annexation of this
+kingdom to British India. The statements of Colonel Sleeman bear
+inward evidence of his great administrative talents, his high and
+honourable character, and of his unceasing endeavours to promote the
+best interests of the King of Oude, so that his kingdom might have
+been preserved to him. Colonel Sleeman's views were directly opposed
+to annexation, as his letters clearly show.
+
+His long and arduous career was now, however, fast drawing to a
+close. So early as the summer of 1854 it became evident that the
+health of General Sleeman was breaking up, and in the August of that
+year he was attacked by alarming illness. "Forty-six years of
+incessant labour," observes a writer at this date, "have had their
+influence even on his powerful frame: he has received one of those
+terrible warnings believed to indicate the approach of paralysis.
+With General Sleeman will depart the last hope of any improvement in
+the condition of the unhappy country of Oude. Though belonging to the
+elder class of Indian officials, he has never been Hindooized. He
+fully appreciated the evils of a native throne: he has sternly, and
+even haughtily, pointed out to the King the miseries caused by his
+incapacity, and has frequently extorted from his fears the mercy
+which it was vain to hope from his humanity."
+
+Later in the year. General Sleeman went to the hills, in the hope of
+recruiting his wasted health by change of air and scene; but the
+expectation proved vain, and he was compelled to take passage for
+England. But it was now too late: notwithstanding the best medical
+aid, he gradually sank, and, after a long illness, died on his
+passage from Calcutta, on the 10th February, 1856, at the age of
+sixty-seven.
+
+His Indian career was, indeed, long and honourable his labours most
+meritorious. He was one of those superior men which the Indian
+service is constantly producing, who have rendered the name of
+Englishman respected throughout the vast empire of British India, and
+whose memory will endure so long as British power shall remain in the
+East.
+
+It is well known that Lord Dalhousie, on his relinquishing the Indian
+Government, recommended General Sleeman and two other distinguished
+officers in civil employment for some mark of the royal favour, and
+he was accordingly nominated K.C.B., 4th February, 1856; of which
+honour his Lordship apprised him in a highly gratifying letter.
+
+But, however high the reputation of an officer placed in such
+circumstances--and none stood higher than Sir William Sleeman, not
+only in the estimation of the Governor-General and the Honourable
+Company, but also in the opinion of the inhabitants of India, where
+he had served with great ability for forty years, and won the respect
+and love particularly of the natives, who always regarded him as
+their friend, and by whom his equity was profoundly appreciated--it
+was to be anticipated, as a matter of course, that his words and
+actions would be distorted and misrepresented by a Court so
+atrociously infamous. This, no doubt, he was prepared to expect, The
+King, or rather the creatures who surrounded him, would at all cost
+endeavour to prevent any investigation into their gross malpractices,
+and seek to slander the man they were unable to remove.
+
+The annexation of Oude to the British dominions followed, but not as
+a consequence of Sir W. Sleeman's report. No greater injustice can be
+done than to assert that he advised such a course. His letters prove
+exactly the reverse. He distinctly states, in his correspondence with
+the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, that the annexation of Oude
+would cost the British power more than the value of ten such
+kingdoms, and would inevitably lead to a mutiny of the Sepoys. He
+constantly maintains the advisability of frontier kingdoms under
+native sovereigns, that the people themselves might observe the
+contrast, to the advantage of the Honourable Company, of the wise and
+equitable administration of its rule compared with the oppressive and
+cruel despotism of their own princes. Sir William Sleeman had
+profoundly studied the Indian character in its different races, and
+was deservedly much beloved by them for his earnest desire to promote
+their welfare, and for the effectual manner in which, on all
+occasions in his power, and these were frequent, he redressed the
+evils complained of, and extended the _AEgis_ of British power over
+the afflicted and oppressed.
+
+
+                      __________________________
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+THE following Narrative of a "Pilgrimage" through the kingdom of Oude
+was written by the late Major-General Sir William Sleeman in 1851
+(while a Resident at the Court of Lucknow), at the request of the
+Governor-General the Marquess of Dalhousie, in order to acquaint the
+Honourable Company with the actual condition of that kingdom, and
+with the view of pointing out the best measures to be suggested to
+the King for the improvement and amelioration of the country and
+people.
+
+So early as October, 1847, the King of Oude had been informed by the
+Governor-General, that if his system of rule were not materially
+amended (for it was disgraceful and dangerous to any neighbouring
+power to permit its continuance in its present condition) before two
+years had expired, the British Government would find it necessary to
+take steps for such purpose in his name. Accordingly on the 16th
+September, 1848, the Governor-General addressed the following letter
+to Sir William Sleeman, commissioning him to make a personal visit to
+all parts of the kingdom:--
+
+                         "_Government House, Sept_. 16, 1848.
+
+"My Dear COLONEL SLEEMAN,--It was a matter of regret to me that I had
+not anticipated your desire to succeed Colonel Sutherland in
+Rajpootana before I made arrangements which prevented my offering
+that appointment to you. I now regret it no longer, since the course
+of events has put it in my power to propose an arrangement which
+will, I apprehend, be more agreeable to you, and which will make your
+services more _actively_ beneficial to the State.
+
+"Colonel Richmond has intimated his intention of immediately
+resigning the Residency at Lucknow. The communication made by the
+Governor-General to the King of Oude, in October, 1847, gave His
+Majesty to understand that if the condition of Government was not
+very materially amended before two years had expired, the management
+for his behoof would be taken into the hands of the British
+Government.
+
+"There seems little reason to expect or to hope that in October,
+1849, any amendment whatever will have been effected. The
+reconstruction of the internal administration of a great, rich, and
+oppressed country, is a noble as well as an arduous task for the
+officer to whom the duty is intrusted, and the Government have
+recourse to one of the best of its servants for that purpose.
+
+"The high reputation you have earned, your experience of civil
+administration, your knowledge of the people, and the qualifications
+you possess as a public man, have led me to submit your name to the
+Council of India as an officer to whom I could commit this important
+charge with entire confidence that its duties would be well
+performed. I do myself, therefore, the honour of proposing to you to
+accept the office of Resident at Lucknow, with especial reference to
+the great changes which, in all probability, will take place.
+Retaining your superintendency of Thuggee affairs, it will be
+manifestly necessary that you should be relieved from the duty
+of the trials of Thugs usually condemned at Lucknow.
+
+"In the hope that you will not withhold from the Government your
+services in the capacity I have named, and in the further hope of
+finding an opportunity of personally making your acquaintance,
+
+                "I have the honour to be,
+                     "Dear Colonel Sleeman,
+                          "Very faithfully yours,
+                              "DALHOUSIE."
+
+"To Colonel Sleeman, &c., &c."
+
+
+Immediately on receipt of this despatch, Sir William proceeded to
+make the necessary inquiry. Doubtless the King (instigated by his
+Ministers and favourites, who dreaded the exposure of all their
+infamous proceedings) would have prevented this investigation, which,
+he was aware, would furnish evidence of gross mal-administration,
+cruelty, and oppression almost unparalleled; but Sir William Sleeman
+was too well acquainted with the character of the people of the East
+to be moved either by cajolery or menaces from the important duty
+which had devolved upon him.
+
+Sir William Sleeman's position as Resident enabled him to ascertain
+thoroughly the real state of Oude; and the great respect with which
+he was universally received manifests the high opinion entertained of
+him personally by all ranks. The details he has given of the
+prevailing anarchy and lawlessness throughout the kingdom, would
+scarcely be believed were they not vouched for by an officer of
+established reputation and integrity. Firmness united to amenity of
+manner were indeed the characteristics of Sir William in his
+important and delicate office at such a Court--a Court where the
+King, deputing the conduct of business to Ministers influenced by the
+basest motives, and who constantly sacrificed justice to bribery and
+low intrigues, gave himself up to the effeminate indulgence of his
+harem, and the society of eunuchs and fiddlers. His Majesty appears
+to have been governed by favourites of the hour selected through
+utter caprice, and to have permitted, if he did not order, such
+atrocious cruelties and oppression as rendered the kingdom of Oude a
+disgrace to the British rule in India, and called for strong
+interference, on the score of humanity alone, as well as with the
+hope of compelling amendment.
+
+The letter addressed by Lord Dalhousie to Sir William Sleeman
+expresses the desire of the Governor-General that he should endeavour
+to inform himself of the actual state of Oude, and render his
+Narrative a guide to the Honourable Company in its Report to the
+Court of Directors. The details furnish but too faithful a picture of
+the miserable condition of the people, equally oppressed by the
+exactions of the King's army and collectors, and by the gangs of
+robbers and lawless chieftains who infest the whole territory,
+rendering tenure so doubtful that no good dwellings could be erected,
+and land only partially cultivated; whilst the numberless cruelties
+and atrocious murders surpass belief. Shut up in his harem, the voice
+of justice seldom reached the ear of the monarch, and when it did,
+was scarcely heeded. The Resident, it will be seen, was beset during
+his journey with petitions for redress so numerous, that, anxious as
+he was to do everything in his power to mitigate the horrors he
+witnessed, he frequently gives vent to the pain he experienced at
+finding relief impracticable.
+
+The Narrative contains an unvarnished but unexaggerated picture of
+the actual state of Oude, with many remedial suggestions; but direct
+annexation formed no part of the policy which Sir William Sleeman
+recommended. To this measure he was strenuously opposed, as is
+distinctly proved by his letters appended to the Journal. At the same
+time, he repeatedly affirms the total unfitness of the King to
+govern. These opinions are still further corroborated by the
+following letter from his private correspondence, 1854-5, written
+when Resident at Lucknow, and published in the _Times_ in November
+last:--
+
+"The system of annexation, pursued by a party in this country, and
+favoured by Lord Dalhousie and his Council, has, in my opinion, and
+in that of a large number of the ablest men in India, a downward
+tendency--a tendency to crush all the higher and middle classes
+connected with the land. These classes it should be our object to
+create and foster, that we might in the end inspire them with a
+feeling of interest in the stability of our rule. _We shall find a
+few years hence the tables turned against us_. In fact, the
+aggressive and absorbing policy, which has done so much mischief of
+late in India, is beginning to create feelings of alarm in the native
+mind; and it is when the popular mind becomes agitated by such alarms
+that fanatics will always be found ready to step into Paradise over
+the bodies of the most prominent of those from whom injury is
+apprehended. I shall have nothing new to do at Lucknow. Lord
+Dalhousie and I have different views, I fear. If he wishes anything
+done that I do not think right and honest, I resign, and leave it to
+be done by others. I desire a strict adherence to solemn engagements,
+whether made with white faces or black. We have no right to annex or
+confiscate Oude; but we have a right, under the treaty of 1837, to
+take the management of it, but not to appropriate its revenues to
+ourselves. We can do this with honour to our Government and benefit
+to the people. To confiscate would be dishonest and dishonourable. To
+annex would be to give the people a government almost as bad as their
+own, if we put our screw upon them. My position here has been and is
+disagreeable and unsatisfactory: we have a fool of a king, a knave of
+a minister, and both are under the influence of one of the cleverest,
+most intriguing, and most unscrupulous villains in India."
+
+Major Bird, in his pamphlet "Dacoitee in Excelsis," while
+endeavouring to establish a case for the King of Oude, has assumed
+that Sir William Sleeman was an instrument in the hands of Lord
+Dalhousie, to carry out his purpose of annexing Oude to British
+India. The letters, now first printed, entirely refute this hasty and
+erroneous statement. Major Bird has, in fact, withdrawn it himself in
+a lecture delivered by him at Southampton on Tuesday, the 16th of
+February, 1858.
+
+It will be seen that Sir W. Sleeman's "Diary" commences on December
+1, 1849. To preserve chronological order, the letters written before
+that date are prefixed; those which refer to a later period are added
+at the end of the narrative.
+
+
+                       __________________________
+
+
+PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE
+PRECEDING THE JOURNEY THROUGH THE KINGDOM OF OUDE.
+
+
+                                    Camp, 20th February, 1848.
+
+My Dear Sir,
+
+I thank you for your letter of the 10th instant, and am of opinion
+that you may be able to make good use of Bhurut Sing under judicious
+management, and strict surveillance; but you do not mention who and
+what he is--whether he is a prisoner under sentence, or a free agent,
+or of what caste and profession. Some men make these offers in order
+to have opportunities of escape, while engaged in the pretended
+search after associates in crime; others to extort money from those
+whom they may denounce, or have the authority and means to arrest. He
+should be made to state distinctly the evidence he has against
+persons, and the way he got it; and all should be recorded against
+the names of the persons in a Register. Major Riddell is well
+acquainted with our mode of proceedings in all such cases, and I
+recommend you to put yourself in communication, as soon as possible,
+with him, and Mr. Dampier, the Superintendent of Police, who
+fortunately takes the greatest possible interest in all such matters.
+I have no supervision whatever over the officers of the department
+employed in Bengal; all rests entirely with Mr. Dampier. You might
+write to him at once, and tell him that you are preparing such a
+Register as I suggest; and if he is satisfied with the evidence, he
+will authorise the arrest of all or part, and well reward Bhurut Sing
+for his services.
+
+       Believe me, My Dear Sir,
+             With best wishes for your success,
+                   Yours sincerely,
+            (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Capt. J. Innes,
+Barrackpoor.
+
+       _________________________
+
+
+                                         Camp, 20th February, 1848.
+My Dear Colonel Sutherland,
+
+There are at Jubulpore a good many of the Bagree decoits, who have
+been sentenced as approvers, by the Courts of Punchaet, in
+Rajpootana, to imprisonment for very short periods. Unless they are
+ordered to be retained when these periods expire, on a requisition of
+security for their future good behaviour, they will make off, and
+assuredly return to their hereditary trade. The ordinary pay of the
+grades open to them in our police and other establishments, will not
+satisfy them when they find that we have no hold upon them, and they
+become more and more troublesome as the time for their enlargement
+approaches.
+
+I send you copies of the letters from Government of the 27th June,
+1839, from which you will see that it was intended that all
+professional decoits who gave us their services on a promise of
+conditional pardon, should have a sentence of imprisonment for life
+recorded against them, the execution of which was to be suspended
+during their good behaviour, and eventually altogether remitted in
+cases where they might be deemed to have merited, by a course of true
+and faithful services, such an indulgence. In all other parts, as
+well as in our own provinces as in native states, such sentences,
+have been recorded against these men, and they have cheerfully
+submitted to them, under the assurance that they and their children
+would be provided with the means of earning an honest livelihood; but
+in Rajpootana it has been otherwise.
+
+By Act 24, of 1843, all such professional gang-robbers are declared
+liable to a sentence, on conviction, of imprisonment for life; and
+everywhere else a sentence of imprisonment for life has been passed
+upon all persons convicted of being gang-robbers by profession. This
+is indispensably necessary for the entire suppression of the system
+which Government has in view. Do you not think that in your Courts
+the final sentence might be left to the European functionaries, and
+the verdict only left to the Punchaets? The greater part of those
+already convicted in these Courts will have to be released soon, and
+all who are so will certainly return to their trade; and the system
+will continue in spite of all our efforts to put it down. I have just
+been at Jubulpore, and the bearing of the Bagree decoits, sent from
+Ajmeer by Buch, is quite different from that of those who have had a
+sentence of imprisonment for life passed against them in other
+quarters, and is very injurious to them, for they get so bad a name
+that no one will venture to give them service of any kind. Do, I pray
+you, think of a remedy for the future. The only one that strikes me
+is that above suggested, of leaving the final sentence to the
+European officers.
+
+I need not say that I was delighted at your getting the great Douger
+Sing by the means you had yourself proposed for the pursuit--sending
+an officer with authority to disregard boundaries.
+
+            Yours sincerely,
+          (Signed)           W. S. SLEEMAN
+
+To Col. Sutherland.
+
+        ______________________________
+
+
+                                     Jhansee, 4th March, 1848.
+
+My Lord,
+
+I had the gratification to receive your Lordship's letter of the 7th
+of January last, at Nursingpore, in the valley of the Nerbudda, where
+I commenced my Civil career more than a quarter of a century before,
+and where, of all places, I should have wished to receive so gracious
+a testimonial from such high authority. I should have earlier
+expressed by grateful acknowledgments, and prepared the narrative so
+frequently called for, but I was then engaged in preparing a Report
+on Gang-robbery in India, and wished first to make a little more
+progress, that I might be able to speak more confidently of its
+ultimate completion and submission to Government. In a less perfect
+form this Report was, at the earnest recommendation of the then
+Lieut.-Governor N.W.P., the Honourable T. Robertson, and with the
+sanction of the Governor-General Lord Auckland, sent to the
+Government press so long back as 1842, but his Lordship appeared to
+me to think that the printing had better be deferred till more
+progress had been made in the work of putting down the odious system
+of crime which the Report exposed, and I withdrew it from the press
+with little hope of ever again having any leisure to devote to it, or
+finding any other person able and willing to undertake its
+completion.
+
+During the last rains, however, I began again to arrange the confused
+mass of papers which I found lying in a box; but in October I was
+interrupted by a severe attack of fever, and unable to do anything
+but the current duties of my office till I commenced my tour through
+the Saugor territories, in November. I have since nearly completed
+the work, and hope to be able to submit it to Government before the
+end of this month in a form worthy of its acceptation.
+
+I am afraid that the narrative of my humble services will be found
+much longer than it ought to be, but I have written it hastily that
+it might go by this mail, and it is the first attempt I have ever
+thought of making at such a narrative, for I have gone on quietly
+"through evil and through good report," doing, to the best of my
+ability, the duties which it has pleased the Government of India,
+from time to time, to confide to me, in the manner which appeared to
+me most conformable to its wishes and its honour, satisfied and
+grateful for the trust and confidence which enabled me to do so much
+good for the people, and to secure so much of their attachment and
+gratitude to their rulers.
+
+Permit me to subscribe myself, with great respect, Your Lordship's
+faithful and obedient humble servant,
+
+            (Signed)          W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Lieut.-General the Right Hon.
+Henry Viscount Hardinge,
+     &c. &c. &c.
+
+         _________________________
+
+
+                                       Jhansee, 4th March, 1848.
+Dear Sir,
+
+Lord Hardinge, in a letter dated the 7th of January last, requested
+me to make out a narrative of my humble services in India, and to
+send it under cover to you, as he expected to embark on the 15th,
+before he could receive it in Calcutta. I take the liberty to send my
+reply with the narrative, open, and to request that you will do me
+the favour to have them sealed and forwarded to his Lordship.
+
+         Believe me, dear Sir,
+              Yours very faithfully,
+              (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To J. Cosmo Melvill,
+Secretary to the East India Company,
+India House, London.
+
+         _________________________
+
+
+                                        Jhansee, 28th March, 1848.
+
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+The Court of Directors complain that decoit prisoners are not tried
+as soon as they are caught, but they know little of the difficulties
+that the officers under me find in getting them tried, for political
+officers have, in truth, had little encouragement to undertake such
+duties, and it is only a few choice spirits that have entered upon
+the duty _con amore_. General Nott prided, himself upon doing nothing
+whatever while he was at Lucknow; General Pollock did all he could,
+but it was not much; and Colonel Richmond does nothing. There the
+Buduk decoits, Thugs, and poisoners, remain without sentences, and
+will do so till Richmond goes, unless you give him a fillip. If you
+tell him to apply for an assistant to aid him in the conduct of the
+trials, and tell him to nominate his own, he may go to work, and I
+earnestly pray you to do something, or the Oude Turae will become
+what it had for ages been before we cleaned it out. Davidson was
+prevented from doing anything by technical difficulties, so that out
+of _four Residents we have not got four days' work_.
+
+You will soon get my Report, and it will be worth having, and the
+last I shall make on crime in India.
+
+If Hercules had not had better instruments he could not so easily
+have cleared out his stable; but he had no "Honourable Court" to find
+fault with his mode of doing the thing, I conclude. The fact is,
+however, that our prisoners are pretty well tried before they get
+into quod. Mr. Bird will be delighted at the manner in which he is
+introduced in my first chapter, and many another good officer well
+pleased.
+
+                   Yours sincerely,
+                         (Signed)       W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+Secretary to the Government of India,
+Calcutta.
+
+            _________________________________
+
+
+                                    Jhansee, 29th March, 1848.
+
+My Dear Maddock,
+
+I hope you will not disapprove of the resolution to which I have come
+of resigning the charge of the Saugor territories, now that
+tranquillity has been restored,--the best possible feelings among the
+people prevail, and the object you had in view in recommending Lord
+Ellenborough to confide that charge to me has been effected,--or of
+the manner in which I have tendered my resignation. Were I longer to
+retain the charge, I should be subjected to humiliations which the
+exigencies of the public service do not require that I should at this
+time of life submit to, and I shall have enough of labour and anxiety
+in the charge that will still remain to me. If an opening for Sir R.
+Shakespear could be found, his salary might be saved by my residence
+being transferred to Gwalior. If either Hamilton or I were to be
+removed to some other post, it would be well to reduce Gwalior and
+Indore to political agencies, under the supervision of an agent, as
+in Rajpootana, with Bundelcund added to his charge. The latter of
+these two measures has, you know, been under consideration, and was,
+I think, proposed by Sutherland when you were at Gwalior with Lord
+Auckland. Had the Lieutenant-Governor known more of the Saugor
+territories when he wrote the paper on which Government is now
+acting, he would not, I think, have described the state of things as
+he has done, or urged the introduction of the system which must end
+in minutely subdividing all leases, and in having all questions
+regarding land tenures removed into the civil Courts, as in the
+provinces. It is the old thing, "nothing like leather." I shall not
+weary you by anything more on this subject. I hope a good man will be
+selected for the charge. The selection of Mr. M. Smith as successor
+to Mr. Brown was a good one. My letter will go off to-day, and be, I
+trust, well received. I am grieved that Clerk has been obliged to
+quit his post; he has been throughout his career an ornament to your
+service, but his friends seem all along to have apprehended that he
+could not long stand the climate of Bombay. I am anxious to learn how
+long you are to remain in Council.
+
+                      Yours very sincerely,
+                      (Signed)       W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Hon. Sir T. H. Maddock,
+         &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+             _______________________________
+
+
+                                        Jhansee, 2nd April, 1848.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+Till I this morning got the public letter, which will go off to-day,
+I never heard one word about Shakespear's intention or wish to go to
+the hills, and only thirteen days remain. The orders of Government as
+to his _locum tenens_ cannot reach me by the 15th, when he is to
+leave, and I shall have to put in some one to take charge, as there
+is a treasury under his management.
+
+If Government wish to take Major Stevens from the Byza Bae, and give
+him some other employment, he might be sent to act for Captain Ross;
+but I know nothing of his fitness for such an office.
+
+I believe you know Captain Ross, and I need say nothing more than
+what I have said in my public letter. If he be sent to Gwalior, I
+hope a good officer may be sent to act for him in Thalone, for the
+duties are very heavy and responsible. Blake will do very well, and
+so would his second in command, Captain Erskine, of the 73rd, who is
+an excellent civil officer. I must pray you to let me have the orders
+of Government on the subject as soon as possible.
+
+                 Yours sincerely,
+              (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+P.S.--I should consider Major Stevens an able man for a civil charge,
+but have never seen him.
+
+              (Signed)     W. H. S.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+     &c. &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+
+                                        Jhansee, 6th May, 1848.
+
+My Dear Maddock,
+
+Your kind letter of the 21st ultimo had prepared me for the public
+one of the 28th, which I got yesterday from Elliot, and I wrote off
+at once, to say simply that I should be glad to suspend or to
+withdraw the application contained in my letter of the 29th of March,
+as might appear best to Government; and that I should not have made
+it at all, had I apprehended that a compliance with it would have
+been attended with any inconvenience.
+
+With the knowledge I have acquired of the duties of the several
+officers, and the entire command of my time here at a quiet place,
+and long-established methodical habits, I can get through the work
+very well, though it becomes trying sometimes. Arrears I never allow
+to accumulate, and regular hours, and exercise, and sparing diet,
+with water beverage, keep me always in condition for office work. I
+often wish that you could have half the command of your hours, mode
+of living, and movements, that I have. However, they will soon be
+much more free than mine. I am very glad that you have the one year
+more for a wind up; and hope that good fortune will attend you to the
+last. You say nothing, however, about your foot. The papers and
+letters from home have just come in. I hear that Lord John is very
+unwell, and will not be able to stand the work many months more, and
+that Sir R. Peel is obliged to be _cupped_ once a-week, and could not
+possibly take office. Who is to take helm in the troubled ocean, no
+one knows. I am glad that Metternich has been kicked out, for he and
+Louis Philippe are the men that have put in peril the peace and
+institutions of all Europe. I only wish that the middle class was as
+strong in France as it is in England; it is no doubt infinitely
+stronger than it was; while the lower order is better than that of
+England, I believe, for such occasions. They have good men now in the
+provisional Government--so they had in 1788; and, like them, the
+present men will probably be swept away by the mob. They are not,
+however, likely to be embarrassed by other nations, since the days of
+Pitt and George III. are passed away, and so are the feudal times
+when the barons could get up civil wars for their own selfish
+purposes. There are no characters sufficiently prominent to get up a
+civil war, but the enormous size of the army is enough to create
+feelings of disquiet. It is, however, officered from the middle
+classes, who have property at stake, and must be more or less
+interested in the preservation of order.
+
+The Government has no money to send to Algiers, and must reduce its
+strength there, so that Egypt is in no danger at present; were it so,
+we should be called upon to defend it from India, and could well do
+so. It is evident that the whole French nation was alienated from
+Louis Philippe, and prepared to cast off him and all his family,
+though, as you say, I do not believe that there was anywhere any
+design to oust him and put down monarchy. Had he thrown off Guizot a
+little sooner, and left some able military leaders free to act, the
+_emeute_ would have been put down; but those who could have acted did
+not feel free to do so: they did not feel sure of the king, while
+they were sure of the odium of the people. I am not at all sorry for
+the change. I am persuaded that it will work good for Europe; but
+still its peace and best institutions are in peril at present. We are
+in no danger here, because people do not understand such things; and
+because England is in a prouder position than ever, and will, I
+trust, retain it.
+
+Lord Grey seems an able man at home, but he is, I believe, hot-
+headed, and Lord Stanley is ten times worse; he would soon have up
+the barricades in London. Lord Clarendon seems a safe guide, but
+_Peel_ is the man for the time, if he has the stamina. Lord
+Palmerston has conducted the duties of his office with admirable tact
+of late; and much of the good feeling that prevails in Europe towards
+England at present seems to arise from it. Amelie begs to be most
+kindly remembered; she is here with her little boy--two girls at
+Munsoorie, and two girls and a boy at home.
+
+              Yours very sincerely,
+                (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Hon. Sir T. H. Maddock,
+         &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+             ______________________________
+
+
+                                    Jhansee, 14th May, 1848.
+
+My Dear Weston,
+
+I have been directed by Government to name an officer whom I may
+consider competent to superintend the suppression of Thuggee in the
+Punjaub, where a new class has been discovered, and some progress has
+been made in finding and arresting them. I have, in reply, mentioned
+that I should have Captain Williams, of the 29th, and Captain
+Chambers, of the 21st; but their services might not be considered
+available, since the prescribed number of captains are already absent
+from their regiments, and, in consequence, I have you. I know not
+whether you will like the duties; if not, pray tell me as soon as
+possible.
+
+The salary is 700 rupees a-month, with office-rent 40, and
+establishments 152. The duties are interesting and important; and so
+good a foundation has been laid by Larkins and the other local
+authorities, and all are so anxious to have the evil put down, that
+you will have the most cordial support and co-operation of all, and
+the fairest prospect of success. But you will have to apply yourself
+steadily to work, and if you have not _passed_, you should do so as
+soon as possible. I do not see P. opposite your name, and Government
+may possibly object on this ground. Let all this be _entre nous_ for
+the present.
+
+If you undertake the duties, you will have to go to Lodheeana, seeing
+Major Graham at Agra, on the way, to get a little insight into the
+work.
+
+                  Yours sincerely,
+              (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+P.S.--You will be in the most interesting scene in India, and need be
+under no apprehension about the permanency of the appointment.
+
+To Lieut. Weston,
+    &c. &c.
+
+
+
+             ________________________________
+
+
+
+                                      Jhansee, 18th May, 1848.
+My Dear Maddock,
+
+Things are not going on so well as could be wished in the Punjaub;
+and it appears to me that we have been there committing an error of
+the same kind that we committed in Afghanistan--that is, taking upon
+ourselves the most odious part of the executive administration. In
+such a situation this should have been avoided, if possible. There is
+a kind of chivalry in this--if there is anything odious to be done,
+or repugnant to the feelings of the people, a young Englishman thinks
+he must do it himself, lest he should be thought disposed to shift
+off a painful burthen upon others; and he thinks it unbecoming of us
+to pay any regard to popular feeling. Of course, also, the officers
+of the Sikh State are glad to get rid of such burthens while they see
+English gentlemen ready to carry them. Now, it strikes me that we
+might, with a little tact, have altered all this, and retained the
+good feelings of the people, by throwing the executive upon the
+officers of the Sikh State, and remaining ourselves in the dignified
+position of Appellate Courts for the redress of grievances inflicted
+by these officers in neglect of duty or abuse of authority. Our duty
+would have been to guide, control, and check, and the head of all
+might have been like the sovereigns of England--known only by his
+acts of grace.
+
+By keeping in this dignified position we should not only have
+retained the good feelings of the people, but we should have been
+teaching the Sikh officers their administrative duties till the time
+comes for making over the country; and the chief and Court would have
+found the task, made over to them under such a system, more easy to
+sustain. In Afghanistan we did the reverse of all this, and became
+intolerably odious to the mass of the people; for they saw that
+everything that was harsh was done by us, and the officers of the
+King were disposed to confirm and increase this impression because
+they were not employed. The people of the Punjaub are not such
+fanatics, and they are more divided in creed and caste, while they
+see no ranges of snowy mountains, barren rocks, and difficult passes
+between us and our reinforcements and resources; but it seems clear
+that there is a good deal of excitement and bad feeling growing up
+amongst them that may be very mischievous. All the newspapers,
+English and native, make the administration appear to be altogether
+English--it is Captain This, Mr. That, who do, or are expected to do,
+everything; and all over the country the native chiefs will think,
+that the leaving the country to the management of the Sirdars was a
+mere mockery and delusion.
+
+We should keep our hands as much as possible out of the harsh and
+dirty part of the executive work, that the European officers may be
+looked up to with respect as the effectual check upon the native
+administrators; always prepared to check any disposition on their
+part to neglect their duty or abuse their power, and thereby bring
+their Government into disrepute. Of course, the outrage at Mooltan
+must be avenged, and our authority there established; but, when this
+is done, Currie should be advised to avoid the rock upon which our
+friend Macnaghten was wrecked. We are too impatient to jump down the
+throats of those who venture to look us in the face, and to force
+upon them our modes of doing the work of the country, and to
+superintend the doing it ourselves in all its details, or having it
+done by creatures of our own, commonly ten times more odious to the
+people than we are ourselves.
+
+It is unfortunate that this outrage, and the excitement to which it
+has given rise, should have come so quickly upon Lord Hardinge's
+assurances at the London feast, and amidst the turmoil of popular
+movements at home. It has its use in showing us the necessity of
+being always prepared.
+
+Baba Bulwunt Row tells me that he has got a letter from you in the
+form of Khureela, and claims one from me on that ground. Shall I
+comply? We have avoided this hitherto, as the Pundits put him up to
+claim everything that the Bae's family had, not even omitting the
+Thalone principality; and hints have been dropped of a mission to
+England, if the money could be got. I wish to subdue these
+pretensions for his own sake, that he may not be entirely ruined by
+temptations to expensive displays. He has now got the entire
+management of his own affairs, and is a sensible, well-disposed lad.
+He was never recognised as the Bae's successor by Government or the
+Agent, nor was he written to on the Bae's death. Cunput Row Bhaca was
+the person addressed in the letter of condolence. His son has run
+through all he has or can borrow, and is in a bad way. Moresor Row
+has the reputation of being very rich, though he pleads poverty
+always. The whole of the Saugor territories, save Mundla, have
+benefited by two very fine seasons, with great demand for land
+produce, and the people are happy. I have asked for reductions in
+Mundla, to save the little of tillage and population that has been
+left. The whole revenue is a mere trifle in such a jungle as you know
+it to be, and when once the people go off, there is no getting them
+back. Deer destroy the crops upon the few fields left, tigers come to
+eat the deer, and malaria follows, to sweep off the remaining few
+families.
+
+I must not prose any longer at present. Amelia often talks of you,
+and begs to be kindly remembered.
+
+              Ever yours sincerely,
+           (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Hon. Sir T. H. Maddock,
+       &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+              ____________________________
+
+
+
+                                        Jhansee, 28th May, 1848.
+My Dear Maddock,
+
+I yesterday sent off by Dawk Bangy an elaborate Report on Dacoits by
+hereditary profession, and on the measures adopted by the Government
+of India for their suppression, and hope it will reach Calcutta
+before the rains set in heavily. Government may be justly proud of
+the good which it shows to have been effected for the people of India
+in the course of a brief period; and I am glad that you have for this
+period been a member of it. There is much in the Report to interest
+the general reader, but much of what is inserted would, of course,
+have been left out by any one who had to consult the wishes of such
+readers only.
+
+At this time last year I had not the slightest hope of ever being
+able to lay such a Report before Government; for I never expected to
+find leisure in my present office, and could not carry the requisite
+records with me, if driven away by sickness, to where I might find
+it. The papers lay mouldering in an old box, to which I had consigned
+them in 1840, when I withdrew them from the press, under the
+impression that Lord Auckland thought that the exposition of the
+terrible evil ought not to appear till more progress had been made in
+its suppression; as G. Thompson and other itinerant orators would be
+glad to get hold of them to abuse the Government. The Report is
+infinitely more interesting and complete than it could have been
+then, and may bid defiance to all such orators.
+
+If printed, it will take from 400 to 450 pages, such as those of the
+late Report on the Indian Penal Code, and be a neat and useful volume
+for reference. I began it in the rains last year, but was stopped
+short by a fever, and unable to continue it till I set out on my
+tour. Three-fourths of it was written in the intervals between the
+morning's march and breakfast-time during my tour through the Saugor
+territories.
+
+The tables of dacoitees ascertained to have been committed by the
+dacoits described, and of the conditionally pardoned offenders, will
+follow, and be found useful for reference, but should not, perhaps,
+be in the same volume with the text of the Report; of that, however,
+I leave Government to judge. I thank God that I have been able to
+place before it so complete and authentic a record of what has been
+done to carry out its views.
+
+              Ever most sincerely yours,
+             (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Hon. Sir T. H. Maddock,
+       &c. &c. &c.
+
+                                     Jhansee, 15th August, 1848.
+
+My Lord,
+
+As it is possible that the letter which I addressed to your Lordship
+on the 6th of March last, and sent open to Mr. Melvill, the Secretary
+at the India House, may have miscarried; I write to mention that I
+sent it, lest it might be supposed that I was insensible of the
+kindness which induced your Lordship to write to me before leaving
+India. The work which made me delay so long to reply to that letter
+is now being printed in Calcutta, under the authority of Government;
+and, as it contains much that is curious and entertaining, and
+honourable to our rule in India, I trust at no distant day to have
+the honour of presenting a copy to your Lordship.
+
+Amidst events of such absorbing interest as are now taking place
+every day in Europe, India cannot continue long to engage much of
+your thoughts; for, with the exception of the little outbreak at
+Mooltan, tranquillity prevails, and is likely to do so for some time.
+There has been delay in putting down the Mooltan rebels, but the next
+mail will, I hope, take home news of the work having been effectually
+done. This delay seems to have arisen from a notion that troops ought
+not to be employed in the hot winds and rains; but when occasion
+requires they can be employed at all times, and the people of India
+require to be assured that they can be so. It has not, I think, been
+found that troops actually employed in the hot winds and rains lose
+more men than in cantonments, at least native troops.
+
+It was, I think, your Lordship's intention that, in the Lahore state,
+we should guide, direct, and supervise the administration, but not
+take all the executive upon ourselves, to the exclusion of all the
+old native aristocracy, as we had done in Afghanistan. This policy
+has not, I am afraid, been adhered to sufficiently; and we have,
+probably, less of the sympathy and cordial good-will of the higher
+and middle classes than we should otherwise have had. But I am too
+far from the scene to be a fair judge in such matters.
+
+The policy of interposing Hindoo native states between us and the
+beggarly fanatical countries to the north-west no wise man can, I
+think, doubt; for, however averse our Government may be to encroach
+and creep on, it would be drawn on by the intermeddling dispositions
+and vainglory of local authorities; and every step would be ruinous,
+and lead to another still more ruinous. With the Hindoo
+principalities on our border we shall do very well, and trust that we
+shall long be able to maintain them in the state required for their
+own interests and ours.
+
+I wish England would put forth its energies to raise the colony of
+New Zealand, the queen of the Pacific Ocean; for the relations
+between that island and India must some day become very intimate, and
+the sooner it begins the better. I am very glad to find by the last
+mail that the French have put their affairs into better hands--those
+of practical men, instead of visionaries.
+
+           Believe me, with great respect,
+               Your Lordship's obedient, humble servant,
+                   (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Lieut.-General the Right Hon.
+Henry Viscount Hardinge, G.C.B.,
+        &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+
+                  ____________________________
+
+
+
+                                       Jhansee, 22nd August 1848.
+
+My Dear Sir Erskine,
+
+I thank you for kindly sending me a copy of your Address to the
+Native Youth at Bombay and their Parents, and should have done so
+earlier, but it has been in circulation among many of my friends who
+feel interested in the subject. Whatever may be thought of the
+question as to where we should begin, all concur in acknowledging the
+truth of your conclusions as to the value and use of the knowledge we
+wish to impart, and in admiring the language and sentiment of your
+Address.
+
+There are some passages of great beauty, which I wish all persons
+could read and remember; and I do not recollect ever having seen one
+that has pleased me more, for its truths and elegance, than that
+beginning, "But if a manufacturing population." That which begins
+with--"The views, young men, as to the true object and ends to be
+attained," is no less truthful and excellent.
+
+It is unfortunate that the education which we have to supplant in
+India is so blended with the religion of the people, as far as
+Hindoos are concerned, that we cannot make progress without exciting
+alarm. Had a nation, endowed with all the knowledge we have, come
+into Europe in the days of Galileo and Copernicus, and attempted to
+impart it to the mass of the people, or to the higher classes only,
+the same alarm would have been raised, or nearly the same. We must be
+content with small, or slow progress; but there are certain branches
+of knowledge, highly useful to the people, that are finding their way
+among them from our metropolitan establishments, and working good.
+
+I might better have said, that had we come into Greece when Homer was
+the Bible of the people, with all our astronomy, chemistry, and
+physical science generally, and our literature, blended as it is with
+our religion, we should have found our Greek fellow-subjects as
+untractable as the Hindoos or Parsees. The fact is, that every
+Hindoo, educated through our language in our literature and science,
+must be more or less wretched in domestic life, for he cannot feel or
+think with his family, or bring them to feel or think with him. The
+knowledge which he has acquired satisfies him that the faith to which
+they adhere, and which guides them in all their duties, ceremonies,
+acts, and habits, is monstrous and absurd; but he can never hope to
+impart to them this knowledge, or to alienate them from that faith;
+nor does he himself feel any confidence in any other creed: he feels
+that he is an isolated being, who can exchange thoughts and feelings
+unreservedly with no one. I have seen many estimable Hindoos in this
+state, with minds highly gifted and cultivated, and with abilities
+for anything. For such men we cannot create communities, nor can they
+create them for themselves: they can enjoy their books and
+conversation with men who understand and enjoy them like themselves;
+but how few are the men of this class with whom they can ever hope to
+associate on easy terms! It is not so with Mahommedans. All the
+literature and science in the world has no more effect on their faith
+than on ours; and their families apprehend no alienation in any
+member who may choose to indulge in them; and they indulge in them
+little, merely because they do not find that they conduce to secure
+them employment and bread.
+
+I think it would be useful if we could get rid of the terms
+_education_, _civilization_, &c., and substitute that of _knowledge_.
+It would obviate much controversy, for the greater part of our
+disputes arise from the vagueness of the terms we use. All would
+agree that certain branches of knowledge are useful to certain
+classes, and that certain modes are the best for imparting them. The
+subject is deeply interesting and important; but I must not indulge
+further.
+
+          Believe me, My Dear Sir Erskine,
+             With great respect,
+                Yours very faithfully,
+               (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+ To Sir Erskine Perry,
+ Chief Justice, Bombay.
+
+
+            ___________________________________
+
+
+
+                                 Jhansee, 24th September, 1848.
+
+My Lord,
+
+I feel grateful for the offer contained in your Lordship's letter of
+the 16th instant, and no less so for the gracious manner in which it
+has been conveyed, and beg to say that I shall be glad to avail
+myself of it, and be prepared to proceed to take charge as soon as I
+am directed to do so, as I have no arrears in any of my offices to
+detain me, and can make them over to any one at the shortest notice,
+with the assurance that he will find nothing in them to perplex or
+embarrass him.
+
+I shall do my best to carry out your Lordship's views in the new
+charge; and though I am not so strong as I could wish, I may, with
+prudence, hope to have health for a few years to sustain me in duties
+of so much interest.
+
+I hope your Lordship will pardon my taking advantage of the present
+occasion to say a few words on the state of affairs in the north-
+west, which are now of such absorbing interest. I have been for some
+time impressed with the belief that the system of administration in
+the Punjaub has created doubts as to the ultimate intention of our
+Government with regard to the restoration of the country to the
+native ruler when he comes of age. The native aristocracy of the
+country seem to have satisfied themselves that our object has been to
+retain the country, and that this could be prevented only by timely
+resistance. The sending European officers to relieve the chief of
+Mooltan, and to take possession of the country and fort, seems to
+have removed the last lingering doubt upon this point; and Molraj
+seems to have been satisfied that in destroying them he should be
+acting according to the wishes of all his class, and all that portion
+of the population who might aspire to employment under a native rule.
+This was precisely the impression created by precisely the same means
+in Afghanistan; and I believe that the notion now generally prevalent
+is, that our professed intentions of delivering over the country to
+its native ruler were not honest, and that we should have
+appropriated the country to ourselves could we have done so.
+
+There are two classes of native Governments in India. In one the
+military establishments are all national, and depend entirely upon
+the existence of native rule. They are officered by the aristocracy
+of the country, chiefly landed, who know that they are not fitted for
+either civil or military office under our system, and must be reduced
+to beggary or insignificance should our rule be substituted for that
+of their native chief. In the other, all the establishments are
+foreign, like our own. The Seiks were not altogether of the first
+class, like those of Rajpootana and Bundelcund, but they were so for
+the most part; and when they saw all offices of trust by degrees
+being filled by Captain This and Mr. That, they gave up all hopes of
+ever having their share in the administration.
+
+Satisfied that this was our error in Afghanistan, in carrying out the
+views of Lord Ellenborough in the Gwalior State, I did everything in
+my power to avoid it, and have entirely succeeded, I believe; but it
+has not been done without great difficulty. I considered Lord
+Hardinge's measures good, as they interposed Hindoo States between us
+and a beggarly and fanatical country, which it must be ruinous to our
+finances to retain, and into which we could not avoid making
+encroachments, however anxious the Government might be to avoid it,
+if our borders joined. But I supposed that we should be content with
+guiding, controlling, and supervising the native administration, and
+not take all the executive upon ourselves to the almost entire
+exclusion of the native aristocracy. I had another reason for
+believing that Lord Hardinge's measures were wise and prudent. While
+we have a large portion of the country under native rulers, their
+administration will contrast with ours greatly to our advantage in
+the estimation of the people; and we may be sure that, though some
+may be against us, many will be for us. If we succeed in sweeping
+them all away, or absorbing them, we shall be at the mercy of our
+native army, and they will see it; and accidents may possibly occur
+to unite them, or a great portion of them, in some desperate act. The
+thing is possible, though improbable; and the best provision against
+it seems to me to be the maintenance of native rulers, whose
+confidence and affection can be engaged, and administrations improved
+under judicious management.
+
+The industrial classes in the Punjaub would, no doubt, prefer our
+rule to that of the Seiks; but that portion who depend upon public
+employment under Government for their subsistence is large in the
+Punjaub, and they would nearly all prefer a native rule. They have
+evidently persuaded themselves that our intention is to substitute
+our own rule; and it is now, I fear, too late to remove the
+impression. If your Lordship is driven to annexation, you must be in
+great force; and a disposition must be shown on the part of the local
+authorities to give the educated aristocracy of the country a liberal
+share in the administration.
+
+One of the greatest dangers to be apprehended in India is, I believe,
+the disposition on the part of the dominant class to appoint to all
+offices members of their own class, to the exclusion of the educated
+natives. This has been nobly resisted hitherto; but where every
+subaltern thinks himself in a condition to take a wife, and the land
+opens no prospect to his children but in the public service, the
+competition will become too great.
+
+I trust that your Lordship will pardon my having written so much, and
+believe me, with great respect, your Lordship's obedient humble
+servant,
+
+                (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+P.S.--The Commander-in-Chief has asked me, through the Quartermaster-
+General, whether any corps can be spared from Bundelcund. I shall say
+that we can spare two regiments--one from Nagode, whose place can be
+supplied by a wing of the regiment at Nowgow, and one from Jhansee,
+whose place can be supplied from the Gwalior Contingent, if your
+Lordship sees no objection, as a temporary arrangement.
+
+                 (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Right Hon.
+the Earl of Dalhousie,
+   &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+             __________________________
+
+                                   Lucknow, 30th January, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+A salute of twenty-one guns had been fired here by the King for the
+sadly dear victory over Shere Sing, and another has been fired to-day
+for the fall of Mooltan. The King continues very ill, but no danger
+seems to be apprehended. The disease is accompanied by very untoward
+secondary symptoms, which are likely ultimately to destroy him, and
+render his life miserable while it lasts. How much of these symptoms
+he derives from his birth, and how much from his own excesses, is
+uncertain.
+
+The impression regarding the minister, mentioned in my last note, was
+from a talk with him while he was, it seems, under the influence of
+fever. In later conversations he has been more lucid; but he is a
+third-rate man, and quite unequal to the burthen that the favour of
+the King has placed upon him. That favour will, however, be but of
+short duration, for the King is said to have expressed great distrust
+in his capacity to do any of the things he promised, more especially
+to collect the immense arrears of revenue now due.
+
+I am preparing tables of the revenue and expenditure, and of the
+machinery in all branches, and hope soon to submit a clearer view of
+the state of things than Government is in the habit of getting on
+such occasions; but I have to wade through vast volumes of
+correspondence to ascertain what has been said and done in the
+questions that will come under consideration, to conduct current
+duties, and to become acquainted with the people in my new field,
+European and native.
+
+I want to ask you whether I could, with any prospect of success just
+now, propose a plan which I have much at heart in the Thuggee and
+Dacoity Department. The Lieutenant-Governor, I feel assured, will
+advocate it. Major Graham is about to obtain his regimental majority,
+with a certain prospect of soon obtaining the command of his
+regiment, which will give him twelve hundred a-month. I am anxious to
+retain him; for his services have been, and would continue to be, of
+vast importance to the North-West Provinces. I should like to propose
+that he be made superintendent of Thuggee and Dacoity in those
+provinces upon a salary of, say eleven hundred rupees a-month. I
+would at the same time propose that the Shahjehanpoor office, lately
+under Major Ludlow, be done up, and the duties confided to the
+assistant-magistrate, with a small establishment, he to receive an
+extra salary, say, one hundred rupees a-month. The same with regard
+to the Azimghur office, now under Captain Ward, who could be sent to
+Rajpootana. Elliot is not suited well to the work, according to those
+who have seen most of him and of it; and you might be able to put him
+to some other for which he is fitted. Should you think it desirable
+to retain him in Rajpootana, Captain Ward may for the present remain
+where he is; and the saving from the Shahjehanpoor office will more
+than cover the increase for Major Graham. Pray let me know as soon as
+you can whether such a proposal would be likely to be well received.
+Graham's services have been and will be most valuable to all the
+local authorities at and under Agra.
+
+I suppose the fate of the Punjaub is sealed, for though the Governor-
+General might wish to spare it, the home authorities and the home
+people will hardly brook the prospect or the chance of another
+struggle of the same kind, particularly if the Afghans have really
+joined the Seiks under Chutter Sing. The tendency to annexation,
+already strong at home, will become still stronger when the news of
+our late losses arrive. They indicate a stronger assurance of
+national sympathy on the part of the chiefs and troops opposed to us
+than was generally calculated upon. The fall of Mooltan will have
+relieved the Governor-General's mind from much of the anxiety caused
+by the inartistic management of the Commander-in-Chief.
+
+           Yours sincerely,
+          (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+    &c. &c.
+
+
+
+            ______________________________
+
+
+
+                                Lucknow, 7th March, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliott,
+
+I may mention what has been the state of feeling at Lucknow regarding
+the state of affairs in the Punjaub, though it has become of less
+interest to the Governor-General now that so decided a victory has
+crowned his efforts. During the whole contest the Government five per
+cent. notes have been every day sold in my office at par, and I
+question whether this can be said of the offices in Calcutta. One day
+during the races, on the King's firing a salute for victory, the
+European gentlemen talked about it at the stand with many of the
+first of the native aristocracy. They said that the Seiks could not
+fight as they were fighting unless there had been some general
+feeling of distrust as to our ultimate intentions with regard to the
+Punjaub which united them together; and that this feeling must be as
+strong with the Durbar and those who did not fight as with those who
+did. I was not present, as I did not attend the races; but I found
+the same opinion prevailing among all with whom I conversed. But all
+seemed to be perfectly satisfied as to the utter hopelessness of the
+struggle, as evinced by the great barometer of the Government paper.
+
+I suppose Dost Mahomed's force in Peshawur will have proceeded in all
+haste to the Khyber on hearing of the defeat of their friends, and
+that General Gilbert's fine division will find none of them to
+contend with; and that Gholab Sing will be glad of an occasion to
+display his zeal by keeping Shore Sing and his father out of the
+hills.
+
+The river Indus will, I suppose, hardly be considered so safe a
+boundary as the hills; for if any danger is to be apprehended from
+the west, it would not be safe to leave the enemy so fine a field to
+organize their forces upon after emerging from the difficult passes.
+Well organized upon that field, a force could cross the river
+anywhere in the cold and hot seasons; and the revenue of that field
+would aid in keeping up a force that might in the day of need be used
+against us. It was a great error committed by Lord Hastings in
+allowing the Nepaulese the fertile portion of the Jurac, which then
+yielded only two lacs of rupees, but now yields thirteen, and will,
+ere long, yield twenty. Without this their military force would have
+been altogether insignificant; but it is not so now.
+
+             Yours sincerely,
+          (Signed)       W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+     &c. &c.
+
+
+   _________________________________
+
+
+
+                                     Lucknow, 20th March, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+The King continues much the same as when I last wrote. Under skilful
+treatment he might soon get well; but the prescriptions of his best
+native physicians are little attended to, and he has not yet
+consented to consult an European doctor. He could not have a better
+doctor than Leekie, and the natives have great confidence in him; but
+his Majesty has not expressed any wish to see or consult him. If he
+did so, the chances are one hundred to one against his taking his
+medicine.
+
+I do not like to write a public letter on the subject, but am anxious
+to know the Governor-General's wishes as to whether any new
+engagements should be entered into in case of the King's decease, and
+with whom.
+
+The instructions contained in your letter of the 16th August, 1847,
+referred to in my last, will be carried out; but the Governor-General
+may wish to have the new arrangements recorded in a former treaty,
+the heads of the royal family consenting thereto, as at Gwalior, when
+the regency was appointed. I have no copy of the treaty made at
+Lahore, where the regency was appointed.
+
+I should think it desirable to give the members of the regency each
+distinct duties, so that he may feel responsible for them, and take a
+pride in doing them well. One should be at the head of the Revenue
+Department, and another at the head of the Judicial and Police, each
+having a deputy; and the Resident, as president, should have a
+deputy. These would be sufficient for a regency, and could form a
+court, or council, to deliberate and decide about measures of
+legislation and administration.
+
+The mother of the King would be the best person to consult upon the
+nomination of the members in the first instance; but neither she nor
+any other female of the royal family should have any share in the
+administration.
+
+All important measures adopted by the Council should be submitted for
+the consideration of the Governor-General; and no member of the
+Council should be removed without his Lordship's consent. No
+important measure adopted by the Council, and sanctioned by the
+Governor-General, should at any future time be liable to be abolished
+or altered without the sanction of our Government previously obtained
+through the Resident.
+
+On the heir-apparent attaining his majority, every member of the
+regency who has discharged his duties faithfully should have for life
+a pension equal to half the salary enjoyed by him while in office,
+and be guaranteed in the enjoyment of this half by the British
+Government.
+
+The measures thus adopted during the minority would form a code for
+future guidance, and tend at least to give the thing which Oude most
+wants--stability to good sales, and to the machinery by which they
+are to be enforced.
+
+
+
+The King's brother--a very excellent man, who was Commander-in-Chief
+during his father's life-time, but is now nothing--might also be
+consulted with the mother of the King in the nomination of the
+regency, and made a party with her to the new treaty.
+
+These are all the points which appear to me at present to call for
+instructions.
+
+The harvests promise to be abundant, but the collections come in
+slowly, and the establishments are all greatly in arrear. I don't
+like to write publicly on these subjects, because it is almost
+impossible here to prevent what is so written from getting to the
+Court; but the Governor-General's instructions were sent to me in
+that form without the same risk.
+
+                 (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+     &c. &c.
+
+
+             ___________________________________
+
+
+
+                                   Lucknow, 23rd March, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+It will perhaps be well to add to the regency, in case of the King's
+death, a controller of the household, making three members of equal
+grade, and to have no deputy for the Resident, or President of the
+Regency. It may also be well to add the mother of the heir apparent
+to the persons to be consulted in the selection of the members of the
+regency, though she is a person of no mark or influence in either
+public or private affairs at present.
+
+The mother of the present King, his brother, the mother of the heir-
+apparent, and the young heir-apparent himself will be enough to have
+a voice in the selection.
+
+I conclude that it will be the Governor-General's wish that the heir-
+apparent should be placed on the throne immediately after the death
+of his father, for the slightest hesitation or delay in this matter
+would be mischievous in such a place as Lucknow. As soon as this is
+done, I can proceed to consult about the nomination of the regency.
+The members will, of course, be chosen from among the highest and
+most able members of the aristocracy present at the capital, and they
+can be installed in office the day they are chosen. I do not
+apprehend any confusion or disturbance; but measures must be adopted
+immediately to pay up arrears due to the establishments, and dismiss
+all that are useless.
+
+The, King is not worse--on the contrary, he is said to be better; but
+the hot season may be too much for him. His present state, with a
+minister weak in body and not very strong in mind, is very
+unsatisfactory. Fortunately the harvest is unusually fine.
+
+             Yours sincerely,
+          (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+     &c. &c.
+
+
+
+               ____________________________
+
+
+
+
+                                        Lucknow, 8th May, 1849.
+My Lord,
+
+Dr. Bell, has relieved Dr. Leekie from his charge, and I am glad that
+so able and experienced a medical officer has been appointed to it by
+your Lordship, for he will have the means of doing much good here if
+he can secure the confidence and esteem of his native patients. The
+way has been well paved for him by Dr. Leekie, who, in professional
+ability, large experience, and perfect frankness of character, is one
+of the first men I have met; and I regret exceedingly that the King
+has never manifested any wish to consult him or any other European
+physician.
+
+Being anxious that both Dr. Leekie and Dr. Bell should have an
+opportunity of seeing the King, and forming some opinion as to his
+state of health, I proposed that his Majesty should receive them at
+the same time with Captain Bird on his taking leave previous to his
+departure for Simla. As it is usual for the residency surgeon to wait
+on his Majesty when he first enters on his charge and when he quits
+it, I knew that such a proposal would not give rise to any feelings
+of doubt or uneasiness, and he at once expressed his wish to see
+them. Yesterday, about noon, all three went to the palace, and sat
+for some time in conversation with the King. They found him much
+better in bodily health than they expected, and in the course of
+conversation, found no signs of any confusion of ideas, and are of
+opinion that in the hands of a skilful European physician he would
+soon be quite well. His Majesty is hypochondriac, and frequently
+under the influence of the absurd delusions common to such persons;
+but he is quite sane during long intervals, and on all subjects not
+connected with such delusions.
+
+When in health, the King never paid much attention to business, and
+his illness is, therefore, less felt than it would have been in the
+conduct of affairs; but it is nevertheless felt, and that in a very
+vital part--the collection of the revenue. The expenses of Government
+are about one hundred (100) lacs a-year; and the collections this
+year have not amounted to more than sixty (60), owing to this
+illness, and to a deficiency in the autumn harvests. All
+establishments are greatly in arrears in consequence; and the King
+has been obliged to make some heavy drafts upon the reserved fund
+left him by his father. I only wish none had been made for a less
+legitimate purpose. The parasites, by whom he has surrounded himself
+exclusively, have, it is said, been drawing upon it still more
+largely during the King's illness, under the apprehension of a speedy
+dissolution. The minister is a weak man, who stands somewhat in awe
+of these musicians and eunuchs, who have no fear of anybody but the
+Resident, whom it is, of course, their interest to keep as much as
+possible in the dark. As soon as his Majesty gets stronger, I shall
+see him more frequently than I have yet done, and be better able to
+judge of what prospect of amendment there may be while he reigns. If
+he ever conversed with his male relations, or any of the gentlemen at
+the capital worthy of his confidence, I should have more hope than I
+now have.
+
+              With great respect I remain
+          Your Lordship's obedient humble servant,
+                     (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Right Hon.
+The Earl of Dalhousie, K.T.,
+Governor-General of India.
+
+
+
+             ___________________________________
+
+
+
+                                      Lucknow, 11th June, 1849.
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+It will be desirable to have at least the wing of a regiment sent as
+soon as possible to Jhansee. Bukhut Sing, who was allowed to escape
+after having been surrendered to Ellis at Kyrma, has been since
+allowed to get too much a-head. He is aided by the Khereecha people
+openly; and secretly, I fear, by some of the Powar Thakoors of Gigree
+under the rose. There are four small fortified places between thirty
+and forty miles west of Jhansee, and not far from the Sinde, held by
+Powar Thakoors, who are a shade higher in caste than the Bondeylas;
+and, in consequence, all the principal chiefs take their daughters in
+marriage. They are needy, and as proud as Lucifer, and will always
+eke out their means by robbery if they can. The Jhansee chief cannot
+keep them in order without our aid. While I was there, they did not
+venture to rob after the surrender of the Jylpoor man in September,
+1844; and the Hareecha and Hyrwa people ventured only to send a few
+highwaymen into the Gwalior state west of the Sinde river.
+
+The Powar places I mean are Jignee, Odgow, and Belchree. There was a
+fourth near them just as bad, called Nowneer; but the Thakoors of
+that place are all well disposed towards the Jbansee chief, and are
+obedient. All are in the Jhansee state. If the marauders are pressed
+with energy and sagacity, they will be soon put down; and you may
+rely upon the native chiefs not supporting them, though, from their
+marriage connection, they may afford them an asylum secretly when
+fugitives.
+
+Who the Gwalior men are that are plundering I know not; but they are
+men of no note, and, if pressed skilfully and rigorously in time,
+will soon be put down. The chiefs may all be relied upon, I believe.
+They are mere gangs of robbers; and you know how easily a fanatic or
+successful robber may collect a body for plunder in any part of
+India, where the danger of pursuit is small. Had they been dealt with
+properly at first, they would never have got a-head so far: time has
+been lost, and they will now give trouble, particularly at such a
+season. The evil will be confined to the tract west of Jhansee
+occupied by these Powars. The chiefs are to the east, north, and
+south of Jhansee; and the marauders would be allowed to enter their
+estates. The Governor-General need not feel uneasy about them. The
+Nurwar chief was always needy, and disposed to keep and shelter
+robbers. His few villages were resumed on his death last year, and
+his widows pensioned; but some of his relations are, I conclude,
+among the marauders. There is a wild tract west of the Sinde in the
+Gwalior territory, to which the marauders will fly when hard pressed
+in the Jhansee state.
+
+                 Yours sincerely,
+            (Signed)       W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+     &c. &c.
+
+             ___________________________________
+
+                                  Lucknow, 18th June, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+I was writing the last sentence of a long Report on Oude affairs when
+your note came in. There are some parts that will amuse, some that
+will interest, and the whole gives, I believe, a fair exposition of
+the evils, with a suggestion for the best remedy that I can think of.
+It is the formation of a Board, consisting of a President and two
+members nominated by the King, subject to the confirmation of the
+Governor-General, and not to be dismissed without his Lordship's
+previous sanction. This Board to make the settlement of the revenue
+proposed when Lord Hardinge was here, and to have the carrying it
+out.
+
+This Board will be a substitute for the Regency, but not so good. The
+King is well in body; and, unless he will abdicate, we cannot get the
+minority for the Regency. I think, upon the whole, the Governor-
+General will think the Report worth reading, and the remedy worth
+considering. It will bring little additional trouble on Government,
+but a good deal on the Resident, who will require to have had much
+administrative experience.
+
+Things are coming fast to the crisis, in which I must be called upon
+to advise and act, a thing which the fiddlers and eunuchs dread. I
+can't trust the Report in the office, and the hand may not be so
+legible as I could wish.
+
+The Court is very averse to the appointment of a successor to Wilcox;
+and it is with reluctance they have kept on the native officers who
+go on with the work. I told them either to keep them on or to pension
+them. I don't think a successor should be urged upon them in the
+present state of beggary to which they are reduced. Nobody sees any
+use in it, while there are a vast number of useful things neglected
+for want of funds; as to the instruments, the Court care nothing
+about them, knowing nothing of their value; and would, no doubt, be
+glad to give them to any establishment requiring them.
+
+The minister, singers, and eunuchs are all now sworn to be united;
+but this cannot last many days. The "pressure from without," in the
+clamour for pay, will soon upset the minister; but they will find it
+difficult to get another to undertake the burthen of forty or fifty
+lacs of balance, and a score of fiddlers and eunuchs as privy
+councillors. Something must be done to _unthrone_ these wretches, or
+things will be worse and worse. The best remedy that occurs to me is
+to interpose an authority which they dare not question, and the King
+cannot stultify; and if the King objects, to tell him that he must
+abdicate in favour of his son. This, of all courses, will be the
+best, and give no trouble; things would go on like "marriage bells,"
+without any trouble whatever to the Governor-General and your
+_secretariat_.
+
+I am glad that the Punjaub Board goes on well. It is a scene of great
+importance and interest. The only way to get the confidence and
+affection of men is to show that we confide in them; and I don't
+think we need fear Seik soldiers while we treat them, and govern the
+country well.
+
+We were very anxious about Mrs. Elliot for many days, for the
+accounts from Simla were bad; but she is now, I am told, quite
+restored. I have suffered much less than I expected: I recovered much
+sooner. The doctors tell me that I should have had no right to expect
+an earlier recovery had I been twenty years younger.
+
+              Yours sincerely,
+           (Signed)    W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To H. M. Elliot, Esq.,
+   &c. &c.
+
+                  ___________________________
+
+
+                                  Lucknow, 24th July, 1849.
+My Lord,
+
+I have to-day written to Lord Fitzroy Somerset to request that he
+will do me the favour to have the name of my only son placed, if
+possible, upon his Grace the Commander-in-Chiefs list of candidates
+for commissions in Her Majesty's Dragoons. He was sixteen years of
+age on the 6th of January last, and is now prosecuting his studies
+under the care of Mr. C. J. Yeatman, Westow Hill, Norwood, Surrey,
+five miles from London.
+
+He is an amiable and gentlemanly lad, and will, I trust, be able to
+qualify himself to pass the examination required; and my agents in
+London will be prepared to lodge the money for his commission when
+available. He is my eldest child, and will have to take care of four
+sisters when I am taken from them, as I must be ere long; and I am
+anxious to place him in the position from which he can do so with
+most advantage. I could wish to have had him placed in the Bengal
+Civil Service. But I have no personal friend in the direction, and no
+good that I may have had an opportunity of doing for the people and
+government of India can be urged as a claim to any employment for my
+child.
+
+Having carried out your Lordship's policy successfully over a large
+and interesting portion of India, and to the advantage, I believe, of
+many millions of people, you will not, I think, be offended at my
+soliciting your Lordship's protection for my only son. He will stand
+in need of it, since I know no other that I can solicit for him; and
+though my name might be of some use to him in India, it can be of
+none in England. With a view to his taking care of his sisters, I
+could wish him to be in a regiment not likely to come to India.
+General Thackwell tells me that the regiments most likely to come to
+India soon are the 6th Dragoons, 9th Hussars, and 12th Lancers.
+Perhaps your Lordship might be willing to speak to Lord F. Somerset,
+or even to his Grace the Duke himself, in favour of my son, who will
+be proud at any time when commanded to attend your Lordship. I have
+the misfortune to have been with some of the most inefficient
+sovereigns that ever sat upon a throne, with deficient harvests last
+year, and a threat of still more deficient ones this year; and with a
+Government so occupied with the new acquisitions of the Punjaub as to
+be averse to interfere much with the management of any other portion
+of the country.
+
+I remain, your lordship's most obedient, humble servant,
+
+                       W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Right Hon. Gen. Viscount Hardinge, G.C.B.,
+            &c.     &c.       &c.
+
+
+
+         ______________________________________
+
+
+
+
+                                      Lucknow, 24th July, 1849.
+
+My Lord,
+
+May I, request that your Lordship will do me the favour to have the
+name of my only son, Henry Arthur Sleeman, placed upon his Grace the
+Commander-in-Chiefs list of candidates for a commission in one of her
+Majesty's Dragoon regiments?
+
+He was sixteen years of age on the 6th of January last; and he is now
+prosecuting his studies under the care of Mr. C. J. Yeatman, at
+Westow Hill, in Surrey, five miles from London, who will be
+instructed to have him prepared for the examination he will have to
+undergo. My agents, Messrs. Denny, Clark, and Co., Austin Friars,
+London, will be prepared to lodge the money, and to forward to me any
+letters with which they may be honoured by your Lordship. My rank is
+that of Lieut.-Colonel in the Honourable East India Company's
+service, and present situation, that of Resident at the Court of his
+Majesty the King of Oude.
+
+     I have the honour to be,
+          Your Lordship's obedient, humble servant,
+               W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Lieut.-General Lord Fitzroy Somerset, G.C.B.,
+Military Secretary to his Grace the Commander-in-Chief,
+Horse Guards, London.
+
+
+
+           _________________________________
+
+
+                                         Lucknow, August 1849.
+
+My Lord,
+
+1. I will answer your Lordship's queries in the order in which they
+are made.
+
+2. The King, as I shall show in my next official report, is utterly
+unfit to have anything to do with the administration, since he has
+never taken, or shown any disposition to take any heed of what is
+done or suffered in the country. My letters have made no impression
+whatever upon him. He spends all his time with the singers and the
+females they provide to amuse him, and is for seven and eight hours
+together living in the house of the chief singer, Rajee-od Dowla--a
+fellow who was only lately beating a drum to a party of dancing-
+girls, on some four rupees a-month. These singers are all Domes, the
+lowest of the low castes of India, and they and the eunuchs are now
+the virtual sovereigns of the country, and must be so as long as the
+King retains any power. The minister depends entirely upon them, and
+between them and a few others about Court everything that the King
+has to dispose of is sold.
+
+3. To secure any reform in the administration, it will be necessary
+to require the King to delegate all the powers of sovereignty to the
+Board. This he can do, retaining the name of Sovereign and control of
+his household; or abdicating in favour of his son the heir apparent,
+to whom the Board would be a regency till he comes of age. If the
+alternative be given him, and he choose the former, it should be on
+the condition, that if his favourites continue to embarrass the
+Government, he will be required to submit to the latter. Oude is now,
+in fact, without a Government: the minister sees the King for a few
+minutes once a week or fortnight, and generally at the house of the
+singer above named. The King sees nobody else save the singers and
+eunuchs, and does not even pretend to know anything or care anything
+about public affairs. His sons have been put under their care, and
+will be brought up in the same manner. He has become utterly despised
+and detested by his people for his apathy amidst so much suffering,
+and will not have the sympathy of any one, save such as have been
+growing rich by abusing his power.
+
+4. The members of such a Board as I propose, invested with full
+powers, and secured in office under our guarantee during good
+conduct, would go fearlessly to work; they would divide the labour;
+one would have the settlement of the land-revenue, with the charge of
+the police; the second would have the judicial Courts; and if the
+Board be a regency during the minority, the control of the household;
+the third would have the army. Each would have the nomination of the
+officers of his department, subject to the confirmation of the whole
+Board, and the dismissal would depend upon the sanction of the whole
+or two-thirds, as might be found expedient. If the sanction of all
+three be required. Court influence may secure one vote, and impunity
+to great offenders. Neither of the three would be liable to be
+deprived of his office, except with the consent, or on the
+requisition of the Governor-General; and this privilege they would
+value too highly to risk it by neglect or misconduct. The King's
+brother--a most worthy and respectable, though not able man--might be
+a member, if agreeable to the King.
+
+5. The abuses they would have to remedy are all perfectly well
+understood, and the measures required to remedy them are all simple
+and obvious: a settlement would be made with the landholders, based
+upon past avowed collections; they would be delighted to bind
+themselves to pay such an assessment, as they would escape from the
+more than one-third more, which they have now to pay, in one form or
+another, to contractors and Court favourites; the large landholders,
+who are for the most part now in open resistance to the Government,
+would rejoice at the prospect of securing their estates to their
+posterity, without the necessity of continually fighting for them.
+
+6. The army would soon become efficient: at present every man
+purchases his place in it from the minister and the singers and
+eunuchs, and he loses it as soon as he becomes disabled from wounds
+or sickness. The only exceptions are the four regiments under Captain
+Burlow, Captain Bunbury, Captain Magness, and Soba Sing, lately
+Captain Buckley's; in these, all that are disabled from wounds or
+sickness are kept on the strength of the corps, and each corps has
+with it a large invalid establishment of this kind unrecognized by
+the Government. They could not get their men to fight, without it.
+These regiments are put up at auction every season, and often several
+times during one season; the contractor who bids highest gets the
+services of the best for the season or the occasion; the purchase-
+money is divided between the minister and the Court favourites,
+singers, &c. These are really efficient corps, and the others might
+soon be made the same. The men are as fine-looking and brave as those
+of our, regular infantry, for Oude teems with such men, who have from
+their boyhood been fighting against contractors under the heads of
+their clan or families.
+
+7. The rest are for the most part commanded by boys, or Court
+favourites, who seldom see them, keep about two-thirds of what are
+borne on the rolls and paid for, and take about one-third of the pay
+of what remain for themselves. The singer, Rajee-od Dowla, the prime
+favourite above named, has two regiments thus treated, and of course
+altogether inefficient, ragged, hungry, and discontented. It will be
+easy to remedy all this, get excellent men, and inspire them with
+excellent spirit by instituting a modified pension establishment for
+men disabled in the discharge of their duties, and providing for
+their regular pay and efficient command.
+
+8. This would prevent the necessity of employing British troops,
+except on rare and great occasions; the settlement of the land-
+revenue, and knowledge that they would be employed if required, would
+keep the great landholders in obedience. It would be well to have
+back the corps of infantry and two guns that were taken away from
+Pertanghurh, in Oude, in 1835. This is all the addition that would be
+required to secure an efficient Government; and the scale to which
+our troops in Oude had been reduced up to that time (1835) was
+generally considered the lowest compatible with our engagements. A
+regiment of cavalry had been borrowed from Pertanghurh for the Nepaul
+and Mahratta wars in 1814 and 1817; it was finally withdrawn in 1823.
+
+9. The judicial Courts would be well conducted while the presiding
+officers felt secure in their tenure of office, which they would do
+when their dismissal depended upon proof of guilt or incompetency
+sufficient to satisfy a Board guaranteed by our Government.
+
+10. The police would soon become efficient under the supervision and
+control of respectable revenue-officers, having the same feeling of
+security in their tenure of office. All the revenue-officers would,
+of course, be servants of Government instead of contractors. There
+would be grades answering to our commissioners of divisions, say
+four; 2nd, to our collectors of revenue, say twenty-eight; 3rd,
+deputy-collectors, say twenty-eight; all under the Board, and guided
+by the member intrusted with that branch of the administration: all
+would be responsible for the police over their respective
+jurisdictions.
+
+11. Oude ought to be, and would soon be, under such a system, a
+garden; the soil is the finest in India, so are the men; and there is
+no want of an educated class for civil office: on the contrary, they
+abound almost as much as the class of soldiers. From the numerous
+rivers which flow through the country the water is everywhere near
+the surface, and the peasantry would manure and irrigate every field,
+if they could do so in peace and security, with a fair prospect of
+being permitted to reap the fruits. The terrible corruption of the
+Court is the great impediment to all this good: the savings would
+more than pay all the increased outlay required for rendering
+establishments efficient in all branches, while the treasury would
+receive at least one-third more than the expenditure; that is,
+1,50,00,000 Rs., or one crore and a half.
+
+12. From the time the treaty of 1801 was made, up to within the last
+few years, the term "internal enemies" was interpreted to mean the
+great landholders who might be in resistance to the Government, and
+this interpretation was always acted upon; the only difficulty was in
+ascertaining whether the resistance was or was not, under the
+circumstances, justifiable. While employed in Oude with my regiment,
+and on the staff in 1818 and 1819, I saw much of the correspondence
+between the Resident and Commandant; many letters from the Resident,
+Colonel Baillie, mentioning how bitterly Saadulullee, with whom that
+treaty was made, had complained, that after the sacrifice of half his
+kingdom for the aid of British troops in keeping down these powerful
+and refractory landholders, he could not obtain their assistance
+without being subject to such humiliating remonstrances as he got
+from officers commanding stations whenever he asked for it. Aid was
+often given, and forts innumerable were reduced from time to time,
+but the privilege of building them up again was purchased from the
+same or another contractor next season.
+
+13. At this time I have calls for at least two battalions and a train
+of artillery, from about six quarters, to enforce orders on these
+landholders. Captain Hearsey has had men of his Frontier Police
+killed and wounded by them on the western border, and declares that
+nothing can be done to secure offenders, refugees from our districts,
+with a less force. Captain Orr has had several men wounded, and
+prisoners taken from him, by the same class on the eastern border,
+and declares to the same effect. Sixteen sepoys of our army, 59th N.
+I., on their way home on furlough were attacked and two of them
+killed, three weeks ago, by a third Zumeendar, at Peernugger, his own
+estate, within ten miles of the Setapore Cantonments, where we have a
+regiment. Captain Barlow's regiment and artillery, and another, with
+all Captain Hearsey's Frontier Police, are in pursuit of him. Four
+others have committed similar outrages on our officers and sepoys and
+their families, and the Government declares its utter inability to
+enforce obedience or grant any redress, without a larger force than
+they have to send. Great numbers of the same class are plundering and
+burning villages, and robbing and murdering on the highway, and
+laughing at the impotency of the sovereign. It was certainly for aid
+in coercing these "internal enemies" that the Sovereign of Oude ceded
+his territories to us, and for no other, and that aid may be afforded
+at little cost, and to the great benefit of all under the system I
+have submitted for your Lordship's consideration. It will be very
+rarely required, and when called for, a mere demonstration will, in
+three cases out of four, be sufficient to effect the object.
+
+14, After a time, or when the heir-apparent comes of age, the duties
+of the guaranteed members of the Board may safely be united to a
+supervision over the settlement made with the principal landholders,
+whose obedience our Government may consider itself bound to aid in
+enforcing; all the rest may be left to a competent sovereign; and
+there will be nothing in the system opposed to native usages,
+feelings, and institutions, to prevent its being adhered to. I should
+mention, that many of these landholders have each armed and
+disciplined bodies of two thousand foot and five hundred horse; and,
+what is worse, the command of as many as they like of "Passies,"
+armed with bows and arrows. These Passies are reckless thieves and
+robbers of the lowest class, whose only professions are thieving and
+acting as Chowkedars, or village police. They are at the service of
+every refractory Zumeendar, for what they can get in booty in his
+depredations. The disorders in Oude have greatly increased this
+class, and they are now roughly estimated at a hundred thousand
+families; these are the men from whom travellers on the road suffer
+most.
+
+15. A second Assistant would be required for a time to enable the
+Resident to shift off the daily detail of the treasury, which has
+become the largest in India,--I believe, beyond those at the three
+Presidencies.
+
+A good English copyist, capable of mapping, will be required in the
+Resident's office at 150, and two Persian writers 100; total 250.
+These are the only additions which appear to me to be required.
+
+16. I annex a list of the regiments now in the King's service,
+Telungas, or regulars, and Nujeebs, or irregulars; and with my next
+official report I will submit a list of all the establishments, civil
+and military.
+
+17. The King's habits will not alter; he was allowed by his father to
+associate, as at present, with these singers from his boyhood, and he
+cannot endure the society of other persons. His determination to live
+exclusively in their society, and to hear and see nothing of what his
+officers do or his people suffer, he no longer makes any attempt to
+conceal. It would be idle to hope for anything from him but a
+resignation of power into more competent hands; whatever he retains
+he will assuredly give to his singers and eunuchs, or allow them to
+take. No man can take charge of any office without anticipating the
+income by large gratuities to them, and the average gratuity which a
+contractor for a year, of a district yielding three lacs of rupees a-
+year, is made to pay, before he leaves the capital to enter upon his
+charge, is estimated to be fifty thousand rupees: this he exacts from
+the landholders as the first payment, for which they receive no
+credit in the public account. All other offices are paid for in the
+same way.
+
+18. The King would change his minister to-morrow if the singers were
+to propose it; and they would propose it if they could get better
+terms or perquisites under any other. No minister could hold office a
+week without their acquiescence. Under such circumstances a change of
+ministers would be of little advantage to the country.
+
+19. The King will yield to the measure proposed only under the
+assurance, that if he did not, the Governor-General would be reduced
+to the necessity of having recourse to that which Lord Hardinge
+threatened in the 10th, 11th, and 12th paragraphs of his letter of
+October, 1847, and the Court of Directors, on the representation of
+Lord William Bentinck, sanctioned in 1831. The Court was at that time
+so strongly impressed with the conviction that the threat would be
+carried into execution, that they prevailed upon the President to
+undertake a mission to the Home Government, with a view to enlarge
+the President's powers of interference, in order to save them from
+the alternative. This led to Mr. Maddock's removal from the
+Presidency; all subsequent correspondence has tended to keep up the
+apprehension that the threatened measure would be had recourse to,
+and to stimulate sovereigns and ministers to exertion till the
+present reign. The present King has, from the time he ascended the
+throne, manifested a determination to take no share whatever in the
+conduct of affairs; to spend the whole of his time among singers and
+eunuchs, and the women whom they provide for his amusement; and
+carefully to exclude from access, all who suffer from the
+maladministration of his servants, or who could and would tell him
+what was done by the one and suffered by the other.
+
+20. But it is not his minister and favourites alone who take
+advantage of this state of things to enrich themselves; corruption
+runs through all the public offices, and Maharaja Balkishen, the
+Dewan, or _Chancellor of the Exchequer_, is notoriously among the
+most corrupt of all, taking a large portion of the heavy balances due
+by contractors to get the rest remitted or misrepresented. There is
+no Court in the capital, criminal, civil, or fiscal, in which the
+cases are not tampered with by Court favourites, and divided
+according to their wishes, unless the President has occasion to
+interfere in behalf of guaranteed pensioners, or officers and sepoys
+of our army. On his appearance they commonly skulk away, like jackals
+from a dead carcase when the tiger appears; but the cases in which he
+can interfere are comparatively very few, and it is with the greatest
+delay and difficulty that he can get such cases decided at all. A
+more lamentable state of affairs it is difficult to conceive.
+
+      With great respect, I remain,
+          Your Lordship's obedient humble servant,
+            (Signed)    W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+the Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.,
+     &c. &c. &c.
+
+P.S.--I find that the King's brother is altogether incompetent for
+anything like business or responsibility. The minister has not one
+single quality that a minister ought to have; and the King cannot be
+considered to be in a sound state of mind.
+
+               (Signed)    W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+                    _Annexures_.
+
+ 1. Extracts, pars. 9 to 14 of Lord Hardinge's Memorial.
+ 2. Statement of British troops in Oude in Jan. 1835 and 1849.
+ 3. Table of the King of Oude's troops of all kinds.
+
+
+              __________________________
+
+
+                              Lucknow, 6th September, 1849.
+
+My Lord,
+
+I take the liberty to enclose, for your Lordship's perusal, a more
+full and correct Table of the troops and police in Oude than that
+which I submitted with my last letter, as also a Table of all the
+other branches of expenditure--save those of buildings, charities,
+presents, &c., which are ever varying.
+
+It may be estimated that two-thirds of the numbers in the corps of
+Telungas and Nujeebs paid for are kept up; and that one-half of what
+are kept up are efficient, all having to purchase their places, and
+those most unfit being disposed to pay highest.
+
+Further: one-half of what are kept up are supposed to be always
+absent; and when they are so, they receive one-half of their pay, and
+the other half is divided between the commandant and the paymaster.
+These two are supposed to take, on one pretence or other, one third
+of the pay of those who are actually present. The corps of Telungas
+commanded by Captains Barlow, Bunbury, and Magness are exceptions;
+but the pay department is not under their control, and they are
+obliged to acquiesce in abuses that impair the efficiency their
+corps.
+
+After reducing one-third-of these corps, and rendering the remaining
+two-thirds efficient, the force would be sufficient for all purposes,
+and we may well dispense with the corps of regular infantry which in
+my last letter I proposed to restore to Oude. It will, however, be
+desirable to have a good and experienced infantry officer as
+inspector, to see that the measures adopted for reform are
+effectually carried out. An artillery officer as inspector will also
+be desirable, as it will be necessary to have that branch of the
+force in the best possible order, when Oude has to depend chiefly on
+its own resources. A few European officers, too, for commandants of
+corps and seconds in command will be desirable--such as have been
+employed with native corps as sergeant-majors or quartermaster-
+sergeants, and have obtained distinctions for good conduct.
+
+I should propose six primary stations as seats for the principal
+Revenue and Judicial Courts, and the headquarters of the best corps
+with cavalry and artillery; thirty second and third rate stations for
+the subordinate Courts and detachments of troops and police. All to
+be chosen, with reference to position in districts under
+jurisdiction, and to salubrity of climate. At all these Stations
+suitable buildings would be provided; and as all would be commenced
+upon simultaneously, all would soon be ready.
+
+Your Lordship will observe the small item put down for the judicial
+establishments all over Oude. Such as are really kept up are
+worthless, and are altogether without the confidence of the people.
+The savings in the other branches of the expenditure will more than
+cover all the outlay required for good ones.
+
+The King continues to show the same aversion to hear anything about
+public affairs, or to converse with any but the singers, eunuchs, and
+females. At the great festival of the Eed, on the first appearance of
+the present moon, he went out in procession, but deputed his heir-
+apparent to receive the compliments in Durbar. He does not suffer
+bodily pain, but is said to have long fits of moping and melancholy,
+and he is manifestly hypochondriac. He squanders the state jewels
+among the singers and eunuchs, who send them out of the country as
+fast as they can. The members of his family who have its interests
+most at heart, are becoming anxious for some change; and by the time
+the two years expire, it will not, perhaps, be difficult to induce
+him to put his affairs into other hands. He would change his minister
+on the slightest hint from me; but it would be of no use: the
+successor, pretending to carry on the Government under the King's
+orders, would be little better than the present minister is, and
+things would continue to be just as bad as they now are: they
+certainly could not be worse.
+
+The Board, composed of the first members of the Lucknow aristocracy,
+would be, I think, both popular and efficient; and with the aid of a
+few of the ablest of the native judicial and revenue officers of our
+own districts, invited to Oude by the prospect of higher pay and
+security in the tenure of office, would soon have at work a machinery
+capable of securing to all their rights, and enforcing from all their
+duties in every part of this, at present, distracted country. We
+should soon have good roads throughout the kingdom; and both they and
+the rivers would soon be as secure as in our own provinces. I think,
+too, that I might venture to promise that all would be effected
+without violence or disturbance; all would see that everything was
+done for the benefit of an oppressed people, and in good faith
+towards the reigning family.
+
+With great respect, I remain your Lordship's obedient, humble
+servant.
+
+                (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+the Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.,
+    &c.   &c.   &c.
+
+P.S.--I may mention that the King is now engaged in turning into
+verse a long prose history called Hydree. About ten days ago all the
+poets in Lucknow were assembled at the palace to hear his Majesty
+read his poem. They sat with him, listening to his poem and reading
+their own from nine at night till three in the morning. One of the
+poets, the eldest son of a late minister, Mohamid-od Dowla, Aga Meer,
+told me that the versification was exceedingly good for a King. These
+are, I think, the only men, save the minister, the eunuchs, and the
+singers who have had the honour of conversing with his Majesty since
+I came here in January last.
+                                   W. H. S.
+
+
+______________________________
+
+
+                                  Lucknow, 23rd September, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+I conclude that no further Tables will be required from me on Oude
+statistics for the present. Should they be so, pray let me know, and
+they shall be sent. I thought at first that it would be thought bad
+taste in me to refer to the domestic troubles of the King, but it is
+necessary to show the state to which his Majesty is reduced in his
+palace. The facts mentioned are known and talked of all over Lucknow
+and Oude generally, and tend more than greater things to bring his
+conduct and character into contempt.
+
+The time was certainly never so favourable to propose an arrangement
+that shall secure a lasting and substantial reform, and render Oude
+what it ought to be--a garden. The King is in constant dread of
+poison, and would do anything to get relieved from that dread, and
+all further importunity on the state of the country. His chief wife
+would poison him to bring on the throne her son, and restore to her
+her paramour, who is now at Cawnpoor, waiting for such a change. Her
+uncle, the minister, would, the King thinks, be glad to see him
+poisoned, in the hope of having to conduct affairs during the
+minority. He is afraid to admonish his other wife for her
+infidelities with the chief favourite and singer, lest she should
+poison him to go off with her paramour to Rampoor, whither he has
+sent the immense wealth that the King has lavished upon him.
+
+The whole family are most anxious that the King should resign the
+reins into abler hands, and would, I feel assured, hail the
+arrangement I have proposed as a blessing to them and the country.
+All seems ripe for the change, and I hope the Governor-General will
+consent to its being proposed soon. Any change in the ministry would
+now be an obstacle to the arrangement, and such a change might happen
+any morning. At the head of the Board, or Regency, I should put
+Mohsin-od Dowla, grandson of Ghazee-od Deen, the first King, and son-
+in-law of Moohummed Alee Shah, the third King. His only son has been
+lately united in marriage to the King's daughter. He is looked up to
+as the first man in Oude for character, and the most able member of
+the royal family. He is forty-five years of age. I should probably
+put two of the King's uncles in as the other members, Azeemoshan and
+Mirza Khorum Buksh, whose names you will find in the short appended
+list of those who have received no stipends since the present King
+ascended the throne. These princes cannot visit, the Resident except
+when they accompany the King himself, so that I have never seen the
+two last that I recollect, and only once conversed with the first.
+But their characters stand very high. They are never admitted to the
+King, nor have they seen him for more than a year, I believe.
+
+The King will probably object to members of his family forming the
+Board, but I dare say I shall be able to persuade him of the
+advantage of it. Such a Board, so constituted, would be a pledge to
+all India of the honesty of our intentions, and secure to us the
+cordial good-will of all who are interested in the welfare of the
+family and the good government of the country.
+
+I should persuade the members to draw from the _elite_ of their own
+creed in our service to aid in forming and carrying out the new
+system in their several departments. We can give them excellent men
+in the revenue and judicial branches, who will be glad to come when
+assured that they will not be removed so long as they do their duty
+ably and honestly, and will get pensions if their services are
+dispensed with after a time. This is all I shall say at present.
+
+                         Yours sincerely,
+                      (Signed)      W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir H. M. Elliot, K.C.B.,
+        &c.   &c.
+
+
+        ___________________________________
+
+
+
+                                                      Lucknow.
+
+My Lord,
+
+My Official Report went off on the 25th instant, and will have been
+submitted, for your Lordship's consideration. It contains, I believe,
+a faithful description of the abuses that exist and require remedy,
+and of the obstacles which will be opposed to their removal. But it
+does not tell all that might be told of the King himself, who has
+become an object of odium and contempt to all but those few
+despicable persons with whom he associates exclusively. He eats,
+drinks, sleeps, and converses with the singers and eunuchs and
+females alone, and the only female who has any influence over him is
+the sister of the chief singer, Rusee-od Dowlah, whom he calls his
+own sister. No member of the royal family or aristocracy of Oude is
+ever admitted to speak to or see his Majesty, and these contemptible
+singers are admitted to more equality and familiarity than his own
+brothers or sons ever were; they go out, too, with greater pomp than
+they or any of the royal family can; and are ordered to be received
+with more honours as they pass through the different palaces. The
+profligacy that exists within the palace passes all belief, and these
+things excite more disgust among the aristocracy of the capital than
+all the misrule and malversation that arise from the King's apathy
+and incapacity.
+
+Should your Lordship resolve upon interposing effectually to remedy
+these disorders, I think it will be necessary to have at Lucknow, for
+at least the first few months, a corps of irregular cavalry. We have
+no cavalry in Oude, and none of the King's can be depended upon. The
+first thing necessary will be the disbanding of the African, or
+Hubshee corps, of three hundred men. They are commanded by one of the
+eunuchs, and a fellow fit for any dark purpose. They were formed into
+a corps, I believe, because no man's life was safe in Lucknow while
+they were loose upon society.
+
+I think the King will consent without much difficulty or reluctance
+to delegate his powers to a Regency, but I am somewhat afraid that he
+will object to its being composed of members of his own family. The
+Sovereign has always been opposed to employing any of his own
+relatives in office. I shall, I dare say, be able to get over this
+difficulty, and it will be desirable to employ the best members of
+the family in order to show the people of Oude, and of India
+generally, that the object of our Government is an honest and
+benevolent one.
+
+A corps of irregular cavalry might be sent to Lucknow from
+Goruckpoor, and its place there supplied for a season by a wing from
+the corps at Legolee. There is little occasion for the services of
+cavalry at either of these places at present. Without any cavalry of
+our own here, and with this corps of African assassins at Lucknow at
+the beck of the singers, eunuchs, and their creature, the minister,
+neither the Resident nor any of the Regency would be safe. The
+treasury and crown jewels would be open to any one who would make
+away with them. If, therefore, your Lordship should determine upon
+offering the king the alternative proposed, no time should be lost in
+ordering the irregular corps from Goruckpoor to Lucknow, to be held
+at the Resident's disposal. Its presence will be required only for a
+few months.
+
+I have mentioned, in my private letter to Sir H. M. Elliot, three
+persons of high character for the Regency. Two of them are brothers
+of the King's father. The third, and best, may be considered as in
+all respects the first man in Oude. Mohsin-od Dowlah is the grandson
+of the King, Ghasee-od Deen; his wife, and the mother of his only
+son, is the sister of the King's father, and his only son has been
+lately united in marriage to the present King's daughter. He and his
+wife have large hereditary incomes, under the guarantee of our
+Government, and his character for good sense, prudence, and integrity
+stands higher, I believe, than that of any other man in Oude.
+
+All three belong to the number of the royal family who never visit
+the Resident except in company with the King, and I have, in
+consequence, never spoken to Mohsin-od Dowlah but once, and never
+seen either of the other two whom I have named, Azeemoshan and Khorum
+Bukeh, the King's uncles. The characters of all three are very high,
+and in general esteem.
+
+Things are coming to a very critical state. There is no money to pay
+any one in the treasury, and the greater part of what comes in is
+taken for private purposes, by those who are in power. All see that
+there must soon be a great change, and are anxious "to make hay while
+the sun shines." The troops are everywhere in a state bordering on
+mutiny, but more particularly in and about the capital, because they
+cannot indemnify themselves by the plunder of the people as those in
+the distant districts do.
+
+Fortunately the rains have this season been very favourable for
+tillage, and the crops may be good if we can preserve them by, some
+timely arrangement.
+
+       With great respect I remain,
+           Your Lordship's obedient, humble servant,
+
+                 (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+the Marquis of Dalhousie.
+
+P.S.--I find that the irregular corps of cavalry has been moved from
+Goruckpoor to Sultanpoor Benares, and that Lagolee and Goruckpoor
+have now only one corps between them.
+
+The Sultanpoor Benares corps might well spare a wing for Lucknow, and
+so might the corps at Bareilly spare one.
+
+               (Signed)     W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+
+               ______________________________
+
+
+
+                                    Lucknow, 11th October, 1849.
+
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+Here is a little item of palace news, communicated by one of the
+poets who has to assist his Majesty in selecting his verses, and who
+knows a good deal about what is going on among the favourites.
+Perhaps you may recollect him, Ameen-od Doulah, the eldest son of the
+late Aga Meer.
+
+There is not a greater knave than Walee Alee in India, I believe.
+That his Majesty will consent to what the Governor-General may
+authorise us to propose I have no doubt, for he and his family are by
+this time satisfied that we shall propose nothing but what is good
+for them and the people of Oude.
+
+But the King is no longer in a sound state of mind, and will say and
+do whatever the most plausible of the bad speakers may recommend.
+When I see him, I must have his signature before respectable
+witnesses to all his answers to distinct propositions, and act upon
+them at once, as far as I may be authorised by the Governor-General,
+or nothing will be done. It would not do for me to commune with him
+about affairs till I get instructions from you, as he would be sure
+to tell the singers, eunuchs, and minister all that has been said the
+moment I left him.
+
+He has never been a cruel or badly-disposed man, but his mind,
+naturally weak, has entirely given way, and is now as helpless as
+that of an infant. Every hour's delay will add to our difficulties,
+and I wait most anxiously for orders. I am prepared with the new
+arrangements, and feel sure that the system will work well, and have
+the Governor-General's approval. I can explain it in a few words, and
+show the details in a small Table all ready for transmission when
+called for.
+
+We shall have the royal family, the court, and people with us, with
+the exception of the minister and the favourites, who are in league
+with him, and those who share in the fruits of their corruption.
+Fifteen lacs are spoken of as the means ready to get either me out of
+the way or put a stop to all attempts of improvement for the present.
+I have in my public letter mentioned seven lacs as the average annual
+perquisites of the minister--they are at present at least twelve.
+
+                Yours sincerely,
+           (Signed)       W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir H. M. Elliot, K.C.B.,
+        &c.  &c.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: Map of the Kingdom of Oude - Drawn under the
+superintendence of the Late Major General Sir Wm. Sleeman.
+Approximate area covered 79 deg. to 84 deg. E by 25 deg. to 28.5 deg. N.; scale
+approximately 38 miles to the inch. Map shows the route taken by the
+author on his journey, as noted in his diary.]
+
+
+
+DIARY
+of
+A JOURNEY THROUGH OUDE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Departure from Lucknow--Gholam Hazrut--Attack on the late Prime
+Minister, Ameen-od-Dowla--A similar attack on the sons of a former
+Prime Minister, Agar Meer--Gunga Sing and Kulunder Buksh--Gorbuksh
+Sing, of Bhitolee--Gonda Bahraetch district--Rughbur Sing--Prethee
+Put, of Paska--King of Oude and King of the Fairies--Surafraz mahal.
+
+
+_December_ 1, 1849.--I left Lucknow to proceed on a tour through
+Oude, to see the state of the country and the condition of the
+people. My wish to do so I communicated to Government, on the 29th of
+March last, and its sanction was conveyed to me, in a letter from the
+Secretary, dated the 7th of April. On the 16th of November I reported
+to Government my intention to proceed, under this sanction, on the
+1st of December, and on the 19th I sent the same intimation to the
+King. On the 28th, as soon as the ceremonies of the Mohurrum
+terminated, His Majesty expressed a wish to see me on the following
+day; and on the 29th I went at 9 A.M., accompanied by Captain Bird,
+the first Assistant, and Lieutenant Weston, the Superintendant of the
+Frontier Police, and took leave of the King, with mutual expression
+of good-will. The minister, Alee Nakee Khan, was present. On the 30th
+I made over charge of the Treasury to Captain Bird, who has the
+charge of the department of the Sipahees' Petitions and the Fyzabad
+Guaranteed Pensions; and, taking with me all the office
+establishments not required in these three departments, proceeded,
+under the usual salute, to Chenahut, eight miles.*
+
+[* My escort consisted, of two companies of sipahees, from the 10th
+Regiment Native Infantry, and my party of Captain Hardwick,
+lieutenant Weston, and Lieutenant and Mrs. Willows and my wife and
+children, with occasional visitors from Lucknow and elsewhere.]
+
+The Minister, Dewan and Deputy Minister, Ghoolam Ruza, came out the
+first stage with me, and our friend Moonuwur-od Dowla, drove out to
+see us in the evening.
+
+_December_ 2, 1849.--We proceeded to Nawabgunge, the minister riding
+out with me, for some miles, to take leave, as I sat in my tonjohn.
+At sunrise I ventured, for the first time since I broke my left
+thigh-bone on the 4th April, to mount an elephant, the better to see
+the country. The land, on both sides of the road, well cultivated,
+and studded with groves of mango and other trees, and very fertile.
+
+The two purgunnas of Nawabgunge and Sidhore are under the charge of
+Aga Ahmud, the Amil, who has under him two naibs or deputies, Ghoolam
+Abbas and Mahummud Ameer. All three are obliged to connive at the
+iniquities of a Landholder, Ghoolam Huzrut, who resides on his small
+estate of Jhareeapoora, which he is augmenting, in a manner too
+common in Oude, by seizing on the estates of his weaker neighbours.
+He wanted to increase the number of his followers, and on the 10th of
+November 1849, he sent some men to aid the prisoners in the great
+jail at Lucknow to break out. Five of them were killed in the
+attempt, seven were wounded, and twenty-five were retaken, but forty-
+five escaped, and among them Fuzl Allee, one of the four assassins,
+who, in April 1847, cut down the late minister, Ameen-od Dowla, in
+the midst of his followers, in one of the principal streets of
+Lucknow, through which the road, leading from the city to Cawnpore,
+now passes. One of the four, Tuffuzzul Hoseyn, was killed in
+attempting to escape on the 8th August 1849, and one, Alee Mahomed,
+was killed in this last attempt. The third, Fuzl Allee, with some of
+the most atrocious and desperate of his companions, is now with this
+Ghoolam Huzrut, disturbing the peace of the country. The leader in
+this attempt was Ghoolam Hyder Khan, who is still in jail at Lucknow.
+
+On my remarking to the King's wakeel that these ruffians had all
+high-sounding names, he said, "They are really all men of high
+lineage; and men of that class, who become ruffians, are always sure
+to be of the worst description." "As horses of the best blood, when
+they do become vicious, are the most incorrigible, I suppose?"
+"Nothing can be more true, sir," rejoined the wakeel. An account of
+the attack made by the above-named ruffians on the minister, may be
+here given as both interesting and instructive, or at least as
+illustrative of the state of society and government in Oude.
+
+At five in the morning of the 8th of April 1847, the minister, Ameen-
+od Dowlah, left his house in a buggy to visit the King. Of his armed
+attendants he had only three or four with him. He had not gone far
+when four armed assassins placed themselves in front of his buggy and
+ordered him to stop. One of them, Tuffuzzul Hoseyn, seized the horse;
+by the bridle, and told the minister, that he must give him the
+arrears of pay due before he could go on. The other three, Fuzl
+Allee, Allee Mahomed, and Hyder Khan, came up and stood on the right
+side of the buggy. One of the minister's servants, named Hollas,
+tried to prevent their coming near, but was fired upon by Allee
+Mahomed. He missed him, but Fuzl Allee discharged his blunderbuss at
+him, and he fell; but in falling, he wounded Hyder Khan slightly with
+his sword. Hyder Khan then threw away his fire-arms and sprang into
+the buggy with his naked dagger in his right hand and the minister in
+his left. The minister seized him round the waist, forced him back
+out of the buggy on the left, and fell upon him. Tuffuzzul Hoseyn
+then quitted his hold of the horse and rushed to his comrade's
+assistance, but the minister still holding Hyder Khan in his right
+hand, seized Tuffuzzul Hoseyn with his left. Syud Aman Allee, another
+personal servant of the minister, was cut down by Fuzl Allee, in
+attempting to aid his master, and a third personal servant, Shah
+Meer, was severely wounded by Allee Mahomed, and stood at a distance
+of twenty paces, calling for help. Fuzl Allee now made two cuts with
+his sword on the right shoulder and arm of the minister, below the
+elbow, and he quitted his hold on the two assassins and fell. The
+four assassins now grasped their victim, and told him that they would
+do him no farther harm if no rescue were attempted. As they saw the
+rest of the minister's armed attendants and a crowd approach, Fuzl
+Allee and Hyder Khan, with their blunderbusses loaded and cocked,
+stood one at each end of an open space of about sixty yards, and
+threatened to shoot the first man who should venture to approach
+nearer. The crowd and attendants of the minister were kept back, and
+no one ventured to enter this space, in the centre of which the
+minister lay, grasped by Tuffuzzul Hoseyn and Allee Mahomed, who held
+their naked daggers at his breast. The minister called out to his
+attendants and the crowd to keep back. He was then allowed to rise
+and walk to a small raised terrace on the side of the street, where
+he lay down on his back, being unable any longer to sit or stand from
+the loss of blood. Tuffuzzul Hoseyn and Allee Mahomed knelt over him,
+holding the points of their daggers at his breast, and swearing that
+they would plunge them to his heart if he attempted to move, or any
+one presumed to enter the open space to rescue him. Hollas and Syud
+Aman Allee lay bleeding at the spot where they fell. Hollas died that
+day, and Syud Aman Allee a few days after, of lock-jaw.
+
+As soon as the attack on the minister was made, information of it was
+sent off to the Resident, Colonel Richmond, who wrote to request the
+Brigadier Commanding the Troops in Oude, to send him, as soon as
+possible, a regiment of infantry with two guns, from the Cantonments,
+which are three miles and a-half distant from the Residency, on the
+opposite side from the scene of the attack, to prevent any tumult
+that the loose characters of the city might attempt to raise on the
+occasion, and repaired himself to the spot attended by the Assistant,
+Captain Bird, and a small guard of sipahees. They reached the open
+spot, in the centre of which the minister lay, about a quarter of an
+hour after he fell. He found the street, in which the attack took
+place, crowded with people up to the place where the two sentries,
+Fuzl Allee and Hyder Khan, stood at each end of the open space, in
+the centre of which the minister lay, with the daggers of the two
+other assassins pressing upon his breast. On reaching one end of the
+open space, the Resident directed Captain Bird to advance to the spot
+where the minister lay. The assassin who guarded that end at first
+threatened to shoot him, but no sooner recognized him than he let him
+pass on unattended. He asked the two men, who knelt over the
+minister, what they meant by this assault. They told him, that good
+men were no longer employed in the King's service, and that they
+were, in consequence, without the means of subsistence; and had been
+compelled to resort to this mode of obtaining them; that they
+required fifty thousand rupees from the minister, with a written
+assurance from the British Resident, that they should be escorted in
+safety across the Ganges into the British territory with this sum.
+
+The Resident peremptorily refused to enter into any written agreement
+with them, and told them, through the Assistant, that if they
+presumed to put the minister to death, or to offer him any further
+violence, they should be all four immediately shot down and cut to
+pieces; but, if they did him no further harm, their lives should, be
+spared; and, to prevent their being killed as soon as they quitted
+their hold, that he would take them all with him to the Residency,
+and neither imprison them himself, nor have them made over as
+prisoners to the Oude Government; but that he declined being a party
+to any arrangement that the minister might wish to make of paying
+money for his life.
+
+They continued resolutely to threaten instant death to the minister
+should any one but the Resident or his Assistant presume to enter the
+open space in which he lay. Many thousands of reckless and desperate
+characters filled the street, ready to commence a tumult, for the
+plunder of the city, the moment that the minister or the assassins
+should be killed, while the relations and dependents of the minister,
+with loud cries, offered lacs of rupees to the assassins if they
+spared his life, so as to encourage them to hold out. They at last
+collected and brought to the spot, on three or four elephants, the
+fifty thousand rupees demanded by the assassins, and offered them to
+his assailants apparently with his concurrence; and the four
+ruffians, having assented to the terms offered by the Resident,
+permitted Doctor Login, the Residency Surgeon, to approach the
+prostrate minister and dress his wounds. One of the assassins,
+however, continued to kneel by his side with his naked dagger resting
+on his breast till he saw the other three seated upon the elephants,
+on which the money was placed, with the understanding, that the guard
+of sipahees, which the Resident had brought with him, should escort
+them to the Residency, and that Captain Bird, the Assistant, should
+accompany them. The fourth man then quitted his hold on the minister,
+who had become very faint, and climbed upon Captain Bird's elephant
+and took seat behind him. Captain Bird, however, made him get off,
+and mount another elephant with his companions. The crowd shouted
+_shah bash, shah bash!_--well done, well done! and they attempted to
+scatter some of the money from the elephants among them, but were
+prevented by Captain Bird, who dreaded the consequences in such a
+tumult. They were all four taken to the Residency under the guard of
+sipahees, and accommodated in one of the lower rooms of the office;
+and a guard was placed over the money with orders to keep back the
+crowd of spectators, which was very great. Three of the four ruffians
+had been wounded by the minister's attendants before they could
+secure his person, and their wounds were now dressed by Doctor Login.
+
+It was now ten o'clock, and at twelve the Resident had an interview
+with the King, who had become much alarmed, not only for the safety
+of the minister, but for that of the city, threatened by the
+thousands of bad characters, anxious for an occasion of pillage; and
+he expressed an anxious wish that the assassins should be made over
+to him for trial. But the Resident pleaded the solemn promise which
+he had made, and his Majesty admitted the necessity of the promise
+under the circumstances, and that of keeping it; but said that he
+would have the whole affair carefully investigated. As soon as the
+Resident left him, he sent a company of sipahees with fetters to the
+Residency to receive charge of the prisoners, but the Resident would
+not give them up. The King then wrote a letter to the Resident with
+his own hand, requesting that the prisoners might be surrendered to
+him. The Resident, in his reply to His Majesty's, letter, told him,
+that he could not so far violate the promise he had given, but that
+he would send them to answer any other charges that might be brought
+against them, in any open and impartial Court that might be appointed
+to try them; and if they should be found guilty of other crimes, His
+Majesty might order any sentence passed upon them, short of death, to
+be carried into execution.
+
+Charges of many successful attempts of the same kind, and many
+atrocious murders perpetrated by the ruffians, in distant districts
+of Oude, were preferred against them; and they were prevailed upon to
+give up their arms, and to submit to a fair and open trial, on the
+other charges preferred against them, on condition that they should
+neither be put to death nor in any way maimed, or put in fetters, or
+subjected to ill-treatment before trial and conviction. The Resident
+offered them the alternative of doing this or leaving the Residency,
+after he had read to them the King's letter, and told them, that his
+promise extended only to saving their lives and escorting them to the
+Residency; and, that he would not be answerable for their lives
+beyond the court-yard of the Residency, if they refused the
+conditions now offered. They knew that their lives would not be safe
+for a moment after they got beyond the court-yard, and submitted.
+Their arms and the fifty thousand rupees were sent to the King. At
+four in the afternoon, the four prisoners were made over to the
+King's wakeel, on a solemn promise given under the express sanction
+of his Majesty, of safe conduct through the streets, of freedom from
+fetters, or any kind of ill-treatment before conviction, and of fair
+and open trial.
+
+But they had not gone two paces from the Residency court-yard, when
+they were set upon by the very people sent by the King to take care
+of them on the way; the King's wakeel having got into his palkee and
+gone on before them towards the palace. They were beaten with whips,
+sticks, and the hilts of swords, till one of the four fell down
+insensible, and the other three were reduced to a pitiable condition.
+The Resident took measures to protect them from further violence,
+recalled the wakeel; and, after admonishing him for his dishonourable
+conduct, had the prisoners taken unfettered to a convenient house
+near the prison. The wounded minister wrote to the King, earnestly
+praying that the prisoners might not suffer any kind of ill-treatment
+before conviction, after a fair and impartial trial. The Resident
+reported to Government all that had occurred, and stated, that he
+should see that the promises made to the prisoners were fulfilled,
+that, should they be convicted before the Court appointed to conduct
+the trial, of other crimes perpetrated before this assault on the
+minister, they would be subject to such punishment as the Mahommedan
+law prescribed for such crimes. Three of them, Tuffuzzul Hoseyn,
+Hyder Khan, and Fuzl Allee, were convicted, on their own confessions,
+and the testimony of their own relations, of many cold blooded
+murders, and successful attempts to extort money from respectable and
+wealthy persons in different parts of Oude, similar to this on the
+minister, and all four were sentenced to imprisonment for life. The
+Government of India had insisted on their not being executed or
+mutilated. Fuzl Allee, as above stated, broke jail, and is still at
+large at his old trade, and Hyder Khan is still in prison at Lucknow.
+
+These ruffians appear to have been encouraged, in this assault upon
+the minister, for the purpose of extorting money, by a similar but
+more successful attempt made in the year 1824, by a party headed by a
+person named Syud Mahomed Eesa Meean, _alias_ Eesa Meean.
+
+This person came to Lucknow with a letter of recommendation from
+Captain Gough. He delivered it in person to the Resident, but was
+never after seen or heard of by him till this affair occurred. He
+became a kind of saint, or _apostle_, at Lucknow; and Fakeer Mahomed
+Khan Rusaldar, who commanded a corps of Cavalry, and had much
+influence over the minister, Aga Meer, became one of his _disciples_,
+and prevailed upon the minister to entertain him as a mosahib, or
+aide-de-camp. He soon became a favourite with Aga Meer, and formed a
+liaison with a dancing-girl, named Beeba Jan. His conduct towards her
+soon became too violent and overbearing, and she sought shelter with
+the Khasmahal, or chief consort, of the minister, who promised her
+protection, and detained her in her apartments. Eesa Meean appealed
+to the minister, and demanded her surrender. The minister told him
+that she was mistress of her own actions, as she had never gone
+through the ceremonies of permanent marriage, or _nikkah_, nor even
+those of a temporary one, _motah_; and most be considered as
+altogether free to choose her own lovers or mode of life.
+
+He then appealed to Moulavee Karamut Allee, the tutor of Aga Meer's
+children, but was told, that he could not interfere, as the female
+was a mere acquaintance of his, and bound to him by no legal ties
+whatever; and must, therefore, be considered as free to reside where
+and with whom she chose. Eesa Meean then took his resolution, and
+prevailed upon some fifteen of the loose and desperate characters who
+always swarm at Lucknow, to aid him in carrying it out. On the 2nd of
+June 1824, Karamut Allee, the tutor, was bathing, and Aga Meer's two
+eldest sons, Aga Allee, aged eleven, and Nizam-od Dowlah, aged six
+years were reading their lessons in the school-room, under the
+deputy-tutor, Moulavee Ameen Allee. It was early in the morning, but
+the minister had gone out to wait upon the King. Eesa Meean entered
+the school-room, and approached the children with the usual courtesy
+and compliments, followed by six armed men, and one table attendant,
+or khidmutgar.
+
+The two boys were sitting beside each other, the eldest, Aga Allee,
+on the left, and the youngest, Nizam-od Dowla, on the right. Eesa
+Meean sat down on the left side of the eldest, and congratulated both
+on the rapid progress they were making in their studies. Three of his
+followers, while he was doing this, placed themselves on the left of
+the eldest, and the other three on the right of the youngest. On a
+concerted signal all drew forth and cocked their pistols, and placed
+themselves at the only three doors that opened from the school-room,
+two at each, while at a signal made by the khidmutgar, eight more men
+came in armed in the same manner. Two of them with naked daggers in
+their right hands seized the two boys with their left, and threatened
+them with instant death if they attempted to more or call for help.
+The other six threatened to kill any one who should attempt to force
+his way into the apartment. The khidmutgar, in the mean time, seized
+and brought into the room two large gharahs or pitchers of drinking
+water, that stood outside, as the weather was very hot, and the party
+would require it They were afraid that poison might be put into the
+water if left outside after they had commenced the assault. Eesa
+Meean then declared, that he had been driven to this violent act by
+the detention of his girl by the Khasmahal, and must have her
+instantly surrendered, or they would put the boys to death. Hearing
+the noise from his bathing-room, their tutor, Karamut Allee, rushed
+into the room with nothing on his person but his waist-band, and
+began to admonish the ruffians. Seeing him unarmed, and respecting
+his peaceful character, they let him pass in and vociferate, but paid
+no regard to what he said.
+
+The alarm had spread through the house and town, and many of the
+chief officers of the Court were permitted to enter the room unarmed.
+Roshun-od Dowlah, Sobhan Allee Khan, Fakeer Mahomed Khan, Nuzee Allee
+Khan, (the Khasmahul's son-in-law,) and others of equal rank, all in
+loud terms admonished the assailants, and demanded the surrender of
+the children, but all were alike unheeded. The chief merchant of
+Lucknow, Sa Gobind Lal, came in; and thinking that all affairs could
+and ought to be settled in a business-like way, told the chief
+officers to fix the sum to be given, and he would at once pledge
+himself to the payment. All agreed to this, and Sobhan Allee Khan,
+the Chief Secretary of the minister, set to work and drew up a long
+and eloquent paper of conditions. On his beginning to read it, one of
+the ruffians, who had one eye, rushed in, snatched it from his hand,
+tore it to pieces, and threw the fragments into his chief's, Eesa
+Meean's, face, saying, "that this fellow would write them all out of
+their lives, as he was writing the people of Oude every day out of
+their properties; that if they must die, it should not be by pen and
+paper, but by swords and daggers in a fair fight; that all their
+lives had been staked, and all should die or live together." He was
+overpowered by the others, and other papers were drawn up by the
+ready writer and consummate knave Sobhan Allee, but the one-eyed man
+contrived to get hold of all, one after the other, and tear them up.
+
+The minister was with the King when he first heard of the affair, and
+he went off forthwith to the Resident, Mr. Ricketts, to say, that his
+Majesty had in vain endeavoured to rescue the boys through his
+principal civil officers, and had sent all his available troops, but
+in vain; and now earnestly entreated the British Resident to
+interpose and save their lives. The Resident consented to do so, on
+condition that any arrangement he might find it necessary to make
+should be binding on his Majesty and the minister. Aga Meer returned
+to the King with this message, and his Majesty agreed to this
+condition. The Resident then sent his head moonshie, Gholam Hossein,
+to promise Eesa Meean, that the woman should be restored to him, and
+any grievance he might have to complain of should be redressed, and
+his party all saved, if he gave up the children. But he and his
+followers now demanded a large sum of money, and declared, that they
+would murder the boys unless it was given and secured to them, with a
+pledge for personal security to the whole party.
+
+The minister, on hearing this, came to the Resident, and implored him
+to adopt some measures to save the lives of the children. The
+Resident had been for three weeks confined to his couch from illness,
+but he sent his Assistant, Captain Lockett, with full powers to make
+any arrangement, and pledge himself to any engagements, which might
+appear to him to be necessary, to save the lives of the boys. He
+went, and being unarmed, was permitted to enter the room. He asked
+for Eesa Meean, whom he had never before seen, when one of the party
+that knelt over the boys rose, and saluting him, said, "I am Eesa
+Meean." Captain Lockett told him that he wanted to speak to him in
+private, when Eesa Meean pointed to a door leading into a side room,
+into which they retired. Eesa Meean offered Captain Lockett a chair,
+and at his request sat down by his side. He then entered into a long
+story of grievances, which Captain Lockett considered to be
+frivolous, and said, "that the minister had injured his prospects in
+many ways, and at last disgraced him in the eyes of all people at
+Lucknow, by conniving at the elopement of the dancing-girl that he
+was a soldier and regardless of life under such disgrace, and
+prepared to abide by the result of his present attempt to secure
+redress, whatever it might be; that his terms were the payment down
+of five lacs of rupees, the restoration of his dancing-girl, and the
+security of his own person and property, with permission to go where
+he pleased, unmolested." Captain Lockett reminded him quietly of what
+he had just said: "that he was a soldier, and anxious only for the
+recovery of his lost honour; that now, to demand, money, was to show
+to the world that wounded honour was urged as a mere pretext, and the
+seizure of the boys a means adopted for the sole purpose of extorting
+money; that he could not condescend to hold further converse with him
+if he persisted in such preposterous demands; that he might murder
+the children as they seemed to be in his power, but if he did so, he
+and his party would be all instantly put to death, as the house was
+surrounded by thousands of the King's soldiers, ready to fall upon
+them at the slightest signal." He then recommended him to release the
+boys forthwith before the excitement without became more strong, and
+accompany him to the Residency, where his real Wrongs would be
+inquired into and redressed.
+
+Eesa Meean then rose and said: "Money is not my object. I despise it.
+I regard nothing but the preservation of my honour, and agree to what
+you propose; but I have several companions here who require to be
+consulted: let me speak to them." He then went into the large room.
+His companions all made objections of one kind or another, and what
+they all agreed to one moment was rejected the next. They vociferated
+loudly, and disputed violently with each other, and with all around
+them, and at times appeared desperate and determined to sacrifice the
+boys, and sell their own lives as dearly as possible. Eesa Meean
+himself seemed to be the most violent and boisterous of all, and had
+his hand frequently on the hilt of his sword when he disputed with
+the King's officers, whom he abused in the grossest possible terms.
+They did more harm than good by their want of temper and patience,
+but above all by their utter want of character, since no one could
+place the slightest reliance on the word of any one of them in such a
+trying moment. They seemed to have no control over their feelings,
+and to think that they could do all that was required by harsh
+language and loud bawling.
+
+Captain Lockett at last persuaded them to leave the whole affair in
+his hands; and had they done so at first, he would have settled the
+matter, he thought, in half the time. They had been discussing
+matters in this angry manner for four hours and a half, without
+making the slightest impression on the ruffians; but when all became
+silent, Captain Lockett prevailed on them to release the boys on the
+conditions agreed to between him and Eesa Meean, and recorded on
+paper. In this paper it was declared--"That Syud Mahomed Eesa Khan,
+together with the woman, Beeba Jan, shall be allowed to go where he
+liked, with security to his life and honour, and with all the
+property and effects he might have, whether he got it from the King
+of Oude or from his minister; and that no one, either in the
+Honourable Company's or in the King of Oude's dominions, shall offer
+him any molestation; that no obstruction shall be thrown in his way
+by the officers of the British Government in the countries of any of
+the Rajahs at whose courts there may be a British Resident; and
+further, that no molestation shall be offered to him in the British
+territories in consequence of the disturbance which took place at
+Bareilly in 1816.
+
+"(Signed)    A. LOCKETT, _Assistant Resident_."
+
+After this paper had been signed by Captain Lockett, the two boys
+were set at liberty, and sent off in palanqeens to their mother under
+a guard. The minister had, in the morning, promised to give the
+assailants twenty thousand rupees, and they arrived before the
+discussions closed, and were placed on the floor of the school-room.
+The girl, Beeba Jan, was now brought into the room, and made over to
+Eesa Meean. When first brought before him, she thought she was to be
+sacrificed to save the lives of the boys, and was in a state of great
+agitation. She implored Captain Lockett to save her life; but, to the
+great surprise of all present, Eesa Meean took up one of the bags of
+money, containing one thousand rupees, and, with a smile, put it into
+her arms, and told her that she was now at liberty to return to her
+home or go where she pleased. The joy expressed by the girl and by
+all who witnessed this scene was very great; for they had all
+considered him to be a mere ruffian, incapable of anything like a
+generous action.
+
+It had been arranged that Eesa Meean, with all his party, should go
+with Captain Lockett to the Residency; but when the time came, and
+the excitement had passed away in the apartment, he began to be
+alarmed, and told Captain Lockett that he felt sure he should be
+murdered on the road. He wanted to go with Captain Lockett on the
+same elephant, but to this Captain Lockett would not consent, as it
+would compromise his dignity, to sit on the same elephant with so
+atrocious a character. There was no palanqeen available for him, and
+he would not allow Captain Lockett to enter his, declaring that if he
+did so, he, Eesa Meean, would be instantly cut down by the King's
+people. Captain Lockett was, therefore, obliged to walk with him from
+the minister's house at Dowlut Poora to the Residency, a distance of
+a mile, in the heat of the day, and the hottest month in the year,
+followed by the King's troops, and an immense multitude from the
+city. About four o'clock Captain Lockett reached the Residency, and
+made over Eesa Meean and his sixteen followers to the Resident, who
+ratified the written engagement, and sent the party to the
+cantonments, three miles distant from the city, to Brigadier-General
+Price, who commanded the troops in Oude, to be taken care of for a
+few days till arrangements could be made for their safe conduct to
+Cawnpore, within the British territory. Their arms were taken from
+them, to be sent to the magistrate at Cawnpore, for delivery to them
+when they might be released. On the morning of the 3rd the King came
+to the Resident to thank him for what he had done, and express the
+sense he entertained of the judicious conduct of his Assistant during
+the whole of this trying scene; and to request that he might be
+permitted to go to the palace to receive some mark of distinction
+which his Majesty wished to confer upon him. Captain Lockett went
+with the minister, and was received with marked distinction; and
+thirteen trays of shawls and other articles were presented to him.
+Captain Lockett selected one pair, which he accepted, and placed, as
+usual, in the Resident's Toshuk-khana.
+
+When he signed the paper he remarked the omission of all mention of
+Eesa Meean's associates in that document, but did not consider it to
+be his duty to point out the oversight, lest it might increase the
+excitement, and prolong the angry discussions. In his report of the
+circumstances to the Resident, however, he mentioned it to him, and
+told him that the omission clearly arose from an oversight, and
+unless his associates received the same indulgence as the principal,
+Eesa Meean himself, their exclusion from the benefits of the
+engagement might be attributed to decoit or artifice on his part. The
+Resident concurred in this opinion, and in his report of the
+following day to Government, he recommended that they should all be
+considered as included in the engagement.
+
+Government, in its reply of the 25th of June 1824, consents to this
+construction of the written engagement, but notices a no less
+important oversight on the part of the Resident and his Assistant, in
+the free pardon given to Eesa Meean, for the share he had taken in
+the Bareilly insurrection, which had caused the loss of so many lives
+in April 1816. Government infers, that they could, neither of them
+have been aware, that this ruffian was the original instigator and
+most active leader in that formidable insurrection; that it was
+chiefly, if not entirely, owing to his endeavours to inflame the
+popular phrenzy, and to collect partizans from the neighbouring
+towns, that the efforts of the local authorities, to quell or avert
+the rising storm, failed wholly of success; that he stood charged as
+a principal in the murder of Mr. Leycester's son, and that, on these
+grounds, he was expressly excluded from the general amnesty, declared
+after the successful suppression of the rebellion, and a reward of
+two thousand rupees offered for his arrest; that this written pledge
+had involved Government in the dilemma of either cancelling a public
+act of the British Resident, or pardoning and setting at large,
+within its territory, a proclaimed outlaw, and notorious rebel and
+most dangerous incendiary; and that it felt bound in duty to guard
+the public peace from the hazard of further interruption, through the
+violence or intrigue of so desperate and atrocious an offender; and
+to annul that part of the engagement which absolves Eesa Meean from
+his guilt in the Bareilly insurrection, since the Resident and his
+Assistant went beyond their powers in pledging their Government to
+such a condition. Government directed, that he and his associates
+should be safely escorted over the border into the British territory,
+and that he should not be brought to trial before a Judicial Court,
+with a view to his being capitally punished for his crimes at
+Bareilly, but be confined, as a state prisoner, in the fortress of
+Allahabad. The Government, in strong but dignified terms, expresses
+its surprise and displeasure at his having been placed in so
+confidential a position, and permitted to bask in the sunshine of
+ministerial favour, when active search was being made for him all
+over India; for the King and his minister must have been both aware
+of the part he had taken in the Bareilly insurrection, since the King
+himself alludes to it in a letter submitted by the Resident to
+Government on the 8th of June 1824.
+
+The Resident and his Assistant, in letters dated 15th of July,
+declare that they were altogether unacquainted with the part which
+Eesa Meean had taken in the Bareilly rebellion in 1816, the Resident
+being at that time at the Cape of Good Hope, and his Assistant in
+England. Eesa Meean was confined, as directed, in the fort of
+Allahabad; but soon afterwards released on the occasion of the
+Governor-General's visit to that place. He returned again to Lucknow
+in the year 1828, soon after Aga Meer had been removed from his
+office of minister. As soon as it was discovered that he was in the
+city, he was seized and sent across the Ganges; and is said to have
+been killed in Malwa or Goozerat, in a similar attempt upon some
+native chief or his minister.
+
+The two boys are still living, the eldest, Aga Allee, or Ameen-od
+Dowla, at Lucknow, and Nizam-od Dowla, the youngest, at Cawnpore;
+both drawing large hereditary pensions, under the guarantee of the
+British Government. This is not the Ameen-od Dowla who was attacked
+in the streets, as above described, in the year 1847.
+
+About two years ago this Ghoolam Huzrut took by violence possession
+of the small estate of Golha, now in the Sibhore purgunnah; and
+turned out the proprietor, Bhowannee Sing, a Rathore Rajpoot, whose
+ancestors had held it for several centuries. The poor man was re-
+established in it by the succeeding contractor, Girdhara Sing; but on
+his losing his contract, Ghoolam Huzret, on the 23rd of September
+last, again attacked Bhowanne Sing at midnight, at the head of a gang
+of ruffians; and after killing five of his relatives and servants,
+and burning down his houses, turned him and his family out, and
+secured possession of the village, which he still holds. The King's
+officers were too weak to protect the poor man, and have hitherto
+acquiesced in the usurpation of the village. Ghoolam Huzrut has
+removed all the autumn crops to his own village; and cut down and
+taken away sixty mango-trees planted by Bhowannee Sing's ancestors.
+Miherban Sing, the son of the sufferer, is a sipahee in the 63rd
+Regiment Native Infantry, and he presented a petition through the
+Resident in behalf of his father. Other petitions have been since
+presented, and the Court has been strongly urged to afford redress.
+Ghoolam Huzrut has two forts, to which he retires when pursued, one
+at _Para_, and one at _Sarai_, and a good many powerful landholders
+always ready to support him against the government, on condition of
+being supported by him when necessary.
+
+On crossing the river Ghagra, I directed Captain Bunbury, (who
+commands a regiment in the King of Oude's service with six guns, and
+was to have accompanied me, and left the main body of his regiment
+with his guns under his second in command, Captain Hearsey, at
+Nawabgunge,) to surprise and capture Ghoolam Huzrut, if possible, by
+a sudden march. He had left his fort of Para, on my passing within a
+few miles of it, knowing that the minister had been with me, and
+thinking that he might have requested my aid for the purpose. Captain
+Bunbury joined his main body unperceived, made a forced march during
+the night, and reached the fort of Para at daybreak in the morning,
+without giving alarm to any one on the road. In this surprise he was
+aided by Khoda Buksh, of Dadra, a very respectable and excellent
+landholder, who had suffered from Ghoolam Huzrut's depredations.
+
+He had returned to his fort with all his family on my passing, and it
+contained but few soldiers, with a vast number of women and children.
+He saw that it would be of no use to resist, and surrendered his fort
+and person to Captain Bunbury, who sent him a prisoner to Lucknow,
+under charge of two Companies, commanded by Captain Hearsey. He is
+under trial, but he has so many influential friends about the Court,
+with whom he has shared his plunder, that his ultimate punishment is
+doubtful. Captain Bunbury was praised for his skill and gallantry,
+and was honoured with a title by the king.
+
+_December_ 3, 1849.--Kinalee, ten miles over a plain, highly
+cultivated and well studded with groves, but we could see neither
+town, village, nor hamlet on the road. A poor Brahmin, Gunga Sing,
+came along the road with me, to seek redress for injuries sustained.
+His grandfather was in the service of our Government, and killed
+under Lord Lake, at the first siege of Bhurtpore in 1804. With the
+little he left, the family had set up as agricultural capitalists in
+the village of Poorwa Pundit, on the estate of Kulunder Buksh, of
+Bhitwal. Here they prospered. The estate was, as a matter of favour
+to Kulunder Buksh, transferred from the jurisdiction of the
+contractor to that of the Hozoor Tehseel.*  Kulunder Buksh either
+could not, or would not, pay the Government demand; and he employed
+two of his relatives, Godree and Hoseyn Buksh, to plunder in the
+estate and the neighbourhood, to reduce Government to his own terms.
+These two persons, with two hundred armed men, attacked the village
+in the night; and, after plundering the house of this Brahmin, Gunga
+Sing, they seized his wife, who was then pregnant, and made her point
+out a hidden treasure of one hundred and seven gold mohurs, and two
+hundred and seventy-seven rupees. She had been wounded in several
+places before she did this, and when she could point out no more, one
+of the two brothers cut her down with his sword, and killed her. In
+all the Brahmin lost two thousand seven hundred and fifty-five
+rupees' worth of property; and, on the ground of his grandfather
+having been killed in the Honourable Company's service, has been ever
+since urging the Resident to interpose with the Oude government in
+his behalf.
+
+[* The term "Hozoor Tehseel" signifies the collections of the revenue
+made by the governor himself whether of a district or a kingdom. The
+estates of all landholders who pay their land-revenues direct to the
+governor, or to the deputy employed under him to receive such
+revenues and manage such estates, are said to be in the "Hozoor
+Tehseel." The local authorities of the districts on which such
+estates are situated have nothing whatever to do with them.]
+
+The estate of Bhitwal has been retransferred to the jurisdiction of
+the Amil of Byswara, who has restored it to Kulunder Buksh; and his
+two relatives, Godree and Hoseyn Buksh, are thriving on the booty
+acquired, and are in high favour with the local authorities. I have
+requested that measures may be adopted to punish them for the robbery
+and the cruel murder of the poor woman; but have little hope that
+they will be so. _No government in India is now more weak for
+purposes of good than that of Oude_.
+
+This village of Kinalee is now in the estate of Ramnuggur Dhumeereea,
+held by Gorbuksh, a large landholder, who has a strong fort,
+Bhitolee, at the point of the Delta, formed by the Chouka and Ghagra
+rivers, which here unite. He has taken refuge with some four thousand
+armed followers in this fort, under the apprehension of being made to
+pay the full amount of the Government demand, and called to account
+for the rescue of some atrocious offenders from Captain Hearsey, of
+the Frontier Police, by whom they had been secured. Gorbuksh used to
+pay two hundred thousand rupees a-year for many years for this
+estate, without murmur or difficulty; but for the last three years he
+has not paid the rate, to which he has got it reduced, of one hundred
+and fifty thousand. Out of his rents and the revenues due to
+Government he keeps up a large body of armed followers, to intimidate
+the Government, and seize upon the estates of his weaker neighbours,
+many of which he has lately appropriated by fraud, violence, and
+collusion. An attempt was this year made to put the estate under the
+management of Government officers; but he was too strong for the
+Government, which was obliged to temporise, and at last to yield. He
+is said to exact from the landholders the sum of two hundred and
+fifty thousand rupees a-year. He holds also the estate of Bhitolee,
+at the apex of the delta of the Ghagra and Chouka rivers, in which
+the fort of Bhitolee is situated. The Government demand on this
+estate is fifty thousand (50,000) rupees a-year. His son, Surubjeet
+Sing, is engaged in plunder, and, it is said, with his father's
+connivance and encouragement, though he pretends to be acting in
+disobedience of his orders. The object is, to augment their estate,
+and intimidate the Government and its officers by gangs of ruffians,
+whom they can maintain only by plunder and malversation. The greater
+part of the lands, comprised in this estate of Ramnuggur Dhumeereea,
+of which Rajah Gorbuksh is now the local governor, are hereditary
+possessions which have been held by his family for many generations.
+A part has been recently seized from weaker neighbours, and added to
+them. The rest are merely under him as the governor or public
+officer, intrusted with the collection of the revenue and the
+management of the police.
+
+_December_ 4, 1849.--Gunesh Gunge, _alias_ Byram-ghat, on the right
+bank of the river Ghagra, distance about twelve miles. The country
+well cultivated, and studded with good groves of mango and other
+trees. We passed through and close to several villages, whose houses
+are nothing but mud walls, without a thatched or tiled roof to one in
+twenty. The people say there is no security in them from the King's
+troops and the passies, a large class of men in Oude, who are village
+watchmen but inveterate thieves and robbers, when not employed as
+such. All refractory landholders hire a body of passies to fight for
+them, as they pay themselves out of the plunder, and cost little to
+their employers. They are all armed with bows and arrows, and are
+very formidable at night. They and their refractory employers keep
+the country in a perpetual state of disorder; and, though they do not
+prevent the cultivation of the land, they prevent the village and
+hamlets from being occupied by anybody who has anything to lose, and
+no strong local ties to restrain him.
+
+The town of Ramnuggur, in which Gorbuksh resides occasionally, is on
+the road some five miles from the river. It has a good many houses,
+but all are of the same wretched description; mud walls, with
+invisible coverings or no coverings at all; no signs of domestic
+peace or happiness; but nothing can exceed the richness and variety
+of the crops in and around Ramnuggur. It is a fine garden, and would
+soon be beautiful, were life and property better secured, and some
+signs of domestic comfort created. The ruined state of the houses in
+this town and in the villages along the road, is, in part, owing to
+the system which requires all the King's troops to forage for
+themselves on the march, and the contractors, and other collectors of
+revenue, to be continually on the move, and to take all their troops
+with them. The troops required in the provinces should be cantoned in
+five or six places most convenient, with regard, to the districts to
+be controlled, and most healthy for the people; and provided with
+what they require, as ours are, and sent out to assist the revenue
+collectors and magistrates only when their services are indispensably
+necessary. Some Chundele Rajpoot landholders came to me yesterday to
+say, that Ghoolam Huzrut, with his bands of armed ruffians, seemed
+determined to seize upon all the estates of his weaker Hindoo
+neighbours, and they would soon lose theirs, unless the British
+Government interposed to protect them. Gorbuksh has not ventured to
+come, as he was ordered, to pay his respects to the Resident; but has
+shut himself up in his fort at Bhitolee, about six miles up the river
+from our camp. The Chouka is a small river which there flows into the
+Ghagra. He is said to have four or five thousand men with him; and
+several guns mounted in his fort. The ferry over the Ghagra is close
+to our tents, and called Byram-ghat.
+
+_December_ 5, 1849.--Crossed the river Ghagra, in boats, and encamped
+at Nawabgunge, on the left bank, where we were met by one of the
+collectors of the Gonda Bahraetch district. He complained of the
+difficulties experienced in realizing the just demands of the
+exchequer, from the number and power of the tallookdars of the
+district, who had forts and bands of armed followers, too strong for
+the King's officers. There were, he said, in the small purgunnah of
+Gouras--
+
+1.--Pretheeput Sing, of Paska, who has a strong fort called Dhunolee,
+on the right bank of the Ghagra, opposite to Paska and Bumhoree, two
+strongholds, which he has on the left bank of that river, and he is
+always ready to resist the Government.
+
+2.--Murtonjee Buksh, of Shahpoor, who is always ready to do the same;
+and a great ruffian.
+
+3.--Shere Bahader Sing, of Kuneear.*
+
+4.--Maheput Sing, of Dhunawa.*
+
+5.--Surnam Sing, of Arta.*
+
+6.--Maheput Sing, of Paruspoor.*
+
+[* All four are at present on good terms with the Government and its
+local authorities.]
+
+They have each a fort, or stronghold, mounting five or six guns, and
+trained bands of armed and brave men of five or six hundred, which
+they augment, as occasion requires, by Gohars, or auxiliary bands
+from their friends.
+
+Hurdut Sing, of Bondee, _alias_ Bumnootee, held an estate for which
+he paid one hundred and eighty-two thousand (1,82,000) rupees a year
+to Government; but he was driven, out of it in 1846-47, by Rughbur
+Sing, the contractor, who, by rapacity and outrage, drove off the
+greater part of the cultivators, and so desolated the estate that it
+could not now be made to yield thirty thousand (30,000) rupees a-
+year. The Raja has ever since resided with a few followers in an
+island in the Ghagra. He has never openly resisted or defied the
+Government, but is said to be sullen, and a bad paymaster. He still
+holds the estate in its desolate condition.
+
+The people of Nawabgunge drink the water of wells, close to the bank
+of the river, and often the water of the river itself, and say that
+they never suffer from it; but that a good many people in several
+villages, along the same bank, have the goitre to a very distressing
+degree.
+
+_December_ 6, 1849.--Halted at Byram-ghat, in order to enable all our
+people and things to come up. One of our elephants nearly lost his
+life yesterday in the quick-sands of the river. Capt. Weston rode out
+yesterday close to Bhitolee, the little fort of Rajah Gorbuksh Sing,
+who came out in a litter and told him, that he would come to me to-
+day at noon, and clear himself of the charges brought against him of
+rescuing and harbouring robbers, and refusing to pay the Government
+demand. He had been suffering severely from fever for fifteen days.
+
+Karamut Allee complains that his father, Busharut Allee, had been
+driven out from the purgunnahs of Nawabgunge and Sidhore, by Ghoolum
+Huzrut and his associates, who had several times attacked and
+plundered the town of Nawabgunge, our second stage, and a great many
+other villages around, from which they had driven off all the
+cultivators and stock, in order to appropriate them to themselves,
+and augment their landed estates; that they had cut down all the
+groves of mango-trees planted by the rightful proprietors and their
+ancestors, in order to remove all local ties; and murdered or maimed
+all cultivators who presumed to till any of the lands without their
+permission, that Busharut Allee had held the contract for the land
+revenue of the purgunnah for twenty years, and paid punctually one
+hundred and thirty-five thousand (1,35,000) rupees a-year to the
+treasury, till about four years ago, when Ghoolam Huzrut commenced
+this system of spoliation and seizure, since which time the purgunnah
+had been declining, and could not now yield seventy thousand (70,000)
+rupees to the treasury; that his family had held many villages in
+hereditary right for many generations, within the purgunnah, but that
+all had, been or were being seized by this lawless freebooter and his
+associates.
+
+Seeta Ram, a Brahmin zumeendar of Kowaree, in purgunnah Satrick,
+complains, that he has been driven out of his hereditary estate by
+Ghoolam Imam, the zumeendar of Jaggour, and his associate, Ghoolam
+Huzrut; that his house had been levelled with the ground, and all the
+trees, planted by his family, have been cut down and burned; that he
+has been plundered of all he had by them, and is utterly ruined. Many
+other landholders complain in the same manner of having been robbed
+by this gang, and deprived of their estates; and still more come in
+to pray for protection, as the same fate threatens all the smaller
+proprietors, under a government so weak, and so indifferent to the
+sufferings of its subjects.
+
+The Nazim of Khyrabad, who is now here engaged in the siege of
+Bhitolee, has nominally three thousand four hundred fighting men with
+him; but he cannot muster seventeen hundred. He has with him only the
+seconds in command of corps, who are men of no authority or
+influence, the commandants being at Court, and the mere creatures of
+the singers and eunuchs, and other favourites about the palace. They
+always reside at and about Court, and keep up only half the number of
+men and officers, for whom they draw pay. All his applications to the
+minister to have more soldiers sent out to complete the corps, or
+permission to raise men in their places, remain unanswered and
+disregarded. The Nazim of Bharaetch has nominally four thousand
+fighting men; but he cannot muster two thousand, and the greater part
+of them are good for nothing. The great landholders despise them, but
+respect the Komutee corps, under Captains Barlow, Bunbury, and
+Magness, which is complete, and composed of strong and brave men. The
+despicable state to which the Court favourites have reduced the
+King's troops, with the exception of these three corps, is
+lamentable. They are under no discipline, and are formidable only to
+the peasantry and smaller landholders and proprietors, whose houses
+they everywhere deprive of their coverings, as they deprive their
+cattle of their fodder.
+
+_December_ 7, 1849.--Hissampoor, 12 miles north-east, over a plain of
+fine soil, more scantily tilled than any we saw on the other side of
+the Ghagra, but well studded with groves and fine single trees, and
+with excellent crops on the lands actually under tillage. One cause
+assigned for so much fine land lying waste is, that the Rajpoot
+tallookdars, above named, of the Chehdewara, have been long engaged
+in plundering the Syud proprietors of the soil, and seizing upon
+their lands, in the same manner as the Mahomedan ruffians, on the
+other side of the river, have been engaged in plundering the small
+Rajpoot proprietors, and seizing upon their lands. Four of them are
+now quiet; but two, Prethee Put and Mirtonjee, are always in
+rebellion. Lately, while the Chuckladar was absent, employed against
+Jote Sing, of Churda, in the Turae, these two men took a large train
+of followers, with some guns, attacked the two villages of Aelee and
+Pursolee, in the estate of Deeksa, in Gonda, killed six persons,
+plundered all the houses of the inhabitants, and destroyed all their
+crops, merely because the landholders of these two villages would not
+settle a boundary dispute in the way 'they proposed'. The lands of
+the Hissampoor purgunnah were held in property by the members of a
+family of Syuds, and had been so for many generations; but
+neighbouring Rajpoot tallookdars have plundered them of all they had,
+and seized upon their lands by violence, fraud, or collusion, with
+public officers. Some they have seized and imprisoned, with torture
+of one kind or another, till they signed deeds of sale, _Bynamahs_;
+others they have murdered with all their families, to get secure
+possession of their lands; others they have despoiled by offering the
+local authorities a higher rate of revenue for their lands than they
+could possibly pay.
+
+The Nazim has eighteen guns, and ten auxiliary ones sent out on
+emergency--not one-quarter are in a state for service; and for these
+he has not half the draft-bullocks required, and they are too weak
+for use; and of ammunition or _stores_ he has hardly any at all.
+
+Rajah Gorbuksh Sing came yesterday, at sunset, to pay his respects,
+and promised to pay to the Oude Government all that is justly
+demandable from him. Written engagements to this effect were drawn
+up, and signed by both the "high contracting parties." Having come in
+on a pledge of personal security, he was, of course, permitted to
+return from my camp to his own stronghold in safety. In that place he
+has collected all the loose characters and unemployed soldiers he
+could gather together, and all that his friends and associates could
+lend him, to resist the Amil; and to maintain such a host, he will
+have to pay much more than was required punctually to fulfil his
+engagements to the State. He calculates, however, that, by yielding
+to the Government, he would entail upon himself a perpetual burthen
+at an enhanced rate, while, by the temporary expenditure of a few
+thousands in this way, he may still further reduce the rate he has
+hitherto paid.
+
+The contract for Gonda and Bahraetch was held by Rughbur Sing, one of
+the sons of Dursun Sing, for the years 1846 and 1847 A.D., and the
+district of Sultanpoor was held by his brother, Maun Sing, for 1845-
+46 and 1847 A.D. Rughbur Sing in 1846-47 is supposed to have seized
+and sold or destroyed no less than 25,000 plough-bullocks in
+Bhumnootee, the estate of Rajah Hurdut Sing, alone. The estate of
+Hurhurpoor had, up to that time, long paid Government sixty thousand
+(60,000) rupees a-year, but last year it would not yield five
+thousand (5,000) rupees, from the ravages of this man, Rughbur Sing.
+The estate of Rehwa, held by Jeswunt Sing, tallookdar, had paid
+regularly fifty-five thousand (55,000) rupees a-year; but it was so
+desolated by Rughbur Sing, that it cannot now yield eleven thousand
+(11,000) rupees. This estate adjoins Bhumnootee, Rajah Hurdut Sing's,
+which, as above stated, regularly paid one hundred and eighty-two
+thousand (182,000) rupees; it cannot now pay thirty thousand (30,000)
+rupees. Such are the effects of the oppression of this bad man for so
+brief a period.
+
+Some tallookdars live within the borders of our district of
+Goruckpoor, while their lands lie in Oude. By this means they evade
+the payment of their land revenues, and with impunity commit
+atrocious acts of murder and plunder in Oude. These men maim or
+murder all who presume to cultivate on the lands which they have
+deserted, without their permission, or to pay rents to any but
+themselves; and the King of Oude's officers dare not follow them, and
+are altogether helpless. Only two months ago, Mohibollah, a zumeendar
+of Kuttera, was invited by Hoseyn Buksh Khan, one of these
+tallookdars, to his house, in the Goruckpoor district, to negotiate
+for the ransom of one of his cultivators, a weaver by caste, whom he
+had seized and taken away. As he was returning in the evening, he was
+waylaid by Hoseyn Buksh Khan, as soon as he had recrossed the Oude
+borders, and murdered with one of his attendants, who had been sent
+with him by the Oude Amil. Such atrocities are committed by these
+refractory tallookdars every day, while they are protected within our
+bordering districts. Their lands must lie waste or be tilled by men
+who pay all the rent to them, while they pay nothing to the Oude
+Government. The Oude Government has no hope of prosecuting these men
+to conviction in our Judicial Courts for specific crimes, which they
+are known every day to commit, and glory in committing. In no part of
+India is there such glaring abuse of the privileges of sanctuary as
+in some of our districts bordering on Oude; while the Oude Frontier
+Police, maintained by the King, at the cost of about one hundred
+thousand (100,000) rupees a-year, and placed under our control,
+prevents any similar abuse on the part of the Oude people and local
+authorities. Some remedy for this intolerable evil should be devised.
+At present the magistrates of all our conterminous districts require,
+or expect, that their charges against any offender in Oude, who has
+committed a crime in their districts, shall be held to be sufficient
+for their arrest; but some of them, on the other band, require that
+nothing less than some unattainable judicial proof, on the part of
+the officers of the Oude Government, shall be held to be sufficient
+to justify the arrest of any Oude offender who takes refuge in our
+districts. They hold, that the sole object of the Oude authorities is
+to get revenue defaulters into their power, and that the charges
+against them for heinous crimes are invented solely for that purpose.
+No doubt this is often the object, and that other charges are
+sometimes invented, for the sole purpose of securing the arrest and
+surrender of revenue defaulters; but the Oude revenue defaulters who
+take refuge in our districts are for the most part, the tallookdars,
+or great landholders, who, either before or after they do so,
+invariably fight with the Oude authorities, and murder and plunder
+indiscriminately, in order to reduce them to their own terms.
+
+The Honourable the Court of Directors justly require that requisition
+for the surrender of offenders by and from British officers and
+Native States, shall be limited to persons charged with having
+committed heinous crimes within their respective territories; and
+that the obligation to surrender such offenders shall be strictly
+reciprocal, unless, in any special case, there be very strong reason
+for a departure from the rule.* But some magistrates of districts
+disregard altogether applications made to them by the sovereign of
+Oude, through the British Resident, for the arrest of subjects of
+Oude who have committed the most atrocious robberies and murders in
+the Oude territory in open day, and in the sight of hundreds; and
+allow refugees from Oude to collect and keep up gangs of robbers
+within their own districts, and rob and murder within the Oude
+territory. Happily such Magistrates are rare. Government, in a letter
+dated the 25th February, 1848, state--"that it is the duty of the
+magistrates of our districts bordering on Oude to adopt vigorous
+measures for preventing the assembling or entertaining of followers
+by any party, for the purpose of committing acts of violence on the
+Oude side of the frontier."
+
+[* See their letter to the Government of India, 27th May 1835.]
+
+_December_ 8, 1849.--Pukharpoor, a distance of fourteen miles, over a
+fine plain of good soil, scantily tilled. For some miles the road lay
+through Rajah Hurdut Sing's estate of Bumnootee, which was, with the
+rest of the district of Bahraetch and Gonda, plundered by Rughbur
+Sing, during the two years that he held the contract. We passed
+through no village or hamlet, but saw some at a distance from the
+road, with their dwellings of naked mud walls, the abodes of fear and
+wretchedness; but the plain is well studded with groves and fine
+single trees, and the crops are good where there are any on the
+ground. Under good management, the country would be exceedingly
+beautiful, and was so until within the last four years.
+
+In the evening I had a long talk with the people of the village, who
+had assembled round our tents. Many of them had the goitre; but they
+told me, that in this and all the villages within twenty miles the
+disease had, of late years, diminished; that hardly one-quarter of
+the number that used to suffer from it had now the disease; that the
+quality of the water must have improved, though they knew not why, as
+they still drank from the same wells. These wells must penetrate into
+some bed of mineral or other substance, which produces this disease
+of the glands, and may in time exhaust it. But it is probable, that
+the number who suffer from this disease has diminished merely with
+the rest of the population, and that the proportion which the
+goitered bear to the ungoitered may be still the same. They told me
+that they had been plundered of all their stock and moveable property
+by the terrible scourge, Rughber Sing, during his reign of two years,
+and could not hope to recover from their present state of poverty for
+many more; that their lands were scantily tilled, and the crops had
+so failed for many years, since this miscreant's rule, that the
+district which used to supply Lucknow with grain was obliged to draw
+grain from it, and even from Cawnpore. This is true, and grain has in
+consequence been increasing in price ever since we left Lucknow. It
+is now here almost double the price that it is at Lucknow, while it
+is usually twice as cheap here.
+
+_December_ 9, 1849.--Bahraetch, ten miles north-east. We encamped on
+a fine sward, on the left bank of the Surjoo river, a beautiful clear
+stream. The cultivation very scanty, but the soil good, with water
+everywhere, within a few feet of the surface. Groves and single trees
+less numerous; and of villages and hamlets we saw none. Under good
+government, the whole country might, in a few years, be made a
+beautiful garden. The river Surjoo is like a winding stream in a
+park; and its banks might, everywhere, be cultivated to the water's
+edge. No ravines, jungle, or steep embankments. It is lamentable to
+see so fine a country in so wretched a state.
+
+The Turae forest begins a few miles to the north of Bahraetch, and
+some of the great baronial landholders have their residence and
+strongholds within it. The Rajah of Toolseepoor is one of them. He is
+a kind-hearted old man, and a good landlord and subject; but he has
+lately been driven out by his young and reprobate son, at the
+instigation and encouragement of a Court favourite. The Rajah had
+discharged an agent, employed by him at Court for advocating the
+cause of his son while in rebellion against his father. The agent
+then made common cause with the son, and secured the interest of two
+powerful men at Court, Balkrishen Dewan and Gholam Ruza, the deputy
+minister, who has charge of the estates in the Hozoor Tehsel. The
+jurisdiction over the estate had been transferred from the local
+authorities to the Hozoor Tehsel; and, by orders from Court, the
+father's friends, the Bulrampoor and other Rajahs of the clan, were
+prevented from continuing the aid they had afforded to support the
+father's authority. The father unwilling to have the estate
+devastated by a contest with the band of ruffians whom his son had
+collected, retired, and allowed him to take possession. The son
+seized upon all the property the father had left, and now employs it
+in maintaining this band and rewarding the services of Court
+favourites. The Nazim of the district is not permitted to interfere,
+to restore rights or preserve order in the estate, nor would he,
+perhaps, do either, if so permitted, for he has been brought up in a
+bad school, and is not a good man. The pretext at Court is, that the
+father is deranged; but, though not wise, he is learned, and no man
+can be more sober than he is, or better disposed towards his
+sovereign and tenants. That he is capable of managing his estate, is
+shown by the excellent condition in which he left it.
+
+Prethee Put, of Paska, is not worse than many of the tallookdars of
+Oude, who now disturb the peace of the country; and I give a brief
+sketch of his history, as a specimen of the sufferings inflicted on
+the people by the wild licence which such landholders enjoy under the
+weak, profligate, and apathetic government of Oude.
+
+Keerut Sing, the tallookdar of Paska, on the left bank of the Ghagra,
+between Fyzabad and Byram-ghaut, was one of the Chehdwara
+landholders, and had five sons, the eldest Dirgpaul Sing, and the
+second Prethee Put, the hero of this brief history. Before his death,
+Keerut Sing made over the management of his estate to his eldest son
+and heir; but gave to his second son a portion of land out of it, for
+his own subsistence and that of his family. The father and eldest son
+continued to reside together in the fort of Dhunolee, situated on the
+right bank of the Ghagra, opposite Paska. Prethee Put took up his
+residence in his portion of the estate at Bumhoree, collected a gang
+of the greatest ruffians in the country, and commenced his trade, and
+that of so many of his class, as an indiscriminate plunderer. Keerut
+Sing and his eldest son, Dirgpaul, continued to pay the Government
+demand punctually, to obey the local authorities, and manage the
+estate with prudence.
+
+Prethee Put, in 1836, attacked and took a despatch of treasure,
+consisting of twenty-six thousand rupees, on its way to Lucknow, from
+the Nazim of Bahraetch. In 1840 he attacked and took another of
+eighty-five thousand rupees, on its way to Lucknow from the same
+place. With these sums, and the booty which he acquired from the
+plunder of villages and travellers, he augmented his gang, built a
+fort at Bumhoree, and extended his depredations. In January 1842, his
+father, who had been long ill, died. The local authorities demanded
+five thousand rupees from the eldest son, Dirgpaul Sing, on his
+accession. He promised to pay, and sent his eldest son, Dan Bahader
+Sing, a lad of eighteen, as a hostage for the payment to the Nazim.
+Soon after, Prethee Pat attacked the fort of Dhunolee, in which his
+elder brother resided with his family, killed fifty-six persons, and
+made Dirgpaul, his wife, and three other sons prisoners. Dirgpaul's
+sister tried to conceal her brother under some clothes; but, under a
+solemn oath from Prethee Put, that no personal violence should be
+offered to him, he was permitted to take him. His wife and three sons
+were sent off to be confined under the charge of Byjonauth Bhilwar,
+zumeendar of Kholee, in the estate of Sarafraz Ahmud, one of his
+associates in crime, on the left bank of the Goomtee river.
+
+Three days after, finding that no kind of torture or intimidation
+could make his elder brother sign a formal resignation of his right
+to the estate in his favour, he took him into the middle of the river
+Ghagra, cut off his head with his own hands, and threw the body into
+the stream. Deeming this violation of his pledge a dishonourable act
+his friend, Byjonauth, from whom he had demanded the widow and her
+three sons, released them all, to seek protection elsewhere, as he
+was not strong enough to resist Prethee Put himself. They found
+shelter with some friends of the family in another district, and
+Wajid Allee Khan, the Nazim of Bahraetch, in the beginning of
+November 1843, went with the best force he could muster, drove
+Prethee Pat out of Dhunolee and Paska, and put Dan Bahader Sing, the
+eldest son of Dirgpaul, and rightful heir, into possession. In the
+latter end of the same month, however, he was attacked by his uncle,
+Prethee Put, and driven out with the loss of ten men. He again
+applied for aid to the Nazim; but, thinking it more profitable to
+support the stronger party, he took a bribe of ten thousand rupees
+from Prethee Put, and recognized him as the rightful heir of his
+murdered brother. Dan Bahader collected a small party of fifteen men,
+and took possession of a small stronghold in the jungle of the
+Shapoor estate, belonging to Murtonjee, another of the Chehdwara
+tallookdars, where he was again attacked by his uncle in March 1844,
+and driven out with the loss of four out of his fifteen men. Soon
+after Prethee Put attacked and took another despatch of treasure, on
+its way to Lucknow from Bahraetch, consisting of eighteen thousand
+rupees. Soon after, in June, the Nazim, Ehsan Allee, sent a force
+with Dan Bahader, and re-established him in possession of the estate
+of Paska; but Ehsan Allee was soon after superseded in the contract
+by Rughbur Sing, who adopted the cause of the strongest, and restored
+Prethee Put, who continued to hold the estate for 1845.
+
+In April 1847, Mahommed Hossein, one of the Tusseeldars under Rughbur
+Sing, seized and confined Prethee Put, once more put Dan Bahader in
+possession of the estate, and sent his uncle to Rughbur Sing. In
+November 1847, Incha Sing superseded his nephew, Rughbur Sing; and,
+thinking Prethee Put's the more profitable cause to adopt, he turned
+out Dan Bahader, and restored Prethee Put to the possession of the
+Paska estate, which he has held ever since. He has continued to
+pursue his system of indiscriminate plunder and defiance of the
+Government authorities, and has seized upon the estates of several of
+his weaker neighbours.
+
+In 1848, he attacked and plundered the village of Sahooreea,
+belonging to Sarafraz Allee, Chowdheree of Radowlee, and this year he
+has done the same to the village of Semree, belonging to Rajah
+Bukhtawar Sing. He carried off fifty-two persons from this village of
+Semree, and confined them for two months, flogging and burning them
+with red-hot ramrods, till they paid the ransom of five thousand
+rupees required. He has this year plundered another village,
+belonging to the same person, called Nowtee, and its dependent hamlet
+of Hurhurpoora. He has also this year attacked, plundered, and burnt
+to the ground the villages of Tirkolee, in the Radowlee purgunnah,
+and Aelee Pursolee, in Bahraetch. The attack on Tirkolee took place
+in September last, and five of the inhabitants were killed; and in
+the attack on Aelee Pursolee, six of the zumeendars were killed in
+defending themselves. In this attack he was joined by the gang under
+Murtonjee. He also plundered and confined a merchant of Gowaris till
+he paid a ransom of seven hundred rupees; and about twenty-five days
+ago he attacked and plundered two persons from Esanugur, on their way
+to Ojodheea, on pilgrimage, and kept them confined and tortured till
+they paid a ransom of five hundred rupees.
+
+Prethee Put has, as before stated, in collusion with local
+authorities, and by violence, seized upon a great portion of the
+lands of Hissampoor, and ruined and turned out the Syud proprietors,
+by whose families they had been held for many generations. He is
+bound to pay twenty thousand rupees a year; but has not, for many
+years, paid more than seven thousand.
+
+Mahommed Hossein, the present Nazim of the Gonda Bahraetch districts,
+describes the capture of Prethee Put by himself, as follows:-"In
+1846, the purgunnahs of Gowaris and Hissampoor were reduced to a
+state of great disorder by the depredations of Prethee Put, and the
+roads leading through them were shut up. He had seized Syud Allee
+Asgar, the tallookdar of Aleenughur, in the Hissampoor purgunnah,
+taken possession of his estate, and driven out, or utterly ruined,
+all the landholders and cultivators. He tried, by all kinds of
+torture, to make Allee Asgar sign, in his favour, a deed of sale; but
+his family found means to complain to the Durbar, and Rughbur Sing,
+the Nazim, was ordered to seize him and rescue his prisoner. I was
+sent to manage the two purgunnahs, seize the offender, and rescue
+Allee Asgar. When I approached the fort of Bumhoree, where he kept
+his prisoner confined, Prethee Put put him in strong irons, left him
+in that fort, and, with his followers, passed over the Ghagra, in
+boats, to his stronger fort of Dhunolee, on the right bank. I took
+possession of Bumhoree without much resistance, rescued the prisoner,
+and restored him to the possession of his estate, and put all the
+rest of the lands held by Prethee Put under the management of
+Government officers. Two months after, seeing my force much reduced
+by these arrangements, he came at the head of a band of seventeen
+hundred men to attack me in the village of Dhooree Gunge. The place
+was not defended by any wall, but we made the best of it, drove him
+back, and killed or wounded about fifty of his men, with the loss on
+our side, in killed or wounded, of about twenty-three.
+
+"I kept Prethee Put confined for two months, when Rughbur Sing sent
+for him, on pretence that he wished to send him to Lucknow. He kept
+him till the end of the year, when he was superseded in the contract
+by his uncle, Incha Sing, who released Prethee Put at the
+intercession of Maun Sing, the brother of Rughbur Sing, who expected
+to make a good deal out of him." Prethee Put, of Paska, was attacked
+on the morning of the 26th of March, 1850, in his fort of Dhunolee,
+by a force under the command of Captains Weston, Thompson, Magness,
+and Orr; and, on their approach, he vacated the fort, separated
+himself from his gang, and took shelter in the house of a Brahmin. He
+was then traced by a party from Captain Magness's corps; and, as he
+refused to surrender, he was cut down and killed. His clan, the
+Kulhunsies, refused to take the body for interment. The head had been
+cut off to be sent to Lucknow as a trophy, but Captain Weston opposed
+this, and it was replaced on the body, which was sewn up in a
+winding-sheet and taken into the river Ghagra by some sipahees, as
+the best kind of interment for a Hindoo chief of his rank. The
+persons employed in the ceremony were Hindoos, who knew nothing of
+Prethee Put's history; but it was afterwards found that the place
+where the body was committed to the stream was that on which he had
+killed his eldest brother, and thrown his body into the river from
+his boat. This was a remarkable coincidence, and tended to impress
+upon the minds of the people around a notion that his death was
+effected by divine interposition. All, except his followers, were
+rejoiced at the death of so atrocious a character. Dan Bahader, the
+eldest son of the brother he had murdered, being poor and unable to
+pay the usual fees and gratuities to the minister and court
+favourites, was not, however, permitted to take possession of his
+patrimonial estate, and he died in December, 1850, in poverty and
+despair. Dhunolee and Bhumoree have been levelled with the ground.
+
+_December_ 9, 1849.--In the news-writer's report of the 3rd December,
+1849, it is stated--"that Ashfakos Sultan, Omrow Begum, one of the
+King's wives, reported to his Majesty, that a man named Sadik Allee
+had come to Lucknow while the King was suffering from palpitations of
+the heart, and, in the disguise of a Durveish, hired a house in
+Muftee Gunge, and taken up his residence in it. He there gave himself
+out as one of the Kings of the Fairies (_Amil-i-Jinnut_); and the
+fakeer, to whom his Majesty's confidential servants, the singers, had
+taken him to be cured of his disease, was no other than this Sadik
+Allee. The King, on hearing this, sent for Sadik Allee, who was
+seized and brought before him on the 2nd December. He confessed the
+imposture, but pleaded that he had practised it merely to obtain some
+money, and that the singers were associated with him in all that he
+did. The King soothed his apprehensions, and conferred upon him a
+dress of honour, consisting of a doshala and roomul, and then made
+him over to the custody of Ashfak-os Sultan. At night the King sent
+for the minister, and, summoning Sadik Allee, bid him dress himself
+exactly as he was dressed on the night he visited him, and prepare a
+room in the palace exactly in the same manner as he had prepared his
+own to receive his Majesty on that night. He chose a small room in
+the palace, and under the ceiling he suspended a second ceiling, so
+that no one could perceive how it was fixed on, and placed himself
+between the two. When all was ready the King went to the apartment
+with the minister, accompanied by Ruzee-od Dowlah, the head singer.
+When the door of the apartment was closed, they first heard a
+frightful voice, without being able to perceive whence it came.
+Neither the minister nor the King could perceive the slightest
+opening or fissure in the ceiling. They then came out and closed the
+door, but immediately heard from within the peaceful salutation of
+'salaam aleekom,' and the man appeared within as King of the Fairies,
+and presented his Majesty with some jewels and other offerings. All
+was here enacted precisely as it had been acted on the occasion of
+the King's visit to Muftee Gunge. Turning an angry look upon Ruzee-od
+Dowlah, the King said, 'All the evil that I have so often heard of
+you, men of Rampoor, I have now with my own eyes seen realized;' and,
+turning to the minister, he said, 'How often have these men spoken
+evil of you before me!' Ruzee-od Dowlah then said, 'If your Majesty
+thinks me guilty, I pray you to punish me as may seem to you proper;
+but I entreat you not to make me over to the minister.' The King,
+without deigning any reply, summoned Hajee Shureef, and told him to
+place mounted sentries of his own corps of cavalry over the door of
+Saadut Allee Khan's mausoleum, in which these singers resided, and
+infantry sentries in the apartments with them, with strict orders
+that no one should be permitted to go out without, being first
+strictly searched. The sister of Ruzee-od Dowla could nowhere be
+found, and was supposed to have made her escape."
+
+The King had several interviews of this kind with his Majesty, the
+King of the Fairies, who described the symptoms from which he
+suffered, and prescribed the remedies, which consisted chiefly of
+rich offerings to the Fairies, who were to relieve him. He frequently
+received letters from the Fairy King to the same effect, written in
+an imperious style, suited to the occasion. The farce was carried on
+for several months, and the King at different times is supposed to
+have given the Fairy King some two lacs of rupees, which he shared
+liberally with the singers.
+
+I had heard of the affair of the Durveish from the minister, through
+his wakeel, and from Captain Bird, the first Assistant, in a letter.
+I requested that he would ask for an audience, and congratulate his
+Majesty on the discovery of the imposture, and offer any assistance
+that he might require in the banishment of the impostors. He was
+received by the King in the afternoon of the 6th. He expressed his
+regret that the King should have been put to so much trouble by the
+bad conduct of those who had received from him all that a king could
+give-wealth, titles, and intimate companionship; hinted at the
+advantage taken of this by Ruzee-od Dowlah, in his criminal
+intercourse with one of his Sultanas, Surafraz Muhal; and earnestly
+prayed him to put an end to the misery and disgrace which these men
+had brought and were still bringing on himself, his house, and his
+country. The King promised to have Ruzee-od Dowlah, his sister, and
+Kotub-od Dowlah, banished across the Ganges; but stated, that he
+could do nothing against Sadik Allee, however richly he deserved
+punishment, since he had pledged his royal word to him, on his
+disclosing all he knew about the imposition. The King asked captain
+Bird, whether he thought that he had felt no sorrow at parting with
+Surafraz Muhal, with whom he had lived so intimately for nine years;
+that he had, he said, cast her off as a duty, and did Captain Bird
+think that he would spare the men who had so grossly deceived him,
+caused so much confusion in his kingdom, and ill-feeling towards him,
+on the part of the British Government and its representative? His
+Majesty added, "I cherished low-bred men, and they have given me the
+low-bred man's reward, had I made friends of men of birth and
+character it would have been otherwise;" and concluded by saying,
+that he could not touch the money he had given to these fellows,
+because people would say that he had got rid of them merely to
+recover what he had bestowed upon them.*
+
+[* When he afterwards confined and banished them in June and July
+1850, he took back from them all that they had retained; but they had
+sent to their families and friends, property to the value of many
+lacs of rupees.]
+
+The King, in the latter end of November, divorced Surafraz Muhal, and
+sent her across the Ganges, to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. She had
+long been cohabiting with the chief singer, Gholam Ruza, and was
+known to be a very profligate woman. She is said to have given his
+Majesty to understand that she would not consent to remain in the
+palace with him without the privilege of choosing her own lovers, a
+privilege which she had freely enjoyed before she came into it, and
+could not possibly forego.
+
+                    __________________________
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Bahraetch--Shrine of Syud Salar--King of the Fairies and the
+Fiddlers--Management of Bahraetch district for forty-three years--
+Murder of Amur Sing, by Hakeem Mehndee--Nefarious transfer of
+_khalsa_ lands to Tallookdars, by local officers--Rajah Dursun Sing--
+His aggression on the Nepaul Territory--Consequences--Intelligence
+Department--How formed, managed, and abused--Rughbur Sing's
+management of Gonda and Bahraetch for 1846-47--Its fiscal effects--A
+gang-robber caught and hung by Brahmin villagers--Murder of
+Syampooree Gosaen--Ramdut Pandee--Fairies and Fiddlers--Ramdut
+Pandee, the Banker--the Rajahs of Toolseepoor and Bulrampoor--Murder
+of Mr. Ravenscroft, of the Bengal Civil Service, at Bhinga, in 1823.
+
+
+Bahraetch is celebrated for the shrine of Syud Salar, a _martyr_, who
+is supposed to have been killed here in the beginning of the eleventh
+century, when fighting against the Hindoos, under the auspices of
+Mahmood Shah, of Ghuznee, his mother's brother. Strange to say,
+Hindoos as well as Mahommedans make offerings to this shrine, and
+implore the favours of this military ruffian, whose only recorded
+merit consists of having destroyed a great many Hindoos in a wanton
+and unprovoked invasion of their territory. They say, that he did
+what he did against Hindoos in the conscientious discharge of his
+duties, and could not have done it without God's permission--that God
+must then have been angry with them for their transgressions, and
+used this man, and all the other Mahommedan invaders of their
+country, as instruments of his vengeance, and means to bring about
+his purposes: that is, the thinking portion of the Hindoos say this.
+The mass think that the old man must still have a good deal of
+interest in heaven, which he may be induced to exercise in their
+favour, by suitable offerings and personal applications to his
+shrine.
+
+The minister reports to the Resident on the 9th, that the King had
+relented, and wished to retain the singer, Ruzee-od Dowlah, and his
+sister, and Kotub Allee, at Lucknow, with orders never to approach
+the presence. Captain Bird, in a letter, confirms this report.
+
+_December_ 11, 1849.--Left Bahraetch and came south-east to Imaleea,
+on the road to Gonda, over a plain in the Pyagpoor estate, almost
+entirely waste. Few groves or single trees to be seen; scarcely a
+field tilled or house occupied; all the work of the same atrocious
+governor, Rughbur Sing. No oppressor ever wrote a more legible hand.
+
+The brief history of the management of this district for the last
+forty-three years, is as follows. The district consisted in 1807, of
+
+
+
+                              Khalsa Lands       Present Khalsa Lands
+     Bahraetch    .    .    .   2,50,000                 4,000
+     Hissampoor   .    .    .   2,00,000                40,000
+     Hurhurpoor   .    .    .   1,25,000                10,000
+     Buhareegunge .    .    .   1,50,000                15,000
+                                ________                ______
+                                7,25,000                69,000
+                                ________                ______
+
+
+The contract was held by Balkidass Kanoongoe, for five years, from
+1807 to 1811, when he died, and was succeeded in the contract by his
+son, Amur Sing, who held it till 1816. In the end of that year, or
+early in 1817, Amur Sing was seized, put into confinement, and
+murdered by Hakeem Mehndee, who held the contract for 1817 and 1818.
+In the year 1816, Hakeem Mehndee, who held the contract for the
+Mahomdee district, at four lacs of rupees a-year, and that for
+Khyrabad at five, heard of the great wealth of Amur Sing, and the
+fine state to which he and his father had brought the district by
+good management; and offered the Oude government one lac of rupees a-
+year more than he paid for the contract for the ensuing year. Hakeem
+Mehndee resided chiefly at the capital of Lucknow, on the pretence of
+indisposition, while his brother, Hadee Allee Khan, managed the two
+districts for him. He had acquired a great reputation by his
+judicious management of these two districts, and become a favourite
+with the King, by the still more skilful management of a few male and
+female favourites about his Majesty's person. The minister, Aga Meer,
+was jealous of his growing fame and favour, and persuaded the King to
+accept the offer, in the hope that he would go himself to his new
+charge, in order to make the most of it. As soon as he heard of his
+appointment to the charge of Bahraetch, Hakeem Mehndee set out with
+the best body of troops he could collect, and sent on orders for Amur
+Sing to come out and meet him. He declined to do so until he got the
+pledge of Hadee Allee Khan, the Hakeem's brother, for his personal
+security. This mortified the Hakeem, and tended to confirm him in the
+resolution to make away with Amur Sing, and appropriate his wealth.
+Both Hakeem Mehndee and his brother are said to have sworn on their
+Koran that no violence whatever should be offered to or restraint put
+upon him; and, relying on these oaths and pledges, Amur Sing met them
+on their approach to Bahraetch.
+
+After discussing affairs and adjusting accounts for some months at
+Bahraetch, the Hakeem, by his courteous manners and praises of his
+excellent management, put Amur Sing off his guard. When sitting with
+him one evening in his tents, around which he had placed a select
+body of guards, he left him on the pretext of a sudden call, and Amur
+Sing was seized, bound, and confined. Meer Hyder and Baboo Beg, Mogul
+troopers, were placed in command of the guards over him, with orders
+to get him assassinated as soon as possible. Sentries were, at the
+same time, placed over his family and wealth. At midnight he was soon
+after strangled by these two men and their attendants. Baboo Beg was
+a very stout, powerful man; and he attempted to strangle him with his
+own hands, while his companions held him down; but Amur Sing managed
+to scream out for help, and, in attempting to close his mouth with
+his left hand, one of his fingers got between Amur Sing's teeth, and
+he bit off the first joint, and kept it in his mouth. His companions
+finished the work; and Baboo Beg went off to get his fingers dressed
+without telling any one what had happened. In the morning Hakeem
+Mehndee gave out, that Amur Sing had poisoned himself, made the body
+over to his family, and sent off a report of his death to the
+minister, expressing his regret at Amur Sing's having put an end to
+his existence by poisoning, to avoid giving an account of his
+stewardship. The property which Hakeem Mehndee seized and
+appropriated, is said to have amounted, in all, to between fifteen
+and twenty lacs of rupees!
+
+Amur Sing's family, in performing the funeral ceremonies, had to open
+his mouth, to put in the usual small bit of gold, Ganges water, and
+leaf of the toolsee-tree; and, to their horror, they there found the
+first joint of a man's finger. This confirmed all their suspicions,
+that he had been murdered during the night, and they sent off the
+joint of the finger to the minister, demanding vengeance on the
+murderer. Aga Meer was delighted at this proof of his rival's guilt,
+and would have had him seized and tried for the murder forthwith, but
+Hakeem Mehndee gave two lacs of rupees, out of the wealth he had
+acquired from the murder, to Rae Doulut Rae, Meer Neeaz Hoseyn,
+Munshee Musaod, Sobhan Allee Khan, and others, in the minister's
+confidence; and they persuaded him, that he had better wait for a
+season, till he could charge him with the more serious offence of
+defalcations in the revenue, when he might crush him with the weight
+of manifold transgressions.
+
+They communicated what they had done to Hakeem Mehnde, who, by
+degrees, sent off all his disposable wealth to Shabjehanpoor and
+Futtehghur, in British territory. In April 1818, the Governor-General
+the Marquess of Hastings passed through the Khyrabad and Bahraetch
+districts, attended by Hakeem Mehndee, on a sporting excursion, after
+the Mahratta war; and the satisfaction which he expressed to the King
+with the Hakeem's conduct during that excursion, added greatly to the
+minister's hatred and alarm. He persuaded his Majesty to demand from
+Hakeem Mehndee an increase of five lacs of rupees upon nine lacs a-
+year, which he already paid for Mahomdee and Khyrabad; and resolved
+to have him tried for the murder of Amur Sing, as soon as he could
+get him into his power. Hakeem Mehndee knew all this from the friends
+he had made at Court, refused to keep the contract at the increased
+rate, and, on pretence of settling his accounts, went first to
+Seetapoor from Bahraetch, and thence over the border to
+Shahjehanpoor, with all his family, and such of the property as he
+had not till then been able to send off. The family never recovered
+any of the property he had taken from Amur Sing, nor was any one of
+the murderers ever punished, or called to account for the crime.
+
+On the departure of Hakeem Mehndee, Hadee Allee Khan (not the brother
+of Hakeem Mehndee, but a member of the old official aristocracy of
+Oude) got the contract of the district of Bahraetch with that of
+Gonda, which had been held in Jageer by and for the widow of Shoja-od
+Dowlah, the mother of Asuf-od Dowlah, commonly known by the name of
+the Buhoo Begum, of Fyzabad, where she resided. Hadee Allee Khan held
+the contract of these two districts for nine years, up to 1827. He
+was succeeded by Walaeut Allee Khan, who held the contract for only
+half of the year 1828, when he was superseded by Mehndoo Khan, who
+held it for two years and a half, to the end of 1830, when Hadee
+Allee Khan again got the contract, and he held it till he died in
+1833. He was succeeded by his nephew, Imdad Allee Khan, who held the
+contract till 1835.
+
+Rajah Dursun Sing superseded him in 1836, and was the next year
+superseded by the widow of Hadee Allee, named "Wajee-on-Nissa Begum,"
+who held the contract for one year and a half to 1838. For the
+remainder of 1838, the contract was held by Fida Allee Khan and Ram
+Row Pandee jointly; and for 1839, by Sunker Sahae Partuk. For 1840,
+it was held by Sooraj-od Dowlah, and for 1841 and up to September
+1843, Rajah Dursun Sing held it again. For 1844 and 1845, Ehsan Allee
+and Wajid Allee held it. For 1846 and 1847, Rughbur Sing, one of the
+three sons of Rajah Dursun Sing, held it. For 1848, it was held by
+Incha Sing, brother of Dursun Sing; and for 1849, it has been held by
+Mahummud Hasun. The Gonda district consisted of the purgunnahs of
+Gonda and Nawabgunge, and a number of tallooks, or baronial estates.
+
+Under the paternal government of Balukram and his son, Amur Sing,
+hereditary canoongoes of the district, life and property were secure,
+the assessment moderate, and the country and people prosperous. It
+was a rule, strictly adhered to, under the reign of Saadut Allee
+Khan, from 1797 to 1814, never under any circumstances to permit the
+transfer of _khalsa_ or allodial lands (that is, lands held
+immediately under the Crown) to tallookdars or baronial proprietors,
+who paid a quit-rent to Government, and managed their estates with
+their own fiscal officers, and military and police establishments.
+Those who resided in or saw the district at that time, describe it as
+a magnificent garden; and some few signs of that flourishing state
+are still to be seen amidst its present general desolation.
+
+The adjoining district of Gonda became no less flourishing under the
+fostering care of the Buhoo Begum, of Fyzabad, who held it in Jageer
+till her death, which took place 18th December, 1815. Relying upon
+the pledge of the British Government, under the treaty of 1801, to
+protect him against all foreign and domestic enemies, and to put down
+for him all attempts at insurrection and rebellion by means of its
+own troops, without any call for further pecuniary aid, Saadut Allee
+disbanded more than half his army, and reduced the cost, while he
+improved the efficiency of the other half, to bring his expenditure
+within his income, now so much diminished by the cession of the best
+half of his dominions to the British Government. He assessed, or
+altogether resumed, all the rent-free lands in his reserved half of
+the territory; and made all the officers of his two lavish and
+thoughtless predecessors,* disgorge a portion of the wealth which
+they had accumulated by the abuse of their confidence; and, at the
+same time, laboured assiduously to keep within bounds the powers and
+possessions of his landed aristocracy.
+
+[* Asuf-od Dowlah and Wuzeer Allee.]
+
+
+Hakeem Mehndee exacted from the landholders of Bahraetch two annas in
+the rupee, or one-eighth, more than the rate they had hitherto paid;
+and his successor, Hadee Allee, exacted an increase of two annas in
+the rupee, upon the Hakeem's rate. It was difficult to make the
+landholders and cultivators pay this rate, and a good deal of their
+stock was sold off for arrears; and much land fell out of cultivation
+in consequence. To facilitate the collection of this exorbitant rate,
+and at the same time to reduce the cost of collection, he disregarded
+systematically the salutary rule of Saadut Allee Khan, who had died
+in 1814, and been succeeded by his do-nothing and see-nothing son,
+Ghazee-od Deen Hyder; and transferred the khalsa estates of all
+defaulters to the neighbouring tallookdars, who pledged themselves to
+liquidate the balances due, and pay the Government demand punctually
+in future. This arrangement enabled him to reduce his fiscal,
+military, and police establishments a good deal for the time, and his
+tenure of office was too insecure to admit of his bestowing much
+thought on the future.
+
+As soon as these tallookdars got possession of khalsa villages, they
+plundered them of all they could find of stock and other property;
+and, with all possible diligence, reduced to beggary all the holders
+and cultivators who had any claim to a right of property in the
+lands, in order to prevent their ever being again in a condition to
+urge such claims in the only way in which they can be successfully
+urged in Oude--cut down all the trees planted by them or their
+ancestors, and destroyed all the good houses they had built, that
+they might have no local ties to link their affections to the soil.
+As the local officers of the Oude government became weak, by the
+gradual withdrawal of British troops, from aiding in the collection
+of revenue and the suppression of rebellion and disorder, and by the
+deterioration in the character of the Oude troops raised to supply
+their places, the tallookdars became stronger and stronger. They
+withheld more and more of the revenue due to Government, and expended
+the money in building forts and strongholds, casting or purchasing
+cannon, and maintaining large armed bands of followers. All that they
+withheld from the public treasury was laid out in providing the means
+for resisting the officers of Government; and, in time, it became a
+point of honour to pay nothing to the sovereign without first
+fighting with his officers.
+
+Hadee Allee Khan's successors continued the system of transferring
+khalsa lands to tallookdars, as the cheapest and most effectual mode
+of collecting the revenue for their brief period of authority. The
+tallookdars, whose estates were augmented by such transfers, in the
+Gonda Bahraetch district, are Ekona, Pyagpoor, Churda, Nanpoora,
+Gungwal, Bhinga, Bondee, Ruhooa, and the six divisions of the Gooras,
+or Chehdwara estate. The hereditary possessions of the tallookdars,
+and, indeed, all the lands in the permanent possession of which they
+feel secure, are commonly very well cultivated; but those which they
+acquire by fraud, violence, or collusion, are not so, till, by long
+suffering and "hope deferred," the old proprietors have been
+effectually crushed or driven out of the country. The old proprietors
+of the lands so transferred to the tallookdars of the Gonda Baraetch
+districts from time to time had, under a series of weak governors,
+been so crushed or driven out before 1842, and their lands had, for
+the most part, been brought under good tillage.
+
+The King of Oude, in a letter, dated the 31st of August 1823, tells
+the Resident, "that the villages and estates of the large refractory
+tallookdars are as flourishing and populous as they can possibly be;
+and there are many estates among them which yield more than two and
+three times the amount at which they have been assessed; and even if
+troops should be stationed there, to prevent the cultivation of the
+land till the balances are liquidated, the tallookdars immediately
+come forward to give battle; and, in spite of everything, cultivate
+the lands of their estates, so that their profits from the land are
+even greater than those of the Government." This picture is a very
+fair one, and as applicable to the state of Oude now as in 1823.
+
+But if a weak man, by favour, fraud, or collusion, gets possession of
+a small estate, as he often does, the consequences are more serious
+than where the strong man gets it. The ousted proprietors fight "to
+the death" to recover possession; and the new man forms a gang of the
+most atrocious ruffians he can collect, to defend his possession. He
+cannot afford to pay them, and permits them to subsist on plunder. In
+the contest the estate itself and many around it become waste, and
+the fellow who has usurped it, often--nolens-volens--becomes a
+systematic leader of banditti; and converts the deserted villages
+into strongholds and dens of robbers. I shall have occasion to
+describe many instances of this kind as I proceed in my Diary.
+
+Dursung Sing was strong both in troops and Court favour, and he
+systematically plundered and kept down the great landholders
+throughout the districts under his charge, but protected the
+cultivators, and even the smaller land proprietors, whose estates
+could not be conveniently added to his own. When the Court found the
+barons in any district grow refractory, under weak governors, they
+gave the contract of it to Dursun Sing, as the only officer who could
+plunder and reduce them to order. During the short time that he held
+the districts of Gonda and Bahraetch in 1836, he did little mischief.
+He merely ascertained the character and substance of the great
+landholders, exacted from the weaker all that they could pay, and
+"bided his time." When he resumed the charge in 1842, the greater
+landholders had become strong and substantial; and he was commanded
+by the Durbar to coerce and make them pay all the arrears of revenue
+due, or pretended to be due, by them.
+
+Nothing loth, he proceeded to seize and plunder them all, one after
+the other, and put their estates under the management of his own
+officers. The young Rajah of Bulrampoor had gone into the Goruckpoor
+district, to visit his friend, the Rajah of Basee, Mahpaul Sing, when
+Dursun Sing marched suddenly to his capital at the head of a large
+force. The garrison of the small stronghold was taken by surprise;
+and, in the absence of their chief, soon induced to surrender, on a
+promise of leave to depart with all their property. They passed over
+into a small island in the river, which flows close by; and as soon
+as Dursun Sing saw them collected together in that small space, he
+opened his guns and musketry upon them, and killed between one and
+two hundred. The rest fled, and he took possession of all their
+property, amounting to about two hundred thousand rupees. The Rajah
+was reduced to great distress; but his personal friend, Matabur Sing,
+the minister of Nepaul, aided him with loans of money; and gave him a
+garden to reside in, about five hundred yards from the village of
+Maharaj Gunge, in the Nepaul territory, fifty-four miles from
+Bulrampoor, where Dursun Sing remained encamped with his large force.
+
+The Rajah had filled this garden with small huts for the
+accommodation of his family and followers during the season of the
+rains, and surrounded it with a deep ditch, knowing the unscrupulous
+and enterprising character of his enemy. In September 1843, Dursun
+Sing, having had the position and all the road leading to it well
+reconnoitred, marched one evening, at the head of a compact body of
+his own followers, and reached the Rajah's position at daybreak the
+next morning. The garden was taken by a rush; but the Rajah made his
+escape with the loss of thirty men killed and wounded. Dursun Sing's
+party took all the property the Rajah and his followers left behind
+them in their flight, and plundered the small village of Maharaj
+Gunge; but in their retreat they were sorely pressed by a sturdy
+landholder of the neighbourhood, who had become attached to his young
+sporting companion, the Rajah, and whose feeling of patriotism had
+been grievously outraged by this impudent invasion of his sovereign's
+territory; and they had five sipahees and one trooper killed. The
+Bulrampoor Rajah had been plundered in the same treacherous manner in
+1839, by the Nazim, Sunkersahae and Ghalib Jung, his deputy or
+_collector_. He had invited them to a feast, and they brought an
+armed force and surrounded and plundered his house and capital. He
+escaped with his mother into British territory; and tells me, that he
+was a lad at the time, and had great difficulty in making his mother
+fly with him, and leave all her wardrobe behind her.
+
+The Court of Nepaul complained of this aggression on their territory,
+and demanded reparation. The Governor-General Lord Ellenborough
+called upon the Oude government, in dignified terms, to make prompt
+and ample atonement to that of Nepaul. "Promptness," said his
+Lordship, "in repairing an injury, however unintentionally committed
+is as conducive to the honour of a sovereign, as promptness in
+demanding reparation where an injury has been sustained." The Nepaul
+Court required, that Dursun Sing should be seized and sent to Nepaul,
+to make an apology in person to the sovereign of that state; should
+be deprived of all his offices, with an assurance, on the part of
+Oude, that he should never be again employed in any office under that
+government; and, that the amount of injury sustained by the subjects
+of Nepaul should be settled by arbitrators sent to the place on the
+part of both States, and paid by the Oude government. The Governor-
+General did not insist upon Oude's complying with the first of these
+requirements; but Dursun Sing was dismissed from all employments,
+arbitrators were sent to the place, and the Oude government paid the
+nine hundred and fourteen rupees, which they decided to be due to the
+subjects of Nepaul.
+
+Dursun Sing at first fled in alarm into the British territory, as the
+Nepaul government assembled a large force on the border, and appeared
+to threaten Oude with invasion; while the Governor-General held in
+readiness a large British force to oppose them; and he knew not what
+the Oude government, in its alarm, might do to the servant who had
+wantonly involved it in so serious a scrape. His brother, Bukhtawar
+Sing, the old courtier, knew that they had enemies, or interested
+persons at Court, who would take advantage of the occasion to
+exasperate the King, and persuade him to plunder them of all they
+had, and confiscate their estates, unless Dursun Sing appeared and
+pacified the King by his submission, and aided him in a judicious
+distribution of the ready money at their command; and he prevailed
+upon him to hasten to Court, and throw himself at his Majesty's feet.
+
+He came, acknowledged that he had been precipitate in his over-zeal
+for his Majesty's service; but pleaded, in excuse, that the young
+Rajah of Bulrampore had been guilty of great contumacy, and owed a
+large balance to the Exchequer, which he had been peremptorily
+commanded to recover; and declared himself ready to suffer any
+punishment, and make any reparation or atonement that his master, the
+King, might deem proper. The British and Nepaul governments had
+expressed themselves satisfied; but other parties had become deeply
+interested in the dispute. The King, with many good qualities, was a
+very parsimonious man, who prided himself upon adding something every
+month to his reserved treasury; and he thought, that advantage should
+be taken of the occasion, to get a large sum out of so wealthy a
+family. Three of his wives, Hoseynee Khanum, Mosahil Khanum, and
+Sakeena Khanum, had at the time great influence over his Majesty, and
+they wished to take advantage of the occasion, not only to screw out
+of the family a large sum for the King and themselves, but to
+confiscate the estates, and distribute them among their male
+relations. The minister, Menowur-od Dowlah, the nephew and heir of
+Hakeem Mehndee, who has been and will be often mentioned in this
+Diary, thought that, after paying a large sum to gratify his
+Majesty's ruling passion, and enable him to make handsome presents to
+the three favourites, Dursun Sing ought to be released and restored
+to office, for he was the only man then in Oude capable of
+controlling the refractory and turbulent territorial barons; and if
+he were crushed altogether for subduing one of them, the rest would
+all become unmanageable, and pay no revenue whatever to the
+Exchequer. He, therefore, recommended the King to take from the two
+brothers the sum of twenty-five lacs of rupees, leave them the
+estates, and restore Dursun Sing to all his charges, as soon as it
+could be done without any risk of giving umbrage to the British
+Government.
+
+The King thought the minister's advice judicious, and consented; but
+the ladies called him a fool, and told him, that the brothers had
+more than that sum in stores of seed-grain alone, and ought to be
+made to pay at least fifty lacs, while the brothers pleaded poverty,
+and declared that they could only pay nineteen. The minister urged
+the King, to take even this sum, give two lacs to the three females,
+and send seventeen to the reserved treasury; and called upon the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer to give in his accounts of the actual
+balance due by the two brothers, on their several contracts, for the
+last twenty-five years. He, being on good terms with the minister,
+and anxious to meet his wishes, found a balance of only one lac and
+thirty-two thousand due by Dursun Sing, and one of only fifteen lacs
+due by his brother, Bukhtawar Sing, in whose name the contracts had
+always been taken up to 1842. The King, sorely pressed by the
+females, resolved to banish Dursun Sing, and confiscate all his large
+estates; but the British Resident interposed, and urged, that Dursun
+Sing should be leniently dealt with, since he had made all the
+reparation and atonement required. The King told him, that Dursun
+Sing was a notorious and terrible tyrant, and had fearfully oppressed
+his poor subjects, and robbed them by fraud, violence, and collusion,
+of lands yielding a rent-roll of many lacs of rupees a-year; and,
+that unless he were punished severely for all these numerous
+atrocities, his other servants would follow his example, and his poor
+subjects be everywhere ruined!
+
+The Resident admitted the truth of all these charges; but urged, in
+reply, that the Oude government had, in spite of all these
+atrocities, without any admonition, continued to employ him with
+unlimited power in the charge of many of its finest districts, for
+twenty-five or thirty years; and, that it would now be hard to banish
+him, and confiscate all his fine estates, when his Majesty had so
+lately offered, not only to leave them all untouched, but to restore
+him to all his charges, on the payment of a fine of twenty-five lacs.
+The King was perplexed in his desire to please the Resident, meet the
+wishes of his three ladies, and add a good round sum to his reserved
+treasury; and at last closed all discussions by making Dursun Sing
+pay the one lac and thirty-two thousand rupees, found to be due by
+him, and sending him into banishment; holding Bukhtawar Sing
+responsible for the fifteen lacs due by him, and seizing upon his
+estates, and putting them under the management of Hoseyn Allee, the
+father of Hoseynee Khanum, the most influential of the three
+favourites, till the whole should be paid. She satisfied herself that
+she should be able to make the banishment of the man and the
+confiscation of the estate perpetual; and, before he set out, she
+secured the transfer of the strong fort of Shahgunge, with all its
+artillery and military stores, from Dursun Sing's to the King's
+troops. Dursun Sing went into banishment on the 17th of March 1844;
+but before he set out he addressed a remonstrance to the British
+Resident, stating--"that he had paid all that had been found to be
+due by him to the Exchequer, and made every atonement required for
+the offence charged against him; but had, nevertheless, been ordered
+into banishment--had all his charges taken from him, and his lands,
+houses, gardens, &c., worth fifty lacs, taken from him, and made over
+to strangers and Court favourites."
+
+Hoseyn Allee had promised to pay to the Exchequer one lac of rupees
+a-year for these estates more than Dursun Sing had paid. He had paid
+annually for the Mehdona estates two lacs and eight thousand two
+hundred and seventy-six; and for the Asrewa estates, in the same
+district of Sultanpoor, one lac thirty-one thousand and eighty-nine-
+total, three lacs and thirty-nine thousand three hundred and sixty-
+five; and they probably yielded to him an annual rent of nearly
+double that sum, or at least five lacs of rupees. Hoseyn Allee,
+however, found it impossible to fulfil his pledges. The landholders
+and cultivators would not be persuaded that the sovereign of Oude
+could long dispense with the services of such a man as Dursun Sing,
+or bring him back without restoring to him his landed possessions; or
+that he would, when he returned, give them credit for any payments
+which they might presume to make to any other master during his
+absence. They, therefore, refused to pay any rent for the past
+season, and threatened to abandon their lands before the tillage for
+the next season should commence, if any attempt were made to coerce
+them. All the great revenue contractors and other governors of
+districts declared their inability to coerce the territorial barons
+into paying anything, since they had lost the advantage of the
+prestige of his great name; and the minister found that he must
+either resign his office or prevail upon his sovereign to recall him.
+The King, finding that he must either draw upon his reserved treasury
+or leave all his establishments unpaid under such a falling off in
+the revenue, yielded to his minister's earnest recommendation, and in
+May 1844, consented to recall Dursun Sing from our district of
+Goruckpoor, in which he had resided during his banishment.
+
+On the 10th of that month he was taken by the minister to pay his
+respects to his Majesty, who, on the 30th, conferred upon him
+additional honours and titles, and appointed him Inspector-general of
+all his dominions, with orders "to make a settlement of the land
+revenue at an increased rate; to cut down all the jungles, and bring
+all the waste lands into tillage; to seize all refractory barons,
+destroy all their forts, and seize and send into store all the cannon
+mounted upon them; to put down all disturbances, protect all high
+roads, punish all refractory and evil-minded persons; to enforce the
+payment of all just demands of his sovereign upon landholders of all
+degrees and denominations; to invite back all who had been driven off
+by oppression, and re-establish them on their estates, or punish them
+if they refused to return; to ascertain the value of all estates
+transferred from the jurisdiction of the local authorities to the
+'Hozoor Tehsel,' without due inquiry; and report, for the
+consideration of his Majesty and his minister, any _nankar_ or rent-
+free lands, assigned, of late years, by Amils and other governors of
+districts; to enforce the payment of all recoverable balances, due on
+account of past years; to muster the troops, and report, through the
+commander-in-chief, all officers and soldiers borne on the muster-
+rolls, and paid from the treasury, but in reality dead, absent
+without leave, or unfit for further service;" in short, to reform all
+abuses, and make the government of the country what the King and his
+minister thought it ought to be. Dursun Sing assured them that he
+would do his best to effect all the objects they had in view; and,
+after recovering possession of his estates, and conciliating, by
+suitable gratuities, all the reigning favourites at Court, he went to
+work heartily at his Herculean task after his wonted way. But he,
+soon after, became ill, and retired to his residence at Fyzabad,
+where he died on the 20th of August, 1844, leaving his elder brother,
+Bukhtawar Sing--my Quartermaster-general--at Court; and his three
+sons, Ramadeen, Rughbur Sing, and Mann Sing, to fight among
+themselves for his landed possessions and immense accumulated wealth.
+
+The minister was a man of good intentions; and, having inherited an
+immense fortune from his uncle, Hakeem Mehndee, he cared little about
+money; but he was an indolent man, and indulged much in opiates, and
+his object was to reform the administration at the least possible
+cost of time and trouble to himself. He had, he thought, found the
+man who could efficiently supervise and control the administration in
+all its branches; and he invested him with plenary powers to do so.
+Of the duty, on his part and that of his master; efficiently to
+supervise and control the exercise of these plenary powers on the
+part of the man of their choice, in order to prevent their being
+abused to the injury of the state and the people; or of the necessity
+of taking from Court favourites the nomination of officers to the
+charge of all districts and all fiscal and judicial Courts, and to
+the command of all corps and establishments, in order to render them
+efficient and honest, and prevent justice from being perverted, and
+the revenues of the state from being absorbed on their way to the
+treasury, they took no heed. Court favourites retained their powers,
+and the King and his minister relied entirely, as heretofore, upon
+the reports of the news-writers, who attend officially upon all
+officers in charge of districts, fiscal and judicial Courts, corps
+and establishments of all kinds, for the facts of all cases on which
+they might have to pass orders; and remained as ignorant as their
+predecessors of the real state of the administration and the real
+sufferings of the people, if not of the real losses to the Exchequer.
+
+The news department is under a Superintendent-general, who has
+sometimes contracted for it, as for the revenues of a district, but
+more commonly holds it in _amanee_, as a manager. When he contracts
+for it he pays a certain sum to the public treasury, over and above
+what he pays to the influential officers and Court favourites in
+gratuities. When he holds it in _amanee_, he pays only gratuities,
+and the public treasury gets nothing. His payments amount to about
+the same in either case. He nominates his-subordinates, and appoints
+them to their several offices, taking from each a present gratuity
+and a pledge for such monthly payments as he thinks the post will
+enable him to make. They receive from four to fifteen rupees a-month
+each, and have each to pay to their President, for distribution among
+his patrons or patronesses at Court from one hundred to five hundred
+rupees a-month in ordinary times. Those to whom they are accredited
+have to pay them, under ordinary circumstances, certain sums monthly,
+to prevent their inventing or exaggerating cases of abuse of power or
+neglect of duty on their part; but when they happen to be really
+guilty of great acts of atrocity, or great neglect of duty, they are
+required to pay extraordinary sums, not only to the news-writers, who
+are especially accredited to them, but to all others who happen to be
+in the neighbourhood at the time. There are six hundred and sixty
+news-writers of this kind employed by the King, and paid monthly
+three thousand one hundred and ninety-four rupees, or, on an average,
+between four and five rupees a-month each; and the sums paid by them
+to their President for distribution among influential officers and
+Court favourites averages above one hundred and fifty thousand rupees
+a-year. Many, whose avowed salary is from four to ten rupees a-month,
+receive each, from the persons to whom they are accredited, more than
+five hundred, three-fourths of which they must send for distribution
+among Court favourites, or they could not retain their places a week,
+nor could their President retain his. Such are the reporters of the
+circumstances in all the cases on which the sovereign and his
+ministers have to pass orders every day in Oude. Some of those who
+derive part of their incomes from this source are "persons behind the
+throne, who are greater than the throne itself." The mother of the
+heir-apparent gets twelve thousand rupees a-year from it.
+
+But their exactions are not confined to government officers of all
+grades and denominations; they are extended to contractors of all
+kinds and denominations, to him who contracts for the supply of the
+public cattle with grain, as well as to him who contracts for the
+revenue and undivided government of whole provinces; and, indeed, to
+every person who has anything to do under, or anything to apprehend
+from, government and its officers and favourites; and, in such a
+country, who has not? The European magistrate of one of our
+neighbouring districts one day, before the Oude Frontier Police was
+raised, entered the Oude territory at the head of his police in
+pursuit of some robbers, who had found an asylum in one of the King's
+villages. In the attempt to secure them some lives were lost; and,
+apprehensive of the consequences, he sent for the official news-
+writer, and _gratified_ him in the usual way. No report of the
+circumstances was made to the Oude Durbar; and neither the King, the
+Resident, nor the British Government ever heard anything about it. Of
+the practical working of the system, many illustrations will be found
+in this Diary.
+
+The Akbar, or Intelligence Department, had been farmed out for some
+years, at the rate of between one and two lacs of rupees a-year,
+when, at the recommendation of the Resident, the King expressed his
+willingness to abolish the farm, and intrust the superintendence to
+_men of character and ability_, to be paid by Government. This
+resolution was communicated to Government by the Resident on the 24th
+of April, 1839; and on the 6th of May the Resident was instructed to
+communicate to his Majesty the satisfaction which the Governor-
+General derived on hearing that he had consented to abolish this
+farm, which had produced _so large a revenue to the state_. This was
+considered by the Resident to be a great boon obtained for the people
+of Oude, as the farmers of the department consented to pay a large
+revenue, only on condition that they should be considered as the only
+legitimate reporters of events--the only recognised _masters in the
+Oude Chancery_; and, as the Resident observed, "they choked up all
+the channels the people had of access to their sovereign;" but they
+have choked them up just as much since the abolition of the farm, and
+have had to pay just as much as before.
+
+A brief sketch of the proceedings of Rughbur Sing, the son of Dursun
+Sing, in his government of these districts of Gonda and Baraetch, for
+the years 1846 and 1847, may here be given as further illustration of
+the Oude government and its administration, in this part of the
+country at least. It had not suffered very much under his uncle's
+brief reign in 1842 and 1843, and the governors who followed him, up
+to 1846, were too weak to coerce the Tallookdars, or do much injury
+to their estates. Rughbur Sing had a large body of the King's troops
+to aid him in enforcing from them the payment of the current revenue
+and balances, real or pretended, for past years; and a large body of
+armed retainers of his own to assist him in his contest with his
+brothers for the possessions of the Mehdona and Asrewa estates, which
+had been going on ever since the death of their father.
+
+I have stated that Rughbur Sing held in contract the districts of
+Gonda and Bahraetch for the years 1846 and 1847, and shown to what a
+state of wretchedness he managed to reduce them in that brief period.
+In 1849, some months after I took charge of my office, I deputed a
+European gentleman of high character, Captain Orr, of the Oude
+Frontier Police, to pass through these districts, and inquire into
+and report upon the charges of oppression brought against him by the
+people, as his agents were diligently employed at Lucknow in
+distributing money among the most influential persons about the
+Court, and a disposition to restore him to power had become manifest.
+He had purchased large estates in our districts of Benares and
+Goruckpoor, where he now resided for greater security, while he had
+five thousand armed men, employed under other agents, in fighting
+with his brother, Maun Sing, for the possession of the _bynamah_
+estates, above described, in the Sultanpoor district. In this contest
+a great many lives were lost, and the peace of the country was long
+and much disturbed, but, after driving all his brother's forces and
+agents out of the district. Maun Sing retained quiet possession of
+the estates. This contest would, however, have been again renewed,
+and the same desolating disorders would have again prevailed, could
+Rughbur Sing's agents at the capital, by a judicious distribution of
+the money at their disposal, have induced the Court to restore him to
+the government of these or any other districts in Oude.
+
+On the 23rd of July 1849, Captain Orr sent in his report, giving a
+brief outline of such of the atrocities committed by Rughbur Sing and
+his agents in these districts as he was able, during his tour, to
+establish upon unquestionable evidence; but they made but a small
+portion of the whole, as the people in general still apprehended that
+he would be restored to power by Court favour, and wreak his
+vengeance upon all who presumed to give evidence against him; while
+many of the most respectable families in the districts were ashamed
+to place on record the suffering and dishonour inflicted on their
+female members; and still more had been reduced by them to utter
+destitution, and driven in despair into other districts. To use his
+own words--"The once flourishing districts of Gonda and Bahraetch, so
+noted for fertility and beauty, are now, for the greater part,
+uncultivated; villages completely deserted in the midst of lands
+devoid of all tillage everywhere meet the eye; and from Fyzabad to
+Bahraetch I passed through these districts, a distance of eighty
+miles, over plains which had been fertile and well cultivated, till
+Rughbur Sing got charge, but now lay entirely waste, a scene for two
+years of great misery ending in desolation."
+
+Rajah Hurdut Sahae, the proprietor of the Bondee estate, was the head
+of one of the oldest Rajpoot families in Oude. Having placed the most
+notorious knaves in the country as revenue collectors over all the
+subdivisions of his two districts, Rajah Rughbur Sing, in 1846,
+demanded from Hurdut Sahae an increase of five thousand rupees upon
+the assessment of the preceding year. The Rajah pleaded the badness
+of preceding seasons, and consequent poverty of his tenants and
+cultivators; but at last he consented to pay the increase, and on
+solemn pledges of personal security he collected all his tenants, to
+take upon themselves the responsibility of making good this demand.
+To this they all agreed; but they had no sooner done so, than Rughbur
+Sing's agent, Prag Pursaud, demanded a gratuity of seven thousand
+rupees for himself, over and above the increase of five thousand upon
+the demand of the preceding year. The Rajah would not agree to pay
+the seven thousand, but went off to request some capitalists to
+furnish securities for the punctual payment of the rent.
+
+The agent sent off secretly to Rughbur Sing to say, that unless he
+came at the head of his forces he saw no chance of getting the
+revenues from the Rajah or his tenants, who were all assembled and
+might be secured if he could contrive to surprise them. Rughbur Sing
+came with a large force at night, surrounded his agent's camp, where
+the tenants and the Rajah's officers were all assembled, and seized
+them. He then sent out parties of soldiers of from one hundred to two
+hundred each, to plunder all the towns and villages on the estate,
+and seize all the respectable residents they could find. They
+plundered the town of Bondee, and pulled down all the houses of the
+Rajah, and those of his relatives and dependents; and, after
+plundering all the other towns and villages in the neighbourhood,
+they brought in one thousand captives of both sexes and all ages, who
+were subjected to all manner of torture till they paid the ransom
+demanded, or gave written pledges to pay. Five thousand head of
+cattle were, at the same time, brought in and distributed as booty.
+
+The Rajah made his escape, but his agents were put to the same
+tortures as his tenants. Rughbur Sing, among other things, commanded
+them to sign a declaration, to the effect that his predecessor and
+enemy, Wajid Allee Khan, had received from them the sum of thirty
+thousand rupees more than he had credited to his government, but this
+they all refused to do. Rughbur Sing remained at Bondee for six
+weeks, superintending personally all these atrocities; and then went
+off, leaving, as his agent, Kurum Hoseyn. He continued the tortures
+upon the tenants and officers of the Rajah, and the captives
+collected in his camp. He rubbed the beards of the men with moist
+gunpowder; and, as soon as it became dry in the sun, he set fire to
+it. Other tortures, too cruel and indecent to be named, were
+inflicted upon four servants of the Rajah, Kunjun Sing, Bustee Ram,
+Admadnt Pandee, and Bhugwant Rae, and upon others, who were likely to
+be able to borrow or beg anything for their ransom.
+
+Finding that the tenants did not return, and that the estate was
+likely to be altogether deserted, unless the Rajah returned, Kurum
+Hoseyn was instructed by Rughbur Sing to invite him back on any
+terms. The poor Rajah, having nothing in the jungles to which he had
+fled to subsist upon, ventured back on the solemn pledge of personal
+security given by Pudum Sing, a respectable capitalist, whom the
+collector had induced, by solemn oaths on the holy Koran, to become a
+mediator; and, as a token of reconciliation and future friendship,
+the Rajah and collector changed turbans. They remained together for
+five months on the best possible terms, and the Rajah's tenants
+returned to their homes and fields. All having been thus lulled into
+security, Rughbur Sing suddenly sent another agent, Maharaj Sing, to
+supersede Kurum Hoseyn, and seize the Rajah and his confidential
+manager, Benee Ram Sookul. They, however, went off to Balalpoor,
+forty miles distant from Bondee, and kept aloof from the new
+collector, till he prevailed upon all the officers, commanding corps
+and detachments under him, to enter into solemn written pledges of
+personal security. The Rajah had been long suffering from ague and
+fever, and had become very feeble in mind and body. He remained at
+Balalpoor; but, under the assurance of these pledges from military
+officers of rank and influence, Benee Ram and other confidential
+officers of the Rajah came to his camp, and entered upon the
+adjustment of their accounts.
+
+When he found them sufficiently off their guard, Maharaj Sing, while
+sitting one evening with Benee Ram, who was a stout, powerful man,
+asked him to show him the handsome dagger which he always wore in his
+waistband. He did so, and as soon as he got it in his hand, the
+collector gave the concerted signal to Roshun Allee, one of the
+officers present, and his armed attendants, to seize him. As he rose
+to leave the tent he was cut down from behind by Mattadeen,
+khasburdar; and the rest fell upon him and cut him to pieces in
+presence of the greater part of the officers who had given the solemn
+pledges for his personal security. Not one of them interposed to save
+him. Doulut Rae, another confidential servant of the Rajah, however,
+effected his escape, and ran to the Rajah, who prepared to defend
+himself at Balalpoor, where Maharaj Sing tried, in vain, to persuade
+his troops' to attack him. For two months the towns and villages were
+deserted, but the crops were on the ground, and guarded by the Passee
+bowmen, who are usually hired for the purpose.
+
+Beharee Lal, the principal agent of Rughbur Sing in these districts,
+now wrote a letter of condolence to the Rajah, on the death of his
+faithful servant, Benee Ram--told him that he had dismissed from all
+employ the villain Maharaj Sing, and appointed to his place Kurum
+Hoseyn, who would make all reparation and redress all wrongs. This
+letter he sent by a very plausible man, Omed Rae, the collector of
+the Rahooa estate. Kurum Hoseyn resumed charge of his office, and
+went unattended to the Rajah, with whom he remained some days
+feasting, and swearing on the Koran, that all had been without his
+connivance or knowledge, and that he had come back with a full
+determination to see justice done to his friend, the Rajah, and his
+landholders and cultivators in everything. Having thus soothed the
+poor old Rajahs apprehensions, he prevailed on him to go back with
+him to Bondee, where he behaved for some time with so much seeming
+frankness and cordiality, and swore so solemnly on the Koran to
+respect the persons of all men who should come to him on business,
+that the Rajah's tenants and agents lost all their fears, and again
+came freely to his camp. The Rajah now invited all his tenants as
+before, to enter into engagements to pay their rents to officers
+appointed by the collector as jumogdars; and the people had hopes of
+being permitted to gather their harvests in peace. Kurum Hoseyn now
+suggested to Beharee Lal, to come suddenly with the largest force he
+could collect, and seize the many respectable men who had assembled-
+at his invitation.
+
+He made a forced march daring the night, appeared suddenly at Bondee
+with a large force, and seized all who were there assembled, save the
+Rajah and his family, who escaped to the jungles. Detachments of from
+one hundred to two hundred were sent out as before, to plunder the
+country, and seize all from whom anything could be extorted. All the
+towns and villages on the estate were plundered of everything that
+could be found, and fifteen hundred men, and about five hundred women
+and children, were brought in prisoners, with no less than eighty
+thousand animals of all kinds. There were twenty-five thousand head
+of cattle; and horses, mares, sheep, goats, ponies, &c., made up the
+rest. All with the men, women, and children were driven off, pell-
+mell, a distance of twenty miles to Busuntpoor, in the Hurhurpoor
+district, where Beharee Lal's headquarter had been fixed. For three
+days heavy rain continued to fall. Pregnant women were beaten on by
+the troops with bludgeons and the butt-ends of muskets and
+matchlocks. Many of them gave premature birth to children and died on
+the road; and many children were trodden to death by the animals on
+the road, which was crowded for more than ten miles.
+
+Rughbur Sing and his agents, Beharee Lal, Kurum Hoseyn, Maharaj Sing,
+Prag Sing, and others, selected several thousand of the finest
+cattle, and sent them to their homes; and the rest were left to the
+officers and soldiers of the force to be disposed of; and, for all
+this enormous number of animals, worth at least one hundred thousand
+rupees, the small sum of one hundred and thirty rupees was credited
+in the Nazim's accounts to the Rajah's estate. At Busuntpoor the
+force was divided into two parties, for the purpose of torturing the
+surviving prisoners till they consented to sign bonds, for the
+payment of such sums as might be demanded from them. Beharee Lal
+presided over the first party, in which they were tortured from day-
+break till noon. They were tied up and flogged, had red-hot ramrods
+thrust into their flesh, their tongues were pulled out with hot
+pincers and pierced through; and, when all would not do, they were
+taken to Kurum Hoseyn, who presided at the other party, to be
+tortured again till the evening. He sat with a savage delight, to
+witness this brutal scene and invent new kinds of torture. No less
+than seventy men, besides women and children, perished at Busuntpoor
+from torture and starvation; and their bodies were left to rot in the
+mud, and their friends were afraid to approach them. Bustee's body
+was stolen at night by his son, and Guyadut's was sold to his family
+by the soldiers.
+
+Among the persons of respectability who died under the tortures,
+several are named below.* Buldee Sing, the husband of the Rajah's
+sister, took poison and died; and Ramdeen, a Brahmin of great
+respectability, stabbed himself to death, to avoid further torture
+and dishonour. For two months did these atrocities continue at
+Busuntpoor; and during that time the prisoners got no food from the
+servants of Government. All that they got was sent to them by their
+friends, or by the charitable peasantry of the country around; and
+when sweetmeats were sent to them as food, which the most scrupulous
+could eat from any hand, the soldiers often snatched them from them
+and ate them themselves, or took them to their officers. The women
+and children were all stripped of their clothes, and many died from
+cold and want of sustenance. It was during the months of September
+and October that these atrocities were perpetrated. The heavy rain
+had inundated the country, and the poor prisoners were obliged to lie
+naked and unsheltered on the damp ground.
+
+[* 1. Byjonauth, the Rajah's accountant.
+   2. Gijraj Sing, Rajpoot.
+   3. Sheopersaud.
+   4. Rampersaud.
+   5. Jhow Lal.
+   6. Guyadut.
+   7. Duyram.
+   8. Budaree Chobee.
+   9. Mungul Sing, Rajpoot.
+  10. Seodeen Sing, ditto.
+  11. Akber Sing.
+  12. Bustee, a farmer.]
+
+
+Apreel Sing, a respectable Jagheerdar of Bondee, was tortured till he
+consented to sell his two daughters, and pay the money; and a great
+many respectable females, who were taken from Bondee to Busuntpoor,
+have never been heard of since. Whether they perished or were sold
+their friends have never been able to discover. The sipahees and
+other persons, employed to torture, got money from their victims or
+their friends, who ventured to approach, or from the pitying
+peasantry around; and all laughed and joked at the screams of the
+sufferers. Several times, during the two months, Rughbur Sing paid
+off heavy arrears, due to his personal servants, by drafts on his
+agents for prisoners, to be placed at the disposal of the payee, ten
+and twenty at a time. It is worthy of remark, that an old Subadar of
+one of our regiments of Native Infantry, who was then at home in
+furlough, happened to pass Busuntpoor with his family, on his way to
+Guya, on a pilgrimage. He and his family had saved what was to them a
+large sum, to be spent in offerings, for the safe passage of his
+deceased relatives through purgatory. On witnessing the sufferings of
+the poor prisoners at Busuntpoor, he and his family offered all they
+had for a certain number of women and children, who were made over to
+them. He took them to their homes, and returned to his own, saying,
+that he hoped God would forgive them for the sake of the relief which
+they had afforded to sufferers.
+
+In the latter end of October, Beharee Lal took off all the force that
+could be spared, to attack the Rajah of Bhinga, and plunder his
+estate in the same manner; and Kurum Hoseyn took another to plunder
+Koelee, Murdunpoor, Budrolee, and some other villages of the Bondee
+estate, which had suffered least in the last attack. He collected two
+thousand plough-bullocks, and sold them for little to Nuzur Allee and
+Sufder Allee, who commanded detachments under him. He soon after made
+an attack upon Sookha and other villages, in the vicinity of
+Busuntpoor, and collected between twenty and thirty thousand head of
+cattle; but, on his way back, he was attacked by a party of twenty
+brave men (under a landholder named Nabee Buksh, whom he wished to
+seize), and driven back to his camp at Busuntpoor, with the loss of
+all his booty. He attempted no more enterprises after this check. The
+tortures ceased, and ten days after he ran off, on hearing that
+Rughbur Sing had been deprived of his charge by orders from Lucknow.
+At this time one hundred and fifty prisoners remained at Busuntpoor,
+and they were released by Incha Sing, the successor and uncle of
+Rughbur Sing.
+
+The Akhbar Naveeses, so far from admonishing the perpetrators of
+these atrocities, were some of them among the most active promoters
+of them. Jorakhun, the news-writer at Bondee, got one anna for every
+prisoner brought in; and from two to three rupees for every prisoner
+released. He got every day subsistence for ten men from Kurum Hoseyn.
+All the news-writers in the neighbourhood got a share of the booty in
+bullocks, cows, and other animals. Two chuprassies are said to have
+come from Government, and remained at Busuntpoor for nearly the whole
+two months, while these tortures were being inflicted, without making
+any report of them. When the order for dismissing Rughbur Sing came
+from the Durbar, Maharaj Sing went off, saying, that he would soon
+smother all complaints, in the usual way, at Lucknow.
+
+In September 1847, Rughbur Sing's agents, with a considerable force,
+encamped at Parbatee-tolah, in the Gonda district, and made a sudden
+attack upon the fine town of Khurgoopoor. After plundering the town,
+the troops seized forty of the most respectable merchants and
+shopkeepers of the place, and made them over to Rughbur Sing's
+agents, at the rate agreed upon, of so much a head, as the
+perquisites of the soldiers; and these agents confined and tortured
+them till they each paid the ransom demanded, and rated according to
+their supposed means. The troops did the same by Bisumberpoor,
+Bellehree Pundit, Pyaree, Peepree, and many other towns and villages
+in the same district of Gonda. A trooper and his son, who tried to
+save the honour of their family, by defending the entrance to their
+house, were cut down and killed at Khurgapoor; and in Bisumberpoor
+one of the soldiers, with his sword, cut off the arm of a respectable
+old woman, in order the more easily to get her gold bracelets. The
+poor woman died a few hours afterwards. The only relative of the poor
+old woman who could have assisted her was seized, with forty other
+respectable persons, and taken off to the camp at Parbatee-tola,
+where they were all tortured till they paid the ransom demanded, and
+a gratuity, in addition, to the soldiers who had seized them. One of
+the persons died under the tortures inflicted upon him.
+
+In the Gungwal district similar atrocities were committed by Rughbur
+Sing's agents and their soldiers. These agents were Gouree Shunkur
+and Seorutun Sing. The district formed the estate of Rajah Sreeput
+Sing, who resided with his family in the fort of Gungwal. The former
+Nazim, Suraj-od Dowlah, had attacked this fort on some frivolous
+pretence; and, having taken it by surprise, sacked the place and
+plundered the Rajah and his family of all they had. The Rajah died
+soon after of mortification, at the dishonour he and his family had
+suffered, and was succeeded by his son, Seetul Persaud Sing, the
+present Rajah, who was now plundered again, and driven an exile into
+the Nepaul hills. The estate was now taken possession of by the
+agents, Goureeshunker and Seorutun Sing. Seorutun Sing seized a
+Brahmin who was travelling with his wife and brother, and, on the
+pretence that he must be a relation of the fugitive Rajah, had him
+murdered, and his head struck off on the spot. The wife took the head
+of her murdered husband in her arms, wrapped it up in cloth, and,
+attended by his brother, walked with it a distance of fifty miles to
+Ajoodheea, where Rughbur Sing was then engaged in religious
+ceremonies. The poor woman placed the head before him, and demanded
+justice on her husband's murderers. He coolly ordered the head to be
+thrown into the river, and the woman and her brother-in-law to be
+driven from his presence. Many other respectable persons were seized
+and tortured on similar pretext of being related to, or having served
+or assisted, the fugitive Rajah. Moistened gunpowder was smeared
+thickly over the beards of the men, and when dry set fire to; and any
+friend or relatives who presumed to show signs of pity was seized and
+tortured, till he or she paid a ransom. All the people in the country
+around, who had moveable property of any kind, were plundered by
+these two atrocious agents, and tortured till they paid all that they
+could beg and borrow. Many respectable families were dishonoured in
+the persons of wives, sisters, or daughters, and almost all the towns
+and villages around became deserted.
+
+In Rajah Nirput Sing's estate of Pyagpoor, the same atrocities were
+committed. Rajah Rughbur Sing seized upon this estate as soon as he
+entered upon his charge in 1846, and put it under the management of
+his own agents; and, after extorting from the tenants more than was
+justly due, according to engagement, he attacked the Rajah's house by
+surprise, and plundered it of property to the value of fifteen
+thousand rupees. The Rajah, however, contrived to make his escape
+with his family. He had nothing with him to subsist upon, and in 1847
+he was invited back on solemn pledges of personal security; and, from
+great distress, was induced again to undertake the management of his
+own estate, at an exorbitant rate of assessment.
+
+In spite of this engagement, Goureeshunker, when the tenants had
+become lulled into security by the hope of remaining under their own
+chief, suddenly, with his troops, seized upon all he could catch,
+plundered their houses, and tortured them till they paid all that
+they could prevail upon their relatives and friends to lend them.
+Eighteen hundred of their plough-bullocks were seized and sold by
+him, together with many of their wives and daughters. While under
+torture, Seetaram, a respectable Brahmin, of Kandookoeea, put an end
+to his existence, to avoid further sufferings and dishonour. Sucheet,
+another respectable Brahmin, of Pagaree, did the same by opening a
+vein in his thigh. A cloth steeped in oil was bound round the hands
+of those who appeared able, but unwilling, to pay ransoms, and set
+fire to, so as to burn like a torch. In these tortures, Lala Beharee
+Lal, Rughbur Sing's deputy, was the chief agent. "I found," says
+Captain Orr, "the estate of Pyagpoor in a desolate condition; village
+after village presenting nothing but bare walls--the finest arable
+lands lying waste, and no sign of cultivation was anywhere to be
+seen. Even the present Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, after conciliating and
+inviting in the Rajah on further solemn assurances of personal
+security, seized him and all his family, and kept them confined in
+prison for several months, till they paid him an exorbitant ransom.
+The poorer classes told me, that it was impossible for them to plough
+their fields, since all their plough-bullocks had been seized and
+sold by the Nazim's agents. Great numbers in this and the adjoining
+estates have subsisted entirely upon wild fruits, and some species of
+aquatic plants, since they were ruined by these atrocities."
+
+This picture is not at all overdrawn. In passing through the estate,
+and communing with the few wretched people who remain, I find all
+that Captain Orr stated in his report to be strictly correct.
+
+In the Hurhurpoor district similar atrocities were committed by
+Rughbur Sing and his agents. He confided the management to his agent,
+Goureeshunker. In 1846 he made his settlement of the land revenue, at
+an exorbitant rate, with the tallookdar, Chinghy Sing; and, in the
+following year, he extorted from him an increase to this rate of
+twenty-five thousand rupees. He was, in consequence, obliged to fly;
+but he was soon invited back on the usual solemn assurances for his
+personal security, and induced to take on himself the management of
+the estate. But he was no sooner settled in his house than he was
+again attacked at night and plundered. One of his attendants was
+killed, and another wounded; and all the respectable tenants and
+servants who had ventured to assemble around him on his return were
+seized and tortured till they paid ransoms. No less than two thousand
+and five hundred bullocks from this estate were seized and sold, or
+starved to death. A great many women were seized and tortured till
+they paid ransoms like the men; and many of them have never since
+been seen or heard of. Some perished in confinement of hunger and
+cold, having been stripped of their clothes, and exposed at night to
+the open air on the damp ground, while others threw themselves into
+wells and destroyed themselves after their release, rather than
+return to their families after the exposure and dishonour they had
+suffered.
+
+In the Bahraetch district, the same atrocities were practised by
+Rughbur Sing and his agents. Here also Goureeshunker was the chief
+agent employed, but the few people who remained were so terrified,
+that Captain Orr could get but little detailed information of
+particular cases. The present Nazim had been one of Rughbur Sing's
+agents in all these atrocities, and the people apprehended that he
+was in office merely as his "locum tenens;" and that Rughbur Sing
+would soon purchase his restoration to power, as he boasted that he
+should. The estate of the Rajah of Bumunee Paer was plundered in the
+same manner; and Rughbur Sing's agents seized, drove off, and sold
+two thousand bullocks, and cut down and sold or destroyed five
+hundred and five mhowa-trees, which had, for generations, formed the
+strongest local ties of the cultivators, and their best dependence in
+seasons of drought.
+
+In the Churda estate, in the Tarae forest, the same sufferings were
+inflicted on the people by the same agents, Goureeshunker and Beharee
+Lal. They seized Mudar Buksh, the manager, and made him over to
+Moonshee Kurum Hoseyn, who had him beaten to death. The estate of the
+Rajah of Bhinga was treated in the same way. Beharee Lal attacked the
+town with a large force, plundered all the houses in it, and all the
+people of their clothes and ornaments. They seized all the plough-
+bullocks and other cattle, and had them driven off and sold. The
+women were all seized and driven off in crowds to the camp of Rughbur
+Sing at Parbatee-tolah. Many of them who were far gone in pregnancy
+perished on the road, from fatigue and harsh treatment The estate of
+the Rajah of Ruhooa was treated in the same manner; and the Rajah, to
+avoid torture and disgrace, fled with his family to the jungles. In
+July 1846, being in great distress, he was induced to come back on
+the most solemn assurances from Rughbur Sing of personal security for
+himself, family, and attendants. He left the Rajah his _nankar_ lands
+for his subsistence, pledging himself to exact no rents or revenues
+from them; but put the estate under the management of his own agents,
+Lala Omed Rae and others. He at the same time pledged himself not to
+exact from any of the poor Rajah's tenants higher rates than those
+stipulated for in the engagements then made. But he immediately after
+saddled the Rajah with the payment of five hundred armed men, on the
+pretence that they were necessary to protect him, and aid him in the
+management of these _nankar_ lands. In May 1847, when the harvests
+had been gathered, and he had exacted from the tenants and
+cultivators the rates stipulated, Goureeshunker was put into the
+management. He seized all the tenants and cultivators by a sudden and
+simultaneous attack upon their several villages, and extorted from
+them a payment of fifty thousand rupees more. Not satisfied with
+this, Goureeshunker seized the Rajah's chief manager, Mungul Pershad,
+tied him up to a tree, and had him beaten to death. Many of the
+Rajah's tenants and servants were beaten to death in the same manner;
+and no less than forty villages were attacked and plundered. A good
+many respectable females were seized and compelled to make up the
+ransoms of their husbands and fathers who were under torture. Many of
+the females who had been seized perished from the cruel treatment and
+from want of food. Two thousand head of cattle, chiefly plough-
+bullocks, were seized and sold from this estate.
+
+I have passed through all the districts here named, save two, Churda
+and Bhinga, and I can say, that everything I saw and heard tended to
+confirm the truth of what has here been told. Rughbur Sing and the
+agents employed by him were, by all I saw, considered more as
+terrible demons who delighted in blood and murder than as men endowed
+with any feelings of sympathy for their fellow-creatures; and the
+government, which employed such men in the management of districts
+with uncontrolled power, seemed to be utterly detested and abhorred.
+
+It will naturally be asked, whether the circumstances described were
+ever reported to the Oude Government or to the British Resident; and
+whether they did anything to punish the guilty and afford redress and
+relief to the sufferers. The following are the reports which were
+made to the Oude Durbar by the news-writers, employed in the several
+districts, and communicated to the Resident and his Assistant, by the
+Residency news-writer, in his daily reports, which are read out to
+them every morning.
+
+_July_ 10, 1847.--Report from Bondee states, that Rajaram, Rughbur
+Sing's collector of Mirzapoor and other villages in that estate, had
+attacked and plundered Mirzapoor, and carried off sixty head of
+cattle.
+
+_August_ 12, 1847.--Report from Bondee states, that the estates of
+Bondee and Tiperha, which yielded one hundred and fifty thousand
+rupees a-year, had become so desolated by the oppression of Beharee
+Lal and Kurum Hoseyn, the agents of Rughbur Sing, that they could not
+possibly yield anything for the ensuing year; that Kurum Hoseyn had
+seized all the cattle and other property of the peasantry, sold them
+and appropriated the money to his own use, and had so beaten the
+landholders and cultivators, that many of them had died. Order by the
+Durbar, that these two agents be deterred from such acts of
+oppression, fined five thousand rupees, and made to release the
+remaining prisoners, and restore the property taken. Nothing whatever
+was done!
+
+_August_ 14, 1847.--Report from Bondee states, that although the
+landholders and cultivators of this estate had paid all that was due,
+according to engagements, Beharee Lal and Kurum Hoseyn were having
+them flogged and tortured every day to extort more; selling off all
+their stock and other property, and selecting all the good bullocks
+and cows and sending them to their own houses. Order by the Durbar,
+that the minister punish the oppressors, and cause their property to
+be given back to the oppressed. The minister ordered his deputy,
+Ramchurn, to see this done. He did nothing whatever!
+
+_September_ 6, 1847.--Report from Gonda states, that all the lands
+from Bondee and Pyagpoor had been left waste from the oppression of
+Rughbur Sing. Order by the Durbar, that the minister hasten to get
+the lands tilled, as the season was passing away. Nothing whatever
+was done!
+
+_September_ 24, 1847.--Report from the same place states, that
+Rughbur Sing had seized no less than eighteen thousand bullocks, from
+the villages of the Bondee estate, collected them at Neemapoor, and
+ordered his agents to get them all sold off as fast as possible; and
+that the cultivators could till none of the lands in consequence.
+Order by the Durbar, that the minister put a stop to all this
+oppression. Nothing whatever was done!
+
+_September_ 24, 1847.--Report from the same place states, that Kurum
+Hoseyn had seized Ahlad Sing, the malgoozar of Hurkapoor in Bondee,
+and had red-hot ramrods thrust into his flesh, on account of a
+balance due, and then had him put upon an ass and paraded through the
+streets. Order by the Durbar, that the minister see to this. Nothing
+whatever was done!
+
+_August_ 2, 1847.--Report from Gonda states, that the troops under
+Beharee Lal were robbing all the females of the country of their
+ornaments; and that Beharee Lal neither did nor said anything to
+prevent them. Order by the Durbar, that Rughbur Sing be directed to
+restrain his soldiers and restore the ornaments. Nothing whatever was
+done!
+
+_September_ 6, 1847--Report from the same place states, that Luchman
+Naraen, malgoozar of Bhurduree in Gonda, had paid all the rents due,
+according to his engagements; that Beharee Lal had, nevertheless,
+sent a force of three hundred men, who attacked his house, plundered
+it of all that it contained, and took off five thousand seven hundred
+and thirty-one maunds of stored grain. Order by the Durbar, that the
+minister punish and restrain the oppressors, and cause all the
+property to be restored. Nothing whatever was done in the matter!
+
+_October_ 2, 1847.--Report from Gonda states, that Jafir Allee and
+Hemraj Sing, Rughbur Sing's agents, had, with a body of sixteen
+hundred troops, attacked the town of Khurgapoor in Gonda, plundered
+it, and attacked and plundered five villages in the vicinity, and
+seized Sudasook and thirty other merchants and shopkeepers of
+Khurgapoor, Chungul Sing, the farmer of that place, Kaleechurn, a
+writer, and Benee, the agent of the Gonda Rajah, and no less than one
+hundred landholders and cultivators. Order by the Durbar: Let the
+minister seize all the offenders, and release and satisfy all the
+sufferers. Nothing whatever was done in the matter.
+
+_October_ 5, 1847.--Report from Gonda states, that Rughbur Sing's
+troops had seized and brought off from Gonda to Nawabgunge, two
+hundred men and women, and shut up the road where they were confined,
+that no one might pass near them--that three or four of the women were
+pregnant, and near their confinement, and suffered much from harsh
+treatment and want of food. Order by the Durbar: Let the minister
+grant redress, and send a suzawal to see that the sufferers are
+released. A suzawal was sent, it appears, but he remained a quiet
+spectator of the atrocities, having received something for doing so.
+
+_September_ 1, 1847.--Report from Hissampoor states, that Byjonauth
+Sing, agent of Rughbur Sing, in Hissampoor, had seized all the
+plough-bullocks and cows he could find, sent the best to his own
+home, and made the rest over to Wazeer Allee, Canongoe, to be sold.
+Order by the Durbar, that Rughbur Sing be directed to restore all
+that has been taken, and collect the revenue with more moderation.
+Nothing whatever was done.
+
+_September_ 11, 1847.--Report from Bahraetch states, that the estate
+of Aleenugger in Hissampoor, which yielded eighteen thousand rupees
+a-year, had become so deserted from the oppressions of Rughbur Sing,
+that it could no longer yield anything. Order by the Durbar, that
+Rughbar Sing be directed to restore the tillage, or hold himself
+responsible for the King's revenue!
+
+_July_ 28, 1847.--Report from Gonda states, that Goureeshunker, the
+collector of Gungwal and Pyagpoor, had, by order of Beharee Lal,
+attacked the village of Ruhooa, and seized and carried off sixty-four
+cultivators, and confined them in his camp. No order whatever was
+passed by the Durbar.
+
+_September_ 7, 1847.--From Nawabgunge in Gonda reports, that Beharee
+Lal's soldiers were then engaged in sacking that town, and carrying
+off the property. Order by the Durbar. Let the minister see that the
+property be restored and wrongs redressed. Nothing whatever was done.
+
+_September_ 18, 1847.--Report from Bahraetch states, that Cheyn Sing,
+the tallookdar of Bahmanee Paer, had fled into the British territory,
+but returned to his fort; that Beharee Lal heard of his return and
+sent two thousand men to seize him; that the tallookdar had only
+sixty men, but held out for three hours, killed ten of the King's
+soldiers, and then evacuated the fort and fled; that Beharee Lal's
+soldiers had collected two thousand bullocks from the estate, and
+brought them all off to his camp. Order by the Durbar, that the
+minister give stringent orders in this case. Nothing whatever was
+done.
+
+_October_ 2, 1847.--Report from Seerora states, that Mahommed Hussan
+(the present Nazim), one of Rughbur Sing's collectors, with one
+thousand horse and foot and one gun, had come to the hamlet of Sondun
+Lal, and the village of Seerora, attacked and plundered these places,
+and seized and taken off one hundred men and women, and two hundred
+bullocks, killed two hundred Rajpoots in a fight, and then gone back
+to his camp at Bahoreegunge. Order by the Durbar, that the minister
+seize and send the oppressors to Lucknow, and restore the property to
+its proper owners. The minister did nothing of the kind; and soon
+after made this oppressor the governor of these districts.
+
+_September_ 20, 1847.--Report from Radowlee states, that armed men
+belonging to Kurum Hoseyn, escorting one thousand selected bullocks,
+sent by Rughbar Sing, had come to Radowlee, on their way to his fort
+of Shahgunge. Order by the Durbar: Let the minister see to this
+affair. Nothing was done.
+
+On the 28th September 1847 an order was addressed by the Durbar to
+Rughbur Sing, that his agent, Kurum Hoseyn, appeared to have attacked
+the house of Seodeen, though he had paid all that was due by him to
+the State, according to his engagements, and plundered it of property
+to the value of eighteen thousand rupees, and seized and confined all
+his relations--that he must cause all the property to be restored,
+and obtain acquittances from the sufferers. Rughbur Sing took no
+notice whatever of this order.
+
+On the 2nd of October 1847, the Resident, Colonel Richmond, wrote to
+the King, acquainting him, that he had heard, that Rughbur Sing had
+seized and sold all the ploughs and bullocks in the Bahraetch
+district, and, seized and sold also five hundred men, women, and
+children of the landholders and cultivators; that he regrets all this
+and prays that his Majesty will cause inquiries to be made; and,
+should the charges prove true, cause the articles taken, or their
+value, to be restored, and the men, women, and children to be
+released. On the 25th of October 1847, the Resident again addressed
+the King, stating, that he had heard, that, on the 2nd of October,
+Jafir Allee and Maharaj Sing, agents of Rughbur Sing, with eleven
+hundred soldiers, had attacked and plundered the town of Khurgapoor
+and five villages in its neighbourhood, and seized and taken off
+Ramdeen Sudasook, and thirty merchants, shopkeepers and other
+respectable persons, also Junglee, the farmer of that town,
+Kaleechurn Mutsudee, Dabey Pershad, the Rajah's manager, and one
+hundred landholders and cultivators; and praying that orders be given
+for inquiry and redress. Nothing whatever was done; but on the 30th
+of October, the King replied to these letters, and to one written to
+him by the Resident on the 31st of August 1847, transmitting a list
+of unanswered letters. His Majesty stated, that he had sent orders to
+Rughbur Sing and to his brother Maun Sing, in all the cases referred
+to by the Resident; but that they were contumacious servants, as he
+had before described them to the Resident to be; and had taken no
+notice whatever of his orders!
+
+_August_ 20, 1846.--Report from Bahraetch states, that Goureeshunkur,
+the agent of Rughbur Sing, in Bahraetch, had taken four persons from
+among the many whom he had in confinement on account of balances, had
+them suspended to trees, and cruelly flogged, and then had their
+hands wrapped up in thick cloth, steeped in oil, and set fire to till
+they burned like torches; and that he sat listening to their screams
+and cries for mercy with indifference. Order by the King: Let the
+minister, Ameen-od Dowlah, be furnished with a copy of this report,
+and let him send out three troopers, as suzawuls, to bring in
+Goureeshunkur and the four men whose hands had been burnt, and let
+him employ Mekhlis Hoseyn, to inquire into the affair, and report the
+result. Nothing was done.
+
+On the 29th of August, the Resident, Mr. Davidson, addressed a letter
+to the King stating, that he had before represented the cruelties
+which Rughbur Sing was inflicting upon the people of his district,
+but had heard of no redress having been afforded in any case; that he
+had received another report on the same subject, and now forwards it
+to show what atrocities his agent, Goureeshunkur, was committing in
+Bahraetch; that in no other country could the servants of the
+sovereign commit such cruel outrages upon his subjects; that he had
+been wrapping up the bodies of the King's subjects in oilcloths, and
+setting, fire to them as to torches; that he could not do all this
+without the knowledge and sanction of his master, Rughbur Sing; and
+the Resident prays, that he may be punished, and that his punishment
+may be intimated to him, the Resident. Nothing was ever done, nor was
+any answer given to this letter, till it was, on the 30th of August
+1847, acknowledged with the many others contained in the list sent to
+the King, in his letter of the 31st August 1847, by the then
+Resident, Colonel Richmond.
+
+No report appears to have reached either the Durbar or the Resident,
+of the atrocious proceedings of Rughbur Sing's agents at Busuntpoor,
+where so many persons perished from torture, starvation, and
+exposure; nor was any notice taken of them till I took charge of my
+office in January 1849. Incha Sing had offered for the contract of
+the two districts four lacs less than Rughbur Sing had pledged
+himself to pay, and obtained it, and quietly superseded his nephew,
+with whom he was on cordial good terms. Rughbur Sing went into the
+British territory, to evade all demands for balances, and reside for
+an interval, with the full assurance that he would be able to
+purchase a restoration to favour and power in Oude, unless the
+Resident should think it worth while to oppose him, which my
+predecessor did not.* I had his agents arrested, and charges sent in
+against them, with all the proofs accumulated, by Captain Orr; but
+they all soon purchased their way out, and no one was punished. At my
+suggestion the King proclaimed Rughbur Sing as an outlaw, and offered
+three thousand rupees for his arrest, if he did not appear within
+three months. He never appeared, but continued to carry on his
+negociations for restoration to power at Lucknow, through the very
+agents whom he had employed in the scenes above described, Beharee
+Lal, Goureeshunker, Kurum Hoseyn, Maharaj Sing, &c.
+
+[* Incha Sing absconded before the end of the season, and has never
+returned to Oude. Mahommed Hussan got the contract on a reduction of
+two hundred and thirty-one thousand rupees, below the rates which
+Incha Sing bound himself to pay. But in 1850, he consented to an
+increase of three hundred and ninety-nine thousand, with, I believe,
+the deliberate intention to raise the funds for the payment by the
+murder of Ramdut Pandee, and the confiscation of his estate.]
+
+Amjud Allee Shah, who was something of a man of business, died 13th
+February 1847, and was succeeded by his eldest son, the present King,
+who knows nothing of, and cares nothing whatever about, business. His
+minister, Ameen-od Dowlah, who had some character of his own, was
+removed some three or four months after, and succeeded by the present
+minister, Allee Nakee Khan, who has none.
+
+The following table of the actual payments into the treasury, from
+these two districts of Gonda-Bahraetch, for four years from 1845,
+will serve to show the fiscal effects of such atrocities as were
+permitted to be perpetrated in them for a brief period of
+two years:--
+
+    For 1845, under Wajid Allee    .  11,65,132  5  3
+    For 1846, under Rughbur Sing   .  14,01,623  7  6
+    For 1847, under    ditto       .  10,27,898  4  6
+    For 1848, under Incha Sing .   .   6,05,492  0  3
+
+But what table can show the sufferings of the people, and the
+feelings of hatred and abhorrence of the Government and its officers,
+to which they gave rise! Not one of the agents, employed in the
+atrocities above described, was ever punished. The people see that
+all the members of the Government are accessaries, either before or
+after the fact, in all these dreadful cruelties and outrages, and,
+that the more of them a public officer commits, the more secure is he
+of protection and favour at Court. Their hatred and abhorrence of the
+individual, in consequence, extend to and embrace the whole of the
+Government, and would extend also to the British Government, by whom
+that of Oude is supported, did they not see how earnestly the British
+Resident strives to alleviate their sufferings, and make the Oude
+sovereign and minister do their duty towards them; and how much all
+British officers sympathise with their sufferings as they pass
+through the country.*
+
+[* Beharee Lal is now (June 1851) employed in a confidential
+situation, in the office of the deputy minister. Goureeshunker is a
+Tusseeldar, or native collector, in the same district of Bahraetch,
+under the new contractor, Mann Sing. Moonshee Kurum Hoseyn holds a
+similar office in some other district. Maharaj Sing, and the rest,
+all hold, I believe, situations of equal emolument and
+respectability.]
+
+Almost all the khalsa lands of the Hissampoor purgunnah belonged to
+the different branches of a very ancient and respectable family of
+Syuds. Their lands have, as already stated, been almost all
+transferred to powerful tallookdars, and absorbed by them in their
+estates, by the usual process. It is said, and I believe truly, that
+Hadee Allee Khan tried to induce the head of the Syud family to take
+his daughter in marriage for his eldest son, as he was also a Syud,
+(lineal descendant of the prophet.) The old Syud was too proud to
+consent to this; and he and all his relations and connection were
+ruined in consequence. The son, to whom Hadee Allee wished to unite
+his daughter, still lives on his lands, but in poverty and fear. The
+people say that family pride is more inveterate among the aristocracy
+of the country than that of the city; and had the old man lived at
+Lucknow, he would probably have given his son, and saved his family
+and estate.
+
+Captain Hardwick, while out shooting on the 10th, saw a dead man
+hanging by the heels in a mango-tree, close to the road. He was one
+of a gang of notorious robbers who had attacked a neighbouring
+village belonging to some Brahmins. They killed two, and caught a
+third member of the gang, and hung him up by the heels to die. He was
+the brother-in-law of the leader of the gang, Nunda Pandee. There he
+still hangs, and the greater part of my camp took a look at him in
+passing.
+
+                      ____________________
+
+
+Tallookdars of Bahraetch-Government Land Revenue according
+            to the Estimate of this Year.
+
+___________________________________________________________________
+Names of Villages        Government        Present Condition
+                          Demand
+___________________________________________________________________
+
+Bandee   .  .  .  .  .     65,000         Almost waste
+Ruhooa   .  .  .  .  .     20,000           Ditto
+Nanpara  .  .  .  .  .   1,50,000         Falling off
+Gungwal  .  .  .  .  .     26,000         Much out of tillage
+Pyagpoor .  .  .  .  .     59,000           Ditto
+Ekona .  .  .  .  .  .   1,80,000           Ditto
+Bulrampoor  .  .  .  .   1,50,000         Well tilled
+Toolseepoor .  .  .  .   1,05,000           Ditto
+Atrola   .  .  .  .  .     80,000         Much out of tillage
+Munkapoor   .  .  .  .     35,000           Ditto
+Bahmanee Paer  .  .  .     12,000           Ditto
+___________________________________________________________________
+
+Gowras alias Chehdwara
+Paruspoor.  .  .  .  .     14,000         Well tilled
+Aruta .  .  .  .  .  .     18,000           Ditto
+Shahpoor .  .  .  .  .     30,000           Ditto
+Dhunawa  .  .  .  .  .     42,000           Ditto
+Paska .  .  .  .  .  .     20,000           Ditto
+Kumeear  .  .  .  .  .     48,000           Ditto
+___________________________________________________________________
+
+Churda   .  .  .  .  .     62,000         Falling off
+___________________________________________________________________
+___________________________________________________________________
+
+                  Gonda Pergunnah.
+___________________________________________________________________
+
+Desumberpoor.  .  .  .     95,000         Rajah Davey Buksh, in
+                                            Good order.
+Bhinga.  .  .  .  .  .     64,000         Recovering.
+Akkerpoor.  .  .  .  .     46,015         In good order under
+                                            Ramdut Pandee.
+Sagha Chunda.  .  .  .   1,20,729         Ramdut Pandee, in good
+                                            order.
+Birwa .  .  .  .  .  .     24,000         A little out of tillage.
+___________________________________________________________________
+
+
+
+_December_ 12, 1849.--Gungwal, thirteen miles. The road lay through
+the estate of Pyagpoor to within a mile of Gungwal. Little
+cultivation was to be seen the whole way, and what we could see was
+bad. Little variety of crops, and the tillage slovenly, and without
+manure or irrigation. The tallookdar was ruined by Rughbur Sing, and
+is not on terms with the present Nazim, and he did not appear. The
+estate of Gungwal is not better cultivated than that of Pyagpoor; nor
+better peopled--both may be considered as mere wastes, and their
+assessments as merely nominal. The tallookdar did not appear. Both
+were ruined by the rapacious Nazim and his atrocious agents,
+Goureeshunker, Beharee Lal, Kurum Hoseyn, and others.
+
+The Rajah of Toolseepoor, Dirgraj Sing, has an only son, Sahibjee,
+now 17 years of age. The Rajah's old servants, thinking they could
+make more out of the boy than out of the prudent father, first
+incited him to go off, with all the property he could collect, to
+Goruckpoor, where he spent it in ten months of revelry. The father
+invited him back two mouths ago, on condition that he should come
+alone. When he got within six miles of Toolseepoor, however, the
+father found, that three thousand armed followers had there been
+assembled by his agents, to aid him in seizing upon him and the
+estate. Fearing that his estate might be desolated, and he himself
+confined, and perhaps put to death, the Rajah ran off to his friend,
+the Rajah of Bulrampore, for protection.
+
+_December_ 13, 1849.--Purenda, eleven miles. The first half of the
+way, through the lands of Gungwal, showed few signs of tillage or
+population; the latter half through, those of Purenda and other
+villages of Gonda, held by Ramdut Pandee, showed more of both. Some
+nice villages on each side, at a small distance, and some fine groves
+of mango-trees. On the road this morning, Omrow Pooree, a non-
+commissioned officer of the Gwalior Contingent, whose family resided
+in a neighbouring village, came up to me as I passed along, and
+prayed me to have the murderer of his father seized and punished. He
+described the circumstances of the case, and on reaching camp, I
+requested Captain Weston to take the depositions of the witnesses,
+and adopt measures for the arrest of the offenders. Syampooree was
+the name of the father of the complainant. He resided in a small
+hamlet, near the road, called after himself, as the founder,
+"Syampooree ka Poorwa," or Syampooree's Hamlet. He had four sons, all
+fine, stout men. The eldest, Omrow Pooree, a corporal in the Gwalior
+Contingent, Bhurut Pooree, a private in Captain Barlow's regiment,
+Ramchurun and Ramadeen, the two youngest, still at home, assisting
+their father in the management of their little estate, which the
+family had held for many generations. One day in the beginning of
+December 1848, a short, thick-set man passed through the hamlet,
+accosted Syampooree and his two sons, as they sat at the door, and
+asked for some tobacco, and entered into conversation with them. He
+pretended that his cart had been seized by the Nazim's soldiers; and,
+after chatting with them for a short time, departed.
+
+The second morning after this, before daylight, Ramadeen, the
+youngest son, was warming himself at a fire on a small terrace in
+front of the door, when he saw a party of armed men approaching. He
+called out, and asked who they were and what they wanted. They told
+him that they were Government servants, had traced a thief to the
+village, and come to seize him. Four of the party, who carried
+torches, now approached the fire and lighted them. Syampooree and his
+other son, Ramchurun, hearing the noise, came out, and placed
+themselves by the side of Ramadeen. By the light of the torches they
+now recognised the short, thick-set man with whom they had been
+talking two days before, at the head of a gang of fifteen men,
+carrying fire-arms with matches lighted, and five more armed with
+swords and shields. The short, thick-set man was Nunda Pandee, the
+most notorious robber in the district. He ordered his gang to search
+the house: on the father and sons remonstrating, he drew his sword
+and cut down Ramchurun. The father and Ramadeen having left their
+swords in the house, rushed back to secure them; but Nunda Pandee,
+calling out to one of his followers, Bhowaneedeen, to despatch the
+son, overtook the father, and at one cut severed his right arm from
+his body. He inflicted several other cuts upon him before the old man
+could secure his sword with his left arm. Having got it, he placed
+the scabbard under his foot, drew forth the blade, and cut Nunda
+Pandee across his sword-arm which placed him _hors-de-combat_; and
+rushing out among the assailants, he cut down two more, when he was
+shot dead by a third and noted robber, Goberae. Bhowaneedeen and
+others of the gang had cut down Ramadeen, and inflicted several
+wounds upon him as he lay on the ground. The gang then plundered the
+house, and made off with property to the value of one thousand and
+fifty rupees, leaving the father and both sons on the ground. The
+brave old father died soon after daybreak; but before he expired he
+named his assailants.
+
+The two youngest sons were too severely wounded to admit of their
+pursuing the murderers of their father, but their brother, Bhurut
+Pooree, obtaining leave of absence, returned home, and traced the
+leader of the gang, Nunda Pandee, to the house of one of his
+relatives in the village of Kurroura, in Pyagpoor, where he had had
+his wound sewn up and dressed, and lay concealed. The family then
+tried, in vain, to get redress from all the local authorities, none
+of whom considered it to be their duty to look after murderers and
+robbers of this kind. Captain Weston succeeded in arresting this
+atrocious gang-leader, Nunda Pandee, who described to him minutely
+many of the numerous enterprises of this kind in which he had been
+engaged, and seemed to glory in his profession. He mentioned that the
+man whom he had seen suspended in the tree was his brother-in-law;
+that he had had two other members of his gang killed by the villagers
+on that occasion, but had succeeded in carrying off their bodies;
+that Goberae, Bhowaneedeen, and the rest of his followers were still
+at large and prosecuting their trade. Nunda Pandee was by the
+Resident made over for trial and punishment to the Durbar; and
+Goberae and Bhowaneedeen have since been arrested and made over also.
+They both acknowledged that they murdered the Gosaen in the manner
+above described, May 1851. The Mahommedan law-officer before whom the
+case was tried declared, that he could not, according to law, admit
+as valid the evidence of the wife and two sons of the murdered
+Gosaen, because they were relatives and prosecutors; and, as the
+robbers denied before him that they were the murderers, he could not,
+or pretended he could not, legally sentence them to punishment The
+King was, in consequence, obliged to take them from his Court, and
+get them sentenced to perpetual imprisonment by another Court, not
+trammelled by the same law of evidence. This difficulty arises from
+_blood_ having its _price_ in money in the country where the law was
+made, or the _Deeut_; any person who had a right to share in this
+_Deeut_, or price of blood, was therefore held to be an invalid or
+incompetent witness to the fact.
+
+On the road from Bahraetch to Gungwal we saw very few groves or fine
+single trees on either side. The water is close to the surface, and
+the soil good, but for the most part flooded during the rains, and
+fit only for rice-cultivation. To fit it for the culture of other
+autumn crops would require a great outlay in drainage; and this no
+one will incur without better security for the returns than the
+present government can afford. Ramdut Pandee is the greatest
+agricultural capitalist in these parts.
+
+On the 8th of December it had become known all over the city of
+Lucknow, that the King had promised Captain Bird that he would banish
+Gholam Ruza and his sister, and Kotub Allee, across the Ganges; and
+it was entered in the news-writer's report, though Captain Bird had
+spoken of it to no one. He was asked by the minister whether he would
+excuse the King for not keeping his word so far, and said he could
+not. He demanded an audience of the King, who tried to avoid a
+meeting by pleading indisposition; but the first Assistant, being
+very urgent, he was admitted. He found the King in a small inner room
+lying on a cot covered with a ruzae or quilt.
+
+There were closed doors on the side of the room where the cot stood,
+and Captain Bird perceived that persons were behind listening to the
+conversation. On the minister advancing to meet him at the door.
+Captain Bird declined taking his proffered hand, and in a loud voice
+declared--"that he believed that he was mixed up with the fiddlers,
+and was afraid of their being removed, or he would have carried his
+Majesty's order for their dismissal into effect." He then advanced to
+the King, shook him by the hand, apologized for intruding upon him
+after his excuse of illness, and stated--"that his own character was
+at stake, and he had been obliged to take this step to save it, and
+requested that the minister might be told to retire during the
+conversation, as he had already shown his partiality for the
+characters whom his Majesty had stigmatized as low, intriguing, and
+untrustworthy--as ruiners of his good name and his kingdom, and the
+cause of ill-feeling between the British Government and himself. The
+King expressed a wish that the minister might remain, that he might
+have an opportunity to listen to what Captain Bird had to state, as
+it appeared to be against him. Captain Bird replied, that he had no
+complaint to make against the minister; that his object in coming
+was, to claim the fulfilment of the promise which his Majesty had so
+solemnly made to him, to dismiss Gholam Ruza and his sister, and
+Kotub Allee, and send them across the Ganges; that he was induced to
+demand this audience by the minister's visit of the preceding
+evening, to ask him to excuse his Majesty's fulfilling the promise
+which he had made; and by the written report given to him that
+morning by the news-writer, stating, that his Majesty had changed his
+mind, and pardoned the parties."
+
+The King declared that he had never given Captain Bird any such
+promise. Captain Bird then repeated to his Majesty the conversation
+which had taken place on that occasion. The King seemed to be
+staggered; but the minister came to his aid, and said--"that his
+Majesty had ascertained from Sadik Allee himself, that Gholam Ruza
+was not an accomplice in that affair." Captain Bird replied--"that
+the King had told him, that the deception had been so fully proved,
+that they were speechless; and that his Majesty had spit in their
+faces." The King said "not in Gholam Ruza's. His sister and Kotub
+Allee are alone guilty." Captain Bird urged, that all were alike
+guilty, and he besought the King to fulfil his promise, saying,--"that
+his, Captain Bird's, name was at stake; that if the parties were not
+removed, the whole city would say, that the King had bribed him, and
+bought off his promise." The King replied, "This is all nonsense; do
+you wish me to swear that Gholam Ruza is innocent, and that I never
+gave the promise you mention?" and, calling the minister, he placed
+his right hand on his head, and said,--"I swear, as if this was my
+son's head, and by God, that I believe Gholam Ruza to be entirely
+innocent; and that I never promised to turn him out, or to send him
+across the Ganges." Captain Bird then heard a movement of feet in the
+next room behind the closed doors. He was horrified; but returning to
+the charge, said, "Your Majesty has, at any rate, acknowledged the
+guilt of Gholam Ruza's sister, and that of Khotub Allee; pray fulfil
+your promise on the guilty." The King said--"When absent from my
+sight, they are as far off as across one hundred rivers. I know they
+are intriguers, and shall keep my eyes upon them." Captain Bird said
+--"I have reported the circumstances of the case thus far to the
+Resident. Your Majesty has made me a participator in the breaking of
+your word. I have told Colonel Sleeman you would turn these men out."
+The King said--"This case has reference only to my house--it has no
+connection with the Government; but if you wish to use force, take me
+also by the beard, and pull me from my throne!" Captain Bird said--"I
+pray your Majesty to recollect how often, when force might have been
+used, under your own sign-manual and seal, on these fiddlers
+interfering in State affairs, the Resident has hesitated to put your
+written permission for their removal into force; and now who can be
+your friend, or save you from any danger, which may hereafter
+threaten your life or your well-being? I must, of course, report all
+to the Resident." The minister now said--"Yes, report to the Resident
+that the King has changed his mind, broken his word, and will not
+fulfil his promise; and ask for permission to employ direct force for
+the removal of these men: see if he will give permission." Captain
+Bird replied, "that any orders he received from the Resident would
+certainly be carried, into effect; but if his Majesty's own
+acknowledgment of the deceitfulness of these men, and their
+intriguing rascality were not sufficient to induce him to remove
+them--if the King set so little value on his promise--a promise now
+known to the whole city, and which he must in self-defence now speak
+openly of, he foresaw the speedy downfall of the kingdom. Who, he
+asked, will subject themselves to be deceived in an endeavour to prop
+it up by the removal of those who were living on its heart's blood,
+or be made liars by reporting promises never to be fulfilled?" Thus
+ended this interview.
+
+The next day Sadik Allee had a dress of honour conferred upon him,
+and an increase of one hundred rupees a-month made to his salary; and
+Gholam Ruza, and his relative the fiddler, Anees-od Dowla, were
+seated behind his Majesty in his carriage-and-four, and paraded
+through the city, as in full possession of his favour. After the King
+had alighted from the carriage at the palace, the coachman drove the
+two singers to their apartments in the Mukbura, seated as before in
+the khuwas, or hind seat. [On the 25th of May 1850, the King caused
+the chief singer, Gholam Ruza, his father, Nathoo, his sister, and
+her husband, Dummun Khan, Gholam Hyder Khan, Kotub Allee, his
+brother, Sahib Allee, and the females of his family, in all fourteen
+persons, to be seized and confined in prison. On the 2nd of June, all
+but Gholam Ruza and Dummun Khan were transported across the Ganges
+into British territory; and, on the 23rd of July, these two men were
+transported in the same manner. The immediate cause of the King's
+anger was the discovery that his divorced and banished wife,
+Surafrazmahal, had actually come back, and remained concealed for
+seven days and seven nights in the palace, in the apartments of the
+chief singer, Gholam Ruza. They were all made to disgorge the
+Company's notes and jewels found upon them, but the King visited
+Gholam Ruza the day before his departure, and treated him with great
+kindness, and seemed very sorry to part with him.]
+
+On the 10th, I had written to Captain Bird to mention the distinction
+which he appeared to have overlooked in his zeal to get the fiddlers
+removed. The offence with which these persons stood charged in this
+case was a personal affront to the King, or an affront to his
+understanding, and not any interference with the administration of
+the Government; and the first Assistant was requested by the Resident
+to wait upon his Majesty, merely with a view to encourage him in his
+laudable resolution to banish them, and to offer his aid in doing so
+should his Majesty manifest any wish to have it; and not to demand
+their punishment on the part of the British Government. In the one
+case, if the King promised to punish the offenders and relented and
+forgave them, we could only regret his weakness; but in the other, if
+he promised to punish them and failed to do so, we should consider it
+due to the character of our Government to insist upon the fulfilment
+of his promise. On the evening of the 11th I got the above report of
+his interview with the King from Captain Bird; and, on the 12th, I
+wrote to tell him, that I considered him to have acted very
+indiscreetly; that he had brought this vexation and mortification
+upon himself by his overweening confidence in his personal influence
+over the King; that he ought to have waited for instructions from me,
+or at least for a reply from me to his letter, regarding the former
+interview at Court; that I could not now give him the support he
+required, as I could neither demand that his requisitions should be
+complied with, nor tell the King that I approved of them that he had
+been authorized by me to act on his own discretion in any case of
+great emergency, but this could not be considered of such a
+character, for no evil or inconvenience was to be apprehended from a
+day or two's delay, since the question really was, whether his
+Majesty should have a dozen fiddlers or only ten.
+
+In the beginning of September 1850, the King became enamoured of one
+of his mother's waiting-maids, and demanded her in marriage. See was
+his mother's favourite bedfellow, and she would not part with her.
+The King became angry, and to soothe him his mother told him that it
+was purely out of regard for him and his children that she refused to
+part with this young woman; that she had a "_sampun_," or the coiled
+figure of a snake in the hair on the back of her neck. No man, will
+purchase a horse with such a mark, or believe that any family can be
+safe in which a horse or mare with such a mark is kept. His mother
+told him, that if he cohabited with a woman having such a mark, he
+and all his children must perish. The King said that he might
+probably have, among his many wives, some with marks of this kind;
+and that this might account for his frequent attacks of palpitation
+of the heart. "No doubt," said the old Queen Dowager; "we have long
+thought so; but your Majesty gets into such a towering passion when
+we venture to speak of your wives, that we have been afraid to give
+expression to our thoughts and fears." "Perhaps," said the King, "I
+may owe to this the death, lately, of my poor son, the heir-
+apparent." "We have long thought so," replied his mother. The chief
+eunuch, Busheer, was forthwith ordered to inspect the back of the
+necks of all save that of the chief consort, the mother of the late
+and present heir-apparent. He reported that he had found the _fatal
+mark_ upon the necks of no less than eight of the King's wives,
+Nishat-mahal, Koorshed-mahal, Sooleeman-mahal, Huzrut-mahal, Dara
+Begum, Buree Begum, Chotee Begum, and Huzrut Begum. The chief priest
+was summoned, and the divorce, from the whole eight, pronounced
+forthwith; and the ladies were ordered to depart with all that they
+had saved while in the palace. Some of their friends suggested to his
+Majesty, that Mahommedans were but unskilful judges in such matters,
+and that a Court of Brahmins should be assembled, as they had whole
+volumes devoted exclusively to this science. The most learned were
+accordingly collected, and they declared that though there were marks
+resembling in some degree the _sampun_, it was of no importance; and
+the evil it threatened might be averted by singeing the head of the
+snake with a hot iron. The ladies were very indignant, and six of
+them insisted upon leaving the palace, in virtue of the divorce. Two
+only consented to remain, the Buree Begum and Chota Begum.
+
+_December_ 14, 1849.--Came on twelve miles to Gonda. The country well
+studded with groves and fine single trees; the soil naturally
+fertile, and water near the surface. Cultivation good about Gonda,
+and about some of the villages along the road it is not bad; but
+there is nowhere any sugar-cane to be seen beyond a small garden
+patch. The country is so wretchedly stocked with cattle that little
+manure is available for tillage.
+
+The Bulrampore Rajah, a lively, sensible, and active young man,
+joined me this morning, and rode along by the side of my elephant,
+with the capitalist, Ramdut Pandee, the Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, and
+old Bukhtawar Sing, the brother of the late Dursun Sing, whom I have
+often mentioned in this Diary. Rajah Bukhtawar Sing is the King's
+Mohtamin, or Quartermaster-General of the Resident's' camp. The Rajah
+of Toolseepore also, who has been ousted by his son from his estate,
+joined me last night; but he was not well enough to ride with me.
+Dogs, hawks, and panthers attend for sport, but they afford little or
+no amusement. Hawking is a very dull and very cruel sport. A person
+must become insensible to the sufferings of the most beautiful and
+most inoffensive of the brute creation before he can feel any
+enjoyment in it. The cruelty lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the
+hawks. I have ordered all these hunting animals to return to Lucknow.
+
+Although the personal character of the Toolseepoor Rajah is not
+respected, that of his son is much worse; and the Bulrampoor Rajah
+and other large landholders in the neighbourhood would unite and
+restore him to the possession of his estate, but the Nazim is held
+responsible for their not moving in the matter, in order that the
+influential persons about the Court may have the plucking of it at
+their leisure. The better to insure this, two companies of one of the
+King's regiments have been lately sent out with two guns, to see that
+the son is not molested in the possession. The father was restored to
+his estate in 1850, and the son fled again to the Goruckpoor
+district. He became reconciled to his father some months after,
+through the mediation of the magistrate, Mr. Chester, and returned to
+Toolseepoor. The father and son, however, distrusted each other too
+much to live long together on amicable terms, and the son has gone
+off again to Goruckpoor.
+
+The Toolseepoor estate extends along from east to west for about one
+hundred miles, in a belt of from nine to twelve miles wide, upon the
+southern border of that part of the Oude Tarae forest which we took
+from Nepaul in 1815, and made over to the Oude Government by the
+treaty of the 11th May 1816, in lieu of the one crore of rupees which
+our Government borrowed from Oude for the conduct of that war. The
+rent-roll of Toolseepoor is now from two to three lacs of rupees a-
+year; but it pays to the Oude Government a revenue of only one lac
+and five thousand, over and above gratuities to influential officers.
+The estate comprises that of Bankee, which was held by a Rajah Kunsa.
+Dan Bahader, the father of the present Rajah of Toolseepoor, attacked
+him one night in 1832, put him and some two hundred and fifty of his
+followers and family to death, and absorbed the estate. Mahngoo, the
+brother of Kunsa, escaped and sought redress from the Oude Durbar;
+but he had no money and could get no redress; and, in despair, he
+went off to seek employment in Nepaul, and died soon after. Dan
+Bahader, enriched by the pillage of Bankee, came to Lucknow, and
+purchased permission to incorporate Bankee with his old estate of
+Toolseepoor.
+
+Khyreeghur and Kunchunpoor, on the western border of that forest,
+were made over by us to Oude at the same time, as part of the
+cession. They had been ceded to our Government by the treaty of 1801,
+at an estimated value of two hundred and ten thousand, but, up to
+1816, they had never yielded to us fifty thousand rupees a-year. They
+had, however, formerly yielded from two to three lacs of rupees a-
+year to the Oude Government, and under good management may do so
+again; but, at present, Oude draws from them a revenue of only
+sixteen thousand, and that with difficulty. The rent-roll, however,
+exceeds two hundred thousand, and may, in a few years, amount to
+double that sum, as population and tillage are rapidly extending.
+
+The holders of Khyreegur and Kunchunpoor are always in a state of
+resistance against the Oude Government, and cannot be coerced into
+the payment of more than their sixteen thousand rupees a-year; and
+hundreds of lives have been sacrificed in the collection of this sum.
+The climate is so bad that no people from the open country can
+venture into it for more than four months in the year--from the
+beginning of December to the end of March. The Oude Government
+occasionally sends in a body of troops to enforce the payment of an
+increased demand during these four months. The landholders and
+cultivators retire before them, and they are sure to be driven out by
+the pestilence, with great loss of life, in a few months; and the
+landholders refuse to pay anything for some years after, on the
+ground that all their harvests were destroyed by the troops. The rest
+of the Tarae lands ceded had little of tillage or population at that
+time, and no government could be less calculated than that of Oude to
+make the most of its capabilities. It had, therefore, in a fiscal
+point of view, but a poor equivalent for its crore of rupees; but it
+gained a great political advantage in confining the Nepaulese to the
+hills on its border. Before this arrangement took place there used to
+be frequent disputes, and occasionally serious collisions between the
+local authorities about boundaries, which were apt to excite the
+angry feelings of the sovereigns of both States, and to render the
+interposition of the paramount power indispensable.
+
+It was at Bhinga, on the left bank of the Rabtee River, in the Gonda
+district, and eight miles north-east from Bulrampoor, that Mr. George
+Ravenscroft, of the Bengal Civil Service, was murdered on the night
+of the 6th May, 1823. He had been the collector of the land revenue
+of the Cawnpore district for many years; but, having taken from the
+treasury a very large sum of money, and spent it in lavish
+hospitality and unsuccessful speculations, he absconded with his wife
+and child, and found an asylum with the Rajah of Bhinga, on the
+border of the Oude Tarae, where he intended to establish himself as
+an indigo planter. Strict search was being made for him throughout
+India by the British Government, and his residence at Bhinga was
+concealed from the Oude Government by the local authorities. The
+Rajah made over to him a portion of land for tillage, and a suitable
+place in a mango grove, about a mile from his fort, to build a house
+upon. He built one after the Hindoostanee fashion, with bamboos and
+grass from the adjoining jungle. It consisted of a sitting-room, bed-
+room, and bathing-room, all in a line, and forming one side of a
+quadrangle, and facing inside, with only one small door on the
+outside, opening into the bathing-room. The other three sides of the
+quadrangle consisted of stables, servants' houses, and out-offices,
+all facing inside, and without any entrances on the outside, save on
+the front side, facing the dwelling-house, where there was a large
+entrance.
+
+
+                  PLAN OF MR. RAVENSCROFT'S HOUSE.
+
+             _____________________________________  ___
+             |                  |             |       |
+             |                  |              Bathing|
+             |  Sitting Room.   |  Bed Room.    Room. |
+             |_______   ________|____   ______|_______|
+             |     |                          |       |
+             |     |                          |       |
+             |                 ___                    |
+             |                |   |                   |
+             |     |          |   |           |       |
+             |_____|          |___|           |_______|
+             |     |           Cot            |       |
+             |     |                          |       |
+             |  O                                 S   |
+             |  u                                 t   |
+             |  t  |                          |   a   |
+             |     |                          |   b   |
+             |__O__|                          |___l___|
+             |  f  |                          |   e   |
+             |  f  |                          |   s   |
+             |  i  |                          |       |
+             |  c                                     |
+             |  e                                     |
+             |  s  |                          |       |
+             |     |                          |       |
+             |_____|                          |_______|
+             |     |                          |       |
+             |                                        |
+             |     |        Entrance          |       |
+             |     |___  _____      ____  ____|       |
+             |                |    |                  |
+             |                |    |                  |
+             |________________|    |__________________|
+
+
+
+
+The Rajah, Seo Sing, was a worthy old man. He had four sons,
+Surubjeet Sing, the eldest, Omrow Sing, Kaleepurkas Sing, and
+Jypurkas Sing. The eldest was then married, and about the age of
+twenty-five; the other three were still boys. The old man left the
+management of the estate to the eldest son, a morose person, who led
+a secluded life, and was never seen out of the female apartments,
+save twice a-year, on the festival of the hooley and the anniversary
+of his marriage. Mr. Ravenscroft had never seen or held any communion
+with him, save through his father, brothers, or servants; but he was
+in the habit of daily seeing and conversing with the father and his
+other sons on the most friendly terms. The eldest son became alarmed
+when he saw Mr. Ravenscroft begin to plant indigo, and prepare to
+construct vats for the manufacture; and apprehended that he would go
+on encroaching till he took the whole estate from him, unless he was
+made away with. He therefore hired a gang of Bhuduk dacoits from the
+neighbouring forest of the Oude Tarae to put him to death, after he
+had been four months at Bhinga. During this time Mrs. Ravenscroft had
+gone on one occasion to Cawnpoor, and on another to Secrora, on
+business.
+
+Bhinga lies fifty miles north-east from Secrora, where the 20th
+Regiment of Native Infantry, under the command of Colonel Patton, was
+then cantoned. On the 6th of May 1823, Ensign Platt, of that corps,
+had come out to see him. In the evening, the old Rajah and his second
+and third sons came to visit Mr. Ravenscroft as usual, and they sat
+conversing with the family on the most friendly terms till nine
+o'clock, when they took leave, and Mrs. Ravenscroft, with her child
+and two female attendants, retired to the sleeping-room in the house.
+Ensign Platt went to his small sleeping-tent outside the quadrangle,
+under a mango-tree. This tent was just large enough to admit his
+small cot, and a few block-tin travelling-boxes, which he piled away
+inside, to the right and left of his bed. Mr. Ravenscroft slept on a
+cot in the open air, in the quadrangle, a few paces from the door
+leading to Mrs. Ravenscroft's sleeping-apartment. He that night left
+his arms in the sitting-room, and Ensign Platt had none with him. Mr.
+Ravenscroft was the handsomest and most athletic European gentleman
+then in India, and one of the most expert in the use of the sword and
+shield.
+
+His servants had been accustomed to stand sentry, by turns, at the
+entrance of the quadrangle, and it was his groom Munsa's turn to take
+the first watch that night. He was to have been relieved by the
+chowkeedar, Bhowaneedeen; but, in the middle of his watch, he roused
+the chowkeedar, and told him that he had been taken suddenly ill, and
+must go to his house for relief. The chowkeedar told him that he
+might go at once, and he would get up and take his place immediately;
+but he lay down and soon fell asleep again.
+
+About eleven o'clock the whole quadrangle was filled by a gang of
+about sixty dacoits, who set their torches in a blaze, and began to
+attack Mr. Ravenscroft with their spears. He sprang up, and called
+loudly for his sword and shield, but there was no one to bring them.
+He received several spears through his body as he made for the door
+of Mrs. Ravenscroft's apartment, calling out to her in English to fly
+and save herself and child, and defending himself as well as he could
+with his naked arms. Mosahib, a servant who slept by his cot, got to
+Mrs. Ravenscroft's room and assisted her to escape, with her child
+and two female attendants, through the bathing-room to the outside. A
+party had been placed to stab Ensign Platt with their long spears
+through the sides of his small tent; but they passed through and
+through the block-tin boxes, and roused without hurting him. He
+rushed out and attempted to defend himself by seizing the spears of
+his assailants; but he received several of them through his arms. He
+made for the entrance to the quadrangle, and there, by the blaze of
+the torches, saw Mr. Ravenscroft still endeavouring to defend
+himself, but covered with blood, which was streaming from his wounds
+and mouth.
+
+On seeing Ensign Platt at the entrance, he staggered towards him, but
+the dacoits made a rush at Ensign Platt with their spears at the same
+time. He saved himself by springing over a thick and thorny hedge on
+one side of the quadrangle, and ran round behind to the small door
+leading into the bathing-room, which he reached in time to assist
+Mrs. Ravenscroft to escape, as the dacoits were forcing their way
+through the screen into her bed-room from the sitting-room. As soon
+as he saw her under the shade of the trees, beyond the blaze of the
+torches, he left her and her child, and the two female attendants, to
+the care of Mosahib, and went round to the entrance in search of her
+husband. He had got to a tree, outside the entrance, into which
+Deena, Ensign Platt's servant, had climbed to save himself as soon as
+he saw his master attacked, and was leaning against it; but, on
+seeing Ensign Platt, he again staggered towards him, saying faintly
+_bus, bus_--enough, enough. These were the last words he was heard to
+utter, and must have referred to the escape of his wife and child, of
+which he had become conscious. By this time the gang had made off
+with the little booty they found. On attacking Mr. Ravenscroft at
+first, some of them were heard to say, "You have run from Cawnpoor to
+come and seize upon the estate of Bhinga, but we will settle you."
+Mrs. Ravenscroft, her infant, and female attendants, remained
+concealed under the shade of the trees, and her husband was now taken
+to her with eighteen spear wounds through his body. The Rajah and his
+two young sons soon after made their appearance, and in the evening
+the survivors were all taken by the old man to a spacious building,
+close outside the fort, where they received every possible attention;
+but the eldest son never made his appearance. Out of the twenty-nine
+men who composed the party when the attack commenced, seven had been
+killed and eighteen wounded. Mr. Ravenscroft died during the night of
+the 7th, after great suffering. He retained his consciousness till
+near the last; but the blood continued to flow from his mouth, and he
+could articulate nothing. On the morning of the 8th, he was buried in
+the grove, and Ensign Platt read the funeral service over his grave.
+Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child were taken to Colonel Patton, at
+Secrora, and soon after sent by him to Lucknow.
+
+On the 10th, he reported the circumstances of this murder to the
+Resident, Mr. Ricketts; and sent him the narratives of Mosahib and
+Deena; and his report, with translations of these narratives, was
+submitted by the Resident to Government on the 12th of that month.
+But in these narratives no mention whatever was made of a British
+officer having been present at the murder and the burial of Mr.
+Ravenscroft. This suppression arose, no doubt, from the apprehension
+that Government might be displeased to find that the military
+authorities at Secrora had become aware of Mr. Ravenscroft's
+residence at Bhinga without reporting the circumstance to Government;
+and still more so to find, that he had been there visited by a
+British officer, when search was being made for him throughout India.
+
+In acknowledging the receipt of the Resident's letter on the 23rd of
+May, the Secretary, Mr. George Swinton, observes, that the Governor-
+General in Council concludes, that he shall receive a more full and
+satisfactory report on the subject from Colonel Patton than that to
+which his letter had given cover, since he considered that report to
+be very imperfect; that one of the narrators, Mosahib, states, that
+he himself conducted Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child to a neighbouring
+village, and yet he brought no message whatever from that lady to
+Colonel Patton at Secrora; that none of the wounded people or
+servants of the deceased, except Deena, appear to have found their
+way to Sacrora, though four days had elapsed from the date of the
+murder to that of the despatch of the report; that the body seemed to
+have been hastily interred by the people of the village, without any
+notice having been sent to the officer commanding the troops at
+Secrora; that such an atrocious outrage as that described in these
+narratives, on the person of a subject and servant of the British
+Government, demanded the exertion of every effort to ascertain the
+real facts of the case by local inquiry; yet it did not appear that
+any person had been despatched to the spot to verify the evidence of
+the two men examined by Colonel Patton, or to clear up the doubts to
+which all these circumstances must naturally have given rise; nor did
+it appear that the defects in Colonel Patton's report had occurred to
+the Resident, or that he had directed any further inquiry to be made.
+
+The Resident was, therefore, directed to instruct Colonel Patton, to
+depute one or more officers to the place where the murder was said to
+be perpetrated, with orders to hold an inquiry on the spot in
+communication with the King of Oude's officers, to take the evidence
+of the wounded men, and that of any other persons who might have been
+witnesses to any part of the transaction, and to the burial of Mr.
+Ravenscroft; and to examine the grave in which the body of the
+deceased was said to have been deposited; and further, to call upon
+Colonel Patton to state whether any information had previously
+reached Secrora of Mr. Ravenscroft's actually residing at Bhinga, or
+at any other place within the dominions of the King of Oude. "His
+Lordship in Council was," Mr. Swinton says, "satisfied, from the
+known humanity of Colonel Patton's character, that every possible aid
+and comfort had been extended to Mrs. Ravenscroft and her child; and
+the information which that lady and her attendants must have it in
+their power to give, could not fail to place the whole affair in its
+proper light." Extracts from this letter were sent by the Resident to
+Colonel Patton, on the 2nd of June, with a request that he would
+adopt immediate measures to carry the orders of Government into
+effect; and reply to the question whether any information of Mr.
+Ravenscroft's residing at Bhinga had previously reached him.
+
+A committee of British officers was assembled at Bhinga on the 11th
+June, and their proceedings were transmitted to the Resident on the
+18th of that month; but the committee, for some reasons stated in the
+report, did not examine "the grave in which the body of the deceased
+was said to have been deposited." Though in this committee Ensign
+Platt stated that he was present when the murder was perpetrated;
+that he attended the deceased till he died the next night, and
+performed the funeral ceremonies over the body on the morning of the
+8th; still he seemed to narrate the circumstances of the event with
+some reserve, while there was a good deal of discrepancy in the
+evidence of the other eye-witnesses, as recorded in the report,
+seemingly from the dread of compromising Ensign Platt.
+
+The Resident did not, therefore, think that Government would be
+satisfied with the result of this inquiry; and, on the 20th of June
+he directed Colonel Patton to reassemble the committee at Bhinga, and
+require it to hold an inquest on the body, and take the depositions
+of all the witnesses on oath. On the same day the Resident reported
+to Government what he had done. The second committee proceeded to
+Bhinga, and, on the 13th of July, Colonel Patton transmitted its
+report to the Resident, who submitted it to Government on the 17th of
+that month. The committee had taken the evidence of the witnesses on
+oath, and held an inquest on the body; but, in doing so, it had been
+necessary to dig through the tomb which Mrs. Ravenscroft had, in the
+interval, caused to be erected over the remains of her husband; and,
+at the suggestion of Colonel Patton, this tomb was rebuilt and
+improved at the cost of Government, who were perfectly satisfied with
+the result.
+
+But in its reply, dated the 31st July, Government very justly
+remarks, that all the unnecessary trouble which had attended this
+investigation, as well as the very painful step of having the body
+disinterred, which the Resident found himself compelled to adopt in
+obedience to its orders, arose from a want of those obvious
+precautions in the first instance which ought to have suggested
+themselves to Colonel Patton. Had he made the requisite inquiries at
+Secrora, he must have learnt that an English officer belonging to his
+own regiment, who had been present at the interment, had been wounded
+when Mr. Ravenscroft was murdered, and, for a time, rendered unfit
+for duty. The facts since deposed to on oath by Ensign Platt might
+have been elicited, and his testimony, if necessary, might have been
+confirmed by the evidence of the widow of the deceased; and had such
+conclusive evidence been submitted to Government in the first
+instance, the doubts excited by the extraordinary circumstances of
+the whole affair would never have existed. When ordered on the
+inquiry to Bhinga, had Ensign Platt at once declared at Secrora that
+he could there afford all the information required as to the fact of
+the murder and interment of the body, the necessity of further
+inquiry on the spot would have been obviated. He had apparently been
+deterred from doing this by the apprehension of compromising both
+himself and his commanding officer. Colonel Patton had no knowledge
+of Mr. Ravenscroft being at Bhinga, though he had heard a rumour of
+his being somewhere in the Oude territory; and, in his application
+for a few days' leave, Ensign Platt made no mention of him or of his
+intention to visit him. This is stated in a subsequent letter from
+Colonel Patton to the Resident, dated 27th of August 1823.
+
+The opinion that the Rajah had nothing whatever to do with the
+murder, and that the gang was secretly hired for the purpose by his
+eldest son, Surubjeet, has been confirmed by time, and is now
+universal among the people of these parts. He died soon after of
+dropsy, and the people believe that the disease was caused by the
+crime. He left an only son, Krishun Dutt Sing. The Rajah, Seo Sing,
+survived his eldest son some years; and, on his death, he was
+succeeded by Krishun Dutt Sing, who now leads precisely the same
+secluded life that his father led, and leaves the management of the
+Bhinga estate entirely to his only surviving uncle, Kaleepurkas Sing,
+the youngest of the two boys who visited Mr. Ravenscroft on the
+evening of the murder. The other three sons of the old Rajah are
+dead. The actual perpetrators of the murder were never punished or
+discovered. Mrs. Ravenscroft afterwards became united in marriage to
+the Resident at the time, Mr. Mordaunt Ricketts, and still lives. Her
+child, a boy, was drowned at the Lucknow Residency some time after
+his mother's marriage with the Resident. He had been shut up by his
+mother in a bathing-room for some fault; and, looking into a bathing-
+tub at his image in the water, he lost his balance, fell in, and was
+drowned. When the servants went to let him out they found him quite
+dead.
+
+                     __________________________
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Legendary tale of breach of Faith--Kulhuns tribe of Rajpoots--Murder
+of the Banker, Ramdut Pandee, by the Nazim of Bahraetch--Recrossing
+the Ghagra river--Sultanpoor district, State of Commandants of
+troops become sureties for the payment of land revenue--Estate of
+Muneearpoor and the Lady Sogura--Murder of Hurpaul Sing, Gurgbunsee,
+of Kupragow--Family of Rajahs Bukhtawar and Dursun Sing--Their
+_bynama_ Lands--Law of Primogeniture--Its object and effect--Rajah
+Ghalib Jung--Good effects of protection to Tenantry--Disputes about
+Boundaries--Our army a safety-valve for Oude--Rapid decay of Landed
+Aristocracy in our Territories--Local ties in groves, wells, &c.
+
+_December_ 15, 1849.-Wuzeergunge. On the way this morning, we passed
+Koorassa, which is said once to have been the capital of a formidable
+Rajah, the head of the Kulhuns tribe of Rajpoots. The villages which
+we see along the road seem better, and better peopled and provided
+with cattle. The soil not naturally very fertile, but yields fine
+returns under good culture, manure, and irrigation. Water everywhere
+very near the surface. The place is called after the then _Nawab
+Wuzeer_, Asuf-od Dowlah, who built a country-seat here with all
+appurtenances of mosque, courts, dwelling-houses, &c., on the verge
+of a fine lake, formed in the old bed of the Ghagra river, with
+tillage and verdure extending down to the water's edge. The garden-
+wall, which surrounds a large space of ground, well provided with
+fruit and ornamental trees, is built of burnt bricks, and still
+entire. The late minister, Ameen-od Dowlah, persuaded his master,
+Amjad Allee Shah, to give this garden and the lands around, with
+which it had been endowed, to his moonshee, Baker Allee Khan, who now
+resides at Fyzabad, and subsists upon the rents which he derives from
+them, and which are said to be about twelve hundred rupees a-year.
+
+The Bulrampoor Rajah, Ramdut Pandee, the banker, and Rajah Bukhtawar
+Sing, rode with me this morning. The Rajah of Bulrampoor is an
+intelligent and pleasing young man. He was a child when Mr.
+Ravenscroft was killed, but said he had heard, that the Bhinga chief
+had suffered for the share which he had had in the murder; his body
+swelled, and he died within a month or two. "If men's bodies swelled
+for murder, my friend," I said, "we should have no end of swelled
+bodies in Oude, and among the rest, that of Prethee Put's, of Paska."
+"Their bodies all swell, sooner, or later," said old Bukhtawar Sing,
+"when they commit such atrocious crimes, and Prethee Puts will begin
+to swell when he finds that you are inquiring into his." "I am
+afraid, my friends, that the propensity to commit them has become
+inveterate. One man hears that another has obtained lands or wealth
+by the murder of his father or brother, and does not rest till he has
+attempted to get the same by the murder of his, for he sees no man
+punished for such crimes." "It is not all nor many of our clan"
+(Rajpoots), said the Rajah of Bulrampoor, "that can or will do this:
+we never unite our sons or daughters in marriage with the family of
+one who is so stained with crimes. Prethee Put and all who do as he
+has done, must seek an union with families of inferior caste." I
+asked him whether the people, in the Tarae forest, were still afraid
+to point out tigers to sportsmen. "I was lately out with a party
+after a tiger," he said, "which had killed a cowherd, but his
+companions refused to point out any trace of him, saying, that their
+relatives' spirit must be now riding upon his head, to guide him from
+all danger, and we should have no chance of shooting him. We did
+shoot him, however," said the Rajah, exultingly, "and they were all,
+afterwards, very glad of it. The tigers in the Tarae do not often
+kill men, sir, for they find plenty of deer and cattle to eat."--"Can
+you tell me, Rajah Sahib," said I, "why it is that among the Arabs,
+the lion is called 'the father of cultivation,' '_abol hurs_, or _abo
+haris_.'" "No," replied the Rajah; "it is an odd name for a beast
+that feeds on nothing but the flesh of deer, cattle, and men." "It
+is, I suppose, Rajah Sahib," I remarked, "because he feeds upon the
+deer, which are the greatest enemies of their young crops."
+
+The Rajahs of Toolseepoor and Bulrampoor, and all the merchants and
+respectable landholders in these parts assure me, that all the large
+colonies of Bhuduks, or gang robbers by hereditary profession, who
+had, for so many generations, up to A.D. 1840, been located in the
+Oude Terae forest, have entirely disappeared under the operation of
+the "Special Police," of the Thuggee and Dacoitee Department, aided
+and supported by the Oude Government; and that not one family of them
+can now be found anywhere in Oude. They have not been driven out as
+formerly, to return as soon as the temporary pressure ceased, but
+hunted down and punished, or made to blend with the rest of society
+in service or at honest labour.
+
+_December_ 16, 1849.--Nawabgunge, eight miles, over a plain of the
+same good soil, but not much better cultivated. The people tell me,
+that garden tillage is now almost unknown in these districts; first,
+because kachies or gardeners (here called moraes) having been robbed,
+ruined, and driven into exile by Rughbur Sing, cannot be induced to
+return to and reside in places, where they would have so little
+chance of reaping the fruits of their labour; and, secondly, because
+there are no people left who can afford to purchase their garden
+produce. They tell me also, that the best classes of ordinary
+cultivators, the Koormies and Lodhees, have been almost all driven
+out of the district from the same cause. The facts are manifest--
+there are no gardeners, and but few Koormies and Lodhees left; and
+there is, in consequence, little good tillage of any kind, and still
+less of garden cultivation.
+
+The Rajah of Bulrampoor and Ramdut Pandee, the banker, rode with me,
+and related the popular tradition regarding the head of the Kulhuns
+family of Rajpoots, Achul Sing, who, about a century and a quarter
+ago, reigned over the district intervening between Gonda and Wuzeer
+Gunge, and resided at his capital of Koorassa. The Rajah had a
+dispute with one of his landholders, whom he could not get into his
+power. He requested Rutun Pandee, the banker, to mediate a
+reconciliation, and invite the landholder to an amicable adjustment
+of accounts, on a pledge of personal security. The banker consented,
+but made the Rajah swear by the _River Sarjoo_, which flowed near the
+town, that he should be received with courtesy, and escorted back
+safely. The landholder relied on the banker's pledge and came; but
+the Rajah no sooner got him into his power, than he caused him to be
+put to death. The banker could not consent to live under the
+dishonour of a violated pledge; and, abstaining from food, died in
+twenty-one days, invoking the vengeance of the _River Sarjoo_, on the
+head of the perfidious Prince. In his last hours the banker was
+visited by one of the Rajah's wives, who was then pregnant, and
+implored him to desist from his purpose in mercy to the child in her
+womb; but she was told by the dying man, that he could not consent to
+survive the dishonour brought upon him by her perjured husband; and
+that she had better quit the place and save herself and child, since
+the incensed river Sarjoo would certainly not spare any one who
+remained with the Rajah. She did so. The banker died, and his death
+was followed by a sudden rise of the river and tempest. The town was
+submerged, and the Rajah with all who remained with him perished. The
+ruins of the old town are said to be occasionally still visible,
+though at a great depth under the water in the old bed of the Sarjoo,
+which forms a fine lake, near the present village of Koorassa, midway
+between Gonda and Wuzeer Gunge.
+
+The pregnant wife fled, and gave birth to a son, whose descendant is
+now the head of the Kulhuns Rajpoots, and the Rajah of Bahmanee Paer,
+a district on the eastern border of Oude towards Goruckpoor. But, it
+is a remarkable fact, that the male descendants have been all blind
+from their birth, or, at least, the reigning portion of them, and the
+present Rajah is said to have two blind sons. This is popularly
+considered to be one of the effects of the Rajah's violated pledge to
+the banker. A handmaid of the Rajah, Achul Sing, is said to have fled
+at the same time, and given birth to a son, from whom are descended
+the Kulhuns tallookdars of the Chehdwara, or Gowaris district,
+already noticed. The descendants of Rutun Pandee are said still to
+hold rent-free lands, under Achul Sing's descendant, in Bahmanee
+Paer; and the Pandee is worshipped throughout the districts as a
+saint or martyr. He has a shrine in every village, at which offerings
+are made on all occasions of marriage, and blessings invoked for the
+bride and bridegroom, from the spirit of one who set so much value on
+his plighted faith while on earth. The two branches of the Kulhuns
+family above mentioned, propitiate the spirit of the deceased Pandee
+by offerings; but there is a branch of the same family at Mohlee, in
+the Goruckpoor district, who do not. Though Hindoos, they adopt some
+Mussulman customs, and make offerings to the old Mussulman saint, at
+Bahraetch, in order to counteract the influence of the Pandee's
+spirit.
+
+Such popular traditions, arising from singular coincidences of
+circumstances, have often a salutary effect on society, and seem to
+be created by its wants and wishes; but rivers have, of late years,
+become so much less prompt in the vindication of their honour, that
+little reliance is placed, upon the oaths taken in their names by the
+Prince, his officers or his landowners in Oude.
+
+Nawabgunge, Munkapoor, and Bahmanee transferred to the British
+Government, with the other lands, under the treaty of 1801; and
+retransferred to Oude, by the treaty of the 11th of May 1816, in
+exchange for Handeea, alias Kewae, a slip of land extending along the
+left bank of the Ganges, between Allahabad and Benares.
+
+
+                           Rent Roll.    Kankur.   Govt. demand
+
+Nawabgunge, Wuzeergunge,.}   l,08,000     32,000       76,000
+   Mahadewa .  .  .  .  .}
+
+Munkapoor   .  .  .  .  .      40,000     12,000       28,000
+Bahmanee Paer  .  .  .  .      12,000      3,000        9,000
+
+
+
+
+
+The landholders and cultivators complain sadly of the change of
+sovereigns; and the tillage and population have greatly diminished
+under the Oude Government since 1816, but more especially, since the
+monster, Rughbur Sing got the government. Here Ramdut Pandee, the
+Rajah of Bulrampoor, and the Nazim of the district, have taken leave
+of me, this being my last stage in their district. Ramdut Pandee
+holds two estates in this district, for which he pays an annual
+revenue to Government of 1,66,744 13 3.* He holds, at the same time,
+a small estate in our district of Goruckpoor, where he resides and
+keeps his family, till he obtains solemn written pledges, confirmed
+on oath, for their security, not only from the local authority of the
+day, but from all the commandants of corps and establishments,
+comprising the military force employed under him. These pledges
+include all his clients, who may have occasion to visit or travel
+with him, as the Rajah of Bulrampoor is now doing. These pledges
+require to be renewed on every change in the local authorities and in
+the military officers employed under them. He is one of the most
+substantial and respectable of the agricultural capitalists of Oude,
+and the highest of his rank and class in this district. He every year
+stands security for the punctual payment of the revenues due,
+according to existing engagements, by the principal landholders of
+the district, to the extent of from six to eight lacs of rupees; and
+for this he gets a certain per centage, varying with the character
+and capability of the landholders. Some are of doubtful ability,
+others of doubtful character, and he rates his risks and per centage
+accordingly. He does much good, and is more generally esteemed than
+any other man in the district; but he has, no doubt, enlarged his own
+landed possessions occasionally, by taking advantage of the
+necessities of his clients, and his influence over the local
+authorities of government The lands he does get, however, he improves
+by protecting and aiding his tenants, and inviting and fostering a
+better class of cultivators, He is looked up to with respect and
+confidence by almost all the large landholders of the district, for
+his pledge for the punctual payment of the revenues saves their
+estates from the terrible effects of a visit from the Nazim and his
+disorderly and licentious troops; and this pledge they can always
+obtain, when necessary, by a fair assurance of adherence to their
+engagements.
+
+[* The estate of Ramdut Pandee, for this year, 1849, comprises--
+     Sirgha, Chunda, &c.  .  .  . 1,20,729  11  0
+     Akberpoor, &c. .  .  .  .  .   46,015   2  3
+                     Total   .  . 1,66,744  13  3 ]
+
+On the 8th of November 1850, Ramdut Pandee lent the Nazim eighty
+thousand rupees on his bond, after paying all that was due to the
+State for the season, by him and all his clients, and on the 16th of
+that month he went to Gonda, where the Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, was
+encamped with his force, to take leave preparatory to his going to
+bathe at Ajoodheea, on the last day of the month of Kartick, as was
+his invariable custom. He was accompanied by the Rajah of Bulrampoor,
+and they encamped separately in two mango-groves near to each other,
+and about a mile and a half from the Nazim's camp. About nine at
+night the Nazim sent two messengers, with silver sticks, to invite
+and escort them to his tent. They set out immediately, leaving all
+their armed followers in their camps, and taking only a few personal
+attendants and palankeen bearers. No person is permitted to take arms
+into the Nazim's tent; nor does any landholder or merchant of Oude
+enter his tent without the pledges for personal security above
+mentioned. Ramdut Pandee and the Rajah entered with only a few
+personal servants, leaving all their other attendants outside the
+outer curtain. This curtain surrounded the tent at a distance of only
+a few yards from it, and the tent was pitched in the centre. They
+were received with all due ceremony, and in the same friendly manner
+as usual. The Rajah had no business to talk about, while the Nazim
+and banker had; and, after a short conversation, he took leave to
+return to his tents and break his fast, which he had kept that day
+for some religious purpose. He left in the tent the Nazim, his
+deputy, Jafir Allee, and his nephew and son-in-law, Allee Hoseyn,
+sitting together on the carpet, on the right, all armed, and Ramdut
+sitting unarmed, on the left, with a Brahmin lad, Jowahir, standing
+at the door, with the banker's paundan and a handkerchief. Kurunjoo,
+a second person, with the banker's shoes, and a third attendant of
+his standing outside the tent door.
+
+The Nazim and Ramdut talked for some time together, seemingly on the
+most friendly and cordial terms; but the Nazim, at last, asked him
+for a further loan of money, and further securities for landholders
+of doubtful character, before he went to bathe. The banker told him,
+that he could lend him no more money till he came back from bathing,
+as he had lent him eighty thousand rupees only eight days before;
+and, that he could not increase his pledges of security without
+further consultation with the landholders, as he had not yet
+recovered more than four out of the seven lacs of rupees which he had
+been obliged to advance to the Treasury, on the securities given for
+them during the last year. He then took leave and rose to depart. The
+Nazim turned and made some sign to his deputy, Jafir Allee, who rose,
+presented his gun and shot Ramdut through the right side close under
+the arm-pit. Exclaiming "Ram! Ram!"--God! God!--the banker fell; and
+the Nazim, seizing and drawing the sword which lay on the carpet
+before him, cut the falling banker across the forehead. His nephew
+and deputy drew theirs; and together they inflicted no less than
+twenty-two cuts upon the body of Ramdut.
+
+The banker's three attendants, seeing their master thus shot down and
+hacked to pieces, called out for help; but one of the three ruffians
+cut Jowahir, the Brahmin lad, across the shoulder, with his sword,
+and all ran off and sought shelter across the border in the British
+territory. The Nazim and his attendants then buried the body hastily
+near the tent, and ordered the troops and artillery to advance
+towards and fire into the two camps. They did so, and the Bulrampoor
+Rajah had only just reached his tents when the shot came pouring in
+upon them from the Nazim's guns. He galloped off as fast as he could
+towards the British border, about twenty miles distant, attended only
+by a few mounted followers, some of whom he sent off to Bulrampoor,
+to bring his family as fast as possible across the border to him. The
+rest he ordered to follow him. His followers and those of the
+murdered banker fled before the Nazim's forces, which had been
+concentrated for this atrocious purpose, and both their camps were
+plundered. Before the Rajah fled, however, the murdered banker's son-
+in-law, who had been left in the camp, ran to him with a small
+casket, containing Ramdut's seals, the bond for the eighty thousand
+rupees, and the written pledges given by the Nazim and commanding
+officers of corps, for the banker's and the Rajah's personal
+security. He mounted him upon one of his horses, and took both him
+and the casket off to the British territory.
+
+It was now about midnight, and the Nazim took his forces to the towns
+and villages upon the banker's estate, in which his family and
+relatives resided, and in which he kept the greater part of his
+moveable property. He sacked and plundered them all without regard to
+the connection or relationship of the inhabitants with the murdered
+banker. The property taken from the inhabitants of these towns and
+villages is estimated at from ten to twelve lacs of rupees. As many
+as could escape fled for shelter across the border, into the British
+territory. The banker's brother, Kishen Dutt, who resided in the
+British territory, came over, collected all he could of his brother's
+followers, attacked the Amil's forces, killed and wounded some forty
+or fifty of his men, and captured two of his guns. The body of the
+banker was discovered two days after, and disinterred by his family
+and friends, who counted the twenty-two wounds that had been
+inflicted upon it by the three assassins, and had it burned with due
+ceremonies.
+
+The Nazim's agent at Court, on the 18th of November, submitted to the
+minister his master's report of this affair, in which it was stated,
+that the banker was a defaulter on account of his own estate, and
+those of the other landholders for whom he had given security--that
+he, the Nazim, had earnestly urged him to some adjustment of his
+accounts, but all in vain--that the banker had disregarded all his
+demands and remonstrances, and had with him five hundred armed
+followers, one of whom had fired his pistol at him, the Nazim, and
+killed one of his men--that they had all then joined in an attack
+upon the Nazim and his men, and that, in defending themselves, they
+had killed the banker. On the 19th, another report, dated the 16th,
+reached the minister from the Nazim's camp, stating, that the banker
+had come to his tent at ten at night, with his armed followers, and
+had an interview [with] him--that as the banker rose to depart, the
+Nazim told him that he must not go without some settlement of his
+accounts; and a dispute followed, in which the banker was killed, and
+two of the Nazim's followers were severely wounded-that so great was
+the confusion that the Durbar news-reporters could not approach to
+get information.
+
+On the 20th, a third report reached the minister, stating, that the
+Rajah of Bulrampoor had come with the banker to visit the Nazim, but
+had taken leave and departed before the collision took place--that
+the Nazim urged the necessity of an immediate settlement of accounts,
+but the banker refused to make any, grossly abused the Nazim, and, at
+last, presented his pistol and fired at him; and thereby wounded two
+of his people--that he was, in consequence, killed by the Nazim's
+people, who joined the banker's own people in the plunder of his
+camp.
+
+On receiving this last report, the minister, by order of his Majesty,
+presented to the agent of the Nazim a dress of honour of fourteen
+pieces, such as is given to the highest officers for the most
+important services; and ordered him to send it to his master, to mark
+the sense his sovereign entertained of his gallant conduct and
+valuable services, in crushing so great _a rebel and oppressor_, and
+to assure him of a long-continued tenure of office.
+
+By the interposition of the British Resident and the aid of the
+magistrate of Goruckpoor, Mr. Chester, the real truth was elicited,
+the Nazim was dismissed from office, and committed for trial, before
+the highest judicial Court at Lucknow. He at first ran off to
+Goruckpoor, taking with him, besides his own, two elephants belonging
+to the Rajah of Gonda, with property on them to the value of fifty
+thousand rupees, which he overtook in his flight. The Rajah had sent
+off these elephants with his valuables, on hearing of the
+assassination of the banker, thinking that the Nazim would secure
+impunity for this murder, as Hakeem Mehndee had for that of Amur
+Sing, and be tempted to extend his operations. Finding the district
+of Goruckpoor unsafe, the Nazim came back and surrendered himself at
+Lucknow. Jafir Allee was afterwards seized in Lucknow. There is,
+however, no chance of either being punished, since many influential
+persons about the Court have shared in the booty, and become
+accessaries interested in their escape. Moreover, the Nazim is a
+Mahommedan, a Syud, and a Sheeah. No Sheeah could be sentenced to
+death, for the murder, even of a Soonnee, at Lucknow, much less for
+that of a Hindoo. If a Hindoo murders a Hindoo, and consents to
+become a Mussulman, he cannot be so sentenced; and if he consents to
+become so after sentence has been passed, it cannot be carried into
+execution. Such is the law, and such the every-day practice.
+
+The elephants were recovered and restored through the interposition
+of the Resident, but none of the property of the Rajah or the banker
+has been recovered. May 18, 1851.--The family of the banker has
+obtained a renewal of the lease of their, two estates, on agreeing to
+pay an increase of forty thousand rupees a-year.
+
+Sirgha Chunda  .  .  .  . 1,20,729  11  0
+    Increase   .  .  .  .   30,000   0  0
+                          _______________ 1,50,729  11  0
+
+Akberpoor   .  .  .  .  .   46,015   2  3
+    Increase.  .  .  .  .   10,000   0  0
+                          _______________   56,015   2  3
+                                          _______________
+Total annual demand  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  2,06,744  13  3
+                                          _______________
+
+They bold the Nazim's bond for the eighty thousand rupees, borrowed
+only eight days before his murder.
+
+_December_ 17, 1849.--Five miles to the left bank of the Ghagra,
+whence crossed over to Fyzabad, on platformed boats, prepared for the
+purpose by the Oude authorities. Our tents are in one of the large
+mango-groves, which are numerous on the right bank of the river, but
+scanty on the opposite bank. From the time we crossed this river at
+Byram-ghaut on the 5th, till we recrossed it this morning, we were
+moving in the jurisdiction of the Nazim of the Gonda and Bahraetch
+district. After recrossing the Ghagra we came within that of the
+Nazim of Sultanpoor, Aga Allee, who was appointed to it this year,
+not as a contractor, but manager, under the Durbar. The districts
+under contractors are called _ijara_, or farmed districts; those
+under the management of non-contracting servants of Government are
+called _amanee_, or districts under the _amanut_, or trust of
+Government officers. The morning was fine, the sky clear, and the
+ground covered with hoar frost. It was, pleasing to see so large a
+camp, passing without noise, inconvenience, or disorder of any kind
+in so large a river.
+
+The platformed boats were numerous, and so were the pier-heads
+prepared on both sides, for the convenience of embarking and landing.
+Carriages, horses, palankeens, camels and troops, all passed without
+the slightest difficulty. The elephants were preparing to cross, some
+in boats and some by swimming, as might seem to them best. Some
+refuse to swim, and others to enter boats, and some refuse to do
+either; but the fault is generally with their drivers. On the present
+occasion, two or three remained behind, one plunged into the stream
+from his boat, in the middle of the river, with his driver on his
+back, and both disappeared for a time, but neither was hurt. Those
+that remained on the left bank, got tired of their solitude, and were
+at last coaxed over, either in boats or in the water.
+
+The Sarjoo rejoins the Ghagra a little above Fyzabad, and the united
+stream takes the old name of the Sarjoo. This is the name the river
+bears, till it emerges from the Tarae forest, when the large body
+takes that of the Ghagra, and the small stream, which it throws off,
+or which perhaps flows in the old bed, retains that of the Sarjoo.
+The large branch absorbs the Kooreeala, Chouka, and other small
+streams, on its way to rejoin the smaller. Some distance below
+Fyzabad, the river takes the name of _Dewa_; and uniting, afterwards,
+with the Gunduck, flows into the Ganges. Fyzabad is three miles above
+Ajoodheea, on the same bank of the river. It was founded by the first
+rulers of the reigning family, and called for some time _Bungalow_,
+from a bungalow which they built on the verge of the stream. Asuf-od
+Dowlah disliked living near his mother, after he came to the throne,
+and he settled at Lucknow, then a small village on the right bank of
+the Goomtee river. This village, in the course of eighty years, grown
+into a city, containing nearly a million of souls. Fyzabad has
+declined almost in the same proportion.
+
+The Nazim has six regiments, and part of a seventh, on duty under
+him, making, nominally, six thousand fighting men, but that he
+cannot, he tells me, muster two thousand; and out of the two
+thousand, not five hundred would, he says be ready to fight on
+emergency. All the commandants of corps reside at Court, knowing
+nothing whatever of their duties, and never seeing their regiments.
+They are mere children, or Court favourites, worse than children. He
+has, nominally, forty-two guns, of various calibre; but he, with
+great difficulty, collected bullocks enough to draw the three small
+guns he brought with him from Sultanpoor, to salute the Resident, on
+his entering his district. I looked at them in the evening. They were
+seventy-four in number, but none of them were in a serviceable
+condition, and the greater part were small, merely skin and bone. He
+was obliged to purchase powder in the bazaar for the salutes; and
+said, that when he entered his charge two months ago, the usual
+salute of seven guns, for himself, could not be fired for want of
+powder, and he was obliged to send to the bazaar to purchase what was
+required. The bazaar-powder used by the Oude troops is about one-
+third of the strength of the powder used by our troops. His authority
+is despised by all the tallookdars of the district, many of whom
+refuse to pay any rent, defy the Government, and plunder the country,
+as all their rents are insufficient to pay the armed bands which they
+keep up. All his numerous applications to Court, for more and better
+troops and establishments, are disregarded, and he is helpless. He
+cannot collect the revenue, or coerce the refractory landholders and
+robbers, who prey upon the country.*
+
+[* The Nazim for 1850-51, got both Captain Magness's and Captain
+Banbury's regiments.]
+
+He says that the two companies and two guns, which were sent out at
+the Resident's urgent recommendation, to take possession of
+Shahgunge, and prevent the two brothers, Maun Sing and Rughbur Sing,
+from disturbing the peace of the country, in their contests with each
+other, joined Maun Sing, as partisan; to oppose his brother; and that
+Maun Sing has taken for himself all the _bynamah_ lands, from which
+his brother, Rughbur Sing, has been ousted, under the favour of the
+minister. He tells me also, that Beebee Sogura, the lady who holds
+the estate of Muneearpoor, and pays fifty thousand rupees a-year to
+the Government, was seized by Wajid Allee, his predecessor, before he
+made over charge of the district to him, and made over to a body of
+troops, on condition, that she should enter into engagement to pay to
+them the ten months' arrears of pay due to them, out of the rents of
+the ensuing year; and that they should give him receipts for the full
+amount of these arrears of pay at once, to be forwarded to the
+Durbar, that he might get credit for the amount in his accounts for
+last year--that she has paid them fifteen thousand rupees, but can
+collect no more from her tenants, as the crops are all being cut or
+destroyed by the troops, and she is in close confinement, and treated
+with cruel indignity. The rent-roll of her estate is, it is said,
+equal to one hundred thousand rupees a year.
+
+This was a common practice among governors of districts at the close
+of last year; and thus they got credit, on account, for large sums,
+pretended to have been paid out of the revenues of last year; but, in
+reality, to be paid out of the revenues of the ensuing year. But the
+collections are left to be made by the troops, for whose arrears of
+pay the revenue has been assigned, and they generally destroy or
+extort double what they are entitled to from their unhappy debtors.
+This practice of assigning revenues due, or to be due, by
+landholders, for the arrears of pay due to the troops, is the source
+of much evil; and is had recourse to only when contractors and other
+collectors of revenue are unable to enforce payment in any other way;
+or require to make it appear that they have collected more than they
+really have; and to saddle the revenue of the ensuing year with the
+burthens properly incident upon those of the past. The commandant of
+the troops commonly takes possession of the lands, upon the rents, or
+revenues, of which the payments have been assigned, and appropriates
+the whole produce to himself and his soldiers, without regard to the
+rights of landholders, farmers, cultivators, capitalists, or any
+other class of persons, who may have invested their capital and
+labour in the lands, or depend upon the crops for their subsistence.
+The troops, too, are rendered unfit for service by such arrangements,
+since all their time is taken up in the more congenial duty of
+looking after the estate, till they have desolated it. The officers
+and soldiers are converted into manorial under-stewards of the worst
+possible description. They are available for no other duty till they
+have paid themselves all that may have been due or may become due to
+them during the time of their stay, and credit to Government but a
+small portion of what they exact from the landholders and
+cultivators, or consume or destroy as food, fodder, and fuel.
+
+This system, injurious alike to the sovereign, the troops, and the
+people, is becoming every season more and more common in Oude; and
+must, in a few years, embrace nearly the whole of the land-revenue of
+the country. It is denominated _kubz_, or contract, and is of two
+kinds, the "_lakulame kubz_," or pledge to collect and pay a certain
+sum, for which the estate is held to be liable; and "_wuslee kubz_,"
+or pledge to pay to the collector or troops the precise sum which the
+commandant may be able to collect from the estate put under him. In
+the first, the commandant who takes the _kubz_ must pay to the
+Government collector or the troops the full sum for which the estate
+is held to be liable, whether he be able to collect it or not, and
+his _kubz_ is valid at the Treasury, as so much money paid to the
+troops. In the second, it is valid only as a pledge, to collect as
+much as he can, and to pay what he collects to the Government
+collector, or the troops he commands. The collector, however,
+commonly understands that he has shifted off the burthen of payment
+to the troops--to the extent of the sum named--from his own shoulders
+to those of the commandant of the troops; and the troops understand,
+that unless they collect this sum they will never get it, or be
+obliged to screw it out of their commandant; and they go to the work
+_con amore_. If they can't collect it from the sale of all the crops
+of the season, they seize and sell all the stock and property of all
+kinds to be found on the estate; and if this will not suffice, they
+will not scruple to seize and sell the women and children. The
+collector, whose tenure of office seldom extends beyond the season,
+cares little as to the mode as long as he gets the money, and feels
+quite sure that the sovereign and his Court will care just as little,
+and ask no questions, should the troops sell every living thing to be
+found on the estate.
+
+The history, for the last few years, of the estate of Muneearpoor,
+involves that of the estate of Kupragow and Seheepoor, held by the
+family of the late Hurpaul Sing, and may be interesting as
+illustrative of the state of society in Oude. Hurpaul Sing's family
+is shown in the accompanying note.*
+
+[* Purotee Sing had two sons, Gunga Persaud and Nihal Sing. Gunga
+Persaud had one son, Seosewak, who had three sons, Seoumber Sing,
+Hobdar Sing, and Hurpaul Sing. Seoumber Sing had one son, Ramsurroop
+Sing, the present head of the family, who holds the fort and estate
+of Kupradehee. Hobdar Sing had one son, who died young. Hurpaul Sing
+died young, Nihal Sing had no son, but left a widow, who holds his
+share of one-half of the estate, and resides at Seheepoor.]
+
+In the year A.D. 1821, after the death of Purotee Sing, his second
+son, Nihal Sing, held one-half of the estate, and resided in
+Seheepoor, and the family of his eldest son, Gunga Persaud, held the
+other half, and resided in Kupragow. The whole paid a revenue to
+Government of between six and seven hundred rupees a-year, and
+yielded a rent-roll of something more than double that sum. The
+neighbouring estate of Muneearpoor, yielding a rent-roll of about
+three hundred and fifty thousand rupees a-year, was held by Roshun
+Zuman Khan, in whose family it had been for many generations. He had
+an only brother, Busawan Khan, who died, leaving a widow, Bussoo, and
+a daughter, the Beebee, or Lady, Sogura. Roshun Zuman Khan also died,
+leaving a widow Rahamanee, who succeeded to the estate, but soon
+died, and left it to the Lady Sogura and her mother. They made Nihal
+Sing, Gurgbunsee, of Seheepoor, manager of their affairs. From the
+time that he entered upon the management, Nihil Sing began to
+increase the number of his followers from his own clan, the
+Gurgbunsies; and, having now become powerful enough, he turned out
+his mistress, and took possession of her estate, in collusion with
+the local authorities.
+
+Rajah Dursun Sing, who then, 1836, held the contract for the
+district, wished to take advantage of the occasion, to seize upon the
+estate for himself, and a quarrel, in consequence, took place between
+him and Nihal Sing. Unable, as a public servant of the State, to lead
+his own troops against him, Dursun Sing instigated Baboo Bureear
+Sing, of Bhetee, a powerful tallookdar, to attack Nihal Sing at
+night, with all the armed followers he could muster, and, in the
+fight, Nihal Sing was killed. Hurpaul Sing, his nephew, applied for
+aid to the Durbar, and Seodeen Sing was sent, with a considerable
+force, to aid him against Bureear Sing. When they were ready for the
+attack, Dursun Sing sent a reinforcement of troops, secretly, to
+Bureear Sing, which so frightened Seodeen Sing, that he retired from
+the conflict.
+
+The Gurgbunsee family had, however, by this time added a great part
+of the Muneearpoor estate to their own, and many other estates
+belonging to their weaker neighbours; and, by the plunder of
+villages, and robbery on the highways, become very powerful. Dursun
+Sing was superseded in the contract, in 1837, by the widow of Hadee
+Allee Khan; and Hurpaul recovered possession of the Muneearpoor
+estate, which he still held in the name of the _Lady Sogura_. In
+1843, she managed to get the estate transferred from the jurisdiction
+of the contractor for Sultanpoor, to that of the Hozoor Tehseel, and
+held it till 1845, when Maun Sing, who had succeeded to the contract
+for the district, on the death of his father, Dursun Sing, in 1844,
+managed through his uncle, Bukhtawar Sing, to get the estate restored
+to his jurisdiction. Knowing that his object was to absorb her
+estate, as he and his father had done so many others, she went off to
+Lucknow to seek protection; but Maun Sing seized upon all her nankar
+and seer lands, and put the estate under the management of his own
+officers. The Lady Sogura, unable to get any one to plead her cause
+at Court, in opposition to the powerful influence, of Bukhtawur Sing,
+returned to Muneearpoor. Maun Sing, after he had collected the
+greater part of the revenue for 1846, made over the estate to Hurpaul
+and Seoumber Sing, who put the lady into confinement, and plundered
+her of all she had left.
+
+Feeling now secure in the possession of the Muneearpoor estate,
+Hurpaul and Seoumber Sing left a small guard to secure the lady, and
+went off, with the rest of their forces, to seize upon the estate of
+Birsingpoor, in the purgunnah of Dehra, belonging to the widow of
+Mahdoo Sing, the tallookdar. She summoned to her aid Roostum Sa and
+other Rajkomar landholders, friends of her late husband. A fight
+ensued, in which Seoumber Sing and his brother, Hobdar Sing were
+killed. Hurpaul Sing fled and returned to his fort of Kupragow. The
+Lady Sogura escaped, and presented herself again to the Court of
+Lucknow, under better auspices; and orders were sent to Maun Sing,
+and all the military authorities, to restore her to the possession of
+her estate, and seize or destroy Hurpaul Sing. In alarm Hurpaul Sing
+then released the mother of the Lady Sogura, and prepared to fly.
+
+Maun Sing sent confidential persons to him to say, that he had been
+ordered by the Court of Lucknow to confer upon him a dress of honour
+or condolence, on the death of his two lamented brothers, and should
+do so in person the next day. Hurpaul Sing was considered one of the
+bravest men in Oude, but he was then sick on his bed, and unable to
+move. He received the message without suspicion, being anxious for
+some small interval of repose; and willing to believe that common
+interests and pursuits had united him and Maun Sing in something like
+bonds of friendship.
+
+Maun Sing came in the afternoon, and rested under a banyan-tree,
+which stood opposite the gateway of the fort. He apologized for not
+entering the fort, on the ground, that it might lead to some
+collision between their followers, or that his friend might not wish
+any of the King's servants, who attended with the dress of honour, to
+enter his fortress. Hurpaul Sing left all his followers inside the
+gate, and was brought out to Maun Sing in a litter, unable to sit up
+without support. The two friends embraced and conversed together with
+seeming cordiality till long after sunset, when Maun Sing, after
+investing his friend with the dress of honour, took leave and mounted
+his horse. This was the concerted signal for his followers to
+despatch his sick friend, Hurpaul. As he cantered off, at the sound
+of his kettle-drum and the other instruments of music, used by the
+Nazims of districts, his armed followers, who had by degrees gathered
+round the tree, without awakening any suspicion, seized the sick man,
+dragged him on the ground, a distance of about thirty paces, and then
+put him to death. He was first shot through the chest, and then
+stabbed with spears, cut to pieces with swords, and left on the
+ground. They were fired upon from the fort, while engaged in this
+foul murder, but all escaped unhurt. Maun Sing had sworn by the holy
+Ganges, and still more holy head of Mahadeo, that his friend should
+suffer no personal hurt in this interview; and the credulous and no
+less cruel and rapacious Gurgbunsies were lulled into security. The
+three persons who murdered Hurpaul, were Nujeeb Khan, who has left
+Mann Sing's service, Benee Sing, who still serves him, and Jeskurun
+Sing, who has since died. Sadik Hoseyn and many others aided them in
+dragging their victim to the place where he was murdered, but the
+wounds which killed him were inflicted by the above-named persons.
+
+The family fled, the fort was seized and plundered of all that could
+be found, and the estate seized and put under the management of
+Government officers. Maun Sing had collected half the revenues of
+1847, when he was superseded in the contract by Wajid Allee Khan, who
+re-established the Lady Sogura in the possession of all that remained
+of her estate. He, at the same time, reinstated the family of Hurpaul
+Sing, in the possession of their now large estate--that is, the widow
+of Nihal Sing, to Seheepoor, comprising one-half; and Ramsurroop
+Sing, the son of Seoumber Sing, to Kupragow, comprising the other
+half.* The rent-roll of the whole is now estimated at 1,29,000 a-
+year; and the _nankar_, or recognized allowance for the holders, is
+73,000, leaving the Government demand at 56,000, of which they hardly
+ever pay one-half, or one-quarter, being inveterate robbers and
+rebels. Wajid Allee Khan had been commissioned, by the Durbar, to
+restore the Lady Sogura to her patrimonial estate, and he brought her
+with him from Lucknow for the purpose; but he soon after made over a
+part of the estate to his friend, Bakir Allee, of Esoulee, and
+another part to Ramsurroop, the son of Seoumber Sing, for a suitable
+consideration, and left only one-half to the Lady Sogura. This she at
+first refused to take, but he promised to restore the whole the next
+year, when he saw she was resolved to return again to her friends at
+Lucknow, and she consented to take the offered half on condition of a
+large remission of the Government demand upon it. When the season of
+collections came, however, he would make no remission for the half he
+had permitted her to retain, or give her any share in the perquisites
+of the half he had made over to others; nor would he give her credit
+for any portion of the collections, which had been anticipated by
+Maun Sing. He made her pledge the whole rents of her estate to Hoseyn
+Allee Khan, the commandant of a squadron of cavalry, on detached
+duty, under him. Unable to conduct the management under all these
+outrages and exactions, she begged to have the estate put under
+Government officers. Her friends at Court got an order issued for her
+being restored to the possession of the whole estate, having credit
+for the whole amount collected by Maun Sing, and a remission in the
+revenue equal to all that Government allowed to the proprietors of
+such estates.
+
+[* In May 1851, the Nazim besieged Ramsurroop, in Kupragow, with a
+very large force, including Bunbury's and Magness's Regiments and
+Artillery. After the loss of many lives from fighting, and more from
+cholera, on both sides, Ramsurroop marched out with all his garrison
+and guns at night, and passed, unmolested, through that part of the
+line where the non-fighting corps were posted.]
+
+Wajid Allee Khan disregarded the order, and made over or sold
+Naraenpoor and other villages belonging to the estate, to Rughbur
+Sing, the atrocious brother of Maun Sing, who sent his myrmidons to
+take possession. They killed the Lady Sogura's two agents in the
+management, plundered her of all she had of property, and all the
+rents which she had up to that time collected, for payment to
+Government; and took possession of Naraenpoor and the other villages,
+sold to their master by Wajid Allee. Wajid Allee soon after came with
+a large force, seized the lady and carried her off to his camp, put
+all her officers and attendants into confinement, and refused all
+access to her. When she became ill, and appeared likely to sink under
+the treatment she received, he made her enter into written
+engagements to pay to the troops, in liquidation of their arrears of
+pay, all that he pretended that she owed to the State. He prevailed
+upon Ghuffoor Beg, who commanded the artillery, to take these her
+pledges, and give him, Wajid Allee, corresponding receipts for the
+amount, for transmission to the Treasury; and then made her over a
+prisoner to him. Ghuffoor Beg took possession of the lady and the
+estate, kept her in close confinement, and employed his artillery-men
+in making the collections in their own way, by appropriating all the
+harvests to themselves.
+
+Wajid Allee was superseded in October 1849, by Aga Allee, who, on
+entering on his charge, directed that martial-law should cease in
+Muneearpoor; but Ghuffoor Beg and his artillery-men were too strong
+for the governor, and refused to give up the possession of so nice an
+estate. When I approached the estate in my tour, Ghuffoor Beg took
+the lady off to Chundoly, where she was treated with all manner of
+indignity and cruelty by the artillery. The estate was going to utter
+ruin under their ignorant and reckless management, and the Nazim, Aga
+Allee, prayed me to interpose and save it, and protect the poor Lady
+Sogura. I represented the hardship of the case to the Durbar, but
+with little hope of any success, under the present government, who
+say, that if the troops are not allowed to pay themselves in this
+way, they shall have to pay them all the arrears for which the estate
+is pledged, not one rupee of which is reduced by the collections they
+make. If they were to hold the estate for twenty years, they would
+not allow it to appear that any portion of the arrears had been paid
+off. The estate is a noble one, and, in spite of all the usurpations
+and disorders from which it has lately suffered, was capable last
+year of yielding to Government a revenue of fifty thousand rupees a-
+year, after providing liberally for all the requirements of the poor
+Lady Sogura and her family, or a rent-roll of one hundred thousand
+rupees a-year.
+
+_December_ 19, 1849.--Shahgunge, distance twelve miles. This town is
+surrounded by a mud wall, forty feet thick, and a ditch three miles
+round, built thirty years ago, and now much out of repair. It belongs
+to the family of Rajah Bukhtawar Sing. The wall, thirty feet high,
+was built of the mud taken from the ditch, in which there is now some
+six or seven feet of water. The wall has twenty-four bastions for
+guns, but there is no platform, or road for guns, round it on the
+inside. A number of respectable merchants and tradesmen reside in
+this town, where they are better protected than in any other town in
+Oude. It contains a population of between twenty and thirty thousand
+persons. They put thatch over the mud walls during the rains to
+preserve them. The fortifications and dwelling-houses together are
+said to have cost the family above ten lacs of rupees. There are some
+fourteen old guns in the fort. Though it would be difficult to shell
+a garrison out of a fort of this extent, it would not be difficult to
+take it. No garrison, sufficient to defend all parts of so extended a
+wall, could be maintained by the holder; and it would be easy to fill
+the ditch and scale the walls. Besides, the family is so very
+unpopular among the military classes around, whose lands they have
+seized upon, that thousands would come to the aid of any government
+force brought to crush them, and overwhelm the garrison. They keep
+their position only by the purchase of Court favour, and have the
+respect and attachment of only the better sort of cultivators, who
+are not of the military classes, and could be of little use to them
+in a collision with their sovereign. The family by which it is held
+has long been very influential at Court, where it has been
+represented by Bukhtawar Sing, whose brother, Dursun Sing, was the
+most powerful subject that Oude has had since the time of Almas Allee
+Khan. They live, however, in the midst of hundreds of sturdy
+Rajpoots, whom they have deprived of their lands, and who would, as I
+have said, rise against them were they to be at any time opposed to
+the Government The country over which we have passed this morning is
+well studded with groves, and well cultivated; and the peasantry
+seemed contented and prosperous. The greater part of the road lay
+through the lands acquired, as already described, by this family.
+Though they have acquired the property in the land by abuse of
+authority, collusion and violence, from its rightful owners, they
+keep their faith with the cultivators, effectually protect them from
+thieves, robbers, the violence of their neighbours, and, above all,
+from the ravages of the King's troops; and they encourage the
+settlement of the better or more skilful and industrious classes of
+cultivators in their villages, such as Kachies, Koormies, and
+Lodhies. They came out from numerous villages, and in considerable
+bodies, to salute me, and expressed themselves well satisfied with
+their condition, and the security they enjoyed under their present
+landholders. We came through the village of Puleea, and Rajah
+Bukhtawar Sing seemed to have great pleasure in showing me the house
+in which he was born, seventy-five years ago, under a fine tamarind-
+tree that is still in vigour. The history of this family is that of
+many others in the Oude territory.
+
+The father of Bukhtawar Sing, Porunder, was the son of Mungul, a
+Brahmin, who resided in Bhojpoor, on the right bank of the Ganges, a
+little below Buxar. The son, Porunder, was united in marriage to the
+daughter of Sudhae Misser, a respectable Brahmin, who resided in
+Puleea, and held a share of the lands. He persuaded his son-in-law to
+take up his residence in the same village. Prouder had five sons born
+to him in this village:-- 1. Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, my Quartermaster-
+General. 2. Pursun Sing, died without issue. 3. Rajah Dursun Sing,
+died 1844, leaving three sons. 4. Incha Sing lives, and has two sons.
+5. Davey Sing died, leaving two sons.
+
+The eldest son was a trooper in the Honourable Company's 8th Regiment
+of Light Cavalry; and while still a very young man, and home on
+furlough, he attracted the attention of Saadnt Allee Khan, the
+sovereign of Oude, whom he attended on a sporting excursion. He was
+very tall, and exceedingly handsome; and, on one occasion, saved his
+sovereign's life from the sword of an assassin. He became one of
+Saadut Alee's favourite orderlies, and rose to the command of a
+squadron. In a fine picture of Saadut Allee and his Court on the
+occasion of a Durbar, at which the Resident, Colonel Scott, and his
+suite were present, Bukhtawar Sing is represented in the dress he
+wore as an orderly cavalry officer. This picture is still preserved
+at Lucknow. His brothers, Dursun, Incha, and Davey Sing became, one
+after the other, orderlies in the same manner, under the influence of
+Bukhtawar Sing, during the reign of Saadnt Allee, and his son,
+Ghazee-od Deen. Dursan Sing got the command of a regiment of Nujeebs
+in 1814, and Incha Sing and Davey Sing rose in favour and rank, both
+civil and military.
+
+Bhudursa and five other villages were held in proprietary right by
+the members of a family of Syuds. They enjoyed Bhudursa rent free,
+and still hold it; but the other five villages (Kyl, Mahdono,
+Tindooa, Teroo, and Pursun) were bestowed, in jagheer, upon another
+Syud, a Court favourite, Khoda Buksh, in 1814. He fell into disfavour
+in 1816, and all these and other villages were let, in 1817, to
+Dursun Sing, in farm, at 60,000 rupees a-year. The bestowal of an
+estate in jagheer, or farm, ought not to interfere with the rights of
+the proprietors of the lands comprised in it, as the sovereign
+transfers merely his own territorial rights, not theirs; but Dursun
+Sing, before the year 1820, had, by rack-renting, lending on
+mortgage, and other fraudulent or violent means, deprived all the
+Syud proprietors of their lands in the other five villages. They
+were, however, still left in possession of Bhudursa. He pursued the
+same system, as far as possible, in the other districts, which were,
+from time to time, placed under him, as contractor for the revenue.
+He held the contract for Sultanpoor and other districts, altogether
+yielding fifty-nine lacs of rupees a-year, in 1827; and it was then
+that he first bethought himself of securing his family permanently in
+the possession of the lands he had seized, or might seize upon, by
+_bynamahs_, or deeds of sale, from the old proprietors.
+
+He imposed upon the lands he coveted, rates which he knew they could
+never pay; took all the property of the proprietors for rent, or for
+the wages of the mounted and foot soldiers, whom he placed over them,
+or quartered upon their villages, to enforce his demands; seized any
+neighbouring banker or capitalist whom he could lay hold of, and by
+confinement and harsh treatment, made him stand security for the
+suffering proprietors, for sums they never owed; and when these
+proprietors were made to appear to be irretrievably involved in debt
+to the State and to individuals, and had no hope of release from
+prison by any other means, they consented to sign the _bynamahs_, or
+sale deeds for lands, which their families had possessed for
+centuries. Those of the capitalists who had no friends at Court were
+made to pay the money, for which they had been forced to pledge
+themselves; and those who had such friends, got the sums which they
+had engaged to pay, represented as irrecoverable balances due by
+proprietors, and struck off. The proprietors themselves, plundered of
+all they had in the world, and without any hope of redress, left the
+country, or took service under our Government, or that of Oude, or
+descended to the rank of day-labourers or cultivators in other
+estates.*
+
+[* Estates held by the family under _bynamahs_ or sale deeds:
+
+   1. Puchumrath .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 1,13,000
+   2. Howelee .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   45,000
+   3. Mogulsee, including Hindoo Sing's
+      estate of Shapoor, obtained by
+      fraud and violence  .  .  .  .  .  .   28,000
+   4. Bhurteepoor and Laltapoor .  .  .  .   30,000
+   5. Rudowlee   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   12,000
+      Turolee in Huldeemow.  .  .  .  .  .   17,000
+   6. Bahraetch in Sagonputtee  .  .  .  .    4,000
+   7. Gosaengunge   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .    3,000
+                                           ________
+
+            Total Company's Rupees .  .  . 2,52,000
+                                           ________
+
+
+Dursun Sing's contracts, for the land revenue, of districts, amounted
+from 1827 to 1830, to 59,00,000 rupees a year. From 1830 to 1836, to
+58,00,000. In 1836 to 46,100,000. In 1837 to 47,00,000. He continued
+to hold the whole or greater part of these districts up to September
+1843.]
+
+There were four brothers, the sons of a Canoongo, of Fyzabad; first,
+Birj Lal; second, Lala; third, Humeer Sing, a corporal in one of our
+Regiments of Native Infantry; fourth, Hunooman Persaud; fifth, Gunga
+Persaud. The family held-eight villages, in hereditary right, with a
+rent-roll of 6,000, of which they paid 3,000 to Government, and took
+3,000 for themselves. While Dursun Sing was dying, in 1844, his
+eldest son, Ramadeen, tried to get possession of this estate. He
+seized and confined, in the usual way, Gunga Persaud, the Canoongo,
+and kept him with harsh treatment, for 1844; and when his brother the
+corporal complained, in the usual way, through the Resident, Gunga
+Persaud was released, and he attended the Residents Court, as his
+brother's attorney, till 1847, when the family recovered possession
+of the estate. But in 1846, when Dursun Sing's son saw that the case
+was going against him, he made their local agent, Davey Persaud,
+plunder all the eight villages of all the stock in cattle, grain,
+&c., that they contained, and all the people, of whatever property
+they possessed.
+
+Dursun Sing's family now pay to the Oude Government, a revenue of
+1,88,000 rupees a-year, for their _bynamah_ estates, which were
+acquired by them in the manner described. The rent-roll, recognized
+in the Exchequer, is 2,56,000; and the _nankar_ 68,000; but the real
+rent-roll is much greater-perhaps double. The village of Tendooa, in
+Mehdona, belonged, in hereditary right, to Soorujbulee Sing and
+Rugonauth Sing, Rajpoots, whom the family of Dursun Sing wished to
+coerce, in the usual mode, into signing a _bynamah_, or deed of sale.
+They refused, and some of the family are said to have been in
+confinement in consequence, since the year A.D. 1844. When Gunga
+Persaud, the Canoongo, was confined by Dursun Sing's family, on
+account of his own estate, they extorted from him, on the pretence of
+his being security for the punctual payment of what might be demanded
+from these two men, Soorujbulee' and Rugonauth, the sum of 4,000
+rupees. One of the eight villages, held by the Canoongoes, named Aboo
+Surae, Ghalib Jung, alias Dursun Sing, another Court favourite, is
+now trying to take by violence, for himself, following the practice
+of his namesake. He has possessed himself of many by the same means,
+keeping the troops he commands upon them at exercise and target-
+practice, till he drives both cultivators and proprietors out, or
+shoots them.
+
+This Rajah, Ghalib Jung, is now a great favourite with the minister,
+and no man manifests a stronger disposition to make his influence
+subservient to his own interest and that of his family. By fraud and
+violence, and collusion with the officers who have charge of
+districts and require his aid at Court, he seizes upon the best lands
+of his weaker neighbours, in the same manner as his namesake, Rajah
+Dursun Sing, used to do; and of the money which he receives for
+contracts of various kinds, he appropriates by far the greater part
+to himself. He is often sent out, with a considerable force, to
+adjust disputes between landholders and local authorities, and he
+decides in favour of the party most able and willing to pay, under
+the assurance that, if called to account, he will be able to clear
+himself, by giving a share of what he gets to those who send and
+support him. He commands a large body of mounted and foot police, and
+he is often ordered to go and send detachments in pursuit of daring
+offenders, particularly those who have given offence to the British
+authorities. In such cases he generally succeeds in arresting and
+bringing in some of the offenders; but he as often seizes the
+landholders and others who may have given them shelter, intentionally
+or otherwise; and, after extorting from them as much as they can be
+made to pay, lets them go. He is not, of course, very particular as
+to the quantity or quality of the evidence forthcoming to prove that
+a person able to pay has intentionally screened the offenders from
+justice.
+
+Rajah Ghalib Jung was the superintendent of the City Police, and
+commandant of a Brigade of Infantry, and a prime favourite of the
+King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, for two years, up to November 1835. He
+had many other employments, was always in attendance upon the King,
+and was much liked by him, because he saw his orders carried into
+immediate effect, without any regard to the rank or sufferings of the
+persons whom they were to affect. For these two years he was one of
+the most intimate companions of his sovereign, in his festivities and
+most private debaucheries. He became cordially detested throughout
+the city for his reckless severity, and still more throughout the
+Court, for the fearless manner in which he spoke to the King of the
+malversation and peculations of the minister and all the Court
+favourites who were not in his interest. He thwarted the imbecile old
+minister, Roshun-od Dowlah, in everything; and never lost an
+opportunity of turning him into ridicule, and showing his contempt
+for him.
+
+The King had become very fond of a smart young lad, by name Duljeet,
+who had been brought up from his infancy by the minister, but now
+served the King as his most confidential personal attendant. He was
+paid handsomely by the minister for all the services he rendered him,
+and deeply interested in keeping him in power and unfettered, and he
+watched eagerly for an opportunity to remove the man who thwarted
+him. _Mucka_, the King's head tailor, was equally anxious, for his
+own interests, to get rid of the favourite, and so was _Gunga
+Khowas_, a boatman, another personal servant and favourite of the
+King. These three men soon interested in their cause some of the most
+influential ladies of the palace, and all sought with avidity the
+opportunity to effect their object. Ghalib Jung was the person, or
+one of the persons, through whom the King invited females, noted for
+either their beauty or their accomplishments, and he was told to
+bring a celebrated dancing-girl, named Mogaree. She did not appear,
+and the King became impatient, and at last asked Dhuneea Mehree the
+reason. She had often been employed in a similar office, and was
+jealous of Ghalib Jung's rivalry. She told his Majesty, that he had
+obstructed his pleasures on this as on many other occasions, and
+taken the lady into his own keeping. All the other favourites told
+him the same thing, and it is generally believed that the charge was
+true; indeed the girl herself afterwards confessed it. The King,
+however, "bided his time," in the hope of finding some other ground
+of revenging himself upon the favourite, without the necessity of
+making him appear in public as his rival.
+
+On the 7th of October, 1835, the King was conversing with Ghalib
+Jung, in one of his private apartments, on affairs of state. Several
+crowns stood on the table for the King's inspection. They had been
+prepared under Mucka, the tailor's, inspection, from materials
+purchased by him. He always charged the King ten times the price of
+the articles which he was ordered to provide, and Ghalib Jung thought
+the occasion favourable to expose his misconduct to his master. He
+took up one of the crowns, put his left hand into it, and, turning it
+round on his finger, pointed out the flimsy nature of the materials
+with which it had been made. His left finger slipped through the silk
+on the crown, whether accidentally, or designedly, to prove the
+flimsy nature of the silk and exasperate the King, is not known; but
+on seeing the finger pass through the crown, his Majesty left the
+room without saying a word. Soon after several attendants came in,
+surrounded Ghalib Jung, and commanded him to remain till further
+orders. In this state they remained for about two hours, when other
+attendants came in, struck off his turban on the floor, and had it
+kicked out of the room by sweepers.
+
+They then dragged out Ghalib Jung, and thrust him into prison. The
+next day heavy iron fetters were put upon his legs, and upon those of
+three of his principal followers, who were imprisoned along with him;
+and his mother, father, wife, and daughters were made prisoners in
+their own houses; and all the property of the family that could be
+found was confiscated. On the third day, while still in irons, Ghalib
+Jung and his three followers were tied up and flogged severely, to
+make them point out any hidden treasure that they might have. That
+night the King got drunk, and, before many persons, ordered the
+minister to have Ghalib Jung's right hand and nose cut off forthwith.
+The minister, who prayed forgiveness and forbearance, was abused and
+again commanded, but again entreated his Majesty to pause, and prayed
+for a private audience. It was granted, and the minister told his
+Majesty that the British Government would probably interpose if the
+order were carried into effect.
+
+The King then retired to rest, but the next morning had Ghalib Jung
+and his three followers again tied up and flogged. Six or seven days
+after, all Ghalib Jung's attendants were taken from him, and no
+person was permitted to enter the room where he lay in irons, and he
+could in consequence get neither food nor drink of any kind. On the
+19th of October, the King ordered all the females of Ghalib Jung's
+family to be brought on foot from their houses to the palace by
+force, and publicly declared that they should all on the next day
+have their hair shaved off, be stripped naked, and in that state
+turned out into the street. After giving these orders, the King went
+to bed, and the females were all brought, as ordered, to the palace;
+but the sympathies of the King's own servants were excited by the
+sufferings of these unoffending females, and they disobeyed the order
+for their being made to walk on foot through the streets, and brought
+them in covered litters.
+
+The Resident, apprehending that these poor females might be further
+disgraced, and Ghalib Jung starved to death, determined to interpose,
+and demanded an interview, while the King was still in bed. The King
+was sorely vexed, and sent the minister to the Resident to request
+that he would not give himself the trouble to come, if his object was
+to relieve Ghalib Jung's family, as he would forthwith order the
+females to be taken to their homes. The minister had not been to the
+Resident for ten or twelve days, or from the first or second day
+after the fall of the favourite. He prayed that the Resident would
+not speak harshly to the King on the subject of the treatment Ghalib
+Jung and his family had received, lest he, the minister, should
+himself suffer. The Resident insisted upon an audience. He found the
+King sullen and doggedly silent. The minister was present, and spoke
+for his master. He denied, what was known to be true, that the
+prisoner had been kept for two days and two nights' without food or
+drink; but admitted that he had been tied up and flogged severely,
+and that the females of his family were still there, but he promised
+to send them back. He said that it was necessary to confiscate the
+property of the prisoner, since he owed large sums to the State. The
+females were all sent back to their homes, and Ghalib Jung was
+permitted, to have four of his own servants in attendance upon him.
+
+The Resident reported all these things to Government, who entirely
+approved of his proceedings; and desired that he would tell his
+Majesty that such savage and atrocious proceedings would ruin his
+reputation, and, if persisted in, bring on consequences most
+injurious to himself. When the Resident, at the audience above
+described, remonstrated with the King for not calling upon his
+officers periodically to render their accounts, instead of letting
+them run on for indefinite periods, and then confining them and
+confiscating their property, he replied--"What you state is most
+true, and you may be assured that I will in future make every one
+account to me every three months for the money he has received, and
+never again show favour to any one."
+
+Rajah Dursun Sing, the great revenue contractor, and at that time the
+most powerful of the King's subjects beyond the precincts of the
+Court, had, like the minister himself, been often thwarted by Ghalib
+Jung when in power; and, after the interposition of the Resident, he
+applied to have him put into his power. The King and minister were
+pleased at the thought of making their victim suffer beyond the
+immediate supervision of a vigilant Resident, and the minister made
+him over to the Rajah for a _consideration_, it is said, of three
+lacs of rupees; and at the same time assured the Resident that this
+was the only safe way to rescue him from the further vengeance of an
+exasperated King; that Rajah Dursun Sing was a friend of his, and
+would provide him and his family and attendants with ample
+accommodation and comfort. The Rajah had him put into an iron cage,
+and sent to his fort at Shahgunge, where, report says, he had snakes
+and scorpions put into the cage to torment and destroy him, but that
+Ghalib Jung had "a charmed life," and escaped their poison. The
+object is said to have been to torment and destroy him without
+leaving upon his body any marks of violence.
+
+On the death of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, Ghalib Jung was released from
+confinement, on the payment, it is said, of four lacs of rupees, in
+Government securities, and a promise of three lacs more if restored
+to office. He went to reside at Cawnpore, in British territory; but,
+on the dismissal of the minister, Roshun-od Dowlah, three months
+after, and the appointment of Hakeem Mehndee to his place, Ghalib
+Jung was restored to his place. The promise of the three lacs was
+communicated to the new King, Mahommed Allee Shah, by Roshun-od
+Dowlah himself, while in confinement; and it is said that Ghalib Jung
+paid one-half, or one hundred and fifty thousand.
+
+Ghalib Jung had, in many other ways, abused the privileges of
+intimate companionship which he enjoyed with his master, as better
+servants under better and more guarded masters will do; and the King,
+having discovered this, had for some time resolved to take advantage
+of the first fair occasion to discharge him. The people of Lucknow
+liked their King, with all his faults--and they were many--and hated
+the favourite as much for the injury which he did to his master's
+reputation, as for the insults and injuries inflicted by him on
+themselves. But when the unoffending females of the favourite were
+dragged from their privacy to the palace, to be disgraced, the
+feelings of the whole city were shocked, and expressed in tones which
+alarmed the minister as much as the Resident's interposition alarmed
+the King. They had no sympathy for the fallen favourite, but a very
+deep one for the ladies and children of his family, who could have no
+share in his guilt, whatever it might be.
+
+Ghalib Jung was raised, from a very humble grade, by Ghazee-od Deen
+Hyder, and about the year 1825 he had become as great a favourite
+with him as he afterwards became with his son, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder,
+and he abused his master's favour in the same manner. The minister,
+Aga Meer, finding his interference and vulgar insolence intolerable,
+took advantage one day of the King's anger against him, had him
+degraded, seized, and sent off forthwith to one of his creatures,
+Taj-od Deen Hoseyn, then in charge of the Sultanpoor district, where
+he was soon reduced almost to death's door by harsh treatment and
+want of food, and made to disgorge all the wealth he had accumulated.
+Four years after the death of Ghazee-od Deen and the accession of his
+son, Nuseer-od Deen, Ghalib Jung was, in the year 1831, again
+appointed to a place of trust at Court by the minister, Hakeem
+Mehndee, who managed to keep him in order during the two years that
+he held the reins of government.*
+
+[* Ghalib Jung died on the 1st of May 1851, at Lucknow, aged about 80
+years.]
+
+_December_ 20, 1849.--Saleepoor, ten miles. The country, on both
+sides of the road, well studded with trees, hamlets, and villages,
+and well cultivated and peopled. The landholders and peasantry seem
+all happy and secure under their present masters, the brother and son
+of the late Dursun Sing. They are protected by them from thieves and
+robbers, the attacks of refractory barons, and, above all, from the
+ravages of the King's troops; and the whole face of the country, at
+this season, is like that of a rich garden. The whole is under
+cultivation, and covered with the greatest possible variety of crops.
+The people showed us, as we passed, six kinds of sugar-cane, and told
+us that they had many more, one soil agreeing best with one kind,
+another with another. The main fault in the cultivation of sugar-cane
+is here, as in every other part of India that I have seen, the want
+of room and the disregard of cleanliness. They crowd the cane too
+much, and never remove the decayed leaves, and sufficient air is
+never admitted.
+
+Bukhtawar Sing has always been considered as the head of the family
+to whom Shahgunge belongs, but he has always remained at Court, and
+left the local management of the estate and the government of the
+districts, placed under their charge in contract or in trust, to his
+brothers and nephews. Bukhtawar Sing has no child of his own, but he
+has adopted Maun Sing, the youngest son of his brother, Dursun Sing,
+and he leaves all local duties and responsibilities to him. He is a
+small, slight man, but shrewd, active, and energetic, and as
+unscrupulous as a man can be. Indeed old Bukhtawar Sing himself is
+the only member of the family that was ever troubled with scruples of
+any kind whatever; for he is the only one whose boyhood was not
+passed in the society of men in the every-day habit of committing
+with impunity all kinds of cruelties, atrocities, and outrages. There
+is, perhaps, no school in the world better adapted for training
+thoroughbred ruffians (men without any scruple of conscience, sense
+of honour, or feeling of humanity) than the camp of a revenue-
+contractor in Oude. It has been the same for the last thirty years
+that I have known it, and must continue to be the same as long as _we
+maintain, in absolute sway over the people, a sovereign who never
+bestows a thought upon them, has no feeling in common with them, and
+can never be persuaded that his high office imposes upon him the
+obligation to labour to promote their good, or even to protect them
+against the outrage and oppression of his own soldiers and civil
+officers_. All Rajah Bukhtawar Sing's brothers and nephews were bred
+up in such camps, and are thorough-bred ruffians.
+
+They have got the lands which they hold by much fraud and violence no
+doubt, but they have done much good to them. They have invited and
+established in comfort great numbers of the best classes of
+cultivators from other districts, in which they had ceased to feel
+secure, and they have protected and encouraged those whom they found
+on the land. To establish a new cultivator of the better class, they
+require to give him about twenty-five rupees for a pair of bullocks;
+for subsistence for himself and family till his crops ripen, thirty-
+six more, for a house, wells, &c., thirty more, or about ninety
+rupees, which he pays back with or without interest by degrees. Every
+village and hamlet is now surrounded by fine garden cultivation,
+conducted by the cultivators of the gardener caste, whom the family
+has thus established.
+
+The greatest benefit conferred upon the lands which they hold has
+been in the suppression of the fearful contests which used to be
+perpetual between the small proprietors of the military classes,
+among whom the lands had become minutely subdivided by the law of
+inheritance, about boundaries and rights to water for irrigation.
+Many persons used to be killed every year in these contests, and
+their widows and orphans had to be maintained by the survivors. Now
+no such dispute leads to any serious conflict. They are all settled
+at once by arbitrators, who are guided in their decisions by the
+accounts of the Putwaries of villages and Canoongoes of districts.
+These men have the detailed accounts of every tenement for the last
+hundred years; and, with their assistance, village traditions, and
+the advice of their elders, all such boundary disputes and
+misunderstandings about rights to water are quickly and amicably
+adjusted; and the landlords are strong, and able to enforce whatever
+decision is pronounced. They are wealthy, and pay the Government
+demand punctually, and have influence at Court to prevent any attempt
+at oppression on the part of Government officers on themselves or
+their tenants. Not a thief or a robber can live or depredate among
+their tenants. The hamlets are, in consequence, numerous and peopled
+by peasantry, who seem to live without fear. They adhere strictly to
+the terms of their engagements with their tenants of all grades; and
+their tenants all pay their rents punctually, unless calamities of
+season deprive them of the means, when due consideration is made by
+landlords, who live among them, and know what they suffer and
+require.
+
+The climate must be good, for the people are strong and well-made,
+and without any appearance of disease. Hardly a beggar of any kind is
+to be seen along the road. The residence of religious mendicants
+seems to be especially discouraged, and we see no others. It is very
+pleasing to pass over such lands after going through such districts
+as Bahraetch and Gonda, where the signs of the effects of bad air and
+water upon men, women, and children are so sad and numerous; and
+those of the abuse of power and the neglect of duty on the part of
+the Government and its officers are still more so.
+
+Last evening I sent for the two men above named, who had been
+confined for six or seven years, and were said to have been so
+because they would not sign the _bynamahs_ required from them by Mann
+Sing: their names are Soorujbulee Sing and Rugonath Sing. They came
+with the King's wakeel, accompanied by their cousin, Hunooman Sing,
+on whose charge they were declared to have been confined. I found
+that the village of Tendooa had been held by their family, in
+proprietary right, for many generations, and that they were Chouhan
+Rajpoots by caste. When Dursun Sing was securing to himself the lands
+of the district, those of Tendooa were held in three equal shares by
+Soorujbulee and his brothers, Narind and Rugonath; Hunooman Sing,
+their cousin; and Seoruttun, their cousin.
+
+Maun Sing took advantage of a desperate quarrel between them, and
+secured Soorujbulee and Rugonath. Narind escaped and joined a
+refractory tallookdar, and Seoruttun and Hunooman did the same.
+Hunooman Sing was, however, invited back, and intrusted, by Maun
+Sing, with the management of the whole estate, on favourable terms.
+In revenge for his giving in to the terms of Maun Sing, and serving
+him, the absconded co-sharers attacked his house several times,
+killed three of his brothers, and many other persons of his family,
+and robbed him of almost all he had. This was four years ago. He
+complained, and the two brothers were kept more strictly confined
+than ever, to save him and the village. Hunooman Sing looked upon the
+two prisoners as the murderers of his brothers, though they were in
+confinement when they were killed, and had been so for more than two
+years, and was very violent against them in my presence. They were no
+less violent against him, as the cause of their continued confinement
+They protested to me, that they had no communication whatever with
+Seoruttun or Narind Sing, but thought it very likely, that they
+really did lead the gangs in the attacks upon the village, to recover
+their rights. They offered to give security for their future good
+behaviour if released; but declared, that they would rather die than
+consent to sign a _bynamah_, or deed of sale, or any relinquishment
+whatever of their hereditary rights as landholders.
+
+Bukhtawar and Maun Sing said,--"That the people of the village would
+not be safe, for a moment, if these two brothers were released, which
+they would be, on the first occasion of thanksgiving, if sent to
+Lucknow; that people who ventured to seize a thief or robber in Oude
+must keep him, if they wished to save themselves from his future
+depredations, as the Government authorities would have nothing to do
+with them."
+
+I ordered the King's wakeel to take these two brothers to the
+Chuckladar, and request him to see them released on their furnishing
+sufficient security for their future good behaviour, which they
+promised to produce.* They were all fine-looking men, with limbs that
+would do honour to any climate in the world. These are the families
+from which our native regiments are recruited; and hardly a young
+recruit offers himself for enlistment, on whose body marks will not
+be found of wounds received in these contests, between landlords
+themselves, and between them and the officers and troops of the
+sovereign. I have never seen enmity more strong and deadly than that
+exhibited by contending co-sharers and landholders of all kinds in
+Oude. The Rajah of Bulrampoor mentioned a curious instance of this
+spirit in a village, now called the _Kolowar_ village, in the Gonda
+district, held in copartnership by a family of the Buchulgotee tribe
+of Rajpoots. One of them said he should plant sugar-cane in one of
+his fields. All consented to this. But when he pointed out the place
+where he should have his mill, the community became divided. A
+contest ensued, in which all the able-bodied men were killed, though
+not single cane had been planted. The widows and children survived,
+and still hold the village, but have been so subdued by poverty that
+they are the quietest village community in the district. The village
+from that time has gone by the name of _Kolowar_ village, from Koloo,
+the sugar-mill, though no sugar-mill was ever worked in the village,
+he believed. He says, the villagers cherish the recollection of this
+_fight_; and get very angry when their neighbours _twit_ them with
+the folly of it.
+
+[* They were released, and have been ever since at large on security.
+One of them visited me in April 1851, and said, that as a point of
+honour, they should abstain from joining in the fight for their
+rights, but felt it very hard to be bound to do so.]
+
+In our own districts in Upper India, they often kill each other in
+such contests; but more frequently ruin each other in litigation in
+our Civil Courts, to the benefit of the native attorneys and law-
+officers, who fatten on the misery they create or produce. In Oude
+they always decide such questions by recourse to arms, and the loss
+of life is no doubt fearful. Still the people generally, or a great
+part of them, would prefer to reside in Oude, under all the risks to
+which these contests expose them, than in our own districts, under
+the evils the people are exposed to from the uncertainties of our
+law, the multiplicity and formality of our Courts, the pride and
+negligence of those who preside over them, and the corruption and
+insolence of those who must be employed to prosecute or defend a
+cause in them, and enforce the fulfilment of a decree when passed.
+
+The members of the landed aristocracy of Oude always speak with
+respect of the administration in our territories, but generally end
+with remarking on the cost and uncertainty of the law in civil cases,
+and the gradual decay, under its operation, of all the ancient
+families. A less and less proportion of the annual produce of their
+lands is left to them in our periodical settlements of the land
+revenue, while family pride makes them expend the same sums in the
+marriage of their children, in religious and other festivals,
+personal servants, and hereditary retainers. They fall into balance,
+incur heavy debts, and estate after estate is put up to auction, and
+the proprietors are reduced to poverty. They say, that four times
+more of these families have gone to decay in the half of the
+territory made over to us in 1801, than in the half reserved by the
+Oude sovereign; and this is, I fear, true. They named the families--I
+cannot remember them.
+
+In Oude, the law of primogeniture prevails among all the tallookdars,
+or principal landholders; and, to a certain extent, among the middle
+class of landholders, of the Rajpoot or any other military class. If
+one co-sharer of this class has several sons, his eldest often
+inherits all the share he leaves, with all the obligations incident
+upon it, of maintaining the rest of the family.
+
+The brothers of Soorujbulee, above named, do not pretend to have any
+right of inheritance in the share of the lands he holds; but they
+have a prescriptive right to support from him, for themselves and
+families, when they require it. This rule of primogeniture is,
+however, often broken through during the lifetime of the father, who,
+having more of natural affection than family pride, divides the lands
+between his sons. After his death they submit to this division, and
+take their respective shares, to descend to their children, by the
+law of primogeniture, or be again subdivided as may seem to them
+best; or they fight it out among themselves, till the strongest gets
+all. Among landholders of the smallest class, whether Hindoos or
+Mahommedans, the lands are subdivided according to the ordinary law
+of inheritance.
+
+Our army and other public establishments form a great "safety-valve"
+for Oude, and save it from a vast deal of fighting for shares in
+land, and the disorders that always attend it. Younger brothers
+enlist in our regiments, or find employment in our civil
+establishments, and leave their wives and children under the
+protection of the elder brother, who manages the family estate for
+the common good. They send the greater part of their pay to him for
+their subsistence, and feel assured that he will see that they are
+provided for, should they lose their lives in our service. From the
+single district of Byswara in Oude, sixteen thousand men were, it is
+said, found to be so serving in our army and other establishments;
+and from Bunoda, which adjoins it to the east, fifteen thousand, on
+an inquiry ordered to be made by Ghazee-od Deen Hyder some twenty-
+five years ago.
+
+The family of Dursun Sing, like good landholders in all parts of
+Oude, assigned small patches of land to substantial cultivators,
+merchants, shopkeepers, and others, whom it is useful to retain in
+their estates, for the purpose of planting small groves of mango and
+other trees, as local ties. They prepare the well and plant the
+trees, and then make over the land to a gardener or other good
+cultivator, to be tilled for his own profit, on condition that he
+water the trees, and take care to preserve them from frost during the
+cold season, and from rats, white ants, and other enemies; and form
+terraces round them, where the water lies much on the surface during
+the rains, so that it may not reach and injure the bark. The land
+yields crops till the trees grow large and cover it with their shade,
+by which time they are independent of irrigation, and begin to bear
+fruit. The crops do not thrive under the shade of the trees, and the
+lands they cover cease to be of any value for tillage. The stems and
+foliage of the trees, no doubt, deprive the crops of the moisture,
+carbonic gas and ammonia, they require from the atmosphere. They are,
+generally, watered from six to ten years. These groves form a
+valuable local tie for the cultivators and other useful tenants. No
+man dare to molest them or their descendants, in the possession of
+their well and grove, without incurring, at least, the odium of
+society; and, according to their notion, the anger of their gods.
+
+The cultivators always point out to them, in asserting their rights
+to the lands they hold; and reside and cultivate in the village,
+under circumstances that would drive them away, had they no such ties
+to retain them. They feel a-great pride in them; and all good
+landlords feel the same in having their villages filled with tenants
+who have such ties.
+
+_December_ 21, 1849.--Bhurteepoor, ten miles, almost all the way
+through the estate of Maun Sing. No lands could be better cultivated
+than they are all the way, or better studded with groves and
+beautiful single trees. The villages and hamlets along the road are
+numerous, and filled with cultivators of the gardener and other good
+classes, who seem happy and contented. The season has been
+favourable, and the crops are all fine, and of great variety. Sugar-
+cane abounds, but no mills are, as yet, at work. We passed through,
+and by three or four villages, that have been lately taken from Maun
+Sing, and made over to farmers by the local authorities, under
+instructions from Court; but they are not so well cultivated, as
+those which he retains. The cultivators and inhabitants generally do
+not appear to enjoy the same protection or security in the
+engagements they make. The soil is everywhere good, the water near
+the surface, and the climate excellent. The soil is here called
+doomuteea, and adapted to all kinds of tillage.
+
+I should mention, with regard to the subdivision of landed property,
+that the Rajahs and tallookdars, among whom the law of primogeniture
+prevails, consider their estates as principalities, or _reeasuts_.
+When any Rajah, or tallookdar, during his lifetime, assigns portions
+of the land to his sons, brothers, or other members of the family,
+they are separated from the _reeasut_, or principality, and are
+subdivided as they descend from generation to generation, by the
+ordinary Hindoo or Mahommedan law of inheritance. This is the case
+with portions of the estate of the Rajah of Korwar, in the Sultanpoor
+district, one of the oldest Hindoo principalities in Oude, which are
+now held by his cousins, nephews, &c., near this place, Bhurteepoor.*
+
+[* Sunkur Sing, of Korwar, had four sons: first, Dooneeaput died
+without issue; second, Sookraj Sing, whose grandson, Madhoo Persaud,
+is now the Rajah; third, Bureear Sing, who got from his brother lands
+yielding forty thousand rupees a-year out of the principality. They
+are now held by his son, Jydut; fourth, Znbar Sing, who got from his
+brother lands yielding nineteen thousand rupees a-year, which are now
+held by his son, Moheser Persaud. Sunkir Sing was the second brother,
+but his elder brother died without issue.]
+
+Dooneeaput succeeded to the _reeasut_ on the death of his uncle, the
+Rajah, who died without issue; and he bestowed portions of the estate
+on his brothers, Burear and Zubur Sing, which their descendants
+enjoy, but which do not go to the eldest son, by the law of
+primogeniture. He was succeeded by his brother, Sookraj, whose
+grandson, Madhoo Persaud, now reigns as Rajah, and has the undivided
+possession of the lands belonging to this branch. All the descendants
+of his grandfather, Sookraj, and their widows and orphans, have a
+right to protection and support from him, and to nothing more. Jydut,
+who now holds the lands, yielding forty thousand rupees a-year,
+called upon me, this morning, and gave me this history of his family.
+The Rajah himself is in camp, and came to visit me this afternoon.
+
+It is interesting and pleasing to see a large, well-controlled camp,
+moving in a long line through a narrow road or pathway, over plains,
+covered with so rich a variety of crops, and studded with such
+magnificent evergreen trees. The solitary mango-tree, in a field of
+corn, seems to exult in its position-to grow taller and spread wider
+its branches and rich foliage, in situations where they can be seen
+to so much advantage. The peepul and bargut trees, which, when
+entire, are still more ornamental, are everywhere torn to pieces and
+disfigured by the camels and elephants, buffaloes and bullocks, that
+feed upon their foliage and tender branches. There are a great many
+mhowa, tamarind, and other fine trees, upon which they do not feed,
+to assist the mango in giving beauty to the landscape.
+
+The Korwar Rajah, Madhoo Persaud, a young man of about twenty-two
+years of age, came in the evening, and confirmed what his relative,
+Jydut, had told me of the rule which required that his lands should
+remain undivided with his eldest son, while those which are held by
+Jydut, and his other relatives, should be subdivided among all the
+sons of the holder. This rule is more necessary in Oude than
+elsewhere, to preserve a family and its estate from the grasp of its
+neighbours and Government officers. When there happens to be no heir
+left to the portion of the estate which has been cut off, it is re-
+annexed to the estate; and the head of the family frequently
+anticipates the event, by murdering or imprisoning the heir or
+incumbent, and seizing upon the lands. Another Rajah, of the same
+name, Mahdoo Persaud, of Amethee, in Salone, has lately seized upon
+the estate of Shahgur, worth twenty thousand rupees a-year, which had
+been cut off from the Amethee estate, and enjoyed by a collateral
+branch of the family for several generations. He holds the
+proprietor, Bulwunt Sing, in prison, in irons, and would soon make
+away with him were the Oude Government to think it worth while to
+inquire after him. He has seized upon another portion, Ramgur, held
+by another branch of the family, worth six thousand rupees a-year,
+and crushed all the proprietors. This is the way in which estates,
+once broken up, are reconsolidated in Oude, under energetic and
+unscrupulous men. Of course when they think it worth while to do so,
+they purchase the collusion of the local authorities of the day, by
+promising to pay the revenues, which the old proprietors paid during
+their tenure of office. The other barons do not interfere, unless
+they happen to be connected by marriage with the ousted proprietors,
+or otherwise specially bound, by interest and honour, to defend them
+against the grasp of the head of their family. Many struggles of this
+kind are taking place every season in Oude.
+
+
+                      __________________________
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+Recross the Goomtee river--Sultanpoor Cantonments--Number of persons
+begging redress of wrongs, and difficulty of obtaining it in Oude--
+Apathy of the Sovereign--Incompetence and unfitness of his Officers--
+Sultanpoor, healthy and well suited for Troops--Chandour, twelve
+miles distant, no less so--lands of their weaker neighbours absorbed
+by the family of Rajah Dursun Sing, by fraud, violence, and
+collusion; but greatly improved--Difficulty attending attempt to
+restore old Proprietors--Same absorptions have been going on in all
+parts of Oude--and the same difficulty to be everywhere encountered--
+Soils in the district, _mutteear_, _doomutteea_, _bhoor_, _oosur--
+Risk at which lands are tilled under Landlords opposed to their
+Government--Climate of Oude more invigorating than that of Malwa--
+Captain Magness's Regiment--Repair of artillery guns--Supply of grain
+to its bullocks--Civil establishment of the Nazim--Wolves--Dread of
+killing them among Hindoos--Children preserved by them in their dens,
+and nurtured.
+
+
+_December_ 22, 1849.--Sultanpoor, eight miles. Recrossed the Goomtee
+river, close under the Cantonments, over a bridge of boats prepared
+for the purpose, and encamped on the parade-ground. The country over
+which we came was fertile and well cultivated. For some days we have
+seen and heard a good many religions mendicants, both Mahommedans and
+Hindoos, but still very few lame, blind, and otherwise helpless
+persons, asking charity. The most numerous and distressing class of
+beggars that importune me, are those who beg redress for their
+wrongs, and a remedy for their grievances,--"their name, indeed, is
+_Legion_," and their wrongs and grievances are altogether without
+remedy, under the present government and inveterately vicious system
+of administration. It is painful to listen to all these complaints,
+and to have to refer the sufferers for redress to authorities who
+want both the power and the will to afford it; especially when one
+knows that a remedy for almost every evil is hoped for from a visit
+such as the poor people are now receiving from the Resident. He is
+expected "to wipe the tears from off all faces;" and feels that he
+can wipe them from hardly any. The reckless disregard shown by the
+depredators of all classes and degrees to the sufferings of their
+victims, whatever be the cause of discontent or object of pursuit, is
+lamentable. I have every day scores of petitions delivered to me
+"with quivering lip and tearful eye," by persons who have been
+plundered of all they possessed, had their dearest relatives murdered
+or tortured to death, and their habitations burnt to the ground, by
+gangs of ruffians, under landlords of high birth and pretensions,
+whom they had never wronged or offended; some, merely because they
+happened to have property, which the ruffians wished to take--others,
+because they presumed to live and labour upon lands which they
+coveted, or deserted, and wished to have left waste. In these
+attacks, neither age, nor sex, nor condition are spared. The greater
+part of the leaders of these gangs of ruffians are Rajpoot
+landholders, boasting descent from the sun and moon, or from the
+demigods, who figure in the Hindoo religious fictions of the Poorans.
+There are, however, a great many Mahommedans at the head of similar
+gangs. A landholder of whatever degree, who is opposed to his
+government from whatever cause, considers himself in a state of
+_war_', and he considers a state of war to authorize his doing all
+those things which he is forbidden to do in a state of peace.
+
+Unless the sufferer happens to be a native officer or sipahee of our
+army, who enjoys the privilege of urging his claims through the
+Resident, it is a cruel mockery to refer him for redress to any
+existing local authority. One not only feels that it is so, but sees,
+that the sufferer thinks that he must know it to be so. No such
+authority considers it to be any part of his duty to arrest evil-
+doers, and inquire into and redress wrongs suffered by individuals,
+or families, or village communities. Should he arrest such people, he
+would have to subsist and accommodate them at his own cost, or to
+send them to Lucknow, with the assurance that they would in a few
+days or a few weeks purchase their way out again, in spite of the
+clearest proofs of the murders, robberies, torturings, dishonourings,
+house-burning, &c., which they have committed. No sentence, which any
+one local authority could pass on such offenders, would be recognised
+by any other authority in the State, as valid or sufficient to
+justify him in receiving and holding them in confinement for a single
+day. The local authorities, therefore, either leave the wrong-doers
+unmolested, with the understanding that they are to abstain from
+doing any such wrong within their jurisdictions as may endanger or
+impede the _collection of revenues_ during their period of office, or
+release them with that understanding after they have squeezed all
+they can out of them. The wrong-doers can so abstain, and still be
+able to _murder, rob, torture, dishonour, and burn_, upon a pretty
+large scale; and where they are so numerous, and so ready to unite
+for purposes "offensive and defensive," and the local authorities so
+generally connive at or quietly acquiesce all their misdeeds, any
+attempt on the part of an honest or overzealous individual to put
+them down would be sure to result in his speedy and utter ruin!
+
+To refer such sufferers to the authorities at Lucknow would be a
+still more cruel mockery. The present sovereign never hears a
+complaint or reads a petition or report of any kind. He is entirely
+taken up in the pursuit of his personal gratifications. He has no
+desire to be thought to take any interest whatever in public affairs;
+and is altogether regardless of the duties and responsibilities of
+his high office. He lives, exclusively, in the society of fiddlers,
+eunuchs, and women: he has done so since his childhood, and is likely
+to do so to the last. His disrelish for any other society has become
+inveterate: he cannot keep awake in any other. In spite of average
+natural capacity, and more than average facility in the cultivation
+of light literature, or at least "_de faire des petits vers de sa
+focon_," his understanding has become so emasculated, that he is
+altogether unfit for the conduct of his domestic, much less his
+public, affairs. He sees occasionally his prime minister, who takes
+care to persuade him that he does all that a King ought to do; and
+nothing whatever of any other minister. He holds no communication
+whatever with brothers, uncles, cousins, or any of the native
+gentlemen at Lucknow, or the landed or official aristocracy of the
+country. He sometimes admits a few poets or poetasters to hear and
+praise his verses, and commands the unwilling attendance of some of
+his relations, to witness and applaud the acting of some of his own
+silly comedies, on the penalty of forfeiting their stipends; but any
+one who presumes to approach him, even in his rides or drives, with a
+petition for justice, is instantly clapped into prison, or otherwise
+severely punished.
+
+His father and grandfather, while on the throne, used to see the
+members of the royal family and aristocracy of the city in Durbar
+once a-day, or three or four times a-week, and have all petitions and
+reports read over in their own presence. They dictated the orders,
+and their seal was affixed to them in their own presence, bearing the
+inscription _molahiza shud_, "it has been seen." The seal was then
+replaced in the casket, which was kept by one confidential servant,
+Muzd-od Dowlah, while the key was confided to another. Documents were
+thus read and orders passed upon them twice a-day-once in the
+morning, and once again in the evening; and, on such occasions, all
+heads of departments were present. The present King continued this
+system for a short time, but he soon got tired of it, and made over
+seal and all to the minister, to do what he liked with them; and
+discontinued altogether the short Durbar, or levees, which his
+father, grandfather, and all former sovereigns had held--before they
+entered on the business of the day--with the heads of departments and
+secretaries, and at which all the members of the royal family and
+aristocracy of the city attended, to pay their respects to their
+sovereign; and soon ceased altogether to see the heads of departments
+and secretaries, to hear orders read, and to ask questions about
+state affairs.
+
+The minister has become by degrees almost as inaccessible as his
+sovereign, to all but his deputies, heads of departments,
+secretaries, and Court favourites, whom it is his interest to
+conciliate. Though the minister has his own confidential deputies and
+secretaries, the same heads of departments are in office as under the
+present King's father and grandfather; and, though no longer
+permitted to attend upon or see the King, they are still supposed to
+submit to the minister, for orders, all reports from local
+authorities, intelligence-writers, &c., and all petitions from
+sufferers; but, in reality, he sees and hears read very few, and
+passes orders upon still less. Any head of a department, deputy,
+secretary, or favourite, may receive petitions, to be submitted to
+the minister for orders; but it is the special duty of no one to
+receive them, nor is any one held responsible for submitting them for
+orders. Those only who are in the special confidence of the minister,
+or of those about Court, from whom he has something to hope or
+something to fear, venture to receive and submit petitions; and they
+drive a profitable trade in doing so. A large portion of those
+submitted are thrown aside, without any orders at all; a portion have
+orders so written as to show that they are never intended to be
+carried into effect; a third portion receive orders that are really
+intended to be acted upon. But they are taken to one of the
+minister's deputies, with whose views or interests some of them may
+not square well; and he may detain them for weeks, months, or years,
+till the petitioners are worn out with "hope deferred," or utterly
+ruined, in vain efforts to purchase the attention they require.
+Nothing is more common than for a peremptory order to be passed for
+the immediate payment of the arrears of pension due to a stipendiary
+member of the royal family, and for the payment to be deferred for
+eight, ten, and twelve months, till he or she consents to give from
+ten to twenty per cent., according to his or her necessities, to the
+deputy, who has to see the order carried out. A sufferer often,
+instead of getting his petition smuggled on to the minister in the
+mode above described, bribes a news-writer to insert his case in his
+report, to be submitted through the head of the department.
+
+At present the head of the intelligence department assumes the same
+latitude, in submitting reports for orders to the minister, that his
+subordinates in distant districts assume in framing and sending them
+to him; that is, he submits only such as may suit his views and
+interests to submit! Where grave charges are sent to him against
+substantial men, or men high in office, he comes to an understanding
+with their representatives in Lucknow, and submits the report to the
+minister only as a _derniere resort_, when such representatives
+cannot be brought to submit to his terms. If found out, at any time,
+and threatened, he has his feed _patrons_ or _patronesses_ "behind
+the throne, and greater than the throne itself," to protect him.
+
+The unmeaning orders passed by the minister on reports and petitions
+are commonly that _so and so_ is to inquire into the matter
+complained of; to see that the offenders are seized and punished;
+that the stolen property and usurped lands be restored; that
+_razeenamas_, or acquittances, be sent in by the friends of persons
+who have been murdered by the King's officers; that the men, women,
+and children, confined and tortured by King's officers, or by robbers
+and ruffians, be set at liberty and satisfied; the said _so and so_
+being the infant commander-in-chief, the King's chamberlain, footman,
+coachman, chief fiddler, eunuch, barber, or person uppermost in his
+thoughts at the time. Similar orders are passed in his name by his
+deputies, secretaries, and favourites upon all the other numerous
+petitions and reports, which he sends to them unperused. Not,
+perhaps, upon one in five does the minister himself pass any order;
+and of the orders passed by him, not one in five, perhaps, is
+intended to be taken notice of. His deputies and favourites carry on
+a profitable trade in all such reports and petitions: they extort
+money alike from the wrong-doer and the wrong-sufferer; and from all
+local authorities, or their representatives, for all neglect of duty
+or abuses, of authority charged against them.
+
+As to any investigation into the real merits of any case described in
+these reports from the news-writers and local authorities, no such
+thing has been heard of for several reigns. The real merits of all
+such cases are, however, well and generally known to the people of
+the districts in which they occur, and freely discussed by them with
+suitable remarks on the "darkness which prevails under the lamp of
+royalty;" and no less suitable execrations against the intolerable
+system which deprives the King of all feeling of interest in the
+well-being of his subjects, all sense of duty towards them, all
+feeling of responsibility to any higher power for the manner in which
+he discharges his high trust over the millions committed to his
+care.
+
+As I have said, the King never sees any petition or report: he hardly
+ever sees even official notes addressed to him by the British
+Resident, and the replies to almost all are written without his
+knowledge.* The minister never puts either his seal or signature to
+any order that passes, or any document whatsoever, with his own hand:
+he merely puts in the date, as the 1st, 5th, or 10th; the month,
+year, and the order itself are inserted by the deputies, secretaries,
+or favourites, to whom the duty is confided. The reports and
+petitions submitted for orders often accumulate so fast in times of
+great festivity or ceremony, that the minister has them tied up in
+bundles, without any orders whatever having been passed on them, and
+sent to his deputies for such as they may think proper to pass,
+merely inserting his figure 1, 5, or 10, to indicate the date, on the
+outermost document of each bundle. If any orders are inserted by his
+deputies on the rest, they have only to insert the same date. There
+is nothing but the _figure_ to attest the authenticity of the order;
+and it would be often impossible for the minister himself to say
+whether the figure was inserted by himself or by any other person.
+These deputies are the men who adjust all the nuzuranas, or
+unauthorized gratuities, to be paid to the minister.
+
+[* On the 17th of October, 1850, Hassan Khan, one of the _khowas_, or
+pages, whose special duty it is to deliver all papers to the King,
+fell under his Majesty's displeasure, and his house was seized and
+searched. Several of the Resident's official notes were found
+unopened among his papers. They had been sent to the palace as
+emergent many months before, but never shown to the King. Such
+official notes from the Resident are hardly every shown to the King,
+nor is he consulted about the orders to be passed upon them.]
+
+They share largely in all that he gets; and take a great deal, for
+which they render him no account. Knowing all that he takes, and
+_ought not to take_, he dares not punish them for their
+transgressions; and knowing this, sufferers are afraid to complain
+against them. In ordinary times, or under ordinary sovereigns, the
+sums paid by revenue authorities in _nazuranas_, or gratuities,
+before they were permitted to enter on their charges, amounted to,
+perhaps, ten or fifteen per cent.: under the present sovereign they
+amount, I believe, to more than twenty-five per cent. upon the
+revenue they are to collect. Of these the minister and his deputies
+take the largest part. A portion is paid in advance, and good bonds
+are taken for the rest, to be paid within the year. Of the money
+collected, more than twenty-five per cent., on an average, is
+appropriated by those intrusted with the disbursements, and by their
+patrons and patronesses. The sovereign gets, perhaps, three-fourths
+of what is collected; and of what is collected, perhaps two-thirds,
+on an average, reaches its legitimate destination; so that one-half
+of the revenues of Oude may be considered as taken by officers and
+Court favourites in unauthorized gratuities and perquisites. The pay
+of the troops and establishments, on duty with the revenue
+collectors, is deducted by them, and the surplus only is sent to the
+Treasury at Lucknow. In his accounts he receives credit for all sums
+paid to the troops and establishments on duty under him. Though the
+artillery-bullocks get none of the grain, for which he pays and
+charges Government, a greater portion of the whole of what he pays
+and charges in his accounts reaches its legitimate destination,
+perhaps, than of the whole of what is paid from the Treasury at the
+capital. On an average, however, I do not think that more than two-
+thirds of what is paid and charged to Government reaches that
+destination.
+
+I may instance the two regiments, under Thakur Sing, Tirbaydee; which
+are always on duty at the palace. It is known that the officers and
+sipahees of those regiments do not get more than one-half of the pay
+which is issued for them every month from the Treasury; the other
+half is absorbed by the commandant and his patrons at Court. On
+everything sold in the palace, the vender is obliged to add one-third
+to the price, to be paid to the person through whom it is passed in.
+Without this, nothing can be sold in the palace by European or
+native. Not a single animal in the King's establishments gets one-
+third of the food allowed for it, and charged for; not a building is
+erected or repaired at less than three times the actual outlay, two-
+thirds at least of the money charged going to the superintendent and
+his patrons.
+
+_December_ 23, 1849.--Halted at Sultanpoor, which is one of the
+healthiest stations in India, on the right bank of the Goomtee river,
+upon a dry soil, among deep ravines, which drain off the water
+rapidly. The bungalows are on the verge, looking down into the river,
+upon the level patches of land, dividing the ravines. The water in
+the wells is some fifty feet below the surface, on a level with the
+stream below. There are no groves within a mile of the cantonments;
+and no lakes, marshes, or jungles within a great many; and the single
+trees in and near the cantonments are few. The gardens are small and
+few; and the water is sparingly used in irrigating them, as the
+expense of drawing it is very great.
+
+There is another good site for a cantonment at Chandour, some twelve
+miles up the river, on the opposite bank, and looking down upon the
+stream, from the verge, in the same manner. Chandour was chosen for
+his cantonments by Rajah Dursun Sing when he had the contract for the
+district; and it would be the best place for the head-quarters of any
+establishments, that any new arrangements might require for the
+administration of the Sultanpoor and surrounding districts. Secrora
+would be the best position for the head-quarters of those required
+for the administration of the Gonda-Bahraetch, and other surrounding
+districts. It is central, and has always been considered one of the
+healthiest places in Oude. It was long a cantonment for one of our
+regiments of infantry and some guns, which were, in 1835, withdrawn,
+and sent to increase the force at Lucknow, from two to three
+regiments of infantry. The regiment and guns at Sultanpoor were taken
+away in 1837. Secrora was, for some years after our regiment and guns
+had been withdrawn, occupied by a regiment and guns under Captain
+Barlow, one of the King of Oude's officers; but it is now altogether
+deserted. Sultanpoor has been, ever since 1837, occupied by one of
+the two regiments of Oude local Infantry, without any guns or cavalry
+of any kind. There was also a regiment of our regular infantry at
+Pertabghur, three marches from Sultanpoor, on the road to Allahabad,
+with a regiment of our light cavalry. The latter was withdrawn in
+1815 for the Nepaul war, and employed again under us during the
+Mahratta war in 1817 and 1818. It was sent back again in 1820; but
+soon after, in 1821, withdrawn altogether, and we have since had no
+cavalry of any kind in Oude. Seetapoor was also occupied by one of
+our regular regiments of infantry and some guns till 1837, when they
+were withdrawn, and their place supplied by the second regiment of
+Oude Local Infantry. Our Government now pays the two regiments of
+Oude Local Infantry stationed at Sultanpoor and Seetapoor; but the
+places of those stationed at Secrora and Pertabghur have never been
+supplied. One additional regiment of infantry is kept at Lucknow, so
+that our force in Oude has only been diminished by one regiment of
+infantry, one of cavalry, and eight guns, with a company and half of
+artillery. To do our duty _honestly_ by Oude, we ought to restore the
+regiment of infantry; and in the place of the corps of light, send
+one of irregular cavalry. We ought also to restore the company and
+half of artillery and eight guns which have been withdrawn. We draw
+annually from the lands ceded to as in 1801, for the protection which
+we promised to the King and his people from "all internal and
+external enemies," no less than two crores and twelve lacs of rupees,
+or two millions sterling a-year; while the Oude Government draws from
+the half of its territories which it reserved only one-half that sum,
+or one crore of rupees.
+
+Maun Sing is to leave my camp to-day, and return to Shahgunge. Of the
+fraud and violence, abuse of power, and collusion with local
+authorities, by which he and his father seized upon the lands of so
+many hundreds of old proprietors, there can be no doubt; but to
+attempt to make the family restore them now, under such a government,
+would create great disorder, drive off all the better classes of
+cultivators, and desolate the face of the country, which they have
+rendered so beautiful by an efficient system of administration. Many
+of the most powerful of the landed aristocracy of Oude have acquired,
+or augmented, their estates in the same manner and within the same
+time; and the same difficulty would attend the attempt to restore the
+old proprietors in all parts. A strong and honest government might
+overcome all these difficulties, and restore to every rightful
+proprietor the land unjustly taken from him, within a limited period;
+but it should not attempt to enforce any adjustment of the accounts
+of receipts and disbursements for the intervening period. The old
+proprietor would receive back his land in an improved condition, and
+the usurper might fairly be considered to have reimbursed himself for
+all his outlay. The old proprietor should be required to pledge
+himself to respect the rights of all new tenants.
+
+_December_ 24, 1849.--Meranpoor, twelve miles. Soil between this and
+Sultanpoor neither so fertile nor so well cultivated, as we found it
+on the other side of the Goomtee river, though it is of the same
+denomination--generally doomut, but here and there mutear. The term
+mutear embraces all good argillaceous earth, from the light brown to
+the black, humic or ulmic deposit, found in the beds of tanks and
+lakes in Oude. The natives of Oude call the black soil of Malwa and
+southern India, and Bundlekund, _muteear_. This black soil has in its
+exhausted state abundance of silicates, sulphates, phosphates, and
+carbonates of alumina, potassa, lime, &c., and of organic acids,
+combined with the same unorganic substances, to attract and fix
+ammonia, and collect and store up moisture, and is exceedingly
+fertile and strong.
+
+Both saltpetre and common salt are made by lixiviation from some of
+the poor oosur soils; but, from the most barren in Oude, carbonates
+of soda, used in making _glass_ and _soap_, are taken. The earth is
+collected from the surface of the most barren spots and formed into
+small, shallow, round tanks, a yard in diameter. Water is then poured
+in, and the tank filled to the surface, with an additional supply of
+the earth, and smoothed over. This tank is then left exposed to the
+sun for two days, during the hottest and driest months of the year.
+March, April, and May, and part of June, when the crust, formed on
+the surface, is taken off. The process is repeated once; but in the
+second operation the tank is formed around and below by the debris of
+the first tank, which is filled to the surface, after the water has
+been poured in, with the first _crust_ obtained. The second crust is
+called the _reha_, which is carbonate or bicarbonate of soda. This is
+formed into small cakes, which are baked to redness in an oven, or
+crucible, to expel the moisture and carbonic acid which it contains.
+They are then powdered to fine dust, which is placed in another
+crucible, and fused to liquid glass, the _reha_ containing in itself
+sufficient silica to form the coarse glass used in making bracelets,
+&c.
+
+A superabundance of nitrates seem also to impair or destroy fertility
+in the soil, and they may arise from the decomposition of animal or
+vegetable matter, in a soil containing a superabundance of porous
+lime. The atmospheric air and water, contained in the moist and
+porous soil, are decomposed. The hydrogen of the water combines with
+the nitrogen of the air, and that given off by the decomposing
+organic bodies, and forms ammonia. The nitrogen of the ammonia then
+takes up the oxygen of the air and water, and becoming nitric acid,
+forms nitrates with the lime, potash, soda, &c., contained in the
+soil. Without any superabundance of lime in the soil, however, the
+same effects may be produced, when there is a deficiency of decaying
+vegetable and animal matter, as the oxygen of the decomposed air and
+water, having no organic substances to unite with, may combine with
+the nitrogen of the ammonia, and form nitric acid; which, uniting
+with the lime, potash, soda, &c., may form the superabounding
+nitrates destructive of fertility.
+
+This superabundance of reha, or carbonate of soda, which renders so
+much of the surface barren, must, I conclude, arise from deposits of
+common salt, or chloride of sodium. The water, as it percolates
+through these deposits towards the surface, becomes saturated with
+their alkaline salts; and, as it reaches the surface and becomes
+evaporated in the pure state, it leaves them behind at or near the
+surface. On its way to the surface, or at the surface, the chloride
+of sodium becomes decomposed by contact with _carbonates of ammonia
+and potassa--sulphuric and nitric acids_. In a soil well supplied
+with decaying animal or vegetable matter, these carbonates or
+sulphates of soda, as they rise to the surface, might be formed into
+nutriment for plants, and taken up by their roots; or in one well
+flooded occasionally with fresh water, any superabundance of the
+salts or their bases might be taken up in solution and carried off.
+The people say, that the soil in which these carbonates of soda
+(reha) abound, are more unmanageable than those in which nitrates
+abound: they tell me that, with flooding, irrigating, manuring, and
+well ploughing, they can manage to get crops from all but the soils
+in which this _reha_ abounds.
+
+The process above described, by which the bracelet makers extract the
+carbonates of soda and potash from the earth of the small, shallow
+tanks, is precisely the same as that by which they are brought from
+the deep bed of earth below and deposited on or near the surface. In
+both processes, the water which brings them near the surface goes off
+into the atmosphere in a pure state, and leaves the salts behind. To
+make soap from the reha, they must first remove the silex which it
+contains.
+
+There are no rocks in Oude, and the only form in which lime is found
+for building purposes and road-pavements is that of kunkur, which is
+a carbonate of lime containing silica, and oxide of iron. In
+proportion as it contains the last, the kunkur is more or less red.
+That which contains none is of a dirty-white. It is found in many
+parts of India in thin layers, or amorphous masses, formed by
+compression, upon a stiff clay substratum; but in Oude I have seen it
+only in nodules, usually formed on nuclei of flint or other hard
+substances. The kingdom of Oude must have once been the bed, or part
+of the bed, of a large lake, formed by the diluvial detritus of the
+hills of the Himmalaya chain, and, as limestone abounds in that
+chain, the bed contains abundance of lime, which is taken up by the
+water that percolates through it from the rivers and from the rains
+and floods above. The lime thus taken up and held in solution with
+carbonic add gas, is deposited around the small fragments of flint or
+other hard substances which the waters find in their way. Where the
+floods which cover the surface during the rains come in rivers,
+flowing from the Himmalaya or other hills abounding in limestone
+rocks, they of course contain lime and carbonic-acid gas, which add
+to the kunkur nodules formed in the bed below; but in Oude the rivers
+seldom overflow to any extent, and the kunkur is, I believe, formed
+chiefly from the lime already existing in the bed.
+
+Doctor O'Shaughnessy, the most eminent chemist now in India, tells me
+that there are two marked varieties of kunkur in India--the red and
+the white; that the red differs from the white solely in containing a
+larger proportion of peroxide of iron; that the white consists of
+carbonate of lime, silica, alumina, and sometimes magnesia and
+protoxide of iron. He states that he considers the kunkur to be
+deposited by calcareous waters, abounding in infusorial animalculae;
+that the waters of the annual inundation are rich in lime, and that
+all the facts that have come under his observation appear to him to
+indicate that this is the source of the kunkur deposit, which is seen
+in a different form in the Italian travertine, and the crescent
+nodules of the Isle of Sheppey and of Bologne.
+
+Doctor O'Shaughnessy further states, that the _reha_ earth, which I
+sent to him from Oude, is identical with the _sujjee muttee_ of
+Bengal, and contains carbonate of soda and sulphate of soda as its
+essential characteristic ingredients, with silicious clay and oxide
+of iron. But in Oude, the term "_sujjee_" is given to the carbonate
+and sulphate of soda which remains after the silex has been removed
+from the reha. The reha is fused into glass after the carbonic acid
+and moisture have been expelled by heat, and the sujjee is formed
+into soap, by the addition of lime, fat, and linseed oil, in the
+following proportions, I am told:--6 sujjee, 4 lime, 21/2 fat, and
+11/2 ulsee oil.
+
+The sujjee is formed from the reha by filtration. A tank is formed on
+a terrace of cement. In a hole at one corner is a small tube. Rows of
+bricks are put down from one end to the other, with intervals between
+for the liquor to flow through to the tube. On these rows a layer of
+stout reeds is first placed, and over them another layer composed of
+the leaves of these reeds. On this bed the coarse reha earth is
+placed without being refined by the process described in the text
+above. Some coarse common salt (kharee nimuck) is mixed up with the
+reha. The tank is then filled with water, which filters slowly
+through the earth and passes out through the tube into pans, whence
+it is taken to another tank upon a wider terrace of cement, where it
+evaporates and leaves the sujjee deposited. The second tank is
+commonly made close under the first, and the liquor flows into it
+through the tube, rendering pans unnecessary. It is only in the hot
+months of March, April, May, and part of June, till the rains begin
+to fall, that the reha and sujjee are formed. During the other nine
+months, the _Looneas_, who provide them, turn their hands to
+something else. The _reha_, deprived of its carbonic acid and
+moisture by heat, is fused into glass. Deprived of silex by this
+process of filtration, it is formed into sujjee, from which the soap
+is made.
+
+On this process of filtration. Doctor O'Shaughnessy observes:-"I do
+not clearly understand the use of the common salt, used in the
+extraction of soda, in the process you described. But many of the
+empirical practices of the natives prove, on investigation, to square
+with the most scientific precepts. For example, their proportions in
+the manufacture of corrosive sublimate are precisely identical with
+those which the _atomic theory_ leads the European chemist to follow.
+The filtering apparatus which you describe is really admirable, and I
+doubt much whether the best practical chemist could devise any
+simpler or cheaper way of arriving at the object in view."
+
+The country is well provided with mango and other fine trees, single,
+and in clusters and groves; but the tillage is slovenly and scanty,
+strongly indicative of want of security to life, property, and
+industry. No symptom of the residence of gardeners and other
+cultivators of the better classes, or irrigation, or the use of
+manure in tillage.
+
+_December_ 25, 1849.--Nawabgunge, eleven miles. The soil good, as
+indicated by the growth of fine trees on each side of the road as far
+as we could see over the level plain, and by the few fields of corn
+in sight; but the cultivation is deficient and slovenly. A great part
+of the road lay through the estate of Mundone, held by Davey Persaud,
+the tallookdar; and the few peasants who stood by the side of the
+road to watch their fields as we passed, and see the cavalcade, told
+me that the deficient tillage and population arose from his being in
+opposition to Government and diligently employed in plundering the
+country generally, and his own estates in particular, to reduce the
+local authorities to his own terms. The Government demand upon him is
+twenty thousand rupees. He paid little last year, and has paid still
+less during the present year, on the ground that his estate yields
+nothing. This is a common and generally successful practice among
+tallookdars, who take to fighting against the Government whether
+their cause be just or unjust. These peasants and cultivators told us
+that they had taken to the jungles for shelter, after the last
+harvest, till the season for sowing again commenced; remained in the
+fields, still houseless, during the night, worked in their fields in
+fear of their lives during the day; and apprehended that they should
+have to take to the jungles again as soon as their crops were
+gathered, if they were even permitted to gather them. They attributed
+as much blame to their landlord as to the Nazim, Wajid Allee Khan.
+He, however, bears a very bad character, and is said to have
+designedly thrown a good deal of the districts under his charge out
+of tillage in the hope that no other person would venture to take the
+contract for it in that condition, and that he should, in
+consequence, be invited to retain it on more favourable terms. He was
+twelve lacs of rupees in balance when superseded at the end of the
+year, in September last, by the present governor, Aga Allee, who
+manages the same districts on a salary of two thousand rupees a-
+month, without any contract for the revenues, but with the
+understanding that he is to collect, or at least to pay, a certain
+sum.
+
+The late contractor will no doubt relieve himself from the burthen of
+this balance in the usual way. He will be imprisoned for a time till
+he pays, or enters into engagements to pay, to the minister and the
+influential men at Court, as much as they think he can be made to
+pay, in bribes, and some half of that sum into the Treasury, and have
+all the rest struck out of the accounts as irrecoverable--perhaps two
+lacs in bribes, and one to the Treasury may secure him an
+acquittance, and a fair chance of employment hereafter. His real name
+is Wajid Allee; but as that is the name of the King, he is commonly
+called Ahmud Allee, that the royal ears may not take offence.
+
+_December_ 26, 1849.--Pertabghur, distance eight miles. In the course
+of fourteen years, almost all signs of one of the most healthful and
+most agreeable cantonments of the Bengal army have been effaced. Fine
+crops of corn now cover what were the parades for cavalry, infantry,
+and artillery, and the gardens and compounds of officers' bungalows.
+The grounds, which were once occupied by the old cantonments, are now
+let out to cultivators, immediately under Government, and they are
+well cultivated; but the tillage of the rest of the country we have
+this morning passed over is scanty and slovenly. The Rajah of
+Pertabghur has, for some time, been on bad terms with the
+contractors, greatly in arrears, and commonly in opposition to the
+Government, having his band of armed followers in the jungles, and
+doing nothing but mischief. This is the case with most of the
+tallookdars of the country over which I have passed. Not one in five,
+or I may say one in ten, attends the viceroys, because it would not
+be safe to do so; or pays the demands of Government punctually,
+because there is no certainty in them.
+
+I passed down the line of Captain Magness's corps, which is at
+present stationed at Pertabghur. It is as well-dressed, and as fine a
+looking corps as any infantry regiment in our own native army, and
+has always shown itself as good on service. It has eight guns
+attached to it, well provided and served. The artillery-men, drivers,
+&c., are as well dressed and as fit for their duties as our own.
+Stores and ammunition are abundant, but the powder is execrable.
+Captain Magness is a good officer. The guns are six 6-pounders, drawn
+by bullocks; and two gallopers of very small calibre, drawn by
+horses. They are not adapted for the duties they have to perform,
+which is chiefly against mud-forts and strongholds; and four 9-
+pounders, two howitzers, and two mortars would be better. They are,
+however, well manned and provided with bullocks, ammunition and
+stores. The finest young men in Oude are glad to take service under
+Captain Magness; and the standard height of his men is at present
+five feet ten inches. He has some few men, good for nothing, called
+_sufarishies_, whom he is obliged to keep in on account of the
+persons by whom they are recommended, eunuchs, fiddlers, and Court
+favourites, of all kinds. In no country are there a body of finer
+looking recruits than Captain Magness now has at drill. All of the
+first families in the country, and of unquestionable courage and
+fidelity to their salt. He has four hundred Cavalry, of what is
+called the _body guard_, men well dressed, and of fine appearance.
+These Cavalry are, however, likely soon to be taken from him, and
+made over to some good-for-nothing Court favourite.* He has about
+seven hundred men present with his Infantry corps. His adjutant,
+Yosuf Khan, speaks English well, and has travelled a good deal in
+England, Europe generally, and Palestine. He is a sensible,
+unprejudiced man, and good soldier. Captain Magness attends the Nazim
+of the district; but, unfortunately, like all the commandants of
+corps and public servants of the State, he is obliged to forage for
+fodder and fuel. A foraging party is sent out every day, be where
+they will, to take these things gratis, wherever they can find them
+most conveniently. Bhoosa, grass and wood are the things which they
+are authorized to take, without payment, wherever they can find them;
+but they, of course, take a good many other things. The Government
+allows nothing to any of its troops or establishments, for these
+things, except when they are in Lucknow. The consequence is, that
+there is hardly a good cover to any man's house, or sufficient fodder
+for the cattle of any village, during the hot season and rains.
+
+[* They were soon after taken from Captain Magness and given to Mr.
+Johannes; and soon after taken from him, and made over to an eunuch,
+who turned out all the good men, to sell their places to men good for
+nothing. They mutinied; but the King and minister supported the
+eunuch, and the greater part of the men were discharged and their
+officers ruined.]
+
+_December_ 27, 1849--Halted at Pertabghur. I had a visit from many of
+the persons who were in my service, when I was here with my regiment
+thirty years ago, as watchmen, gardeners, &c. They continue to hold
+and till the lands, which they or their fathers then tilled; and the
+change in them is not so great as that which has taken place within
+the same time among my old native friends, who survive in the Saugor
+and Nerbudda districts, where the air is less dry, and the climate
+less congenial to the human frame. The natives say that the air and
+water of Malwa may produce as good trees and crops as those of Oude,
+but can never produce such good soldiers. This, I believe, is quite
+true. The Sultanpoor district is included in the Banoda division of
+Oude; and the people speak of the _water_ of this division for
+_tempering_ soldiers, as we talk of the water of Damascus, for
+tempering sword blades. They certainly never seem so happy as when
+they are fighting in earnest with swords, spears, and matchlocks. The
+_water_ of the Byswara division is considered to be very little
+inferior to that of Banoda, and we get our sipahees from these two
+divisions almost exclusively.
+
+Captain Magness's corps is, at present, attached to the Nazim of this
+district, with its guns, and squadron of horse, as an auxiliary
+force. Over and above this force, he has nine regiments of Nujeebs,
+detachments of other Corps, Artillery, Pioneers, &c., amounting, in
+all, according to the musters and pay-drafts, to seven thousand seven
+hundred and seventy-eight men, for whom thirty-seven thousand seven
+hundred and ninety-three rupees a-month are drawn. Of these, fifteen
+hundred are dead or have deserted, or are absent on leave without
+pay. Their pay is all appropriated by the commandants of corps or
+Court favourites. Fifteen hundred more are in attendance on the
+commandants of corps, who reside at the capital, and their friends or
+other influential persons about the Court, or engaged in their own
+trades or affairs, having been put into the corps by influential
+persons at Court, to draw pay, but do no duty. Of the remaining four
+thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight, one-third, or one thousand
+five hundred and ninety-two, are what is called _sufarishies_, or men
+who are unfit for duty, and have been put in by influential persons
+at Court, to appear at muster and draw pay. Of the remaining three
+thousand one hundred and eighty-six present, there would be no chance
+of getting more than two-thirds, or two thousand one hundred and
+twenty-four men to fight on emergency--indeed, the Nazim would think
+himself exceedingly lucky if he could get one-third to do so.
+
+Of the forty-two guns, thirteen are utterly useless on the ground;
+and out of the remaining twenty-nine, there are draft bullocks for
+only five. But there are no stores or ammunition for any of them; and
+the Nazim is obliged to purchase what powder and ball he may require
+in the bazaars. None of the gun-carriages have been repaired for the
+last twenty years, and the strongest of them would go to pieces after
+a few rounds. Very few of them would stand one round with good
+powder. Five hundred rupees are allowed for fitting up the carriage
+and tumbril of each gun, after certain intervals of from five to ten
+years; and this sum has, no doubt, been drawn over and over for these
+guns, during the twenty years, within which they have had no repairs
+whatever. If the local governor is permitted to draw this sum, he is
+sure never to expend one farthing of it on the gun. If the person in
+charge of the ordnance at Lucknow draws it, the guns and tumbrils are
+sent in to him, and returned with, at least, a coating of paint and
+putty, but seldom with anything else. The two persons in charge of
+the two large parks at Lucknow, from which the guns are furnished,
+Anjum-od Dowlah, and Ances-od Dowlah, a fiddler, draw the money for
+the corn allowed for the draft bullocks, at the rate of three pounds
+per diem for each, and distribute, or pretend to distribute it
+through the agents of the grain-dealers, with whom they contract for
+the supply; and the district officers, under whom these draft
+bullocks are employed, are never permitted to interfere. They have
+nothing to do but pay for the grain allowed; and the agents, employed
+to feed the bullocks, do nothing but appropriate the money for
+themselves and their employers. Not a grain of corn do the bullocks
+ever get.
+
+The Nazim has charge of the districts of Sultanpoor, Haldeemow,
+Pertabghur, Jugdeespoor, and that part of Fyzabad which is not
+included in the estate of Bukhtawar Sing, yielding, altogether, about
+ten and a half lacs of rupees to Government. He exercises entire
+fiscal, judicial, magisterial and police authority over all these
+districts. To aid him in all these duties, he has four deputies--one
+in each district--upon salaries of one hundred and fifty rupees each
+a-month, with certain fees and perquisites. To inquire into
+particular cases, over all these districts, he employs a special
+deputy, paid out of his own salary. All the accountants and other
+writers, employed under him, are appointed by the deputies and
+favourites of the minister; and, considering themselves as their
+creatures, they pay little regard to their immediate master, the
+Nazim. But over and above these men, from whom he does get some
+service, he has to pay a good many, from whom he can get none. He is,
+before he enters upon his charge, obliged to insert, in his list of
+civil functionaries, to be paid monthly, out of the revenues, a
+number of writers and officers, of all descriptions, _recommended_ to
+him by these deputies and other influential persons at Court. Of
+these men he never sees or knows anything. They are the children,
+servants, creatures, or dependents of the persons who recommend them,
+and draw their pay. These are called _civil sufarishies_, and cost
+the State much more than the military sufarishies_, already
+mentioned--perhaps not less than six thousand rupees a-month in this
+division alone.
+
+The Nazim is permitted to levy for incidental expenses, only ten per
+cent. over and above the Government demand; and required to send one-
+half of this sum to Court, for distribution. He is ostensibly
+required to limit himself to this sum, and to abstain from taking the
+gratuities, usually exacted by the _revenue contractors_, for
+distribution among ministers and other influential persons at Court.
+Were he to do so, they would all be so strongly opposed to the
+_amanee_, or trust system of management, and have it in their power
+so much to thwart him, in all his measures and arrangements, that he
+could never possibly get on with his duties; and the disputes between
+them generally results in a compromise. He takes, in gratuities,
+something less than his contracting predecessors took, and shares,
+what he takes, liberally, with those whose assistance he requires at
+Court. These gratuities, or nuzuranas, never appeared, in the public
+accounts; and were a governor, under the _amanee_ system, to demand
+the full rates paid to contractors, the more powerful landholders
+would refer him to these public accounts, and refuse to pay till he
+could assure them of the same equivalents in _nanker_ and other
+things, which they were in the habit of receiving from contractors.
+These, as a mere trust manager, he may not be able to give; and he
+consents to take something less. The landholders know that where the
+object is to exact the means to gratify influential persons about
+Court, the Nazim would be likely to get good military support, if
+driven to extremity, and consent to pay the greater part of what is
+demanded. When the trust manager, by his liberal remittances to Court
+patrons, gets all the troops he requires, he exacts the full
+gratuities, and still higher and more numerous if strong enough. The
+corps under Captains Magness, Bunbury, Barlow, and Subha Sing, are
+called _komukee_, or auxiliary regiments; and they are every season,
+and sometimes often in the same season, sold to the highest bidder as
+a perquisite by the minister. The services of Captain Magness and
+Captain Bunbury's corps were purchased in this way for 1850 and 1851,
+by Aga Allee, the Nazim of Sultanpoor, and he has made the most of
+them. No _contractor_ ever exacted higher _nazuranas_ or _gratuities_
+than he has, by their aid, this season, though he still holds the
+district as a trust manager. Ten, twenty, or thirty thousand rupees
+are paid for the use of one of these regiments, according to the
+exigency of the occasion, or the time for which it may be required.
+
+The system of government under which Oude suffers during the reign of
+the best king is a fearful one; and what must it be under a
+sovereign, so indifferent as the present is, to the sufferings of his
+people, to his own permanent interests, and to the duties and
+responsibilities of his high station? Seeing that our Government
+attached much importance to the change, from the _contract_ to the
+_trust_ system of management, the present minister is putting a large
+portion of the country under that system in the hope of blinding us.
+But there is virtually little or no change in the administration of
+such districts; the person who has the charge of a district under it
+is obliged to pay the same gratuities to public officers and court
+favourites, and he exacts the same, or nearly the same from the
+landholders; he is under no more check than the contractor, and the
+officers and troops under him, abuse their authority in the same
+manner, and commit the same outrages upon the suffering people.
+Security to life and property is disregarded in the same manner; he
+confines himself as exclusively to the duties of collecting revenue,
+and is as regardless of security to life and property, and of
+fidelity to his engagements, as the landholders in his jurisdiction.
+The trust management of a district differs from that of the
+contractors, only as the _wusoolee kubaz_ differs from the
+_lakulamee_; though he does not enter into a formal contract to pay a
+certain sum, he is always expected to pay such a sum, and if he does
+not, he is obliged to wipe off the balance in the same way, and is
+kept in gaol till he does so, in the same way. Indeed, I believe, the
+people would commonly rather be under a contractor, than a trust
+manager under the Oude Government; and this was the opinion of
+Colonel Low, who, of all my predecessors, certainly knew most about
+the real state of Oude.
+
+The Nazim of Sultanpoor has authority to entertain such Tehseeldars
+and _Jumogdars_ as he may require, for the collection of the revenue.
+Of these he has, generally, from fifty to sixty employed, on salaries
+varying from fifteen to thirty rupees a-month each. The Tehseeldar is
+employed here, as elsewhere, in the collection of the land revenue,
+in the usual way; but the _Jumogdar_ is an officer unknown in our
+territories. Some are appointed direct from Court, and some by the
+Nazims and Amils of districts. When a landholder has to pay his
+revenue direct to Government (as all do, who are included in what is
+called the Hozoor Tehseel), and he neglects to do so punctually, a
+Jumogdar is appointed. The landholder assembles his tenants, and they
+enter into pledges to pay direct to the Jumogdar the rents due by
+them to the landholder, under existing engagements, up to a certain
+time. This may be the whole, or less than the whole, amount due to
+Government by the landholder. If any of them fail to pay what they
+promise to the Jumogdar, the landholder is bound to make good the
+deficiency at the end of the year. He also binds himself to pay to
+Government whatever may be due over and above what the tenants pledge
+themselves to pay to the Jumogdar. This transfer of responsibility,
+from the landholder to his tenants, is called "_Jumog Lagana_," or
+transfer of the jumma. The assembly of the tenants, for the purpose
+of such-adjustment, is called _zunjeer bundee_, or linking together.
+The adjustment thus made is called the _bilabundee_. The salary of
+the Jumogdar is paid by the landholder, who distributes the burthen
+of the payment upon his tenants, at a per centage rate. The Jumogdar
+takes written engagements from the tenants; and they are bound not to
+pay anything to the landholder till they have paid him (the Jumogdar)
+all that they are, by these engagements, bound to pay him. He does
+all he can to make them pay punctually; but he is not, properly, held
+responsible for any defalcation. Such responsibility rests with the
+landlords. Where much difficulty is expected from the refractory
+character of the landholder, the officer commanding the whole, or
+some part of the troops in the district, is often appointed the
+Jumogdar; and the amount which the tenants pledge themselves to pay
+to him is debited to him, in the pay of the troops, under his
+command.
+
+The Jumogdars, who are appointed by the Nazims and Amils, act in the
+same manner with regard to the landlords and tenants, to whom they
+are accredited, and are paid in the same manner. There may be one, or
+there may be one hundred, Jumogdars in a district, according to the
+necessity for their employment, in the collection of the revenue.
+They are generally men of character, influence, and resolution; and
+often useful to both, or all three parties; but when they are
+officers commanding troops, they are often very burthensome to
+landlords and tenants. The Jumogdar has only to receive the sums due,
+according to existing engagements between the parties, and to see
+that no portion of them is paid to any other person. He has nothing
+to do with apportioning the demand, or making the engagements between
+tenants and landlords, or landlords and Government officers.
+
+The Canoongoes and Chowdheries in Oude are commonly called Seghadars,
+and their duties are the same here as everywhere else in India.
+
+_December_ 28, 1849.--Twelve miles to Hundore, over a country more
+undulating and better cultivated than any we have seen since we
+recrossed the Goomtee river at Sultanpoor. It all belongs to the
+Rajah of Pertabghur, Shumshere Babadur, a Somebunsee, who resides at
+Dewlee, some six miles from Pertabghur. His family is one of the
+oldest and most respectable in Oude; but his capital of Pertabghur,
+where he used to reside till lately, is one of the most beggarly. He
+seems to have concentrated there all the beggars in the country, and
+there is not a house of any respectable to be seen. The soil, all the
+way, has been what they call the doomut, or doomuteea, which is well
+adapted to all kinds of tillage, but naturally less strong than
+muteear or argillaceous earth, and yields scanty crops, where it is
+not well watered and manured.
+
+The Rajah came to my camp in the afternoon, and attended me on his
+elephant in the evening when I went round the town, and to his old
+mud fort, now in ruins, within which is the old residence of the
+family. He does not pay his revenue punctually, nor is he often
+prepared to attend the viceroy when required; and it was thought that
+he would not come to me. Finding that the Korwar and other Rajahs and
+large landholders, who had been long on similar terms with the local
+authorities, had come in, paid their respects, and been left free, he
+also ventured to my camp. For the last thirty years the mutual
+confidence which once subsisted between the Government authorities
+and the great landholders of these districts has been declining, and
+it ceased altogether under the last viceroy, Wajid Allee Khan, who
+appears to have been a man without any feeling of humanity or sense
+of honour. No man ever knew what he would be called upon to pay to
+Government in the districts under him; and almost all the respectable
+landholders prepared to defend what they had by force of arms;
+deserted their homes, and took to the jungles with as many followers
+as they could collect and subsist, as soon as he entered on his
+charge. The atrocities charged against him, and upon the best
+possible evidence, are numerous and great.
+
+The country we have passed through to-day is well studded with fine
+trees, among which the mhowa abounds more than usual. The parasite
+plant, called the bandha, or Indian mistletoe, ornaments the finest
+mhowa and mango trees. It is said to be a disease, which appears as
+the tree grows old, and destroys it if not cut away. The people, who
+feel much regard for their trees, cut these parasite plants away; and
+there is no prejudice against removing them among Hindoos, though
+they dare not cut away a peepul-tree which is destroying their wells,
+houses, temples, or tombs; nor do they, with some exceptions, dare to
+destroy a wolf, though he may have eaten their own children, or
+actually have one of them in his mouth. In all parts of India,
+Hindoos have a notion that the family of a man who kills a wolf, or
+even wounds it, goes soon to utter ruin; and so also the village
+within the boundaries of which a wolf has been killed or wounded.
+They have no objection to their being killed by other people away
+from the villages; on the contrary, are very glad to have them so
+destroyed, as long as their blood does not drop on their premises.
+Some Rajpoot families in Oude, where so many children are devoured by
+wolves, are getting over this prejudice. The bandha is very
+ornamental to the fine mhowa and mango trees, to the branches of
+which it hangs suspended in graceful festoons, with a great variety
+of colours and tints, from deep scarlet and green to light-red and
+yellow.
+
+Wolves are numerous in the neighbourhood of Sultanpoor, and, indeed,
+all along the banks of the Goomtee river, among the ravines that
+intersect them; and a great many children are carried off by them
+from towns, villages, and camps. It is exceedingly difficult to catch
+them, and hardly any of the Hindoo population, save those of the very
+lowest class who live a vagrant life, and bivouac in the jungles, or
+in the suburbs of towns and villages, will attempt to catch or kill
+them. All other Hindoos have a superstitious dread of destroying or
+even injuring them; and a village community within the boundary of
+whose lands a drop of wolf's blood has fallen believes itself doomed
+to destruction. The class of little vagrant communities above
+mentioned, who have no superstitious dread of destroying any living
+thing, eat jackalls and all kinds of reptiles, and catch all kinds of
+animals, either to feed upon themselves, or to sell them to those who
+wish to keep or hunt them.
+
+But it is remarkable, that they very seldom catch wolves, though they
+know all their dens, and could easily dig them out as they dig out
+other animals. This is supposed to arise from the profit which they
+make by the gold and silver bracelets, necklaces and other ornaments
+worn by the children whom the wolves carry to their dens and devour,
+and are left at the entrance of their dens. A party of these men
+lately brought to our camp alive a very large hyaena, which was let
+loose and hunted down by the European officers and the clerks of my
+office. One of the officers asked them whether this was not the
+reason why they did not bring wolves to camp, to be hunted down in
+the same way, since officers would give more for brutes that ate
+children, than for such as fed only on dogs or carrion. They dared
+not deny, though they were ashamed or afraid to acknowledge, that it
+was. I have myself no doubt that this is the reason, and that they do
+make a good deal in this way from the children's ornaments, which
+they find at the entrance of wolves' dens. In every part of India, a
+great number of children are every day murdered for the sake of their
+ornaments, and the fearful examples that come daily to the knowledge
+of parents, and the injunctions of the civil authorities are
+unavailing against this desire to see their young children decked out
+in gold and silver ornaments.
+
+There is now at Sultanpoor a boy who was found alive in a wolf's den,
+near Chandour, about ten miles from Sultanpoor, about two years and a
+half ago. A trooper, sent by the native governor of the district to
+Chandour, to demand payment of some revenue, was passing along the
+bank of the river near Chandour about noon, when he saw a large
+female wolf leave her den, followed by three whelps and a little boy.
+The boy went on all fours, and seemed to be on the best possible
+terms with the old dam and the three whelps, and the mother seemed to
+guard all four with equal care. They all went down to the river and
+drank without perceiving the trooper, who sat upon his horse watching
+them. As soon as they were about to turn back, the trooper pushed on
+to cut off and secure the boy; but he ran as fast as the whelps
+could, and kept up with the old one. The ground was uneven, and the
+trooper's horse could not overtake them. They all entered the den,
+and the trooper assembled some people from Chandour with pickaxes,
+and dug into the den. When they had dug in about six or eight feet,
+the old wolf bolted with her three whelps and the boy. The trooper
+mounted and pursued, followed by the fleetest young men of the party;
+and as the ground over which they had to fly was more even, he headed
+them, and turned the whelps and boy back upon the men on foot, who
+secured the boy, and let the old dam and her three cubs go on their
+way.
+
+They took the boy to the village, but had to tie him, for he was very
+restive, and struggled hard to rush into every hole or den they came
+near. They tried to make him speak, but could get nothing from him
+but an angry growl or snarl. He was kept for several days at the
+village, and a large crowd assembled every day to see him. When a
+grown-up person came near him, he became alarmed, and tried to steal
+away; but when a child came near him, he rushed at it, with a fierce
+snarl like that of a dog, and tried to bite it. When any cooked meat
+was put before him, he rejected it in disgust; but when any raw meat
+was offered, he seized it with avidity, put it on the ground under
+his paws, like a dog, and ate it with evident pleasure. He would not
+let any one come near him while he was eating, but he made no
+objection to a dog coming and sharing his food with him. The trooper
+remained with him four or five days, and then returned to the
+governor, leaving the boy in charge of the Rajah of Hasunpoor. He
+related all that he had seen, and the boy was soon after sent to the
+European officer commanding the First Regiment of Oude Local Infantry
+at Sultanpoor, Captain Nicholetts, by order of the Rajah of
+Hasunpoor, who was at Chandour, and saw the boy when the trooper
+first brought him to that village. This account is taken from the
+Rajah's own report of what had taken place.
+
+Captain Nicholetts made him over to the charge of his servants, who
+take great care of him, but can never get him to speak a word. He is
+very inoffensive, except when teased, Captain Nicholetts says, and
+will then growl surlily at the person who teases him. He had come to
+eat anything that is thrown to him, but always prefers raw flesh,
+which he devours most greedily. He will drink a whole pitcher of
+butter-milk when put before him, without seeming to draw breath. He
+can never be induced to keep on any kind of clothing, even in the
+coldest weather. A quilt stuffed with cotton was given to him when it
+became very cold this season, but he tore it to pieces, and ate a
+portion of it, cotton and all, with his bread every day. He is very
+fond of bones, particularly uncooked ones, which he masticates
+apparently with as much ease as meat. He has eaten half a lamb at a
+time without any apparent effort, and is very fond of taking up earth
+and small stones and eating them. His features are coarse, and his
+countenance repulsive; and he is very filthy in his habits. He
+continues to be fond of dogs and jackals, and all other small four-
+footed animals that come near him; and always allows them to feed
+with him if he happens to be eating when they approach.
+
+Captain Nicholetts, in letters dated the 14th and 19th of September,
+1850, told me that the boy died in the latter end of August, and that
+he was never known to laugh or smile. He understood little of what
+was said to him, and seemed to take no notice of what was going on
+around him. He formed no attachment for any one, nor did he seem to
+care for any one. He never played with any of the children around
+him, or seemed anxious to do so. When not hungry he used to sit
+petting and stroking a pareear or vagrant dog, which he used to
+permit to feed out of the same dish with him. A short time before his
+death Captain Nicholetts shot this dog, as he used to eat the greater
+part of the food given to the boy, who seemed in consequence to be
+getting thin. The boy did not seem to care in the least for the death
+of the dog. The parents recognised the boy when he was first found,
+Captain Nicholetts believes; but when they found him to be so stupid
+and insensible, they left him to subsist upon charity. They have now
+left Hasunpoor, and the age of the boy when carried off cannot be
+ascertained; but he was to all appearance about nine or ten years of
+age when found, and he lived about three years afterwards. He used
+signs when he wanted anything, and very few of them except when
+hungry, and he then pointed to his mouth. When his food was placed at
+some distance from him, he would run to it on all fours like any
+four-footed animal; but at other times he would walk upright
+occasionally. He shunned human beings of all kinds, and would never
+willingly remain near one. To cold, heat, and rain he appeared to be
+indifferent; and he seemed to care for nothing but eating. He was
+very quiet, and required no kind of restraint after being brought to
+Captain Nicholetts. He had lived with Captain Nicholetts' servants
+about two years, and was never heard to speak till within a few
+minutes of his death, when he put his hands to his head, and said "it
+ached," and asked for water: he drank it, and died.
+
+At Chupra, twenty miles east from Sultanpoor, lived a cultivator with
+his wife and son, who was then three years of age. In March, 1843,
+the man went to cut his crop of wheat and pulse, and the woman took
+her basket and went with him to glean, leading her son by the arm.
+The boy had lately recovered from a severe scald on the left knee,
+which he got in the cold weather, from tumbling into the fire, at
+which he had been warming himself while his parents were at work. As
+the father was reaping and the mother gleaning, the boy sat upon the
+grass. A wolf rushed upon him suddenly from behind a bush, caught him
+up by the loins, and made off with him towards the ravines. The
+father was at a distance at the time, but the mother followed,
+screaming as loud an she could for assistance. The people of the
+village ran to her aid, but they soon lost sight of the wolf and his
+prey.
+
+She heard nothing more of her boy for six years, and had in that
+interval lost her husband. At the end of that time, two sipahees
+came, in the month of February, 1849, from the town of Singramow,
+which is ten miles from Chupra, on the bank of the Khobae rivulet.
+While they sat on the border of the jungle, which extended down to
+the stream, watching for hogs, which commonly come down to drink at
+that time in the morning, they saw there three wolf cubs and a boy
+come out from the jungle, and go down together to the stream to
+drink. The sipahees watched them till they had drank, and were about
+to return, when they rushed towards them. All four ran towards a den
+in the ravines. The sipahees followed as fast as they could; but the
+three cubs had got in before the sipahees could come up with them,
+and the boy was half way in when one of the sipahees caught him by
+the hind leg, and drew him back. He seemed very angry and ferocious,
+bit at them, and seized in his teeth the barrel of one of their guns,
+which they put forward to keep him off, and shook it. They however
+secured him, brought him home, and kept him for twenty days. They
+could for that time make him eat nothing but raw flesh, and they fed
+him upon hares and birds. They found it difficult to provide him with
+sufficient food, and took him to the bazaar in the village of
+Koeleepoor; and there let him go to be fed by the charitable people
+of the place till he might be recognised and claimed by his parents.
+One market-day a man from the village of Chupra happened to see him
+in the bazaar, and on his return mentioned the circumstance to his
+neighbours. The poor cultivator's widow, on hearing this, asked him
+to describe the boy more minutely, when she found that the boy had
+the mark of a scald on the left knee, and three marks of the teeth of
+an animal on each side of his loins. The widow told him that her boy
+when taken off had lately recovered from a scald on the left knee,
+and was seized by the loins when the wolf took him off, and that the
+boy he had seen must be her lost child.
+
+She went off forthwith to the Koelee bazaar, and, in addition to the
+two marks above described, discovered a third mark on his thigh, with
+which her child was born. She took him home to her village, where he
+was recognised by all her neighbours. She kept him for two months,
+and all the sporting landholders in the neighbourhood sent her game
+for him to feed upon. He continued to dip his face in the water to
+drink, but he sucked in the water, and did not lap it up like a dog
+or wolf. His body continued to smell offensively. When the mother
+went to her work, the boy always ran into the jungle, and she could
+never get him to speak. He followed his mother for what he could get
+to eat, but showed no particular affection for her; and she could
+never bring herself to feel much for him; and after two months,
+finding him of no use to her, and despairing of even making anything
+of him, she left him to the common charity of the village. He soon
+after learnt to eat bread when it was given him, and ate whatever
+else he could get during the day, but always went off to the jungle
+at night. He used to mutter something, but could never be got to
+articulate any word distinctly. The front of his knees and elbows had
+become hardened from going on all fours with the wolves. If any
+clothes are put on him, he takes them off, and commonly tears them to
+pieces in doing so. He still prefers raw flesh to cooked, and feeds
+on carrion whenever he can get it. The boys of the village are in the
+habit of amusing themselves by catching frogs and throwing them to
+him; and he catches and eats them. When a bullock dies, and the skin
+is removed, he goes and eats it like a village dog. The boy is still
+in the village, and this is the description given of him by the
+mother herself, who still lives at Chupra. She has never experienced
+any return of affection for him, nor has he shown any such feeling
+for her. Her story is confirmed by all her neighbours, and by the
+head landholders, cultivators, and shopkeepers of the village.*
+
+[* In November, 1850, Captain Nicholetts, on leaving the cantonments
+of Sultanpoor, where he commanded, ordered this boy to be sent in to
+me with his mother, but he got alarmed on the way and ran to a
+jungle. He will no doubt find his way back soon if he lives.]
+
+The Rajah of Hasunpoor Bundooa mentions, as a fact within his own
+knowledge, besides the others, for the truth of which he vouches,
+that, in the year 1843, a lad came to the town of Hasunpoor, who had
+evidently been brought up by wolves. He seemed to be twelve years of
+age when he saw him--was very dark, and ate flesh, whether cooked or
+uncooked. He had short hair all over his body when he first came, but
+having, for a time, as the Rajah states, eaten salt with his food,
+like other human beings, the hair by degrees disappeared. He could
+walk, like other men, on his legs, but could never be taught to
+speak. He would utter sounds like wild animals, and could be made to
+understand signs very well. He used to sit at a bunneea's shop in the
+bazaar, but was at last recognised by his parents, and taken off.
+What became of him afterwards he knows not. The Rajah's statement
+regarding this lad is confirmed by all the people of the town, but
+none of them know what afterwards became of him.
+
+About the year 1843, a shepherd of the village of Ghutkoree, twelve
+miles west from the cantonments of Sultanpoor, saw a boy trotting
+along upon all fours, by the side of a wolf, one morning, as he was
+out with his flock. With great difficulty he caught the boy, who ran
+very fast, and brought him home. He fed him for some time, and tried
+to make him speak, and associate with men or boys, but he failed. He
+continued to be alarmed at the sight of men, but was brought to
+Colonel Gray, who commanded the first Oude Local Infantry, at
+Sultanpoor. He and Mrs. Gray, and all the officers in cantonments,
+saw him often, and kept him for several days. But he soon after ran
+off into the jungle, while the shepherd was asleep. The shepherd,
+afterwards, went to reside in another village, and I could not
+ascertain whether he recovered the boy or not.
+
+Zoolfukar Khan, a respectable landholder of Bankeepoor, in the estate
+of Hasunpoor, ten miles east from the Sultahpoor cantonments,
+mentions that about eight or nine years ago a trooper came to the
+town, with a lad of about nine or ten years of age, whom he had
+rescued from wolves among the ravines on the road; that he knew not
+what to do with him, and left him to the common charity of the
+village; that he ate everything offered to him, including bread, but
+before taking it he carefully smelt at it, and always preferred
+undressed meat to everything else; that he walked on his legs like
+other people when he saw him, though there were evident signs on his
+knees and elbows of his having gone, very long, on all fours; and
+when asked to run on all fours he used to do so, and went so fast
+that no one could overtake him; how long he had been with the
+trooper, or how long it took him to learn to walk on his legs, he
+knows not. He could not talk, or utter any very articulate sounds. He
+understood signs, and heard exceedingly well, and would assist the
+cultivators in turning trespassing cattle out of their fields, when
+told by signs to do so. Boodhoo, a Brahmin cultivator of the village,
+took care of him, and he remained with him for three months, when he
+was claimed and taken off by his father, a shepherd, who said that
+the boy was six years old when the wolf took him off at night some
+four years before; he did not like to leave Boodhoo, the Brahmin, and
+the father was obliged to drag him away. What became of him
+afterwards he never heard. The lad had no hair upon his body, nor had
+he any dislike to wear clothes, while he saw him. This statement was
+confirmed by the people of the village.
+
+About seven years ago a trooper belonging to the King, and in
+attendance on Rajah Hurdut Sing of Bondee, alias Bumnotee, on the
+left bank of the Ghagra river, in the Bahraetch district, was passing
+near a small stream which flows into that river, when he saw two wolf
+cubs and a boy drinking in the stream. He had a man with him on foot,
+and they managed to seize the boy, who appeared to be about ten years
+of age. He took him up on the pummel of his saddle, but he was so
+wild and fierce that he tore the trooper's clothes and bit him
+severely in several places, though he had tied his hands together. He
+brought him to Bondee, where the Rajah had him tied up in his
+artillery gun-shed, and gave him raw-flesh to eat: but he several
+times cut his ropes and ran off; and after three months the Rajah got
+tired of him, and let him go. He was then taken by a Cashmeeree
+mimic, or comedian (_bhand_), who fed and took care of him for six
+weeks*; but at the end of that time he also got tired of him (for his
+habits were filthy), and let him go to wander about the Bondee
+bazaar. He one day ran off with a joint of meat from a butcher's
+shop, and soon after upset some things in the shop of a _bunneeah_,
+who let fly an arrow at him. The arrow penetrated the boy's thigh. At
+this time Sanaollah, a Cashmere merchant of Lucknow, was at Bondee,
+selling some shawl goods to the Rajah, on the occasion of his
+brother's marriage. He had many servants with him, and among them
+Janoo, a khidmutgar lad, and an old sipahee, named Ramzan Khan. Janoo
+took compassion upon the poor boy, extracted the arrow from his
+thigh, had his wound dressed, and prepared a bed for him under the
+mango-tree, where he himself lodged, but kept him tied to a tent-pin.
+He would at that time eat nothing but raw flesh. To wean him from
+this, Janoo, with the consent of his master, gave him rice and pulse
+to eat. He rejected them for several days, and ate nothing; but Janoo
+persevered, and by degrees made him eat the balls which he prepared
+for him: he was fourteen or fifteen days in bringing him to do this.
+The odour from his body was very offensive, and Janoo had him rubbed
+with mustard-seed soaked in water, after the oil had been taken from
+it (_khullee_), in the hope of removing this smell. He continued this
+for some months, and fed him upon rice, pulse, and flour bread, but
+the odour did not leave him. He had hardened marks upon his knees and
+elbows, from having gone on all fours. In about six weeks after he
+had been tied up under the tree, with a good deal of beating, and
+rubbing of his joints with oil, he was made to stand and walk upon
+his legs like other human beings. He was never heard to utter more
+than one articulate sound, and that was "Aboodeea," the name of the
+little daughter of the Cashmeer mimic, who had treated him with
+kindness, and for whom he had shown some kind of attachment. In about
+four months he began to understand and obey signs. He was by them
+made to prepare the hookah, put lighted charcoal upon the tobacco,
+and bring it to Janoo, or present it to whomsoever he pointed out.
+
+[* Transcriber's note--'six weeks' was printed as 'six months', but
+is corrected by the author, in Volume ii, in a P.S. to his letter,
+dated 20th November, 1852, to Sir James Weir Hogg.]
+
+One night while the boy was lying under the tree, near Janoo, Janoo
+saw two wolves come up stealthily, and smell at the boy. They then
+touched him, and he got up; and, instead of being frightened, the boy
+put his hands upon their heads, and they began to play with him. They
+capered around him, and he threw straw and leaves at them. Janoo
+tried to drive them off but he could not, and became much alarmed;
+and he called out to the sentry over the guns, Meer Akbur Allee, and
+told him that the wolves were going to eat the boy. He replied, "Come
+away and leave him, or they will eat you also;" but when he saw them
+begin to play together, his fears subsided and he kept quiet. Gaining
+confidence by degrees, he drove them away; but, after going a little
+distance, they returned, and began to play again with the boy. At
+last he succeeded in driving them off altogether. The night after
+three wolves came, and the boy and they played together. A few nights
+after four wolves came, but at no time did more than four come. They
+came four or five times, and Janoo had no longer any fear of them;
+and he thinks that the first two that came must have been the two
+cubs with which the boy was first found, and that they were prevented
+from seizing him by recognising the smell. They licked his face with
+their tongues as he put his hands on their heads.
+
+Soon after his master, Sanaollah, returned to Lucknow, and threatened
+Janoo to turn him out of his service unless he let go the boy. He
+persisted in taking the boy with him, and his master relented. He had
+a string tied to his arm, and led him along by it, and put a bundle
+of clothes on his head. As they passed a jungle the boy would throw
+down the bundle and try to run into the jungle, but on being beaten,
+he would put up his hands in supplication, take up the bundle and go
+on; but he seemed soon to forget the beating, and did the same thing
+at almost every jungle they came through. By degrees he became quite
+docile. Janoo was one day, about three months after their return to
+Lucknow, sent away by his master for a day or two on some business,
+and before his return the boy had ran off, and he could never find
+him again. About two months after the boy had gone, a woman, of the
+weaver caste, came with a letter from a relation of the Rajah, Hurdut
+Sing, to Sanaollah, stating that she resided in the village of
+Chureyrakotra, on his estate, and had had her son, then about four
+years of age, taken from her, about five or six years before, by a
+wolf; and, from the description which she gave of him, he, the
+Rajah's relation, thought he must be the boy whom his servant, Janoo,
+took away with him. She said that her boy had two marks upon him, one
+on the chest of a boil, and one of something else on the forehead;
+and as these marks corresponded precisely with those found upon the
+boy, neither she nor they had any doubt that he was her lost son. She
+remained for four months with the merchant Sanaollah, and Janoo, his
+kidmutghur, at Lucknow; but the boy could not be found, and she
+returned home, praying that information might be sent to her should
+he be discovered. Sanaollah, Janoo, and Ramzan Khan, are still at
+Lucknow, and before me have all three declared all the circumstances
+here stated to be strictly true. The boy was altogether about five
+months with Sanaollah and his servants, from the time they got him;
+and he had been taken about four months and a half before. The wolf
+must have had several litters of whelps during the six or seven years
+that the boy was with her. Janoo further adds, that he, after a month
+or two, ventured to try a waist-band upon the boy, but he often tore
+it off in distress or anger. After he had become reconciled to this,
+in about two months, he ventured to put on upon him a vest and a pair
+of trousers. He had great difficulty in making him keep them on, with
+threats and occasional beatings. He would disencumber himself of them
+whenever left alone, but put them on again in alarm when discovered;
+and to the last often injured or destroyed them by rubbing them
+against trees or posts, like a beast, when any part of his body
+itched. This habit he could never break him of.
+
+Rajah Hurdut Sewae, who is now in Lucknow on business, tells me (28th
+January, 1851) that the sowar brought the boy to Bondee, and there
+kept him for a short time, as long as he remained; but as soon as he
+went off, the boy came to him, and he kept him for three months; that
+he appeared to him to be twelve years of age; that he ate raw meat as
+long as he remained with him, with evident pleasure, whenever it was
+offered to him, but would not touch the bread and other dressed food
+put before him; that he went on all fours, but would stand and go
+awkwardly on two legs when threatened or made to do so; that he
+seemed to understand signs, but could not understand or utter a word;
+that he seldom attempted to bite any one, nor did he tear the clothes
+that he put upon him; that Sanaollah, the Cashmeeree merchant, used
+at that time to come to him often with shawls for sale, and must have
+taken the boy away with him, but he does not recollect having given
+the boy to him. He says that he never himself sent any letter to
+Sanaollah with the mother of the boy, but his brother or some other
+relation of his may have written one for her.
+
+It is remarkable that I can discover no well-established instance of
+a man who had been nurtured in a wolf's den having been found. There
+is, at Lucknow, an old man who was found in the Oude Tarae, when a
+lad, by the hut of an old hermit who had died. He is supposed to have
+been taken from wolves by this old hermit. The trooper who found him
+brought him to the King some forty years ago, and he has been ever
+since supported by the King comfortably. He is still called the "wild
+man of the woods." He was one day sent to me at my request, and I
+talked with him. His features indicate him to be of the Tharoo tribe,
+who are found only in that forest. He is very inoffensive, but speaks
+little, and that little imperfectly; and he is still impatient of
+intercourse with his fellow-men, particularly with such as are
+disposed to tease him with questions. I asked him whether he had any
+recollection of having been with wolves. He said "the wolf died long
+before the hermit;" but he seemed to recollect nothing more, and
+there is no mark on his knees or elbows to indicate that he ever went
+on all fours. That he was found as a wild boy in the forest there can
+be no doubt; but I do not feel at all sure that he ever lived with
+wolves. From what I have seen and heard I should doubt whether any
+boy who had been many years with wolves, up to the age of eight or
+ten, could ever attain the average intellect of man. I have never
+heard of a man who had been spared and nurtured by wolves having been
+found; and, as many boys have been recovered from wolves after they
+had been many years with them, we must conclude that after a time
+they either die from living exclusively on animal food, before they
+attain the age of manhood, or are destroyed by the wolves themselves,
+or other beasts of prey, in the jungles, from whom they are unable to
+escape, like the wolves themselves, from want of the same speed. The
+wolf or wolves, by whom they have been spared and nurtured, must die
+or be destroyed in a few years, and other wolves may kill and eat
+them. Tigers generally feed for two or three days upon the bullock
+they kill, and remain all the time, when not feeding, concealed in
+the vicinity. If they found such a boy feeding upon their prey they
+would certainly kill him, and most likely eat him. If such a boy
+passed such a dead body he would certainly feed upon it. Tigers often
+spring upon and kill dogs and wolves thus found feeding upon their
+prey. They could more 'easily kill boys, and would certainly be more
+disposed to eat them. If the dead body of such a boy were found
+anywhere in the jungles, or on the plains, it would excite little
+interest, where dead bodies are so often found exposed, and so soon
+eaten by dogs, jackals, vultures, &c., and would scarcely ever lead
+to any particular inquiry.
+
+
+                      __________________________
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Salone district--Rajah Lal Hunmunt Sing of Dharoopoor--Soil of Oude--
+Relative fertility of the _mutteear_ and _doomutteea_--Either may
+become _oosur_, or barren, from neglect, and is reclaimed, when it
+does so, with difficulty--Shah Puna Ata, a holy man in charge of an
+eleemosynary endowment at Salone--Effects of his curses--Invasion of
+British Boundary--Military Force with the Nazim--State and character
+of this Force--Rae Bareilly in the Byswara district--Bandha, or
+Misletoe--Rana Benee Madhoo, of Shunkerpoor--Law of Primogeniture--
+Title of Rana contested between Benee Madhoo and Rogonath Sing--
+Bridge and avenue at Rae Bareilly--Eligible place for cantonment and
+civil establishments--State of the Artillery--Sobha Sing's regiment--
+Foraging System--Peasantry follow the fortunes of their refractory
+Landlords--No provision for the king's soldiers, disabled in action,
+or for the families of those who are killed--Our sipahees, a
+privileged class, very troublesome in the Byswara and Banoda
+districts--Goorbukshgunge--Man destroyed by an Elephant--Danger to
+which keepers of such animals are exposed--Bys Rajpoots composed of
+two great families, Sybunsies and Nyhassas--Their continual contests
+for landed possessions--Futteh Bahader--Rogonath Sing--Mahibollah the
+robber and estate of Balla--Notion that Tillockchundee Bys Rajpoots
+never suffer from the bite of a snake--Infanticide--Paucity of
+comfortable dwelling-houses--The cause--Agricultural capitalists--
+Ornaments and apparel of the females of the Bys clan--Late Nazim Hamid
+Allee--His father-in-law Fuzl Allee--First loan from Oude to our
+Government--Native gentlemen with independent incomes cannot reside
+in the country--Crowd the city, and tend to alienate the Court from
+the people.
+
+
+
+_December_ 29, 1849.--Ten miles to Rampoor. Midway we passed over the
+border of the Sultanpoor district into that of Salone, whose Amil,
+Hoseyn Buksh, there met us with his _cortege_. Rampoor is the
+Residence of Rajah Hunmunt Sing, the tallookdar of the two estates of
+Dharoopoor and Kalakunkur, which extend down to and for some miles
+along the left bank of the river Ganges. There is a fort in each of
+these estates, and he formerly resided in that of Dharoopoor, four
+miles from our present encampment. That of Kalakunkur is on the bank
+of the Ganges. The lands along, on both sides the road, over which we
+are come, are scantily cultivated, but well studded with good trees,
+where the soil is good for them. A good deal of it is, however, the
+poor oosur soil, the rest muteear, of various degrees of fertility.
+The territory of Oude, as I have said above, must once have formed
+part of the bed of a lake,* which contained a vast fund of soluble
+salts. Through this bed, as the waters flowed off, the rivers from
+the northern range of hills, which had before fed the lake, cut their
+way to join the larger stream of the Ganges; and the smaller streams,
+which have their sources in the dense forest of the Tarae, which now
+extends along the southern border of that range, have since cut their
+way through this bed in the same manner to the larger rivers. The
+waters from these rivers percolate through the bed; and, as they rise
+to the surface, by the laws of capillary attraction, they carry with
+them these salts in solution. As they reach the surface in dry
+weather, they give off by evaporation pure water; and the salts,
+which they held in solution, remain behind in the upper surface. The
+capillary action goes on; and as the pure water is taken off in the
+atmosphere in vapour, other water impregnated with more salts comes
+up to supply its place; and the salts near the surface either
+accumulate or are supplied to the roots of the plants, shrubs, or
+trees, which require them.
+
+[* Caused, possibly, by the Vendeya range once extending E. N. E. up
+to the Himmalaya chain, which runs E. S. E. It now extends up only to
+the right bank of the Ganges, at Chunar and Mirzapoor.]
+
+Rain-water,* which contains no such salts, falls after the dry season
+is over, and washes out of the upper surface a portion of the salts,
+which have thus been brought up from below and accumulated, and
+either takes them off in floods or carries them down again to the
+beds below. Some of these salts, or their bases, may become
+superabundant, and render the lands oosur or unfit for ordinary
+tillage. There may be a superabundance of those which are not
+required, or cannot be taken up by the plants, actually on the
+surface, or there may be a superabundance of the whole, from the
+plants and rain-water being insufficient to take away such as require
+to be removed. These salts are here, as elsewhere, of great variety;
+nitrates of ammonia, which, combining with the inorganic substances--
+magnesia, lime, soda, potash, alumina, and oxide of iron--form double
+salts, and become soluble in water, and fit food for plants. Or there
+may be a deficiency of vegetable mould (humus) or manure to supply,
+with the aid of carbonic acid, air, water, and ammonia, the organic
+acids required to adapt the inorganic substances to the use of
+plants.
+
+[* Rain-water contains small quantities of carbonic acid, ammonia,
+atmospheric air, and vegetable or animal matter.]
+
+All are, in due proportion, more or less conducive to the growth and
+perfection of the plants, which men and animals require from the
+soil: some plants require more of the one, and some more of another;
+and some find a superabundance of what they need, where others find a
+deficiency, or none at all. The muteear seems to differ from the
+doomuteea soil, in containing a greater portion of those elements
+which constitute what are called good clay soils. The inorganic
+portions of these elements--silicates, carbonates, sulphates,
+phosphates, and chlorides of lime, potash, magnesia, alumina, soda,
+oxides of iron and manganese--it derives from the detritus of the
+granite, gneiss, mica, and chlorite slate, limestone and sandstone
+rocks, in which the Himmalaya chain of mountains so much abounds; and
+the organic elements--humates, almates, geates, apoerenates, and
+crenates--it derives from the mould, formed from the decay of animal
+and vegetable matter. It is more hydroscopic, or capable of absorbing
+and retaining moisture, and fixing ammonia than the doomuteea. It is
+of a darker colour, and forms more into clods to retain moisture. I
+may here mention that the Himmalaya chain does not abound in volcanic
+rocks, like the chains of Central and Southern India; and that the
+soils, which are formed from its detritus, contain, in consequence,
+less phosphoric acid, and is less adapted to the growth of that
+numerous class of plants which cannot live without phosphates. The
+volcanic rocks form a plateaux upon the sandstone, of almost all the
+hills of Central and Southern India; and the soil, which is formed
+from their detritus, is exceedingly fertile, when well combined, as
+it commonly is, with the salts and double salts formed by the union
+of the organic acids with the inorganic bases of alkalies, earths,
+and oxides which have become soluble, and been brought to the surface
+from below by capillary attraction. I may also mention, that the
+basaltic plateaux upon the sandstone rocks of Central and Southern
+India are often surmounted with a deposit, more or less deep, of
+laterite, or indurated iron clay, the detritus of which tends to
+promote fertility in the soil. I have never myself seen any other
+deposit than this iron clay or _laterite_ above the basaltic
+plateaux. I believe that this laterite is never found, in any part of
+the Himmalaya chain. I have never seen it there, nor have I ever
+heard of any one having seen it there. In Bundelkund and other parts
+of Central and Southern India, the basaltic plateaux are sometimes
+found deposing immediately upon beds of granite.
+
+The doomuteea is of a light-brown colour, soon powders into fine
+dust, and requires much more outlay in manure and labour than the
+muteear. The oosur soil appears to be formed out of both, by a
+superabundance of one or other of the salts or their bases, which are
+brought to the surface from the beds below, and not carried off or
+taken back into these beds. It is known that salts of ammonia are
+injurious to plants, unless combined with organic acids, supplied to
+the soil by decayed vegetable or animal matter. This matter is
+necessary to combine with, and fix the ammonia in the soil, and give
+it out to plants as they require it.
+
+It is possible that nitrates may superabound in the soil from the
+oxydizement of the nitrogen of a superfluity of ammonia. The people
+say that all land may become _oosur_ from neglect; and when _oosur_
+can never be made to bear crops, after it has been left long fallow,
+till it has been flooded with rain-water for two or three seasons, by
+means of artificial embankments, and then well watered, manured, and
+ploughed. When well tilled in this way, all but the very worst kinds
+of _oosur_ are said to bear tolerable crops. In the midst of a plain
+of barren oosur land, which has hardly a tree, shrub, or blade of
+grass, we find small _oases_, or patches of low land, in which
+accumulated rain-water lies for several months every year, covered
+with stout grasses of different kinds, a sure indication of ability
+to bear good crops, under good tillage. From very bad _oosur_ lands,
+common salt or saltpetre, or both, are taken by digging out and
+washing the earth, and then removing the water by evaporation. The
+clods in the muteear soil not only retain moisture, and give it out
+slowly as required by the crops, but they give shelter and coolness
+to the young and tender shoots of grain and pulse. Of course trees,
+shrubs, and plants, of all kind in Oude, as elsewhere, derive
+carbonic acid gas and ammonia from the atmosphere, and decompose
+them, for their own use, in the same manner.
+
+In treating of the advantages of greater facilities for irrigation in
+India, I do not recollect ever having seen any mention made of that
+of penetrating by wells into the deep deposits below of the soluble
+salts, or their bases, and bringing them to the surface in the water,
+for the supply of the plants, shrubs, and trees we require. People
+talk of digging for valuable metals, and thereby "developing
+resources;" but never talk of digging for the more valuable solutions
+of soluble salts, to be combined with the organic acids already
+existing in the soil, or provided by man in manures--and with the
+carbonic acid, ammonia, and water from the atmosphere--to supply him
+with a never-ending succession of harvests. The practical
+agriculturists of Oude, however, say, that brackish water in
+irrigation is only useful to tobacco and shama; and where the salts
+which produce it superabound, rain-water tanks and fresh-water rivers
+and canals would, no doubt, be much better than wells for irrigation.
+All these waters contain carbonic acid gas, atmospheric air, and
+solutions of salts, which form food for plants, or become so when
+combined with the organic acids, supplied by the decayed animal and
+vegetable matter in the soil.
+
+Soils which contain salts, which readily give off their water of
+crystallization and _effloresce_, sooner become barren than those
+which contain salts that attract moisture from the air, and
+deliquesce, as chlorides of calcium and magnesia, carbonates and
+acetates of potassa, alumina, &c. Canals flowing over these deep dry
+beds, through which little water from the springs below ever
+percolates to the surface, are not only of great advantage for
+irrigating the crops on the surface, but for supplying water as they
+flow along, to penetrate through these deep dry beds; and, as they
+rise to the surface by capillary attraction, carrying along with them
+the soluble salts which they pick up on their way. In Oude, as in all
+the districts that extend along to the north of the Ganges, and south
+of the Himmalaya chain, easterly winds prevail, and bring up moisture
+from the sea of the Bay of Bengal. All these districts are, at the
+same time, abundantly studded with groves of fine trees and jungle,
+that attract this moisture to the earth in rain and dew. Through
+Goozerat, Malwa, Berar, and Bundelkund, and all the districts
+bordering the Nerbudda river, from its mouth to its sources, westerly
+winds prevail, and bring up moisture from the Gulf of Cambay; and
+these districts are all well studded with groves, &c., and single
+trees, which act in the same manner, in attracting the moisture from
+the atmosphere to the earth, in rain and dew. In Rajpootana and Sinde
+no prevailing wind, I believe, comes from any sea nearer than the
+Atlantic ocean; and there are but few trees to attract to the earth
+the little moisture that the atmosphere contains. The rain that falls
+over these countries is not, I believe, equal to more than one-third
+of what falls over the districts, supplied from the Bay of Bengal, or
+to one-fourth of what falls in those supplied from the Gulf of
+Cambay. Our own districts of the N. W. Provinces, which intervene
+between those north of the Ganges and Rajpootana, have the advantage
+of rivers and canals; but their atmosphere is not so well supplied
+with moisture from the sea, nor are they so well studded as they
+ought to be with trees. The Punjab has still greater advantages from
+numerous rivers, flowing from the Himmalaya chain, and is, like
+Egypt, in some measure independent of moisture from the atmosphere as
+far as tillage is concerned; but both would, no doubt, be benefited
+by a greater abundance of trees. They not only tend to convey to and
+retain moisture in the soil, and to purify the air for man, by giving
+out oxygen and absorbing carbonic acid gas, but they are fertilizing
+media, through which the atmosphere conveys to the soil most of the
+carbon, and much of the ammonia, without which no soil can be
+fertile. It is, I believe, generally admitted that trees derive most
+of their carbon from the air through their leaves, and most of their
+ammonia from the soil through their roots; and that when the trees,
+shrubs, and plants, which form our coal-measures, adorned the surface
+of the globe, the atmosphere must have contained a greater portion of
+carbonic acid gas than at present. They decompose the gases, use the
+carbon, and give back the oxygen to the atmosphere.
+
+_December_ 30, 1849.--Ten miles to Salone, over a pretty country,
+well studded with fine trees and well tilled, except in large patches
+of oosur land, which occur on both sides of the road. The soil,
+doomuteea, with a few short intervals of muteear. The Rajah of
+Pertabghur, and other great landholders of the Sultanpoor division,
+who had been for some days travelling with me, and the Nazim and his
+officers, took leave yesterday. The Nazim, Aga Allee, is a man of
+great experience in the convenances of court and city life, and of
+some in revenue management, having long had charge of the estates
+comprised in the "Hozoor Tehseel," while he resided at Lucknow. He
+has good sense and an excellent temper, and his manners and
+deportment are courteous and gentlemanly. The Rajah of Pertabghur is
+a very stout and fat man, of average understanding. The rightful heir
+to the principality was Seorutun Sing, whom I have mentioned in my
+_Rambles and Recollections_, as a gallant young landholder, fighting
+for his right to the succession, while I was cantoned at Pertabghur
+in 1818. He continued to fight, but in vain, as the revenue
+contractors were too strong for him. Gholam Hoseyn, the then Nazim,
+kept him down while he lived, and Dursun Sing got him into his power
+by fraud, and confined him for three years in gaol.
+
+He died soon after his release, leaving one son. Rajah Dheer Sing,*
+who still lives upon the portion of land which his father inherited.
+He has taken up the contest for the right bequeathed to him by his
+father; and his uncle, Golab Sing, the younger brother of Seorutun, a
+brave, shrewd, and energetic man, has been for some days importuning
+me for assistance. The nearest relations of the family told me
+yesterday, that they were coerced by the Government authorities into
+recognising the adoption of the present Rajah, though it was contrary
+to all Hindoo law and usage. Hindoos, they said, never marry into the
+same gote or family, and they never ought to adopt one of the
+relations of their wives, or a son of a sister, or any descendant in
+the female line, while there is one of the male line existing.
+Seoruttun Sing was the next heir in the male line; but the Rajah,
+having married a young girl in his old age, adopted as his heir to
+the principality her nearest relative, the present Rajah, who is of a
+different _gote_. The desire to keep the land in the same family has
+given rise to singular laws and usages in all nations in the early
+stages of civilization, when industry is confined almost exclusively
+to agriculture, and land is almost the only property valued. Among
+the people of the Himmalaya hills, as in all Sogdiana, it gave rise
+to polyandry; and, among the Israelites and Mahommedans, to the
+marriage of many brothers in succession to the same woman.
+
+[* Rajah Deer Sing died in April 1851, leaving a very young son under
+the guardianship of his uncle, Golab Sing.]
+
+The Rajah of Dharoopoor, who resides at Rampoor, our last halting-
+place, holds, as above stated, a tract of land along the left bank of
+the Ganges, called the Kalakunkur, in which he has lately built a
+mud-fort of reputed strength. He is a very sensible and active man of
+pleasing manners. He has two grown-up sons, who were introduced to me
+by him yesterday. The Government authorities complain of his want of
+punctuality in the payment of his revenue; and he complains, with
+much more justice, of the uncertainty in the rate of the demand on
+the part of Government and its officers or Court favourites, and in
+the character of the viceroys sent to rule over them; but, above all,
+of the impossibility of getting a hearing at Court when they are
+wronged and oppressed by bad viceroys. He went twice himself to
+Lucknow, to complain of grievous wrongs suffered by him and his
+tenants from an oppressive viceroy; but, though he had some good
+friends at Court, and among them Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, he was obliged
+to return without finding access to the sovereign or his minister, or
+any one in authority over the viceroy. He told me that all large
+landholders, who had any regard for their character, or desire to
+retain their estates, and protect their tenants, were obliged to arm
+and take to their strongholds or jungles as their only resource, when
+bad viceroys were sent--that if they could be assured that fair
+demands only would be made, and that they would have access to
+authority, when they required to defend themselves from false
+charges, and to complain of the wrong doings of viceroys and their
+agents, none of them would be found in resistance against the
+Government, since all were anxious to bequeath to their children a
+good name, as well as a good estate. He promised punctual payment of
+his revenues to Government, and strict obedience in all things,
+provided that the contractor did not enhance his demand upon him, as
+he now seemed disposed to do, in the shape of gratuities to himself
+and Court favourites. "To be safe in Oude" he said, "it is necessary
+to be strong, and prepared always to use your strength in resisting
+outrage and oppression, on the part of the King's officers."
+
+At Salone resides a holy Mahommedan, Shah Puna Ata, who is looked up
+to with great reverence by both Mahommedans and Hindoos, for the
+sanctity of his character, and that of his ancestors, who sat upon
+the same religions _throne_, for throne his simple mattress is
+considered to be. From the time that the heir is called to the
+_throne_, he never leaves his house, but stays at home to receive
+homage, and distribute blessings and food to needy travellers of all
+religions. He gets from the King of Oude twelve villages, rent free,
+in perpetuity; and they are said to yield him twenty-five thousand
+rupees a-year, with which he provides for his family, and for needy
+travellers and pilgrims. This eleemosynary endowment was granted,
+about sixty years ago, by the then sovereign, Asuf-od Dowlah. The
+lands had belonged to a family of Kumpureea Rajpoots, who were ousted
+for contumacy or rebellion, I believe. He was plundered of all he
+had, to the amount of some twenty thousand rupees, in 1834, during
+the reign of Nuseer-on Deen Hyder, by Ehsan Hoseyn, the Nazim of
+Byswara and Salone, one of the sons of Sobhan Allee Khan, the then
+virtual minister; but some fifteen days after, he attacked the
+tallookdar of Bhuderee, and lost his place in consequence. The
+popular belief is, that he became insane in consequence of the holy
+man's curses, and that his whole family became ruined from the same
+cause.
+
+Bhuderee, which lies a few miles to the south of Salone, was then
+held by two gallant Rajpoot brothers, Jugmohun Sing and Bishonath
+Sing, the sons of Zalim Sing. In the month of October, A.D. 1832,
+Dhokul Sing got the contract of the district, and demanded from
+Bhuderee an increase of ten thousand rupees in its revenue. They
+refused to pay this increase. At the established rate they had always
+paid the Government demand punctually, and been good subjects and
+excellent landlords. Dhokul Sing was superseded by Ehsan Hoseyn, in
+March 1833; and he insisted upon having the increase of ten thousand.
+They refused to pay, and Ehsan Hoseyn besieged and attacked their
+fort in September. After defending themselves resolutely for five
+days, Bishonath Sing consented to visit Ehsan Hoseyn, in his camp, on
+a solemn assurance of personal security; but he no sooner came to his
+tent than he was seized and taken to Rae Bareilly, the headquarters,
+a prisoner, in the suite of the Nazim. He there remained confined, in
+irons, under charge of a wing of a regiment, commanded by Mozim Khan,
+till February 1834, when he effected his escape, and went back to
+Bhuderee. In March, a large force was collected, with an immense
+train of artillery, to aid the Nazim, and he again laid siege to the
+fort. Having sent off their families before the siege began, and
+seeing, in the course of a few days, that they could not long hold
+out against so large a force, the two brothers buried eight out of
+their ten guns, left the fort at midnight with the other two, cut
+their way through the besiegers, and passed over a plain six miles to
+Ramchora, on the left bank of the Ganges, and within the British
+territory, followed by the whole of the Nazim's force.
+
+A brisk cannonade was kept up, on both sides, the whole way, and a
+great many lives were lost The two brothers thought they should be
+safe at Ramchora, under the protection of the British Government; but
+the Nazim's force surrounded the place, and kept up a fire upon it.
+The brothers contrived, however, to send over the Ganges the greater
+part of their followers, under the protection of their two guns, and
+the few men retained to defend and serve them. Jugmohun Sing at last
+consented to accept the pledge of personal security tendered by Rajah
+Seodeen Sing, the commander-in-chief of the attacking forces; but
+while he and his brother were on their way to the camp, with a few
+armed attendants, the soldiers of the Nazim, by whom they were
+escorted, attempted to seize and disarm them. They resisted and
+defended themselves. Others came to their rescue, and the firing
+recommenced. Jugmohun Sing, and his brother, Bishonath Sing and all
+their remaining followers were killed. The two brothers lost about
+one hundred and fifty men, and the Nazim about sixty, in killed. The
+heads of the two brothers were taken off, forthwith, and sent to the
+King. Three villages in the British territory were plundered by the
+Oude troops on this occasion. This violation of our territory the
+King of Oude was called upon to punish; and Ehsan Hoseyn was deprived
+of his charge, and heavily fined, to pay compensation to our injured
+subjects.
+
+Roshun-od Dowlah, the minister, was entirely in the hands of Sobhan
+Allee Khan; and, as long as he retained office, the family suffered
+no other punishment. When he, Roshun-od Dowlah, was afterwards
+deprived of office, he went to Cawnpore to reside, and Sobhan Allee
+and all his family were obliged to follow his fortunes. On his
+dismissal from office, Roshun-od Dowlah was put into gaol, and not
+released till he paid twenty-two lacs of rupees into the Treasury. He
+had given eight lacs, in our Government promissory notes, to his
+wife, and three to his son, and he took some lacs with him to
+Cawnpore, all made during the five years he held office. Sobhan Allee
+Khan, his deputy, was made to pay into the Treasury seven lacs, and
+five in gratuities--all made during the same five years. Sobhan Allee
+died last year on a pilgrimage to Mecca, with the character of one of
+the ablest and least scrupulous of men; and his sons continue to
+reside at Cawnpore and Allahabad, with the character of having all
+the bad, without any of the good, qualities of their father. The
+widow of Jugmohun manages the estate; but she has adopted the nearest
+heir to her husband, the present Rajah of Bhuderee, a fine, handsome,
+and amiable youth, of sixteen years of age, who is now learning
+Persian. He was one of the many chiefs who took leave of me
+yesterday, and the most prepossessing of all. His adoptive mother,
+however, absorbs the estates of her weaker neighbours, by fraud,
+violence, and collusion, like other landholders, and the dispossessed
+become leaders of gang robbers as in other parts.
+
+The Shah receives something from the local authorities, and
+contributions from Mahommedan Princes, in remote parts of India, such
+as Bhopal, Seronge, &c. Altogether his income is said to amount to
+about fifty thousand rupees a-year. He has letters from Governors-
+General of India, Lieutenant-Governors of the North-Western Provinces
+and their Secretaries; and from Residents at the Court of Lucknow,
+all of a complimentary character. He has lately declared his eldest
+son to be his heir to the throne, and is said to have already put him
+upon it. I received from him the usual letter of compliments and
+welcome, with a present of a tame antelope, and some fruit and sugar;
+and I wrote him a reply in the usual terms. His name is Shah Puna
+Ata, and his character is held in high esteem by all classes of the
+people, of whatever creed, caste, or grade.
+
+The Bhuderee family give their daughters in marriage to the Bugheela
+Rajahs of Rewa and the Powar Rajahs of Ocheyra, who are considered to
+be a shade higher in caste than they are among the Rajpoots. Not long
+ago they gave one hundred thousand rupees, with one daughter, to the
+only son of the Rewa Rajah, as the only condition on which he would
+take her. Golab Sing, the brother of Seoruttun Sing, of Pertabghur,
+by caste a Sombunsee, is said to have given lately fifty thousand
+rupees, with another daughter, to the same person. Rajah Hunmunt
+Sing, of Dharoopoor, who is by caste a Beseyn Rajpoot, the year
+before last went to Rewa, accompanied by some fifty Brahmins, to
+propose an union between his daughter and the same son of the Rewa
+Rajah. A large sum was demanded, but he pleaded poverty, and at last
+got the Rajah to consent to take fifty thousand rupees down, and
+seventy-five thousand at the last ceremony of the barat, or fetching
+home of the bride. When all had been prepared for this last ceremony,
+the Rajah of Rewa pleaded the heat of the weather, and his son would
+not come to complete it, and take away his bride. Hunmunt Sing
+collected one hundred _resolute Brahmins_, and proceeded with them to
+Rewa, where they sat _dhurna_ at the Rajah's door, without tasting
+food, and declared that they would all die there unless the marriage
+were completed.
+
+The Rajah did all he could, or could make his people do, to get rid
+of them; but at last, afraid that some of the Brahmins would really
+die, he consented that his son should go and fetch his bride, if
+Hunmunt Sing would pay down twenty-five thousand rupees more, to
+defray the cost of the procession, in addition to the seventy-five
+thousand. He did so, and his daughter was taken off in due form. He
+has another daughter to dispose of in the same way. The Rewa Rajah
+has thus taken five or six wives for his son, from families a shade
+lower in caste; but the whole that he has got with them will not be
+enough to pay one of the Rajpoot families, a shade higher in caste
+than he is, in Rajpootana, to take one daughter from him. It costs
+him ten or twelve lacs of rupees to induce the Rajah of Oudeepoor,
+Joudhpoor, or Jypoor, to take away, as his bride, a daughter of Rewa.
+All is a matter of bargain and sale. Those who have money must pay,
+in proportion to their means, to marry their daughters into families
+a shade higher in caste or dignity, or to get daughters from them
+when such families are reduced to the necessity of selling their
+daughters to families of a lower grade.
+
+Among Brahmins it is the same. Take, for example, the Kunojee
+Brahmins, among whom there are several shades of caste. The member of
+a family a shade higher will not give his son in marriage to a
+daughter of a family a shade lower, without receiving a sum in
+proportion to its means; nor will he give a daughter in marriage to
+such a family till he is so exalted as to be able to disregard the
+feelings of his clan, or reduced to such a degree of poverty as shall
+seem to his clan sufficient to justify it. This bargain and sale of
+sons and daughters prevails, more or less, throughout all Hindoo
+society, and is not, even now, altogether unknown among Christian
+nations. In Oude, this has led to the stealing of young girls from
+our own districts. Some men and women from our districts make a trade
+of it. They pretend to be of Rajpoot caste, and inveigle away girls
+from their parents, to be united in marriage to Rajpoots in Oude.
+They pretend to have brought them with the consent of their parents,
+of the same or higher caste, in our territories, and make large sums
+by the trade.
+
+_December_ 31, 1849.--Eight miles to Sotee, over a country well
+studded with trees, and generally well cultivated. The soil is, all
+the way, doomuteea. The road, the greater part of the way, lies in
+the purgunnah of Nyn, held by Jugunnath Sing, a Kumpureea Rajpoot,
+and his nephew, and the collateral branches of their family. They
+have a belt of jungle, extending for some twelve miles along the
+right bank of the Saee river, and on the right side of the road, and
+within from two to six miles from it--in some parts nearer, and in
+others more remote. Wild hogs, deer, neelgae, and wild cattle abound
+in this jungle, and do great injury to the crops in its vicinity. The
+peasantry can kill and eat the hogs and deer, but dare not kill or
+wound the wild cattle or neelgae. The wild cattle are said to be from
+a stock which strayed or were let loose in this jungle some centuries
+ago. They are described as fat, while the crops are on the ground,
+and well formed--some black, some red, some white, and some mixed--
+and to be as wild and active as the deer of the same jungle. They are
+sometimes caught by being driven into the Saee river; but the young
+ones are said to refuse all food, and die soon, if not released.
+Hindoos soon release them, from the religious dread that they may die
+in confinement. The old ones sometimes live, and are considered
+valuable. They are said to be finer in form than the tame cattle of
+the country; and from July to March, when grass abounds, and the
+country around is covered successively with autumn and spring crops,
+more fat and sleek.
+
+The soil is good and strong, and the jungle which covers it very
+thick. It is preserved by a family of Kumpureea Rajpoots, whose whole
+possessions, in 1814, consisted of nine villages. By degrees they
+have driven out or murdered all the other proprietors, and they now
+hold no less than one hundred and fifty, for which they pay little or
+no revenue to Government. The rents are employed in keeping up large
+bands of armed followers and building strongholds, from which they
+infest the surrounding country. The family has become divided into
+five branches, each branch having a fort or stronghold in the Nyn
+jungle, and becoming by degrees subdivided into smaller branches, who
+will thrive and become formidable in proportion as the Government
+becomes weak. Each branch acts independently in its depredations and
+usurpations from weaker neighbours but all unite when attacked or
+threatened by the Government.
+
+Rajah Dursun Sing held the district of Salone from 1827 to 1836, and
+during this time he made several successful attacks upon the
+Kumpureea Rajpoots of the Nyn jungle; and during his occasional
+temporary residence he had a great deal of the jungle around his
+force cut down, but he made no permanent arrangement for subduing
+them. In 1837, the government of this district was transferred to
+Kondon Lal Partak, who established a garrison in the centre of the
+jungle, had much of it cut down, and kept the Kumpureea barons
+effectually in check. He died in 1838, and Rajahs Dursun Sing and
+Buktawar Sing again got the government, and continued the _partaks_
+system for the next five years, up to 1843. They lost the government
+for 1844 and 1845, but their successors followed the same system, to
+keep the Kumpureeas in order. Bukhtawar Sing got the government again
+for 1846 and 1847, and persevered in this system; but in 1848 the
+government was made over to Hamid Allee, a weak and inexperienced
+man. His deputy, Nourouz Allee, withdrew the garrison, and left the
+jungle to the Kumpureeas, who, in return, assigned to him three or
+four of their villages, rent free, in perpetuity, which in Oude means
+as long as the grantee may have the power or influence to be useful
+to the granters, or to retain the grants. Since that time the
+Kumpureeas have recovered all the lands they had lost, restored all
+the jungle that had been cut down, and they are now more powerful
+than ever. They have strengthened their old forts and built some new,
+and added greatly to the number of their armed followers, so that the
+governor of the district dares not do anything to coerce them into
+the payment of the just demands of Government, or to check their
+usurpations and outrages.*
+
+[* This Nourouz Allee was, 1851, the agent of the Kumpureea barons of
+this jungle, at the Durbar, where he has made, in the usual way, many
+influential friends, in collusion with whom he has seized upon many
+estates in the vicinity of the jungle, and had them made over to
+these formidable barons.]
+
+The present Nazim has with him two Nujeeb Regiments, one of nine
+hundred and fifty-five, and the other of eight hundred and thirty
+men; a squadron of horse and fourteen guns. The two corps are
+virtually commanded by fiddlers and eunuchs at Court. Of the men
+borne on the muster rolls and paid, not one-half are present; of the
+number present, not one-half are fit for the duties of soldiers; and
+of those fit for such duties, not one-half would perform them. They
+get nominally four rupees a-month, liable to numerous deductions, and
+they are obliged to provide their own clothing, arms, accoutrements,
+and ammunition, except on occasions of actual fighting, when they are
+entitled to powder and ball from the Government officer under whom
+they are employed. He purchases powder in the bazaars, or has it sent
+to him from Lucknow; and, in either case, it is not more than one-
+third of the strength used by our troops. It is made in villages and
+supplied to contractors, whose only object is to get the article at
+the cheapest possible rate; and that supplied to the most petted
+corps is altogether unfit for service.
+
+The arms with which they are expected to provide themselves are a
+matchlock and sword. They are often ten or twelve months in arrears,
+and obliged to borrow money for their own subsistence and that of
+their families, at twenty-four per cent. interest. If they are
+disabled, they have little chance of ever recovering the arrears of
+pay due to them; and if they are killed, their families have still
+less. Even the arms and accoutrements which they have purchased with
+their own money are commonly seized by the officers of Government,
+and sold for the benefit of the State. Under all these disadvantages,
+the Nazim tells me that he thinks it very doubtful whether any of the
+men of the two corps would fight at all on emergency. The cavalry are
+still worse off, for they have to subsist their horses, and if any
+man's horse should be disabled or killed, he would be at once
+dismissed with just as little chance of recovering the arrears of pay
+due to him. Of the fourteen guns, two only are in a state fit for
+service. Bullocks are provided for six out of fourteen, but they are
+hardly able to stand from want of food, much less to draw heavy guns.
+I looked at them, and found that they had had no grain for many
+years, and very little grass or chaff, since none is allowed by
+Government for their use, and little can be got by forage, or
+plunder, which is the same thing. One seer and half of grain, or
+three pounds a-day for each bullock, is allowed and paid for by
+Government, but the bullocks never get any of it. Of the six best
+guns, for which he has draft bullocks, the carriage of one went to
+pieces on the road yesterday, and that of another went to pieces
+this-morning in my camp, in firing the salute, and both guns now lie
+useless on the ground. He has one mortar, but only two shells for it;
+and he has neither powder nor ball for any of the guns. He was
+obliged to purchase in the bazaar the powder required for the salute
+for the Resident.
+
+The Nazim tells me, that he has entertained at his own cost two
+thousand Nujeebs or Seobundies, on the same conditions as those on
+which the others serve in the two Regiments, on duty under him--that
+is, they are to get four rupees a-month each, and furnish themselves
+with food, clothing, a matchlock, sword, accoutrements, and
+ammunition, except on occasions of actual fighting, when he is to
+provide them with powder and ball from the bazaar. The minister, he
+tells me, promised to send him another Nujeeb corps--the Futteh Jung--
+from Khyrabad; but he has heard so bad an account of its discipline,
+that he might as well be without it. All the great landholders see
+the helpless state of the Nazim, and not only withhold from him the
+just dues of Government, but seize upon and appropriate with impunity
+the estates of the small proprietors in their neighbourhood.
+
+_January_ 1, 1850.--Fourteen miles to Rae Bareilly, over a plain
+with more than usual undulation, and the same doomuteea light soil,
+tolerably cultivated, and well studded with trees of the finest kind.
+The festoons of the bandha hang gracefully from the branches, with
+their light green and yellow leaves, and scarlet flowers, in the dark
+green foliage of the mango and mhowa trees in great abundance. I saw
+them in no other, but they are sometimes said to be found in the
+banyan, peepul, and other trees, with large leaves, though not in the
+tamarind, babul, and other trees, with small leaves. I examined those
+on the mango and mhowa trees, and they are the same in leaf and
+flower, and are said to be the same in whatever tree found. Rae
+Bareilly is in the estate of Shunkurpoor, belonging to Rana Benee
+Madho, a large landholder. He resides at Shunkurpoor, ten miles from
+this, and is strong, and not very scrupulous in the acquisition, by
+fraud, violence, and collusion, of the lands of the small proprietors
+in the neighbourhood. I asked Rajah Hunmunt Sing, of Dharoopoor, as
+he was riding by my side, this morning, whether he was not a man of
+bad character. He said, "No, by no means; he is a man of great
+possessions, credit, and influence, and of good repute." "But does he
+not rob smaller proprietors of their hereditary lands?" "If," replied
+the Rajah, "you estimate men's character in Oude on this principle,
+you will find hardly any landholder of any rank with a good one, for
+they have all been long doing the same thing--all have been
+augmenting their own estates by absorbing those of smaller
+proprietors, by what you will call fraud, violence, and collusion,
+but they are not thought the worse of for this by the Government or
+its officers." Nothing could be more true. Men who augment their
+estates in this way, purchase the acquiescence of temporary local
+officers, either by gratuities, or promises of aid, in putting down
+other powerful and refractory landholders; or they purchase the
+patronage of Court favourites, who get their estates transferred to
+the "Hozoor Tehseel," and their transgressions overlooked. Those who
+augment their resources in this way, employ them in maintaining armed
+bands, building forts, and purchasing cannon, to secure themselves in
+the possession, and to resist the Government and its officers, who
+might otherwise make them pay in some proportion to their
+usurpations.
+
+Benee Madho called upon me after breakfast, and gave me the little of
+his history that I desired to hear. He is of the Byans Rajpoot clan,
+and his ancestors have been settled in Oude for about twenty-five
+generations, as landholders of different grades. The tallook or
+estate now belongs to him, and is considered to be a principality, to
+descend entire by the law of primogeniture, to the nearest male heir,
+unless the lands become divided during his life-time among his sons.
+Such a division has already taken place, as will be seen by the
+annexed note :*
+
+[* Abdool-Sing, the tallookdar of Shunkurpoor, had three sons; first,
+Doorga Buksh, to whom he gave three shares; second, Chundha Buksh, to
+whom he gave two shares; third, Bhowanee Buksh, to whom he gave one
+and half share. The three shares of Doorga Buksh descended to his
+son, Sheopersaud, who died without issue. Chunda Buksh left two sons,
+Ramnaraen and Gor Buksh, Ramnaraen inherited the three shares of
+Sheopersaud, as well as the two shares of his father. He had three
+sons, Rana Benee Madho, Nirput Sing, and Jogray Sing; Benee Madho
+inherited the three shares, and one of the other two was given to
+Nirput Sing, and the other to Jogray Sing. Gorbuksh Sing left one
+son, Sheopersaud, who gets the one and half share of Bhowanee Buksh,
+whose son, Joorawun, died without issue. Benee Madho is now the head
+of the family; and he has more than quadrupled his three shares by
+absorptions, made in the way above mentioned.]
+
+The three and half shares held by his brothers and cousins are liable
+to subdivision by the Hindoo law of inheritance, or the custom of his
+family and clan; but his own share must descend undivided, unless he
+divides it during his lifetime, or his heirs divide it during theirs,
+and consent to descend in the scale of landholders. He says that,
+during the five years that Fakeer Mahommed Khan was Nazim, a quarrel
+subsisted between him and the tallookdar of Khujoor Gow, Rugonath
+Sing, his neighbour; that Sahib Rae, the deputy of Fakeer Mahommed,
+who was himself no man of business, adopted the cause of his enemy,
+and persuaded his master to attack and rob him of all he had, turn
+him out of his estate, and make it over to Rugonath Sing. He went to
+Lucknow for redress, and remained there urging his claims for
+fourteen months, when he got an order from the minister, Ameen-od
+Dowlah, for the estate being restored to him and transferred to the
+Hozoor Tehseel. He recovered his possessions, and the transfer was
+made; and he has ever since lived in peace. He might have added that
+he has been, at the same time, diligently employed in usurping the
+possessions of his weaker neighbours.*
+
+[* Benee Madho and Rugonath Sing have since quarrelled about the
+title of Rana. Benee Madho assumed the title, and Rugonath wished to
+do the same, but Benee Madho thought this would derogate from his
+dignity. They had some fighting, but Rugonath at last gave in, and
+Benee Madho purchased, from the Court a recognition of his exclusive
+right to the title, which is a new one in Oude. They had each a force
+of five thousand brave men, besides numerous auxiliaries.]
+
+On our road, two miles from Rae Bareilly, we passed over a bridge on
+the Saee river, built by _Reotee Ram_, the deputy of the celebrated
+eunuch, Almas Allee Khan, some sixty or seventy years ago. He at the
+same time planted an avenue of fine trees from Salone to Rae
+Bareilly, twenty miles; and from Rae Bareilly to Dalamow, on the
+Ganges, south, a distance of fourteen miles more. Many of the trees
+are still standing and very fine; but the greater part have been cut
+down during the contests that have taken place between the Government
+officers and the landholders, or between the landholders themselves.
+The troops in attendance upon local government authorities have,
+perhaps, been the greatest enemies to this avenue, for they spare
+nothing of value, either in exchange or esteem, that they have the
+power to take. The Government and its officers feel no interest in
+such things, and the family of the planter has no longer the means to
+protect the trees or repair the works.
+
+Rae Bareilly is the head-quarters of the local authorities in the
+Byswara district, and is considered to be one of the most healthy
+places in Oude. It is near the bank of the small river Saee, in a
+fine, open plain of light soil, and must be dry at all seasons, as
+the drainage is good; and there are no jheels or jungles near. It
+would be an excellent cantonment for a large force, and position for
+large civil establishments. The town is a melancholy ruin, and the
+people tell me that whatever landholder in the district quarrels with
+the local authorities is sure, as his first enterprise, to sack _Rae
+Bareilly_, as there is no danger in doing it. The inhabitants live so
+far from each other, and are separated by such heaps of ruins and
+deep water-courses, that they can make no resistance. The high walls
+and buildings, all of burnt brick, erected in the time of Shahjehan,
+are all gone to ruin. The plain, around the town, is open, level,
+well cultivated, and beautifully studded with trees. There is a fine
+tank of puckah masonry to the north-west of the town, built by the
+same Reotee Ram, and repaired by some member of his family, who holds
+and keeps in good order the pretty garden around it. The best place
+for a cantonment, courts, &c., is the plain which separates the town
+from the river Saee to the south-east: they should extend along from
+the town to the bridge over the Saee river. The water of this river
+is said to be excellent, though not quite equal to that of the
+Ganges. There is good water in most of the wells, but in some it is
+said to be brackish. The bridge requires repair.
+
+_January_ 2, 1850.--We halted at Rae Bareilly, and I inspected the
+bullocks belonging to the guns of Sobha Sing's regiment and some guns
+belonging to the Nazim. The bullocks have been starved, are hardly
+able to walk, and quite unfit for any work. Some of the carriages of
+the guns are broken down, and those that are still entire are so
+rotten that they could not bear a march. This regiment of Sobha
+Sing's was as good as any of those commanded by Captains Magness,
+Bunbury, and Barlow, while commanded by the late Captain Buckley;*
+and the native officers and sipahees trained under him are all still
+excellent, but they are not well provided. Like the others, this
+regiment was to have had guns permanently attached to it, but the
+want of Court influence has prevented this. They now have them only
+when sent on service from one or other of the batteries at Lucknow,
+and the consequence is that they are good for nothing. Sobha Sing is
+at Court, in attendance on the minister; and his adjutant, Bhopaul
+Sing, a near relative of the Rajah of Mynpooree, commands: he seems
+to be a good soldier, and an honest and respectable man.
+
+
+[* Captain Buckley was the son of Colonel Buckley, of the Honourable
+Company's service, a good soldier and faithful servant of the Oude
+Government. His mother, widow, and son, were left destitute; but on
+my earnest recommendation, the King granted the lad a pension of
+fifty rupees a-month.]
+
+The Nazim has with him this one _Komukee_, or auxiliary regiment, and
+half of three regiments of Nujeebs, amounting, according to the pay
+abstracts and muster-rolls, to fifteen hundred men. He has one
+hundred cavalry and seven guns, of which one only is fit for use, and
+for that one he has neither stores nor ammunition. He was obliged to
+purchase in the bazaar the powder and cloth required to make up the
+cartridges for a salute for the Resident. Of the fifteen hundred
+Nujeebs not two-thirds are present, and of these hardly one-half are
+efficient: they are paid, armed, clothed, and provided like the corps
+of Nujeebs placed under the other local officers. The tallookdars of
+the districts have not as yet presented themselves to the Nazim, but
+they have sent their agents, and, with few exceptions, shown a
+disposition to pay their revenues. The chief landholder in the
+district is Rambuksh, of Dondeea Kherah, a town, with a fort, on the
+bank of the river Ganges. He holds five of the purgunnahs as
+hereditary possessions:--1, Bhugwuntnuggur; 2, Dondeea Kherah; 3,
+Mugraen; 4, Punheen; 5, Ghutumpoor. The present Nazim has put all
+five under the management of Government officers, as the only safe
+way to get the revenues, as Rambuksh is a bad paymaster. Had he not
+been so, as well to his _own retainer_ as to the _King's officers_,
+the Nazim would not have been able to do this. It is remarked as a
+singular fact among Rajpoot landholders that Rambuksh wants courage
+himself, and is too niggardly to induce others to fight for him with
+spirit. The last Nazim, Hamid Allee, a weak and inexperienced man,
+dared not venture upon such a measure to enforce payment of
+balances.*
+
+[* Rambuksh recovered the management of his estate, and had it
+transferred to the Hozoor Tehseel: but he failed in the payment of
+the expected gratuities; and in April, 1851, he was attacked by a
+large force, and driven across the Ganges, into British territory. He
+had gone off on the pretence of a visit to some shrine, and his
+followers would not fight. The fort was destroyed, and estate
+confiscated. He is still, January, 1851, negotiating for the purchase
+of both, and will succeed, as he has plenty of money at command. The
+King's troops employed committed all manner of atrocities upon the
+poor peasantry: many men were murdered, many women threw themselves
+down in wells, after they had been dishonoured; and all were
+indiscriminately plundered.]
+
+He married the daughter of Fuzl Allee, the prime minister for fifteen
+months, during which time he made a fortune of some thirty or thirty-
+five lacs of rupees, twelve of which Hamid Allee's wife got. He was
+persuaded by Gholam Allee, his deputy, and others, that he might
+aspire to be prime minister at Lucknow if he took a few districts in
+farm, to establish his character and influence. In the farm of these
+districts he has sunk his own fortune and that of his wife, and is
+still held to be a defaulter to the amount of some eighteen lacs, and
+is now in gaol. This balance he will wipe off in time in the usual
+manner: he will beg and borrow to pay a small sum to the Treasury,
+and four times the amount in gratuities to the minister, and other
+persons, male and female, of influence at Court. The rest will be
+struck off as irrecoverable, and he will be released. He was a man
+respected at Delhi, as well on account of his good character as on
+that of his wealth; but he is here only pitied as an ambitious fool.
+
+The wakeel, on the part of the King, with the Resident, has been
+uniting his efforts to those of Hoseyn Buksh,* the present Nazim of
+Salone, to prevail upon Rajah Hunmunt Sing, the tallookdar of
+Dharoopoor, to consent to pay an addition of ten or fifteen thousand
+rupees to the present demand of one hundred and sixteen thousand
+rupees a-year for his estate. He sturdily refused, under the
+assurance of the good offices of Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, who has
+hitherto supported him. Among other things urged by him to account
+for his inability to pay is the obligation he is under to liquidate,
+by annual instalments, a balance due to Bukhtawar Sing; himself, when
+he held the contract of the district many years ago. Bukhtawar Sing
+acknowledges the receipt of the instalments, and declares that they
+are justly due; but these payments are, in reality, nothing more than
+gratuities, paid for his continued good offices with the minister and
+Dewan.
+
+[* Hoseyn Buksh was killed in March following, by the followers of a
+female landholder, whom he was trying to coerce into payment. He was
+killed by a cannon shot through the chest, while engaged in the siege
+of Shahmow, held by Golab Kour, the widow of Rajah Dirguj Sing, who
+had succeeded to the estate, and would not or could not pay her
+revenue.
+
+A few days before, Hoseyn Buksh attached the crops of another
+tallookdar, Seodut Sing, of Dhunawan, who would pay no revenue. A
+body of the King's cavalry was sent to guard the crops, but the
+tallookdar drove them off, and killed one and wounded another. Hoseyn
+Buksh then sent a regiment, the Futtehaesh, a corps of his own
+Seobundies, and six guns, to coerce the tallookdar. Two guns were
+mounted on one battery, under the Futtehaesh regiment, and four on
+another, under the Seobundies. A crowd of armed peasants attacked the
+battery with the two guns, drove back the regiment, captured the
+guns, and fired upon the soldiers as they fled. They then attacked
+the battery with the four guns, and the Seobundies fled, taking their
+guns with them for four miles. In their flight they had three men
+killed, and twelve wounded. Hoseyn Buksh, on hearing this, sent his
+whole force, under his brother, Allee Buksh, to avenge the insult.
+Seodut, thinking he could not prudently hold out any longer,
+evacuated his fort during the night, and retired, and Hoseyn Buksh
+took possession of the fort, and recovered his two guns. His
+successor restored both Seodut and the widow, Golab Kour, to their
+estates, on their own terms, after trying in vain to arrest them.]
+
+While Dursun Sing, and his brother, Bukhtawar, held the contract of
+Salone, the estate was put under management, and yielded one hundred
+and seventy-four thousand rupees a-year, out of which they allowed a
+deduction, on account of nankar, or subsistence, of some twenty
+thousand. The Rajah and Bukhtawar Sing urge that this was, for the
+most part, paid out of the property left by Byree Saul, to whom
+Himmut Sing succeeded; and that the estate can now be made to yield
+only one hundred and sixteen thousand, from which is to be deducted a
+nankar of forty thousand. They offer him a deduction of this forty
+thousand, out of a rent-roll rated at one hundred and thirty
+thousand; and threaten him with the vengeance of his Majesty if he
+refuses. He looks at their military force and smiles. The agents of
+all the tallookdars, who are in attendance on the Nazim, do the same.
+They know that they are strong, and see that the Government is weak,
+and they cease to respect its rights and orders. They see at the same
+time that the Government and its officers regard less the rights than
+the strength of the landholders; and, from fear, favour the strong
+while they oppress and crush the weak.*
+
+[* Rajah Hunmunt Sing afterwards brought the contractor to consent to
+take the same rate as had been paid to his predecessor; but he was
+obliged to pay above six thousand rupees in gratuities.]
+
+
+_January_ 3, 1850.--Gorbuksh Gunge, _alias_ Onae, fourteen miles. The
+soil of the country over which we came is chiefly a light doomuteea;
+but there is a good deal of what they call bhoor, or soil in which
+sand superabounds. The greater part belongs to the estate of Benee
+Madho, and is admirably cultivated, and covered with a great variety
+of crops. The country is better peopled than any other part that we
+have seen since we recrossed the Goomtee. We passed through several
+villages, the people of which seemed very happy. But their
+habitations had the same wretched appearance--naked mud walls, with
+invisible mud coverings. The people told me that they could not
+venture to use thatched or tiled roofs, for the King's troops, on
+duty with the local authorities, always took them away, when they had
+any. They were, they said, well secured from all other enemies by
+their landlord. Bhopaul Sing, acting commandant of Sobha Sing's
+Regiment, riding with me, said,-"Nothing can be more true than what
+the people tell you, sir; but the _Koomukee_ Regiments, of which mine
+is one, have tents provided for them, which none of the Nujeeb and
+other corps have, and in consequence, these corps never take the
+choppers of the peasantry for their accommodations. The peasantry,
+however, always suffer more or less even from the Koomukee corps,
+sir, for they have to forage for straw, wood, fuel, bhoosa, &c., like
+the rest, and to take it wherever they can find it. When we have
+occasion to attack, or lay siege to a stronghold, all the roofs,
+doors, and windows of the people are, of course, taken to form
+scaling-ladders, batteries, &c.; and it is lamentable, sir, to see
+the desolation created around, after even a very short siege."
+
+Rajah Hunmunt Sing and Benee Madho were riding with me, and when we
+had passed through a large crowd of seemingly happy peasantry in one
+village, I asked Benee Madho (whose tenants they were), whether they
+would all have to follow his fortunes if he happened to take up arms
+against the Government.
+
+"Assuredly," said he, "they would all be bound in honour to follow
+me, or to desert their lands at least."
+
+"And if they did not, I suppose you would deem it a _point of honour_
+to plunder them?"
+
+"That he assuredly would," said Rajah Hunmunt Sing; "and make them
+the first victims."
+
+"And if any of them fell fighting on his side, would he think it a
+_point of honour_ to-provide for their families?"
+
+"That we all do," said he; "they are always provided for, and taken
+the greatest possible care of."
+
+"And if any one is killed in fighting for the King?"
+
+They did not reply to this question, but the adjutant, Bhopaul Sing,
+said,--"his family would be left to shift for themselves,--no one
+asks a question about them."
+
+"This," observed Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, "is one of the great sources
+of the evil that exists in Oude. How can men be expected to expose
+their lives when they know that no care will be taken of their
+families if they are killed or disabled?"
+
+It is the rule to give a disabled man one month's pay and dismiss
+him; and to give the family of any one killed in the service two
+months' pay. But, though the King is charged for this, it is seldom
+that the wounded man, or the family of the killed, get any portion of
+it. On the contrary, the arrears of pay due-which are at all times
+great--are never paid to the disabled sipahee, or the family of the
+sipahee killed. If issued from the Treasury, they are appropriated by
+the commandants and their friends at Court; and the arms and
+accoutrements, which the deceased has purchased with his own money,
+are commonly sold for the benefit of the State or its officers.
+
+They mentioned, that the family of the person who planted a mango-
+tree, or grove, continued to hold it as their exclusive property in
+perpetuity; but, that the person who held the mhowa trees, was
+commonly expected to pay to the landlord, where there was one, and to
+the Government officers, where there was not, a duty amounting to
+from four annas to two rupees a-year for each tree, according to its
+fruitfulness--that the proprietor often sold the fruit of one tree
+for twenty rupees the season. The fruit of one mango-tree has,
+indeed, often been sold for a hundred rupees the season, where the
+mangoes are of a quality much esteemed, and numerous. The groves and
+fine solitary trees, on the lands we have to-day passed through, are
+more numerous than usual; and the country being undulating and well
+cultivated, the scenery is beautiful; but, as everywhere else, it is
+devoid of all architectural beauty in works of ornament or utility--
+not even a comfortable habitation is anywhere to be seen. The great
+landholders live at a distance from the road, and in forts or
+strongholds. These are generally surrounded by fences of living
+bamboos, which are carefully kept up as the best possible defence
+against attacks. The forts are all of mud, and when the walls are
+exposed to view they look ugly. The houses of the peasants in the
+villages are, for the most part, covered with mud, from which the
+water is carried off, by tubes of wood or baked clay, about two feet
+long. There are parapets around the roof a foot or two high, so that
+it cannot be seen, and a village appears to be a mass of dead mud
+walls, which have been robbed of their thatched or tiled roofs. Most
+of the tubes used for carrying off the water from the roofs, are the
+simple branches of the palm-tree, without their leaves.
+
+Among the peasantry we saw a great many sipahees, from our Native
+Infantry Regiments, who have come home on furlough to their families.
+From the estate of Rajah Hunmunt Sing, in the Banoda district, there
+are one thousand sipahees in our service. From that of Benee Madho,
+in the Byswara district, there are still more. They told us that they
+and their families were very happy, and they seemed to be so; but
+Hunmunt Sing said, they were a privileged class, who gave much
+trouble and annoyance, and were often the terror of their non-
+privileged neighbours and co-sharers in the land. Benee Madho, as I
+have stated above, sometimes makes use of his wealth, power, and
+influence, to rob his weaker neighbours of their estates. The lands
+on which we are encamped he got two years ago from their proprietor,
+Futteh Bahader, by foreclosing a mortgage, in which he and others had
+involved him. The gunge or bazaar, close to our tents, was
+established by Gorbuksh, the uncle of Futteh Bahader, and became a
+thriving emporium under his fostering care; but it has gone to utter
+ruin under his nephew, and heir, and the mortgagee. The lands around,
+however, could never have been better cultivated than they are; nor
+the cultivators better protected or encouraged. It rained slightly
+before sunset yesterday, and heavily between three and four this
+morning; but not so as to prevent our marching.
+
+This morning, a male elephant belonging to Benee Madho killed one of
+his attendants near to our camp. He had three attendants, the driver
+and two subordinates. The driver remained in camp, while the two
+attendants took the elephant to a field of sugar-cane, to bring home
+a supply of the cane for his fodder for the day. A third subordinate
+had gone on to cut the cane and bind it into bundles. One of the two
+was on the neck of the elephant, and another walking by the side,
+holding one of the elephant's teeth in his left hand all the way to
+the field, and he seemed very quiet. The third attendant brought the
+bundles, and the second handed them up to the first on the back to be
+stowed away. When they had got up about a dozen, the elephant made a
+rush at the third attendant, who was bringing the bundles, threw him
+to the ground with his foot, knelt down upon him, and crushed him to
+death with his front. The second attendant ran off as soon as he saw
+the elephant make a rush at the third; and the first fell off under
+the bundles of sugar-cane, as soon as the elephant knelt down to
+crush the third to death. When the elephant rose from the poor man,
+he did not molest, or manifest any wish to molest either of the other
+two, but stood still, watching the dead body. The first, seeing this,
+ventured to walk up to him, to take him by the ear and ask him what
+he meant. At first he seemed surly, and shoved the man off, and he
+became alarmed, and retired a few paces; but seeing the elephant show
+no further signs of anger, he again walked up, and took him by the
+ear familiarly. Had he ran or shown any signs of fear, the elephant
+would, he thought, have killed him also, for he had killed three men
+in the service of his former proprietor, and was now in his annual
+fit of madness, or must. Holding the elephant by the ear, he led him
+to the first tree, and placed himself on the opposite side to see
+whether the animal had become quite sober. Seeing that he had, he
+again approached, and put upon his two forelegs the chain fetters,
+which they always have with them, suspended to some part of the body
+of elephants in this state. He could not venture to command the
+elephant to kneel down in the usual way, that he might get upon his
+neck; and, ascending the tree, he let himself down from one of the
+branches upon his back, where he sat. He then made the animal walk on
+in fetters, towards camp, and on the way, met the mahout, or driver,
+to whom the second attendant had reported the accident. The driver
+came up, and, after the usual volume of abuse on the elephant, his
+mother, father, and sundry female relations, he ordered the attendant
+to make him sit down that he might get on his neck. He did so in fear
+and trembling, and the driver got on his neck, while the attendant
+sat on his back, and the elephant took them to Benee Madho's village,
+close to my camp, where he was fastened in chains to a tree, to
+remain for some months on reduced allowances, till he should get over
+his madness. The body of the poor man was burnt with the usual
+ceremonies, and the first attendant told me, that his family would be
+provided for by Benee Madho, as a matter of course.
+
+I asked him how he or any other person could be found to attend a
+beast of that kind? Pointing to his stomach, he said--"We poor people
+are obliged to risk our lives for this, in all manner of ways; to
+attend elephants has been always my profession, and there is no other
+open to me; and we make up our minds to do whatever our duties
+require from us, and trust to Providence." He told me that when the
+elephant shoved him off, he thought that in his anger he might have
+forgotten him, and called out as loud as he could,--"What, have you
+forgotten a service of six years, and do you intend to kill the man
+who has fed you so long?" That the beast seemed to recollect his
+voice and services, and became, at once, quiet and docile--"that had
+he not so called out, and reminded the animal of his long services,
+he thought he should have been killed; that the driver came, armed
+with a spear, and showed himself more angry than afraid, as the
+safest plan in such cases."
+
+Dangerous as the calling of the elephant-driver is, that of the
+snake-keepers, in the King's service, seems still greater. He has two
+or three very expert men of this kind, whose duty it is to bring him
+the snakes, when disposed to look at them, and see the effects of
+their poison on animals. They handle the most venomous, with
+apparently as much carelessness as other men handle fighting-cocks or
+quail. When bitten, as they sometimes are, they instantly cut into
+the part, and suck out the poison, or get their companions to suck it
+out when they can't reach the part with their own mouths. But they
+depend chiefly upon their wonderful dexterity in warding off the
+stoops or blows of the snakes, as they twist them round their necks
+and limbs with seeming carelessness. While they are doing so, the eye
+of the spectator can hardily detect the _stoops_ of the one and the
+guards of the other. After playing in this way with the most venomous
+snakes, they apply them to the animals. Elephants have died from
+their bites in a few hours--smaller animals sooner. I have never,
+myself, seen the experiments, but any one may see them at the palace.
+Elephants and the larger animals are too expensive to be often
+experimented on.
+
+_January_ 4, 1850.--Halted at the village of Onae, alias Gorbuksh
+Gunge. It lost the name of Onae, after the proprietor, Gorbuksh, who
+had built the Gunge, and made it a great emporium of trade in corn,
+cotton cloth, &c.; but is recovering it again, now that the Gunge has
+become a ruin, and the family of the builder has been dispossessed of
+the lands. I rode out in the morning to look at the neighbouring
+village of Doolarae-ka Gurhee, or the fort of Doolarae, and have some
+talk with the peasantry, who are Bys Rajpoots, of one of the most
+ancient Rajpoot families in Oude. They told me,--"That their tribe
+was composed of two great families, Nyhussas and Synbunsies--that the
+acknowledged head of the Synbunsies was, at present, Rugonath Sing,
+of Kojurgow, and that Hindpaul, tallookdar of Korree Sudowlee, was
+the head of the Nyhussas; that Baboo Rambuksh, tallookdar of Dhondeea
+Kheera, had the title of Row, and Dirg Bijee Sing, tallookdar of
+Morarmow, that of Rajah--that is, he was the acknowledged Rajah of
+the clan, and Baboo Rambuksh, the Row, an inferior grade--that these
+families had been always fighting with each other, for the possession
+of each others lands, from the time their ancestors came into Oude, a
+thousand years ago, except when they were united in resistance
+against the common enemy, the governor or ruler of the country--that
+one family got weak by the subdivision of the lands, among many sons
+or brothers, or by extravagance, or misfortune, while another became
+powerful, by keeping the lands undivided, and by parsimony and
+prudence; and the strong increased their possessions by seizing upon
+the lands of the weak, by violence, fraud or collusion with the local
+authorities--that the same thing had been going on among them for a
+thousand years, with some brief intervals, during which the rulers of
+Oude managed, by oppression, to unite them all against themselves, or
+by prudence, to keep them all to their respective rights and duties--
+that Doolarae, who gave his name to the village, by building the
+fort, was of the Nyhussa family, and left two sons, and only two
+villages, Gurhee and Agoree, out of a very large estate, the rest
+having been lost in the contests with the other families of the
+tribe--that these two had become minutely subdivided among their
+descendants: and Bhugwan Das, Synbunsee of Simree, four years ago,
+seized upon the Gurhee, in collusion with the local authorities; that
+Thakoor Buksh Nyhussa, talookdar of Rahwa seized upon Agoree in the
+same way that the local authorities designedly assessed these
+villages at a higher rate than they could be made to pay, and then,
+for a bribe, transferred them to the powerful tallookdars, on account
+of default."
+
+Gorbuksh Sing, Synbunsee, died some twenty years ago, leaving an
+estate, reduced from a greater number to ninety-three villages. His
+nephew, Futteh Bahader, a child, was adopted by his widow, who
+continued to manage the whole till she died, four years after. The
+heir was still a boy; and Rugonath Sing, of Kojurgow, the head of the
+Synbunsee family, took advantage of his youth, seized upon the whole
+ninety-three villages, and turned him out to beg subsistence among
+his relatives. In this he, Rugonath Sing, was, as usual, acting in
+collusion with the local authorities of the Government. He continued
+to possess the estate for ten years, but to reside in his fort of
+Hajeepoor. Koelee Sing, a Guhlote, by caste, and a zumeendar of
+Bheeturgow, and its eight dependent villages, which formed part of
+the estate of Futteh Bahader, went to Court at Lucknow, and
+represented, that Rugonath Sing had no right whatever to the lands he
+held, and the Court had better make them over to him and the other
+zumeendars, if they did not like to restore them to their rightful
+heir. Bheeturgow and its dependent eight villages, were made over to
+him; and ten sipahees, from Captain Hyder Hearsey's Regiment, were
+sent to establish and support him in possession. Rugonath attacked
+them, killed two of the sipahees, and drove out Koelee Sing. He
+repaired to Court; and Mahomed Khan was sent out, as Special
+Commissioner, with orders to punish Rugonath Sing. He and Captain
+Hearsey attacked him in his fort of Hajeepoor, drove him out, and
+restored Futteh Bahader, to twenty-four villages; and re-established
+Koelee Sing, in Bheeturgow, and the eight villages dependent upon it.
+Futteh Bahader was poor, and was obliged to tender the security of
+Benee Madho, the wealthy tallookdar of this place, for the punctual
+payment of the revenue. The year before last, when a balance of
+revenue became due, he, the deputy, in collusion with Gholam Allee,
+seized upon all the twenty-four villages.
+
+Futteh Bahader went to seek redress at Lucknow, but had no money to
+pay his way at Court, while Benee Madho had abundance, and used it
+freely, to secure the possession of so fine an addition to his
+estate. Futteh Bahader, as his last resource, got his uncle, Bustee
+Sing, of the 3rd Cavalry, whom he called his father,* to present a
+petition for redress to the Resident, in April 1849. Gholam Allee was
+ordered to release Futteh Bahader, whom Benee Madho had confined, and
+send him to Lucknow. The order was not obeyed, and it was repeated in
+December without effect; but his uncle's agent, Gorbuksh, was
+diligent at the Residency, and the case was made over for
+investigation and decision to the Ameen, Mahomed Hyat. Finding Futteh
+Bahader still in confinement, with sundry members of his family, when
+I came here yesterday, I ordered him to be made over to the King's
+wakeel, in attendance upon me, to be sent to the Court, to prosecute
+his claim, and produce proofs of his right. Of his right there can be
+no question, and the property of which he was robbed, in taking
+possession, and the rents since received, if duly accounted for,
+would more than cover any balance due by Futteh Bahader. When he gave
+the security of Benee Madho, for the payment of the revenue, he gave,
+at the same time, what is called the Jumog of his villages to him;
+that is, bound his tenants to pay to him their rents at the rate they
+were pledged to pay to him; and the question pending is, simply, what
+is fairly due to Benee Madho, over and above what he may have
+collected from them. Benee Madho had before, by the usual process of
+violence, fraud, and collusion, taken eighteen of the ninety-three
+villages, and got one for a servant; and all the rest had, by the
+same process, got into the possession of others; and Futteh Bahader
+had not an acre left when his uncle interposed his good offices with
+the Resident.** The dogs of the village of Doolarae-kee Gurhee
+followed us towards camp, and were troublesome to the horses and my
+elephant. I asked the principal zumeendar why they were kept. He said
+they amused the children of the village, who took them out after the
+hares, and by their aid and that of the sticks with which they armed
+themselves, they got a good many; that all they got for food was the
+last mouthful of every man's dinner, which no man was sordid enough
+to grudge them--that when they wished to describe a very sordid man,
+they said--"he would not even throw his last mouthful (koura) to a
+dog!"
+
+[* He called Bustee Sing his _father_, as sipahees can seek redress
+through the Resident, for wrongs suffered by no others than their
+mothers, fathers, their children, and themselves.]
+
+[** A punchaet was assembled at Lucknow, to decide the suit between
+Benee Madho and Futteh Bahader, at the instance of the Resident: and
+they awarded to Benee Madho a balance due on account of thirty
+thousand rupees, which Futteh Bahader has to pay before he can
+recover possession of his estate.]
+
+_January_ 5, 1851.--Halted at Onae, in consequence of continued rain,
+which incommodes us, but delights the landholders and cultivators,
+whose crops will greatly benefit by it. The halting of so large a
+camp inconveniences them, however, much more than us; for they are
+called upon to supply us with wood, grass, and straw, for which they
+receive little or no payment; for the Kings people will not let us
+pay for these things, and pay too little themselves. Those who attend
+us do not plunder along the road; but the followers of the local
+authorities, who attend us, through their respective jurisdictions,
+do so; and sundry fields of fine carrots and other vegetables
+disappear, as under a flight of locusts along the road. The camp-
+followers assist them, and as our train extends from the ground we
+leave to that to which we are going, for twelve or fourteen miles, it
+is impossible, altogether, to prevent such injuries from so
+undisciplined a band. The people, however, say, they suffer much less
+than they would from one-fourth of the number under a contractor
+marching without an European superior, and I give compensation in
+flagrant cases. Captain Weston acts as our Provost Marshal. He leaves
+the ground an hour or two after I do, and seizes and severely
+punishes any one found trespassing.
+
+In my ride this morning I found that Nyhussa and Synbunsee are two
+villages distant about ten miles from our camp, to the south-east--
+that all the Byses, who give the name of Byswara to this large
+district, are called Tilokchundees, from Tilokchund, the founder of
+the family in Oude. He had two sons, _Hurhur Deo_ and _Prethee
+Chund_. Hurhur Deo had two sons, one of whom, Kurun Rae, established
+himself in Nyhussa, and the other, Khem Kurun, in Synbunsee. Their
+descendants have taken their titles from their respective villages.
+Prethee Chund's descendants established themselves in other parts,
+and the descendants of both bear the appellation of Tilokchundee
+Byses. The Rajahs and Rows are of the same family, and are so called
+from their ancestors having, at some time, had the title of Rajah and
+Row conferred upon them.
+
+Rajah Seodursun Sing, of Simrotee, who resides in the village of
+Chundapoor upon his estate, four miles east of Bulla, has been with
+me for the last five days. He is a strong man, and has been
+refractory occasionally; but at present he pays his revenue
+punctually, and keeps his estate in good order. He rendered good
+service yesterday in the way in which all of his class might, by good
+management, be made to aid the government of Oude. A ruffian, by name
+Mohiboollah, who had been a trooper in the King of Oude's service,
+contrived to get the lease of the estate of Bulla, which is about
+twenty miles north-east from our camp; and turning out all the old
+landholders and cultivators, he there raised a gang of robbers, to
+plunder his neighbours and travellers. He had been only two months in
+possession, when he attacked the house of an old invalid subadar-
+major of the Honourable Company's service, (fifty-seventh Native
+Infantry,) on the 21st of December, 1849, robbed him of all he had,
+and confined him and all his family, till he promised, under good
+security, to pay, within twenty days, a ransom of one thousand two
+hundred rupees more. He had demanded a good deal more, but hearing
+that the Resident's camp was approaching, he consented to take this
+sum four days ago, and released all his prisoners. The subadar
+presented a petition to me, and, after taking the depositions of the
+old zumeendars and other witnesses, I requested the king's wakeel, to
+send off a company of Soubha Sing's Regiment, to arrest him and his
+gang.
+
+They went off from Rae Bareilly on the night of the 1st instant; but,
+finding that the subadar-major and his family had been released the
+day before, and that the village was full of armed men, ready to
+resist, they returned on the evening of the 2nd. On the 3rd, the
+whole regiment, with its artillery, and three hundred auxiliaries,
+under Rajah Seodursun Sing, left my camp, at Onae, at midnight, and
+before daylight surrounded the village. There were about one hundred
+and fifty armed men in it; and, after a little bravado, they all
+surrendered, and were brought to me. Mohiboollah had, however, gone
+off, on the pretence of collecting his rents, two days before; but
+his father and brother were among the prisoners. All who were
+recognised as having been engaged in the robbery, were sent off
+prisoners to Lucknow, and the rest were disarmed and released.
+
+Among those detained were some notorious robbers, and the gang would
+soon have become very formidable but for the accident of my passing
+near. He had got the lease of the estate through the influence of
+Akber-od Dowlah, one of the Court favourites, for the sole purpose of
+converting it into a den of robbers; and, the better to secure this
+object, he had got it transferred from the jurisdiction of the Nazim
+to the Hozoor Tehseel, over the manager of which the Court favourite
+had paramount influence. He was to share with his client the fruits
+of his depredations, and, in return, to secure him impunity for his
+crimes. Many of his retainers were among the prisoners brought in to
+me, having been present at the distribution of the large booty
+acquired from the old subadar, some thirty or forty thousand rupees.
+The subadar had resided upon the estate of Seodursun Sing; but
+having, seven years ago complained through the Resident of over-
+exactions for the small patch of land he held, and got back the grain
+which had been attacked for the rent, he was obliged to give it up
+and reside in the hamlet he afterwards occupied near Bulla, whose
+zumeendars assured him of protection.* He had a large family, and a
+great deal of property in money and other valuables concealed under
+ground. Mohiboollah first seized and sent off the subadar, and then
+had ramrods made red-hot and applied to the bodies of the children
+till the females gave him all their ornaments, and pointed out to him
+all the hidden treasures: they were then all taken to Bulla and
+confined till the subadar had pledged himself to pay the ransom
+demanded.
+
+[* The greater part of this property is understood to have been
+confided, in trust, to the old subadar, by some other minion of the
+Court, and the chief object of the gang was to get hold of it; as
+their patron, Akber-od Dowlah, had become aware that his fellow-
+minion had intrusted his wealth to the old subadar, after he had
+taken up his residence near Bulla. The estate was made over, in farm,
+to Benee Madho, as the best man to cope with Mohiboollah, should he
+return and form a new gang.]
+
+I requested the King to take the estate from this ruffian and restore
+it to its old proprietors, whose family had held it for several
+centuries, or bestow it in lease to some other strong and deserving
+person.
+
+The Tilokchundee Byses take the daughters of other Rajpoots, who are
+a shade lower in caste, in marriage for their sons, but do not give
+their daughters in marriage to them in return. They have a singular
+notion that no snake ever has destroyed or ever can destroy one of
+the family, and seem to take no precautions against its bite. If
+bitten by a snake they do not attempt any remedy, nor could Benee
+Madho recollect any instance of a Tilokchundee Bysee having died from
+a bite. He tells me that some families in every Rajpoot tribe in Oude
+destroy their female infants to avoid the cost of marrying them,
+though the King prohibited infanticide and suttee in the year 1833.
+That infanticide does still prevail among almost all the Rajpoot
+tribes in Oude is unquestionable.
+
+_January_ 6, 1850.--Yesterday evening we moved to Omrowa West,
+[Transcriber's note: this appears to be a misspelling for Morowa
+West] a distance of twelve miles, over a plain of bad oosur soil,
+scantily cultivated near the road. To the left and right of the road,
+at a little distance, there are some fine villages, thickly peopled,
+and situated in fine and well-cultivated soil. The country is well
+wooded, except in the worst parts of the soil, where trees do not
+thrive. We saw a great deal of sugar-cane in the distance and a few
+pawn-gardens. The population of the villages came to the high road to
+see us pass; and among them were a great many native officers and
+sipahees of our Regiments, who are at their homes on furlough,
+Government having given a very large portion of the native army the
+indulgence of furlough during the present cold season. They all
+seemed happy; but, to my discomfort, a vast number take advantage of
+this furlough and my movements to urge their claims against the
+Government, its officers, and subjects. Nothing can be more wretched
+than the appearance of the buildings in which the people of all
+grades live in these villages--mud walls without any appearance of
+coverings, and doors and windows worse than I have seen in any other
+part of India. Better would not be safe against the King's troops,
+and these would certainly not be safe against a slight storm; a good
+shower and a smart breeze would level the whole of the villages with
+the ground in a few hours. "But," said the people, "the mud would
+remain, and we could soon raise up the houses again without the aid
+of masons, carpenters, or blacksmiths." It is enough that they are
+used to them.
+
+Morowa is a large town, well situated and surrounded with groves of
+the finest trees in great variety; and, to the surprise of the
+officers with me, they saw a respectable house of burnt brick. It
+belongs to the most substantial banker and agricultural capitalist in
+these parts, _Chundun Lal_. These capitalists and their families are,
+generally, more safe than others, as their aid is necessary to the
+Government and its officers, and no less so to the landholders,
+cultivators, and people of all classes. Their wealth consists in
+their credit in different parts of India; and he who has most of it
+may have little at his house to tempt the robber, while the
+Government officers stand generally too much in daily need of his
+services and mediation to molest him. A pledge made by these officers
+to landholders and cultivators, or to these officers by such persons,
+is seldom considered safe or binding till the respectable banker or
+capitalist has ratified it by his mediation, to which all refer with
+confidence.
+
+He understands the characters and means of all, and will not venture
+to ratify any pledge till he is assured of both the disposition and
+ability of the party to fulfil it. Chundun Lal is one of the most
+respectable of this class in Oude. He resides at this place, Morowa,
+but has a good landed estate in our territories, and banking
+establishments at Cawnpoor and many other of our large stations. He
+is a very sensible, well-informed man, but not altogether free from
+the ailing of his class--a disposition to abuse the confidence of the
+Government officers; and, in collusion with them, to augment his
+possessions in land at the cost of his weaker neighbours.
+
+I am told here that the Tilokchund Byses, when bitten by a snake, do
+sometimes condescend to apply a remedy. They have a vessel full of
+water suspended above the head of the sufferer, with a small tube at
+the bottom, from which water is poured gently on the head as long as
+he can bear it. The vent is then stopped till the patient is equal to
+bear more; and this is repeated four or five times till the sufferer
+recovers. I have not yet heard of any one dying under the operation,
+or from the bite of a snake. I find no one that has ever heard of a
+member of this family dying of the bite of a snake. One of the Rajahs
+of this family, who called on me to-day, declared that no member of
+his family had ever been known to die of such a bite, and he could
+account for it only "from their being descended from Salbahun, the
+rival and conqueror of Bickermajeet, of Ojein."
+
+This Salbahun* is said to have been a lineal descendant of the _sake-
+god!_ He told me that the females of this family could never wear
+cotton cloth of any colour but plain white; that when they could not
+afford to wear silk or satin they never wore anything but the piece
+of white cotton cloth which formed, in one, the waistband, petticoat,
+and mantle, or robe (the dhootee and loongree), without hemming or
+needlework of any kind whatever. Those who can afford to wear silk or
+satin wear the petticoat and robe, or mantle of that material, and of
+any colour. On their ankles they can wear nothing but silver, and
+above the ankles, nothing but gold; and if not, nothing, not even
+silver, except on the feet and ankles. No Hindoo of respectability,
+however high or wealthy, can wear anything more valuable than silver
+below the waist. The Tilokchundee Byses can never condescend to hold
+the plough; and if obliged to serve, they enlist in the army or other
+public establishments of the Oude or other States.
+
+[* Salbahun must have been one of the leaders of the Scythian armies,
+who conquered India in the reign of Vickramadittea.]
+
+The late governor of this district, Hamid Allee Khan, is now, as I
+have already stated, in prison, as a great defaulter, at Lucknow. He
+was a weak and inexperienced man, and guided entirely by his
+deputies, Nourooz Allee and Gholam Allee. Calamities of season and
+other causes prevented his collecting one-quarter of the revenue
+which he had engaged in his contract to pay. Gholam Allee persuaded
+the officers commanding regiments under him to pledge themselves for
+the personal security of some of the tallookdars whom he invited in
+to discuss the claims of Government, and their ability to meet them.
+Four of them came--Hindooput, of Sudowlee, who called on me this
+morning; Rugonath Sing, of Khojurgow; Rajah Dirg Bijee Sing, of
+Morarmow; and Bhoop Sing, of Pahor. They were all seized and put into
+confinement as soon as they appeared, by the officers who had pledged
+themselves for their personal safety; and Gholam Allee went off to
+Lucknow to boast of his prowess in seizing them. There he was called
+upon to pay the balance due, and seeing no disposition to listen to
+any excuse on the ground of calamity of season, he determined to
+escape across the Ganges. He wrote to Hamid Allee to suggest that he
+should do the same, and meet him at Horha, on the bank of the Ganges,
+on a certain night.
+
+Hamid Allee sent his family across the Ganges, and prepared to meet
+Gholam Allee at the appointed place; but the commandants of corps,
+who suspected his intentions, and had not received from him any pay
+for their regiments for many months, seized him, and sent him a
+prisoner to Lucknow. Gholam Allee, however, effected his escape
+across the Ganges, and is now at Delhi. The story of his having run
+away with three lacs of Hamid Allee's money is represented here as a
+fiction, as the escape had been concerted between them, and they had
+sent across the Ganges all that they could send with that view. This
+may or may not be the real state of the case. Hamid Allee, as I have
+above stated, married a daughter of Fuzl Allee. Fuzl Allee's aunt,
+Fyz-on Nissa, had been a great favourite with the Padshad Begum, the
+wife of the King, Ghazee-od Deen, and adoptive mother of his
+successor, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, who ascended the throne in 1827. She
+had been banished from Oude by Ghazee-od Deen, but on his death she
+returned secretly to Lucknow; and, in December of that year, her
+nephew, Fuzl Allee, who had been banished with her, returned also,
+and on the 31st of that month he was appointed prime minister, in
+succession to Aga Meer. Hakeem Mehndee had been invited from
+Futtehghur to fill the office, and had come so far as Cawnpoor, when
+Fyz-on Nissa carried the day with the Queen Dowager, and he was
+ordered back. In November, 1828, the King, at his mother's request,
+gave him the sum of 21,85,722 1 11, the residue of the principal of
+the pension of Shums-od Dowlah, the King's uncle, who had died. The
+whole principal amounted to 33,33,333 5 4, but part had been
+appropriated as a fund to provide for some members of the King's
+family.
+
+In February, 1829, Fuzl Allee resigned the office of prime minister,
+and was protected by the Government of India, on the recommendation
+of the Resident, and saved, from the necessity of refunding to the
+State any of the wealth (some thirty-five lacs of rupees) which he
+had acquired during his brief period of office. This was all left to
+his three daughters and their husbands on his death, which took place
+soon after. He was succeeded in office by Hakeem Mehndee. Shums-od
+Dowlah's pension of 16,666 10 6 a-month, was paid out of the
+interest, at 6 per cent., of the loan of one crore, eight lacs, and
+fifty thousand rupees, obtained from the sovereign of Oude (Ghazee-od
+Deen Hyder, who succeeded his father on the 11th of July, 1814,) by
+Lord Hastings, in October, 1814, for the Nepaul war. All the interest
+(six lacs and fifty-one thousand) was, in the same manner,
+distributed in stipends to different members of the family, and the
+principal has been paid back as the incumbents have died off. Some
+few still survive.*
+
+[* The ground, on the north-west side of Morowa, would be good for a
+cantonment, as the soil is sandy, and the plain well drained. Water
+must lie during the rains on all the other sides, and the soil has
+more clay in it.]
+
+_January_ 7, 1850.--To Mirree, twelve miles, over a plain of light
+doomuteea soil, sufficiently cultivated, and well studded with trees.
+We passed Runjeet-ka Poorwa half-way--once a large and populous town,
+but now a small one. The fog was, however, too thick to admit of my
+seeing it. From this place to Lucknow, thirty miles, Seetlah Buksh, a
+deputy of Almas Allee Khan's, planted an avenue of the finest kind of
+trees. We had to pass through a mile of it, and the trees are in the
+highest perfection, and complete on both sides. I am told that there
+are, however, many considerable intervals in which they have been
+destroyed. The trees must have been planted about sixty years ago.
+
+I may here remark that no native gentleman from Lucknow, save such as
+hold office in districts, and are surrounded by troops, can with
+safety reside in the country. He would be either suspected and
+destroyed by the great landholders around him, or suspected and
+ruined by the Court. Under a better system of government, a great
+many of these native gentlemen, who enjoy hereditary incomes, under
+the guarantee of the British Government, would build houses in
+distant districts, take lands, and reside on them with their
+families, wholly or occasionally, and Oude [would] soon be covered
+with handsome gentlemen's seats, at once ornamental and useful. They
+would tend to give useful employment to the people, and become bonds
+of union between the governing and the governed. Under such an
+improved system, our guarantees would be of immense advantage to the
+whole country of Oude, in diffusing wealth, protection, education,
+intelligence, good feeling, and useful and ornamental, works. At
+present, these guarantees are not so. They have concentrated at the
+capital all who subsist upon them, and surrounded the Sovereign and
+his Court with an overgrown aristocracy, which tends to alienate him
+more and more from his people. The people derive no benefit from, and
+have no feeling or interest in common with, this city aristocracy,
+which tends more and more to hide their Sovereign from their view,
+and to render him less and less sensible of his duties and high
+responsibilities; and what would be a blessing under a good, becomes
+an evil under a bad system, such as that which has prevailed since
+those guarantees began.
+
+In this overgrown city there is a perpetual turmoil of processions,
+illuminations, and festivities. The Sovereign spends all that he can
+get in them, and has not the slightest wish to perpetuate his name by
+the construction of any useful or ornamental work beyond its suburbs.
+All the members of his family and of the city aristocracy follow his
+example, and spend their means in the same way. Indifferent to the
+feelings and opinions of the landed aristocracy and people of the
+country, with whom they have no sympathy, they spend all that they
+can spare for the public in gratifying the vitiated tastes of the
+overgrown metropolis. Hardly any work calculated to benefit or
+gratify the people of the country is formed or thought of by the
+members of the royal family or aristocracy of Lucknow; and the only
+one formed by the Sovereign for many years is, I believe, the
+metalled road leading from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, on the Ganges.
+
+One good these guarantees certainly have effected--they have tended
+greatly to inspire the people of the city with respect for the
+British Government, by whom the incomes of so large and influential a
+portion of the community and their dependents are secured. That
+respect extends to its public officers and to Europeans generally;
+and in the most crowded streets of Lucknow they are received with
+deference, courtesy, and kindness, while in those of Hydrabad, their
+lives, I believe, are never safe without an escort from the Resident.
+
+The people of the country respect the British Government, its
+officers, and Europeans generally, from other causes. Though the
+Resident has not been able to secure any very substantial or
+permanent reform in the administration, still he has often interposed
+with effect, in individual cases, to relieve suffering and secure
+redress for grievous wrongs. The people of the country see that he
+never interposes, except for such purposes, and their only regret is
+that he interposes so seldom, and that his efforts, when he does so,
+should be so often frustrated or disregarded. In the remotest village
+or jungle in Oude, as in the most crowded streets of the capital, an
+European gentleman is sure to be treated with affectionate respect;
+and the humblest European is as sure to receive protection and
+kindness, unless be forfeits all claim to it by his misconduct.
+
+The more sober-minded Mahommedans of Lucknow and elsewhere are much
+scandalized at the habit which has grown up among them, in the cities
+of India, of commemorating every event, whether of sadness or of joy,
+by brilliant illuminations and splendid processions, to amuse the
+idle populations of such cities. It is, they say, a reprehensible
+departure from the spirit of their creed, and from the simple tastes
+of the early Mahommedans, who laid out their superfluities in the
+construction of great and durable works of ornament and utility.
+Certainly no event can be more sorrowful among Mahommedans than that
+which is commemorated in the mohurrum by illuminations and
+processions with the Tazeeas; and yet no illuminations are more
+brilliant, and no processions more noisy, costly, and splendid. It is
+worthy of remark, that Hindoo princes in Central and Southern India,
+even of the Brahmin caste, commemorate this event in the same way;
+and in no part of India are these illuminations and processions more
+brilliant and costly. Their object is solely to amuse the population
+of their capitals, and to gratify the Mahommedan women whom they have
+under their protection, and their children, who must all be
+Mahommedans.
+
+
+                      __________________________
+
+
+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 cortege 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 _bona 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 _bona 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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+Lalta Sing, of the Nikomee Rajpoot tribe, whom I had lately an
+opportunity of assisting, for his good services in arresting outlays
+[outlaws ?] from our territories, has just been to pay his respects.
+Our next encamping ground is to be on his estate of Kurheya and Para.
+He tells me that very few families of his tribe now destroy their
+female infants; that tradition ascribes the origin of this evil to the
+practice of the Mahommedan emperors of Delhi of demanding daughters
+in marriage from the Rajpoot princes of the country; that some of
+them were too proud to comply with the demand, and too weak to resist
+it in any other way than that of putting all their female infants to
+death. This is not impossible. He says that he believes the
+_Dhankuries_, whom I have described above to be really the only tribe
+of Rajpoots among whom no family destroys its infant daughters in
+Oude; that all tribes of Rajpoots get money with the daughters they
+take from tribes a shade lower in caste, to whom they cannot give
+theirs in return; and pay money with the daughters they give in
+marriage to tribes a shade higher, who will not give their daughters
+to them in return. The native collector of Shahabad, a gentlemanly
+Mahommedan, came out two miles to pay his respects on my approach,
+and we met on a large space of land, lying waste, while all around
+was covered with rich crops. I asked, "Pray why is this land left
+waste?" "It is, sir, altogether unproductive." "Why is this? It seems
+to me to be just as good as the rest around, which produces such fine
+crops." "It is called _khubtee_--slimy, and is said to be altogether
+barren." "I assure you, sir," said Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, "that it is
+good land, and capable of yielding good crops, under good tillage, or
+it would not produce the fine grass you see upon it. You must not ask
+men like this about the kinds and qualities of soils for they really
+know nothing whatever about them: they are _city gentlemen's sons_,
+who get into high places, and pass their lives in them without
+learning anything but how to screw money out of such as we are, who
+are born upon the soil, and depend upon its produce all our lives for
+subsistence. Ask him, sir, whether either he or any of his ancestors
+ever knew anything of the difference between one soil and another."
+
+The collector acknowledged the truth of what the old man said, and
+told me that he really knew nothing about the matter, and had merely
+repeated what the people told him. This is true with regard to the
+greater part of the local revenue officers employed in Oude. "One of
+these city gentlemen, sir," said. Bukhtawar Sing, "when sent out as a
+revenue collector, in Saadut Allee's time, was asked by his
+assistants what they were to do with a crop of sugar-cane which had
+been attached for balances, and was becoming too ripe, replied, '_Cut
+it down, to be sure, and have it stacked!_' He did not know that
+sugar-cane must, as soon as cut, be taken to the mill, or it spoils."
+"I have heard of another," said the old Rusaldar Nubbee Buksh, "who,
+after he entered upon his charge, asked the people about him to show
+him the tree on which grew the fine _istamalee_* rice which they used
+at Lucknow." "There is no question, sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "that
+is too absurd, for these cockney gentlemen to ask when they enter
+upon such revenue charges as these. They are the aristocracy of towns
+and cities, who are learned enough in books and court ceremonies and
+intrigues, but utterly ignorant of country life, rural economy, and
+agricultural industry."
+
+[* The _istamalee_ rice is rice of fine quality, which has been kept
+for some years before used. To be good, rice must be kept for some
+years before used, and that only which has been so kept is called
+_istamalee_ or _useable_.]
+
+For a cantonment or civil station, the ground to the north of
+Shahabad, on the left-hand side of the road leading to Mahomdee,
+seems the best. It is a level plain, of a stiff soil formed of clay
+and sand, and not very productive.
+
+The country, from Sandee and Shahabad to the rivers Ganges and
+Ramgunga, is one rich sheet of spring cultivation; and the estate of
+Kuteearee, above described, is among the richest portions of this
+sheet. The portions on which the richest crops now stand became waste
+during the disorders which followed the expulsion of Runjeet Sing, in
+the usual way, in 1837, and derived the usual benefit from the
+salutary fallow. A stranger passing through such a sheet of rich
+cultivation, without communing with the people, would little suspect
+the fearful crimes that are every year committed upon it, from the
+weakness and apathy of the Government, and the bad faith and bad
+character of its officers and chief landholders. The land is tilled
+in spite of all obstacles, because all depend upon its produce for
+subsistence; but there is no indication of the beneficial
+interference of the Government for the protection of life, property,
+and character, and for the encouragement of industry and the display
+of its fruits. The land is ploughed, and the seed sown, often by
+stealth at night, in the immediate vicinity of a sanguinary contest
+between the Government officers and the landholders. It is only when
+the latter are defeated, and take to the jungles, or the Honourable
+Company's districts, and commence their indiscriminate plunder, that
+the cultivator ceases from his labours, and the lands are left waste.
+
+Runjeet Sing two or three years ago seized upon the village of
+Mulatoo, in his vicinity, to which he had no claim whatever, and he
+has forcibly retained it. It had long paid Government ten thousand a-
+year, but he has consented to pay only one thousand. Lands yielding
+above nine thousand he has cut off from its rent-roll, and added to
+those of his hereditary villages on the borders. Last year he seized
+upon the village of Nudua, with a rent-roll of fourteen hundred
+rupees, and he holds it with a party of soldiers and two guns. The
+Amil lately sent out a person with a small force to demand the
+Government dues; but they were driven back, as he pretends that he
+got it in mortgage from Dumber Sing, who had taken a short lease of
+that and other khalsa villages, and absconded as a defaulter; and
+that he has purchased the lands from the cultivating proprietors, and
+is, therefore, bound to pay no revenue whatever for them-to the King.
+All defaulters and offenders who take refuge on his estate he
+instigates to plunder, and provides with gangs, on condition of
+getting the greater part of the booty. He thinks that he is sure of
+shelter in the British territory, should he be driven from Oude; he
+feels also sure of aid from other large landholders of the same class
+in the neighbourhood.
+
+_January_ 30, 1850.--Kurheya Para, twelve miles, over a plain of
+excellent muteear soil, a good deal of which-is covered with jungle.
+Para is a short distance from Kurheya, and our camp is midway between
+the two villages. The boundary of the Sandee Palee and Mahomdee
+districts we crossed about four miles from our present encampment.
+This district, of Mahomdee was taken in contract by Hakeem Mehndee,
+at three lacs and eleven thousand rupees a-year, in 1804 A.D., and in
+a few years he brought it into full tillage, and made it yield above
+seven lacs. It has been falling off ever since it was taken from him,
+and now yields only between three and four lacs. The jungle is
+studded with large peepul-trees, which are all shorn of their small
+branches and leaves. The landholders and cultivators told me that
+they were taken off by the cowherds who grazed their buffaloes,
+bullocks, and cows in these jungles; that they formed their chief
+and, in the cold season, their best food, as the leaves of the
+peepul-tree were supposed to give warmth to the stomach, and to
+increase the quantity of the milk; that the cowherds were required to
+pay nothing for the privilege of grazing their cattle in these
+jungles, by the person to whom the lands belonged, because they
+enriched the soil with their manure, and all held small portions of
+land under tillage, for which they paid rent; that they had the free
+use of the peepul-trees in the jungles, but were not permitted to
+touch those on the cultivated lands and in villages.
+
+White ants are so numerous in the argillaceous muteear soil, in which
+their food abounds, that it is really dangerous to travel on an
+elephant, or _swiftly_ on horseback, over a new road cut or enlarged
+through any portion of it that has remained long untilled. The two
+fore legs of my elephant went down yesterday morning into a deep pit
+made by them, but concealed by the new road, which has been made over
+it for the occasion of my visit near Shahabad, and it was with some
+difficulty that he extricated them. We have had several accidents of
+the same kind since we came out. In cutting a new road they cut
+through large ant-hills, and leave no trace of the edifices or the
+gulf below them, which the little insects have made in gathering
+their food and raising their lofty habitation. They are not found in
+the bhoor or oosur soils, and in comparatively small numbers in the
+doomuteea or lighter soil, but they abound In the muteear soil in
+proportion to its richness. Cultivation, where the crops are
+irrigated, destroys them, and the only danger is in passing over new
+roads cut through jungle, or lands that have remained long untilled,
+or along the sides of old pathways, from which these land-marks have
+been removed in hastily widening them for wheeled carriages.
+
+A Brahmin cultivator, whose cart we had been obliged to press into
+our own service for this stage, came along with me almost all the
+way. He said, "The spring crops of this season, sir, are no doubt
+very fine; but in days of yore, before the curse of _Bhurt Jee_ (the
+brother of Ram) came upon the landholders and cultivators of Oude,
+they were much finer; when he set out from his capital of Ajoodheea
+for the conquest of Cylone, he left the administration to his
+brother, Bhurt Jee, who made a liberal settlement of the land tax. He
+put a ghurra or pitcher, with a round bottom, turned upside down,
+into every half acre (beegha) of the cultivated land, and required
+the landholder or cultivator to leave upon it, as much of the grain
+produced as the rounded bottom would retain, which could not be one
+ten-thousandth part of the produce; he lived economically, and
+collected at this rate during the many years that his brother was
+absent. But when his brother returned and approached the boundary of
+his dominions, he met hosts of landholders and cultivators clamouring
+against the _rapacity and oppression_ of his brother's
+administration. The humanity of Ram's disposition was shocked, sir,
+at all this, and he became angry with his brother before he heard
+what he had to say. When Bhurt had satisfied his brother that he had
+not taken from them the thousandth part of what he had a right to
+take, and Ram had, indeed, taken from them himself, he _sighed_ at
+the wickedness and ingratitude of the agricultural classes of Oude;
+and the baneful effects of this sad _sigh_ has been upon us ever
+since, sir, in spite of all we can do to avert them. In order to have
+the blessing of God upon our labours, it is necessary for us to
+fulfil strictly all the responsibilities under which we hold and till
+the land; first, to pay punctually the just demands of Government;
+second, all the wages of the labour employed; third, all the
+charities to the poor; fourth, all the offerings to our respective
+tutelary gods; fifth, a special offering to Mahabeer, alias Hunooman.
+These payments and offerings, sir, must all be made before the
+cultivator can safely take the surplus produce to his store-room for
+sale and consumption."
+
+Old Bukhtawar Sing, who was riding by my side, said, "A conscientious
+farmer or cultivator, sir, when he finds that his field yields a
+great deal more than the usual returns, that is when it yields twenty
+instead of the usual return of ten, gives the whole in charity, lest
+evil overtake him from his unusual good luck and inordinate
+exultation."
+
+I asked the Brahmin cultivator why all these offerings were required
+to be made by cultivators in particular? He replied, "There is, sir,
+no species of tillage in which the lives of numerous insects are not
+sacrificed, and it is to atone for these numerous murders, and the
+ingratitude to Bhurt, that cultivators, in particular, are required
+to make so many offerings;" and, he added, "much sin, sir, is no
+doubt brought upon the land by the murder of so many female infants.
+I believe, sir, that all the tribes of Rajpoots murder them; and I do
+not think than one in ten is suffered to live. If the family or
+village priest did not consent to eat with the parents after the
+murder, no such murders could take place, sir; for none, even of
+their nearest relatives, will ever eat with them till the Brahmin has
+done so."
+
+The bearers of the tonjohn in which I sat, said, "We do not believe,
+sir, that one girl in twenty among the Rajpoots is preserved. Davey
+Buksh, the Gonda Rajah, is, we believe, the only one of the Biseyn
+Rajpoot tribe who preserves his daughters;* his father did the same,
+and his sister, who was married to the Bhudoreea Rajah of Mynpooree,
+came to see him lately on the occasion of a pilgrimage to Ajoodheea,
+on the death of her husband; of the six Kulhuns families of
+Chehdwara, two only preserve their daughters--Surnam Sing of Arta,
+and Jeskurn of Kumeear; but whether their sons or successors in the
+estates will do the same is uncertain." These bearers are residents
+of that district.
+
+[* There are a great many families of the Biseyn Rajpoots who never
+destroy their infant daughters.]
+
+I may here remark, that oak-trees in the hills of the Himmelah chain
+are disfigured in the same manner, and for the same purpose, as the
+peepul and banyan trees are here; their small branches and leaves are
+torn off to supply fodder for bullocks and other animals. The ilex of
+the hills has not, however, in its nakedness the majesty of the
+peepul and banyan of the plains, though neither of them can be said
+to be "when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most."
+
+_January_ 31, 1850.--Puchgowa, north-east, twelve miles over a plain
+of doomuteea soil, a good deal of which is out of tillage at present.
+On the road we came through several neat villages, the best of which
+was occupied exclusively by the families of the Kunojeea Brahmin
+proprietors, and the few persons of inferior caste who ploughed their
+lands for them, as they are a shade too high in caste to admit of
+their holding their own ploughs. They are, however, very worthy
+people, and seemed very much pleased at being put so much at their
+ease in a talk with the great man about their own domestic and rural
+economy. They told me, that they did not permit Rajpoots to reside in
+or have anything to do with their village.
+
+"Why?" I asked.--"Because, sir, if they once get a footing among us,
+they are, sooner or later, sure to turn us all out." "How?"--"They
+get lands by little and little at lease, soon refuse to pay rent,
+declare the lands to be their own, collect bad characters for
+plunder, join the Rajpoots of their own clan in all the villages
+around in their enterprises, take to the jungles on the first
+occasion, of a dispute, attack, plunder, and burn the village, murder
+us and our families, and soon get the estate for themselves, on their
+own terms from the local authorities, who are wearied out by the loss
+of revenue arising from their depredations; our safety, sir, depends
+upon our keeping entirely aloof from them."
+
+Under a government so weak, the only men who prosper seem to be these
+landholders of the military classes who are strong in their union,
+clan feeling, courage, and ferocity. The villages here are numerous
+though not large, and by far the greater part are occupied by
+Rajpoots of the Nikomee tribe.
+
+The Amil of the Mahomdee district, Krishun Sahae, had come out so far
+as Para to meet me, and have my camp supplied. He had earned a good
+reputation as a native collector of long standing in the Shajehanpore
+district, under Mr. Buller; but being ambitious to rise more rapidly
+than he could hope to do, under our settled government, he came to
+Lucknow with a letter of introduction from Mr. Buller to the
+Resident, Colonel Richmond, paid his court to the Durbur, got
+appointed Amil of the Mahomdee district, under the _amanee_ system,
+paid his nazuranas on his investiture, in October last, and entered
+upon his charge. A few days ago it pleased the minister to appoint to
+his place Aboo Toorab Khan, the nephew and son-in-law of Moonowur-ood
+Dowla; and orders were sent out immediately, by a camel-messenger, to
+the commandants of the corps on duty, with Krishun Sahae, to seize
+and send him, his family, and all his relations and dependents, with
+all his property to be found upon them, to Lucknow. The wakeel, whom
+he kept at Court for such occasions, heard of the order for the
+supercession and arrest, and forthwith sent off a note to his master
+by the fastest foot-messenger he could get. The camel-messenger found
+that the Amil had left Mahomdee, and gone out two stages to Para, to
+meet the Resident. He waited to deliver his message to the
+commandants and subordinate civil officers of the district, and see
+that they secured all the relatives, dependents, and property of the
+Amil that could be found. The foot-messenger, more wise, went on, and
+delivered his letter to Krishun Sahae; at Para, on the evening of
+Tuesday the 29th. He ordered his elephant very quietly, and mounting,
+told the driver to take him to a village on the road to Shajehanpoor.
+
+On reaching the village about midnight, the driver asked him whither
+he was going--"I am flying from my enemies," said Krishun Sahae; "and
+we must make all haste, or we shall be overtaken before we reach the
+boundary." "But," said the driver, "my house and family are at
+Lucknow, and the one will be pulled to the ground and the other put
+into gaol if I fly with you." Krishun Sahae drew out a pistol and
+threatened to shoot him if he did not drive on as told. They were
+near a field of sugar-cane, and the driver hedged away towards it,
+without the Amil's perceiving his intention. When they got near the
+field the elephant dashed in among the cane to have a feast; and the
+driver in his seeming effort to bring him out, fell off and
+disappeared under the high cane. The Amil did all he could to get out
+his elephant, but the animal felt that he was no longer in danger of
+severe treatment from above, and had a very comfortable meal before
+him in the fine ripe cane, and would not move. The poor Amil was
+obliged to descend, and make all possible haste on foot across the
+border, attended by one servant who had accompanied him in his
+flight. The driver ran to the village and got the people to join him
+in the pursuit of his master, saying that he was making off with a
+good deal of the King's money. With an elephant load of the King's
+money in prospect, they made all the haste they could; but the poor
+Amil got safely over the border into British territory. They found
+the elephant dining very comfortably on the sugar-cane. After abusing
+the driver and all his female relations for deluding them with the
+hope of a rich booty, they permitted him to take the empty elephant
+to the new Amil at Mahomdee. News of all this reached my camp last
+night.
+
+I omitted to mention that, at Busora on the 27th, a Rajpoot
+landholder of the Sombunsie tribe, came to my camp with a petition
+regarding a mortgage, and mentioned that he had a daughter, now two
+years of age; that when she was born he was out in his fields, and
+the females of the family put her into an earthen pot, buried her in
+the floor of the apartment, where the mother lay, and lit a fire over
+the grave; that he made all haste home as soon as he heard of the
+birth of a daughter, removed the fire and earth from the pot, and
+took out his child. She was still living, but two of her fingers
+which had not been sufficiently covered were a good deal burnt. He
+had all possible care taken of her, and she still lives, and both he
+and his wife are very fond of her. Finding that his tale interested
+me, he went home for the child; but his village was far off, and he
+has not been able to overtake me. He had given no orders to have her
+preserved, as his wife was confined sooner than he expected; but the
+family took it for granted that she was to be destroyed, and in
+running home to preserve her he acted on the impulse of the moment.
+The practice of destroying female infants is so general among this
+tribe, that a family commonly destroys the daughter as soon as born,
+when the father is from home, and has given no special orders about
+it, taking it to be his wish as a matter of course.
+
+Several respectable landholders of the Chouhan, Nikomee, and other
+tribe of Rajpoots, were talking to me yesterday evening, and as they
+were connected by marriage with Rajpoot families of the same and
+higher clans in the British territories, I asked them whether some
+plan could not be devised to suppress the evil in Oude, as it had
+been suppressed there; for the disorders which prevailed seemed to me
+to be only a visitation from above for such an all-pervading sin.
+They told me that there would be little difficulty in putting down
+this system under an honest and strong Government that would secure
+rights, enforce duties, and protect life and property, as in the
+British territories. Atrocious and cruel as this crime is in Oude, it
+is hardly more so than that which not long ago prevailed in France
+and other nations of Europe, of burying their daughters alive in
+nunneries in order to gratify the same family pride.
+
+It is painful to me to walk out of my tent of an evening, for I have
+every day large crowds seeking redress for grievous wrongs, for which
+I see no hope of redress: men and women, who have had their dearest
+relatives murdered, their houses burnt down, their whole property
+taken away, their lands seized upon, their crops destroyed by
+ruffians residing in the same or neighbouring villages, and actually
+in the camp of the Amil, without the slightest fear of being punished
+or made to surrender any portion of what they have taken. The
+Government authorities are too weak, even to enforce the payment of
+the Government demand, and have not the means to seize or punish
+offenders of any kind, if they have the inclination. In some
+districts they not only acquiesce in the depredations of these gangs
+of robbers, but act in collusion with their leaders, in order to get
+their aid in punishing defaulters or pretended defaulters, among the
+landholders. They murder the landholders, and as many as possible of
+their families, and as a reward for their services the local
+authorities make over their lands to them at reduced rates.
+
+The Nazim of Sandee Palee told me on taking leave, that he had only
+two wings of Nujeeb Regiments with him, one of which was fit for some
+service, and in consequence, spread over the district on detached
+duties. The other was with him, but out of the five hundred, for
+which he had to issue monthly pay, he should not be able to get ten
+men to follow him on any emergency. They are obliged to court and
+conciliate the strong and reckless who prey upon the weak and
+industrious; and in consequence become despised and detested by the
+people. I feel like one moving among a people afflicted with
+incurable diseases, who crowd around him in hope, and are sent away
+in despair. I try to make the local authorities exert themselves in
+behalf of the sufferers; but am told that they have already done
+their utmost in vain; that if they seize robbers and murderers and
+send them to Lucknow, they are sure to purchase their enlargement and
+return to wreak their vengeance on them and on all who have aided
+them in their arrest and conviction; that if they attempt to seize
+one of the larger landholders, who refuses to pay the Government
+demand, seizes upon the lands of his weaker neighbours, and murders
+and robs them indiscriminately, he removes across the Ganges, into
+one of the Honourable Company's districts, and thence sends his
+myrmidons to plunder and lay waste the whole country, till he is
+invited back by a weak and helpless Government upon his own terms;
+that formerly British troops were employed in support of the local
+authorities against offenders of this class; but that of late years
+all such aid and support have been withdrawn from the Oude
+Government, while the offenders find all they require from the
+subjects and police authorities of the bordering British districts.
+
+The country we passed over to-day, between Para and Puchgowa, is a
+plain, beautifully studded with groves and fine solitary trees, in
+great perfection. The bandha or mistletoe, upon the mhowa and mango
+trees, is in full blossom, and adds much to their beauty; the soil is
+good, and the surface everywhere capable of tillage, with little
+labour or outlay; for the jungle where it prevails the most is of
+grass, and the small palas-trees (butea-frondosa) which may be-easily
+uprooted. The whole surface of Oude is, indeed, like a gentleman's
+park of the most beautiful description, as far as the surface of the
+ground and the foliage go. Five years of good Government would make
+it one of the most beautiful parterres in nature. To plant a large
+grove, as it ought to be, a Hindoo thinks it necessary to have the
+following trees:--
+
+The banyan, or burgut; peepul, ficus religiosa; mango; tamarind;
+jamun, eugenia jambolana; bele, cratoeva marmelos; pakur, ficus
+venosa; mhowa, bassia latifolia; oula, phyllanthus emblica; goolur,
+figus glomerata; kytha, feronia elephantum; kuthal, or jack;
+moulsaree, mimusops elengi; kuchnar, bauhinea variegata; neem, melia
+azadirachta; bere, fizyphus jujuba; horseradish, sahjuna; sheeshum,
+dalbergia sisa; toon, adrela toona; and chundun, or sandal.
+
+Where he can get or afford to plant only a small space, he must
+confine himself to the more sacred and generally useful of these
+trees; and they are the handsomest in appearance. Nothing can be more
+beautiful than one of those groves surrounded by fields teeming with
+rich spring crops, as they are at present; and studded here and there
+with fine single banyan, peepul, tamarind, mhowa, and cotton trees,
+which, in such positions, attain their highest perfection, as if
+anxious to display their greatest beauties, where they can be seen to
+the most advantage. Each tree has there free space for its roots,
+which have the advantage of the water supplied to the fields around
+in irrigation, and a free current of air, whose moisture is condensed
+upon its leaves and stems by their cooler temperature, while its
+carbonic acid and ammonia are absorbed and appropriated to their
+exclusive use. Its branches, unincommoded by the proximity of other
+trees, spread out freely, and attain their utmost size and beauty.
+
+I may here mention what are the spring crops which now in a
+luxuriance not known for many years, from fine falls of rain in due
+season, embellish the surface over which we are passing :--
+
+_Spring Crops_.--Wheat; barley; gram; arahur, of two kinds (pulse);
+musoor (pulse); alsee (linseed); surson (a species of fine mustard);
+moong (pulse); peas, of three kinds; mustard; sugar-cane, of six
+kinds; koosum (safflower); opium; and palma christi.
+
+_February_ 1, 1850.--Mahomdee, eleven miles, over a level plain
+of muteear soil of the best quality, well supplied with groves and
+single trees of the finest kind; but a good deal of the land is out
+of tillage, and covered with the rank grass, called garur, the roots
+of which form the fragrant khus, for tatties, in the hot winds; and
+dhak (butea frondosa) jungle. Several villages, through and near
+which we passed, belong to Brahmin zumeendars, who were driven away
+last year by the rapacity of the contractor, Mahomed Hoseyn, a
+senseless oppressor, who was this year superseded by a very good
+officer and worthy man, who was driven out with disgrace, as
+described yesterday, while engaged in inviting back the absconded
+cultivators to these deserted villages, and providing them with the
+means of bringing their lands again into tillage. Hoseyn Allee had
+seized and sold all their plough-bullocks, and other agricultural
+stock, between the autumn and spring harvests, together with all the
+spring crops, as they became ripe, to make good the increased rate of
+revenue demanded; and they were all turned out beggars, to seek
+subsistence among their relatives and friends, in our bordering
+district of Shajehanpoor. The rank grass and jungle are full of
+neelgae and deer of all kinds; and the cowherds, who remain to graze
+their cattle on the wide plains, left waste, find it very difficult
+to preserve their small fields of corn from their trespass. They are
+said to come in herds of hundreds around these fields during the
+night, and to be frequently followed by tigers, several of which were
+killed last year, by Captain Hearsey, of the Frontier Police. Waste
+lands, more distant from the great Tarae forest, are free from
+tigers.
+
+I had a long talk with the Brahmin communities of two of these
+villages, who had been lately invited back from the Shajehanpoor
+district, by Krishun Sahae, and resettled on their lands. They are a
+mild, sensible, and most respectable body, whom a sensible ruler
+would do all in his power to protect and encourage; but these are the
+class; of landholders and cultivators whom the reckless governors of
+districts, under the Oude Government, most grievously oppress. They
+told me--"that nothing could be better than the administration of the
+Shajehanpoor district by the present collector and magistrate, Mr.
+Buller, whom all classes loved and respected; that the whole surface
+of the country was under tillage, and the poorest had as much
+protection as the highest in the land; that the whole district was,
+indeed, a garden." "But the returns, are they equal to those from
+your lands in Oude?"--"Nothing like it, sir; they are not half as
+good; nor can the cultivator afford to pay half the rate that we pay
+when left to till our lands in peace." "And why is this?"--"Because,
+sir, ours is sometimes left waste to recover its powers, as you now
+see all the land around you, while theirs has no rest" "But do they
+not alternate their crops, to relieve the soil?"--"Yes, sir, but this
+is not enough: ours receive manure from the herds of cattle and deer
+that graze upon it while fallow: and we have greater stores of manure
+than they have, to throw over it when we return and resume our
+labours. We alternate our crops, at the same time, as much as they
+do; and plough and cross-plough our lands more." "And where would you
+rather live--there, protected as the people are from all violence, or
+here, exposed as you are to all manner of outrage and extortion."--
+"We would rather live here, sir, if we could; and we were glad to
+come back." "And why? There the landholders and cultivators are sure
+that no man will be permitted to exact a higher rate of rent or
+revenue than that which they voluntarily bind themselves to pay
+during the period of a long lease; while here you are never sure that
+the terms of your lease will be respected for a single season."--
+"That is all true, sir, but we cannot understand the '_aen_ and
+_kanoon_' (the rules and regulations), nor should we ever do so; for
+we found that our relations, who had been settled there for many
+generations, were just as ignorant of them as ourselves. Your Courts
+of justice (adawluts) are the things we most dread, sir; and we are
+glad to escape from them as soon as we can, in spite of all the evils
+we are exposed to on our return to the place of our birth. It is not
+the fault of the European gentlemen who preside over them, for they
+are anxious to do, and have justice done, to all; but, in spite of
+all their efforts, the wrong-doer often escapes, and the sufferer is
+as often punished."
+
+"The truth, sir, is seldom told in these Courts. There they think of
+nothing but the number of witnesses, as if all were alike; here, sir,
+we look to the quality. When a man suffers wrong, the wrong-doer is
+summoned before the elders, or most respectable men of his village or
+clan; and if he denies the charge and refuses redress, he is told to
+bathe, put his hand upon the peepul-tree, and declare aloud his
+innocence. If he refuses, he is commanded to restore what he has
+taken, or make suitable reparation for the injury he has done; and if
+he refuses to do this, he is punished by the odium of all, and his
+life becomes miserable. A man dares not, sir, put his hand upon that
+sacred tree and deny the truth--the gods sit in it and know all
+things; and the offender dreads their vengeance. In your adawluts,
+sir, men do not tell the truth so often as they do among their own
+tribes, or village communities--they perjure themselves in all manner
+of ways, without shame or dread; and there are so many men about
+these Courts, who understand the 'rules and regulations,' and are so
+much interested in making truth appear to be falsehood, and falsehood
+truth, that no man feels sure that right will prevail in them in any
+case. The guilty think they have just as good a chance of escape as
+the innocent. Our relations and friends told us, that all this
+confusion of right and wrong, which bewildered them, arose from the
+multiplicity of the 'rules and regulations,' which threw all the
+power into the hands of bad men, and left the European gentlemen
+helpless!"
+
+"But you know that the crime of murdering female infants, which
+pervades the whole territory of Oude, and brings the curse of God
+upon it, has been suppressed in the British territory, in spite of
+these '_aens and kanoons?_'"--"True, sir, it has been put down in
+your bordering districts; but the Rajpoot families who reside in them
+manage to escape your vigilance, and keep up the evil practice. They
+intermarry with Rajpoot families in Oude, and the female infants,
+born of the daughters they give in marriage to Oude families, are
+destroyed in Oude without fear or concealment; while the daughters
+they receive in marriage, from Oude families, are sent over the
+border into Oude, when near their confinement, on the pretence of
+visiting their relations. If they give birth to boys, they bring them
+back with them into your districts; but if they give birth to girls,
+they are destroyed in the same manner, and no questions are ever
+asked about them." "Do you ever eat or drink with Rajpoot parents who
+destroy their female infants?"--"Never, sir! we are Brahmins, but we
+can take water in a brass vessel from the hands of a Rajpoot, and we
+do so when his family is unstained with this crime; but nothing would
+ever tempt us to drink water from the hands of one who permitted his
+daughters to be murdered." "Do you ever eat with the village or
+family priest who has given absolution to parents who have permitted
+their daughters to be murdered, by eating in the room where the
+murder has been perpetrated?"--"Never, sir; we abhor him as a
+participator in the crime; and nothing would ever induce one of us to
+eat or associate with him: he takes all the sin upon his own head by
+doing so, and is considered by us as an outcast from the tribe, and
+accursed! It is they who keep up this fearful usage. Tigers and
+wolves cherish their offspring, and are better than these Rajpoots,
+who out of family or clan pride, destroy theirs. As soon as their
+wives give birth to sons, they fire off guns, give largely in
+charity, make offerings to shrines, and rejoice in all manner of
+ways; but when they give birth to poor girls, they bury them alive
+without pity, and a dead silence prevails in the house; it is no
+wonder, sir, that you say that the curse of God is upon the land in
+which such sins prevail!"
+
+The quality of testimony, no doubt, like that of every other
+commodity, deteriorates under a system, which renders the good of no
+more value in exchange than the bad. The formality of our Courts
+here, as everywhere else, tends to impair, more or less, the quality
+of what they receive. The simplicity of Courts, composed of little
+village communities and elders, tends, on the contrary, to improve
+the quality of the testimony they get; and in India, it is found to
+be best in the isolated hamlets of hills and forests, where men may
+be made to do almost anything rather than _tell a lie_. A Marhatta
+pandit, in the valley of the Nerbudda, once told me, that it was
+almost impossible to teach a wild Gond of the hills and jungles the
+_occasional_ value of a lie! It is the same with the Tharoos and
+Booksas, who are, almost exclusively the cultivators of the Oude
+Tarae forest, and with the peasantry of the Himmalaya chain of
+mountains, before they have come much in contact with people of the
+plains, and become subject to the jurisdiction of our Courts. These
+Courts are, everywhere, our _weak point_ in the estimation of our
+subjects; and they should be, everywhere, simplified to meet the
+wants and wishes of so simple a people.
+
+That the lands, under the settled Government of the Honourable East
+India Company, are becoming more and more deteriorated by
+overcropping is certain; and an Indian statesman will naturally
+inquire, what will be the probable consequence to the people and the
+Government? To the people, the consequence must be, a rise in the
+price of land produce, proportioned to the increased cost of
+producing and bringing to market what is required for consumption.
+The price in the market must always be sufficient to cover the cost
+of producing, and bringing what is required from the poorest and most
+distant lands to which that market is at any time obliged to have
+recourse for supply; and as these lands deteriorate in their powers
+of fertility, recourse must be had to lands more distant, or more
+cost must be incurred in manure, irrigation, &c., to make these,
+already had recourse to, to produce the same quantity, or both. The
+price in the market must rise to meet the increased outlay required,
+or that outlay will not be made; and the market cannot be supplied.
+
+As men have to pay more for the Land produce they require, they will
+have less to lay out in other things; and as they cannot do without
+the land produce, they must be satisfied with less of other things,
+till their incomes increase to meet the necessity for increased
+outlay. People will get this increase in proportion as their labour,
+services, talents, or acquirements are more or less indispensable to
+the society; and the price of other things will diminish, as the cost
+of producing and bringing them to market diminishes, with
+improvements in manufactures, and in the facilities of transport. No
+very serious injury to the people of our territories is, therefore,
+to be apprehended from the inevitable deterioration in the natural
+powers of the soil, under our settled Government, which gives so much
+security to life, property, and character, and so much encouragement
+to industry.
+
+The consequence to the Government will be less serious than might at
+first appear. Under a system of limited settlements of the land-
+revenue, such as prevail over all our dominions, except in Bengal,
+the Government is in reality the landlord; and our land-revenue is in
+reality land-rent.* We alienate a portion of that rent for limited
+periods in favour of those with whom we make such settlements, and
+take all the rest ourselves. On an average, perhaps, our Government
+takes one-sixth of the gross produce of the land; and the persons,
+with whom the settlements are made, take another sixth. The net rent,
+which the Government and they divide equally between them, may be
+taken, on an average, at one-third of the gross produce of the land.
+The cultivator would, I believe, always be glad to take and cultivate
+land, on an average, on condition of giving one-third of the gross
+produce, or the value of one-third, to be divided between the
+Government and its lessee; and the lessee will always consider
+himself fortunate if he gets one-half of this third, to cover the
+risk and cost of management.
+
+* I believe our Government committed a great _political_ and _social_
+error, when it declared all the land to be the property of the
+lessees: and all questions regarding it to be cognizable by Judicial
+Courts. It would have been better for the people, as well as the
+Government, had all such questions been left to the Fiscal and
+Revenue Courts. There is the same regular series of these Courts,
+from the Tuhseeldar to the Revenue Sudder Board, as of the Judicial
+Courts, from the Moonsiff to the Judicial Sudder Board; and they are
+all composed of the same class of persons, with the same character
+and motives to honest exertion. Why force men to run the gauntlet
+through both series? It tends to make the Government to be considered
+as a rapacious tax-gatherer, instead of a liberal landlord, which it
+really is; and to foster the growth of a host of native pettifogging
+attorneys, to devour, like white ants, the substance of the
+landholders of all classes and grades.
+
+Where the soil of a particular village in a district deteriorates, an
+immediate reduction in the assessment must be given, or the lands
+will be deserted. If the Government does not consent to such a
+reduction, the lessee must sustain the whole burthen, for he cannot
+shift it off upon the cultivators, without driving them from the
+lands. The lessee may sustain the whole burthen for one or two years;
+but if the officers of Government attempt to make him sustain it
+longer, they drive him after his cultivators, and the land is left
+waste. I have seen numerous estates of villages and some districts
+made waste by such attempts in India. I have seen land in such
+estates, which, when unexhausted, yielded, on an average, twelve
+returns of the seed, without either manure or irrigation, and paid a
+rent of twenty shillings an acre, become so exhausted by overcropping
+in a few years as to yield only three or four returns, and unable to
+pay four shillings an acre--indeed, unable to pay any rent at all.
+The cultivator, by degrees, ceases to sow the more exhausting and
+profitable crops, and is at last obliged to have recourse to manure,
+or desert his land altogether; but no manure will enable him to get
+the same quantity of produce as he got before, while what he gets
+sells at the same rate in the market. He can, therefore, no longer
+pay the same rate of rent to Government and its lessee. He has got a
+less quantity of produce, and it has cost him much more to raise it,
+while it continues to sell at the same price in the market.
+
+But when the lands of a whole country, or a large extent of country,
+deteriorate in the same manner, and all cultivators are obliged to do
+the same thing, the price of land produce must rise in the markets,
+so as to pay the additional costs of supply. All but the poorest and
+most distant to which these markets must have recourse for supply, at
+any particular time, will pay rent, and pay it at a rate proportioned
+to their greater fertility or nearer proximity to the markets. Such
+Markets must pay for land produce a price sufficient to cover the
+costs of producing and bringing it from the poorest and most distant
+lands, to which they are obliged at any particular time to have
+recourse for supply. All land produce of the same quality must, at
+the same time and place, sell in the market at the same price; and
+all that is over and above the cost of producing and bringing it to
+market will go to the proprietors of the land, that is, to the
+Government and its lessees. The poorest and most distant land, to
+which any market may have recourse at any particular time, may pay no
+rent, because the price is no more than sufficient to pay the cost of
+producing and bringing their supply to that market; but all that is
+less poor and distant will pay rent, because the price which their
+produce brings in that market will be more than sufficient to pay the
+cost of producing and bringing their supply to that market.
+
+The increase in the price of land produce which must take place, as
+the lands become generally exhausted by overcropping, will, probably,
+prevent any great falling off in the money rate of rents and
+revenues, from the land in our Indian possessions; and with the
+improvements in manufactures, and in the facilities of transport,
+which must tend to reduce the price of other articles, that money
+will purchase more of them in the market; and the establishments
+which have to be maintained out of these rents and revenues may not
+become more costly. Government and its lessees may have the same
+incomes in money, and the greater price, they and their
+establishments are obliged to pay for land produce may be compensated
+by the lesser price they will have to pay for other things.
+
+As facilities for irrigation are extended and improved in wells and
+canals, new elements of fertility will be supplied to the surface, in
+the soluble salts contained in their waters. The well-waters will
+bring these salts from great depths, and the canal-waters will
+collect them as they flow along, or percolate through, the earth; and
+as they rise, by capillary attraction, they will convey them to the
+surface, where they are required for tillage. The atmosphere, in
+water, ammonia, and carbonic-acid gas will continue to supply plants
+with the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon which they require
+from it; and judicious selection and supply of manure will provide
+the soil with those elements in which it happens to be deficient.
+Peace, security, instruction, and a due encouragement to industry,
+will, it may be hoped, secure to the people all that they require
+from our Government, and to our Government all that it can fairly
+require from the people.
+
+The soil of Mahomdee is as fine as that of any part of Oude that I
+have seen; and the soil of Oude, generally, is equal to the best that
+I have seen in any part of India. It is all of the kinds above
+described--muteear (argillaceous), doomuteea (light), bhoor (sandy),
+and oosur (barren), as far as I have seen. In some parts, the muteear
+is more productive than in others, and the same may be said of all
+the other denominations of soil. In the poorer parts of the muteear,
+the stiff clay, devoid of decayed vegetable and animal matter, seems
+to superabound, as the sand does in the lightest or poorer portions
+of the soil, called doomuteea, which runs into bhoor. The oosur, or
+soil rendered unproductive by a superabundance of substances not
+suitable to the growth of plants, seems to be common to both kinds.
+In all soils, except the oosur, fine trees grow, and good crops are
+produced under good tillage; but in the muteear, the outlay to
+produce them is the least. It is an error to suppose that a soil,
+even of pure sand, must be absolutely barren. Quartz-sand commonly
+contains some of the inorganic substances necessary to plants--
+silica, lime, potash, alumina, oxide of iron, magnesia, &c.--and they
+are rendered soluble, and fit for the use of plants by atmospheric
+air and water, impregnated with carbonic-acid gas, as all water is
+more or less. The only thing required from the hand of man, besides
+water, to render them cultivable, is vegetable or animal substances,
+to supply them, as they decay or decompose, with organic acids.
+
+The late Hakeem Mehndee, took the contract of the Mahomdee district,
+as already stated, in the year A.D. 1804, when it was in its present
+bad state, at 3,11,000 rupees a-year; and he held it till the year
+1819, or for sixteen years. He had been employed in the Azimgurh
+district, under Boo Allee Hakeem, the contractor; and during the
+negotiations for the transfer of that district, with the other
+territories to the British Government, which took place in 1801; he
+lost his place, and returned to Lucknow, where he paid his court to
+the then Dewan, or Chancellor of the Exchequer, who offered him the
+contract of the Mahomdee district, at three lacs and eleven thousand
+rupees a-year, on condition of his depositing in the Treasury a
+security bond for thirty-two thousand rupees. There had been a
+liaison between him and a beautiful dancing-girl, named Peeajoo, who
+had saved a good deal of money. She advanced the money, and Hakeem
+Mehndee deposited the bond, and got the contract. The greater part of
+the district was then, as now, a waste; and did not yield more than
+enough to cover the Government demand, gratuities to courtiers, and
+cost of management. The Hakeem remained to support his influence at
+Court, while his brother, Hadee Allee Khan, resided at Mahomdee, and
+managed the district. The Hakeem and his fair friend were married,
+and lived happily together till her death, which took place before
+that of her husband, while she was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. While
+she lived, he married no other woman; but on her death he took to
+himself another, who survived him; but he had no child by either. His
+vast property was left to Monowur-od Dowlah, the only son of his
+brother, Hadee Allee Khan, and to his widow and dependents. The
+district improved rapidly under the care of the two brothers; and, in
+a few years, yielded them about seven lacs of rupees a-year. The
+Government demand increased with the rent-roll to the extent of four
+lacs of rupees a-year. This left a large income for Hakeem Mehndee
+and his family, who had made the district a garden, and gained the
+universal respect and affection of the people.
+
+In the year 1807, Hakeem Mehndee added, to the contract of Mahomdee,
+that of the adjoining district of Khyrabad, at five lacs of rupees a-
+year, making his contract nine lacs. In 1816, he added the contract
+for the Bahraetch district, at seven lacs and seventy-five thousand;
+but he resigned this in 1819, after having held it for two years,
+with no great credit to himself. In 1819, he lost the contract for
+Mahomdee and Khyrabad, from the jealousy of the prime minister, Aga
+Meer. In April 1818, the Governor-General the Marquess of Hastings
+passed through his district of Khyrabad, on his way to the Tarae
+forest, on a sporting excursion, after the Marhatta war. Hakeem
+Mehndee attended him during this excursion, and the Governor-General
+was so much pleased with his attentions, courteous manners, and
+sporting propensities, and treated him with so much consideration and
+kindness, that the minister took the alarm, and determined to get rid
+of so formidable a rival. He in consequence made the most of the
+charge preferred against him, of the murder of Amur Sing; and
+demanded an increase of five lacs of rupees a-year, or fourteen lacs
+of rupees a-year, instead of nine. This Hakeem Mehndee would not
+consent to give; and Shekh Imam Buksh was, in 1819, sent to supersede
+him, as a temporary arrangement.
+
+In 1820, Poorun Dhun, and Govurdhun Dass, merchants of Lucknow, took
+the contract of the two districts at twelve lacs of rupees a-year, or
+an increase of three lacs; and from that time, under a system of
+rack-renting, these districts have been falling off. Mahomdee is now
+in a worse state than Khyrabad, because it has had the bad luck to
+get a worse set of contractors. Hakeem Mehndee retired with his
+family, first to Shajehanpoor, and then to Futtehgurh, on the Ganges,
+and resided there, with his family, till June 1830, when he was
+invited back by Nusseer-do Deen Hyder, to assume the office of prime
+minister. He held the office till August 1832, when he was removed by
+the intrigues of the Kumboos, Taj-od Deen Hoseyn, and Sobhan Allee
+Khan, who persuaded the King that he was trying to get him removed
+from the throne, by reporting to the British Government the murder of
+some females, which had, it is said, actually taken place in the
+palace. Hakeem Mehndee was invited from his retirement by Mahomed
+Allee Shah, and again appointed minister in 1837; but he died three
+months after, on the 24th of December, 1837.
+
+During the thirty years which have elapsed since Hakeem Mehndee lost
+the contract of Mahomdee, there have been no less than seventeen
+governors, fifteen of whom have been contractors; and the district
+has gradually declined from what it was, when he left it, to what it
+was when he took it--that is from a rent-roll of seven lacs of rupees
+a-year, under which all the people were happy and prosperous, to one
+of three, under which all the people are wretched. The manager,
+Krishun Sahae, who has been treated as already described, would, in a
+few years, have made it what it was when the Hakeem left it, had he
+been made to feel secure in his tenure of office, and properly
+encouraged and supported. He had, in the three months he had charge,
+invited back from our bordering districts hundreds of the best
+classes of landholders and cultivators, who had been driven off by
+the rapacity of his predecessor, re-established them in their
+villages and set them to work in good spirit, to restore the lands
+which had lain waste from the time they deserted them; and induced
+hundreds to convert to sugar-cane cultivation the lands which they
+had destined for humbler crops, in the assurance, of the security
+which they were to enjoy under his rule. The one class tells me, they
+must suspend all labours upon the waste lands till they can learn the
+character of his successor; and the other, that they must content
+themselves with the humbler crops till they can see whether the
+richer and more costly ones will be safe from his grasp, or that of
+the agents, whom he may employ to manage the district for him. No man
+is safe for a moment under such a Government, either in his person,
+his character, his office, or his possession; and with such a feeling
+of insecurity among all classes, it is impossible for a country to
+prosper.*
+
+[* Krishun Sahae has been restored, but does not feel secure in his
+tenure of office.]
+
+I may here mention one among the numerous causes of the decline of
+the district. The contract for it was held for a year and half, in
+A.D. 1847-48, by Ahmed Allee. Feeling insecure in his tenure of
+office, he wanted to make as much as possible out of things as they
+were, and resumed Guhooa, a small rent-free village, yielding four
+hundred rupees a-year, held by Bahadur Sing, the tallookdar of
+Peepareea, who resides at Pursur. He had recourse to the usual mode
+of indiscriminate murder and plunder, to reduce Ahmed Allee to terms.
+At the same time, he resumed the small village of Kombee, yielding
+three hundred rupees a-year, held rent-free by Bhoder Sing,
+tallookdar of Magdapoor, who resided in Koombee; and, in consequence,
+he united his band of marauders to that of Bahadur Sing; and together
+they plundered and burnt to the ground some dozen villages, and laid
+waste the purgunnah of Peepareea, which had yielded to Government
+twenty-five thousand rupees a-year, and contained the sites of one
+hundred and eight villages, of which, however, only twenty-five were
+occupied.
+
+During the greater part of the time that these depredations were
+going on, the two rebels resided in our bordering district of
+Shajehanpoor, whence they directed the whole. Urgent remonstrances
+were addressed to the magistrate of that district, but he required
+judicial proof of their participation in the crimes, that were
+committed by their followers, upon the innocent and unoffending
+peasantry; and no proof that the contractor could furnish being
+deemed sufficient, he was obliged to consent to restore the rent-free
+villages. The lands they made waste, still remain so, and pay no
+revenue to Government.
+
+Saadut Allee Khan (who died in 1814), when sovereign of Oude, was
+fond of this place, and used to reside here for many months every
+year. He made a garden, about a mile to the east of the town, upon a
+fine open plain of good soil, and planted an avenue of fine trees all
+the way. The trees are now in perfection, but the garden has been
+neglected; and the bungalow in the centre, in which he resided, is an
+entire ruin. He kept a large establishment of men and cattle, for
+which sixty thousand rupees a-year were regularly charged in the
+accounts of the manager of the district, through his reign and those
+of Ghazee-od Deen, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, Mahomed Allee Shah, and
+Amjud Allee Shah, and the first year of the reign of his present
+Majesty, Wajid Allee Shah; though, with the exception of two bullocks
+and two gardeners, the cattle had all disappeared, and the servants
+been all discharged some thirty years before.
+
+In October last, when six guns were required from the great park of
+artillery at Lucknow, to be sent out on detached duty with the
+Gungoor Regiment, an inspection of the draft-bullocks took place, and
+it was found, that the Court favourite who had charge of the park had
+made away with no less than one thousand seven hundred and thirty of
+them, and only twenty could be found to take the guns. He had been
+charging for the food of these one thousand seven hundred and thirty
+for a long series of years. On mentioning this fact to a late
+minister, he told me of two facts within his own knowledge,
+illustrative of these sort of charges. This same Court favourite, in
+the reign of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, in 1835, received charge of
+sixteen bullocks, of surpassing beauty, which had been presented to
+the King, and he was allowed to draw, from the Treasury, a rupee a-
+day, for the food of each bullock.
+
+In the reign of Mahomed Allee Shah, his prudent successor, a muster
+of all the bullocks was called for, and Ghalib Jung, to whom the
+muster was intrusted, to spite the favourite, called for these
+sixteen bullocks. The favourite had disposed of them, though, he
+continued to draw the allowance; and, to supply their place, he sent
+to the bazaar and seized sixteen of the bullocks which had that day
+brought corn to market. They were presented to Ghalib Jung for
+muster. He pretended to be very angry, declared that it was
+disgraceful to keep such poor creatures on the King's establishment,
+and still more so to charge a rupee a-day for the food of each, and
+ordered them to be sold forthwith by auction. Soon after they had
+been sold, the poor men to whom they belonged came up to claim them,
+but could never get either the bullocks or their price, nor could the
+favourite ever be persuaded to refund any portion of the money he had
+drawn for the sixteen he had sold.*
+
+[* The favourite, in both these cases, was Anjum-od Dowlah.]
+
+In the early part of the reign of Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, a fine dog
+from the Himmalaya Hills was presented to him, and made over to the
+charge of one of the favourites, who drew a rupee a-day for his food.
+Soon after his Majesty became ill and very irritable, and one day
+complained much of this dog's barking. He was told that the only way
+to silence a dog of this description was to give him a seer of
+conserve of roses to eat every day, and a bottle of rose-water to
+drink. His Majesty ordered them to be given forthwith, and his repose
+was never after disturbed by the dog's barking. A rupee a-day
+continued to be drawn for these things for the dog for the rest of
+the long reign of Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, and through that of his
+successor, Nuseer-od Deen, which lasted for ten years, and ended in
+1837, though the animal had died soon after the order for these
+things was given, or in 1816, and he believed it continued to be
+drawn up to the present day.
+
+The cantonment at Mahomdee stands between this garden of Saadut
+Allee's and the town, and this is the best site for any civil or
+military establishments that may be required at Mahomdee. The Nazims
+usually reside in the fort in the town.
+
+_February_ 2, 1850.--Halted at Mahomdee. The spring crops around the
+town are very fine, and the place is considered to be very healthy.
+There is, however, some peculiarity in the soil, opposed to the
+growth of the poppy. The cultivators tell me that they have often
+tried it; that it is stunted in growth, whatever care be taken of it,
+and yields but little juice, and that of bad quality, though it
+attains perfection in the Shahabad and other districts around. The
+doomuteea soil is here esteemed better than the muteear, though it
+requires more labour in the tillage. It is said that _mote_ and
+_mash_, two pulses, do not thrive in the muteear soil so well as in
+the doomuteea.
+
+_February_ 3, 1850.--Poknapoor, eight miles. We crossed the Goomtee
+about midway, over a bridge of boats that had been prepared for us.
+The boats came up the river thus far for timber, and were detained
+for the occasion. The stream is here narrow, and said to flow from a
+basin (the phoola talao) in the Tarae forest, some fifty miles to the
+north, at Madhoo Tanda. There is some tillage on the verge of the
+stream on the other side; but from the river to our tents, four
+miles, there is none. The country is level and well studded with
+groves and fine single trees, bur, peepul, mhowa, mango, &c., but
+covered with rank grass.
+
+Near the river is a belt of the sakhoo and other forest trees, with
+underwood, in which tigers lodge and prey upon the deer, which cover
+the grass plain, and frequently upon the bullocks, which are grazed
+upon it in great numbers. Several bullocks have been killed and eaten
+by them within the last few days; and an old fakeer, who has for some
+months taken up his lodging on this side the river under a peepul-
+tree, in a straw hut just big enough to hold him, told us that he
+frequently saw them come down to drink in the stream near his
+lodging. We saw a great many deer in passing, but no tigers. The soil
+near the river is sandy, and the ground uneven, but still cultivable;
+and on this side of the sandy belt it is all level and of the best
+kind of doomuteea. Our tents are in a fine grove of mango-trees, in
+the midst of a waste, but level and extensive, plain of this soil,
+not a rood of which is unfit for the plough or incapable of yielding
+crops of the finest quality. It is capable of being made, in two or
+three years, a beautiful garden.
+
+The single trees, which are scattered all over it, have been shorn of
+their leaves and small branches by the cowherds for their cattle, but
+they would all soon clothe themselves again under protection. The
+groves are sufficiently numerous to furnish sites for the villages
+and hamlets required. All the large sakhoo-trees have been cut down
+and taken away on the ground we have come over, which is too near the
+river for them to be permitted to attain full size. Not an acre or a
+foot of the land is oosur, or unfit for tillage. Poknapoor is in the
+estate of Etowa, which forms part of the pergunnah of Peepareea, to
+which Bahadur Sing, the person above described, lays claim. He holds
+a few villages round his residence at Pursur; but the pergunnah is
+under the management of a Government officer, under the Amil of
+Mahomdee. The Rajah, Syud Ashruf Allee Khan, of Mahomdee, claims a
+kind of suzerainty over all the district, and over this pergunnah of
+Peepareea among the rest. From all the villages tilled and peopled he
+is permitted to levy an income for himself at the rate of two rupees
+a-village. This the people pay with some reluctance, though they
+recognise his right.
+
+The zumeendars of Poknapoor are Kunojee Brahmins, who tell me that
+they can do almost everything in husbandry save holding their own
+ploughs: they can drive their own harrows and carts, reap their own
+crops, and winnow and tread out their own corn; but if they once
+condescend to _hold their own ploughs_ they sink in grade, and have
+to pay twice as much as they now pay for wives for their sons from
+the same families, and take half of what they now take for their
+daughters from the same families, into which they now marry them.
+They have, they say, been settled in these pergunnahs, north-east of
+the Goomtee River, for fifty-two generations as farmers and
+cultivators; and their relatives, who still remain at Aslamabad, a
+village one koss south-east of Mahomdee, which was the first abode of
+the tribe in Oude, have been settled there for no less than eighty-
+four generations. They form village communities, dividing the lands
+among the several members, and paying over and above the Government
+demand a liberal allowance to the head of the village and of the
+family settled in it, to maintain his respectability and to cover the
+risk and cost of management, either in kind, in money, or in an extra
+share of the land.
+
+The lands of Poknapoor are all divided into two equal shares, one
+held by _Dewan_ and the other by _Ramnath_, who were both among the
+people with whom I conversed. Teekaram, who has a share in Dewan's
+half, mentioned that about thirteen years ago the Amil, Khwaja
+Mahmood, wanted to increase the rate of the Government demand on the
+village from the four hundred, which they had long paid, to four
+hundred and fifty; that they refused to pay, and Hindoo Sing, the
+Rajpoot tallookdar of Rehreea, one koss east of Poknapoor, offered to
+take the lease at four hundred and fifty, and got it. They refused to
+pay, and he, at the head of his gang of armed followers, attacked,
+plundered, and burnt down the village, and killed his, Teekaram's,
+brother Girdharee, with his two sons, and inflicted three severe cuts
+of a sabre on the right arm of his wife, who is now a widow among
+them. Hindoo Sing's object was to make this village a permanent
+addition to his estate; but, to his surprise, the Durbar took serious
+notice of the outrage, and he fled into the Shajehanpoor district,
+where he was seized by the magistrate, Mr. Buller, and made over to
+the Oude authorities for trial. He purchased his escape from them in
+the usual way; but soon after offered to surrender to the collector,
+Aboo Torab Khan, on condition of pardon for all past offences.
+
+The collector begged the Brahmins to consent to pardon him for the
+murders, on condition of getting from Hindoo Sing some fifty beeghas
+of land, out of his share in Rehreea. They said they would not
+consent to take five times the quantity of the land among such a
+turbulent set; but should be glad to get a smaller quantity, rent-
+free, in their own village, for the widow of Girdharee. The collector
+gave them twenty-five beeghas, or ten acres, in Poknapoor; and this
+land Teekaram still holds, and out of the produce supports the poor
+widow. A razenamah, or pardon, was given by the family, and Hindoo
+Sing has ever since lived in peace upon his estate, The lease of the
+village was restored to the Brahmin family, at the reduced rate of
+two hundred and fifty, but soon after raised to four hundred, and
+again reduced to two hundred and fifty, after the devastation of
+Bahadur Sing and Bhoder Sing.
+
+These industrious and unoffending Brahmins say that since these
+Rajpoot landholders came among them, many generations ago, there has
+never been any peace in the district, except during the time that
+Hakeem Mehndee held the contract, when the whole plain that now lies
+waste became a beautiful _chummun_ (parterre); that since his
+removal, as before his appointment, all has been confusion; that the
+Rajpoot landholders are always quarrelling either among themselves or
+with the local Government authorities; and, whatever be the nature or
+the cause of quarrel, they always plunder and murder,
+indiscriminately, the unoffending communities of the villages around,
+in order to reduce these authorities to their terms; that when these
+Rajpoot landholders leave them in peace, the contractors seize the
+opportunity to increase the Government demand, and bring among them
+the King's troops, who plunder them just as much as the rebel
+landholders, though they do not often murder them in the same
+reckless manner. They told me that the hundreds of their relatives
+who had gone off during the disorders and taken lands, or found
+employment in our bordering districts, would be glad to return to
+their own lands, groves, and trees, in Oude, if they saw the
+slightest chance of protection, and the country would soon become
+again the beautiful parterre which Hakeem Mehndee left it thirty
+years ago, instead of the wilderness in which they were now so
+wretched; that they ventured to cultivate small patches here and
+there, not far from each other, but were obliged to raise small
+platforms, upon high poles, in every field, and sit upon them all
+night, calling out to each other, in a loud voice, to keep up their
+spirits, and frighten off the deer which swarmed upon the grass
+plain, and would destroy the whole of the crops in one night, if left
+unprotected; that they were obliged to collect large piles of wood
+around each platform, and keep them burning all night, to prevent the
+tigers from carrying off the men who sat upon them; that their lives
+were wretched amidst this continual dread of man and beast, but the
+soil and climate were good, and the trees and groves planted by their
+forefathers were still standing and dear to them; and they hoped, now
+that the Resident had come among them, to receive, at no distant day,
+the protection they required. This alone is required to render this
+the most beautiful portion of Oude, and Oude the most beautiful
+portion of India.
+
+_February_ 4, 1850.--Gokurnath, thirteen miles, north-east, over a
+level plain of the same fine muteear soil, here and there running
+into doomuteea and bhoor, but in no case into oosur. The first two
+miles over the grass plain, and the next four through a belt of
+forest trees, with rank grass and underwood, abounding in game of all
+kinds, and infested by tigers. Bullocks are often taken by them, but
+men seldom. The sal (_alias_ sakhoo) trees are here stunted, gnarled,
+and ugly, while in the Tarae forest they are straight, lofty, and
+beautiful. The reason is, that beyond the forest their leaves are
+stripped off and sold for _plates_. They are carried to distant
+towns, and stored up for long periods, to form breakfast and dinner
+plates, and the people in the country use hardly anything else.
+Plates are formed of them by sewing them together, when required; and
+they become as pliable as leather, even after being kept for a year
+or more, by having a little water sprinkled over them. They are long,
+wide, and tough, and well suited to the purpose. All kinds of food
+are put upon them, and served up to the family and guests. The cattle
+do not eat them, as they do leaves of the peepul, bur, neem, &c. The
+sakhoo, when not preserved, is cut down, when young, for beams,
+rafters, &c., required in building. In the Tarae forest, the
+proprietors of the lands on which they stand preserve them till they
+attain maturity, for sale to the people of the plains; and they are
+taken down the Ghagra and other rivers that flow through the forest
+to the Ganges, and vast numbers are sold in the Calcutta market. The
+fine tall sakhoos in the Tarae forest are called "sayer"; the
+knotted, stunted, and crooked shakoos, beyond the forest, are called
+"khohurs." There are but few teak (or sagwun) trees in this part of
+the Tarae forest. The country is everywhere studded with the same
+fine groves and single trees, and requires only tillage to become a
+garden. From the belt of jungle to our camp at Gokurnath, seven
+miles, the road runs over an open grass plain, with here and there a
+field of corn. The sites of villages are numerous, but few of them
+are occupied at present. All are said to have been in a flourishing
+state, and filled by a happy peasantry, when Hakeem Mehndee lost the
+government. Since that time these villages and hamlets have
+diminished by degrees, in proportion as the rapacity of the
+contractors and the turbulence of the Rajpoot landholders have
+increased.
+
+The first village we passed through, after emerging from the belt of
+jungle, was Pureylee, which is held and occupied by a large family of
+cultivating proprietors of the Koormee caste. Up to the year 1847, it
+had for many years been in a good condition, and paid a revenue of
+two thousand rupees a-year to Government. In that year Ahmud Allee,
+the collector, demanded a thousand more. They could not pay this, and
+he sold all their bullocks and other stock to make up the demand; the
+lands became waste as usual; and Lonee Sing, of Mitholee, offered the
+next contractor one thousand rupees a-year for the lease, and got it.
+The village has now been permanently absorbed in his estate, in the
+usual way; and, as the Koormees are a peaceful body, they have
+quietly acquiesced in the arrangement, and get all the aid they
+require from their new landlord. Before this time they had held their
+lands, as proprietors, directly under Government. From allodial*
+proprietors they are become feudal tenants under a powerful Rajpoot
+chief.
+
+[* By allodial, I mean, lands held in proprietary right, immediately
+under the crown, but liable to the land-tax.]
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+Lonee Sing, who visited me yesterday afternoon with a respectable
+train, has, in this and other ways less creditable, increased his
+estate of _Mitholee_ from a rent-roll of forty to one of one hundred
+and fifty thousand rupees a-year, out of which he pays fifty thousand
+to Government, and he is considered one of its best subjects. He is,
+as above stated, of the Ahbun Rajpoot clan, and a shrewd and
+energetic man. The estate was divided into six shares. It had formed
+one under Rajah Davey Sing, whose only brother, Bhujun Sing, lived
+united with him, and took what he chose to give him for his own
+subsistence and that of his family. Davey Sing died without issue,
+leaving the whole estate to his brother, Bhujun Sing, who had two
+sons, Dul Sing and Maun Sing, among whom he divided the estate.* Dul
+Sing had six sons, but Maun Sing had none. He, however, adopted
+Bhowanee Sing, to whom he left his portion of the estate. Dul Sing's
+share became subdivided among his six sons; but Khunjun Sing, the son
+of his eldest son, when he became head of the family, got together a
+large force, with some guns, and made use of it in the usual way by
+seizing upon the lands of his weaker neighbours. He attacked his
+nephew, Bhowanee Sing, and took all his lands; and got, on one
+pretence or another, the greater part of those of his other
+relatives.
+
+[* _Mitholee_ contains the sites of one thousand four hundred and
+eighty-six villages, only one-third of which are now occupied.]
+
+He died without issue, leaving his possessions and military force to
+Lonee Sing, his brother, who continued to pursue the same course. In
+1847 he, with one thousand armed men and five guns, attacked his
+cousin, Monnoo Sing, of Mohlee, the head of the family of the fourth
+son of Dul Sing, killed four and wounded two persons; and, in
+collusion with the local governor, seized upon all his estate.
+Redress was sought for in vain; and as I was passing near, Monnoo
+Sing and his brother Chotee Sing came to me at Mahomdee to complain.
+Monnoo Sing remained behind sick at Mahomdee; but Chotee Sing
+followed me on. He rode on horseback behind my elephant, and I made
+him give me the history of his family as I went along, and told him
+to prepare for me a genealogical table, and an account of the mode in
+which Lonee Sing had usurped the different estates of the other
+members of the family. This he gave to me on the road between
+Poknapoor and Gokurnath by one of his belted attendants, who, after
+handing it up to me on the elephant, ran along under the nose of
+Rajah Bukhtawur Sing's fine chestnut horse without saying a word.
+
+I asked the Rajah whether he knew Lonee Sing? "Yes," said he;
+"everybody knows him: he is one of the ablest, best, and most
+substantial men in Oude; and he keeps his estate in excellent order,
+and is respected by all people."--"Except his own relations," said
+the belted attendant; "these he robs of all they have, and nobody
+interposes to protect them, because he has become wealthy, and they
+have become poor!" "My good fellow," said the Rajah, "he has only
+taken what they knew not how to hold, and with the sanction of the
+King's servants."--"Yes," replied the man, "he has got the sanction
+of the King's servants, no doubt, and any one who can pay for it may
+get that now-a-days to rob others of the King's subjects. Has not
+Lonee Sing robbed all his cousins of their estates, and added them to
+his own, and thereby got the means of bribing the King's servants to
+let him do what he likes?" "What," said the Rajah, with some
+asperity, "should you, a mere soldier, know about State affairs? Do
+you suppose that all the members of any family can be equal? Must
+there not be a head to all families to keep the rest in order?
+Nothing goes on well in families or governments where all are equal,
+and there is no head to guide; and the head must have the means to
+guide the rest."--"True," said the belted attendant, "all can't be
+equal in the rule of States; but in questions of private right,
+between individuals and subjects, the case is different; and the
+ruler should give to every one his due, and prevent the strong from
+robbing the weak. I have five fingers in my hand: they serve me, and
+I treat them all alike. I do not let one destroy or molest the
+other." "I tell you," said the Rajah, with increasing asperity, "that
+there must be heads of families as well as heads of States, or all
+would be confusion; and Lonee Sing is right in all that he has done.
+Don't you see what a state his district is in, now that he has taken
+the management of the whole upon himself? I dare say all the waste
+that we see around us has arisen from the want of such heads of
+families."--"You know," said the man, "that this waste has been
+caused by the oppression of the King's officers, and their disorderly
+and useless troops, and the strong striving to deprive the weak of
+their rights."
+
+"You know nothing about these matters," said the Rajah, still more
+angrily. "The wise and strong are everywhere striving to subdue the
+weak and ignorant, in order that they may manage what they hold
+better than they can. Don't you see how the British Government are
+going on, taking country after country year after year, in order to
+manage them better than they were managed under others? and don't you
+see how these countries thrive under their strong and just
+Government? Do you think that God would permit them to go on as they
+do unless he thought that it was for the good of the people who come
+under their rule?" Turning to me, the Rajah continued: "When I was
+one day riding over the country with Colonel Low, the then Resident,
+as I now ride with you, sir, he said, with a sigh, 'In this country
+of Oude what darkness prevails! No one seems to respect the right of
+another; and every one appears to be grasping at the possessions of
+his neighbour, without any fear of God or the King'--'True, sir,'
+said I; 'but do you not see that it is the necessary order of things,
+and must be ordained by Providence? Is not your Government going on
+taking country after country, and benefiting all it takes? And will
+not Providence prosper their undertakings as long as they do so? The
+moment they come to a stand, all will be confusion. Sovereigns cannot
+stand still, sir; the moment _their bellies are full_ (their ambition
+ceases), they and the countries they govern retrograde. No sovereign
+in India, sir, that has any regard for himself or his country, can
+with safety sit down and say that _his belly is full_ (that he has no
+further ambition of conquest): he must go on to the last.'"*
+
+[* The Rajah's reasoning was drawn from the practice in Oude, of
+seizing upon the possessions of weaker neighbours, by means of gangs
+of robbers. The man who does this, becomes the slave of his gangs, as
+the imperial robber, who seizes upon smaller states by means of his
+victorious armies, becomes their slave, and, ultimately, their
+victim, The history of India is nothing more than the biography of
+such men, and the Rajah has read no other.]
+
+The poor belted attendant of Chotee Sing was confounded with the
+logic and eloquence of the old Rajah, and said nothing more; and
+Chotee Sing himself kept quietly behind on his horse, with his ears
+well wrapped up in warm cloth, as the morning was very cold, and he
+was not well. He looked very grave, and evidently thought the Rajah
+had outlived his understanding. But the fact is that the Rajah has,
+by his influence at Court, taken all the lands held by his two elder
+nephews, Rughbur Sing and Ramadeen, and made them over to their
+youngest brother, Maun Sing, whom he has adopted, made his heir, and
+the head of the family. He has, in consequence, for the present a
+strong fellow-feeling with Lonee Sing; and, in all this oration at
+least, "his wishes were father to his thoughts."
+
+The sharpest retort that I remember ever having had myself was given
+to me by a sturdy and honest old landholder of the middle class, whom
+I had known for a quarter of a century on the bank of the Nerbudda,
+in 1843. During the insurrection in the Saugor and Nerbudda
+territories, which commenced in 1842, I was sent down by the
+Governor-General Lord Ellenborough to ascertain if possible the
+causes which had led to it. I conversed freely with the landholders,
+and people of all classes in the valley, who had been plundered by
+the landed aristocracy of the jungles on the borders, and had one
+afternoon some fifty in my tent seated on the carpet. After a good
+deal of talk about the depredations of the jungle barons upon the
+people of the cultivated plains, and remonstrance at the want of
+support on their part to the Government officers, I said to Umrao
+Sing, one of the most sturdy and honest among them, "Why did you
+withhold from the local officers the information which you must have
+had of the movements and positions of the rebels and their followers,
+who were laying the country waste? In no part of India have the
+farmers and cultivators been more favoured in light assessments and
+protection to life and property; but there are some men who never can
+be satisfied; give them what you will, they will always be craving
+after more."--"True, sir," said Umrao Sing, looking me steadily in
+the face, and with the greatest possible gravity, "there are some
+people who never can be satisfied, give them what you will. Give them
+the whole of Hindoostan, and they will go off to Kabul to take more!"
+
+There was a pause, during which all looked very grave, for they
+thought that the old man had exceeded the bounds of the privilege he
+had long enjoyed of expressing his thoughts freely to European
+gentlemen; and Umrao Sing continued: "The fact is, sir, that after
+you had, by good government, made us all happy and prosperous, and
+proud to display the wealth we had acquired on our persons, and in
+our houses and villages, you withdrew all your troops from among us,
+and left us a prey to the wild barons of the hills and jungles on our
+borders, whose families had risen to wealth, distinction, and large
+landed possessions under former misrule and disorder, and who are
+always longing for the return of such disorders, that they may have
+some chance of recovering the consequence and influence which they
+have lost under a settled and strong Government: they saw that your
+troops had been taken off for distant conquests, and heard of nothing
+but defeats and disasters, and readily persuaded themselves that your
+rule was at an end; for what could men, born and bred in the jungles,
+know of your resources to retrieve such disasters?
+
+"After the Mahratta war, in 1817, you prohibited the people of your
+newly-acquired districts from carrying arms, not dreaming that the
+only persons who would obey or regard your order were the peaceful
+landholders and peasantry of the plains, who were satisfied with your
+Government, and anxious for its duration, but exposed to the envy and
+hatred of the Gond and Lodhee chiefs, who occupied the hills and
+jungles on their borders.
+
+"When they came down upon us, you had no means left to protect us;
+and having no longer any arms or any experience of the use of them,
+after a quarter of a century of peace, we were unable to defend our
+villages, our houses, or our families; if we attempted to defend
+them, we and our families were killed; if we did not, we were robbed
+and threatened with death, if we gave you information to their
+prejudice. We saw that they could carry their threats into execution,
+for your local officers had not the means to protect us from their
+vengeance, and we suffered in silence; but you must not infer from
+this that we were tired of your rule, or pleased with their
+depredations; all here can testify that we longed for the return of
+your strength and their downfal. It is true, however," added he,
+"that the new European officers placed over us did not treat us with
+the same courtesy and consideration as the old ones, or seem to
+entertain the same kindly feeling towards us; and our communion with
+them was less free and cordial."
+
+All approved of my old friend's speech, and declared that he had
+given expression to the thoughts and feelings of all present, and of
+all the people of the plains, who lived happily under our rule, and
+prayed earnestly for its duration. The portion of the estate of
+Mitholee, held by Lonee Sing, now contains the sites of six hundred
+and four villages, about one-half of which are occupied; four hundred
+and eighty-four of these lie in the Mahomdee district, and one
+hundred and twenty in that of Khyrabad. The number and names of the
+villages are still kept up in the accounts.
+
+_February_ 5, 1850.--Kurrunpoor Mirtaha, ten miles over a plain of
+fine muteear soil, scantily cultivated, but bearing excellent spring
+crops where it is so. Not far from our last camp at Gokurnath, we
+entered a belt of jungle three miles wide, consisting chiefly of
+stunted, knotty, and crooked sakhoo trees, with underwood and rank
+chopper grass. This belt of jungle is the same we passed through, as
+above described, between Poknapoor and Gokurnath. It runs from the
+great forest to the north, a long way down south-east, into the
+Khyrabad district. From this belt to our present ground, six miles,
+the road passes over a fine plain, nine-tenths of which is covered
+with this grass, but studded with mango-groves and fine single trees.
+The forest runs along to the north of our road--which lay east--from
+one to three miles distant, and looked very like a continued mango-
+grove. The level plain of rich soil extends up through the forest to
+the foot of the hills, and is all the way capable of the finest
+cultivation. Here and there the soil runs into light doomuteea; and
+in some few parts even into bhoor, in proportion as the sand abounds;
+but generally the soil is the fine muteear, and very fertile. The
+whole plain is said to have been in cultivation thirty years ago,
+when Hakeem Mehndee held the contract; but the tillage has been
+falling off ever since, under the bad or oppressive management of
+successive contractors.
+
+The estate through which we have been passing is called Bharwara, and
+contains the sites of nine hundred and eighty-nine villages, about
+one-tenth of which are now occupied. The landholders are all of the
+Ahbun Rajpoot tribe; but a great part of them have become Musulmans.
+They live together, however, though of different creeds, in tolerable
+harmony; and eat together on occasions of ceremony, though not from
+the same dishes. No member of the tribe ever forfeited his
+inheritance by changing his creed. Nor did any one of them, I
+believe, ever change his creed, except to retain his inheritance,
+liberty, or life, threatened by despotic and unscrupulous rulers.
+They dine on the same floor, but there is a line marked off to
+separate those of the party who are Hindoos from those who are
+Musulmans. The Musulmans have Mahommedan names, and the Hindoos
+Hindoo names; but both still go by the common patronymic name of
+Ahbuns. The Musulmans marry into Musulman families, and the Hindoos
+into Hindoo families of the highest castes, Chouhans, Rathores,
+Rykwars, Janwars, &c. Of course all the children are of the same
+religion and caste as their parents. They tell me that the conversion
+of their ancestors was effected by force, under a prince or chief
+called "Kala Pahar." This must have been Mahommed Firmally, _alias_
+Kala Pahar--to whom his uncle Bheilole, King of Delhi, left the
+district of Bahraetch as a separate inheritance a short time before
+his death, which took place A.D. 1488. This conversion seems to have
+had the effect of doing away with the murder of female infants in the
+Ahbun families who are still Hindoos; for they could not get the
+Musulman portion of the tribe to associate with them if they
+continued it.
+
+The estate of Bharwara is divided into four parts, Hydrabad,
+Hurunpoor, Aleegunge, and Sekunderabad. Each division is subdivided
+into parts, each held by a separate branch of the family; and the
+subdivision of these parts is still going on, as the heads of the
+several branches of the family die, and leave more than one son. The
+present head of the Ahbun family is Mahommed Hussan Khan, a Musulman,
+who resides in his fort in the village of Julalpoor, near the road
+over which we passed. The small fort is concealed within, and
+protected by a nice bamboo-fence that grows round it. He holds twelve
+villages rent free, as _nankar_, and pays revenue for all the rest
+that compose his share of the great estate. The heads of families who
+hold the other shares enjoy in the same manner one or more villages
+rent free, as _nankar_. These are all well cultivated, and contain a
+great many cultivators of the best classes, such as Koormees,
+Lodhies, and Kachies.
+
+We passed through one of them, Kamole, and I had a good deal of talk
+with the people, who were engaged in pressing out the juice of sugar-
+cane. They told me that the juice was excellent, and that the syrup
+made from it was carried to the district of Shajehanpoor, in the
+British territory, to be made into sugar. Mahommed Hussan Khan came
+up, as I was talking with the people, and joined in the conversation.
+All seemed to be delighted with the opportunity of entering so freely
+into conversation with a British Resident who understood farming, and
+seemed to take so much interest in their pursuits. I congratulated
+the people on being able to keep so many of their houses well covered
+with grass-choppers; but they told me, "that it was with infinite
+difficulty they could keep them, or anything else they had, from the
+grasp of the local authorities and the troops and camp-followers who
+attended them, and desolated the country like a flock of locusts;
+that they are not only plundered but taxed by them--first, the
+sipahees take their choppers, beams, and rafters off their houses--
+then the people in charge of artillery bullocks and other cattle take
+all their stores of bhoosa, straw, &c., and threaten to turn the
+cattle loose on their fields, if not paid a gratuity--the people who
+have to collect fuel for the camp (bildars) take all their stores of
+wood, and doors and windows also, if not paid for their redemption--
+then the people in charge of elephants and camels threaten to denude
+of their leaves and small branches all the peepul, burgut, and other
+trees most sacred and dear to them, near their homes, unless paid for
+their forbearance; and--though last, not least--men, women, and
+children are seized, not only to carry the plunder and other burthens
+gratis for sipahees and servants of all kinds and grades, and camp-
+followers, but to be robbed of their clothes, and made to pay ransoms
+to get back, while all the plough-bullocks are put in requisition to
+draw the guns which the King's bullocks are unable to draw
+themselves. In short, that the approach of King's servants is dreaded
+as one of the greatest calamities that can befal them."
+
+I should here mention, that all the Telinga regiments, fourteen in
+number, are allowed tents and hackeries to carry them. The way in
+which the bullocks of such carts are provided with fodder has been
+already mentioned; but no tents or conveyance of any kind are allowed
+for the Nujeeb corps, thirty-two in number. Whenever they move (and
+they are almost always moving), they seize whatever conveyance and
+shelter they require from the people of the country around. Each
+battalion, even in its ordinary incomplete state, requires four
+hundred or five hundred porters, besides carts, bullocks, horses,
+ponies, &c. Men, women, and children, of all classes, are seized, and
+made to carry the baggage, arms, accoutrements, and cages of pet
+birds, belonging to the officers and sipahees of these corps. They
+are stripped of their clothes, confined, and starved from the time
+they are seized; and as it is difficult to catch people to relieve
+them along the road, they are commonly taken on two or three stages.
+If they run away, they forfeit all their clothes which remain in the
+hands of the sipahees; and a great many die along the road of
+fatigue, hunger, and exposure to the sun. Numerous cruel instances of
+this have been urged by me on the notice of the King, but without any
+good effect. The line of march of one of these corps is like the road
+to the temple of Juggurnaut! When the corps is about to move,
+detachments are sent out to seize conveyance of all kinds; and for
+one cart required and taken, fifty are seized, and released for a
+donation in proportion to their value, the respectability of the
+proprietors, and the necessity for their employment at home at the
+time. The sums thus extorted by detachments they share with their
+officers, or they would never be again sent on such lucrative
+service.
+
+It appears that in this part of Oude the people have not for many
+years suffered so much from the depredations of the refractory
+landholders as in other parts; and that the desolate state of the
+district arises chiefly from the other three great evils that afflict
+Oude--the rack-renting of the contractors; the divisions they create
+and foster among landholders; and the depredations of the troops and
+camp-followers who attend them. But the estate has become much
+subdivided, and the shareholders from this cause, and the oppression
+of the contractors, have become poor and weak; and the neighbouring
+landholders of the Janwar and other Rajpoot tribes have taken
+advantage of their weakness to seize upon a great many of their best
+villages. Out of Kurumpoor, within the last nine years, Anorud Sing,
+of Oel, a Janwar Rajpoot, in collusion with local authorities, has
+taken twelve; and Umrao Sing, of Mahewa, of the same tribe, has taken
+eighteen, making twenty villages from the Kurumpoor division. These
+landholders reside in the Khyrabad district, which adjoins that of
+Mahomdee, near our present camp.
+
+The people everywhere praise the climate--they appear robust and
+energetic, and no sickness prevails, though many of the villages are
+very near the forest. The land on which the forest stands contains,
+in the ruins of well-built towns and fortresses, unquestionable signs
+of having once been well cultivated and thickly peopled: and it would
+soon become so again under good government. There is nothing in the
+soil to produce sickness; and, I believe, the same soil prevails up
+through the forest to the hills. Sickness would, no doubt, prevail
+for some years, till the underwood and all the putrid leaves should
+be removed. The water that stagnates over them, and percolates
+through the soil into the wells, from which the people drink, and the
+exhalations which arise from them and taint the air, confined by the
+dense mass of forest trees, underwood, and high grass, are, I
+believe, the chief cause of the diseases which prevail in this belt
+of jungle.
+
+It is however remarkable, that there are two unhealthy seasons in the
+year in this forest--one at the latter end of the rains in August,
+September, and October, and the other before the rains begin to fall
+in the latter part of April, the whole of May, and part of June. The
+diseases in the latter are, I believe, more commonly fatal than they
+are in the former; and are considered by the people to arise solely
+from the poisonous quality of the water, which is often found in
+wells to be covered with a thin crust of petrolium. Diseases of the
+same character prevail at the same two seasons in the jungles, above
+the sources of the Nerbudda and Sohun rivers, and are ascribed by the
+people to the same causes--those which take place after the rains, to
+bad air; and those which take place immediately before the rains,
+after the cold and dry seasons, to bad water. The same petrolium, or
+liquid bitumen, is found floating on the spring waters in the hot
+season, when the most fatal diseases break out in the jungles, about
+the sources of the Nerbudda and Sohun, as in the Oude Tarae; and, in
+both places, the natives appear to me to be right in attributing them
+to the water; but whether the poisonous quality of the water be
+imparted to it by bitumen from below, or by the putrid leaves of the
+forest trees from above, is uncertain; the people drink from the
+bituminous spring waters at this season, as well as from stagnant
+pools in the beds of small rivers, which have ceased to flow during
+part of the Cold, and the whole of the hot, season. These pools
+become filled with the leaves of the forest trees which hang over
+them.
+
+The bitumen, in all the jungles to which I refer, arises, I believe,
+from the _coal measures_, pressed down by the overlying masses of
+sandstone strata, common to both the Himmalaya chain of mountains
+over the Tarae forest, and the Vendeya and Sathpoor ranges of hills
+at the sources of the Nerbudda and Sohun rivers. It is, however,
+possible that the water of these stagnant pools, tainted by the
+putrid leaves, may impart its poison through the medium of the air in
+exhalations; and I have known European officers, who were never
+conscious of having drunk either of the waters above described, take
+the fever (owl) in the month of May in the Tarae, and in a few hours
+become raving mad. These tainted waters may possibly act in both
+ways--directly, and through the medium of the air.
+
+While on the subject of the causes or sources of disease, I may
+mention two which do not appear to me to have been sufficiently
+considered and provided against in India. First, when a new
+cantonment is formed and occupied in haste, during or after a
+campaign, terraces are formed of the new earth dug up on the spot to
+elevate the dwellings of officers and soldiers from the ground, which
+may possibly become flooded in the rains; and over the piles of fresh
+earth officers commonly form wooden floors for their rooms to secure
+them from the damp, new earth. Between this earth and the wooden
+floor a small space of a foot or two is commonly left. The new earth,
+thus thrown up from places that may not have been dug or ploughed for
+ages, absorbs rapidly the oxygen from the air above, and gives out
+carbonic acid, nitrogen and hydrogen gases, which render the air
+above unfit for men to breathe. This noxious air accumulates in the
+space below the wooden floor, and, passing through the crevices, is
+breathed by the officers and soldiers as they sleep.
+
+Between the two campaigns against Nepal in 1814 and 1815, the brigade
+in which my regiment served formed such a cantonment at Nathpoor, on
+the right bank of the river Coosee. The land which these cantonments
+occupied had been covered with a fine sward on which cattle grazed
+for ages, and was exceedingly rich in decayed vegetable and animal
+matter. The place had been long remarked for its salubrity by the
+indigo-planters and merchants of all kinds who resided there; and on
+the ground which my regiment occupied there was a fine pucka-house,
+which the officer commanding the brigade and some of his staff
+occupied. In the rains the whole plain, being very flat, was often
+covered with water, and thousands of cattle grazed upon it during the
+cold and hot seasons. The officers all built small bungalows for
+themselves on the plan above described; and the medical officers all
+thought that they had, in doing so, taken all possible precautions.
+The men were provided with huts, as much as possible on the same
+plan. These dwellings were all ready before the rains set in, and
+officers and soldiers were in the finest state of health and spirits.
+
+In the middle and latter part of the rains, officers and men began to
+suffer from a violent fever, which soon rendered the European
+officers and soldiers delirious, and prostrated the native officers
+and sipahees; so that three hundred of my own regiment, consisting of
+about seven hundred, were obliged to be sent to their homes on sick
+leave. The greater number of those who remained continued to suffer,
+and a great many died. Of about ten European officers present with my
+regiment, seven had the fever, and five died of it, almost all in a
+state of delirium. I was myself one of the two who survived, and I
+was for many days delirious.
+
+Of the medical officers of the brigade, the only one, I believe, who
+escaped the fever was Adam Napier, who, with his wife and children,
+occupied apartments in the brigadier's large pucka-house. Not a
+person who resided in that house was attacked by the fever. There was
+another pucka-house a little way from the cantonments, close to the
+bank of the river, occupied by an indigo-planter, a Mr. Ross. No one
+in that house suffered. The fever was confined to those who occupied
+the houses and huts which I have described. All the brigade suffered
+much, but my regiment, then the first battalion of the 12th Regiment,
+and now the 12th Regiment, suffered most; and it was stationed on the
+soil which had remained longest unturned and untilled on what had
+been considered a park round the pucka-house, in which the brigadier
+resided. I believe that I am right in attributing this sickness
+exclusively to the circumstances which I have mentioned; and I am
+afraid that, during the thirty-five years that have since elapsed,
+similar circumstances have continued to produce similar results. I am
+myself persuaded, that had the sward remained unbroken, and the
+houses and huts been raised upon it, over wooden platforms placed
+upon it, to secure officers and men from the damp ground, there would
+have been little or no sickness in that brigade.
+
+The second of the two causes or sources of disease, to which I refer,
+is the insufficient room which is allowed for the accommodation of
+our European troops in India. Within the room assigned for the non-
+commissioned officers and soldiers, they soon exhaust the atmosphere
+around of its oxygen or vital air, while they expire or exhale
+carbonic acid, nitrogen and hydrogen gases, which render it
+altogether unfit to sustain animal life; and death or disease must
+soon overtake those who inhale or inspire it.
+
+I may illustrate this by a fact within my own observation. In 1817, a
+flank battalion of six hundred European soldiers was formed at
+Allahabad, where I then was with my regiment to escort the Governor-
+General the Marquess of Hastings. With these six hundred soldiers
+there were thirty-two European officers. The soldiers and non-
+commissioned officers were put into the barracks in the fort, where
+they had not sufficient room. The commissioned officers resided in
+bungalows in the cantonments, or in tents on the open plain. The men
+were effectually prevented from exposing themselves to the sun, and
+from indulging in any kind of intemperance, and every possible care
+was taken of them. The commissioned officers lived as they liked,
+denied themselves no indulgence, and were driving about all day, and
+every day, in sun and rain, to visit each other and their friends. A
+fever, similar to that above described, broke out among the soldiers
+and non-commissioned officers in the fort, and great numbers died. Of
+the six hundred, only sixteen escaped the fever. When too late, they
+were removed from the fort into tents on the plain. From that day the
+deaths diminished, and the sick began to recover. Of the thirty-two
+commissioned officers, only one, I think, was ever sick at all, and
+his sickness was of a kind altogether different; and, it is
+impossible to resist the conclusion, that the non-commissioned
+officers and soldiers got their disease from want of sufficient room,
+and, consequently, of sufficient pure air to breathe. Subsequent
+experience has, I believe, tended to confirm the conclusion; and, I
+may safely say, that more European soldiers have died from a
+disregard of it, than from all the wars that we have had within the
+thirty-three years that have since elapsed. The cause is still in
+operation, and continues to produce the same fatal results, and will
+continue to do so till we change the system of accommodating our
+European troops in India.
+
+The buildings in which they are lodged should all have thatched or
+tiled roofs, through which the hot and impure air, which has been
+already breathed, may pass, and be replaced within by the pure air of
+the atmosphere around, instead of roofs of pucka-masonry which
+confine this air to be breathed over again by the people within; and
+double or quadruple the space now allowed to each man should be
+given. At the cost now incurred in providing them with this
+insufficient room, under roofs of pucka-masonry, they could be
+provided with four times the space, under roofs of thatch and tiles,
+which would be so much more safe and suitable.
+
+The state of the Bharwara district may be illustrated by that of one
+of its four divisions or mahals, Alleegunge. In the last year of
+Hakeem Mehudee's role (1818), this division was assessed at one
+hundred and thirty-eight thousand rupees, with the full consent of
+the people, who were all thriving and happy. The assessment was,
+indeed, made by the heads of the principal Ahbun families of the
+district, with Mahommed Hussan Khan as chief assessor. One hundred
+and thirty-two thousand were collected, and six thousand were
+remitted in consequence of a partial failure of the crops. Last year,
+by force and violence, the landholders of this division were made to
+agree to an assessment upon the lands in tillage of ten thousand and
+five hundred rupees, of which not six thousand can be collected. The
+other three divisions are in the same state. Not one-tenth of the
+land is in tillage, nor are one-tenth of the villages peopled. The
+soil is really the finest that I have seen in India; and I have seen
+no part of India in which so small a portion of the surface is unfit
+for tillage. The moisture rises to the surface just as it is
+required; and a tolerable crop is got by a poor man who cannot afford
+to keep a plough, and merely burns down the grass and digs the
+surface with his spade, or pickaxe, before he sows the seed.
+Generally, however, the tillage, in the portion cultivated, is very
+good. The surface is ploughed and cross-ploughed from six to twenty,
+or even thirty, times in the season; and the harrow and roller are
+often applied till every clod is pulverized to dust.
+
+The test of first-rate preparation for the seed is that a ghurra, or
+earthen pitcher, full of water, let fall upon the field from a man's
+head, shall not break. The clods in the muteear soil are so
+pulverised only in the fields that are to be irrigated, or to the
+surface of which moisture rises from below as the weather becomes
+warm. The people say that it does so rise when required in land even
+a good way from the forest, and that the clods are, in consequence,
+not necessary to retain it. This is the only part of India in which I
+have known the people take ratoon, or second crops of sugar-cane from
+the same roots; and the farmers and cultivators tell me that the
+second crop is almost as good as the first. The fields in tillage are
+well supplied with manure, which is very abundant where so large a
+portion of the surface is waste; and affords such fine pasture. They
+are also well watered, for the water is near the surface, and in the
+tight muteear soil a kutcha well, or well without masonry, will stand
+good for twenty seasons. To make pucka-wells, or wells lined with
+burnt bricks and cement, would be costly. Each well of this kind
+costs about one hundred rupees. The kutcha-wells, which are lined
+with nothing, or with thick ropes of twigs and straw, cost only from
+five to ten rupees. The people tell me that oppression and poverty
+have made them less fastidious than they were formerly; that formerly
+it was considered disgraceful to plough with buffaloes, or to use
+them in carts, but they are now in common use for both purposes; that
+vast numbers of the Kunojee Brahmins and others, who could not
+formerly drive their own ploughs, drive them now; and that all will
+in time condescend to do so, as the penalties of higher payments with
+and for daughters in marriage cease to be exacted from men whose
+necessities have become so pressing.
+
+_March_ 6, 1850. **--Halted at Kurunpoor, where the gentlemen of my
+camp shot some floricans, hares, partridges, and a porcupine along
+the bank of the small river Ole, which flows along from north-west to
+south-east within three miles of Kurunpoor.
+
+[** Transcriber's Note: The diary date jumps from the previous entry
+of _February_ 5, 1850, at Kurrunpoor. This is a mistake in the date,
+as at the start of Chapter V the diary jumps back to _February_ 14,
+1850.]
+
+_March_ 7, 1850.--Teekur, twelve miles. The road, for three miles,
+lay through grass jungle to the border of the Khyrabad district,
+whence the plain is covered with cultivation, well studded with
+trees, clusters of bamboos, and well peopled with villages, all
+indicating better management. A great many fields are reduced to the
+fine dust above described to receive the sugar-cane, which is planted
+in February. The soil is muteear, but has in many parts become
+impaired by over-cropping. The people told me that the crops were not
+so rich as they ought to be, from the want of manure, which is much
+felt here, where there is so little pasture for cattle. The wheat has
+almost everywhere received an orange tint from the geerwa, or blight,
+which covers the leaves, but, happily, has not as yet settled upon
+the stalks to feed on the sap. This blight, the cultivators say,
+arises from the late and heavy rain they have had, and the easterly
+wind that prevailed for a few days. The geerwa is a red fungus,
+which, when it adheres to the stems, thrusts its roots through the
+pores of the epidermis and robs the grain of the sap as it ascends.
+When easterly winds and sultry weather prevail, the pores of the
+epidermis appear to be more opened and exposed to the inroads of
+these fungi than at other times. If the wind continue westerly for a
+fortnight more, little injury may be sustained; but should easterly
+winds and sultry weather prevail, the greater part may be lost. "We
+cultivators and landholders," said Bukhtawur Sing, "are always in
+dread of something, and can never feel quite easy: if little rain
+falls, we complain of the want of more; if a good deal comes down, we
+are in dread of this blight, and never dare to congratulate ourselves
+on the prospect of good returns." To the justice and wisdom of this
+observation all assented.*
+
+[* Westerly winds and cold weather prevailed and the blight did
+little apparent injury to the crops; but the wheat crops, generally,
+over Oude and the adjoining districts, was shrivelled and deficient
+in substance. It had "run to stalk" from the excess of rain.]
+
+The landholders of this purgunnah are chiefly Janwar Rajpoots.
+Kymara, a fine village, through which we passed, about five miles
+from Kurunpoor, is the residence of the present head of this family,
+Rajah Ajeet Sing. He has a small fort close by, in which he is now
+preparing to defend himself against the King's forces. The poor old
+man came out with all his village community to meet and talk with me,
+in the hope that I might interpose to protect him. He is weak in mind
+and body, has no son, and, having lately lost his only brother and
+declared heir to the estate, his cousins and more distant relations
+are scrambling for the inheritance. The usual means of violence,
+collusion, and intrigue have been had recourse to. The estate is in
+the Huzoor Tuhseel, and not under the jurisdiction of the contractor
+of Khyrabad. The old man seemed care-worn and very wretched, and told
+me that the contractor, whom I should meet at Teekur, had only
+yesterday received orders from Court to use all his means to oust him
+from possession, and make over the estate to his cousin, Jodha Sing,
+who had lately left him in consequence of a dispute, after having,
+since the death of his brother, aided him in the management of the
+estate; that he had always paid his revenues to the King punctually,
+and last year he owed a balance of only one hundred and sixty rupees,
+when _Anrod Sing_, his distant relative, wanted him to declare his
+younger brother, Dirj Bijee Sing, his heir to the estate, in lieu of
+Jodha Sing.
+
+This he refused to do, and Anrod Sing came, with a force of two
+thousand armed men, supported by a detachment from Captain Barlow's
+regiment, and laid siege to his fort, on the pretence that he was
+required to give security for the more punctual payment of the
+revenue. To defend himself, he was obliged to call in the aid of his
+clan and neighbours, and expend all that he had or could borrow, and,
+at last, constrained to accept Anrod Sing's security, for no
+merchants would lend money to a poor man in a state of siege. Anrod
+Sing had now gone off to Lucknow, and bribed the person in charge of
+the Huzoor Tuhseel, Gholam Ruza Khan, one of the most corrupt men in
+the corrupt Court of Lucknow, to get an order issued by the Minister
+to have him turned out, and the estate made over to Jhoda Sing, from
+whom he would soon get it on pretence of accumulated balances, and
+make it over, in perpetuity, to his brother, Dirj Bijee Sing. In this
+attempt, the old man said, a good many lives must be lost and crops
+destroyed, for his friends would not let him fall without a
+struggle.*
+
+[* The old man has been attacked and turned out with the loss of some
+lives, in spite of the Resident's remonstrance, and the estate has
+been made over to Jodha Sing, on the security for the payment of the
+revenue of Anrod Sing. Jodha Sing is, naturally, of weak intellect;
+and Anrod Sing will soon have him turned out as an incompetent
+defaulter, and get the estate for himself, or for his younger
+brother. Luckily _Anrod Sing_ and _Lonee Sing_, of Mitholee, are at
+daggers-drawn about some villages, which Anrod Sing has seized, and
+to which Lonee Sing thinks he has a better right. Their dread of each
+other will be useful to the Government and the people.]
+
+As soon as we left the poor old man, Bukhtawur Sing said, "This, sir,
+is the way in which Government officers manage to control and subdue
+these sturdy Rajpoot landholders. While they remain united, as in the
+Bangur district, they can do nothing with them, and let them keep
+their estates on their own terms; but the moment a quarrel takes
+place between them they take advantage of it: they adopt the cause of
+the strongest, and support him in his aggressions upon the other
+members of his family or clan till all become weak by division and
+disorder, and submit. Forty or fifty years ago, sir, when I used to
+move about the country on circuit with Saadut Allee Khan, the then
+sovereign, as I now move with you, there were many Rajpoot
+landholders in Oude stronger than any that defy the Government now;
+but they dared not then hold their heads so high as they do now. The
+local officers employed by him were men of ability, experience, and
+character, totally unlike those now employed. Each had a wing of one
+of the Honourable Company's regiments and some good guns with him,
+and was ready and able to enforce his master's orders and the payment
+of his just demands; but, since his death, the local officers have
+been falling off in character and strength, while the Rajpoot
+landholders have risen in pride and power. The aid of the British
+troops has, by degrees, been altogether withdrawn, and the
+landholders of this class despise the Oude Government, and many of
+them resist its troops whenever they attempt to enforce the payment
+of even its most moderate demands. The revenues of the State fall off
+as the armed bands of these landholders increase, and families who,
+in his time, kept up only fifty armed men, have now five hundred, or
+even a thousand or two thousand, and spend what they owe to
+Government in maintaining them. To pay such bands they withhold the
+just demands of the State, rob their weaker neighbours of their
+possessions, and plunder travellers on the highway, and men of
+substance, wherever they can find them.
+
+"When Saadut Allee made over one-half of his dominions to the British
+Government in 1801, he was bound to reduce his military force and
+rely altogether upon the support of your Government. He did so; but
+the force he retained, though small, was good; and while that support
+was afforded things went on well--he was a wise man, and made the
+most of the means he had. Since that time, sir, the Oude force has
+been increased four-fold, as your aid has been withdrawn; but the
+whole is not equal to the fourth part which served under Saadut
+Allee. You see how insignificant it everywhere is, and how much it is
+despised even by the third-class Rajpoot landholders. You see, also,
+how they everywhere prey upon the people, and are dreaded and
+detested by them: the only estates free from their inroads are those
+under the 'Huzoor Tuhseel,' into which the Amils and their disorderly
+hosts dare not enter. If the landholders could be made to feel that
+they would not be permitted to seize other men's possessions, nor
+other men to seize theirs, as long as they obeyed the Government and
+paid its just dues, they would disband these armed followers, and the
+King might soon reduce his. He will never make them worth anything;
+there are too many worthless, but influential persons about the
+Court, interested in keeping up all kinds of abuses, to permit this.
+These abuses are the chief source of their incomes: they rob the
+officers and sipahees, and even the draft-bullocks; and you
+everywhere see how the poor animals are starved by them."
+
+Within a mile of the camp I met the Nazim, Hoseyn Allee Khan, who
+told me that Rajah Goorbuksh Sing, of Ramnuggur Dhumeree, had
+fulfilled all the engagements entered into before me at Byramghat, on
+the Ghagra, on the 6th of December, and was no longer opposed to the
+Government; and that the only large landholder in his district who
+remained so at present was Seobuksh Sing, of Kateysura, a strong
+fort, mounted with seven guns, near the road over which I am to pass
+the day after tomorrow, between Oel and Lahurpoor. As he came up on
+his little elephant along the road, I saw half-a-dozen of his men,
+mounted on camels, trotting along through a fine field of wheat, now
+in ear, with as much unconcern as if they had been upon a fine sward
+to which they could do no harm. I saw one of my people in advance
+make a sign to them, on which they made for the road as fast as they
+could. I asked the Nazim how he could permit such trespass. He told
+me, "That he did not see them, and unless his eye was always upon
+them he could not prevent their doing mischief, for they were the
+King's servants, who never seemed happy unless they were trespassing
+upon some of his Majesty's subjects." Nothing, certainly, seems to
+delight them so much as the trespasses of all kinds which they do
+commit upon them.
+
+_March_ 8, 1850.--Oel, five miles, over a plain of the same fine
+muteear soil, beautifully cultivated and studded with trees,
+intermixed with numerous clusters of the graceful bamboo. A great-
+grandson of the monster Nadir Shah, of Persia, Ruza Kolee Khan, who
+commands a battalion in the King of Oude's service, rode by me, and I
+asked him whether he ever saw such a cultivated country in Persia.
+"Never," said he: "Persia is a hilly country, and there is no tillage
+like this in any part of it. I left Persia, with my father, twenty-
+two years ago, when I was twenty-two years of age, and I have still a
+very distinct recollection of what it was then. There is no country
+in the world, sir," said the Nazim, "like Hindoostan, when it enjoys
+the blessings of a good government. The purgunnah of Kheree, in which
+we now are, is all held by the heads of three families of Janwar
+Rajpoots: Rajah Ajub Sing, of Kymara; Anrod Sing, of Oel; and Umrao
+Sing, of Mahewa. There are only sixty-six villages of Khalsa, or
+Crown lands left, yielding twenty-one thousand rupees a-year. The
+rest have been all absorbed by the heads of these Rajpoot families.
+
+
+                        Villages.           Jumma.
+    Kymara   .   .   .     82   .   .    13,486  0  0
+    Oel  .   .   .   .    170   .   .    54,790  0  0
+    Mahewa   .   .   .     70   .   .    20,835  0  0
+                          ___            _____________
+                          322   .   .    89,111  0  0
+    Khalsa   .   .   .     66   .   .    21,881  0  0
+                          ___          _______________
+
+                          388   .   .  1,10,992  0  0
+                          ___          _______________
+
+"These heads of families have each a fort, surrounded by a strong
+fence of bamboos, and mounted with good guns; and the King cannot get
+so large a revenue from them as he did thirty years ago, in the time
+of Hakeem Mehndee, though their lands are as well tilled now as they
+were then, and yield more rent to their holders. They spend it all in
+keeping up large armed bands to resist the Government; but they
+certainly take care of their cultivators and tenants of all kinds,
+and no man dares molest them.
+
+"But," said Bukhtawur Sing, "this beautiful scene would all be
+changed were they encouraged or permitted to contend with each other
+for the possession of the lands. I yesterday saw a great number of
+the merchants of Kymara following the Resident's camp; and, on asking
+them why, they told me that the order from Court obtained by Gholam
+Ruza for you (the Nazim) to assist the Oel chief, Anrod Sing, in
+despoiling Rajah Ajub Sing of his estate, had driven out all who had
+no fields of corn or other local ties to detain them, and had
+anything to lose by remaining. The chief and his retainers were
+repairing their fort, and preparing to fight for their possessions to
+the last; and if you take your disorderly force against them
+according to orders, the crops now in the ground will be all
+destroyed, and the numerous fields now prepared to receive sugar-cane
+and the autumn seed will be left waste: they will make reprisals upon
+Oel; others of their clan will join in the strife; and this district
+will be what that of Bharwara, which we have just left, now is. The
+merchants are in the right, sir, to make off: no property in such a
+scene is ever safe. There is no property, sir, like that in the
+Honourable Company's paper: it is the only property that we can enjoy
+in peace. You feel no anxiety about it. It doubles itself in fifteen
+or sixteen years; and you go on from generation to generation
+enjoying your five per cent., and neither fearing nor annoying
+anybody."
+
+The two villages of Oel and Dhukwa adjoin each other, and form a
+large town; but the dwelling-houses have a wretched appearance,
+consisting of naked mud walls, with but a few more grass-choppers
+than are usually found upon them in Oude towns. There is a good-
+looking temple, dedicated to Mahadeo, in the centre of the town, and
+the houses are close upon the ditch of the fort, which has its
+bamboo-fence inside its ditch and outer mud walls. I have written to
+the Durbar to recommend that the order for the attack upon Rajah Ajub
+Sing be countermanded, and more pacific measures adopted for the
+settlement of the claims of the Exchequer and Anrod Sing upon poor
+old Ajub Sing.
+
+The Kanoongoes of this place tell me that the dispute has arisen from
+a desire, on the part of the old man's wife, to set aside the just
+claim of Jodha Sing, the old man's nephew, to the inheritance, in
+favour of a lad whom she has adopted and brought up, by name Teeka
+Sing, in whose name the estate is now managed by a servant; that
+Jodha Sing is the rightful heir, and managed the estate well for his
+uncle, after the death of his brother, till lately, when his aunt
+persuaded his uncle to break with him, which he did with reluctance;
+that Jodha Sing now lives in retirement at his village of Barkerwa;
+that Anrod Sing's design upon the inheritance for his younger
+brother, Dirj Bijee Sing, is unjust; and that he is, in consequence,
+obliged to prosecute it on the pretence of recovering money due, and
+supporting the claim of Jodha Sing, and in collusion with the
+officers of Government; that Gholam Ruza, who has charge of the
+Huzoor Tuhseel, is ready to adopt the cause of any one who will pay
+him; and that Anrod Sing is now at Lucknow paying his court to him,
+and getting these iniquitous orders issued.
+
+Oel was transferred to the Huzoor Tuhseel in 1834, Kymara in 1836,
+and Mahewa in 1839. These Rajpoot landholders do not often seize upon
+the lands of a relative at once, but get them by degrees by fraud and
+collusion with Government officers, so that they may share the odium
+with them. They instigate these officers to demand more than the
+lands can pay; offer the enhanced rate, and get the lands at once; or
+get a mortgage, run up the account, and foreclose by their aid. They
+no sooner get the estate than they reduce the Government demand, by
+collusion or violence, to less than what the former proprietor had
+paid.
+
+_March_ 9, 1850.--Lahurpoor, twelve miles, over a plain of doomuteea
+soil, well studded with groves and single trees, but not so fully
+cultivated the last half way as the first. For the first halfway the
+road lies through the estate of Anrod Sing, of Oel; but for the last
+it runs through that of Seobuksh Sing, a Gour Rajpoot, who has a fort
+near the town of Kuteysura, five miles from Lahurpoor, and seven from
+Oel. It is of mud, and has a ditch all round, and a bamboo-fence
+inside the outer walls. It is of great extent, but not formidable
+against well-provided troops. The greater part of the houses in the
+town are in ruins, and Seobuksh has the reputation of being a
+reckless and improvident landholder. He is said not only to take from
+his tenants higher rates of rent than he ought, but to extort from
+them very often a _property tax_, highly and capriciously rated. This
+is what the people call the _bhalmansae_, of which they have a very
+great abhorrence. "You are a _bhala manus_" (a gentleman, or man of
+substance), he says to his tenant, "and must have property worth at
+least a thousand rupees. I want money sadly, and must have one-fifth:
+give me two hundred rupees." This is what the people call
+"_bhalmansae_," or rating a man according to his substance; and to
+say that a landlord or governor does this, is to say that he is a
+reckless oppressor, who has no regard to obligations or to
+consequences.
+
+There are manifest signs of the present landholder, Seobuksh Sing,
+being of this character; but others, not less manifest, of his
+grandfather having been a better man, in the fine groves which
+surround Lahurpoor, and the villages between this place and
+Kuteysura, all of which are included in his estate. These groves
+were, for the most part, planted during the life of his grandfather
+by men of substance, who were left free to-dispose of their property
+as they thought best.
+
+All the native gentlemen who rode with me remarked on the beauty of
+the approach to Lahurpoor, in which a rich carpet of spring crops
+covers the surface up to the groves, and extends along under the
+trees which have been recently planted. There are many young groves
+about the place, planted by men who have acquired property by trade,
+and by the savings out of the salaries and perquisites of office at
+Lahurpoor, which is the residence of the Nazim, or local governor,
+during several months in the year; and the landlord, Seobuksh, cannot
+venture to exact his _property-tax_ from them. The air and water are
+much praised, and the general good health of the troops, civil
+establishments, and residents of all classes, show that the climate
+must be good. The position, too, is well chosen with reference to the
+districts, and the character of the people under the control of the
+governor of the Khyrabad district.
+
+The estate of Seobuksh is very extensive. The soil is all good and
+the plain level, so that every part of it is capable of tillage.
+Rutun Sing, the father of Seobuksh, is said to have been a greater
+rack-renter, rebel, and robber than his son is, and together they
+have injured the estate a good deal, and reduced it from a rent-roll
+of one hundred thousand to one of forty. Its rent-roll is now
+estimated in the public accounts at 54,640, out of which is deducted
+a _nankar_ of 17,587, leaving a Government demand of only 37,053.
+This he can't pay; and he has shut himself up sullenly in his mud
+fort, where the Nazim dares not attack him. He is levying
+contributions from the surrounding villages, but has not yet
+plundered or burnt down any. He was lately in prison, for two years;
+but released on the security of Rajah Lonee Sing, of Mitholee, whose
+wife is his wife's sister. He, however, says that he was pledged to
+produce him when required, not before the _present Nazim_, but his
+_predecessor_; and that he is no longer bound by this pledge. This
+reasoning would, of course, have no weight with the Government
+authorities, nor would it be had recourse to were Lonee Sing less
+strong. Each has a strong fort and a band of steady men. The Nazim
+has not the means to attack Seobuksh, and dares not attack Lonee
+Sing, as his estate of Pyla is in the "Huzoor Tuhseel," and under the
+protection of Court favourites, who are well paid by him.
+
+Lonee Sing's estate of Mitholee is in the Mahomdee district, and
+under the jurisdiction of the Amil; and it is only the portion,
+consisting of one hundred and four recently-acquired villages, which
+he holds in the Pyla estate, in the Khyrabad district, that has been
+made over to the Huzoor Tuhseel.* He offered an increased rate for
+these villages to the then Amil, Bhowood Dowlah, in the year A.D.
+1840. It was accepted, and he attacked, plundered, and murdered a
+good many of the old proprietors, and established such a dread among
+them, that he now manages them with little difficulty. Basdeo held
+fourteen of these villages under mortgage, and sixteen more under
+lease. He had his brother, maternal uncle, and a servant killed by
+Lonee Sing, and is now reduced to beggary. Lonee Sing took the lease
+in March, 1840, and commenced this attack in May.
+
+[* Anrod Sing holds twenty-eight villages in the Pyla estate,
+acquired in the same way as those held by Lonee Sing.]
+
+The Nazim had with him, of infantry, 1. Futteh Aesh Nujeebs. 2.
+Wuzeree, ditto. 3. Zuffur, Mobaruk Telinga. 4. Futteh Jung ditto;
+Ruza Kolee Khan. 5. Captain Barlow's ditto. Eleven guns. But, being
+unable to get any duty from the three regiments first named, he
+offered to dispense with the two first, on condition that the command
+of the third should be placed at his disposal for his son or nephew.
+
+This request was complied with; and, on paying a fee of five thousand
+rupees, he got the dress of investiture, and offered it to Lieutenant
+Orr, a very gallant officer, the second in command of Captain
+Barlow's corps, as the only way to render the corps so efficient as
+he required it to be. The Durbar took away the two regiments; but, as
+soon as they heard that Lieutenant Orr was to command the third, they
+appointed Fidda Hoseyn, brother of the ruffian Mahommed Hoseyn, who
+had held the district of Mahomdee, and done so much mischief to it.
+Fidda Hoseyn, of course, paid a high sum for the command to be
+exacted from his subordinates, or the people of the district in which
+it might be employed; and the regiment has remained worse than
+useless. Of the eleven guns, five are useless on the ground, and
+without bullocks. The bullocks for the other six are present, but too
+weak to draw anything. They had had no grain for many years; but
+within the last month they have had one-half seer each per day out of
+the one seer and half paid for by Government. There is no ammunition,
+stores, or anything else for the guns, and the best of the carriages
+are liable to fall to pieces with the first discharge. They are not
+allowed to repair them, but must send them in to get them changed for
+others when useless. The Durbar knows that if they allow the local
+officers to charge for the repair of guns, heavy charges will be
+made, and no gun ever repaired; and the local officers know that if
+they send in a gun to be repaired at Lucknow, they will get in
+exchange one _painted_ to look well, but so flimsily done up that it
+will go to pieces the first or second time it is fired.
+
+Captain Barlow's corps is a good one, and the men are finer than any
+that I have seen in our own infantry regiments, though they get only
+five rupees a-month each, while ours get seven. They prefer this rate
+under European officers in the Oude service, to the seven rupees a-
+month which sipahees get in ours, though they have no pension
+establishment or extra allowance while marching. They feel sure that
+their European commandants will secure them their pay sooner or
+later; they escape many of the harassing duties to which our sipahees
+are liable; they have leave to visit their homes one month in twelve;
+they never have to march out of Oude to distant stations, situated in
+bad climates; they get fuel and fodder, and often food, for nothing;
+their baggage is always carried for them at the public cost. But to
+secure them their pay, arms, accoutrements, clothing, &c., the
+commandant must be always about the Court himself, or have an
+_ambassador_ of some influence there at great cost. Captain Barlow
+is almost all his time at Court, as much from choice as expediency,
+drawing all his allowances and emoluments of all kinds, while his
+second in command performs his regimental duties for him. The other
+officers like this, because they know that the corps could not
+possibly be kept in the state it is without it. Captain Barlow has
+lately obtained three thousand rupees for the repair of his six gun-
+carriages, tumbrils, &c., that is, five hundred for each. They had
+not been repaired for ten years; hardly any of the others have been
+repaired for the last twenty or thirty years.
+
+The Nazim of this district of Khyrabad has taken the farm of it for
+one year at nine lacs of rupees, that is one lac and a half less than
+the rate at which it was taken by his predecessor last year. He tells
+me, that he was obliged, to enter into engagements to pay in
+gratuities fifty thousand to the minister, of which he has as yet
+paid only five thousand; twenty-five thousand to the Dewan,
+Balkishun, and seven thousand to Gholam Ruza, who has charge of the
+Huzoor Tuhseel--that he was obliged to engage to pay four hundred
+rupees a-month, in salaries, to men named by the Dewan, who do no
+duty, and never show their faces to him; and similar sums to the
+creatures of the minister and others--that he was obliged to pay
+gratuities to a vast number of understrappers at Court--that he was
+not made aware of the amount of these gratuities, &c., till he had
+received his dress of investiture, and had merely promised to pay
+what his predecessor had paid--that when about to set out, the
+memorandum of what his predecessor had paid was put into his hand,
+and it was then too late to remonstrate or draw back. There may be
+some exaggeration in the rate of the gratuities demanded; but that he
+has to pay them to the persons named I have no doubt whatever,
+because; all men in charge of districts have to pay them to those
+persons, whether they hold the districts in contract, or in trust.
+
+The Zuffer Mobaruk regiment, with its commandant, Fidda Hoseyn, is
+now across the Ghagra in charge of Dhorehra, an estate in the forest
+belonging to Rajah Arjun Sing, who has absconded in consequence of
+having been ruined by the rapacity of a native collector last year;
+and they are diligently employed in plundering all the people who
+remain. The estate paid 2,75,000 a-year till these outrages began;
+and it cannot now pay fifty thousand. Arjun Sing and Seobuksh Sing,
+of Kuteysura, are the only refractory landholders in the Khyrabad
+district at present.
+
+_March_ 10, 1850.--Halted at Lahurpoor. There is good ground for
+large civil and military establishments to the south of the town,
+about a mile out, on the left of the road leading to Khyrabad. It is
+a fine open plain of light soil. New pucka-wells would be required;
+and some low ground, near the south and north, would also require to
+be drained, as water lies in it during the rains. There is excellent
+ground nearer the town on the same side, but the mango-groves are
+thick and numerous, and would impede the circulation of air. The
+owners would, moreover be soon robbed of them were a cantonment, or
+civil station, established among or very near to them. The town and
+site of any cantonment, or civil station, should be taken from the
+Kuteysura estate, and due compensation made to the holder, Seobuksh.
+The town is a poor one; and the people are keeping their houses
+uncovered, and removing their property under the apprehension that
+Seobuksh will attack and plunder the place. All the merchants and
+respectable landholders, over the districts bordering on the Tarae
+forest, through which we have passed, declare, that all the colonies
+of Budukh dacoits, who had, for many generations, up to 1842, been
+located in this forest, have entirely disappeared. Not a family of
+them can now be found anywhere in Oude. Six or eight hundred of their
+brave and active men used to sally forth every year, and carry their
+depredations into Bengal, Bebar and all the districts of the north-
+west provinces. Their suppression has been a great benefit conferred
+upon the people of India by the British Government.
+
+_March_ 11, 1850.--Kusreyla, ten miles, over a plain of excellent
+muteear soil scantily cultivated, but studded with fine trees, single
+and in groves. Kusreyla is among the three hundred villages which
+have been lately taken in mortgage from the proprietors, and in lease
+from Government, by Monowur-od Dowlah, the nephew and heir of the
+late Hakeem Mehndee. He is inviting and locating in these villages
+many cultivators of the best classes; and they will all soon be in a
+fine state of tillage. No soil can be finer, and no acre of it is
+incapable of bearing fine crops. The old proprietors and lessees, to
+whom he had lent money on mortgage, have persuaded him to foreclose,
+that they may come under so substantial and kind a landholder. They
+prefer holding the sub-lease under such a man, to holding the lease
+directly under Government, subject to the jurisdiction of the Nazim.
+Monowur-od Dowlah pays forty thousand rupees a-year for the whole to
+Government, and has had the whole transferred to the Huzoor Tuhseel.
+
+The Nazim of Khyrabad rode by my side during this morning's march,
+and at my request he described the mutiny which took place in two of
+the regiments that attended him in the siege of Bhitolee, just before
+I crossed the Ghagra at Byramghat. These were the Futteh Aesh, and
+the Wuzeeree. Their commandants are Allee Hoseyn, a creature of one
+of the singers, Kootab Allee; and Mahommed Akhbur, a creature of the
+minister's. They were earnestly urged by the minister and Nazim to
+join their regiments for the short time they would be on this
+important service, but in vain; nothing could induce them to quit the
+Court. All the corps mentioned above, as attending the Nazim, were
+present, and the siege had begun when, on the 17th of November, some
+shopkeepers in camp, having been robbed during the night by some
+thieves, shut up their shops, and prepared to leave the camp in a
+body. The siege could not go on if the traders all left the place;
+and he sent a messenger to call the principal men that he might talk
+to them. They refused to move, and the messenger, finding that they
+were ready to set out, seized one of them by the waist-hand, and when
+he resisted, struck him on the head with a stick, and said he would
+make him go to his master. The man called out to some sipahees of the
+Wuzeeree regiment, who were near, to rescue him. They did so: the
+messenger struggled to hold his grasp, but was dragged off and
+beaten. He returned the blows; the sipahees drew their swords: he
+seized one of the swords and ran off towards his master's tent,
+waiving it over his head, to defend himself, followed by some of the
+sipahees. The others ran back to the grove in which their regiment
+and the Futteh Aesh were bivouaced; both regiments seized their arms
+and ran towards the Nazim's tents; and when they got within two
+hundred yards, commenced firing upon them.
+
+The Nazim had with him only a few of his own armed servants. They
+seized their arms, and begged permission to return the fire, but were
+restrained till the regiment came near, and two tomandars, or
+officers, who stood by the Nazim, were shot down, one dead; and the
+other disabled. His men could be restrained no longer, and they shot
+down two of the foremost of the assailants. The Nazim then sent off
+to Lieutenant Orr, who was exercising his corps with blank cartridge
+on the parade; and, supposing that one of these regiments was doing
+the same thing near the Nazim's tents, he paid no attention to them.
+He and his brother, the Adjutant, ran forward, and entreated the two
+regiments to cease firing; and the Nazim sent out Syud Seoraj-od Deen
+(the commandant of the Bhurmar regiment, stationed in the adjoining
+district of Ramnugger Dhumeree, who had just come to him on a visit),
+with the Koran in his hand, to do the same. The remonstrances of both
+were in vain. They continued to fire upon the Nazim, and Lieutenant
+Orr went off to bring up his regiment, which stood ready to move on
+the parade. Alarmed at this, the two regiments ran off to their
+grove, and the firing ceased.
+
+During all this time, the other two regiments, the Zuffer Mobaruk and
+Futteh Jung, stood looking on as indifferent spectators; and
+afterwards took great credit to themselves for not joining in this
+attempt to blow up the viceroy, who was obliged, the next day, to go
+to their camp and apologize humbly for his men having presumed to
+return their fire, which he declared that they had done without his
+orders! On his doing this, they consented to forego their claim to
+have the unhappy messenger sent to their camp to be _executed_; and
+to remain with him during the siege. As to taking any part in the
+siege and assault on the fort, that was altogether out of their line.
+Ruza Kolee Khan, the commandant of the Futteh Jung, was at Lucknow
+during this mutiny, but he joined a few days after. Lieutenant Orr
+gave me the same narrative of the affair at the dinner-table last
+night; and said, that he and his brother had a very narrow escape--
+that his regiment would have destroyed all the mutineers had they
+been present; and he left them on the parade lest he might not be
+able to restrain them in such a scene. Even this mutiny of the two
+regiments could not tempt their commandants to leave Court, where
+they are still enjoying the favour of their patrons, the minister and
+the singers, and a large share of the pay and perquisites of their
+officers and sipahees, though the regiments have been sent off to the
+two disturbed districts of Sundela and Salone.
+
+They dare not face the most contemptible enemy, but they spare not
+the weak and inoffensive of any class, age, or sex. A respectable
+landholder, in presenting a petition, complaining of the outrages
+committed upon his village and peasantry, said a few days ago--"The
+oppression of these revenue collectors, and their disorderly troops,
+is intolerable, sir--they plunder all who cannot resist them, but
+cannot lift their arms, or draw their breath freely in the presence
+of armed robbers and rebels--it is a proverb, sir, that _insects_
+prey upon soft _wood_; and these men prey only upon the peaceful and
+industrious, who are unable to defend themselves." The Nazim tells
+me, that the lamentations of the poor people, plundered and
+maltreated, were incessant and distressing during the whole time
+these two corps were with him; and that he could exercise no control
+whatever over them, protected as they were, in all their iniquities,
+by the Court favour their two commandants enjoyed at Lucknow.*
+
+[* Kootab Allee was one of the singers who were soon after banished
+from Oude in disgrace. But all the influence they exercised over the
+King has been concentrated in the hands of the two singers who
+remained, Mosahib Allee and Anees-od Dowla. All are despicable
+_domes_; but the two, who now govern the King, are much worse
+characters than any of those who were banished.]
+
+I asked Bukhtawur Sing, before the Nazim overtook us this morning,
+why it was, that these governors always took so many troops with them
+when they moved from place to place, merely to settle accounts and
+inspect the crops. "Some of them," said he, "take all the troops they
+can muster, to show that they are great men; but, for the most part,
+they are afraid to move without them. They, and the greater part of
+the landholders, consider each other as natural and irreconcilable
+enemies; and a good many of those, who hold the largest estates, are
+at all times in open resistance against the Government. They have
+their Vakeels with the contractors when they are not so, and spies
+when they are. They know all his movements, and would waylay and
+carry him off if not surrounded with a strong body of soldiers, for
+he is always moving over the country, with every part of which they
+are well acquainted. Besides, under the present system of allowing
+them to forage or plunder for themselves, it is ruinous to any place
+to leave them in it for even a few days--no man, within several
+miles, would preserve shelter for his family, or food for his cattle,
+during the hot and rainy months--he is obliged to take them about
+with him to distribute, as equally as he can, the terrible burthen of
+maintaining them. Now that the sugar-cane is ripe, not one cane would
+be preserved in any field within five miles of any place where the
+Nazim kept his troops for ten days."
+
+_March_ 12, 1850.--Seetapoor, nine miles over a plain of muteear
+soil, the greater part of which is light, and yields but scanty crops
+without manure, which is very scarce. Immediately about the station
+and villages, where manure is available, the crops are good. The wind
+continues westerly, the sky is clear, and the blight does not seem to
+increase.
+
+The 2nd Regiment of Oude Local Infantry is stationed at Seetapoor,
+but it has no guns or cavalry of any kind. Formerly there was a corps
+of the Honourable Company's Native Infantry here, with two guns and a
+detail of artillery. The sipahees of this corps, and of the 1st Oude
+Local Infantry, at Sultanpoor, are somewhat inferior in appearance to
+those of our own native infantry regiments, and still more so to the
+Oude corps under Captains Barlow, Magness, and Bunbury. They receive
+five rupees eight annas a-month pay, and batta, or extra allowance,
+when marching; and the same pay as our own sipahees of the line
+(seven rupees a-month) when serving with them. But the commandants
+cannot get recruits equal to those that enlist in our regiments of
+the line, or those that enlist in the corps of the officers above
+named. They have not the rest and the licence of the one, while they
+have the same drill and discipline, without the same rate of pay as
+the other. They have now the privilege of petitioning through the
+Resident like our sipahees of the line, and that of the pension
+establishment, while Barlow's, Bunbury's, and Magness's corps have
+neither. They have none but internal duties--they are hardly ever
+sent out to aid the King's local authorities, and do not escort
+treasure even for their own pay. It is sent to them by drafts from
+Lucknow on the local collectors of the district in which they are
+cantoned; and the money required for the Resident's Treasury--a great
+portion of which passes through the Seetapoor cantonments--is
+escorted by our infantry regiments of the line, stationed at Lucknow,
+merely because a General Order exists that no irregular corps shall
+be employed on such duties while any regular corps near has a relief
+of guards present. The corps of regular infantry at Shajehanpoor
+escorts the treasure six marches to Seetapoor, where it is relieved
+by a detachment from one of the regular corps at Lucknow, six marches
+distant.
+
+The native officers and sipahees of these two corps have leave of
+absence to visit their families just as often and for just as long
+periods as those of the corps under the three above-named officers--
+that is, for one month out of twelve. The native officers and
+sipahees of these three corps are not, however, so much drilled or
+restrained as those of the two Oude local corps, in which no man
+dares to help himself occasionally to the roofs of houses and the
+produce of fields or gardens; nor to take presents from local
+authorities, as they are hardly ever sent out to assist them. The
+native officers and sipahees of the very best of the King of Oude's
+corps do all this more or less; and they become, in consequence, more
+attached to their officers and the service. Moreover, the commandants
+of the two corps of Oude local infantry never become _mediators_
+between large landholders and local governors as those of the King of
+Oude's corps so often do; nor are any landed estates ever assigned to
+them for the liquidation of their arrears of pay, and confided to
+their management. So highly do the native officers of these three
+Oude _Komukee_ corps appreciate all the privileges and perquisites
+they enjoy, when out on duty under district officers, that they
+consider short periods of guard duty in the city, where they have
+none of them, as serious punishments.
+
+The drainage about Seetapoor is into the small river Surain, which
+flows along on the west boundary, and is excellent; and the lands in
+and about the station are at all times dry. The soil, too, is good;
+and the place, on the whole, is well adapted for the cantonment of a
+much larger force.
+
+_March_ 13, 1850.--Khyrabad, east nine miles, over a plain of
+doomuteea soil with much oosur. A little outlay and labour seem,
+however, to make this oosur produce good crops. On entering the town
+on the west side, we passed over a good stone bridge over this little
+stream, the Surain; and to the east of the town is another over the
+still smaller stream of the Gond. Khyrabad is not so well drained as
+Seetapoor, nor would it be so well adapted for a large cantonment. It
+is considered to be less healthy. There is an avenue of good trees
+all the way from Seetapoor to Khyrabad, a distance of six miles,
+planted by Hakeem Mehndee. Our camp being to the eastern extremity of
+the town, renders the distance nine miles.
+
+Yesterday at Seetapoor I had a visit from Monowur-od Dowla, late
+prime minister, and Moomtaz-od Dowla, grandson to the late King,
+Mahommed Allee Shah, on their way out to the Tarae forest to join
+Kindoo Rao, the brother of the Byza Bae, of Gwalior, in pursuit of
+tigers. This morning on the road, old Bukhtawur Sing, after a sigh,
+said: "I presented a nazur to the prince, Moomtaz-od Dowla, sir; he
+is the grandson of a King, and the victim of the folly and crime of
+shooting a monkey! His father, Asgur Allee Khan, was the eldest son
+of Mahommed Allee Shah, and elder brother of Amjud Allee Shah, the
+father of the present King. He was fond of his gun, and one day a
+monkey, of the red and short-tailed kind, came and sat upon one of
+his out-offices. He sent for his gun, and shot it dead with a ball.
+The very next day, sir, he had a severe attack of fever, which
+carried him off in three days. During this time he frequently called
+out in terror, 'Save me from that monkey! save me from that monkey!'
+--pointing to the part of the room in which he _saw him_. The monkey
+killed Asgur Allee Khan, sir; and no man ever escapes death or misery
+who wilfully kills one. Moomtaz-od Dowla might, sir, have been now
+King of Oude had his father not shot that monkey."
+
+"But I thought," said I, "it was the _hanoomaun_, or long-tailed
+monkey, that was held sacred by the Hindoos?"--"Sir," said Bukhtawur
+Sing, "both are alike sacred.* Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, the predecessor
+of Mahommed Allee Shah, went one day shooting in the dilkhoosha park.
+Several of the long-tailed monkeys came and sat upon a mango-tree
+near him. He could not resist the temptation, and shot several of
+them, one after another, with ball. He returned to the palace; but
+had not been home more than three hours, when he and his favourite
+wife, the Kooduseea Begum,** had a fierce quarrel, in which both
+became insane; she was so enraged that she took poison forthwith,
+and, in her agony, actually spit up her liver, which had been torn to
+pieces by the force of the poison! The King could not stand the
+horrible sight, and ran off and hid himself in the race-stand, near
+which you fell and broke your thigh-bone in April last; there he
+remained shut up till she died. He had had warning, sir, for a few
+months after his accession to the throne; I attended him and his
+minister, Aga Meer, on a visit to the garden, called padshah baag, on
+the opposite side of the river: he had a gun with him, and, seeing a
+monkey on a tree, he ordered the prime minister to try his hand at
+it. I told Aga Meer that evil would certainly befall him or his house
+if he shot the animal, and begged his Majesty not to assist upon the
+minister's doing it. Both laughed at what they thought my folly; the
+minister shot the monkey; and in a few days he was out of office and
+in a prison. One way or other, sir, a man who wilfully destroys a
+monkey is sure to be punished."
+
+[* That Asgur Allee Khan, the eldest son of the King, Mahommed Allee
+Shah, did shoot the monkey, got a fever a few days after, and died of
+it, are facts well known at Lucknow. That he often mentioned the
+monkey during his delirium, is generally believed; and that his death
+was the consequence of his shooting that animal is the opinion of all
+the Hindoo, and a great part of the Musulman, population. His death,
+while his father lived, deprived his son, Moomtaz-od Dowla, of the
+throne.]
+
+[** The Kooduseea Begum had been introduced into the palace as
+waiting-woman to Mulika Zumanee, whom she soon superseded in the
+King's affections, which she retained till her death. She was married
+to the King on the 17th December, 1831, and died on the 21st of
+August 1834.]
+
+At Khyrabad there is a handsome set of buildings, consisting of a
+mausoleum over his father, a mosque, an _imambara_, and a _kudum
+rusool_, or shrine with the print of the prophet's foot, erected by
+Mucka Durzee, a tailor in the service of the King, who made a large
+fortune out of his master's favours, and who still lives, and
+provides for their repair and suitable endowment. These buildings
+are, like all others of the same kind, infested by a host of
+professional religious mendicants of both sexes and all ages, who
+make the air resound with their clamours for alms. Not only are such
+buildings so infested, but all the towns around them. I could not
+help observing to the native gentlemen who attended me, "that when
+men planted groves and avenues, and built reservoirs, bridges,
+caravansaries, and wells, they did not give rise to any such sources
+of annoyance to travellers; that they enjoyed the water, shade, and
+accommodation, without cost or vexation, and went on their way
+blessing the donor." "That," said an old Rusaldar, "is certainly
+taking a new and just view of the case; but still it is a surprising
+thing to see a man in this humble sphere of life raising and
+maintaining so splendid a pile of buildings."*
+
+[* Mucka the tailor, to whom these buildings belong, is the person
+mentioned in the account of the death of the King, Nuseer-od Deen
+Hyder, and the confinement of Ghalib Jung.]
+
+The town of Khyrabad has still a good many inhabitants; but the
+number is fast decreasing. It was the residence of the families of a
+good many public officers in our service and that of Oude; and the
+local authorities of the district used to reside here. They do so no
+longer; and the families of public officers have almost all gone to
+reside at other places. Life and property have become exceedingly
+insecure, and attacks by gang-robbers so frequent that no man thinks
+his house and family safe for a single night. Government officers are
+entirely occupied in the collection of revenue, and they disregard
+altogether the sufferings and risks to which the people of towns are
+exposed. The ground around the place is low, and the climate is
+inferior to that of Seetapoor. Salt and saltpetre are 'made from the
+soil immediately round the town.
+
+I have mentioned that Moomtaz-od Dowla might now have been King of
+Oude had his father not died before his father. The Mohammedan law
+excludes for ever the children of any person who dies before the
+person to whom he or she is the next heir from all right in the
+inheritance. Under the operation of this law, the sons of the eldest
+son of the reigning King are excluded from the succession if he dies
+before his father, and the crown devolves on the second son, or on
+the brother of the King, if he leaves no other son. The sons of all
+the sons who die, while their father lives, are _mahjoob-ol-irs_,
+that is, excluded from inheritance. In the same manner, if the next
+brother of the King dies before him, his sons are excluded from the
+succession, which devolves on the third brother, and so on through
+all the brothers. For instance, on the death, without any recognised
+issue, of Nuseer-od Been Hyder, son of Ghazee-od Deen, he was
+succeeded on the throne by Mahommed Allee Shah, the third brother of
+Ghazee-od Deen, though four sons of the second brother, Shums-od
+Dowla, still lived. On the death of Mahommed Allee Shah, he was
+succeeded by his second son, Amjud Allee Shah, though Moomtaz-od
+Dowla, the son of his eldest son, Asgur Allee Khan, still lived.
+Shums-od Dowla died before his elder brother, Ghazee-od Deen; and
+Asgur Allee Khan before his father, Mahommed Allee Shah: and the sons
+of both became, in consequence, _mahjoob-ol-irs_, excluded from
+succession. The same rule guides the succession among the Delhi
+sovereigns. This exclusion extends to all kinds of property, as well
+as to sovereignty.
+
+Moomtaz-od Dowla is married to Zeenut-on Nissa, the daughter of
+Mulika Zumanee, one of the consorts of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, late
+King of Oude; and he has, I fear, more cause to regret his union with
+her than his exclusion from the throne. Zeenut-on Nissa enjoys a
+pension of ten thousand rupees a-month, in her own right, under the
+guarantee of the British Government. I may here, as an episode not
+devoid of interest, give a brief account of her mother, who, for some
+years, during the reign of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, presided over the
+palace at Lucknow. Before I do so I may mention that the King,
+Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, had been married to a grand-daughter of the
+Emperor of Delhi, a very beautiful young woman, of exemplary
+character, who still survives, and retains the respect of the royal
+family and people of Lucknow. Finding the Court too profligate for
+her, she retired into private life soon after the marriage, and has
+remained there ever since upon a small stipend from the King.
+
+Mulika Zumanee, queen of the age, was a daughter of a Hindoo of the
+Koormee caste, who borrowed from his neighbour, Futteh Morad, the sum
+of sixty rupees, to purchase cloth. He soon after died, leaving a
+widow, and a daughter named Dolaree, then five years of age. They
+were both seized and confined for the debt by Futteh Morad; but, on
+the mother's consenting to leave her daughter in bondage for the
+debt, she was released. Futteh Morad's sister, Kuramut-on Nissa,
+adopted Dolaree, who was a prepossessing child, and brought her up as
+her daughter; but finding, as she grew up, that she was too intimate
+with Roostum, the son by a former husband of her brother's second
+wife, she insisted on their being married, and they were so. Futteh
+Morad soon after died, and his first wife turned the second, with her
+first son, Roostum, and his wife, Dolaree, and the two sons which she
+had borne to Futteh Morad--Futteh Allee Khan and Warus Allee Khan--
+out of her house. They went to Futteh Morad's aunt, Bebee Mulatee, a
+learned woman, who resided as governess in the house of Nawab
+Mohubbet Khan, at Roostumnugger, near Lucknow, and taught his
+daughters to read the Koran. Finding Dolaree to be not the most
+faithful of wives to Roostum, she would not admit them into the
+Nawab's house, but she assisted them with food and raiment; and
+Roostum entered the service--as a groom--of a trooper in the King's
+cavalry, called Abas Kolee Beg. Dolaree had given birth to a boy, who
+was named Mahommed Allee; and she now gave birth to a daughter; but
+she had cohabited with a blacksmith and an elephant-driver in the
+neighbourhood, and it became a much "vexed question" whether the son
+and daughter resembled most Roostum, the blacksmith, or the elephant-
+driver; all, however, were agreed upon the point of Dolaree's
+backslidings. Mahommed Allee, _alias_ Kywan Ja, was three years of
+age, and the daughter, _Zeenut-on Nissa_, one year and half, when
+some belted attendants from the palace came to Roostumnugger in
+search of a wet-nurse for the young prince, Moona Jan, who had been
+born the night before; and Bebee Mulatee, whose reputation for
+learning had readied the royal family, sent off Dolaree as one of the
+candidates for employment. Her appearance pleased the queen, the
+Padshah Begum, the quality of her milk was pronounced by the royal
+physicians to be first rate, and she was chosen, as wet-nurse for the
+new-born prince.
+
+Moona Jan's father (then heir-apparent to the throne of Oude) no
+sooner saw Dolaree than, to the astonishment of the Queen and her
+Court, he fell desperately in love with her, though she seemed very
+plain and very vulgar to all other eyes; and he could neither repose
+himself, nor permit anybody else in the palace to repose, till he
+obtained the King's and Queen's consent to his making her his wife,
+which he did in 1826. She soon acquired an entire ascendancy over his
+weak mind, and, anxious to surround herself in her exalted station by
+people on whom she could entirely rely, she invited the learned Bebee
+Mulatee and her daughter, Jumeel-on Nissa, and her son, Kasim Beg, to
+the palace, and placed them in high and confidential posts. She
+invited at the same time Futteh Allee and Warus Allee, the sons of
+Futteh Morad by his second wife; and persuaded the King that they
+were all people of high lineage, who had been reduced, by unmerited
+misfortunes, to accept employments so humble. All were raised to the
+rank of Nawabs, and placed in situations of high trust and
+emoluments. Kuramut-on Nissa, too, the sister of Futteh Morad, was
+invited; but when Dolaree's husband--the humble Roostum--ventured to
+approach the Court, he was seized and imprisoned in a fort in the
+Bangur district till the death of Nuseer-od Deen, when he was
+released. He came to Lucknow, but died soon after.
+
+Soon after the death of Ghazee-od Deen had placed the heir-apparent,
+her husband, on the throne, 20th of October, 1827, she fortified
+herself still further by high alliances: and her son, Mahommed Allee,
+was affianced to the daughter of Rokun-od Dowla, brother of the late
+King; and her daughter, Zeenut-on Nissa, to Moomtaz-od Dowla, the
+prince of whom I am writing. These two marriages were celebrated at a
+cost of about thirty lacs of rupees; Dolaree was declared the first
+consort of the King, under the title of "Mulika Zamanee," queen of
+the age, and received an estate in land yielding six lacs of rupees
+a-year for pin-money. Not satisfied with this, she prevailed upon the
+King to declare her son, Mahommed Allee, _alias_ Kywan Ja, to be his
+_own and eldest son_, and heir-apparent to the throne; and to demand
+his recognition as such from the British Government, through its
+representative, the Resident. His Majesty, with great solemnity,
+assured the Resident, on many occasions during November and December,
+1827, _that Kywan Ja was his eldest son_; and told him that had he
+not been so, his uncle would never have consented to bestow his
+daughter upon him in marriage, nor should he himself have consented
+to expend twenty lacs of rupees in the ceremonies. The Resident told
+him that the universal impression at Lucknow was, that the boy was
+three years of age when his mother was first introduced to his
+Majesty. But this had no effect; and, to remove all further doubts
+and discussions on the subject, he wrote a letter himself to the
+Governor-General, earnestly protesting that Kywan Ja was his _eldest
+son and heir-apparent to the throne_; and as such he was sent from
+Lucknow to Cawnpoor to meet and escort over Lord Combermere in
+December, 1827.
+
+On the birth of Moonna Jan, the then King, Ghazee-od Deen Hyder,
+declared to the Resident that the boy was not his grandson, and that
+his son, Nuseer-od Deen, pretended that he was his son merely to
+please his imperious mother, the Padshah Begum, and to annoy his
+father, with whom they were both on bad terms. Ghazee-od Deen had,
+however, before his death declared that he believed Moonna Jan to be
+his grandson.* In February, 1832, the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder,
+first through the minister, and then in person, assured the Resident
+that neither of the boys was his son, and requested that he would
+report the same to his Government, and assure the Governor-General
+"that both reports, as to these boys being sons of his, were false,
+and arose from the same cause, _bribery_ and _ambition_, that Mulika
+Zumanee had paid many lacs of rupees to influential people about him
+to persuade him to call her son his, and declare him heir-apparent to
+the throne; and that Fazl Allee and Sookcheyn had done the same to
+induce others to persuade him to acknowledge Moonna Jan to be his
+son. But, said his Majesty, I know positively that he is not my son,
+and my father knew the same."
+
+[* I believe that Ghazee-od Deen's first repudiation of Moonna Jan
+arose entirely from a desire to revenge himself upon his termagant
+wife, whose furious temper left him no peace. She was, from his
+birth, very fond of the boy; and to question his legitimacy was to
+wound her in her tenderest point. This was the "raw" which her
+husband established, and which his son and successor afterwards
+worked upon.]
+
+The wary minister then, to clench the matter, remarked that his
+Majesty had mentioned to him that he had ceased to cohabit with
+Moonna Jan's mother for twenty-four months before the boy was born;
+and the King assured the Resident that this was quite true. Hakeem
+Mehndee was as anxious as Aga Meer had been to keep the King
+estranged from his imperious mother, and the only sure way was to
+make him persist in repudiating the boy or postponing his claim to
+the succession.
+
+Mulika Zumanee's influence over the king had, however, been eclipsed,
+first, by Miss Walters, Mokuddera Ouleea, whose history has already
+been given; secondly, by the beautiful Taj Mahal; and, thirdly, by
+the Kuduseea Begum. She entered the palace as a waiting-woman to
+Mulika Zumanee, and, on the 17th of December, 1831, the King married
+her; and from that day till her death, on the 21st of August, 1834,
+she reigned supreme in the palace and in the King's affections.
+
+On the King's paying a visit of ceremony to Mulika Zumanee one
+evening, he asked for water, and it was brought to him in a gold cup,
+on a silver tray, by the Kuduseea Begum, then one of the women in
+waiting. Her face was partially unveiled; and the King, after
+drinking, threw the last few drops from the cup over her veil in
+play. In return, she threw the few drops that had been spilled on the
+salver upon the King's robe, or vest. He pretended to be angry, and
+asked her, with a frown, how she could dare to besprinkle her
+sovereign; she replied--"When children play together there is no
+distinction between the prince and the peasant." The King was charmed
+with her half-veiled beauty and spirit, and he paid a second visit
+the next day, and again asked for water. He did the same as the first
+day, and she returned the compliment in the same way. He came a third
+time and asked for water, but Mulika Zumanee had become alarmed, and
+it was presented by another and less dangerous person. A few days
+after, however, the Queen was constrained to allow her fair attendant
+to attend the King, and receive from him formal proposals of
+marriage, which she accepted.
+
+She was handsome and generous; but there was no discrimination in her
+bounty, and she is said to have received from the King nearly two
+millions of money out of the reserved treasury for pin-money alone.
+Of this she saved forty-four lacs of rupees. The King never touched
+this money, and it formed, in a separate apartment, the greater part
+of the seventy lacs found in his reserved treasury on his death, out
+of the ten krores or ten millions sterling, which he found there when
+he ascended the throne in 1827.
+
+She is said to have been the only one of his wives who ever had any
+real affection for the King. She was haughty and imperious in her
+temper; and the only female, who had any influence over her, was a
+Mogulanee, who taught her to read and write. She assisted her
+mistress very diligently in spending her pin-money, and made the
+fortunes of sundry of her relations. Altercations between the
+Kuduseea Begum and the King were not uncommon; but, on the 21st of
+August, 1834, the King became unusually excited, and told her that he
+had raised her from bondage to the throne, and could as easily cast
+her back into the same vile condition. Her proud spirit could not
+brook this, and she instantly swallowed arsenic. The King relented,
+and every remedy was tried, but in vain. The King watched over her
+agonies till she was about to expire, when he fled in a frantic state
+and took refuge in the apartments of the race-stand, about three
+miles from the palace, till the funeral ceremonies were over. It is
+said, that in her anxiety to give birth to an heir to the throne, she
+got the husband, from whom she had been divorced, smuggled into her
+apartments in the palace in a female dress more than once; and that
+this was reported to the King, and became the real cause of the
+dispute.
+
+The Mogulanee attendant, who had accumulated twenty lacs of rupees,
+was seized and commanded to disgorge. She offered five lacs to Court
+favourites on condition that they saw her safely over the river
+Ganges into British territory. The most grave of them were
+commissioned to wait upon his Majesty, and entreat him most earnestly
+to banish her forthwith from his territories, as she was known, in
+the first place, to be one of the most _potent sorceresses_ in India;
+and, in the next, to have been exceedingly attached to her late
+mistress: that they had strong grounds to believe that it was her
+intention to send his Majesty's spirit after hers, that they might be
+united in the next world us they had been in this. The King got
+angry, and said, that he had no dread of sorceresses, and would make
+the old lady disgorge her twenty lacs. That very night, however, in
+his sleep, he saw the Kuduseea Begum enter his room, approach his
+bed, look upon him with a countenance still more kind and bright than
+in life, and then return slowly with her face still towards him, and
+beckoning him with her hand to follow! As soon as he awoke he became
+greatly agitated and alarmed, and ordered the old sorceress to be
+sent forthwith across the Ganges to Cawnpoor. She paid her five lacs,
+and took off about fifteen; but what became of her afterwards I have
+not heard.
+
+One of the first cases that I had to decide, after taking charge of
+my office, was that of a claim to five Government notes of twenty
+thousand rupees each, left by Sultan Mahal, one of the late King,
+Amjud Allee Shah's, widows. The claimants were the reigning King, and
+the mother, brother, and sister of the deceased widow. She was the
+daughter of a greengrocer, and, in February 1846, at the age of
+sixteen, she went to the palace with vegetables. The King saw and
+fell in love with her; and she forthwith became one of his wives,
+under the name of "Sultan Mahal." In November, 1846, the King
+invested eighteen lacs and thirty thousand rupees in Government notes
+as a provision for his wives and other female relations. The notes
+were to be made out in their names respectively; and the interest was
+to be paid to them and their heirs. Of this sum, Sultan Mahal was to
+have one hundred thousand; and, on the 21st of November, she drew the
+interest, in anticipation, up to the 30th of December of that year.
+The five notes for twenty thousand each, in her name, were received
+in the Resident's Treasury on the 20th of April, 1847. On the 28th of
+August, she sent an application for the Notes to the Resident, but
+died the next day. The King, her husband, had died on the 18th
+February, 1847.
+
+Nine days after, on the 6th of September, the new King, Wajid Allee
+Shah, sent an application to have these five notes transferred to one
+of his own wives; urging, that, as his father and the Sultan Mahal
+had both died, he alone ought to be considered as the heir. It was
+decided, that the mother, sister, and brother were the rightful heirs
+to the Sultan Mahal; and the amount was distributed among them
+according to Mahommedan law. The question was, however, submitted to
+Government at his Majesty's request; and the decision of the Resident
+was upheld on the ground that the notes were in the lady's name, and
+she had actually drawn interest on them; and, as she died intestate,
+they became the property of her heirs.
+
+By a deed of engagement with the British Government, dated the 1st of
+March, 1820, 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, in
+perpetuity, to four females of the King's family. To Mulika Zumanee,
+ten thousand a-month; to her daughter, Zeenut-on Nissa, four
+thousand; to Mokuddera Ouleea (Miss Walters), six thousand; and to
+Taj Mahal, six thousand: total, twenty-six thousand rupees a-month.
+On the death of Mulika Zamanee, which took place on the 22nd
+December, 1843, her daughter succeeded to her pension of six thousand
+a-month.
+
+The other portion of her pension--four thousand rupees a-month--went
+to her grandson, Wuzeer Mirza, the son of Kywan Ja, who had died on
+the 16th of May, 1838, before his mother.* Of this four thousand a-
+month, one thousand are given to Zeenut-on Nissa for the boy's
+subsistence and education, and three thousand a-month are invested in
+Government securities, to be paid to him when he comes of age. But,
+besides the six thousand rupees a-month which she inherits from her
+mother, Zeenut-on Nissa enjoys the pension of four thousand rupees a-
+month, which was assigned to her by the King in the same deed; so
+that she now draws eleven thousand rupees a-month, independent of her
+husband's income.** By this deed the stipends are to descend to the
+heirs of the pensioners, if they have any; and if they have none,
+they can bequeath their pensions to whom they please. Should they
+have no heirs, and leave no will, the stipends are to go to the
+moojtahids and moojawurs, or presiding priests of the shrine of
+kurbala, in Turkish Arabia, for distribution among the needy
+pilgrims.
+
+[* Wuzeer Mirza is not the son of Rokun-od Dowla's daughter. Kywan
+Ja's marriage with that lady was never consummated.]
+
+[** She takes after her mother, and makes her worthy husband very
+miserable. She is ill-tempered, haughty, and profligate.]
+
+An European lady, who visited the zunana of the King, Nuseer-od Deen
+Hyder, on the anniversary of his coronation, on the 18th of October,
+1828, writes thus to a female friend:--"But the present King's wives
+were superbly dressed, and looked like creatures of the Arabian
+Tales. Indeed, one (Taj Mahal) was so beautiful, that I could think
+of nothing but Lalla Rookh in her bridal attire. I never saw any one
+so lovely, either black or white. Her features were perfect, and such
+eyes and eye-lashes I never, beheld before. She is the favourite
+Queen at present, and has only been married a month or two, her age,
+about fourteen; and such a little creature, with the smallest hands
+and feet, and the most timid, modest look imaginable. You would have
+been charmed with her, she was so graceful and fawn-like. Her dress
+was of gold and scarlet brocade, and her hair was literally strewed
+with pearls, which hung down upon her neck in long single strings,
+terminating in large pearls, which mixed with and hung as low as her
+hair, which was curled on each side her head in long ringlets, like
+Charles the Second's beauties. On her forehead she wore a small gold
+circlet, from which depended and hung, half way down, large pearls
+interspersed with emeralds. Above this was a paradise plume, from
+which strings of pearls were carried over the head, as we turn our
+hair. Her earrings were immense gold rings, with pearls and emeralds
+suspended all round in large strings, the pearls increasing in size.
+She had a nose ring also with large round pearls and emeralds; and
+her necklaces, &c., were too numerous to be described. She wore long
+sleeves, open at the elbow; and her dress was a full petticoat with a
+tight body attached, and open only at the throat. She had several
+persons to bear her train when she walked; and her women stood behind
+her couch to arrange her head-dress, when, in moving, her pearls got
+entangled in the immense robe of scarlet and gold she had thrown
+around her. This beautiful creature is the envy of all the other
+wives, and the favourite at present of both the King and his mother,
+both of whom have given her titles--See _Mrs. Park's Wandering_, vol.
+i., page 87. Taj Mahal still lives and enjoys a pension of six
+thousand rupees a-month, under the guarantee of the British
+Government. She became very profligate after the King's death; and
+after she had given birth to one child, it was deemed necessary to
+place a guard over her to prevent her dishonouring the memory of the
+King, her husband, any further by giving birth to more."
+
+Of Miss Walters, alias Mokuddera Ouleea, the same lady writes:--"The
+other newly-made Queen is nearly European, but not a whit fairer than
+Taj Mahal. She is, in my opinion, plain; but she is considered by the
+native ladies very handsome, and she was the King's favourite before
+he saw Taj Mahal. She was more splendidly dressed than even Taj
+Mahal. Her head-dress was a coronet of diamonds, with a fine crescent
+and plume of the same. She is the daughter of a European merchant,
+and is accomplished for an inhabitant of a zunana, as she writes and
+speaks Persian fluently, as well as Hindoostanee; and it is said that
+she is teaching the King English, though when we spoke to her in
+English, she said she had forgotten it, and could not reply. She was,
+I fancy, afraid of the Queen Dowager, as she evidently understood us;
+and when asked if she liked being in the zunana, she shook her head
+and looked quite melancholy. Jealousy of the new favourite, however,
+appeared to be the cause of her discontent, as, though they sat on
+the same couch, they never addressed each other."
+
+Of Mulika Zumanee, the same lady says:--"The mother of the King's
+children, Mulika Zumanee, did not visit us at the Queen Dowager's;
+but we went to see her at her own palace. She is, after all, the
+person of the most political consequence, being the mother of the
+heir-apparent; and she has great power over her royal husband, whose
+ears she boxes occasionally."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Nuseer-od Deen Hyder's death--His repudiation of his son, Moonna 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.
+
+
+When in February, 1832, the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, assured the
+Resident that Moonna Jan was not his son. Lord William Bentinck was
+Governor-General of India. A more thoroughly honest man never, I
+believe, presided over the government of any country. The question of
+right to succession was long maturely and most anxiously considered,
+after these repeated and formal repudiations on the part of the King,
+Nuseer-od Deen Hyder; and Government would willingly have deferred a
+final decision on so important a question longer, but it was deemed
+unsafe any longer from the debauched habits of the King, the chance
+of his sudden death, and the risk of a tumult in such a city, to
+leave the representative of the paramount power unprepared to
+proclaim its will in favour of the rightful heir, the moment that a
+demise took place. Under these considerations, instructions were sent
+to the Resident, on the 15th of December, 1833, in case of the King's
+death without a son, or pregnant consort, to declare the eldest
+surviving brother of the late King, Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, heir to the
+throne, and have him placed upon it. According to the law already
+noticed (which applies as well to sovereignty as to property) the
+sons of Shums-od Dowlah, the second son of Saadut Allee Khan, who had
+died shortly before his eldest and reigning brother, Ghazee-od Deen,
+were excluded from all claims to the succession, and the right
+devolved upon the third son of Saadut Allee, Nuseer-od Dowlah.
+Ghazee-od Deen had only one son, the reigning sovereign, Nuseer-od
+Deen Hyder.
+
+This prince had impaired his constitution by drinking and other
+vicious indulgences, in which he had been encouraged in early life by
+his designing or inconsiderate adoptive mother, the Padshah Begum;
+but for some time before his death, he used frequently to declare to
+his most intimate companions that he felt sure he should die of
+poison, and that at no distant period. He for some time before his
+death had a small well in the palace, over which he kept his own lock
+and key; and he kept the same over the jar, in which he drew the
+water from it for his own drinking. The keys were suspended by a gold
+chain around his neck. The persons who gave him his drink, except
+when taking it out of English sealed bottles, were two sisters,
+Dhuneea and Dulwee. The latter and youngest is now the wife of Wasee
+Allee Khan. The eldest, Dhuneea, still resides at Lucknow. The
+general impression at Lucknow and over all Oude was, that the British
+Government would, take upon itself the management of the country on
+the death, without issue, of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder; and the King
+himself latterly seemed rather pleased than otherwise at the thought
+that he should be the last of the Oude kings. He had repudiated his
+own son, and was unwilling that any other member of the family should
+fill his place. The minister and the other public officers and Court
+favourites, who had made large fortunes, wished it, as it was
+understood by some, that by such a measure they would be secured from
+all scrutiny into their accounts, and enabled to keep securely all
+that they had accumulated.
+
+About half-past eleven, on the night of the 7th July, 1837, the
+Durbar Wakeel, Gholam Yaheea,* came to the Resident and reported that
+the King had been taken suddenly ill, and appeared to be either dead
+or in a dying state, from the symptoms described to him by his
+Majesty's attendants. The Resident, Colonel Low, ordered his two
+Assistants, Captains Paton and Shakespear, the Head Moonshee and Head
+Clerk, to be in attendance, and wrote to request the Brigadier,
+commanding the troops in Oude, to hold one thousand men in readiness
+to march to the Residency at a moment's notice. The Residency is
+situated in the city near the Furra Buksh Palace, in which the King
+resided. The Resident intended that five companies of this force
+should be sent in advance of the main body and guns, for the purpose
+of placing, sentries over the palace gates, treasuries, and other
+places containing valuables within the walls. But this intention was
+not unfortunately made known to the Brigadier. Captain Magness, who
+commanded a corps of infantry with six guns, and a squadron of horse,
+had been ordered by the minister at half-past eight o'clock, to
+proceed with them to a place near the southern entrance of the
+palace, and there to wait for further instructions, and he did so.
+This was three hours before the minister made any report to the
+Resident of the King's illness, and Captain Magness was told by the
+people in attendance that the King was either dead or dying.
+
+[* Gholam Yaheea Khan was the maternal uncle of Shurf-od Dowlah, who
+was, afterwards, some time minister under Mahommed Allee Shah.]
+
+Having given these orders, the Resident proceeded to the palace,
+attended by Captain Paton, the first Assistant, and Dr. Stevenson,
+the Residency Surgeon. They found the King lying dead upon his bed,
+but his body was still warm, and Dr. Stevenson opened a vein in one
+arm. Blood flowed freely from it, but no other sign of life could be
+discovered. His features were placid and betrayed no sign of his
+having suffered any pain; and the servants in attendance declared
+that the only sign of suffering they had heard or seen was a slight
+shriek, to which the King gave utterance before he expired; that
+after that shriek he neither moved, spoke, nor showed any sign
+whatever of life. His Majesty had been unwell for three weeks, but no
+one had any apprehension of danger from his symptoms. He had called
+for some sherbet a short time before his death, and it was given to
+him by Dhuneea, the eldest of the two sisters.
+
+The Resident took with him a guard of sipahees from his escort, and
+Captain Paton distributed them as double sentries at the inner doors
+of the palace, and outside the chief buildings and store-rooms, with
+orders to allow no one but the ministers and treasurers to pass.
+Captain Madness had placed one sentry before at each of these places,
+and he now added a second, making a party of four sipahees at each
+post. Captain Paton at the same time, in conjunction with the
+officers of the Court, placed seals on all the jewels and other
+valuables belonging to the King and his establishments; and as the
+night was very dark, placed torch-bearers at all places where they
+appeared to be required.
+
+Having made these arrangements the Resident returned with Dr.
+Stevenson to the Residency, leaving Captain Paton at the palace; and
+wrote to the Brigadier to request that he would send off the five
+companies in advance to the palace direct, and bring down all his
+disposable troops, including artillery, to the city. The distance
+from the palace to the cantonments, round by the old stone bridge,
+was about four miles and half. The iron bridge, which shortens the
+distance by a mile and half, had not then been thrown over the
+Goomtee river, which flows between them. The Resident then had drawn
+up, for the consent of the new king, a Persian paper, declaring that
+he was prepared to sign any new treaty for the better government of
+the country that the British Government might think proper to propose
+to him.
+
+It was now one o'clock in the morning of the 8th of July, and Captain
+Shakespear, attended by the Meer Moonshee, Iltufat Hoseyn, and the
+Durbar Wakeel, proceeded to the house of the new sovereign, Nuseer-od
+Dowlah, who then resided where the present King now resides, a
+distance of about a mile from the Residency. The visit was altogether
+unexpected; and, as the new sovereign had been for some time ill,
+some delay took place in arranging for the reception of the mission.
+After explaining the object of his visit. Captain Shakespear
+presented the paper, which the King perused with great attention, and
+then signed without hesitation. Captain Shakespear returned with it
+to the Resident, who repaired again to the palace, and sent Captain
+Paton, the first Assistant, to the Residency, to proceed thence with
+Captain Shakespear and the Durbar Wakeel, to the house of the new
+sovereign, and escort him to the palace, where he would be in
+readiness to receive him. He arrived about three o'clock in the
+morning, and being infirm from age, and exceedingly reduced from
+recent illness, he was, after a short conversation with the Resident,
+left in a small adjoining room, to repose for a few hours preparatory
+to his being placed on the throne and crowned in due form. His eldest
+surviving son, afterwards Amjud Allee Shah, his sons, the present
+King, Wajid Allee Shah, and Mirza Jawad Khan, the King's foster
+brother, Hummeed-od Dowlah, and his confidential servant, Rufeek-od
+Dowla, were left in the room with him; and the Resident and his
+Assistants sat in the verandah facing the river Goomtee, which flows
+under the walls, conversing on the ceremonies to be observed at the
+approaching coronation, and the persons to be invited to assist at
+it, when they were suddenly interrupted by the intelligence that the
+Padshah Begum, the adoptive mother of the late King, with a large
+armed force, and the young pretender, Moonna Jan, were coming on to
+seize upon the throne, and might soon be expected at the principal
+entrance to the palace to the north-west.
+
+When the Resident was about to proceed to the palace, the first time
+about midnight, he was assured by the minister, Roshun-od Dowla, that
+every possible precaution had been taken by him to prevent the
+Padshah Begum from attempting any such enterprise, or from leaving
+her residence with the young pretender; that he had placed strong
+bodies of troops in every street or road by which she could come.
+But, to make more sure, and prevent her leaving her residence at the
+Almas gardens, five miles from the palace, the Resident sent off one
+of his chobdars, Khoda Buksh, with two troopers and a verbal message,
+enjoining her to remain quietly at her palace. These men found her
+with her equipage in the midst of a large mass of armed followers,
+ready to set out for the palace. They delivered their message from
+the Resident, but were sent back with her Wakeel, Mirza Allee, to
+request that she might be permitted to look upon the dead body of the
+late King, since she had not been permitted to see him for so long a
+period before his death. But they reached the Resident with this
+message, only ten minutes before the Begum's troops were thundering
+for admittance at the gate. The Resident gave the chobdar a note for
+the officer in command of the five companies, supposed to be in
+advance on their way down from cantonments; but before he could get
+with this note five hundred yards from the palace, he met the Begum
+and her disorderly band filling the road and pressing on as fast as
+they could. Unable to proceed, he returned to the palace with all
+haste, and gave the Resident the first notice of their near approach.
+Captain Magness had placed two of his six guns at each of the three
+entrances to the south and west, but was now ordered to collect all,
+and proceed to the north-western entrance, towards which the Begum
+was advancing. Before he could get to that entrance she had passed
+in, and he returned to the south-western entrance for further orders.
+
+On passing the mausoleum of Asuf-od Dowlah, where the Kotwal or head
+police officer of the city resided, she summoned him, with all his
+available police, to attend his sovereign to the throne of his
+ancestors. He promised obedience, but, with all his police, stood
+aloof, thinking that her side might not be the safe one to take in
+such an emergency. A little further on she passed Hussun Bagh, the
+residence of the chief consort of the late King and niece of the
+emperor of Delhi, and summoned and brought her on, to give some
+countenance to her audacious enterprise. The Resident admonished the
+minister for his negligence and falsehood in the assurance he had
+given him; and directed Rajah Bukhtawur Sing, with his squadron of
+one hundred and fifty horse, and Mozuffer-od Dowlah, the father of
+Ajum-od Dowlah, and Khadim Hoseyn, the son-in-law of Sobhan Allee
+Khan, the deputy minister, with all the armed men they could muster,
+to arrest the progress of the pretender; but nothing whatever was
+done, and the excited mass came on, and augmented as it came in noise
+and numbers. All whom the Resident sent to check them, out of fear or
+favour, avoided collision, and sought safety either in their homes or
+among the pretender's bands.
+
+Captain Paton, as soon as he heard the pretender's' men approach,
+rushed to the gate to the north-west, towards which the throng was
+approaching rapidly. He had only four belted attendants with him, and
+the gate was guarded only by a small party of useless sipahees, under
+the control of three or four black slaves. By the time he had roused
+the sleepy guard and closed the gates, the pretender's armed mass
+came up, and with foul abuse, imprecations, and with threats of
+instant death to all who opposed them, demanded admittance. Captain
+Paton told them, that the Resident had been directed by the British
+Government to place Nuseer-od Dowlah, the uncle of the late King, on
+the throne as the rightful heir; that he was now in the palace, and
+all who opposed him would be treated as rebels; that the gates were
+all closed by order of the Resident, and all who attempted to force
+them would be put to death. All was in vain. They told him with fury
+that the Padshah Begum, and the son of the late King, and rightful
+heir to the throne, were among them, and must be instantly admitted.
+Captain Paton despatched a messenger to the Resident to say, that he
+could hold the gate no longer without troops: but before he could get
+a reply, the insurgents brought up an elephant to force in the gate
+with his head. The first failed in the attempt, and drew back with a
+frightful roar. A second, urged on by a furious driver, broke in the
+gate, one-half fell with a crash to the ground, and the elephant
+plunged in after it. Captain Paton was standing with his back against
+this half, and must have been killed; but Mukun, one of his
+chuprassies, seeing the gate giving way, caught him by the arm and
+dragged him behind the other half. The other three chuprassies ran
+off in a fright and hid themselves. Two of them were Surubdawun Sing
+and Juggurnath, two brothers, who will be mentioned elsewhere in this
+diary.*
+
+[* See Juggurnath chuprassie in Chapter V., Vol. II.]
+
+The furious and confused mass rushed in through the half-opened gate,
+and beat Captain Paton to the ground with their bludgeons, the hilts
+of their swords, and the butt-ends of their muskets. Mukun,
+chuprassie, his only remaining attendant, was beaten down at the same
+time and severely bruised, but he soon got up, covered with blood,
+made his way out through the crowd, and ran to meet the five
+companies of the 35th Regiment, then not far distant, under Colonel
+Monteath. As soon as he heard from Mukun the state in which he had
+left his master, he sent on a party of thirty sipahees under Captain
+Cowley, with orders to make all possible haste to the rescue. They
+arrived in time to save his life from the fury of the assailants, but
+found him insensible from his wounds.
+
+In a few minutes every court-yard within the palace walls was filled
+with the armed and disorderly mass. The Resident, Captain Shakespear,
+and their few attendants, tried to stop them by every impediment they
+could throw in their way, but in vain. The assailants rushed past or
+over them, brandishing their swords and firelocks, with loud
+shoutings and flaming torches, and soon filled all the apartments of
+the palace, save those occupied by the ladies and their female
+attendants, and the dead body of the late King. The Resident and his
+Assistant, and the Meer Moonshee, were soon separated from the new
+sovereign and his small party, who lay for some time concealed in the
+small room in which he had been left to repose, while they were
+confined to the northern verandah overlooking the river, and the long
+room leading into it. The armed and furious throng filled all the
+other rooms of the palace, the court-yard, eighty yards long, leading
+to the baraduree (or summer-house) and all the four great halls of
+that building, in one of which the throne stood.
+
+The Resident felt that he was helpless in his present position, and
+unable to do anything whatever to prevent the temporary triumph of
+the insurgents, and the consequent tumult, pillage, and loss of life
+that must follow; and that it would be better to try any change than
+to remain in that helpless state. He thought that he might, if he
+could once reach the Begum, be able to persuade her of the
+impossibility of her ultimately succeeding in her attempt to keep the
+pretender on the throne; and if not, that it would be of advantage to
+get so much nearer to the place where the British troops most soon
+arrive, and be drawn up in a garden to the south of the baraduree,
+and to gain time for their arrival by a personal and open conference
+with the Begum, during which he thought her followers would not be
+likely to proceed to violence against his person, and those of his
+attendants. He therefore persuaded one of the rebel sentries placed
+over him to apprize the Begum that he wished to speak to her. She
+sent to him Mirza Allee, one of her Wakeels; and with him Captain
+Shakespear, and the Meer Moonshee, he forced his way through the
+dense crowd, and got safely into the baraduree.
+
+They found all the four halls, small apartments, and verandahs,
+leading into them, filled with armed men in a state of great
+excitement, and in the act of placing the pretender, Moonna Jan, on
+the throne. The Begum sat in a covered palankeen at the foot of the
+throne; and as the Resident entered, the band struck up "_God save
+the King_," answered by a salute of blunderbusses within, and a
+double royal salute from the guns in the "_jullooknana_," or northern
+court-yard of the palace through which the Begun had passed in. Other
+guns, which had been collected in the confusion to salute somebody
+(though those who commanded and served them knew not whom), continued
+the salute through the streets without. A party of dancing-girls,
+belonging to the late King, or brought up by the Begum, began to
+dance and sing as loud as they could at the end of the long hall in
+front of the throne, at the same time that the crowd within and
+without shouted their congratulations at the top of their voices, and
+every man who had a sword, spear, musket, or matchlock, flourished it
+in the air amidst a thousand torches. A scene more strange and wild
+it would be difficult to conceive.
+
+In the midst of all this the Resident and his Assistants remained
+cool under all kinds of foul abuse and threats from a multitude so
+excited, that they seemed more like demons than human beings, and
+resolved to force them to commit some act or make use of some
+expression that might seem to justify their murder. They fired
+muskets close to their ears, pointed others loaded and cocked close
+to their breasts and faces, flourished swords close to their noses,
+called them all kinds of opprobrious names, but all in vain. The
+Resident, in the midst of all this confusion, pointed out to the
+Begum the impossibility of her ultimately succeeding in her attempt
+to secure the throne for the pretender, since he was acting under the
+orders of his Government, who had declared the right to be another's;
+and if he and all his Assistants were killed, his Government would
+soon send others to carry out their orders. "I am," she said, "in my
+right place, and so is the young King, my grandson, and so are you.
+Why do you talk to me or to anybody else of leaving the throne and
+the baraduree?" But some of her furious followers, afraid that she
+might yield, seized him by his neckcloth, dragged him towards the
+throne, on which the boy sat, and commanded him to present his
+offerings of congratulation on the threat of instant death. They had,
+they said, placed him on the throne of his ancestors by order of the
+Begum, and would maintain him there. Had he or either of his
+Assistants lost their temper or presence of mind, and attempted to
+resent any of the affronts offered to them, they must have been all
+instantly put to death, and a general massacre of all their supposed
+adherents, and the pillage of the palace and city, would have
+followed.
+
+The Begum's Wakeel, Mirza Allee, seeing the life of the Resident and
+those of his Assistants and attendants in such imminent peril, since
+he so resolutely refused to give any sign whatever of recognition to
+the pretender, and aware of the consequences that would inevitably
+follow their murder, seized him by the arm, and in a loud voice
+shouted out that it was the Begum's order that he should conduct him
+out into the garden to the south. He pushed on with him through the
+crowd, followed by all his small party, and with great difficulty and
+danger they at last reached the garden, where Colonel Monteath had
+just brought in and drawn up his five companies in a line facing the
+baraduree. Finding the entrance to the north-west occupied by the
+Begum's party. Colonel Monteath marched along the street to the west
+of the palace, and entered the baraduree garden by the south-west
+gate. As the Resident went out. Colonel Roberts, who commanded a
+brigade in the Oude service, went in, and presented to the pretender
+his offering of gold mohurs, and then went off and hid himself, to
+wait the result of the contest. Captain Magness drew up his men and
+guns on the left of Colonel Monteath's, and was told to prepare for
+action. He told the Resident that he did not feel quite sure of his
+men in such a crisis, and the line of British sipahees was made to
+cover his rear, to secure them. The King and minister had commanded
+him to act precisely as directed by the Resident, and he himself knew
+this to be his only safe course, but the hearts of his men were with
+Moonna Jan and the Begum.
+
+The Begum, as soon as the Resident left her, deeming all safe, went
+over to the female apartments, where her adopted son, the late king,
+lay dead; and after gazing for a minute upon his corpse, returned to
+the foot of the throne, on which the pretender had now been seated
+for more than three hours. It was manifest that nothing but force
+could now remove the boy and his supporters, but the Begum tried to
+gain more time in the hope of support from a popular insurrection
+from without, which might take off the British troops from the
+garden; and she sent evasive messages to the Resident by her wakeels,
+urging him to come once more to her, since it was impossible for her
+to make her way to him without danger of collision between the troops
+of the two States. He refused to put himself again in her power, and
+commanded her to come down with the boy to him and surrender; and
+promised that if she did so, and directed all her armed followers to
+quit the palace and city of Lucknow, all that had passed should be
+forgiven, and the large pension of fifteen thousand rupees a-month,
+promised by the late King, secured to her for life. All was in vain,
+and the Begum was gaining her object. Robberies of State property in
+the eastern and more retired parts of the palace-buildings had
+commenced. Gold, jewels, shawls, &c., to a large amount were being
+carried off. Much of such property lay about in places not guarded by
+Captain Paton in the morning, or known to the minister, or other
+respectable servants of the State, all holding out temptation to
+pillage. Acts of plunder and ill-treatment to unoffending and
+respectable persons in the city were every moment reported, and six
+or eight houses had been already pillaged, and attempts had been made
+on others by small parties, who were every moment increasing in
+numbers and ferocity.
+
+Several parties of the King's troops had openly deserted their posts
+and joined the pretender's followers in the baraduree, and dense
+masses of armed men were crowding in upon the British troops, whose
+officer became anxious, and urged the Resident to action, lest they
+should no longer have room to use their arms. At one time these armed
+crowds got within two yards of the British front; and on Colonel
+Monteath's telling them to retire a few paces and leave him a clear
+front, they did so in a sullen and insolent manner, and one of them
+actually attempted to seize one of the sipahees by his whiskers, and
+an affray was with difficulty prevented.
+
+Mostufa Khan, Kundaharee, who had command of a regiment of a thousand
+horse in the late King's service, was with many others commanded by
+the Begum to attend the young King on the throne; and he did so some
+time after Brigadier Johnstone reached the garden, in front of the
+baraduree, though he knew that Nuseer-od Dowlah had been declared the
+rightful heir to the throne, and was actually in the palace. He said
+that "he was the servant of the throne; that the young King was
+actually seated upon it, and that he would support him there, happen
+what might." He presented his offerings of gold to the young King,
+and was forthwith appointed to supersede all the other wakeels in the
+Begum's negotiations with the Resident. He merely repeated what the
+other wakeels had said, urging the Resident to go up to the Begum,
+since she could not come down to him. The Resident repeated to him
+what he had told the Begum herself, and taking out his watch, told
+him that unless his orders were obeyed in less than one-quarter of an
+hour, the guns should open upon the throne-room; that when once they
+opened, neither she nor her followers could expect favour, or even
+mercy; and unless he, Mostapha Khan, separated himself from her
+party, he should be hung as a traitor if taken alive.
+
+Owing to the height of some houses and walls about the left part of
+the position of the British troops, the guns could not be
+conveniently brought to bear upon the south-western corner of the
+baraduree and throne-room, and two of the guns had to be taken round
+by a road one-third of a mile, to be placed in a better position. On
+seeing this the crowd shouted out, "The cravens are already running
+away!" and became more insolent and furious than ever.
+
+The minister and Durbar Wakeel had been swept away by the crowd, who
+rushed into the palace, and separated from the Resident and his
+party, and as they passed through the balcony overlooking the river,
+the wakeel threw off his turban, and leaped over from a height of
+about twenty feet. The ground was soft, but he sprained both his
+ankles. He was taken up by some boatmen, who had put-to near the
+bank, and concealed in their boat till the affair was over. The new
+sovereign remained still unnoticed, and apparently unknown, having
+long led a secluded life; but his son, grandsons, and the rest of his
+attendants were at last discovered, very roughly treated by the
+insurgents, and would, it is said, have been put to death, had not
+Rajah Bukhtawur Sing and some others, who thought it safe to be on
+friendly terms with the ruffians, persuaded them that they would be
+useful hostages in case of a reverse. The minister had had all his
+clothes, save his trousers, torn from him, and his arms and legs
+pinioned preparatory to execution, and the princes had been treated
+with little more ceremony. All had given themselves up for lost.
+
+The Begum remained firm to her purpose, her hopes from without
+increasing with the increasing noise, tumult, and reports of pillage
+in the city. The quarter of an hour had passed, and the Resident,
+turning to the Brigadier, told him, that the work was now in his
+hands, just an hour and twenty minutes after he had brought his
+troops into the garden. The guns from the British, and Captain
+Magness' parks opened at the same instant upon the throne-room and
+the other halls of the baraduree with grape; and after six or seven
+rounds, a party of the 35th Regiment, under Major Marshall, was
+ordered to storm the halls. With muskets loaded and bayonets fixed
+they rushed first through a narrow covered passage; then up a steep
+flight of steps, and then into the throne-room, firing upon the
+affrighted crowd as they advanced, and following them up with the
+bayonet as they rushed out over the two flights of steps on the north
+side, and through the courtyard which separates the baraduree from
+the palace. Other parties of sipahees ascended at the same time over
+ladders collected at the suggestion of Doctor Stevenson, and placed
+on the southern front of the baraduree; and the halls were soon
+cleared of the insurgents, who left from forty to fifty men killed
+and wounded on the floors of the four halls.* In this assault Mostufa
+Khan, Kundaharee, was killed. Moonna Jan was found concealed in a
+small recess under the throne, and the Begum in a small adjoining
+room, to which she had been carried as soon as the guns opened. They
+were taken into custody, and sent to the Residency, with Imam Buksh,
+a bihishtee, or water-carrier, a notorious villain, who had been her
+chief instigator in all this affair, and appointed Commander-in-Chief
+to the young King. Many who had been wounded got out of the halls,
+and some even reached their homes, but the killed and wounded are
+supposed to have amounted altogether to about one hundred and twenty.
+The Begum and the boy were accommodated in the Residency, and their
+_Commander-in-Chief_ was made over to the King's Courts for trial. He
+is still in prison at Lucknow. No one was killed on our side, but
+three or four of our sipahees were wounded in the assault.
+
+[* As they entered the hall at the end opposite the throne, they saw
+their own figures reflected in the large mirror, which stands behind
+the throne; and, taking them to be their enemy preparing to charge,
+they poured their first volley into the mirror, by which many lives
+were saved at the expense of the glass.]
+
+The Delhi princess, the chief consort of the deceased King, a modest,
+beautiful, and amiable young woman, who had been forced to join the
+Begum, in order to give some countenance to the daring enterprise,
+was, as soon as the guns opened, carried by her two female attendants
+in her litter to a small side-room, facing the palace at the east end
+of the throne-room. One of these females had her arm shattered by
+grape shot, but the other tied some clothes together, and let the
+princess and her wounded attendant down from a height of about
+twenty-four feet into a court-yard, whence they were conveyed to her
+palace by some of her attendants, and all three escaped. The sipahees
+occupied both of the flights of steps in the northern face of the
+baraduree. She was afraid, to trust herself to them, and saw no other
+way of escape than that described.
+
+It was nine o'clock before the palace could be cleared of the
+insurgents; and the Resident was very anxious that the new Sovereign
+should be crowned, as soon and as publicly as possible, in order to
+restore tranquillity to the city, which had become greatly disturbed
+from the number of loose and desperate characters that always abound
+in it, and are at all times ready to make the most of any tumult that
+may arise from whatever cause. The new Sovereign had become greatly
+agitated and alarmed at the danger to which he and his family had
+been so long exposed, and at the fearful scene which they witnessed
+at the close; and the Resident exerted himself to soothe and prepare
+him for the long and tedious ceremonies of the coronation, while the
+killed and wounded were being removed and the throne-room and the
+other halls of the baraduree cleaned out and properly arranged and
+furnished. When all was ready the Resident conducted him from the
+palace through the court-yard to the baraduree, accompanied by the
+brigadier and all the principal officers of the British force and the
+Court, seated him on the throne, placed the crown on his head, under
+a royal salute, repeated from every battery in the city, and
+proclaimed him King of Oude, in presence of all the aristocracy and
+principal persons of Lucknow, who had flocked to the place on hearing
+that the danger had passed away.
+
+From the time that the Resident discovered that the King was dead,
+till the arrival of the five companies under Colonel Monteath, the
+whole of the British force in this vast city, containing a population
+of nearly a million persons, amounted to only two companies and a
+half of sipahees under native officers. One of the companies guarded
+the Resident's Treasury, one constituted the honorary guard of the
+Resident, and the half company guarded the gaol. A part of the
+honorary guard, with as many sipahees as could be safely spared from
+the Treasury and gaol, were taken by Captain Paton to the palace, and
+distributed as already mentioned. They all stood nobly to their posts
+during the long and trying scene, and no attempt was made to
+concentrate them for the purpose of arresting the tumultuous advance
+of the Begum's forces. Collectively they would have been too few for
+the purpose, and it was deemed unsafe to remove them from their
+respective charges at such a time. The Resident relied upon the
+minister's repeated assurances that he had taken all necessary
+precautions to prevent her approach; upon the two companies, called
+the Khas companies, under the command of Mujd-od Dowlah; and the
+squadron of one hundred and fifty horse, under Rajah Bukhtawur Sing,
+whom he had himself ordered to guard the passage by which they
+entered. Of all these men not one was employed for the purpose. They
+and their Commanders all stood aloof, and left the British soldiers
+to their fate.
+
+The minister was a fool, under the tutelage of his deputy, Sobhan
+Allee Khan, a great knave, who disappeared as soon as he heard that
+the Begum was approaching with his son-in-law, Khadim Hoseyn.
+Mozuffer Allee Khan, a person in high office and confidence under the
+late King, did the same. The minister and the Durbar Wakeel were the
+only officers of the State of Oude who stood by the new King and the
+British Resident. The minister afterwards declared that a strong
+detachment of troops had been placed outside the gate through which
+the Begum ultimately forced her way, as well as at the other passages
+leading to the palace and baraduree; and Captain Shakespear, on his
+way to the new Sovereign, ascertained that guards had actually been
+posted outside all the other gates leading to the palace and
+baraduree. From this, the supineness and seeming apathy of many of
+the palace guards and servants, and the perversion of the orders sent
+by him before and during the tumult, the minister concluded that
+there must have been many about him interested in promoting the
+enterprise of the Begum; and that the approach to the gate through
+which she forced her way must have been purposely left unguarded.
+There is now little doubt, that from the time that it became known,
+that the contest was between Moonna Jan and Nuseer-od Dowlah, a
+person but little known except as a prudent and parsimonious old man,
+a large portion not only of the civil and military establishments,
+but of the population of the city, felt anxious for the success of
+the Begum's enterprise; for both had, under the harsh treatment of
+the last two sovereigns, become objects of sympathy.
+
+A good many of the members of the royal family, who were brought up
+from childhood with the deceased King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, and near
+his person to the last, declare that Moonna Jan was his son; but that
+the King was ashamed and afraid to acknowledge him after he had so
+frequently and so formally declared to the British Government that he
+was not his son, and that he had ceased to cohabit with the boy's
+mother for two years before his birth. But all such persons admit
+that Moonna Jan was a boy of ungovernable temper, and the worst
+possible dispositions; and that he must soon have forfeited the crown
+by his cruelty, bigotry, and injustice, had he been placed upon it by
+the British Government. I saw him in January 1838, at Chunar, and a
+more unpromising boy I have rarely seen.
+
+The ministry dreaded being called to account for their malversations
+as much from the Begum, on account of their successful efforts to
+keep the King alienated from her and his son, as from Nuseer-od
+Dowlah, on account of his parsimony, prudence, and great experience
+in business during the reign of his able father, Saadut Allee Khan.
+But they would have a better chance of escape from the Begum and the
+boy than from the vigilant old man, who afterwards made them all
+disgorge their ill-gotten wealth; and, in consequence, they made no
+effort to obstruct her enterprise. The military and civil
+establishments were all in favour of the boy, who would probably be
+as regardless of their number and discipline as his father had been,
+while the old man would assuredly reduce the one, and endeavour, by
+rigorous measures, to improve the other. Hardly any one at Lucknow at
+present doubts that the minister and his associates caused the King
+to be poisoned, and employed Duljeet and the two sisters; Dhunneea
+and Dulwee, for the purpose, in expectation that the British
+Government would take upon itself the Oude administration, as the
+only possible means of improving it.
+
+The respectable and peaceable portion of the city, though their
+sympathies were with the boy, had too much in property, and the
+honour of their families, at stake to aid in any movement in his
+favour, since it would involve a tumult, and for a time, at least,
+insure the supremacy of the mob. Their security and that of their
+families depended upon the success of the British troops; and they
+were all prepared to acquiesce in any cause which the British
+Government might adopt for the sake of order. They would rather that
+it should adopt that of the Begum and the boy than that of Nuseer-od
+Dowlah; but in either case were resolved to remain neuter, and let
+the representative of the British Government take his own course.
+
+It is a fact not unworthy of remark, that more than three millions
+sterling, or three crores of rupees, in our Government securities,
+are held by persons who reside and spend the interest arising from
+them in the city of Lucknow; and that the fall in their value in
+exchange during the times that we have been engaged in our most
+serious wars has been less in Lucknow than in Calcutta, the capital
+of British India; so much greater assurance do the people feel of our
+resources being always equal to our exigencies. At such times the
+merchants of Lucknow commission their agents in Calcutta to purchase
+up Government securities at the rate to which they fall in Calcutta,
+for sale at Lucknow, where they seldom fall at all. About three
+crores and half of rupees, or three millions and half sterling, have
+been at different times contributed to our loans by the sovereigns of
+Oude as a provision for the different members of their respective
+families and dependents; and the interest is now paid to them and
+their descendants, at the rates which prevailed at the time of the
+several loans (four, five, and six per cent.) to the amount of
+fourteen lacs thirty-five thousand and four hundred and ten rupees a-
+year.
+
+The Begum's haughty and violent temper, and inveterate disposition to
+meddle in public affairs, were the real cause of her continual
+disquietude and ultimate disgrace and ruin. The minister of the day
+dreaded the ascendancy of so imperious and furious a character,
+should she ever become reconciled to the King. During the whole reign
+of Ghazee-od Deen, her husband, from the 12th of July 1814, to the
+20th of October 1827, her own frequent ebullitions, which often
+disfigured the King's robes and vests, and left even the hair on his
+head and chin unsafe, and Aga Meer's sagacious suggestions, satisfied
+him that his own personal safety and peace of mind, and the welfare
+of the State, depended upon his keeping as much as possible aloof
+from her. He was fond of his son, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, but during
+his minority he always took the part of his adoptive mother, the
+Padshah Begum; and, in consequence, remained almost as much as she
+was alienated from the King, his father. His natural mother died soon
+after his birth; and people suspected that the Padshah Begum had her
+put to death that she might have no rival in his affections; and she
+had an entire ascendancy over him, acquired by every species of
+enervating indulgences; and he remained all his life utterly without
+character, ignorant of the rudiments of public affairs, and
+altogether incapable of taking any useful part in them.
+
+She retained this ascendancy over him for some time after he became
+King, first from habit and affection, and latterly from the fears
+with which she continued to inspire him, that she could, by her
+disclosures, whenever she pleased, prevail upon the British
+Government to set him aside in favour of some other member of the
+royal family, as the Buhoo Begum of Fyzabad had set aside Wuzeer
+Allee. She made him dismiss his father's minister, Aga Meer, with
+disgrace, and confer the seals on Fuzl Allee, the nephew of her
+favourite waiting-woman, Fyzon Nissa; but when the shrewd and
+sagacious Hakeem Mehndee became minister three years after, he soon
+persuaded the young King, that all fears of his adoptive mother's
+disclosures or wishes were idle, and that nothing which she could do
+or say would induce the British Government to disturb his possession
+of the sovereignty of Oude. He is said to have been the first person
+who ventured to hint to him the murder of his natural mother by the
+Padshah Begum; and he was, or pretended to be, violently shocked and
+grieved. He then built a splendid tomb or cenotaph for her; and
+endowed it with the means for maintaining pious men to read the Koran
+in it, and attendants of all kinds to keep it in a condition suitable
+for the mother of a King. He shuddered, or pretended to shudder, at
+the mention of the name of the Padshah Begum, as the most atrocious
+of murderesses. The minister of the day always made it a point to
+bring the reigning favourite of the seraglio over to his views, by
+giving her a due share of the profits and patronage of his office;
+and it was for this reason, that the high-born chief consort, whose
+influence over the King could not be so purchased, was soon made to
+retire from the palace, and, ever after, to live separated from her
+husband.
+
+The Padshah Begum had only one child, a daughter, who was united in
+marriage to Mehndee Allee Khan, by whom she had three children,
+Mohsen-od Dowlah, who was married to the daughter of Nuseer-od
+Dowlah, the new King; and two daughters who were married to Mirza
+Abool Kasim, and Mirza Aboo Torab. They lost their mother while yet
+children, and the Padshah Begum brought them up and became much
+attached to them. They had all from childhood been brought up with
+Nuseer-od Deen, and were all much attached to him and to each other.
+The ministers, fearing that this attachment might possibly lead to a
+reconciliation between the King and his adoptive mother, and to their
+ruin, left him and her no peace till, to save them, she forbade them
+her house, and sent the girls to their husbands, and the boy to his
+father-in-law, Nuseer-od Dowlah, whose succession to the throne of
+Oude has been here described. All objects of mutual interest and
+affection were in this manner carefully excluded from attendance on
+either, till they showed themselves to be entirely subservient to the
+minister of the day.*
+
+[* The mother always declared, and her two daughters and son all
+declare, Moonna Jan to have been the son of Nuseer-od Deen, and
+exactly like him in person, voice, and temper. But he was indulged by
+the Padshah Begum in each habits of atrocious cruelties to other
+children, that he soon became detested by all around him but herself
+and the boy's natural mother, Afzul-mahal.]
+
+Thus alienated from her son, all her affections were transferred to
+her grandson, Moonna Jan, and there is too much reason to believe,
+that in both cases she purposely did her best to prevent their ever
+becoming men of business, in order that she might have the guidance
+of public affairs in her own hands when they should be called to the
+throne.
+
+The Resident accommodated the Begum, the boy, and her two female
+attendants in apartments at the Residency, and had a guard placed
+over them. The new King told him, "that the Begum was the most wicked
+and unscrupulous woman he had ever known, and that he could expect no
+peace at Lucknow while she remained." He promised to consult his
+Government as to her disposal, and on returning to the Residency he
+increased that guard to two companies of Native Infantry, and all
+remained quiet when he made his report to Government on the 9th. But
+towards the close of that day, the city became again agitated.
+Reports prevailed, that Government was to be consulted as to whether
+they preferred the rights of Moonna Jan to the throne or those of
+Nuseer-od Dowlah; that the Begum's adherents were ready at her call
+to fall upon the Resident and his party, and put them all to death,
+or to attack the apartments in which she was confined, rescue her and
+the boy from prison, and place him again on the throne. The Court
+favourites of the late King, and all the public military and civil
+establishments in the city, dreaded the rigid economy and strict
+supervision of the new King, who had conducted the duties of the
+ministry for some time, under his able and vigilant father, Saadut
+Allee Khan; and all that numerous class who benefit by the lavish
+expenditure of a thoughtless and profligate Court were equally
+anxious to have the Government in the hands of an extravagant woman
+and thoughtless boy, and ready to join and incur some risk in
+supporting their cause.
+
+Under all these circumstances the Resident determined to send the
+Begum and her boy out of Oude as soon as possible. At midnight on the
+11th, a detachment of three companies of Infantry, under Major Lane
+of the 2nd Regiment, marched from Cawnpore and arrived at Newulgunge,
+midway to Lucknow, a distance of twenty-two miles, in the morning of
+the 12th, with one troop of cavalry. Another troop proceeded to Onow,
+the first stage from Cawnpore, and a third to Rahmutgunge, the second
+stage, to relieve the first on their return. At each of these stages,
+relays of sixty palankeen-bearers and six torch-bearers were placed
+by the Post-Master at Cawnpore. As the bridge over the Ganges at
+Cawnpore had been washed away by the flood, a company of Native
+Infantry was placed on the Oude side of that river, to hold boats in
+readiness, and assist in escorting over the party when they came.
+About the same time, at midnight, the Begum, her boy, and two of her
+female attendants were placed in palankeens and sent off from the
+Residency under the escort of a regiment of Infantry, and a detail of
+artillery, attended by the Second Assistant, Captain Shakespear.
+
+They marched without resting through one of the hottest days of the
+year, and the party reached Cawnpore in safety about half-past nine
+o'clock in the evening of the 12th, and were securely lodged in
+apartments prepared for them at the custom-house. So well had things
+been arranged between the Resident and Brigadier commanding the
+troops in Oude, and the Major-General commanding the Division at
+Cawnpore, that very few persons at Lucknow knew that the Begum and
+her party had left the Residency when she passed the Ganges at
+Cawnpore. The three companies under Major Lane, who had marched
+twenty-two miles in the morning, kept pace with the palankeens all
+the way back, making a march of forty-four miles, between midnight of
+the 11th, and half-past nine in the evening of the 12th, in so hot a
+day.
+
+The Begum and Moonna Jan were sent off with their attendants to the
+fort of Chunar, where they were lodged as state prisoners. As it
+became safe, the restrictions to which they were at first subjected
+became by degrees relaxed, and they were permitted to enjoy all the
+freedom and comforts compatible with their safe keeping. Both died at
+Chunar, Moonna Jan some time before the Begum. He left three sons by
+two slave-girls at Chunar, and they still reside there, supported by
+a small stipend of three hundred rupees a-month from the Oude
+Government, under the protection of the commandant of the garrison,
+and the guardianship of Afzul mahal, the mother of the late Moonna
+Jan.
+
+All these circumstances, as they occurred, were reported by the
+Resident to the Government of India, who took time to deliberate, and
+did not reply till the 19th of July 1837, when they signified their
+approval of all that the Resident had done, with the exception of the
+written declaration to which he had obtained the consent and
+signature of the new King. They did not think that it would be
+considered dignified or becoming the paramount power, to exact such a
+declaration, binding himself to absolute submission, from the
+sovereign of a country so much under their control, on ascending a
+throne to which he was called as of right; and were of opinion that
+his character as a prudent man of business, well trained to public
+affairs, during the time he acted as minister under his father,
+rendered such a declaration unnecessary. It was therefore annulled;
+and the Governor-General, Lord Auckland, addressed a letter to his
+Majesty expressing, in kind terms, his congratulations on his
+accession to the throne, and his hopes of a better administration of
+the Government of Oude under his auspicious guidance. This letter,
+despatched by express, the Resident received on the 25th of July.
+
+The Resident concluded, on good grounds, that the Government deemed a
+new and more stringent treaty indispensable for the better government
+of the country, and that advantage should be taken of the occasion to
+prepare the new King for it. Government desired, that the
+negotiations for a new treaty should be based "upon reason and right,
+and not upon demand and submission." Had the declaration been allowed
+to stand good, there would have been _right_ as well as _reason_ in
+the treaty of 1837, which was soon after concluded.
+
+The Resident intimated the receipt of these letters to the King, and
+on the 28th, he waited on his Majesty, to present the Governor-
+General's letter. He found him sitting up in his bed in a small
+apartment in the baraduree, in his dishabille, having spent a
+restless night from rheumatic pains; but he was cheerful and in good
+spirits, and requested the Resident to present his respectful
+compliments to the Governor-General, and grateful thanks for his
+consideration and congratulations. All his relations, the chief
+officers of the Government, and other persons of distinction about
+the Court, were assembled to hear the letters read, and make their
+offerings on this recognition of his authority by the paramount
+power. "The King assured the Resident, that the arrival of this
+recognition, and its public announcement, would greatly strengthen
+his hands in the exercise of public duties, for during the last few
+days bad reports had been industriously circulated by evil-disposed
+persons to the effect, that the delay in the recognition of his
+succession to the throne by the paramount power in India, had arisen
+from discussions between the members of the Government in Calcutta,
+as to the amount of money to be taken on the occasion from the new
+King, as the price of his sudden elevation; and that no letter was to
+be presented by the Resident until the money was paid, or security
+given for its punctual payment; that the Governor-General himself
+wanted _two crores_ of rupees, but some members of the Government
+would be satisfied with _a crore and half_ each, and others even with
+_one crore_ each, provided that these sums were paid forthwith." In
+relating this story, which the Resident had heard from many others
+within the last few days, the King observed, "that he was too well
+acquainted with the character for honour and justice of the
+Honourable Company's Government, to give the slightest credit to such
+scandal, the more especially since no demand of the kind had been
+made on the accession of either of the last two Kings, who were known
+to be rich, while he was equally well known to be poor; but that
+nothing but the arrival of this despatch confirming him on the
+throne, could convince many, even well-disposed persons, of the utter
+groundlessness of such wicked rumours; that many poor but respectable
+persons, who had been weak enough to believe such rumours, would feel
+much relieved when they heard the salutes which were now being fired,
+for they had apprehended, that they might be severe sufferers by
+being compelled to contribute their own property, in order to enable
+him to make up the _peshkush_, or tribute, required by the British
+Government, since the late King had squandered the ten crores, which
+he found in the treasury on the death of his father."
+
+It is certain, that a great portion of the population of Lucknow
+expected that some such demand would be made by the British
+Government from the new sovereign, since his right to the throne
+could be disputed, not only by Moonna Jan, the supposed son of the
+late King, but by the undoubted sons of Shums-od Dowlah, the elder
+brother of the present King, whose rights were barred only by that
+peculiar feature of the Mahommedan law elsewhere adverted to in this
+Diary. Every day of delay, in promulgating the final orders of the
+Supreme Government, tended to add to this number; and by the time
+that these final orders came, by far the greater portion of the city
+were of the same opinion. The fears of the people tended to add to
+their numbers, and give strength to the opinion, for all knew, that
+there was but little left in the reserved treasury, that the expenses
+greatly exceeded the annual revenue, and that the troops and
+establishments were all greatly in arrear; and all believed that a
+general contribution would have to be levied to meet the demand when
+it came.*
+
+[* Nuseer-od Dowlah reigned under the title of Mahommed Allee Shah,
+from the 8th of July, 1837, to the 16th of May, 1842. Nuseer-od Deen
+Hyder, his predecessor, had reigned from the 20th of October, 1827,
+to the 7th of July, 1837. He, Nuseer-od Deen, found in the treasury,
+when he ascended the throne, ten crores of rupees, or ten millions
+sterling. He left in the treasury, when he died, only seventy lacs of
+rupees, including the fifty-three lacs left by the Koduseea Begum.
+Mahommed Allee Shah left in the treasury thirty-five lacs of rupees,
+one hundred and twenty-four thousand gold mohurs, and twenty-four
+lacs in our Government securities. Amjud Allee Shah reigned from the
+16th of May, 1842, to the 13th of February, 1847; and left in the
+treasury ninety-two lacs of rupees, one hundred and twenty-four
+thousand gold mohurs, and the twenty-four lacs in our Government
+securities. His son, Wajid Allee Shah, has reigned from the 13th of
+February, 1847.]
+
+The assertion, on the part of the late King, that he had ceased to
+cohabit with Afzul mahal, the mother of Moonna Jan, for two years, or
+even for six months before his birth, is now known to have been
+utterly false, and known at the time to be so by his mother, the
+Padshah Begum; with whom they both lived. Afzul-mahal, though of
+humble birth and pretensions, maintained a fair reputation among
+those who knew her best in a profligate palace, and has continued to
+maintain the same up to the present day in adversity. In prison and
+up to the hour of her death, which took place some time after that of
+Moonna Jan himself, the old Begum declared that she had seen the boy
+born, and had never lost sight of him; and that the story of his not
+being the son of Nuseer-od Deen, was got up to prevent her ever
+becoming reconciled to the King through the means of his son; and her
+extraordinary affection for him never diminished while he lived. When
+she retired from the palace of Nuseer-od Deen to her new residence of
+Almas Bagh, she kept fast hold of the boy, and would never let him
+out of her sight till they entered the prison at Chunar, when they
+were obliged to occupy separate apartments. Up to his death she
+watched over him with the tenderest care; and always declared to the
+European officers placed over her, that the boy's father and mother
+always resided with her up to the time of his birth. The boy was
+remarkably like Nuseer-od Deen in form and features, as well as in
+temper and disposition.
+
+Afzul-mahal was a person of great good sense and prudence, and in all
+things trusted by the old Begum, who before her death executed a
+formal will, leaving to her the charge of Moonna Jan's three
+children, and all the establishments; and since the death of the old
+lady she has executed the trust conscientiously, and with great
+economy; and with much difficulty managed to maintain all in
+respectability upon the small stipend of three hundred rupees a-
+month, allowed for their support by the King of Oude. In this, she
+has been very much impeded and annoyed by the two slave-girls, the
+mothers of Moonna Jan's children, who have been always striving to
+get this stipend into their own hands, that they may share it with
+their paramours. At the death of the old lady most of her female
+companions and attendants refused to return to Lucknow, and remained
+at Chunar with Afzul-mahal and the children; and all have to be
+subsisted out of this small stipend. The slave-girls urge, that they
+might have had separate pensions, had they obeyed the orders to
+return to Lucknow on the death of the Begum, and that they ought not
+now to share in the stipend of the children. Five or six of the
+females were ladies of rank, and one of them, who died lately, was a
+widow of Saadut Allee Khan.
+
+This pension may be discontinued when the boys become of age, or
+appropriated by them and their mothers for their own exclusive use,
+and the Government of Oude should be required to assign pensions for
+life to Afzul mahal, and the other females who are now supported from
+it.
+
+The salary of the prime minister, during the five years that Roshun-
+od Dowlah held the office, was twenty-five thousand rupees a-month,
+or three lacs a-year, and over and above this, he had five per cent.
+upon the actual revenue, which made above six lacs a-year. His son,
+as Commander-in-Chief, drew five thousand rupees a-month, though he
+did no duty--his first wife drew five thousand rupees a-month, and
+his second wife drew three thousand rupees a-month, total eighty-
+eight thousand rupees a-month, or ten lacs and fifty-six thousand
+rupees a-year. These were the avowed allowances which the family
+received from the public treasury. The perquisites of office gave
+them some five lacs of rupees a-year more, making full fifteen lacs
+a-year.
+
+Roshun-od Dowlah held office for only three months, under the new
+sovereign, Mahommed Allee Shah. He was then superseded by Hakeem
+Mahndee, thrown into prison, and made to pay twenty lacs to the
+treasury, and two lacs in gratuities to Court favourites. After
+paying these sums, he was permitted to go and reside at Cawnpore; but
+his houses in the city, valued at three lacs, were afterwards
+confiscated by the present King, on the ground of unpaid balances. He
+took into keeping Dulwee, the younger of the two sisters; but she was
+afterwards seduced away from him by one of his creatures, a
+consummate knave, Wasee Allee, whose wife she now is. Dhunneea, the
+eldest sister, is still residing at Lucknow. Roshun-od Dowlah's first
+wife took off with her more than three lacs of rupees in our
+Government securities, and his son, the Commander-in-Chief, took off
+eight lacs of rupees in the same securities. Roshun-od Dowlah carried
+off a large sum himself. She and his son afterwards left him, and now
+reside in comfort upon the interest of these securities at Futtehgur,
+while he lives at Cawnpore in poor circumstances.
+
+Sobhan Allee, his deputy, was made to pay to the treasury seven lacs
+of rupees, and in gratuities to court favourites five lacs more.
+Roshun-od Dowlah was one of the principal members of the old
+aristocracy of Lucknow, and connected remotely with the royal family;
+and he got off more easily in consequence, compared with his means,
+than his deputy, who had no such advantages, and was known to have
+been the minister's guide in all things, though he would never
+consent to hold any ostensible and responsible office.
+
+Duljeet, a creature of Roshun-od Dowlah's, and prime favourite of the
+late King, carried off, while the King lay dead, money and jewels to
+the value of one lac of rupees, and concealed them in a vault at
+Constantia. His associates, not satisfied with what he gave them,
+betrayed him. The money and jewels were discovered and brought back,
+and he was made to pay another lac of rupees to the treasury as a
+fine. Dhunneea, the eldest of the two sisters, was made to disgorge
+two lacs of rupees. Many other favourites of the late King were fined
+in the same way.
+
+The King had, in the case of Ghalib Jung, already described in this
+Diary, declared his resolution of looking more closely into his
+accounts in future, and punishing all transgressors in the same way;
+and Roshun-od Dowlah often expressed to the Resident his
+apprehensions that his turn to suffer must soon come. Sobhan Allee
+Khan had much stronger grounds to fear, since he had made himself
+utterly detested by the people generally, and had neither friends nor
+connexions in the royal family or aristocracy of Lucknow. Under the
+strong and general impression that the British Government was
+determined to interpose, and take upon itself the administration of
+the country, and that the King himself wished the independent
+sovereignty of Oude to terminate with his reign, they most earnestly
+desired his early death as their only chance of escape. The British
+Government would not, they knew, make them refund any of their ill-
+gotten wealth without full judicial proof of their peculations, and
+this proof they knew could never be obtained. Indeed they were
+satisfied that our Government, aware of the difficulty of finding
+such proof, and occupied in forming and working a new system, would
+not trouble themselves to seek for it; and that they should all be
+left to reside where they chose, and enjoy freely the fruits of their
+malversation.
+
+The Resident had kept the instructions of the 15th of December, 1832,
+from the supreme Government, a profound secret, lest they might lead
+to intrigue and disturbance, and, above all, to the poisoning of many
+innocent persons who might be considered to have a claim of right to
+the throne; and all were surprised and confounded when it was
+announced that the paramount power had already decided in favour of
+Nuseer-od Dowlah, whose claims had never been thought of by the
+people, or apprehended by the ministers. The instant they heard this
+decision, they dreaded the scrutiny of the sagacious and parsimonious
+old man, and the enmity of the favourites by whom he had been
+surrounded in private life. These men, whom they had, in their pride
+and power, despised and insulted, would now have their revenge; and
+they wished for the success of the old woman and the boy, from whom
+they might have a better chance of escape, till they could get their
+wealth and their families out of the country.
+
+I may here mention a similar repudiation of a supposed eldest son by
+the late King. Mostafa Allee was brought up in the palace as his
+eldest son, and on all occasions treated as such. Mahommed Allee
+Shah, the late King's father, was always very fond of him, but
+shortly before his death he became angry with him for some outrages
+committed in the palace, and put him under restraint. The young man
+requested the late King, his supposed father, to mediate with his
+grandfather for his release. He refused to do so, and the young man
+drew his sword, and threatened to kill him. He was kept under more
+strict restraint till the grandfather died, and his father ascended
+the throne, on the 16th of May, 1842. The King then requested the
+Resident to assure the Governor-General that Mostafa Allee was not
+his son--that he was a year and a-half old when his mother entered
+the palace. The Resident reported accordingly on the 26th of that
+month. The Governor-General required the statement to be made under
+the King's own sign and seal, and it was transmitted on the 6th of
+June, 1842. The present King was then declared heir-apparent to the
+throne, and Mostafa Allee has ever since been in strict confinement
+under him. The general impression, however, is that he was the eldest
+son of the late King, and repudiated solely on account of his violent
+temper and turbulent conduct. That he was treated as such during the
+life of Mahommed Allee Shah, and that the late King dared not
+repudiate him while his father lived, is certain.
+
+By the treaty of 1801 we bound ourselves to defend the territories of
+the sovereign of Oude from all foreign and domestic enemies; and to
+defray the cost of maintaining the troops required for this purpose,
+and paying some pensions at Furruckabad and Benares, the sovereign of
+Oude ceded to our Government the under-mentioned districts, then
+yielding the revenues specified opposite their respective names.*
+
+
+* Districts ceded by Oude to the British Government by the treaty of
+1801.
+
+Etawa, Korah, Kurra -    -    -    -    -   55,48,577  11  9
+Rehur and others    -    -    -    -    -    5,33,374   0  6
+Furruckabad    -    -    -    -    -    -    4,50,001   0  6
+Khyreegurh, and Kunchunpore   -    -    -    2,10,001   0  0
+Azimgurh, Mounal, and Benjun  -    -    -    6,95,624   7  6
+Goruckpore     -    -    -  5,09,853   8  0
+Botwul    -    -    -    -    40,001   0  0  5,49,854   8  0
+Allahabad and others-    -    -    -    -    9,34,963   1  3
+Bareilly, Moradabad, Bijnore, Budown,
+    Pilibheet, and Shahjehanpore  -    -    43,13,457  11  3
+Nawabgunge, Rehlee, &c. -    -    -    -     1,19,242  12  0
+Mohowl and others, with exception of
+    Jaulluk Arwu   -    -    -    -    -     1,68,378   4  0
+                                          __________________
+                           Total  -    -  1,35,23,474   8  3
+
+
+                           Deduct
+
+
+Nawabgunge    -    -    - 1,19,242  12  0
+Khyreegurh    -    -    - 2,10,001   0  0    3,29,243  12  0
+                                          __________________
+                           Total  -    -  1,31,94,230  12  3
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           Add
+
+Handeea or Kewae   -    -    -    -    -     1,52,905   0  0
+                                          __________________
+                           Total  -    -  1,33,47,135  12  3
+
+
+
+Present Revenues of the Territories we hold from Oude under the
+treaty of 1801, according to the Revised Statistical Return of the
+Districts of the North-West Provinces for 1846-47, prepared in 1848,
+A.D.
+
+_____________________________________________________________________
+                    |Land Revenue | Abkaree  |Stamp for | Total for
+     ______         |  1846-47.   |   for    | 1846-47. |  1846-47.
+                    |             | 1846-47. |          |
+__________________ _|_____________|__________|__________|____________
+                    |             |          |          |
+Rohilcund ..  .. .. |  64,44,341  | 2,47,854 | 2,04,576 |   68,96,771
+Allahabad, including|             |          |          |
+  Handeea _alias_   |  21,29,551  | 1,41,409 |   61,802 |   23,32,762
+     Kewae          |             |          |          |
+Furruckabad   .. .. |  13,57,544  |   88,061 |   49,698 |   14,95,303
+Mynpooree ..  .. .. |  12,33,901  |   24,822 |   20,484 |   12,79,207
+Etawa ..  ..  .. .. |  12,80,596  |   19,647 |   10,355 |   13,10,598
+Goruckpore..  .. .. |  20,80,296  | 2,10,045 |   96,549 |   23,86,890
+Azimgurh, including |             |          |          |
+  Mahoul  ..  .. .. |  14,89,887  |   81,257 |   53,925 |   16,25,069
+Cawnpore  ..  .. .. |  21,51,155  | 1,26,155 |   57,406 |   23,34,700
+Futtehpore..  .. .. |  14,25,431  |   60,370 |   21,063 |   15,06,864
+                    |_____________|__________|__________|____________
+       Total  .. .. |1,95,92,686  | 9,99,620 | 5,75,858 | 2,11,68,164
+____________________|_____________|__________|__________|____________
+
+** The lands are the same with the exception of Khyreegurh,
+Nawabgunge ceded since, and Handeea received; but the names are
+altered.
+
+
+Khyreegurh and Kunchunpore were re-ceded to the Oude sovereign in the
+treaty of the 11th of May, 1816, with the Turae lands, taken from
+Nepaul, between Khyreegurh and Goruckpore, in liquidation of the loan
+of one crore of rupees. In the same treaty, Handeea (_alias_ Kewae)
+was ceded by Oude to the British Government, in lieu of Nawabgunge,
+which was made over to the Oude sovereign by the British Government.
+Handeea, or Kewae, now in the Allahabad district, yielded land
+revenue, for 1846-47, rupees one lac, fifty-two thousand, and nine
+hundred and five.
+
+The British Government retained the power to station the British
+troops in such parts of the Oude territories as might appear to it
+most expedient; and the Oude sovereign bound himself to dismiss all
+his troops, save four battalions of infantry, one battalion of
+Nujeebs and Mewaties, two thousand horsemen, and three hundred
+golundages, or artillerymen, with such numbers of armed peons as
+might be deemed necessary for the purpose of collecting the revenue,
+and a few horsemen and nujeebs to attend the persons of the amils. It
+is declared that the territories ceded, being in lieu of all former
+subsidies and of all expenses on account of the Honourable Company's
+defensive establishments with his Excellency the sovereign of Oude,
+no demand whatever shall be made upon his territory on account of
+expenses which the Honourable Company may incur by assembling forces
+to repel the attack, or menaced attack, of a foreign enemy; on
+account of the detachment attached to his person; on account of
+troops which may be occasionally furnished for suppressing rebellions
+or disorders in his territories; on account of any future charge of
+military stations; or on account of failures in the resources of the
+ceded districts, arising from unfavourable seasons, the calamities of
+war, or any other cause whatever.
+
+The Honourable Company guarantees to him and to his heirs and
+successors, the possession of the territories which remain to him
+after the above cessions, together with the exercise of his and their
+authority within the said dominions; and the sovereign of Oude
+engages to establish, in his reserved dominions, such a system of
+administration, to be carried into effect by his own officers, as
+shall be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects, and calculated
+to secure the lives and property of the inhabitants; and to advise
+with, and act in conformity to the counsel of, the officers of the
+British Government.
+
+In the time of Asuf-od Dowlah, who died on the 21st September, 1797,
+the military force of Oude amounted to eighty thousand men of all
+arms, and in the direct pay of Government. Saadut Allee Khan, his
+brother and successor, on the conclusion of the above treaty, and the
+transfer of half his territory, reduced the number to thirty
+thousand.
+
+Relying entirely upon the efficiency of British troops to defend him
+against external and internal enemies, and to suppress rebellion and
+disorder, he laboured assiduously to reduce his expenditure within
+the income arising from the reserved half of his dominions. He
+resumed almost all the rent-free lands which had been granted with a
+lavish hand by his predecessor, and paid off and discharged all
+superfluous civil and military establishments, and, by his prudence
+and economy, he so reduced his expenditure within the income, that on
+his death on the 12th of July, 1814, he left fourteen millions
+sterling, or fourteen crores of rupees, in a treasury which he found
+empty when he entered upon the government in 1797. In this sum were
+included the confiscations of the estates of some favourites of his
+predecessors, Asuf-od Dowlah and Wuzeer Allee, who had grown rich
+upon bribery and frauds of all kinds. He never confiscated the
+estates of any good and faithful servants, who left lawful heirs to
+their property.
+
+He had been freely aided by British troops, according to the
+stipulations of the treaty of 1801; but the British Government had
+been made sensible, on several occasions, of the difficulty of
+fulfilling its engagements with the sovereign with a due regard to
+the rights and interests of his subjects. Saadnt Allee Khan was a man
+of great general ability, had mixed much in the society of British
+officers in different parts of India, had been well trained to habits
+of business, understood thoroughly the character, institutions, and
+requirements of his people, and, above all, was a sound judge of the
+relative merits and capacities of the men from whom he had to select
+his officers, and a vigilant supervisor of their actions. This
+discernment and discrimination of character, and vigilant
+supervision, served him through life; and the men who served him ably
+and honestly always felt confident in his protection and support. He
+had a thorough knowledge of the rights and duties of his officers and
+subjects, and a strong will to secure the one and enforce the other.
+To do so he knew that he must, with a strong hand, keep down the
+large landed aristocracy, who were then, as they are now, very prone
+to grasp at the possessions of their weaker neighbours, either by
+force or in collusion with local authorities. In attempting this with
+the aid of British troops, some acts of oppression were, no doubt,
+committed; and, as the sympathies of British officers were more with
+the landed aristocracy, while his were more with the humbler classes
+of landholders and cultivators who required to be protected from
+them, frequent misunderstandings arose, acts of just severity were
+made to appear to be acts of wanton oppression, and such as were
+really oppressive were exaggerated into unheard-of atrocities.
+
+Our relations with the state of Oude, from the treaty of 1801 to the
+death of Saadut Allee, were conducted by able men; but they had a
+very difficult task to perform in conducting them to the satisfaction
+of both parties to that treaty; and when the Government devolved upon
+less able and well-disposed sovereigns, ministers, and public
+officers, our Government and its representative became less and less
+willing to comply with their requisitions for the aid of British
+troops in the collection of the revenue, and the suppression of
+rebellion and disorder. Our Government demanded, that the British
+Resident should be fully informed of the cause which led to the
+resistance complained of to legitimate authority; and be fully
+satisfied of the justice and necessity of such aid before he afforded
+it; and the sovereigns of Oude admitted the justice of this demand on
+the part of the paramount power. But the Resident could never hear
+fully and fairly both sides of the question, and the officers
+commanding the troops were seldom disposed to do so; and neither was
+competent to pass a sound judgment upon the justice and necessity of
+complying with the requisitions made for the aid of the British
+troops.
+
+But when, under an imbecile and debauched sovereign, like Ghazee-od
+Deen, and an unscrupulous minister, creatures and favourites began to
+share so largely in the revenues of the country, this sort of
+scrutiny on the part of the Resident and officers commanding troops,
+employed in aid of the King's officers, became exceedingly
+distasteful; and the minister gradually increased the military force
+of Oude at his disposal, that he might do without it. During the last
+few years of Ghazee-od Deen's reign, the Oude forces of all arms
+amounted to about sixty thousand men. During the first few years of
+his successor's, Nuseer-od Deen's, reign, these forces were augmented
+by the ministers for the sake of the profit and patronage they gave
+them; and in the year 1837, the forces of all arms, paid from the
+treasury, amounted to more than sixty thousand men. A memorandum
+given to the British Resident by the minister on the 8th of April
+1837, showed the men of all descriptions, belonging to the Oude army,
+to amount to sixty-seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-six. The
+artillery, cavalry, and infantry, composing what they call the
+regular army, amounted to twenty thousand, all badly paid, clothed,
+armed, accoutred, and disciplined; and for the most part placed under
+idle, incompetent, and corrupt commanders. The rest were nujeebs
+employed in the provinces under local officers of the revenue and
+police, and obliged to provide their own clothes, arms,
+accoutrements, and ammunition. They were altogether without
+discipline.
+
+Government, on the 26th November, 1824, informs the Resident, "that
+our troops are to be actively and energetically employed in the Oude
+territory in cases of real internal commotion and disorder." And
+again on the 22nd of July, 1825; Government condemns the Resident for
+his disregard of the orders of the 26th of November, 1824, regarding
+the employment of British troops in Oude, and states, "that it is
+sincerely disposed to maintain the rights of the King of Oude to the
+fullest extent, as guaranteed to him by the treaty with his father,
+on the 20th of November, 1801; but observes, that upon the maturest
+consideration of articles 3rd, 5th, and 6th of that treaty, and of
+Lord Wellesley's memorandum in 1802, of the final results of
+discussions between him and Saadut Allee, whilst Government admits
+that, according to article the 3rd of the treaty, we were bound to
+defend his Majesty's present territories 'against all foreign and
+domestic enemies,' and that, in pursuance of the 4th article, the
+Company's troops are to be employed, without expense to his Majesty,
+not only 'to repel the attack, or menaced attack, of a foreign
+enemy,' but also for suppressing rebellion and disorder in his
+Majesty's territories; and that, in a strict adherence to the 6th
+article, the King of Oude is entitled to exercise complete sovereign
+authority within his own dominions, by a system of administration
+conducive to the prosperity of his subjects, to be carried into
+effect by his own officers, with the advice and counsel of the
+officers of the British Government (in conformity to which his
+Majesty is expressly engaged to act); yet the Governor-General in
+council considered it to be indispensable and inherent in the nature
+of our obligations, under the treaty referred to, that whenever the
+King of Oude requires the aid of British troops, to quell any
+disturbance, or to enforce any demand for revenue or otherwise, the
+British Government is clearly entitled, as well as morally obliged,
+to satisfy itself by whatever means it may deem necessary, that the
+aid of its troops is required in support of right and justice, and
+not to effectuate injustice and extortion.
+
+"This principle, which has often been declared and acted upon daring
+successive Governments, must still be firmly asserted, and resolutely
+adhered to; and the Resident must consider it to be a positive and
+indispensable obligation of his public duty, to refuse the aid of
+British troops until he shall have satisfied himself, on good and
+sufficient grounds (to be reported in each case as soon as
+practicable, and when the exigency of the case may admit of it,
+before the troops are actually employed), that they are not to be
+employed but in support of just and legitimate demands."
+
+On the 13th of July, 1827, Government, in reply to the Resident's
+letter of the 30th May idem, expresses "its surprise that, under the
+circumstances therein stated, he should have suffered so long a
+period to elapse without adopting the most active and decided
+measures against a subject of Oude, whose conduct is that of a public
+robber and rebel against the authority of his Government; and whom
+the King has plainly stated that he is unable to reduce to subjection
+without the aid of British troops."
+
+On the 20th of January, 1831, the Governor-General, Lord William
+Bentinck, held a conference with the King of Oude, and told his
+Majesty, in presence of his minister, that the state of things in
+Oude, and maladministration in all departments, were such as to
+warrant and require the authoritative interference of the British
+Government for their correction; that he declined to make himself a
+party to the nomination of the minister, or to have it understood
+that the measure was a joint resolution of the two governments, so
+that both should be responsible for its success in effecting
+reformation; that the act was his Majesty's own, and the
+responsibility must be his; that his Lordship hoped that a better
+system would be established by his minister's agency, but if he
+failed, and the same abuses and misrule continued, the King must be
+prepared to abide the consequences; that the Governor-General
+intended to make a strong representation to the authorities in
+England on the state of misrule prevailing, and to solicit their
+sanction to the adoption of specific measures, even to the length of
+assuming the direct administration of the country, if the evils were
+not corrected in the interim.
+
+In the letter from Government dated the 25th of August, 1831,
+referring to this advice, the Resident is told that by treaty we are
+bound to give the aid of troops to quell internal resistance, as well
+as to keep off external enemies, but by the same treaty the Oude
+Government is bound to establish a good system of administration, and
+to conform to our advice in this respect; that, finding it impossible
+to procure the establishment of such an improved system, and seeing
+that our troops were liable to be made the instruments of violence,
+and vindictive and party proceedings, it was determined to withhold
+the aid of troops except after investigation into the cause which
+might lead to the application for them; that, by recent orders from
+the Court of Directors, the Government would be authorised in
+withholding them altogether, in the hope that the necessities of the
+Oude Government might compel a reform such as we might deem
+satisfactory; that matters had not, however, been brought to such an
+issue, for the Oude Government having been deprived of the services
+of British troops to execute its purposes, has entertained a body
+stated at sixty thousand men, cavalry, infantry, and artillery,
+whereof forty-five thousand are stationed in the interior for the
+special purpose of reducing refractory zumeendars without British
+aid. Government urges the necessity of reducing this number, and
+states that if British troops be employed 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; it is therefore required that each case shall be
+investigated and submitted for the specific orders of the Governor-
+General.
+
+On the 15th of August, 1832, the Governor-General addressed a letter
+to his Majesty, the King of Oude, in the last sentence of which he
+says, "I do not use this strong language of remonstrance without
+manifest necessity. On former occasions the language of expostulation
+has been frequently used towards you with reference to the abuses of
+your Government, and as yet nothing serious has befallen you. I
+beseech you, however, not to suffer yourself to be deceived into a
+false security. I might adduce sufficient proof that such security
+would be fallacious, but I am unwilling to wound your Majesty's
+feelings, while the sincere friendship which I entertain for you
+prevents my withholding from you that advice which I deem essential
+to the preservation of your own dignity, and the prosperity of your
+kingdom."
+
+The Resident is told that the allusion in the concluding sentence of
+his Lordship's letter refers to Mysore; that the King had probably
+heard of our actual assumption of the government of that country, and
+the Resident must avail himself of this topic to impress upon-his
+mind the consequences which a similar state of things may entail upon
+himself.
+
+On the 11th of September, 1837, a subsidiary-treaty was concluded
+with the new sovereign, Mahommed Allee Shah, on the ground that
+though a larger force was kept up by the King of Oude than was
+authorised by the treaty of 1801, still it was found inadequate to
+the duties that devolved upon it, and it was therefore expedient to
+relax the restrictions as to the amount of military force to be
+maintained by the King of Oude, on condition that an adequate portion
+of the increased forces should be placed under British discipline and
+control. It was stipulated accordingly that the King might employ
+such a military establishment as he might deem necessary for the
+government of his dominion: that it should consist of not less than
+two regiments of cavalry, five of infantry, and two companies of
+artillery; that the Government of Oude should fix the sum of sixteen
+lacs of rupees a-year for the expenses of the force, including their
+pay, arms, equipments, public buildings, &c.; that the expenditure on
+account of this force of all descriptions should never exceed sixteen
+lacs; that the organization of this force should not commence till
+eighteen months after the 1st of September, 1837; that the King
+should take into his service an efficient number of British officers
+for the due discipline and efficiency of this force; that this force
+should be fixed at such stations in Oude as might seem to both
+Governments, from time to time, to be best, and employed on all
+occasions on which its services might be deemed necessary by the King
+of Oude, with the concurrence of the Resident, but not in the
+ordinary collections of the revenue; that the King should exert
+himself, in concert with the Resident, to remedy the existing defects
+in his administration; and should he neglect to attend to the advice
+and counsel of the British Government, or its representative, and
+should gross and systematic oppression, anarchy, and misrule, at any
+time hereafter prevail within the Oude territories, such as seriously
+to endanger the public tranquillity, the British Government would
+have the right to appoint its own officers to the management of all
+portions of the Oude territory in which such misrule might have
+occurred for so long a period as it might deem necessary, the surplus
+receipts in such case, after defraying all charges, to be paid into
+the King's treasury, and a true and faithful account rendered to his
+Majesty of the receipts and expenditure of the territories so
+assumed; that should the Governor-General of India in Council be
+compelled to resort to the exercise of this authority, he would
+endeavour, as far as possible, to maintain (with such improvements as
+they might admit of) the native institutions and forms of
+administration within the assumed territories, so as to facilitate
+the restoration of those territories to the sovereign of Oude when
+the proper period of such restoration should arrive.
+
+This treaty was ratified by the Governor-General in Council on the
+18th of September, 1837, but the Honourable the Court of Directors,
+with that anxious regard for strict justice which, after long and
+varied experience, I have always found to characterise their views
+and orders, disapproved of that part of the above treaty which
+imposed on the Oude state the expense of the auxiliary force; and on
+the 8th of July, 1839, the King was informed, amidst great
+rejoicings, that he was relieved from this burthen of sixteen lacs of
+rupees a-year, which the British Government took upon itself. Only
+part of this auxiliary force had been raised when these orders came,
+and only two regiments of infantry out of that part were retained,
+one stationed at Soltanpore, and the other at Seetapore.
+
+Up to 1835, the British forces in Oude amounted to two companies of
+artillery, with fourteen guns, and six regiments of infantry. Early
+in that year (1835), four guns, with a proportion of artillerymen,
+and one regiment of Native Infantry, were withdrawn, leaving the
+British force in Oude one company and a-half of artillery, with ten
+guns, and five regiments of Native Infantry. In 1837, when two
+infantry regiments of the auxiliary force had been raised, four guns
+more, with a detail of artillery, and two regiments more of Native
+Infantry were withdrawn from the two stations of Soltanpore and
+Seetapore, leaving the force paid by the British Government one
+company of artillery, with six guns, stationed at Lucknow, three
+regiments of Native Infantry at Lucknow, one regiment of the Oude
+auxiliary force stationed at Soltanpore, and the other at Seetapore.
+There had been artillery and guns at Pertabgur, Soltanpore, Secrora
+and Seetapore, and a regiment of regular cavalry at Pertabgur. In
+1815 this regiment of cavalry was withdrawn for the Nepaul war, and
+subsequently it was retained for the Mahratta war. It was sent back
+to Pertabgur in 1820, but finally withdrawn in 1821. The British
+Government now maintains no cavalry in any part of the King of Oude's
+dominions, and no artillery or guns at any place but Lucknow.*
+
+[* There is a small detachment of thirty sowars from an irregular
+corps attached to the Resident.]
+
+In fairness there should be guns at Seetapore and Soltanpore, and a
+corps of regular or irregular cavalry at Lucknow, or some other more
+convenient station. The stations of Secrora and Pertabgur were done
+away with by general orders 28th January, 1835, when one regiment of
+Native Infantry was withdrawn altogether from Oude, and one added to
+the two theretofore stationed at Lucknow. In consequence of these
+arrangements, the British force in Oude is much less than it was when
+the treaty of the 11th of September, 1837, was made, and assuredly
+less than it should be with a due regard to our engagements and the
+Oude requirements. Our Government instead of taking upon itself the
+additional burthen of sixteen lacs of rupees a-year to render the
+Oude Government more efficient, has relieved itself of a good deal of
+that which it bore before the new treaty was entered into, and this
+is certainly not what the Court of Directors contemplated, or the
+Oude Government expected.
+
+Our exigencies became great with the Affghan war, and have continued
+to be so from those wars which grew out of it with Gwalior, Scinde,
+and the Punjab; but they have all now passed away, and those of our
+humble ally should be no longer forgotten or disregarded. Though we
+seldom give him the use of troops in support of the authority of his
+local officers, still the prestige of having them at hand, in support
+of a just cause, is unquestionably of great advantage to him and to
+his people, and this advantage we cannot withhold from him with a due
+regard to the obligations of solemn treaties.
+
+But in considering the rights which the sovereign of Oude has
+acquired by solemn treaties to our support, we must not forget those
+which the five millions of people subject to his rule have acquired
+by the same treaties to the protection of our Government, and it is a
+grave question, that must soon be solved, whether we can any longer
+support the present sovereign and system of government in Oude,
+without subjecting ourselves to the reproach of shamefully neglecting
+the duties we owe to these millions.
+
+The present King ascended the throne on the death of his father, on
+the 13th of February, 1847. In a letter dated the 24th of July of
+that year, the Resident is told "that it will be his Majesty's duty
+to establish such an administration, to be carried out by his own
+officers, as shall insure the prosperity of the people; that any
+neglect of this essential principle will be an infringement of
+treaty; and that the Governor-General must, in the performance of his
+duty, require the King to fulfil his obligations to his subjects--
+that his Majesty must understand that, as a sovereign, he has duties
+to perform to, as well as claims to exact from, the people committed
+to his care."
+
+In the month of November in that year, the Governor-General. Lord
+Hardinge, visited Lucknow; and in a conference held with the King, he
+caused a memorandum which he had drawn up for the occasion to be read
+and carefully explained to his Majesty. It stated, "that in all our
+engagements the utmost care had always been taken, not only to uphold
+the authority of native rulers, but also to secure the just rights of
+the people subject to their rule; that the same principle is
+maintained in the treaty of 1801 with Oude, in the sixth paragraph of
+which the engagement is entered into 'for the establishment of such a
+system of government as shall be conducive to the prosperity of the
+King's subjects, and calculated to secure to them their lives and
+properties;' that in the memorandum of 1802, signed by the Governor-
+General, the King engages to establish judicial tribunals for the
+free and pure administration of justice to all his subjects; and that
+it is recorded in the sovereign's own hand in that document, 'let the
+Company's officers assist in enforcing obedience to these tribunals;'
+that it is, therefore, evident that in all these stipulations the
+same principle prevailed--namely, that while we engage to maintain
+the prince in the full exercise of his powers, we also provide for
+the protection of his people.
+
+"That, in the more recent treaty of 1837, it is stated that the
+solemn and paramount obligation provided by treaty for the prosperity
+of his Majesty's subjects, and the security of the lives and property
+of the inhabitants, has been notoriously neglected by several
+successive rulers in Oude, thereby exposing the British Government to
+the reproach of having imperfectly fulfilled its obligations towards
+the Oude people; that his Lordship alludes to the treaty of 1837, as
+confirming the original treaty of 1801, and not only giving the
+British Government the right to interfere, but declaring it to be the
+intention of the Government to interfere, if necessary, for the
+purpose of securing good government in Oude; that the King can,
+therefore, have no doubt that the Governor-General is not only
+justified, but bound by his duty, to take care that the stipulations
+provided by treaty shall be fairly and substantially carried into
+effect; that if the Governor-General permits the continuation of any
+flagrant system of mismanagement which by treaty he is empowered to
+correct, he becomes the participator in abuses which it is his duty
+to redress; and in this case no ruler of Oude can expect the
+Governor-General to incur a responsibility so repugnant to the
+principles of the British Government, and so odious to the feelings
+of the British people.
+
+"That, in the discussion of this important subject, advice and
+remonstrance have been frequently tried, and have failed; that the
+Governor-General hopes that the King will exercise a sounder judgment
+than those who have preceded him, and that he will not be compelled
+to exchange friendly advice for imperative and absolute interference;
+that when the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, had a
+conference with the former King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, on this
+subject, on the 20th of January, 1831, he deemed it right frankly to
+inform him that if the warning which he then gave was disregarded by
+his Majesty, it was his intention to submit to the home authorities
+his advice that the British Government should assume the direct
+management of the Oude dominions; that the Honourable the Court of
+Directors coincided in his Lordship's views and, in order that no
+doubt may remain on the King's mind as to the sentiments of the home
+authorities on this point, he, Lord Hardinge, here inserts an extract
+from the despatch of that Court, for his information; that it is as
+follows:-- 'We have, after the most serious consideration, come to
+the determination of granting to you the discretionary power which
+you have requested, from us for placing the Oude territories under
+the direct management of officers of the British Government; and you
+are hereby empowered, if no real and satisfactory improvement shall
+have taken place in the administration of that country, and if your
+Government shall still adhere to the opinion expressed in the minute
+of the Governor-General, to carry the proposed measure into effect,
+at such period and in such manner as shall appear to you most
+desirable;' that this resolution was communicated to the Resident and
+to the King, and advantage was taken of it to press upon his Majesty
+the necessity of an immediate reform of his administration; that the
+above extract will enable the King to form a clear judgment of the
+position in which the sovereigns of Oude are placed by treaty; that
+the Governor-General is required, when gross and systematic abuses
+prevail, to apply such a remedy as the exigency of the case may
+appear to require--that he has no option in the performance of that
+duty.
+
+"That by wisely taking timely measures for the reformation of abuses,
+as one of the first acts of his reign, his Majesty will, with honour
+to his own character, rescue his people from their present miserable
+condition; but if he procrastinates he will incur the risk of forcing
+the British Government to interfere, by assuming the government of
+Oude; that the former course would redound to his Majesty's credit
+and dignity, while the latter would give the British Government
+concern in the case of a prince whom, as our ally, we sincerely
+desire to honour and uphold; that for these reasons, and on account
+of the King's inexperience, the Governor-General is not disposed to
+act immediately on the power vested in him by the Honourable Court's
+despatch above quoted, still less is he disposed to hold him
+responsible for the misrule of his predecessors, nor does he expect
+that so inveterate a system of misgovernment can suddenly be
+eradicated; that the resolution, and the preliminary measures 'to
+effect this purpose,' can and ought at once to be adopted by the
+King; that if his Majesty cordially enters into the plan suggested by
+the Governor-General for the improvement of his administration, he
+may have the satisfaction, within the period specified of two years,
+of checking and eradicating the worst abuses, and, at the same time,
+of maintaining his own sovereignty and the native institutions of his
+kingdom unimpaired; but if he does not, if he takes a vacillating
+course, and fail by refusing to act on the Governor-General's advice,
+he is aware of the other alternative and of the consequences. It
+must, then, be manifest to the whole world that, whatever may happen,
+the King has received a friendly and timely warning."
+
+On the 24th of December in that year, 1847, Government, in reply to
+the Resident's letter of the 30th November, states that it does not
+consider the King's reply in any respect satisfactory; that the
+Resident is to remind his Majesty that under paragraph the 23rd of
+the memorandum read out to him by the Governor-General's direction,
+the Resident has been required to submit periodical reports of the
+state of his dominions, and that his Majesty must be fully aware of
+the responsibility he incurs if he neglects, during the interval
+allowed him, to introduce the requisite reforms in his
+administration.
+
+More than two years have elapsed since this caution was given, and
+the King has done nothing to improve his administration, abstained
+from no personal indulgence, given no attention whatever to public
+affairs. He had before that time tried to imitate his father, attend
+a little to public affairs, and see occasionally the members of the
+royal family and aristocracy, at least of the city, and heads of
+departments; but the effort was painful, and soon ceased altogether
+to be made. He had from boyhood mixed in no other society than that
+in which he now mixes exclusively, and he will never submit to the
+restraints of any other. The King has utterly disregarded alike the
+Governor-General's advice and admonitions, the duties and
+responsibilities of his high office, and the sufferings of the many
+millions subject to his rule. His time and attention are devoted
+entirely to the pursuit of personal gratifications; he associates
+with none but such as those who contribute to such gratifications--
+women, singers, and eunuchs; and he never, I believe, reads or hears
+read any petition from his suffering subjects, any report from his
+local officers civil or military, or presidents of his fiscal and
+judicial courts, or functionaries of any hind. He seems to take no
+interest whatever in public affairs, and to care nothing whatever
+about them.
+
+The King had natural capacity equal to that of any of those who have
+preceded him in the sovereignty of Oude since the death of Saadut
+Allee in 1814, but he is the only one who has systematically declined
+to devote any of that capacity, or any of his time, to the conduct of
+public affairs; to see and occasionally commune with the heads of
+departments, the members of the royal family, and native gentlemen of
+the capital; to read or have read to him the reports of his local
+functionaries, and petitions or redress of wrongs from his suffering
+subjects.*
+
+[*This systematic disregard of his high duties and responsibilities
+still continues to be manifested by the King of Oude; and is
+observed, with feelings of indignation and abhorrence, by his well-
+disposed subjects of all classes and grades, who are thereby left to
+the mercy of men without any feeling of security in their tenure of
+office, any scruples of conscience, or feelings of humanity, or of
+honour. So inveterate is the system of misgovernment--so deeply are
+all those, now employed in the administration, interested in
+maintaining its worst abuses--and so fruitless is it to expect the
+King to remove them, or employ better men, or to be ever able to
+inspire any men, whom he may appoint, with a disposition to serve him
+more honestly, and to respect the rights of others, or consider the
+reputation and permanent interests of their own master, that the
+impression has become strong and general, that our Government can no
+longer support the present Government of Oude, without seriously
+neglecting its duty towards the people.--1851, W. H. S.]
+
+In the reports of the Resident on the state of affairs in Oude, and
+the replies of Government, much importance has been always attached
+to the change from the contract, or _ijara_ system, to that of the
+_amanee_, or trust management system; and since the time of Lord
+Hardinge's visit many more districts have been put under the latter
+system; but this has not tended, in the smallest degree, to the
+benefit of the people of these districts. The same abuses prevail
+under the one system as under the other. The troops employed in the
+districts under the one are the same as those employed in the
+districts under the other, and they prey just as much upon the
+people. There is the same system of rack-rent in the one as in the
+other, and the same uncertainty in the rate of the Government demand.
+The manager under the _amanut_ system demands the same secret
+gratuities and _nuzuranas_ for himself and his patrons at Court from
+the landholders, as the contractor; and if they refuse to pay them
+they are besieged, attacked, and cut up, and their estates desolated
+in the same manner. The _amanut_ manager knows that his tenure of
+office depends as much upon the amount which he pays to his
+sovereign, and to his patrons at Court, as that of the contractor,
+and he exacts and extorts as much as he can in the same manner.
+Unless he pays his patrons the same he knows that he shall soon be
+removed, or driven to resign by the want of means to enforce the
+payment of the revenues justly due.
+
+The objections which are urged against the employment of British
+troops in support of the authority of revenue contractors, are
+equally applicable to their employment in support of that of amanee
+managers. Their employment is just as liable to abuse under the one
+as under the other. It is not a whit easier to ascertain whether a
+demand for balance of revenue from, or a charge of contumacy against,
+a landholder is just or unjust in the one than in the other. In
+neither is the demand set forth in public documents understood by
+either party to be the real demand. Both parties are equally
+interested in preventing a portion of the _real_ demand from
+appearing in the public accounts; and the quarrel is almost always
+about the rate of this concealed portion--the collector trying to
+augment, and the landlord trying to reduce it.
+
+In a letter to the Resident, dated the 29th of March, 1823,
+Government observes: "As some palliation of the mischief of our
+forces being constantly employed in what might be too often termed
+the cause of injustice and extortion, the Government in 1811
+distinctly declared our right of previously investigating, and of
+arbitrating the demands which its troops might be called upon to
+support as also its resolution to exercise that right on all future
+occasions. The execution of the important duty in question seems to
+be almost invariably delegated by the Resident to the officers
+commanding at the different stations, who, after receiving general
+powers to attend to the requisitions of the amils, become the sole
+judges of the individual cases, in which aid is to be afforded or
+withheld; and the discretion again unavoidably descends from them, in
+many instances, to the officers commanding parties detached from the
+main body. It is obvious that an inquiry of this description can
+afford but a partial check to, and a feeble security against,
+injustice and oppression where specific engagements rarely exist, and
+where the point at issue is frequently the demand for augmenting
+rates of revenue, founded on alleged assets sufficient to meet that
+increase.
+
+"Neither is the aid thus afforded at all effectual for the purposes
+of the Government of Oude, whether present or future, as is clear
+from the annual repetition of the same scenes of resistance and
+compulsion. As fast as disorders are suppressed in one quarter they
+spring up in another. Forts that are this year dismantled are
+restored again the next; the compulsion exercised upon particular
+individuals in one season has no effect in producing more regularity
+on their parts, or on that of others in the ensuing season, until the
+same process has been again gone through; whilst the contempt and
+odium attaching to a system of collecting the revenues, by the
+habitual intervention of the troops of another State, infallibly tend
+to aggravate the evil, by destroying all remains of confidence in his
+Majesty, or respect for his authority."
+
+The aid of British troops in the collection of the revenues of Oude
+has long ceased to be afforded; but when they have been afforded for
+the suppression of leaders of atrocious bands of robbers, who preyed
+upon the people, and seized upon the lands of their weaker
+neighbours, and they have been driven from their forts and
+strongholds, the privilege of building them up again, or re-occupying
+and garrisoning them with the same bands of robbers, to be employed
+in the same way, is purchased from the local authorities, or the
+patrons of these leaders at Court, during the same or the succeeding
+season. The same things continue to be done every season where no
+British troops are employed. Such privileges are purchased with as
+much facility as those for the supply of essence or spices in the
+palace; unless the Resident should interpose authoritatively to
+prevent it, which he very rarely does. Indeed it is seldom that a
+Resident knows or cares anything about the matter.
+
+I may say generally, that in Oude the larger landholders do not pay
+more than one-third of their net rents to the Government, while some
+of them do not pay one-fifth or one-tenth. In the half of the
+territory made over to us in 1801, the great landholders who still
+retain their estates pay to our Government at least two-thirds of
+their net rents. In Oude these great landholders have, at present,
+about two hundred and fifty mud forts, mounting about five hundred
+guns, and containing on an average four hundred armed men, or a total
+of one hundred thousand, trained and maintained to fight against
+other, or against the Government authorities; and to pillage the
+peaceful and industrious around whenever so employed. In the half of
+the territory ceded to us in 1801, this class of armed retainers has
+disappeared altogether. Hence from the Oude half we have some fifty
+thousand native officers and sipahees in our native army, while from
+our half we have not perhaps five thousand.
+
+One thing is clear, that we cannot restore to the Oude Government the
+territory we acquired from it by the treaty of 1801, and the people
+who occupy it; and that we cannot withdraw our support from that
+Government altogether without doing so. It is no less clear that all
+our efforts to make the Government of Oude, under the support which
+we are bound by that treaty to give it, fulfil the duties to its
+people to which it was pledged by that treaty, have failed during the
+fifty years that have elapsed since it was made.
+
+The only alternative left, appears to be for the paramount power to
+take upon itself the administration, and give to the sovereign, the
+royal family, and its stipendiary dependents, all the surplus
+revenues in pensions, opening as much as possible all employments in
+the civil administration to the educated classes of Oude. The
+military and police establishments would consist almost exclusively
+of Oude men. Under such a system more of these classes would be
+employed than at present, for few of the officers employed in the
+administration are of these classes--the greater part of them are
+adventurers from all parts of India, without character or education.
+The number of such officers would be multiplied fourfold, and the
+means of paying them would be taken from the favourites and parasites
+of the Court who now do nothing but mischief.
+
+Such a change would be popular among the members of the royal family
+itself, who now get their pensions after long intervals--often after
+two and even three years, and with shameful reductions in behalf of
+those favourites and parasites whom they detest and despise, but whom
+the minister, for his own personal purposes, is obliged to conciliate
+by such perquisites. It would be popular among the educated classes,
+as opening to them offices now filled by knaves and vagabonds from
+all parts of India, It would be no less so to the well-disposed
+portion of the agricultural classes, who would be sure of protection
+to life, property, and character, without the expensive trains of
+armed followers which they now keep up. But to secure this, we should
+require to provide them with a more simple system of civil judicature
+than that which we have at work in our old territories.
+
+The change would be popular, with few exceptions, among all the
+mercantile and manufacturing classes. It would give vast employment
+to all the labouring classes throughout the country, in the
+construction of good roads, bridges, wells, tanks, temples, suraes,
+military and civil buildings, and other public works; but above all,
+in that of private dwellings, and other edifices for use and
+ornament, in which all men would be proud to lay out their wealth to
+perpetuate their names, when secured in the possession by an honest
+and efficient Government; but more especially those who would be no
+longer able to employ their means in maintaining armed bands, to
+resist the local authorities and disturb the peace of the country. On
+the whole, I think that at least nine-tenths of the people of Oude
+would hail the change as a great blessing; always providing, that our
+system of administration should be rendered as simple as possible to
+meet the wants and wishes of a simple people.
+
+Though the Resident has never been able to secure any substantial and
+permanent improvement in the administration, he often interposes
+successfully in individual cases, to relieve suffering, and secure
+redress for wrongs; and the people see that he interferes in no
+others. Their only regret is, that he does not interpose more often,
+and that his efforts, when he does, should be so often thwarted or
+disregarded. The British character is, in consequence, respected in
+the remotest village and jungle in Oude; and there is, I believe, no
+part of India where an European officer is received, among the people
+of all classes, with more kindness and courtesy than in Oude. There
+is, certainly, no city or town in any other native State in India
+where he is treated in the crowded streets with more respect. This
+must of course be accounted for in great measure from the greater
+part of the members of the royal family, and the relatives and
+dependents of the several persons who have held the highest offices
+of the State since 1814, either receiving their incomes from the
+British Government in treaty pensions, or in interest on our
+Government securities, or being guaranteed in those which they
+receive from the Oude Government by ours. A great many of the
+families of the middle classes depend entirely upon the interest
+which they receive from us on our Government securities. There is,
+indeed, hardly a respectable family in Lucknow that is not more or
+less dependent upon our Government for protection, and proud to have
+it considered that they are so. The works and institutions which
+would soon be created out of revenues, now absorbed by worthless
+Court favourites, would soon embellish the face of the country,
+improve the character, condition, and habits of the people, stimulate
+their industry in agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; and render
+our connection with the Oude Government honourable to our name in the
+estimation of all India.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+
+_February_ 14, 1850.--Peernuggur, ten miles south-east, over a plain
+of the same soil, but with more than the usual proportion of oosur.
+Trees and groves as usual, but not quite so fine or numerous. The
+Nazim of Khyrabad took leave of me on his boundary as we crossed it
+about midway, and entered the district of "Baree Biswa," which is
+held in farm by Lal Bahader,* a Hindoo, who there met us. This fiscal
+officer has under him the "Jafiree," and "Tagfore" Regiments of
+nujeebs, and eight pieces of cannon. The commandants of both corps
+are in attendance at Court, and one of them, Imdad Hoseyn, never
+leaves it. The other does condescend sometimes to come out to look at
+his regiment when _not on service_. The draft-bullocks for the guns
+have, the Nazim tells me, had a little grain within the last month,
+but still not more than a quarter of the amount for which the King is
+charged. Peernuggur is now a place of little note upon the banks of
+the little river Sae, which here flows under a bridge built by Asuf-
+od Dowlah some sixty years ago.
+
+[* This man was in prison at Lucknow as a defaulter, but made his
+escape in October, 1851, by drugging the sentry placed over him, and
+got safe into British territory.]
+
+Gang-robberies are here as frequent as in Khyrabad, and the
+respectable inhabitants are going off in the same manner. One which
+took place in July last year is characteristic of the state of
+society in Oude, and may be mentioned here. Twelve sipahees of the
+59th Regiment Native Infantry, then stationed at Bareilly, lodged
+here for the night, in a surae, on their way home on furlough. Dal
+Partuk, a Brahmin by caste, and a man of strength and resolution,
+resided here and cultivated a small patch of land. He had two pair of
+bullocks, which used to be continually trespassing upon other men's
+fields and gardens, and embroiling him with the people, till one
+night they disappeared. Dal Partuk called upon his neighbours, who
+had suffered from their trespasses, to restore them or pay the value,
+and threatened to rob, plunder, and burn down the town if they did
+not.
+
+A great number of pausees reside in and around the town, and he knew
+that he could collect a gang of them for any enterprise of this sort
+at the shortest notice. The people were not disposed to pay the value
+of his lost bullocks, and they could not be found. While he was
+meditating his revenge, his relation, Dhokul Partuk, was by a
+trifling accident driven to take the field as a robber. An oil-
+vender, a female, from a neighbouring village, had presumed to come
+to Peernuggur, and offer oil for sale. The oil-venders of the town,
+dreading the consequences of such competition, went forthwith to the
+little garrison and prayed for _protection_. One of the sipahees went
+off to the silversmith to whom the oil-vender had sold twopence-worth
+of oil, and, finding the oil-vender still with him, proceeded at once
+to seize both, and take them off to the garrison as criminals. Dhokul
+Partuk, who lived close by, and had his sword by his side, went up
+and remonstrated with the sipahee, who, taking him to be another
+silversmith, struck him across the face with his stick. Dhokul drew
+his sword, and made a cut at the sipahee, which would have severed
+his head from his body had he not fallen backwards. As it was, he got
+a severe cut in the chest, and ran off to his companions. Dhokul went
+out of the town with his drawn sword, and no one dared to pursue him.
+At night he returned, took off his family to a distant village,
+became a leader of a band of pausee bowmen, and invited his kinsman,
+Dal Partuk, to follow his example.
+
+Together, they made an attack at night upon the town, and burnt down
+one quarter of the houses. Dal Partuk offered to come to terms and
+live in the town again, if the people would pay the value of his lost
+bullocks, and give him a small income of five rupees a-month. This
+they refused to do, and the plunder and burning went on. At last they
+made this attack upon the party in the surae, which happened to be so
+full that several of the sipahees and others were cooking outside the
+walls. None of the travellers had arms to defend themselves, and
+those inside closed the doors as soon as they heard the alarm. The
+pausees, with their bows and arrows, killed two of the sipahees who
+were outside, and while the gang was trying to force open the doors
+of the surae, the people of the town, headed by a party of eight
+pausee bowmen of their own, attacked and drove them back. These
+bowmen followed the gang for some distance, and killed several of
+them with their arrows. The sipahees who escaped proceeded in all
+haste to the Resident, and the Frontier Police has since succeeded in
+arresting several of the gang; but the two leaders have hitherto been
+screened by Goorbuksh Sing and other great landholders in their
+interest. The eight pausees who exerted themselves so successfully in
+defence of the town and surae were expecting an attack from the
+pausees of a neighbouring village, and ready for action when the
+alarm was given.
+
+These parties of pausee bowmen have each under their charge a certain
+number of villages, whose crops and other property they are pledged
+to defend for the payment of a certain sum, or a certain portion of
+land rent-free. In one of these, under the Peernuggur party, three
+bullocks had been stolen by the pausees of a neighbouring town. They
+were traced to them, and, as they would neither restore them nor pay
+their value, the Peernuggur party attacked them one night in their
+sleep, and killed the leader and four of his followers, to deter
+others of the tribe from trespassing on property under their charge.
+They expect, they told us, to be attacked in return some night, and
+are obliged to be always prepared, but have not the slightest
+apprehension of ever being called to account for such things by the
+officers of Government. Nor would Dal and Dhokul Partuk have any such
+apprehension, had not the Resident taken up the question of the
+murder of the Honourable Company's sipahees as an international one.
+After plundering and burning down a dozen villages, and murdering a
+score or two of people, they would have come back and reoccupied
+their houses in the town without any fear of being molested or
+_questioned_ by Government officers. Nor would the people of the town
+object to their residing among them again, provided they pledged
+themselves to abstain in future from molesting them. Goorbuksh Sing,
+only a few days ago, offered the contractor, Hoseyn Allee, the sum of
+five thousand, rupees if he would satisfy the Resident that Dal
+Partuk had nothing whatever to do with the Peernuggur dacoitee, and
+thereby induce him to discontinue the pursuit.*
+
+[* Dhokul Partuk and Dal Partuk were at last secured. Dhokul died in
+the king's gaol, but Dal Partuk is still in prison under trial.]
+
+The people of towns and villages, having no protection whatever from
+the Government, are obliged to keep up, at their own cost, this
+police of pausee bowmen, who are bound only to protect those who pay
+them. As their families increase beyond the means derived from this,
+their only legitimate employment, their members thieve in the
+neighbouring or distant villages, rob on the highroads, or join the
+gangs of those who are robbers by profession, or take the trade in
+consequence of disputes and misunderstandings with Government
+authorities or their neighbours. In Oude--and indeed in all other
+parts of India, under a Government so weak and indifferent to the
+sufferings of its subjects--all men who consider arms to be their
+proper profession think themselves justified in using them to extort
+the means of subsistence from those who have property when they have
+none, and can no longer find what they consider to be suitable
+employment. All Rajpoots are of this class, and the greater part of
+the landholders in Oude are Rajpoots. But a great part of the
+Mahommedan rural population are of the same class, and no small
+portion of the Brahmin inhabitants, like the two Partuks above named,
+consider arms to be their proper profession; and all find the ready
+means of forming gangs of robbers out of these pausee bowmen and the
+many loose characters to whom the disorders of the country give rise.
+
+A great many of the officers and sipahees of the King's nujeeb and
+other regiments are every month discharged for mutiny,
+insubordination, abuse of authority, or neglect of duty, or merely to
+make room for men more subservient to Court favourites, or because
+they cannot or will not pay the demanded gratuity to a new and
+useless commandant appointed by Court favour. The plunder of villages
+has been the daily occupation of these men during the whole period of
+their service, and they become the worst of this class of loose
+characters, ready to join any band of freebooters. Such bands are
+always sure to find a patron among the landholders ready to receive
+and protect them, for a due share of their booty, against any force
+that the King's officers may send after them; and, if they prefer it
+as less costly, they can always find a manager of a district ready to
+do the same, on condition that they abstain from plundering within
+his jurisdiction. The greater part of the land is, however,
+cultivated, and well cultivated under all this confusion and
+consequent insecurity. Tillage is the one thing needful to all, and
+the persons from whom trespasses on the crops are most apprehended
+are the reckless and disorderly trains of Government officials.
+
+_February_ 16, 1850.--Biswa, eighteen miles east, over a plain of
+excellent soil, partly doomut, but chiefly mutteear, well studded
+with trees and groves, scantily cultivated for the half of the way,
+but fully and beautifully for the second half. The wheat beginning to
+change colour as it approaches maturity, and waving in the gentle
+morning breeze; intervening fields covered with mixed crops of peas,
+gram, ulsee, teora, surson, mustard, all in flower, and glittering
+like so many rich parterres; patches here and there of the dark-green
+_arahur_ and yellow sugar-cane rising in bold relief; mango-groves,
+majestic single trees, and clusters of the graceful bamboo studding
+the whole surface, and closing the distant horizon in one seemingly-
+continued line of fence--the eye never tires of such a scene, but
+would like now and then to rest upon some architectural work of
+ornament or utility to aid the imagination in peopling it.
+
+The road for the last six miles passes through the estate of Nawab
+Allee, a Mahommedan landholder, who is a strong man and a good
+manager and paymaster. His rent-roll is about four hundred thousand
+rupees a-year, and he pays Government about one hundred and fifty
+thousand. His hereditary possession was a small one, and his estate
+has grown to the present size in the usual way. He has lent money in
+mortgage and foreclosed; he has given security for revenue due to
+Government by other landholders, who have failed to pay, and had
+their estates made over to him; he has given security for the
+appearance, when called for, of others, and, on their failing to
+appear (perchance at his own instigation), had their lands made over
+to him by the Government authorities, on condition of making good the
+Government demand upon them; he has offered a higher rate of revenue
+for lands than present holders could make them yield, and, after
+getting possession, brought the demand down to a low rate in
+collusion with Government officers. Some three-fourths of the
+magnificent estate which he now holds he has obtained in these and
+other ways by fraud, violence, or collusion within the last few
+years. He is too powerful and wealthy to admit of any one's getting
+his lands out of his hands after they have once passed into them, no
+matter how.
+
+The Chowka river flows from the forest towards the Ghagra, about ten
+miles to the east from Biswa, and I am told that the richest sheet of
+cultivation in Oude is within the delta formed by these two rivers.*
+At the apex of this delta stands the fort of Bhitolee, which I have
+often mentioned as belonging to Rajah Goorbuksh Sing, and being under
+siege by the contractor of the Khyrabad district when we passed the
+Ghagra in December. Biswa is a large town, well situated on a good
+soil and open plain, and its vicinity would be well suited for a
+cantonment or seat for civil establishments. Much of the cloth called
+sullum used to be made here for export to Europe, but the demand has
+ceased, and with it the manufacture.
+
+[* This delta contains the following noble estates; 1, Dhorehra; 2,
+Eesanuggur; 3, Chehlary; 4, Rampore; 5, Bhitolee; 6, Mullahpore; 7,
+Seonta; 8, Nigaseen; and 9, Bhera Jugdeopore. The Turae forest forms
+the base of this delta, and the estates of Dhorehra, Eesanuggur, and
+Bhera Jugdeopore lie along its border. They have been much injured by
+the King's troops within the last three years. Bhitolee is at the
+apex.]
+
+_February_ 17 _and_ 18, 1850.--Detained at Biswa by rain.
+
+_February_ 19, 1850.--Yesterday evening came to Kaharpore, ten miles,
+over a plain of the same fine soil, mutteear of the best quality,
+running here and there into doomutteea and even bhoor. Cultivation
+good, and the plain covered with rich spring crops, except where the
+ground is being prepared to receive the autumn seed in June next. It
+is considered good husbandry to-plough, cross-plough, and prepare the
+lands thus early. The spring crops are considered to be more
+promising than they have been at any other season for the last twenty
+years. The farmers and cultivators calculate upon an average return
+of ten and twelve fold, and say that, in other parts of Oude where
+the lands are richer, there will be one of fifteen or twenty of
+wheat, gram, &c. The pucka-beega, two thousand seven hundred and
+fifty-six square yards, requires one maund of seed of forty seers, of
+eighty rupees of the King's and Company's coinage the seer.* The
+country, as usual, studded with trees, single, and in clusters and
+groves, intermingled with bamboos, which are, however, for the most
+part, of the smaller or hill kind.
+
+[* The pucka-beega in Oude is about the same as that which prevails
+over our North-Western Provinces, two thousand seven hundred and
+fifty-six and a quarter square yards, or something more than one-half
+of our English statute acre, which is four thousand eight hundred and
+forty square yards. This pucka-beega takes of seed-wheat one maund,
+or eighty pounds; and yields on an average, under good tillage, eight
+returns of the seed, or eight maunds, or six hundred and forty
+pounds, which, at one rupee the maund, yields eight rupees, or
+sixteen shillings. The stock required in Oude in irrigated lands is
+about twenty rupees the pucka-beega. The rent on an average two
+rupees. In England an acre, on an average, requires two and three-
+quarter bushels of seed wheat, or one hundred and seventy-six pounds,
+or two maunds and sixteen seers, and yields twenty-four bushels, or
+one thousand five hundred and thirty-six pounds. This at forty
+shillings the quarter (512 lbs.) would yield six pounds sterling. The
+stock required in England is estimated at ten pounds Sterling per
+acre, or ten times the annual rent. It is difficult to estimate the
+rate of rent on land in England, since the reputed owner is said to
+be "only the ninth and last recipient of rent."]
+
+On reaching camp, I met, for the first time, the great landholder,
+Nawab Allee, of Mahmoodabad. In appearance, he is a quiet gentlemanly
+man, of middle age and stature. He keeps his lands in the finest
+possible state of tillage, however objectionable the means by which
+he acquires them. His family have held the estates of Mahmoodabad and
+Belehree for many generations as zumeendars, or proprietors; but they
+have augmented them greatly, absorbing into them the estates of their
+weaker neighbours.*
+
+[* Akram Allee and Muzhur Allee inherited the estate in two
+divisions. Akram Allee got Mahmoodabad, and had two sons, Surufraz
+Allee, who died without issue, before his father; and Mosahib Allee,
+who succeeded to the estate, but died without issue. Muzhur Allee got
+the estate of Belehree, and had two sons, Abud Allee, and Nawab
+Allee. Abud Allee succeeded to the estate of Belehree, and Nawab
+Allee to that of Mahmoodabad by adoption.]
+
+Akram Allee held Mahmoodabad, and was succeeded in the possession by
+his son, Mosahib Allee, who died about forty years ago, leaving the
+estate to his widow, who held it for twenty-eight years up to A.D.
+1838, when she died. She had, the year before, adopted her nephew,
+Nawab Allee, and he succeeded to the estate. The Belehree estate is
+held by his elder brother, Abud Allee, who is augmenting it in the
+same way, but not at the same rate. I may mention a few recent cases,
+as illustrative of the manner in which such things are done in Oude.
+
+Mithun Sing, of an ancient Rajpoot family, held the estate of Semree,
+which had been held by his ancestors for many centuries. It consisted
+of twelve fine villages, paid to Government 4000 rupees a year, and
+yielded him a rent roll of 20,000. Nawab Allee coveted very much this
+estate, which bordered on his own. Three years ago, he instigated the
+Nazim to demand an increase of 5000 rupees a-year from the estate;
+and at the same time invited Mithun Sing to his house, and persuaded
+him to resist the demand, to the last. He took to the jungles, and in
+the contest between him and the Nazim all the crops of the season
+were destroyed, and all the cultivators driven from the lands. When
+the season of tillage returned in June, and Mithun Sing had been
+reduced to the last stage of poverty, Nawab Allee consented to become
+the mediator, got a lease from the Chuckladar for Mithun Sing at 4500
+rupees a-year, and stood surety for the punctual payment of the
+demand. Poor Mithun Sing could pay nothing, and Nawab Allee got
+possession of the estate in liquidation of the balance due to him;
+and assigned to Mithun Sing five hundred pucka-beegas of land for his
+subsistence. He still resides on the estate, and supports his family
+by the tillage of these few beegas.
+
+Amdhun Chowdheree held a share in the estate of Biswa, consisting of
+sixty-five villages; paying to Government 12,000 rupees a-year, and
+yielding a rent-roll of 65,000. His elder brother's widow resided on
+the estate, supported by Amdhun, who managed its affairs for the
+family. Nawab Allee got up a quarrel between her and her brother-in-
+law; and she assumed the right to authorize Nawab Allee to seize upon
+the whole estate. Amdhun appealed to his clan, but Nawab Allee, in
+collusion with the Nazim, was too strong for him, and got possession
+by taking a strong force, and driving out all who presumed to resist
+him. The estate had been held by the family for many centuries.
+
+Mohun Sing held the estate of Mundhuna, which had been in his family
+for many generations. He was, by the usual process, five years ago,
+constrained to accept the security of Nawab Allee for the punctual
+payment of the revenue; and his estate was absorbed in the usual way,
+the year after. He is now, like a boa-constrictor, swallowing up
+Chowdheree Pertab Sing, who holds a large share in the hereditary
+estate of Biswa, which has been in the possession of the family for a
+great many generations. This share consisted of thirty-six villages,
+and paid a revenue to Government of fourteen thousand. Last year,
+Nawab Allee instigated the Nazim to demand ten thousand more. The
+Nazim, to prevent all disputes, assigned the twenty-four thousand to
+Mirza Hoseyn Beg, the commandant of a troop of cavalry, employed
+under him, in liquidation of their arrears of pay. The commandant
+gave him a receipt for the amount, which the Nazim sent to the
+treasury, and got credit for the amount in his accounts. But poor
+Pertab Sing could not pay, and was imprisoned by the cavalry, who
+kept possession of his person, and took upon them the collection of
+his rents. Nawab Allee came in and paid what was due; and gave
+security for the punctual payment of the revenue for the ensuing
+year. The estate was made over to him; and he put on score after
+score of _dustuk_ bearers, who soon reduced Pertab Sing to utter
+beggary. Ten thousand rupees were due to Nawab Allee, and he had
+nothing left to sell; and under such circumstances no man else would
+lend him anything.
+
+The dustuk bearers are servants of the creditor, who are sent to
+attend the debtor, extort from him their wages and subsistence, and
+see that he does not move, eat, or drink till he pays them. During
+this time the creditor saves all the wages of these attendants; and
+they commonly exact double wages from the debtor, so that he is soon
+reduced to terms. In this stage we found the poor Chowdheree on
+reaching Biswa. I had him released, and so admonished Nawab Allee,
+that he has some little chance of saving his estate.
+
+Bisram Sing held the estate of Kooa Danda, which had been in the
+possession of his family of Ahbun Rajpoots for many centuries. It
+consisted of thirty-five villages, paid a revenue of six thousand
+rupees a-year, and yielded a rent-roll of eighteen thousand and five
+hundred. Nawab Allee coveted it as being on his border, and in good
+order. As soon as his friend; Allee Buksh, was appointed Nazim of the
+district, he prevailed upon him to report to the Durbar that Bisram
+Sing was a refractory subject, and plunderer; and to request
+permission to put him down by force of arms. This was in 1844, while
+Bisram Sing was living quietly on his estate. On receiving the order,
+which came as a matter of course, the Nazim united his force with
+that of Nawab Allee, and attacked the house of Bisram Sing, which had
+only twenty-two men to defend it against two thousand. Six of the
+twenty-two were killed, eight wounded, and eight only escaped; and
+Nawab Allee took possession of the estate.
+
+Bisram Sing was at Lucknow at the time, trying to rebut the false
+charges of the Nazim; but his influence was unhappily too strong for
+him, and he got no redress. Soon after Nirput Sing, a sipahee in the
+9th Regiment Native Infantry, presented a petition to the Resident,
+stating that he was the brother of Bisram Sing, and equally
+interested in the estate; and a special officer, Busharut Allee, was
+ordered by the Durbar to investigate and decide the case. He decided
+in favour of Nirput, the sipahee, and Bisram Sing. Another special
+officer was sent out to restore Bisram to possession. Nawab Allee
+then pleaded the non-existence of any relationship between Nirput and
+Bisram; and a third special officer has been sent out to ascertain
+this fact.
+
+Belehree, held by Abud Allee, consists of forty villages, pays a
+revenue of twelve thousand rupees a-year, and yields a rent-roll of
+forty thousand. Abud Allee holds also the estate of Pyntee, in the
+same district, consisting of eighty villages, paying a revenue of
+thirty-five thousand, and yielding a rent-roll of one hundred and
+forty thousand. It had been held by his relative Kazim Allee, who was
+succeeded in the possession by Nizam Allee, the husband of his only
+daughter. Nizam Allee was in A.D. 1841 killed by a servant, who was
+cut down and killed in return by his attendants. Nizam Allee's widow
+held till 1843, when she made over the estate to Abud Allee, by whom
+she is supported.
+
+Nawab Allee has always money at command to purchase influence at
+Court when required; and he has also a brave and well-armed force,
+with which to aid the governor of the district, when he makes it
+worth his while to do so, in crushing a refractory landholder. These
+are the sources of his power, and he is not at all scrupulous in the
+use of it--it is not the fashion to be so in Oude.
+
+_February_ 20th, 1850.--Came on sixteen miles to Futtehpore, in the
+estate of Nawab Allee, passing Mahmoodabad half way. Near that place
+we passed through a grove of mango and other trees called the "Lak
+Peree," or the grove of a hundred thousand trees planted by his
+ancestors forty years ago. The soil is the same, the country level,
+studded with the same rich foliage, and covered with the same fine
+crops. As we were passing through his estate, and were to encamp in
+it again to-day, Nawab Allee attended me on horseback; and I
+endeavoured to impress upon him and the Nazim the necessity of
+respecting the rights of others, and more particularly those of the
+old Chowdheree Pertab Sing. "Why is it," I asked, "that this
+beautiful scene is not embellished by any architectural beauties?
+Sheikh Sadee, the poet, so deservedly beloved by you all, old and
+young, Hindoos and Mahommedans, says, 'The man who leaves behind him
+in any place, a bridge, a well, a church, or a caravansera, never
+dies.' Here not even a respectable dwelling-house is to be seen, much
+less a bridge, a church, or a caravansera." "Here, sir," said old
+Bukhtawur, "men must always be ready for a run to the jungles. Unless
+they are so, they can preserve nothing from the grasp of the
+contractors of the present day, who have no respect for property or
+person--for their own character, or for that of their sovereign. The
+moment that a man runs to save himself, family, and property, they
+rob and pull down his house, and those of all connected with him.
+When a man has nothing but mud walls, with invisible mud covers, they
+give him no anxiety; he knows that he can build them up again in a
+few days, or even a few hours, when he comes back from the jungles;
+and he cares little about what is done to them during his absence.
+Had he an expensive house of burnt brick and mortar, he could never
+feel quite free. He might be tempted to defend it, and lose some
+valuable lives; or he might be obliged to submit to unjust terms.
+Were he to lay out his money in expensive mosques, temples, and
+tombs, they would restrain him in the same way; and he is content to
+live without them, and have his loins always girded for fight or
+flight."
+
+"True," said Nawab Allee, "very true; we can plant groves and make
+wells, but we cannot venture to erect costly buildings of any kind.
+You saw the Nazim of Khyrabad, only a few days ago, bringing all his
+troops down upon Rampore, because the landlord, Goman Sing, would not
+consent to the increase he demanded of ten thousand, upon seventeen
+thousand rupees a-year, which he had hitherto paid. Goman Sing took
+to the jungles; and in ten days his fine crops would all have been
+destroyed, and his houses levelled with the ground, had you not
+interposed, and admonished both. The one at last consented to take,
+and the other to pay an increase of five thousand. Only three years
+ago, Goman Sing's father was killed by the Nazim in a similar
+struggle; and landholders must always be prepared for them."
+
+_February_ 21st, 1850.--Bureearpore, ten miles south-east, over a
+plain of the same fine soil, well cultivated, and carpeted with the
+same fine crops and rich foliage. Midway we entered the district of
+Ramnuggur Dhumeree, held by Rajah Gorbuksh Sing under the security of
+Seoraj-od Deen, the person who attempted in vain to arrest the charge
+of the two regiments upon the Khyrabad Nazim by holding up the
+_sacred Koran_ over his head. He met me on his boundary, and Nawab
+Allee and the Nazim of Baree Biswa took their leave. Nawab Allee's
+brother, Abud Allee, came to pay his respects to me yesterday
+evening. He is a respectable person in appearance, and a man of good
+sense. The landscape was, I think, on the whole richer than any other
+that I have seen in Oude; but I am told that it is still richer at a
+distance from the road, where the poppy is grown in abundance, and
+opium of the best quality made.*
+
+[* Opium sells in Oude at from three to eight rupees the seer,
+according to its quality. In our neighbouring districts it sells at
+fourteen rupees the seer, in the shops licensed by Government.
+Government, in our districts, get opium from the cultivators and
+manufacturers at three rupees and half the seer. The temptation to
+smuggle is great, but the risk is great also, for the police in our
+districts is vigilant in this matter.]
+
+Still lamenting the want of all architectural ornament to the scene,
+and signs of manufacturing and commercial industry, to show that
+people had property, and were able to display and enjoy it, and
+gradations of rank, I asked whether people invested their wealth in
+the loans of our Government. "Sir," said Bukhtawur Sing, "the people
+who reside in the country know nothing about your Government paper;
+it is only the people of the capital that hold it or understand its
+value. The landholders and peasantry would never be able to keep it
+in safety, or understand when and how to draw the interest."
+
+"Do they spend more in marriage and other ceremonies than the people
+of other parts of India, or do they make greater displays on such
+occasions?"
+
+"Quite the reverse, sir," said Seoraj-od Deen; "they dare not make
+any display at all. Only the other day, Gunga Buksh, the refractory
+landholder of Kasimgunge, attacked a marriage-procession in the
+village of ------, carried off the bridegroom, and imprisoned him till
+he paid the large random demanded from him. In February last year
+Imam Buksh Behraleen, of Oseyree, having quarrelled with the Amil,
+attacked and carried off a whole marriage party to the jungles. They
+gave up all the property they had, and offered to sign bonds for
+more, to be paid by their friends for their ransom; but he told them
+that money would not do; that their families were people of
+influence, and must make the King's officers restore him to his
+estate upon his own terms, or he would keep them till they all died.
+They exerted themselves, and Imam Buksh got back his estate upon his
+own terms; but he still continues to rob and plunder. These crimes
+are to them diversions from which there is no making them desist."
+
+"There are a dozen gang leaders of this class at present in the belt
+of jungle which extends westward from our right up to within fourteen
+miles of the Lucknow cantonments; and the plunder of villages, murder
+of travellers, and carrying off of brides and bridegrooms from
+marriage processions, are things of every-day occurrence. There are
+also in these parts a number of pansee bowmen, who not only join in
+the enterprises of such gangs as in other districts, but form gangs
+of their own, under leaders of their own caste, to rob travellers and
+plunder villages.
+
+"Gunga Buksh of Kasimgunge has his fort in this belt of jungle, and
+he and his friends and relations take good care that no man cuts any
+of it down, or cultivates the land. With the gangs which he and his
+relatives keep up in this jungle, he has driven out the greater part
+of the Syud proprietors of the surrounding villages, and taken
+possession of their lands. After driving out the King's troops from
+the town of Dewa, and exacting ransoms from many of the inhabitants,
+whom he seized and carried off in several attacks, he, in October
+last, brought down upon it all the ruffians he could collect, killed
+no less than twenty-nine persons--chiefly Syuds and land proprietors
+--and took possession of the town and estate. The chief proprietor,
+Bakur Allee, was killed among the rest; and Gunga Buksh burnt his
+body, and suspended his head to a post in his own village of Luseya.
+He dug down his house and those of all his relations who had been
+killed with him, and now holds quiet possession of his estate."
+
+This was all true. The Resident, on the application of Haffiz-od
+Deen, a native judicial officer of Moradabad district--one of the
+family which had lost so many members in this atrocious attack--urged
+strongly on the Durbar the necessity of punishing Gunga Buksh and his
+gang. The Ghunghor Regiment of Infantry, with a squadron of cavalry,
+and six guns, was sent out in October 1849, for the purpose, under a
+native officer. On the force moving out, the friends of Gunga Buksh
+at Court caused the commandant to be sent for on some pretext or
+other; and he has been detained at the capital ever since. The force
+has, in consequence, remained idle, and Gunga Buksh has been left
+quietly to enjoy the, fruits of his enterprise. The Amil having no
+troops to support his authority, or even to defend his person in such
+a position, has also remained at Court. No revenue has been
+collected, and the people are left altogether exposed to the
+depredations of these merciless robbers. The belt of jungle is nine
+miles long and four miles wide; and the west end of it is within only
+fourteen miles of the Lucknow cantonments, where we have three
+regiments of infantry, and a company of artillery.
+
+_February_ 22nd, 1850.--A brief history of the rise of this family
+may tend to illustrate the state of things in Oude. Khumma Rawut, of
+the pansee tribe, the great-grandfather of this Gunga Buksh, served
+Kazee Mahommed, the great-grandfather of this Bakur Allee, as a
+village watchman, for many years up to his death. He had some
+influence over his master, and making the most of this and of the
+clan feeling which subsisted among the pansees of the district, he
+was able to command the services of a formidable gang when the old
+Kazee died. He left a young family, and Khumma got possession of five
+or six villages out of the estate which the old Kazee left to his
+sons. The sons were too weak: to resist the pansees, and when Khumma
+died he left them to his five sons:-- 1. Kundee Sing; 2. Bukhta Sing;
+3. Alum Sing; 4. Lalsahae; 5. Misree Sing. As the family increased in
+numbers it has gone on adding to its possessions in the same manner,
+by attacking and plundering villages, murdering or driving off the
+old proprietors of the lands, and taking possession of them for
+themselves. Each branch of the family, as it separates from the
+parent stock, builds for itself a fort in one or other of the
+villages which belong to its share of the acquired lands. In this
+fort the head of each branch of the family resides with his armed
+followers, and sallies forth to plunder the country and acquire new
+possessions. In small enterprises each branch acts by itself; in
+larger ones two or more branches unite, and divide the lands and
+booty they acquire by amicable arrangement.
+
+They seize all the respectable persons whom they find in the villages
+which they attack and plunder, keep them in prison, and inflict all
+manner of tortures upon them, till they have paid, or pledged
+themselves to pay, all that they have or can borrow from their
+friends, as their ransom. If they refuse to pay, or to pledge
+themselves to pay the sum demanded, they murder them. If they pay
+part, and pledge themselves to pay the rest within a certain time,
+they are released; and if they fail to fulfil their engagements, they
+and their families are murdered in a second attack. After the last
+attack above described upon Dewa, Gunga Buksh seized seven fine
+villages belonging to the family of Bakur Allee Khan, which they had
+held for many generations. He, Gunga Buksh, now holds no less than
+twenty-seven villages, all seized in the same manner, after the
+plunder and murder of their old proprietors. The whole of this
+family, descendants of Khumma Rawut, hold no less than two hundred
+villages and hamlets, all taken in the same manner from the old
+proprietors, with the acquiescence or connivance of the local
+authorities, who were either too weak or too corrupt to punish them,
+and restore the villages to their proper owners.*
+
+[* Kundee Sing had two sons, 1. Cheytun Sing; 2. Ajeet Sing. Cheytun
+Sing had two sons, 1. Sophul Sing; 2. Thakurpurshad. Sophul Sing had
+two sons, 1. Keerut Sing; 2. Jote Sing. Ajeet Sing had two sons, 1.
+Bhugwunt Sing; 2. Rutun Sing. Thakur Purshad, Bhugwunt Sing, and
+Rutun Sing, reside in a fort which they have built in Bhetae, four
+miles from Dewa, in the north-west border of the belt of jungle. They
+hold forty villages, besides hamlets, which they have taken from the
+old proprietors of the Dewa and Korsee estates. Thakur Purshad has
+another fort called Buldeogur, near that of Atursae, two coss south
+of Dewa; and Bhugwunt Sing has the small fort of Munmutpore, close to
+Bhetae. Bukta Sing had only one son, Bisram Sing, who had only one
+son, Gunga Buksh, who built the fort of Kasimgunge, on the north-
+eastern border of the same belt of jungle, two miles south of Dewa,
+and on the death of his father, he went to reside in it with his
+family and gang. He holds twenty-seven fine villages, with hamlets.
+Twenty of these he seized upon from six to twelve years ago; and the
+other seven he got after the attack upon Dewa, in October last. He
+has also a fort called Atursae, two coss south from Dewa; a mile west
+from Buldeogur. Alum Sing's descendants have remained peaceable
+cultivators of the soil in Dewa, and are, consequently, of too little
+note for a place in the genealogical table of the family.
+
+Lalsahae had three sons, 1. Dheer Sing; 2. Bustee Sing; 3. Gokul
+Sing, all dead. Dheer Sing had two sons, Omed Sing and Jowahir Sing.
+Omed Sing had three sons, Dirgpaul Sing, Maheput Sing, and Gungadhur,
+who was murdered by Thakur Pershad, his cousin. Jowahir Sing had one
+son, Priteepaul Sing. Bustee Sing had two sons, Girwur Sing and
+Soulee Sing. Girwur Sing had two sons, Dhokul Sing and Shunker Sing.
+This branch of the family hold the forts of Ramgura and Paharpore, on
+the border of the jungle six miles south-west from Dewa, and twelve
+villages besides hamlets taken in the same manner from the old
+proprietors. Gokul Sing had two sons, Dulloo Sing and Soophul Sing.
+Dulloo Sing has one son. They reside with the families of Dheer Sing
+and Bustee Sing.
+
+Misree Sing, the fifth son of Khumma, had three sons, 1. Boneead
+Sing; 2. Dureeao Sing; 3. name forgotten--all three are dead. Bonead
+Sing had two sons, 1. Anoop Sing; 2. Goorbuksh Sing. Dureeao Sing had
+two sons, 1. Anokee Sing; 2. name forgotten. The third son of Misree
+Sing had three sons, 1. Mulung Sing; 2. Anunt Sing; 3. name
+forgotten--all three still live.
+
+This branch of the family resides in Satarpore, one mile west from
+Kasimgunge, in this belt of Jungle, and two miles from Dewa, in a
+fortified house built by them. They have got a small fort, called
+Pouree, near this place. They form part of Gunga Buksh's gang, and
+share with him in the booty acquired.]
+
+To record all the atrocities committed by the different members of
+this family in the process of absorbing the estates of their
+neighbours, and the property of men of substance in the countries
+around, would be a tedious and unprofitable task; and I shall content
+myself with mentioning a few that are most prominent in the
+recollection of the people of the district. About ten years ago,
+Gunga Buksh and his gang attacked the house of Lalla Shunker Lal, a
+respectable merchant of Dewa, plundered it, killed the tutor of his
+three sons, and carried them and their father off to his fort, where
+he tortured them till they paid him a ransom of nine thousand rupees.
+On their release they left Dewa, and have ever since resided in
+Lucknow. Two years after they attacked the village of Saleempore, two
+miles east from Dewa, killed Nyam Allee, the zumeendar, and seized
+upon his estate. About six years ago Munnoo, the son of Gunga Buksh,
+with a gang of near two thousand men, attacked the King's force in
+the town of Dewa, killed four sipahees, two artillery-men, and two
+troopers, and plundered the place. About six months ago this gang
+attacked the house of Ewuz Mahommed, in Dewa, plundered it, levelled
+it with the ground, and took off all the timbers to their fort of
+Kasimgunge. Soon after he made the attack in which he killed twenty-
+nine persons in Dewa, as above described.
+
+Thakur Purshad, about fourteen years ago, attacked the village of
+Molookpore, two miles east from Dewa, plundered it, took possession
+of the land, seized and carried off the proprietor, Sheikh Khoda
+Buksh, and put him to death in his fort of Bhetae. Three years after
+he attacked the house of Gholam Mostafa, in Dewa, killed him, and
+seized upon all the lands he held. Three years ago he attacked the
+house of Janoo, a shopkeeper, plundered it, and confined and tortured
+him till he paid a ransom of two hundred and fifty rupees. Three
+months after he seized and carried off to his fort Roopun, another
+shopkeeper, and confined and tortured him till he paid a ransom of
+three hundred rupees. Last year he seized and took off Jhow Dhobee
+from Dewa, and extorted forty rupees from him. Six months ago he
+attacked a marriage-procession in Dewa, plundered it, took off the
+bridegroom, Omed Allee, and confined and tortured him till he paid
+eleven hundred and fifteen rupees. These men all levy black mail from
+the country around; and it is those only who cannot or will not pay
+it, or whose lands they intend to appropriate, that they attack. They
+created the jungle above described, of nine miles long by four wide,
+for their own evil purposes, and preserve it with so much vigilance,
+that no man dares to cut a stick, graze a bullock, or browse a camel
+in it without their special sanction; indeed, they are so much
+dreaded, that no man or woman beyond their own family or followers
+dares enter the jungle.
+
+Omed Sing, fifteen years ago, invited to his house the four
+proprietors of the village of Owree, Gholam Kadir, Allee Buksh,
+Durvesh Allee, and Moiz-od Deen, residents of Dewa, and put them to
+death because they could not, by torture, be made to transfer their
+lands to him. He then seized their village, and built the fort of
+Rumgura Paharpore upon it. Omed Sing, Jowahir Sing, Dhokul Sing, and
+Soophul Sing all reside in this fort with the son of Dulloo Sing.
+This family of pansees, or, as they call themselves, Rawuts, form at
+present one of the most formidable gangs of robbers in Oude, and one
+of the most difficult to put down from their union and inveterate
+habit of plunder. They can always, at short notice and little cost,
+collect bands of hundreds of the same tribe and habit to join them in
+plunder and resistance to lawful authority.
+
+On the 25th of February, 1838, Rajah Dursun Sing, then in charge of
+the district, wrote to the Durbar to say, "that Gunga Buksh of Dewa
+was the worst robber in the district, would pay no revenue, and
+instigated others to withhold theirs; that numerous complaints had
+been made against him to the Durbar by the people, and that he had
+been urged by Government to do his best to punish him; that he had
+long tried all he could to do so, but had not sufficient troops; that
+his evil deeds increased, however, so much, that he at last
+determined to run all risks, and on the 27th of that month, on
+Friday, he left Amaneegunge, and marched forty-eight miles without
+resting; and on Saturday, before daybreak, reached the fort of
+Kasimgunge, and invested it on all sides; that he found the fort
+large and strong, and surrounded with dense jungle; that he had only
+three guns with him, but, as the enemy were taken by surprise, he
+took all their outworks one after another; that the besieged got a
+crowd of their adherents to attack his force in the rear on Saturday
+night, that they might get off in the confusion, but his troops were
+ready to intercept them at all points; and, in attempting to cut his
+way through, Gunga Baksh was seized with all his followers, but the
+women and children were permitted to go their way; that a good many
+of the enemy had been killed, and he, Dursun Sing, had had one
+golundaz and five sipahees killed and ten persons wounded."
+
+The King sent Dursun Sing a dress of honour with the title of Rajah
+on the 3rd of March, 1838, and ordered him to have the fort levelled
+with the ground. Dursun Sing, in reply, states that he had men
+employed in pulling down the fort; and, in reply to an order to send
+in a list of the property taken from the besieged, he states, on the
+12th of March, 1838, that none whatever had been secured. Gunga Buksh
+soon bribed his way out of prison at Lucknow, returned to Kasimgunge,
+rebuilt his fort, and made it stronger than ever; and continued to
+plunder the country, and increase his landed possessions by the
+murder of the old proprietors. He became enlisted into the tribe of
+Rajpoots, and his sister was married to the Powar Rajah of _Etonda_,
+seven coss north from Lucknow. Jode Sing, the present Rajah of that
+place, is her son; and he is associated with Gunga Buksh in his
+depredations. _Sahuj Ram_, of Pokhura, of the Ametheea tribe of
+Rajpoots, in the Hydergurh purgunna, on the right bank of the Goomtee
+river, married a daughter of Gunga Buksh's, and has a strong fort,
+called Raunee, thirty miles east from Lucknow. He is said to have
+been present at the murder of the twenty-nine persons at Dewa in
+October last, and to have had with him four hundred armed men and two
+guns. He and all his followers are notorious and inveterate robbers,
+like Gunga Buksh himself. The descendants of Khumma, the village
+watchman, have already built ten forts upon the lands which they have
+seized, and there are no less than seventy of these forts or
+strongholds within a circuit of ninety miles round Bhetae and
+Khasimgunge, the centre being not more than eighteen miles from the
+Lucknow cantonments.
+
+The Minister having informed the Resident that, without some aid from
+British troops, it was impossible for him to put down or punish these
+atrocious murderers and robbers, who had so many mud-forts well
+garrisoned by their gangs, he, on the 26th of March, 1850, ordered a
+wing of the 2nd Battalion of Oude Local Infantry under Captain
+Boileau to join the force, consisting of, 1. A wing of the 2nd Oude
+Local Infantry; 2. Captain Barlow's regiment, with two nine-pounders
+and one eight-inch howitzer; 3. Nawab Allee's auxiliaries, two
+thousand men and three small guns; 4. Sufshikum Khan, the Amil of the
+district, with one thousand men and five guns; 5. Seoraj-od Deen, the
+Amil of Ramnuggur, with one hundred and fifty men and two guns; 6.
+Ghalib Jung, with one thousand foot soldiers, forty camel jinjals
+(tumbooraks), seven guns, and one hundred troopers, in an attack upon
+Kasimgunge. The different parts of this force had been so disposed as
+to concentrate upon and invest the fort at daybreak on the morning of
+that day. The surprise was complete.
+
+Shells were thrown into the fort from Captain Barlow's guns, but
+Captain Boileau did not consider the force sufficient to take the
+fort and secure, the garrison, and wrote to request a reinforcement.
+The distance from Kasimgunge to the cantonments was twenty miles. A
+wing of the 10th Regiment Native Infantry, with two guns, was sent
+off under Captain Wilson; but the garrison had evacuated the fort and
+fled on the night of the 26th, and the wing was ordered to proceed
+direct to the fort of Bhetae, four miles nearer to the cantonments,
+which was to be invested by the same force on the morning of the
+28th.
+
+Captain Wilson had with him Lieutenant Elderton, as adjutant of the
+wing, and Ensigns Trenchard and Wish, with a native officer in charge
+of the two guns. They reached Bhetae at 7 A.M., were joined by the
+Bhetae force at 8 A.M., and the two forts of Bhetae and Munmutpore
+were forthwith invested. Munmutpore stood about three hundred yards
+to the west of Bhetae; and both forts were held by Thakur Purshad and
+Bhugwunt Sing, members of the same family of pansee robbers, and
+their gangs. Captain Wilson was the chief in command; and he, with
+his own and Captain Boileau's wing, took up his position on the north
+side of Bhetae, and placed Captain Barlow on the west side of
+Munmutpore. There was a deep dry ditch all round outside the outer
+wall, and a thick fence of bamboos inside. Between this fence and the
+citadel in both forts was a still deeper ditch. Between the fence of
+bamboos and the inner ditch was a small intricate passage,
+intersected by huts and trenches.
+
+The wall of the citadel was about twenty feet high, and the upper
+part formed a parapet eight feet high, filled with loopholes for
+matchlocks. Between Bhetae and Munmutpore, midway, was a large
+bastion filled with matchlock-men, to keep open the communication and
+prevent an enemy from taking up any position between the two forts.
+The investing force was distributed all round, with orders to attack
+the nearest and weakest points as soon as Captain Wilson should
+commence his upon the main point, the northern face.
+
+On the afternoon of the 29th, about half-past three, a small party of
+the garrison came out of the gate on the northern face, and appeared
+disposed to attack Captain Wilson's two nine-pounders, and a third
+gun, which had all three been advanced on to within a short distance
+of the gate. During this time Captain Barlow was throwing shells into
+both forts from his position to the west of Munmutpore. The subahdar-
+major had command of the advanced party in charge of Captain Wilson's
+three guns. He charged and drove back into the fort the small party
+which threatened his guns, and Captain Wilson hastily assembled all
+his and Captain Boileau's force, and followed to support the
+subahdar-major. Finding his officers and men all excited and anxious
+to push on into the fort, Captain Wilson unfortunately yielded to the
+impulse, and entered the outer gate with one of his two nine-
+pounders, in the hope of taking the place by a _coup-de-main_.
+
+The garrison all retired into the citadel as he entered, and kept up
+a distressing fire upon the assailants as they went along the narrow
+passage between the bamboo fence and the ditch in search of a way
+into the citadel. Several rounds were fired from the gun, in the hope
+of making a breach in the wall, but the balls penetrated and lodged
+midway in the wall, without bringing down any part of it; and
+musketry was altogether useless against a thick parapet with
+loopholes, so slender on the outside and so wide within. The huts,
+which might have sheltered officers and men, were set fire to by
+accident, and tended to increase the confusion. The entrance to the
+citadel was over a narrow mud causeway, which the garrison had not
+had time to remove; but it was hidden from the assailants by a
+projection which they could not attain, and the men began to fall
+fast before the fire from the loopholes of the parapet.
+
+On hearing the firing on Captain Wilson's side, the officers
+commanding the troops on the other three sides, commenced their
+attack on the nearest and seemingly weakest points, as before
+directed. Captain Barlow lost some men in an unsuccessful attempt to
+enter the fort of Munmutpore on the west side; but the auxiliary
+force of Nawab Allee effected an entrance on the east side of that
+fort. They were, however, arrested by the second ditch within, in the
+same manner as Captain Wilson's force had been, and a good many men
+were shot down in the same manner, in attempting to get over it. The
+force under Sufshikum Khan, on the east side of Bhetae, effected an
+entrance, but was arrested by the second ditch in the same manner,
+and lost many men. The enemy in Bhetae had eleven men killed and
+nineteen wounded, a good many of them from the shells thrown in by
+Captain Barlow. The loss of the enemy in Munmutpore was never
+ascertained.
+
+After Captain Wilson had been engaged within the wall about three-
+quarters of an hour, and the ammunition of the gun had become
+exhausted. Lieutenant Elderton, who had behaved with great gallantry
+during the whole scene, and was standing in advance with Captain
+Boileau, received a shot in the neck, and fell dead by his side.
+Having lost so many men and officers in fruitless efforts to
+penetrate into the citadel, and seeing no prospect of carrying the
+place by remaining longer under the fire from the parapet, Captains
+Wilson and Boileau drew off their parties; but the bullocks which
+drew the gun had been all killed or wounded, and they were obliged to
+leave it behind with the bodies of the killed. The men attempted to
+draw off the gun; but so many were shot down from above that it was
+deemed prudent to abandon it. About midnight both garrisons vacated
+the forts, and retired unmolested through the jungle to the eastward,
+where Ghalib Jung's troops had been posted. There is good ground to
+believe that he connived at their escape, and purposely held back
+from the attack as a traitor in connivance with some influential
+persons in the Durbar.
+
+The 10th Native Infantry had one European officer, Lieutenant
+Elderton, ten sipahees, and one calashee, killed; five native
+officers and twenty-two privates, wounded.
+
+The 2nd Oude Local Infantry, six sipahees, and one calashee, killed;
+and seven native officers and thirteen privates, wounded.
+
+The artillery had one native officer and nine privates wounded.
+
+This reverse arose from the commandant's yielding to the impetuosity
+of his officers and sipahees, and attempting to take by a rush a
+strong fort whose defences he had never examined and knew nothing
+whatever about, as he had never before seen any place of the kind, or
+had one described to him. He and all his men had courage in
+abundance, but they wanted prudence.
+
+Gunga Buksh and his son, Runjeet Sing, were afterwards taken,
+convicted before the highest tribunal in Oude, of the murder of the
+twenty-seven persons in Dewa, in October, 1849, and executed on the
+18th of September, 1850. Thakur Purshad and his cousin, Bhugwunt
+Sing, remained at large, and at the head of their gang of robbers
+continued to plunder the country, and levy blackmail from landholders
+and village communities till the 1st of February 1851, though pressed
+by a force of one thousand infantry, fifty troopers, and some ten
+guns. On the morning of that day, Captain Hearsey, commanding a
+detachment of the Oude Frontier Police, who had been ordered to co-
+operate with this force in putting down this gang, took advantage of
+a dense fog, fell upon them, and with the loss of one non-
+commissioned officer killed, and three non-commissioned officers and
+three sipahees wounded, killed one of the chief leaders, Bhugwunt
+Sing, and twenty-two of their followers, wounded many more, and took
+eight prisoners, among them the son of the leader Bhugwunt Sing. The
+other two leaders, Thakur Purshad and Keerut Sing, were bathing at
+the time in the river Goomtee, and escaped by swimming across.
+
+Rajah Bukhtawur Sing declares, that the taking of daughters from
+families of this caste by Rajpoots is one of the punishments
+inflicted upon them for the murder of their own. They will not
+condescend to give daughters in marriage to such persons; and they
+take daughters from them merely to get their money, and assistance on
+emergency in resisting the Government, and murdering and plundering
+its subjects.
+
+This part of Oude, comprising the districts of Dureeabad Rudowlee,
+Ramnuggur Dhumeree, Dewa Jahangeerabad, Jugdispoor, and Hydergur, has
+more mud forts than any other, though they abound in all parts; and
+the greater part of them are garrisoned in the same way by gangs of
+robbers. It is worth remarking, that the children in the villages
+hereabout play at fortification as a favourite amusement, each
+striving to excel the others in the ingenuity of his defences. They
+all seem to feel that they must some day have to take a part in
+defending such places against the King's troops; and their parents
+seem to encourage the feeling. The real mud forts are concealed from
+sight in beautiful clusters of bamboos or other evergreen jungle, so
+that the passer-by can see nothing of them. Some of them are
+exceedingly strong, against troops unprovided with mortars and
+shells. The garrison is easily shelled out by a small force, or
+starved out by a large one; but one should never attempt to breach
+them with round shot, or take them by an escalade or a rush.
+
+It is still more worthy of remark, that these great landholders, who
+have recently acquired their possessions by the plunder and murder of
+their weaker neighbours, and who continue their system of pillage, in
+order to acquire the means to maintain their gangs, and add to these
+possessions, are those who are most favoured at Court, and most
+conciliated by the local rulers; because they are more able and more
+willing than others to pay for the favours of the one, and set at
+defiance the authority of the other. They often get their estates
+transferred from the jurisdiction of the local governors to that of
+the person in charge of the Hozoor Tuhseel at Lucknow. Almost all the
+estates of this family of Rawuts have been so transferred.
+
+Local governors cannot help seeing or hearing of the atrocities they
+commit, and feeling some _sympathy_ with the sufferers; or at least
+some apprehension, that they may lose revenue by their murder, and
+the absorption of their estate; but the officer in charge of the
+Hozoor Tuhseel sees or hears little of what they do, and cares
+nothing about the sufferers as long as their despoilers pay him
+liberally. If the local governor reports their atrocities to
+Government, this person represents it as arising solely from enmity;
+and describes the sufferers as lawless characters, whom it is
+meritorious to punish. If the Court attempts to punish or coerce such
+characters, he gives them information, and does all he can to
+frustrate the attempt. If they are taken and imprisoned, he soon gets
+them released; and if their forts and strongholds have been taken and
+pulled down, he sells them the privilege of rebuilding or repairing
+them. It is exceedingly difficult at all times, and often altogether
+impossible, to get one of these robber landholders punished, or
+effectually put down, so many and so formidable are the obstacles
+thrown in the way by the Court favourite, who has charge of the
+Hozoor Tuhseel, and their other friends at the capital. Those who
+suffer from their crimes have seldom any chance of redress. Having
+lost their all, they are no longer in a condition to pay for it; and
+without payment nothing can be got from the Court of Lucknow.
+
+_February_ 23, 1850.--Badoosura, ten miles south-east over a plain
+covered with rich crops and fine foliage; soil muteear generally, but
+in some parts doomut; tillage excellent. Passed over some more sites
+of Bhur towns. The Oude territory abounds with these sites, but
+nothing seems to be known of the history of the people to whom they
+belonged. They seem to have been systematically extirpated by the
+Mahommedan conquerors in the early part of the fourteenth century.
+All their towns seem to have been built of burnt brick, while none of
+the towns of the present day are so. There are numerous wells still
+in use, which were formed by them of the finest burnt brick and
+cement; and the people tell me that others of the same kind are
+frequently discovered in ploughing over fields. I have heard of no
+arms, coins, or utensils peculiar to them having been discovered,
+though copper sunuds, or deeds of grant from the Rajahs of Kunoje, to
+other people in Oude, six hundred years ago, have been found. The
+Bhurs must have formed town and village communities in this country
+at a very remote period, and have been a civilized people, though
+they have not left a name, date, or legend inscribed upon any
+monument. Brick ruins of forts, houses, and wells, are the only
+relics to be found of these people. Some few of the caste are still
+found in the humblest grade of society as cultivators, police
+officers, &c., in Oude and other districts north of the Ganges. Up to
+the end of the thirteenth century their sovereignty certainly
+extended over what are now called the Byswara and Banoda districts;
+and Sultanpore, under some other name, appears to have been their
+capital. It was taken and destroyed early in the fourteenth century
+by Allah-od Deen, Sultan of Delhi, or by one of his generals, and
+named Sultanpore. Chandour was another great town of these Bhurs. I
+am not aware of any temples having been found to indicate their
+creed.*
+
+[* The Bhur Goojurs must, I conclude, have been of the same race.]
+
+The landholders, who have become leaders of gang-robbers, are more
+numerous here than in any other part of Oude that I have seen, save
+Bangur: but they are not here, as there, so strongly federated. The
+Amil is so weak, that, in despair, he connives at their atrocities
+and usurpations as the only means of collecting the Government
+revenue, and filling his own pockets. The pausee bowmen are here much
+more formidable than they are even in Bangur. There they thieve, and
+join the gangs of the refractory landholders; but here they have
+powerful leaders of their own tribe, and form formidable independent
+gangs. They sometimes attack and plunder villages, and spare neither
+age nor sex. They have some small strongholds in which they assemble
+from different villages over pitchers of spirits, made from the fruit
+of the mhowa tree, and purchased for them by their leaders; and,
+having determined upon what villages to attack, proceed at once to
+work before they get sober. Every town and village through which we
+pass has suffered more or less from their atrocities, and the people
+are in a continual state of dread.
+
+In 1843, the pausees, who resided in the village of Chindwara, in the
+Dewa district, ran off to avoid being held responsible for the
+robbery of a merchant in the neighbourhood. They were pacified and
+brought back; but the landholder was sorely pressed by the Government
+collector to pay up his balance of revenue, and he, in turn, pressed
+the pausees to pay up the balances due by them for rents. They ran
+off again, but their families were retained by the landholder. The
+pausees gathered together all of their clan that they could muster
+from the surrounding villages, attacked the landholder's house,
+killed his mother, wife, four of his nephews, the wife of one of his
+nephews, two of the King's sipahees who attempted to defend them, and
+several of the landholder, Yakoob Husun's, servants, and plundered
+him of everything he had. The landlord himself happened to be absent
+on business, and was the only one of the family who escaped. In all
+twenty-nine persons were murdered by the pausees on that occasion.
+They were all permitted to come back and settle in the village, as if
+nothing had happened; the village was made over to another, and
+Yakoob Husun has ever since been supplicating in vain for redress at
+the King's gate.
+
+About three miles from Badoosura, we passed from the Ramnuggur
+district into that of Dureeabad Rodowlee; but the above description
+is applicable to both, though in a somewhat less degree to Ramnuggur
+than to Dureeabad. It is equally applicable to the Dewa district,
+which we left on our right yesterday, midway between our road and
+Lucknow. There Gunga Buksh Chowdheree and his relatives have large
+gangs engaged in plundering towns, and seizing upon the lands of
+their weaker and more scrupulous neighbours. In the Dureeabad
+district, the leaders of gangs are chiefly of the Behraleea tribe of
+Rajpoots, so called after the district of Behralee, in which they
+reside.
+
+I this morning asked Nowsing, a landholder of the Rykwar Rajpoot
+clan, who came to me, in sorrow, to demand redress for grievous
+wrongs, whether he did not think that all the evils they suffered
+arose from murdering their female infants. "No, sir, I do not." "But
+the greater part of the Rajpoot families do still murder them, do
+they not?" "Yes, sir, they still destroy them; and we believe that
+the father who preserves a daughter will never live to see her
+suitably married, or that the family into which she does marry will
+perish or be ruined." "Do you recollect any instances of this?" "Yes,
+sir, my uncle, Dureeao, preserved a daughter, but died before he
+could see her married; and my father was obliged to go to the cost of
+getting her married into a Chouhan family at Mynpooree, in the
+British territory. My grandfather, Nathoo, and his brother,
+Rughonath, preserved each a daughter, and married them into the same
+Chouhan families of Mynpooree. These families all became ruined; and
+their lands were sold by auction; and the three women returned upon
+us, one having two sons and a daughter, and another two sons. We
+maintained them for some years with difficulty, but this year, seeing
+the disorder that prevailed around us, they all went back to the
+families of their husbands. It is the general belief among us, sir,
+that those who preserve their daughters never prosper, and that the
+families into which we marry them are equally unfortunate."
+
+"Then you think that it is a duty imposed upon you from above to
+destroy your infant daughters, and that the neglect and disregard of
+that duty bring misfortunes upon you?" "We think it must be so, sir,
+with regard to our own families or clan."
+
+I am satisfied that these notions were honestly expressed, however
+strange they may appear to others. Habit has brutalized them, or
+rendered them worse than brutes in regard to their female offspring.
+They derive profit, or save expense and some mortification, by
+destroying them, and readily believe anything that can tend to excuse
+the atrocity to themselves or to others. The facility with which men
+and women persuade themselves of a religious sanction for what they
+wish to do, however cruel and iniquitous, is not, unhappily, peculiar
+to any class or to any creed. These Rajpoots know that the crime is
+detestable, not only to the few Christians they meet, but to all
+Mahommedans, and to every other class of Hindoos among whom they live
+and move. But the Rajpoots, among whom alone this crime prevails, are
+the dominant class in Oude; and they can disregard the feelings and
+opinions of the people around them with impunity. The greater part of
+the land is held by them, and in the greater part of the towns and
+villages their authority is paramount.
+
+Industry is confined almost exclusively to agriculture. They have
+neither merchants nor manufacturers to form, or aid in forming, a
+respectable and influential middle class; and the public officers of
+the state they look upon as their natural and irreconcileable
+enemies. When the aristocracy of Europe buried their daughters alive
+in nunneries, the state of society was much the same as it now is in
+Oude. The King has prohibited both infanticide and suttee. The latter
+being essentially a public exhibition, the local authorities have
+continued, in great measure, to put down; but the former was
+certainly never more common than it is at present, for the Rajpoot
+landholders were never before more strong and numerous. That suttees
+were formerly very numerous in Oude is manifest from the numerous
+suttee tombs we see in the vicinity of every town and almost every
+village; but the Rajpoots never felt much interested in them; they
+were not necessary either to their pride or purse.*
+
+[* Suttee, infanticide, suicide, the maiming of any one, or making
+any one an eunuch, were all prohibited by the King of Oude, on the
+15th of May, 1833, as reported to Government by the Resident on the
+6th November, 1834. These prohibitions were reported to the Resident,
+by the King, on the 14th of June, 1833.]
+
+_February 24th_, 1850.--Dureeabad, ten miles south-east, over a plain
+of good soil--doomut and mutteear--covered with the same rich crops
+and fine foliage. There is at present no other district in Oude
+abounding so much in gang robbery and other crime as this of
+Dureeabad Rodoulee, in which the Amil, Girdhara Sing, is notoriously
+conniving at these crimes from a consciousness of utter inability to
+contend with the landholders who commit them, or employ men to commit
+them. Yet he has at his disposal a force that ought to be sufficient
+to keep in order a district five times as large. He has the Jannissar
+battalion of nujeebs, under Seetla Buksh at present; the Zoolfukar
+Sufderee battalion of nujeebs, under Bhow-od Dowlah, who never leaves
+Court; and the Judeed, or new regiment, consisting of a thousand men.
+He has nine guns, and a squadron of horse. Of the guns, five are on
+the ground, utterly useless; four will bear firing a few rounds. For
+these four he has bullocks, but they are not yet in condition. Of the
+seer and half of corn, drawn for each bullock per diem, only half a
+seer is given. Of the corps, more than one-half of the men are at
+Lucknow, in attendance upon Court favourites; and of the half present
+not one-third are fit for the work of soldiers.
+
+The Amil rode by my side, and I asked him about the case of the
+marriage-procession. "Sir," said he, "what you heard from Seoraj-od
+Deen is all true. Imam Buksh had a strong fort in his estate of
+Ouseyree, five miles to our right, where he had a formidable gang,
+that committed numerous dacoitees and highway robberies in the
+country around. I was ordered to attack him with all my force. He got
+intimation, and assembled his friends to the number of five thousand.
+I had not half the number. We fought till he lost seventy men, and I
+had thirty killed and fifteen wounded. He then fled to the jungles,
+and I levelled his fort with the ground. He continued, however, to
+plunder, and at last seized the bridegroom and all the marriage
+party, and took them to his bivouac in the jungles. The family was
+very respectable, and made application to me, and I was obliged to
+restore him to his estate, where he has lived ever since in peace. I
+attacked him in November 1848, and he took off the marriage party in
+February following." "But," said a poor hackery driver, who was
+running along by my side, and had yesterday presented me a petition,
+"you forgot to get back my two carts and bullocks which he still
+keeps, and uses for his own purpose, though I have been importuning
+you ever since." "And what did he do to you when he got you into the
+jungles?" "He tied up and flogged all who seemed respectable, and
+worth something--such as merchants and shopkeepers--and poked them
+with red-hot ramrods till they paid all they could get, and promised
+to use all the influence and wealth of their families to force the
+Amil to restore him to his estate on his own terms." "And were the
+parties married after their release?" "Yes, sir, we were released in
+April, after the Amil had been made to consent to his terms; and they
+were married in May; but I could not get back my two carts." "And on
+what terms did you restore this Imam Buksh to his estate?" "I granted
+him a lease, sir," said the Amil, "at the same rate of five thousand
+rupees a-year which he had paid before."*
+
+[* This Imam Buksh, in April, 1850, went in disguise to the annual
+fair held at Bahraetch, in honour of the old saint. He was recognized
+by some of Captain Bunbury's soldiers, who attempted to seize him. He
+was armed with sword, spear, and shield, and defended himself as long
+as he could. Seeing no chance of escape, he plunged both sword and
+spear into his own belly, and died, though Captain Bunbury came up,
+had his wounds sewn up, and did all he could to save him.]
+
+Stopping to talk with the peasantry of a village who had come out to
+the roadside to pay their respects and see the procession, I asked
+them how, amidst such crimes and disorders, they could preserve their
+crops so well. "Sir," said they, "we find it very difficult and
+expensive to do so, and shall find it still more so when the crops
+are cut and stacked, or have been threshed and stored; then these
+gangs of robbers have it all their own way, and burn and plunder all
+over the country; we are obliged to spend all we have in maintaining
+watchmen for our fields." "But the pausee bowmen have an allowance
+for this duty, have they not?" "Yes, sir, they have all an allowance.
+Every cultivator, when he cuts his crop, leaves a certain portion
+standing for the pausee who has guarded it, and this we call his
+_Bisar_. Over and above this he has a portion of land from the
+proprietor or holder of the village, which he tills himself or gets
+tilled by others." "And they are strong and faithful watchmen, are
+they not?" "Yes, sir, they are; and though they will thieve and join
+gangs of robbers in any enterprise, they will never betray their
+trust. They consider it a _point of honour_ not to trespass on fields
+or property under the guardianship of members of their own class with
+whom they are on good terms, or to suffer any persons whatever to
+trespass on what is under their own care. The money which we send to
+the treasuries is commonly intrusted to pausees, and their fidelity
+and courage may be relied upon. The gang robbers do little injury to
+our fields while the crops are green, for they take animals of hardly
+any kind with them in their enterprises; and having to move to and
+from their points of attack as quickly as possible, they could carry
+little of our crops with them; they are, too, afraid of the arrows of
+the pausee bowmen at night, if they venture to trespass upon our
+fields." "And are these pausee bowmen paid at the rate you mention
+all over the country?" "No, sir; they are in some parts paid in what
+is called the beega arhaeya, or two seers and half of grain from
+every beega. From a pucka beega they get pucka two and half seers;
+and from a kutcha beega, a kutcha two and half seers."* "Your crops,
+my friends, are finer than I have ever before seen them in Oude."
+"Yes, sir, they are very fine; but how we shall gather them God only
+knows, with such gangs of desperate robbers all around us. The alarm
+is sounded every night, and we have no rest. The Government
+authorities are too weak to protect us, or too indifferent to our
+sufferings; and we cannot afford to provide the means to protect
+ourselves."
+
+[* The kutcha measure bears the same relation to the pucka in weight
+as in land measurement.]
+
+As we went on, I asked the Amil what had become of Ahburun Sing, of
+Kyampore, the landholder who murdered his father to get possession of
+his estate, as mentioned in the early part of this Diary. "Ahburun
+Sing, sir, is still in possession of his estate of Kyampore, and
+manages it exceedingly well." "I thought he had taken to the jungles
+with his gang, like the rest of his class after such a crime, in
+order to reduce you to terms?" "It was his father, sir, Aman Sing,
+that was doing this. He was the terror of the country; neither road
+nor village was safe from him. He murdered many people, and plundered
+and burnt down many villages; and all my efforts to put him down were
+vain. At last I came to an understanding with his eldest son, who
+remained at home in the management of the estate, and was on bad
+terms with his father. He had confidential persons always about his
+father for his own safety; and when he was one night off his guard,
+he went at the head of a small band of resolute men, and seized him.
+He kept him in prison for six months, and told me that while so much
+plunder was going on around, he did not feel secure of keeping his
+father a single night; that many of his old followers wanted him back
+as their leader, and would certainly rescue him if he was not
+disposed of; that he could not put him to death, lest he should be
+detested by his clan as a parricide; but if I would make a feigned
+attack on the fort, he would kill him, and make it appear that he had
+lost his life in the defence of it. I moved with all the force I had
+against the fort, discharged many guns against the walls, made a
+feigned attempt at escalade; and in the midst of the confusion _Aman
+Sing was killed_. As soon as this was done, I returned with my force;
+the son remained in possession of the estate, and all the surrounding
+country was delighted to hear that so atrocious a character had been
+got rid of."
+
+This was all true, and the Amil did not seem to think that any one
+who listened to him could suppose that he had done anything
+dishonourable in all this: he seemed to think that all must feel as
+he did, seeing his utter inability to cope with these baronial
+robbers in any other way, and the evils they every day inflicted upon
+the people. This Aman Sing was the most formidable of these robbers
+in this district, and the high road from Lucknow to Fyzabad was for
+some time closed by his gang. Of those whom he robbed, he used to
+murder all who appeared likely to be able to get a hearing at Court
+or at the Residency.
+
+The Behraleea Rajpoots, of the Soorujpore Behreyla purgunna, are now
+the most formidable and inveterate robbers and plunderers in the
+district. The Rajah of this estate, Singjoo, was for some years the
+most formidable robber in Oude. He had taken a dislike to the family
+of a sipahee of the Governor-General's bodyguard; and, in an evil
+hour, he buried the sipahee's father, and some members of his family,
+alive. Strong remonstrances were made through the Resident, and Man
+Sing, the son of Dursan Sing, who has been already mentioned in this
+diary, had orders to seize him. In March, 1845, he made a march of
+forty miles at the head of five hundred active and brave men; and, on
+the night of the 20th of that month, reached the gate of the fort of
+Soorujpore, broke it open, entered, killed and wounded fifty of the
+Rajah's men, and lost five of his own.
+
+The Rajah escaped and took shelter in the fort of Goura. After taking
+possession of the fort, eight guns, and some elephants, and releasing
+two hundred unhappy prisoners, Man Sing followed the Rajah to Goura,
+where he was joined by Captain Magness and his corps. The gate of
+this fort was giving way before Man Sing's pickaxemen, when Singjoo
+surrendered. He was taken to Lucknow, and there died in gaol. The
+village, in which his father had been buried alive, Hukkamee, was
+given to the sipahee, and is still held by the family;* but they are
+a good deal worried in the possession by the widow of the old Rajah,
+who still lives at Soorujpore, and would be as formidable as her late
+husband was if she could.
+
+[* In the interval, during which Singjoo held this village, he had
+added to its boundaries a good deal of land belonging to himself and
+others, under the impression that he was secure in the hereditary
+possession. The sipahee's family seized upon all these lands, while
+they paid Government only the old rate of revenue. The widow of
+Singjoo has been ever since trying to recover them, in the usual way,
+by night attacks, and a good many lives have been lost on both sides,
+but most on the side of the sipahee's family. December 4th, 1851.]
+
+Seodeen, another leader of the same tribe, had been seized in the
+same manner by Man Sing's father, Dursun Sing, in October, 1830; and
+soon after three of his nephews were seized, and all four died in
+gaol at Lucknow; but Chunda and Indul, the brothers of these three
+men, are still among the most formidable robbers of the district.
+Hardly a night passes without their plundering some village or other,
+though Chunda continues to hold his estate, which yields 2250 rupees
+a-year, under the security of Seetla Buksh, the commandant of the
+Jannissaree battalion, for the payment of four hundred and fifty
+rupees a-year. The other robbers of the Dureeabad Rodowlee district,
+most formidable, are--
+
+1. Imambuksh, above described, as having seized the marriage party.
+In October last he attacked the town of Syud Mahomedpore, killed
+three of the Syud proprietors, and plundered it of all he could find.
+In the interval between his being driven out of his stronghold and
+restored, he attacked and plundered no less than twelve villages, in
+the same purgunna of Bussooree Mowae. In one of them, Myrmow,
+belonging to Ameer Chowdheree, he killed no less than twelve of the
+inhabitants. He still keeps up his gang, and plunders, though
+restored to his estate on his own terms.*
+
+[* The death of this robber, Imam Buksh, has been already described
+in a note.]
+
+2. Junuck Sing, Behraleea, and his brother, Jeskurun, only twenty
+days ago, attacked, plundered, and burnt down the town of Meeangunge,
+through which we passed this morning, and carried off all the
+inhabitants from whom they thought they could extort any ransom. Only
+two days ago, they attacked and plundered the village of Bhojpore,
+belonging to Soorujbulee Canoongo, one of the most respectable men in
+the district; and cut off the hands of six persons, one of whom died
+from loss of blood. The next day they attacked and plundered Gorawa,
+a village belonging to the same person, and burnt it down. Two of the
+inhabitants were severely wounded, and many bullocks perished in the
+flames. Within the last year they have taken off more than two
+thousand head of cattle from the purgunna of Soorujpore Behreyla, in
+which these villages are situated. Their chief associates in the
+crimes they commit every day are Chunda and Indul, their clansmen
+above named.
+
+3. Daood Khan, zumeendar of Sundona, in Mowae Bussooree. He has
+murdered several of his co-sharers in the estate, and taken their
+lands--frightened out others, and taken theirs, and at the head of
+his band of ruffians he robs on the highway, and plunders villages.
+
+4. Benee Sing Kana, Rajpoot of Deeh, in the Mohlara purgunna. He is
+blind of one eye, and has a small but formidable gang. In November,
+1850, the native collector of Mohlara, sent a detachment of one
+hundred men, accompanied by Seonath Sing, a co-sharer of Benee Sing,
+in the village of Deeh, and Oree Sing, a sipahee, in Captain Orr's
+Frontier Police, to attack his small gang in their stronghold at
+Atgowa, in the Rodowlee purgunna. They reached the place at the dawn
+of day, and forthwith commenced the attack. Benee Sing and his men
+made a stoat defence. Rajah Man Sing came up, and great numbers of
+the armed peasantry joined in the attack. They took the place about
+nine o'clock; but Benee Sing, with fourteen of his stoutest men,
+defended his house as a citadel till morning, when the house was set
+fire to by the assailants. One of the fourteen was burnt and
+disabled, when Benee Sing and the remaining thirteen rushed out,
+sword in hand, to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Benee Sing
+and twelve of the thirteen were killed; and the thirteenth at last
+threw down his arms, and called for quarter. He got it, and was
+saved. Six of his men had before been killed in defending the place.
+Man Sing had three men wounded and one killed; three more of the
+assailants were killed, and seven wounded. The head of the "one-eyed
+robber" was sent in to the king, and was received with much joy.
+
+5. Jeskurun Behraleea, zumeendar of Kiteya, in Soorujpore.
+
+6. Rughbur Behraleea, of Kiteya, an associate of Imam Buksh and
+Chunda. Four months ago his gang seized two carts laden with valuable
+property belonging to Seodeen subahdar, of the Honourable Company's
+service. Through the interposition of the Resident they were restored
+fifteen days ago.
+
+7. Jugurnath _Chuprassee_, a bhala soltan Rajpoot. This is one of the
+most formidable of the leaders of banditti in this and the adjoining
+district of Jugdeespore. He and his elder brother, Surubdowun Sing,
+were chuprassees on the establishment of Captain Paton, when he was
+the First Assistant at Lucknow, and had charge of the Post-office, in
+addition to his other duties. A post-office runner was one night
+robbed on the road, and Jugurnath was sent out to inquire into the
+circumstances. The Amil of the district gave him a large bribe to
+misrepresent the case to his master; and as he refused to share this
+bribe with his fellow-servants, they made known his manifold
+transgressions to Captain Paton, who forthwith dismissed him.
+Surubdowun Sing was soon after dismissed for some other offence, and
+they both retired to their estate of Oskamow, in the Jugdeespore
+district.
+
+This estate comprised fifteen villages. They obtained the leases of
+these villages by degrees, through the influence which their position
+at the Residency gave them. As soon as they got the lease of a
+village, they proceeded to turn out all the old proprietors and
+cultivators, in order the better to secure possession in perpetuity;
+and those among them of the military class, fought "to the death," to
+retain or recover possession of their rights. To defend what they had
+iniquitously acquired, Jugurnath and his brothers collected together
+bands of the most desperate ruffians in the country, and located them
+in the several villages, so as to be able to concentrate and support
+each other at a concerted signal. The ousted proprietors attacked
+only those who presumed to reside in or cultivate the lands of which
+they had been robbed; but Jugurnath and his brethren were less
+scrupulous; and as they could afford to pay such bands in no other
+way, they gave them free licence to plunder all the villages around,
+and all travellers on the highway. Their position and influence at
+the Residency enabled them to deter the local authorities from
+exposing their iniquities; and they went on till all the villages
+became waste, and converted into dens of robbers.
+
+They were, in all, six brothers, and they found their new trade so
+profitable and exciting, that they all became leaders of banditti, by
+profession, long before the dismissal of the two brothers from the
+Residency, though no one, I believe, ventured to prefer charges
+against them to the Resident or the Durbar. Soon after their
+dismissal, however, Jugurnath one night attacked and murdered his
+eldest brother, Surubdowun Sing, in order to get the whole estate to
+himself, and put his widow and daughter into prison. His other four
+brothers became alarmed, separated from him, and set up each his
+separate gang. But Jugurnath contrived soon after, in a dark night,
+to shoot the third brother, Himmut, dead, with one ball through the
+chest. Purmode Sing, the youngest brother, was soon after shot dead
+by some villager, whose cattle he was driving off in a night attack.
+Bhugwunt Sing the fourth, and Byjonath, still survive, and have gangs
+of their own, afraid to trust themselves with Jugurnath, who has
+built two forts, Oskamow and Futtehpore, in the Jugdeespore district,
+and a third in two small villages, which he has lately seized upon
+and made waste, in the Rodowlee district, in order that he may have a
+stronghold to fly to when pressed by the governors of other
+districts.
+
+They pay no rent or revenue to Government for any of the villages
+they hold. The king's officers are afraid to demand any from them.
+They have plundered a great many villages, and are every month
+plundering others. They have murdered a great many persons of both
+sexes and all ages, and tortured more into paying ransoms in
+proportion to their supposed means. Jugurnath is still the terror of
+the surrounding country, and a reward of five hundred rupees has been
+offered for his apprehension.*
+
+[* See note to Chapter VI., Vol. II., on the capture of Maheput Sing.
+A reward of one thousand rupees has since been offered for
+Jugurnath's arrest. See in Chapter IV., Vol. II:, an account of his
+desertion of his master, Captain Paton. He is still at large, and
+plundering. December 4th, 1851.]
+
+8. Moorut Sing, of _Kiteya_, which has eleven small villages
+depending upon it, all occupied by Rajpoot robbers. Nowgowa, in
+Mohlara, in Rodowlee, on the left bank of the Goomtee river, twenty
+miles below Lucknow, has, in the same manner, twelve villages
+depending upon it, all occupied by Rajpoots, who rob, or shelter
+robbers, when pursued from the east. On the opposite bank is the
+village of Kholee, in the Hydergurh purgunna, held by Surfraz
+Chowdheree, and occupied by Brahmans and Musulmans, who shelter
+robbers in the same way. When they are pressed in Nowgowa they take
+shelter in Kholee, and when pressed in Kholee they take shelter in
+Nowgowa. All the robbers above named find shelter in these villages
+when pursued, and share their plunder with the inhabitants.
+
+8. Bhooree Khan. The great-grandfather of Bhooree Khan, Rostam Khan.
+was the leader of a large gang of Musulman freebooters. The estate of
+Deogon, containing thirty-seven villages, belonged to a family of Bys
+Rajpoots. Rostam Khan and his gang seized upon them all, and turned
+out the Rajpoot proprietors, and by force made three of them
+Musulmans, Kanhur, Bhooree, Geesee; and all their descendants are of
+the same creed.
+
+Imam Buksh, the father of Bhoree Khan, built a fort in Deogon, which
+the _family_ still held. In 1829, Rajah Dursun Sing took the mortgage
+of the estate for twenty-eight thousand one hundred and ten rupees,
+to enable Imam Buksh to liquidate a balance of revenue due to
+Government. When the time of payment came, in 1832, Imam Buksh could
+pay nothing; and he transferred the estate to Dursun Sing, on a deed
+of sale or bynama. He continued to manage the estate for Dursun Sing
+in farm; but, falling in balance, he was put into confinement, where
+he remained till he died, three years after, in the year 1842.
+Bhooree Khan was then a boy, but he continued to receive the usual
+perquisites from the estate while Dursan Sing held it. In the year
+1846, the governor of the district, Wajid Allee Khan, took the estate
+from Dursun Sing's family, and made it over to Bhooree Khan for a
+present of five thousand rupees. He ceased to pay the Government
+demand, collected a gang, and became a leader of banditti. He
+plundered all the people around, and all travellers on the road,
+seized and confined all who seemed likely to be able to pay ransom,
+and tortured and maimed them till they did pay; and those who could
+not or would not pay, he put to cruel deaths. The thirty-six villages
+on his estate became deserted by all save his followers, and those
+whom he could make subservient to his purposes, as robbers and
+murderers.
+
+Ousan Opudeea resided at the village of Etapore, in the estate of
+Deogon, and possessed and cultivated lands in that and other villages
+around, for which he paid an annual rent of five hundred and ninety-
+nine rupees. In 1846, Bhooree Khan demanded from Ousan an increase of
+one hundred and fifty rupees, which he paid. The year after 1847, he
+demanded a further increase of the same amount, which he paid. He was
+then summoned to appear before Bhooree Khan, and was on his way when
+told that he would be seized with all his family, and tortured. He,
+in consequence, took his family to the village of Patkhoree. Bhooree
+Khan followed with a gang of several hundred men, and two guns,
+attacked, plundered, and burnt down his house, and fifteen bullocks
+and buffaloes perished in the flames. One hundred and fifty head of
+cattle belonging to the village were taken off by the gang. Dwarka,
+one of Ousan's sons, was killed in defending the house; and the other
+two, Davey, aged sixteen, and Seochurun, aged seventeen, were seized,
+bound, and taken off to the jungle, with Ramdeen, Ousan's nephew, and
+many others of the respectable inhabitants of the village. After
+exacting a ransom from all the rest, he let them go; but retained the
+two sons of Ousan, and demanded twelve hundred rupees for their
+ransom. Ousan had lost all his property in the attack, and could
+raise no more than seven hundred rupees among his relatives and
+friends. This would not satisfy Bhooree Khan, who, after torturing
+and starving the boys for twelve months, and taking the seven hundred
+rupees, took them to the jungle of Gaemow, with fetters on their
+legs, and bamboo collars round their necks. He there had them tied to
+trees, and after firing at them as targets, for some time, with bows
+and arrows, he had them cut to pieces with swords, and then seized
+upon all the lands which their father held.
+
+In 1848, Bhooree Khan attacked and plundered the house of Peer Khan,
+in Khanseepoor in Deogon, and bound and carried him off with his two
+brothers, Ameer Khan and Jehangeer Khan. He had them beaten with
+sticks, and caused small iron spikes to be driven up under their
+nails, and their eyelids to be sewn up with needle and thread, and
+their beards to be burned, till he extorted from them a ransom of
+eight hundred rupees.
+
+While they were thus confined and being tortured, they saw four
+travellers brought in by the gang, and tortured and beaten to death,
+because they could not pay the ransom demanded from them.
+
+Bhoree Khan, in this month of August 1848, attacked the house of
+Sirdar Khan, an invalid naek of the 36th Regiment of Bengal Native
+Infantry, and, after robbing it, burnt it to the ground, and bound
+and carried off to his fort in Deogon, Sirdar Khan himself and his
+three sons, Khoda Buksh, Allah Buksh, and Allee Buksh; the first
+fourteen years of age, the second eight, and the third seven years.
+He tortured all three, and demanded a ransom of nineteen hundred
+rupees. This sum was borrowed and paid by Jehangeer Khan, the brother
+of the naek, and the naek was released. Bhooree Khan would not,
+however, release either of the sons till he got five hundred rupees
+more; but Sirdar Khan was unable to procure this further sum, and, in
+April 1849, Bhooree Khan had two of the boys, Khoda Buksh and Alla
+Buksh, tied to trees and shot to death with arrows, for the amusement
+of his gang. They were then hacked with swords, and their bodies were
+thrown into a ditch, whence he would not permit their friends to
+remove them for burial. Sirdar Khan became for a time deranged on
+hearing of the sufferings of his sons, and wandered about the
+country. Bhooree Khan, with his gang, again attacked the village, and
+burned it all down, and drove off all the cattle, including all that
+Sirdar Khan possessed. He recovered, and changed his residence to the
+village of Deokalee. Bhooree Khan still retained the third son, Allee
+Buksh, alias Pulleen, and he is still in prison.*
+
+[* The Resident effected the release of the third son, Allee Buksh,
+in January, 1851, through the aid of Captain Orr, of the Frontier
+Police.]
+
+Sirdar Khan's ancestors were the Rajpoot proprietors of the estate of
+Deogon, and were forcibly converted to Mahommedanism by Bhooree
+Khan's ancestors when they seized upon the estate. Sirdar Khan
+cultivated eighteen beegahs of land in the village of Salteemow, in
+Deogon, for which he had long paid thirty-six rupees a year rent.
+Bhooree Khan demanded sixty-five a-year before the attack, and this
+sum Sirdar Khan paid, but it had no effect in softening the robber
+leader.
+
+In the year 1847, soon after he took possession of the estate,
+Bhooree Khan sent a gang under the command of his cousin, Mungul
+Khan, to attack the house of Dulla, the most opulent and respectable
+merchant of the district, who resided in the town of Mukdoompore.
+Dulla had two sons, Nychint and Pursun Sing. After plundering the
+house, the gang seized Dulla, his son Nychint, Golbay the son of
+Pursun Sing, and Ajoodheea the son of Nychint. Pursun Sing, the other
+son of the old merchant, had gone off to the Governor of the
+district, Rajah Incha Sing. to adjust his annual accounts. The
+females of the family got out through the back-door of the female
+apartments, and escaped to the village of Etwara, in the Jugdeespore
+district, where they had a residence. All the valuables had been
+buried in a pit in the house, some ten feet deep, and the females had
+no time to take them up.
+
+The old man, his son Nychint, and his two sons, were sent off to
+Bhooree Khan, who, on learning that the valuables had not been found,
+came with fifty more armed men, accompanied by Baboo Mudar Buksh, the
+tallookdar of Silha in Jugdispore, his own agent Muheput, and a
+Brahmin prisoner named Cheyn, who knew Dulla, and the wealth he
+possessed. He brought with him the merchant's son Nychint, and
+commanded him to point out the place in which the valuables lay
+concealed. He would not do so, and Bhooree Khan then drove four tent-
+pins into the ground in the courtyard, placed Nychint on his face,
+and tied his hands and feet to these pegs. He then had him burnt into
+the bones with red-hot ramrods, but the young man still persisted in
+his refusal. He had then oil boiled in a large brass pot which they
+found in the house, and poured it over him till all the skin of his
+body came off. He became insensible for a time, and when he recovered
+his senses he pointed out the spot. Gold and silver ornaments and
+clothes of great value, and brass utensils belonging to the family,
+or held as pledges for money due to the old man, were taken up, with
+one hundred and fifty matchlocks and the same number of swords. They
+found also many pits, containing several thousand maunds of grain.
+The valuables, and as much of the grain as he could find carriage
+for, Bhooree Khan and his gang carried off, and the rest of the grain
+he gave to any one who would take it. The value of the whole plunder
+was estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand rupees.
+
+Nychint was unbound, but died that night, and the body was made over
+to the Brahmin, Cheyn, who had now become a Mussulman. He took it to
+the jungle, where he had it burnt with the usual ceremonies. Bhooree
+Khan still detained Ajodheea, the son of Nychint, and Golbay, the son
+of Pursun Sing, and demanded a further ransom for them, but he
+released Dulla, who came home and died of grief and of the tortures
+inflicted upon him in less than a month after. Cheyn, Dabey Sookul,
+and Forsut, all Brahmins of Mukdoompoor, were witnesses to the
+tortures inflicted upon Nychint, and to the plunder of the house. He
+kept Dulla's grandsons for a year more, with occasional tortures, but
+the surviving son, Pursun Sing, had nothing more to give, and no one
+would give or lend him anything. Golbay, his son, at last contrived
+to get a letter conveyed to him, stating that he was now less
+carefully guarded than he had been; that he and his cousin, Ajodheea,
+were sent to take their meals with a bearer, who lived in a hamlet on
+the border of the jungle, where they were guarded by only four pausee
+bowmen, and if his father could come with fifty armed men, and
+surprise them at a certain hour, he might rescue them. He assembled
+fifty men from surrounding villages, and at the appointed time,
+before daybreak, he surprised the guard, and rescued his son and
+nephew.
+
+Gunga Purshad, son of Chob Sing, canoongo of Silha, in Deogon, left
+the place when Bhooree Khan took to plundering, and went off, in
+1847, with his family to reside at Budulgur, a village held by Allee
+Buksh, a mile distant. A month after he had settled in that place,
+Bhooree Khan came with his gang, surrounded his house at night,
+plundered it, and seized and took off his brother, Bhowanee Purshad,
+two younger brothers, and his, Gunga Purshad's, daughter and son,
+with Gowree Lall and Gunesh Purshad, his relations, who had come on a
+visit to congratulate him on the prudence of his change of residence.
+Gunga Purshad was absent at the time on business. All the prisoners
+were taken to the jungles and tortured with red-hot iron ramrods, and
+put into heavy fetters. He demanded a ransom of nine hundred and
+fifty rupees for all. Gunga Purshad sold all he had except some cows
+and bullocks, and collected four hundred rupees, and his relation's
+clubbed together and raised one hundred more. The five hundred were
+sent to Bhooree Khan, and he took them and released all but Bhowanee
+Purshad. His two younger brothers collected the cows and bullocks,
+and went with them to Mukdoompoor, in the hope of being allowed to
+till their lands; but Bhooree Khan and his gang came, seized and sold
+all the cows and bullocks they had saved, plundered them of
+everything, and took their lands from them. They all fled once more,
+and went to reside at Putgowa. At Mukdoompoor, Bhooree Khan had
+Bhowanee Purshad flogged so severely that he fell down insensible,
+and he then had red-hot iron spikes thrust into his eyes, and a few
+days after he died in confinement of his sufferings. The value of the
+property taken from the family, besides the five hundred rupees'
+ransom, was one thousand rupees. He, about the same time, seized and
+carried off from Mukdoompoor Gunga Sookul, a Brahmin, tortured him to
+death, and threw his body into the river.
+
+About the same time, August 1847, he seized and carried off Cheyn, a
+Brahmin of Mukdoompoor, son of Bhowanee Buksh. He had come to him to
+pay the year's rent for the lands he held in that village. After
+paying his own rents and those of others who were afraid to put
+themselves into Bhooree Khan's power, and had sent by Cheyn all that
+was due, he demanded from him a ransom of four hundred rupees. He
+could give no more, and was put under a guard and tortured in the
+usual way. As he persisted in declaring his inability to pay more, a
+necklace of cow's bones was put round his neck, and one of the bones
+was thrust into his mouth, and the blood of a cow was thrown over
+him, from which he became for ever an outcast from his religion. He
+expected to be put to death, but a friend conveyed to him the sum of
+ten rupees, which he gave to the robbers employed to torture him, and
+they spared his life. His son had taken shelter in the village of
+Pallee, whence he sent a pausee bowman, named Bhowaneedeen, to
+inquire after _him_, and offered him ninety rupees if he would rescue
+his father. The pausee pledged himself to Bhooree Khan to pay the
+money punctually, and Cheyn was released. But Bhooree Khan had cut
+down all the crops upon the lands, and taken them away, and cut down
+also the five mango-trees which stood upon his land and had been
+planted by his ancestors. During his confinement, Cheyn saw Bhooree
+Khan torture and murder many men, and dishonour many respectable
+women, whom he had seized in the same way.
+
+In the same month, August 1847, Bhooree Khan seized Sudhae, the son
+of Tubbur Khan, of Salteemow, in Deogon, and his (Sudhae's) two sons,
+Surufraz and Meerun Buksh, and took them to the jungle. Sadhae had
+paid him the eighty rupees rent due for the land he tilled, but
+Bhooree Khan demanded one hundred rupees more; and when he could not
+pay he made him over to the Jumogdar, to whom he had become pledged
+for the payment of a certain sum. The Jumogdar had him beaten till he
+saw that nothing could be beaten out of him, when he let him go to
+save the cost of keeping him. Bhooree Khan became very angry, and,
+with his gang, attacked and plundered the house of Sudhae's brother,
+Badul Khan, in Salteemow, with whom Sudhae lived. The two brothers
+and their families expected this attack, and escaped unhurt, and
+fled, but they lost all their property.
+
+Bhooree Khan then ordered one of his followers, Mirdae, to take
+Surufraz to a tank outside the village and cut off his nose. He took
+out at the same time Bukhtawur, a Brahmin, and cut off his nose
+first. Mirdae then ordered a Chumar, of Deogon, to cut off the nose
+of Surafraz, and standing over him with a sword, told him to cut it
+off deep into the bone. Surufraz prayed hard for mercy, first to
+Bhooree Khan and then to Mirdae; but his prayers were equally
+disregarded by both. The Chumar cut off his nose with a rude
+instrument into the bone, and with it-all his upper lip. He was then
+let go; but he fell down, after going a little distance, from pain
+and the loss of blood, and was there found by his uncle, Badul Khan,
+who had gone in search of him. He was taken home, but died the same
+night. His brother, Meerun Buksh, was soon after released for a
+ransom of fifty rupees.
+
+Golzar Khan, sipahee of the Dull Regiment, in the King of Oude's
+service, tilled some lands in the village of Mukdoompore, for which
+he paid rent to Bhooree Khan. In 1847 he first extorted from him
+double the rent agreed upon, then seized all the crops, and plundered
+his house, and lastly seized the sipahee's sister, and had her
+forcibly married to his servant and relative, Mungul Khan.
+
+In 1846 Bhooree Khan attacked the house of Allah Buksh of Gaemow, in
+Deogon, plundered it, killed his brother, Meerun Buksh, cut off the
+hands of his relative, Peer Buksh, and wounded three other relatives
+who happened at the time to be on a visit with his family. The
+articles of property that were taken off by Bhooree Khan and his gang
+consisted of five horses and mares, fifteen matchlocks, four maunds
+of brass utensils, three hundred and twenty-five maunds of grain,
+five swords, four boxes of clothes, fifteen cows and bullocks, five
+hundred and forty rupees in money. The houses of all the rest of the
+village community were plundered in the same manner. They cut down
+all the mango and mhowa trees belonging to the family, as well as all
+those belonging to other people of the village.
+
+In 1847 he attacked the house of Akber Khan, in the village of
+Kanderpore, in Deogon; and after plundering it, he bound and carried
+off his son, Rumzam, a lad of fifteen years of age; and the year
+after, 1848, he again attacked his house, and seized and took off his
+brother, Wuzeer Khan. He has them still in confinement under torture,
+because Akber Khan cannot get the sum demanded for their ransom; and
+all applications for their release to the Government authorities have
+been disregarded.*
+
+[* The Resident could not effect the release of these two persons,
+the son and brother of Akber Khan, till January, 1851.]
+
+In the month of August, 1848, Pransook, a Rajpoot, and Lullut Sing,
+his cousin, of Booboopore, in Rodowlee, went to purchase a supply of
+bhoosa for their cattle to Mukdoompore, in the Deogon estate, and
+were there seized by Aman Sing, an agent of Bhooree Khan, who
+pretended that they had given shelter to some of the cultivators who
+had fled from Deogon, and demanded their surrender. They protested
+that they had never seen any such cultivators, and knew nothing
+whatever about them. They were bound and taken off to Deogon to
+Bhooree Khan, who had them both put into the stocks. After having
+been in the stocks for five days, they were again taken to Bhooree
+Khan, who ordered them to produce the cultivators, or pay a ransom of
+one hundred and five rupees. They were then taken back to prison, and
+confined for eighteen days more; and having no food supplied them,
+they were obliged to sell all the clothes they wore to procure a
+scanty supply.
+
+To frighten them, Bhooree Khan one day ordered his followers to make
+outcasts in their presence of two respectable men whom he had in
+prison, Deena Sing, a Chowan Rajpoot of Jooreeum, and a Brahmin of
+Poorwa, a small hamlet near Deogon, while he sat on the roof of his
+house to look on. One of his Musulman followers forced open Deena
+Sing's mouth, and spit into it; and the others tied the bones of a
+neelgae round the neck of the Brahmin, by which both of them were
+deprived of their caste. They then told Pransook and Lullut Sin that
+they would be served in the same manner unless they paid the ransom
+demanded. They became alarmed, and sent to their friends to request
+them earnestly to borrow all they could, and send it for their
+ransom. Their cousin, Sheobuksh Sing Jemadar, an invalid pensioner
+from the 2nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, collected one
+hundred and eighteen rupees, and sent them. Bhooree Khan took one
+hundred and five for himself, and his servants took thirteen, and
+they were released; but they were made to swear on the tomb of the
+saint Shah Sender that they would not complain of the treatment they
+had received, and had their swords and shields taken from them. They
+had been confined twenty-seven days.
+
+In 1846 Davey Sookul, a Brahmin, cultivated land in Mukdoompore, for
+which he paid an annual rent of seventy-one rupees. In consequence of
+murders and robberies perpetrated by Bhooree Khan and his gang, he
+went off with his family to reside at Budulgur, under the protection
+of Rajah Allee Buksh, a mile distant. He had witnessed the murder of
+Bhowanee Purshad and the torture of many other persons. One morning
+his brother, Gunga Purshad, returned to Mukdoompore to gather some
+mangoes from trees there planted by their ancestors. He was there
+seized by Bhooree Khan and his gang, who were lying in wait for him.
+They demanded a ransom of three hundred rupees, which Davey Sookul
+could not raise. He kept Gunga Purshad in prison for four months, and
+had him tortured every day. Finding that the money was not
+forthcoming, Bhooree Khan had a firebrand thrust into one of his
+eyes, and then had him flogged with bunches of sticks till he died.
+Khoda Buksh, of Kurteepore, one of the followers of Bhooree Khan,
+went and reported this to his brother and widow, who wept over the
+tale of his sufferings. His brother, Boodhoo Sookul, a sipahee of the
+45th Regiment, presented a petition to the Resident, describing these
+atrocities, and praying redress, but none was afforded.
+
+Bukhtawur, son of Kaushee, a Brahmin, tilled lands in Deogon, for
+which he paid an annual rent of sixty-eight rupees. In 1847 Bhooree
+Khan demanded double that sum; and when he could not pay, he seized
+and sold all the stock on the land, and seized and took off to the
+jungles Bukhtawur and his two brothers, Heeralall and Jankee, and
+seized upon all their lands, and all the property they had to the
+value of five hundred rupees. He kept them in prison for six months,
+and then had Bukhtawur's nose cut off by a Chumar, because he could
+not pay him the ransom demanded. The nose of Surufraz was cut off at
+the same time, as above described, and he died in consequence.
+Bukhtawur's two brothers made their escape three months afterwards.
+
+In 1848 he attacked the house of Choupae Tewaree, a Brahmin of
+Ottergow, and after plundering it he took off the son of Choupae,
+then thirteen years of age, and his, the son's, wife, and his young
+son and his wife, and tortured all, till Choupae borrowed and begged
+all he could, and paid the ransom demanded.
+
+Purotee Aheer tilled sixteen beegahs of land in Deogon, for which he
+paid an annual rent of thirty-two rupees a-year. As soon as Bhooree
+Khan got the estate from Maun Sing, in November, 1846, he demanded
+double the sum, and exacted it. He, in 1848, demanded two hundred and
+fifty, seized Purotee, sold all his cows and bullocks, sixteen in
+number, and other property, and then released him. Purotee then sent
+off secretly all his family to Duheepore, two miles distant; but
+Bhooree Khan sent off his servants, Bundheen and Bugolal pausees, to
+trace them. They seized his two daughters, one fourteen and the other
+ten years of age, and his son Nihal's wife, and his son, then only
+four years of age. Bhooree Khan ravished the two girls, and then
+released them, with Nahal's wife and her little son. Purotee saw the
+noses of Bukhtawar and Surafraz cut off while he was in confinement,
+and saw Bhooree Khan put them on a plate, which he placed in a recess
+in the wall. It was in March, 1848, when he went to pray that his
+daughters might be released after they had been ravished. The family
+went to reside in the village of Mohlee, in Khundara, but have all
+been turned out of their caste in consequence of the dishonour of his
+daughters.
+
+In the same year he attacked the house of Foorsut Aheer of Dehpal ka
+Poorwa, made him prisoner, and tortured him till he paid eight
+hundred rupees. After this he made his escape; but Bhooree Khan
+seized and sold all his bullocks, cows, and buffaloes, and stores of
+grain.
+
+In 1845 Bhoore Khan and his gang attacked the house of Buldee Sing,
+subahdar in the Honourable Company's service, in the village of
+Ghurwae, and, after plundering him of all the property they could
+find, they seized him and his wife, and took them to the jungles,
+where they tortured them till they gave all they could borrow or beg
+to the amount of many thousand rupees.
+
+About the same time he seized and carried off Eesuree Purshad, a
+Brahmin, who had fled from Palpore, in Deogon, and gone for shelter
+to the Bazaar of Ottergow; and after cutting off his nose, he put him
+on an ass with a young pig tied to his neck, and paraded him through
+the bazaar, with a drummer before him, to render him an outcast.
+
+In the same year, 1848, he seized Rampurshad Tewaree, and his son
+Runghoor, cultivators of Deogon, and demanded from them four times
+the rent due for the land they tilled; and when they could not pay,
+be sold all their cattle, grain, and other property, and had iron
+spikes driven up under their nails. Unable to extort money by this
+means, he caused Sotun Bhurbhoonja, or grain-parcher, to ------ in
+his father's face, and then released him.
+
+In 1848 he demanded from Junga Salor, a cultivator of Bhudalmow, in
+Deogon, double rent for the land he tilled; and when he could not
+pay, seized and took off his wife, and cohabited with her four or
+five days, and then made some of the followers do the same before he
+released her.
+
+In the same year, 1848, he and his gang attacked the village of
+Byrampore, in the Kisnee purgunna, and seized Omrow Sing, a Bys
+Rajpoot, and Boodhea, a Goojur, and all the respectable inhabitants
+they could get hold of, with their families. After torturing the rest
+for eight days, and extorting from them all they could pay, he let
+them go; but detained Omrow Sing, and had him flogged every day till
+he reduced him to a dying state, when he let him go. He was taken off
+to his home; but he died as soon as he entered the house and saw his
+family. The wife of Boodheea, the Goojur, he confined and violated.
+Bukhtawur deposes that he saw all this while he was in confinement.
+
+He, in 1848, seized and carried off to his stronghold Kaseeram, a
+Brahmin, of Deogon, and cut off his nose, and tortured him with hot
+irons till he got from him all that he and his relations could be
+made to pay, and then let him go.
+
+In the same year and month be attacked and plundered the village of
+Puttee, in the Jugdeespore purgunna, carried off all the shopkeepers
+of the place, and tortured them till they paid him altogether three
+thousand rupees.
+
+In the same year he attacked the village of Koteea, in the Rodowlee
+district, carried off one of the shopkeepers, and drove iron pins up
+under his nails till he paid a ransom of one hundred and fifty
+rupees. He drove off and sold all the cattle of the village.
+
+In the same year he attacked and plundered the village of Budulgur,
+in the Jugdeespore purgunna, in the same way.
+
+In the same year he attacked and plundered the village of Khorasa, in
+Rodowlee, carried off Sopae, the Putwaree, with his mother and wife,
+and tortured them till they paid a ransom of two hundred rupees. He
+murdered about the same time the son of Buksh Khan, the holder of the
+village of Gaepore, and two members of the family of Poorae, a
+carpenter of Almasgunge, in Deogon.
+
+After plundering the house of Sungum Doobee, a respectable Brahmin of
+Mukdoompore, he seized him and his nephew, took them off to his fort,
+and, because they could not pay the ransom he demanded, he caused
+melting lead to be poured into their ears and noses till they died.
+About the same time he, with his own hands, for some slight offence,
+cut the throat of his table-attendant, Kbyratee, of Kunhurpore.
+
+About the same time he seized two travellers; and, because they could
+not pay the ransom demanded, he suspended one of them to a tree in
+the village of Sathnee, on the bank of the Goomtee river, and the
+other to a tree in the village of Mukdoompore. He had their arms
+first broken with bludgeons, and then their feet cut off, and at last
+they were beaten over the head till they died.
+
+[Bhooree Khan, in March, 1850, went with a gang of three hundred men
+to assist Gunga Buksh and his family in the defence of Kasimgunge and
+Bhetae; but he was too late. On his way back, in the beginning of
+April, he left his gang in a grove, six miles from Lucknow, and
+entered the city alone in a disguise to visit a celebrated dancing-
+girl of his acquaintance, named Bunnee. He had been with her two
+days, and on the 15th of April he went to see the magnificent tomb of
+Mahommed Allee Shah, of which he had heard much. While sauntering
+about this place he was recognised by three or four persons belonging
+to another dancing-girl of his acquaintance, named the Chhotee Gohur,
+or "little Gem," whom he had formerly visited. They seized him. As
+soon as Bunnee heard of this she sent ten or twelve of her own men,
+and rescued him from the followers of the "Little Gem." They took him
+to Bunnee, who made a virtue of necessity, and went off with him
+forthwith to the Minister, who rewarded her with a pair of shawls,
+and made suitable presents to her followers.
+
+It is said that he was pointed out to the followers of the "Chhotee
+Gohur" by Peer Khan, of Khanseepore, in Deogon, whom Bhooree Khan had
+some time before plundered and tortured for a ransom, as already
+stated. Bhooree Khan was sentenced to transportation beyond seas for
+life, and sent off in October, 1851.]
+
+After reading such narratives, an Englishman will naturally ask what
+are the means by which such atrocious gangs are enabled to escape the
+hands of justice. He will recollect the history of the MIDDLE AGES,
+and think of strong baronial castles, rugged hills, deep ravines, and
+endless black forests. They have no such things in Oude.* The whole
+country is a level plain, intersected by rivers, which, with one
+exception, flow near the surface, and have either no ravines at all,
+or very small ones. The little river Goomtee winds exceedingly, and
+cuts into the soil in some places to the depth of fifty feet. In such
+places there are deep ravines; and the landholders along the border
+improve these natural difficulties by planting and preserving trees
+and underwood in which to hide themselves and their followers when in
+arms against their Government. Any man who cuts a stick in these
+jungles, or takes his camels or cattle into them to browse or graze
+without the previous sanction of the landholder, does so at the peril
+of his life. But landholders in the open plains and on the banks of
+rivers, without any ravines at all, have the same jungles.
+
+[* The Terae forest, which borders Oude to the north, is too
+unhealthy to be occupied by any but those who have been born and bred
+in it. The gangs I am treating of are composed of men born and bred
+in the plains, and they cannot live in the Terae forest.]
+
+In the midst of this jungle, the landholders have generally one or
+more mud forts surrounded by a ditch and a dense fence of living
+bamboos, through which cannon-shot cannot penetrate, and man can
+enter only by narrow and intricate pathways. They are always too
+green to be set fire to; and being within range of the matchlocks
+from the parapet, they cannot be cut down by a besieging force. Out
+of such places the garrison can be easily driven by shells thrown
+over such fences, but an Oude force has seldom either the means or
+the skill for such purposes. When driven out by shells or any other
+means, the garrison retires at night, with little risk, through the
+bamboo fence and surrounding jungle and brushwood, by paths known
+only to themselves. They are never provided with the means of
+subsistence for a long siege; and when the Oude forces sent against
+them are not prepared with the means to shell them out, they sit down
+quietly, and starve or weary them out. This is commonly a very long
+process, for the force is seldom large enough to surround the place
+at a safe distance from the walls and bamboo fence, so as to prevent
+all access to provision of all kinds, which the garrison is sure to
+get from their friends and allies in the neighbourhood, the garrison
+generally having the sympathy of all the large landholders around,
+and the besieging force being generally considered the common and
+irreconcilable enemy of all.
+
+As soon as the garrison escapes, it goes systematically and
+diligently to work in plundering indiscriminately all the village
+communities over the most fertile parts of the surrounding country,
+which do not belong to baronial proprietors like themselves till it
+has made the Government authorities agree to its terms, or reduced
+the country to a waste. The leaders of the gang may sometimes
+condescend to quicken the process by appropriating a portion of their
+plunder to bribing some influential person at Court, who gets an
+injunction issued to the local authorities to make some arrangement
+for terminating the pillage and consequent loss of revenue, or he
+will be superseded or forfeit his contract. The rebel then returns
+with his followers, repairs all the mischief done to his fort,
+improves its defences, and stipulates for a remission of his revenue
+for a year or more, on account of the injury sustained by his crops
+or granaries. The unlucky Amil, whose zeal and energy have caused the
+necessity for this reduction, is probably thrown into gaol till "he
+pays the uttermost farthing," or bribes influential persons at Court
+to get him released on the ground of his poverty.
+
+I may here mention the jungles in Oude which have been created and
+are still preserved by landholders, almost solely for the above
+purposes. They are all upon the finest soil, and in the finest
+climate; and the lands they occupy might almost all be immediately
+brought into tillage, and studded by numerous happy village
+communities.
+
+I may, however, before I begin to describe them, mention the fact
+that many influential persons at Court, as well as the landholders
+themselves, are opposed to such a salutary measure. If brought under
+tillage and occupied by happy village communities, all the revenue
+would or might flow in legitimate channels into the King's treasury;
+whereas in their present state they manage to fill their own purses
+by gratuities from the refractory landholders who occupy them, or
+from the local authorities, who require permission from Court to
+coerce them into obedience. Of these gratuities such a salutary
+measure would deprive them; and it is, in consequence, exceedingly
+difficult to get a jungle cut down, however near it may be to the
+city where wood is so dear, and has to be brought from jungles five
+or ten times the distance.
+
+_In the Sultanpore District_.
+
+_1st_.--The Jungle of Paperghat, about one hundred miles south-east
+from Lucknow, on the bank of the Goomtee river, ten miles long, and
+three wide, or thirty square miles.
+
+In this jungle Dirgpaul Sing, tallookdar of Nanneemow, has a fort;
+and Rostum Sing, tallookdar of Dera, has another.
+
+_2nd_.--The Dostpore Jungle, one hundred and twenty miles south-east
+from Lucknow, on the bank of the Mujhoee river, twelve, miles long,
+and three broad, or thirty-six square miles.
+
+_3rd_.--The Khapra Dehee Jungle, one hundred miles south-east from
+Lucknow, on the plain, about ten miles long, and six miles broad, or
+sixty square miles.
+
+_4th_.--The Jugdeespore Jungle, on the bank of the Goomtee river,
+fifty miles south-east from Lucknow, sixteen miles long, and three
+miles broad, forty-eight square miles.
+
+Allee Buksh Khan, tallookdar, has the fort of Tanda in this jungle,
+on the bank of the Kandoo rivulet, which flows through it into the
+Goomtee. The fort of Bechoogur in this jungle is held by another
+tallookdar.
+
+_5th_.--Gurh Ameytee, seventy miles from Lucknow, south-east, on the
+bank of the Sae river, nine miles long and three broad, or twenty
+seven square miles.
+
+Rajah Madhoe Sing has a fort in this jungle, and is one of the very
+worst, but most plausible men in Oude.
+
+_6th_.--Daoodpoor Jungle, seventy miles south-east from Lucknow, on
+the plain, four miles long and three broad, or twelve square miles.
+
+The Beebee or Lady Sagura has her fort and residence in this jungle.
+
+_7th_.--Duleeppore Jungle, one hundred and ten miles east from
+Lucknow, on the bank of the Sae river, ten miles long, and three
+miles wide, thirty square miles.
+
+Seetla Buksh, who is always in rebellion, has a fort in this jungle.
+
+_8th_.--The Matona Jungle, fifty miles south-east from Lucknow, on
+the bank of the Goomtee river, twelve miles long and three wide--
+square miles, thirty-six.
+
+Allee Buksh Khan, a notoriously refractory tallookdar, has a fort in
+this jungle.
+
+_In the Uldeemow District_.
+
+_9th_.--Mugurdhee Jungle, one hundred and forty miles east from
+Lucknow, on the bank of Ghogra river, eight miles long and three
+broad--square miles, twenty-four.
+
+_10th_.--Putona Jungle, one hundred and twenty miles east from
+Lucknow, on the bank of the Tonus river, eight miles long and four
+miles broad--square miles, thirty-two.
+
+_11th_.--Mudungur Jungle, one hundred and twenty miles east from
+Lucknow, on the bank of the Tonus river, six miles long, and three
+miles broad--square miles, eighteen.
+
+Amreys Sing and Odreys Sing, sons of Surubdowun Sing (who was killed
+by the King's troops thirty years ago), hold the fort of Mudungur in
+this jungle.
+
+_12th_.--Bundeepore Jungle, east from Lucknow one hundred and forty
+miles, on the plain, seven miles long and one broad--seven square
+miles.
+
+_13th_.--Chunderdeeh, south-east from Lucknow one hundred and ten
+miles, on the bank of the Goomtee river, seven miles long, and three
+miles wide--square miles, twenty-one.
+
+_In the Dureeabad District_.
+
+_14th_.--Soorujpore Behreyla Jungle, east from Lucknow forty miles,
+on the bank of the Kuleeanee river, sixteen miles long, and four
+miles broad--square miles, sixty-four.
+
+Chundee Sing has a fort in this jungle, and the family have been
+robbers for several generations. The widow of the late notorious
+robber, Rajah Singjoo, the head of the family, has a still stronger
+one.
+
+_15th_.--Guneshpore Jungle, sixty miles south-east from Lucknow, on
+the bank of the Goomtee river, six miles long and two broad--twelve
+square miles.
+
+Maheput Sing, an atrocious robber, holds his fort of Bhowaneegur in
+this jungle.
+
+_In the Dewa Jahangeerabad District._
+
+_16th_.--The Kasimgunge and Bhetae Jungle, eighteen miles north-east
+from Lucknow, sixteen miles long, and four miles wide--square miles,
+sixty-four, on the bank of the little river Reyt.
+
+Gunga Buksh holds the forts of Kasimgunge and Atursae in this jungle;
+Thakur Purshad those of Bhetae and Buldeogur; and Bhugwunt Sing that
+of Munmutpore. Other members of the same family hold those of Ramgura
+Paharpore. The whole family are hereditary and inveterate robbers.
+
+_In the Bangur District_.
+
+_17th_.--Tundeeawun Jungle, on the plain, west from Lucknow, seventy-
+two miles, twelve miles long and six broad--square miles, seventy-
+two.
+
+_In the Salone District._
+
+_18th_.--The Naen Jungle, eighty miles south from Lucknow, on the
+bank of the Sae river, sixteen miles long and three wide--square
+miles, forty-eight.
+
+Jugurnath Buksh, the tallookdar, holds the fort of Jankeebund, in
+this jungle; and others are held in the same jungle by members of his
+family.
+
+_19th_.--The Kutaree Jungle, on the bank of the Kandoo river, south-
+east from Lucknow sixty miles, eight miles long and three broad--
+square miles, twenty-four.
+
+Surnam Sing, the tallookdar, has a fort in this jungle.
+
+_In the Byswara District_.
+
+_20th_.--The Sunkurpore Jungle, south of Lucknow seventy miles, on
+the plain, ten miles long and three wide--square miles, thirty.
+
+Benee Madhoe, the tallookdar, has three forts in this jungle.
+
+_In the Hydergur District_.
+
+_21st_.--The Kolee Jungle, fifty miles south-east from Lucknow, on
+the bank of the Goomtee river, three miles long and one and a half
+wide--square miles, four and a half.
+
+The rebels and robbers in this jungle trust to the natural defences
+of the ravines and jungles.
+
+_22nd_.--Kurseea Kuraea Jungle, south-east from Lucknow fifty miles,
+on the bank of the Goomtee river, three miles long and one wide--
+square miles, three.
+
+The landholders trust in the same way to natural defences.
+
+_In the Khyrabad and Mahomdee Districts_.
+
+_23rd_.--Gokurnath Jungle, north-west from Lucknow one hundred miles,
+extending out from the Terae forest, and running south-east in a belt
+thirty miles long and five wide--square miles, one hundred and fifty.
+
+Husun Rajah, the tallookdar of Julalpore, has a fort in this jungle.
+Sheobuksh Sing, the tallookdar of Lahurpore, holds here the fort of
+Katesura; and Omrow Sing, the tallookdar of Oel, holds two forts in
+this jungle.
+
+_In the Baree and Muchreyta Districts_.
+
+_24th_.--The Suraen Jungle, north-west from Lucknow thirty-four
+miles, along the banks of the Suraen river, twelve miles long and
+three miles wide--square miles, thirty-six.
+
+In this jungle Jowahir Sing holds the fort of Basae Deeh; Khorrum
+Sing, that of Seogur; Thakur Rutun Sing, that of Jyrampore. They are
+all landholders of the Baree district, and their forts are on the
+_north_ bank of the Saraen river. Juswunt Sing holds the fort of
+Dhorhara; Dul Sing, that of Gundhoreea; Rutun Sing holds two forts,
+Alogee and Pupnamow.--They are all landholders of the Muchreyta
+district, and their four forts are on the _south_ bank of the Saraen
+river.
+
+This gives twenty-four belts of jungle beyond the Terae forest, and
+in the fine climate of Oude, covering a space of eight hundred and
+eighty-six square miles, at a rough computation.* In these jungles
+the landholders find shooting, fishing, and security for themselves
+and families, grazing ground for their horses and cattle, and fuel
+and grass for their followers; and they can hardly understand how
+landholders of the same rank, in other countries, can contrive to
+live happily without them. The man who, by violence, fraud, and
+collusion, absorbs the estates of his weaker neighbours, and creates
+a large one for himself, in any part of Oude, however richly
+cultivated and thickly peopled, provides himself with one or two mud
+forts, and turns the country around them into a jungle, which he
+considers to be indispensable as well to his comfort as to his
+security.
+
+[* The surface of the Oude territory, including the Terae forest, is
+supposed to contain twenty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty-
+nine square miles. The Terae forest includes, perhaps, from four to
+five thousand miles; but within that space there is a great deal of
+land well tilled and peopled.]
+
+The atrocities described in the above narrative were committed by
+Bhooree Khan, in the process of converting his estate of Dewa into a
+jungle, and building strongholds for his gang as it increased and
+became more and more formidable. Having converted Deogon into a
+jungle, and built his strongholds, he would, by the usual process of
+violence, fraud, and collusion with local authorities, have absorbed
+the small surrounding estates of his weaker neighbours, and formed a
+very large one for himself. The same process, no doubt, went on in
+England successively under the Saxons, Danes, and Normans; and in
+every country in Europe, under successive invaders and conquerors, or
+as long as the baronial proprietors of the soil were too strong to be
+coerced by their Sovereign as they are in Oude.
+
+An Englishman may further ask how it is that a wretch guilty of such
+cruelties to men who never wronged him, to innocent and unoffending
+females and children, can find, in a society where slavery is
+unknown, men to assist him in inflicting them, and landholders of
+high rank and large possessions to screen and shelter him when
+pursued by his Government. He must, for the solution of this
+question, also go back to the MIDDLE AGES, in England and the other
+nations of Europe, when the baronial proprietors of the soil, too
+strong for their sovereigns, committed the same cruelties, found the
+same willing instruments in their retainers, and members of the same
+class of landed proprietors, to screen, shelter, and encourage them
+in their iniquities.
+
+They acquiesce in the atrocities committed by one who is in armed
+resistance to the Government to-day, and aid him in his enterprises
+openly or secretly, because they know that they may be in the same
+condition, and require the same aid from him to-morrow--that the more
+sturdy the resistance made by one, the less likely will the
+Government officers be to rouse the resistance of others. They do not
+sympathise with those who suffer from his depredations, or aid the
+Government officers in protecting them, because they know that they
+could not support the means required to enable them to contend
+successfully with their Sovereign, and reduce him to terms, without
+plundering and occasionally murdering the innocent of all ages and
+both sexes, and that they may have to raise the same means in a
+similar contest to-morrow. They are satisfied, therefore, if they can
+save their own tenants from pillage and slaughter. They find,
+moreover, that the sufferings of others enable them to get
+cultivators and useful tenants of all kinds upon their own estates,
+on more easy terms, and to induce the smaller allodial or khalsa
+proprietors around, to yield up their lands to them, and become their
+tenants with less difficulty. It was in the same manner that the
+great feudal barons aggrandised themselves in England, and all the
+other countries of Europe, in the MIDDLE AGES.
+
+In Oude all these great landholders look upon the Sovereign and his
+officers--except when they happen to be in collusion with them for
+the purpose of robbing or coercing others--as their natural enemies,
+and will never trust themselves in their power without undoubted
+pledges of personal security. The great feudal tenants of the Crown
+in England, and the other nations of Europe, did the same, except
+when they were in collusion with them for the purpose of robbing
+others of their rights; or fought under their banners for the purpose
+of robbing or destroying the subjects and servants of some other
+Sovereign whom he chose to call his enemy.
+
+Only one of these sources of union between the Sovereign and his
+great landholders is in operation in Oude. Some of them are every
+year in collusion with the governors of districts for the purpose of
+coercing and robbing others; but the Sovereign can never unite them
+under his banners for the purpose of invading and plundering any
+other country, and thereby securing for himself and them present
+_glory_, wealth, and high-sounding titles, and the admiration and
+applause of future generations. The strong arm of the British
+Government is interposed between them and all surrounding countries;
+and there is no safety-valve for their unquiet spirits in foreign
+conquests. They can no longer do as Ram did two thousand seven
+hundred years ago--lead an army from Ajodheea to Ceylone. They must
+either give up fighting, or fight among themselves, as they appear to
+have been doing ever since Ram's time; and there are at present no
+signs of a disposition to send out another "Sakya Guntama" from
+Lucknow, or Kapila vastee to preach peace and good-will to "all the
+nations of the earth." They would much rather send out fifty thousand
+more brave soldiers to fight "all the nations of the east," under the
+banners of the Honourable East India Company.
+
+An English statesman may further ask how it is that so much disorder
+can prevail in a small territory like Oude without the gangs, to
+which it must give rise, passing over the border to depredate upon
+the bordering districts of its neighbours. The conterminous districts
+on three sides belong to the British Government, and that on the
+fourth or north belongs to Nepaul. The leaders of these gangs know,
+that if the British Government chose to interpose and aid the Oude
+Government with its troops, it could crush them in a few days; and
+that it would do so if they ventured to rob and murder within its
+territory. They know, also, that it would do the same if they
+ventured to cross the northern border, and rob and murder within the
+Nepaul territory. They therefore confine their depredations to the
+Oude territory, seeing that, as long as they do so, the British
+Government remains quiet.
+
+
+
+
+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 mango-
+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.
+
+
+Poorae Chowdheree, of Kuchohee, held a share in the lands of the
+village of Bhanpoor in Radowlee. He mortgaged it in 1830, to a co-
+sharer, who transferred the mortgage to _Meherban Sing_, of
+Guneshpoor. Poorae disliked the arrangement, and made all the
+cultivators desert the village of Bhanpoor, and leave the lands
+waste. Meherban attacked the village of Kuchohee in consequence,
+killed Porae, and seized upon all the lands of Bhanpoor for himself.
+Rajah Ram, one of the ousted co-sharers in these lands, attacked and
+killed Meherban in 1832, and seized upon all the lands of Bhanpoor.
+
+After the death of his first wife, Meherban had attacked the house of
+Bhowanee Sing, Rajpoot, of Teur, carried off his daughter, who had
+been affianced to another, and forcibly made her his wife. By her he
+had one daughter and one son, named _Maheput Sing_, who now inherited
+from his father a fifteenth part of one of the six and half shares
+into which the lands of Guneshpoor were divided. He, by degrees,
+murdered, or drove out of the village, all his co-sharers, save
+Gunbha Sing and Chungha Sing, joint proprietors of a small part of
+one of the shares, known by the name of the Kunnee Puttee. From the
+year 1843, Maheput Sing became a robber by profession, and the leader
+of a formidable gang; and in three years, by a long series of
+successful enterprises, he acquired the means of converting his
+residence, on the border of the town of Guneshpoor, into a strong
+fort, among the deep ravines of the Goomtee river. This fort he
+called _Bhowaneegur_, after Bhowanee, the patroness of the trade of
+murder and robbery, which he had adopted.
+
+I shall now mention, more circumstantially, a few of the many
+atrocities committed by him and his gang, during the last few years
+of his career, as illustrative of the state of society in Oude.
+Bulbhudder Sing, a subadar of the 45th Regiment of Bengal Native
+Infantry, resided at Rampoor Sobeha, in the Dureeabad district. By
+degrees he purchased thirteen-sixteenths of the lands of these two
+small villages, which adjoin each other, out of the savings from his
+pay, and those of his nephew, Mugun Sing, havildar of the 43rd
+Regiment Bengal Native Infantry. On his being transferred to the
+invalid establishment, the subadar resided with his family in
+Rampoor, and in May, 1846, his nephew, Mugun Sing, came home on
+furlough to visit him. Gujraj, an associate of Maheput Sing's, held
+the other three-sixteenths of the lands of these two villages; and by
+the murder of the subadar and all his family, he thought he should be
+able to secure for himself the possession of the whole estate in
+perpetuity. The family consisted of the subadar and his wife,--Mugun
+Sing, the son of his deceased brother, Man Sing, and his wife; and
+his son Bijonath and his wife,--Dwarka Sing, son of Ojagur Sing,
+another deceased brother of the subadar,--Mahta Deen, the son of
+Chundun Sing, another deceased brother of the subadar, and his wife
+and young son, Surubjeet Sing, seven years of age,--Kulotee Sing, son
+of Gobrae, another deceased brother of the subadar,--Bag Sing, a
+relative,--Bechun Sing, a servant,--Seo Deen, the gardener,--Jeeawun
+Sing, the barber, and the widow of Salwunt Sing, another son of Mugun
+Sing, havildar.
+
+When the family were all assembled, Maheput Sing, with Gujraj and
+other associates, and a gang of one hundred and fifty armed
+followers, proceeded to the village at midnight, and carefully
+reconnoitred the premises. It was, after consultation, determined to
+defer the attack till daybreak, as the subadar and his nephews were
+known to be brave and well-armed men, who kept watch till towards
+morning, and would make a desperate resistance, unless taken by
+surprise. They remained concealed within the enclosure of Gujraj's
+house, till just before daylight, when they quietly surrounded the
+subadar's house. As day dawned the subadar got up, opened the door
+and walked out, as usual, to breathe the fresh air, thinking all
+safe. He was immediately shot down, and on Mugun Sing's rushing out
+to assist his uncle, he received a shot in the eye, and fell dead on
+his body. The robbers then rushed in, cut down Jeeawun, the barber,
+while attempting to shut the door, and wounded Kulotee Sing,* Bag
+Sing, and others of the party. Finding that they could no longer
+stand against the numbers, rushing in at the doors and windows, the
+defenders climbed from the inside to the flat roof of the house, over
+the apartments of the men, fired down upon the robbers, who were
+still inside, and shot one of them. The robbers, finding they could
+not otherwise dislodge them, set fire to that part of the house, and
+the men were obliged to leap off to save themselves. In doing this,
+Bag Sing hurt his spine, and Seo Deen sprained his ankle, and both
+lay where they fell, pretending to be dead, till night. The others
+all went off in search of succour.
+
+[* Kulotee Sing was murdered, a few days afterwards, by Maheput and
+Gujraj, as he was superintending the cultivation of his lands.]
+
+The robbers found the boy, Surubjeet, lying sick on his bed, attended
+by his mother. They seized him and dashed his head against the
+ground; and when he still showed signs of life, Gujraj cut him to
+pieces with his sword. They then seized and stripped the females
+naked, and sprinkled boiling oil over their bodies, till they pointed
+out all the property concealed in the house. Seventeen hundred rupees
+were found buried in the floor; and the rest of the property in
+clothes, gold and silver ornaments, and brass utensils, amounted to
+about ten thousand rupees.
+
+About noon, while the robbers were still in the house, the Amil of
+Mohlara came with a large force and one gun, and surrounded them; but
+stood at a safe distance, whence he kept up for some time a fire from
+his gun and his matchlocks, which had no effect whatever. The robbers
+fired in return from the house, merely to show that they were not to
+be frightened from their booty in that way. This went on till after
+dark in the evening, when the robbers all retired to the jungles with
+their booty, unmolested by the Amil.
+
+Byjonath, who had brought the Amil to the spot, urged him on as much
+as he could to save the property and females, and avenge the death of
+those who had fallen, and he killed one man and seized another, the
+son of one of the leaders; but he was obliged to give him up to the
+Amil as an hostage, for the recovery of the property, and a witness
+to the robbery. The Amil kept him for six months, and then let him go
+on the largest ransom he could get for him from his father. The
+circumstances were all represented, through the Resident, to the
+Durbar, and redress prayed for, but none was ever obtained.*
+
+[* When the Resident visited this place, in his tour, in January,
+1850, Dwarka Sing and other members of the family described all the
+circumstances of this attack, and they were taken down; and have been
+confirmed since by a judicial investigation.]
+
+In May 1846, Maheput attacked the house of Seobuksh, a gardener, and
+after plundering it, he seized and carried off to the jungle the
+gardener's brother, Puroutee, and tortured him to death with hot
+irons, because he could not raise the sum demanded for his ransom.
+
+In August 1847, Maheput Sing and his gang attacked the house of
+Meherban Tewaree, subadar of the Gwalior Contingent, in the village
+of Hareehurpoor, in the district of Rodowlee. It was about ten at
+night, and the whole family were asleep. The subadar lay on his cot
+below, near the door, his brother, Angud Tewaree, slept on the upper
+story. Some placed ladders and entered the upper story through a
+window; Maheput, with others, broke open the door, near which the
+subadar slept below. The brother got a sword-cut in the hand, and
+called out from the upper story as loud as he could for help; but
+their neighbours were all too much alarmed to come to their aid.
+Maheput seized and bound the subadar with his own waistband, and
+commanded his brother to come down, saying, that he need not call for
+help, as the villagers all knew him too well to molest him; and if he
+did not come down instantly he would set fire to the house. Seeing no
+chance of help, he came down, and was bound with his own waistband in
+the same manner. When the subadar remonstrated against this
+treatment, Maheput struck him over the face. They then plundered the
+house of all the property it contained, to the value of six hundred
+and fifty rupees; and took the subadar and his brother to the
+jungles; and, in the morning, demanded a ransom of one thousand
+rupees. At last they came down to four hundred rupees and the horse,
+which the subadar kept for his own riding. The subadar consented, and
+his brother was released to get the money and horse. He borrowed the
+money and sent it with the horse through Bhowanee Deen Tewaree,
+landholder of Ladeeka Poorwa, and the subadar was released. He
+presented three petitions, through the Resident, and orders were sent
+from the Durbar to the local authorities, Hurdut Sing and Monna Lal,
+but they were both in league with the robbers, and tried to get the
+subadar made away with, to save further trouble, and he sought
+security with his regiment.*
+
+[* Meherban Tewaree, subadar, was present, as a witness at the
+subsequent trial of Maheput and Gujraj, who were sentenced to
+transportation beyond seas for life.]
+
+In January 1847, Maheput and his gang attacked the village of
+Bahapoor, in the Rodowlee district; and after plundering all the
+houses, seized and carried off among others Seetul, the spirit-
+dealer, and the two sons of Reehta, the widow of Bhosoo, one twenty-
+two years of age, and the other eighteen. They tortured them with
+red-hot irons, and tied bamboos round their necks every day for
+fifteen days. Maheput then shot the eldest son, and cut his body to
+pieces with his sword. The younger son, at night, made his escape
+while they were asleep, and returned to tell the tale of his
+brother's murder to his mother. Seetul, the Kalwar, got his uncle to
+lend him twenty-eight rupees, for which he was released.
+
+In April 1847, Maheput Sing and his gang attacked the house of
+Ramoutar, Brahmin, of the Brahmin village of Guneshpoor, in Rodowlee;
+plundered it of properly valued at one hundred rupees, and then bound
+Ramoutar, his father and two sons, and took them off to the jungles;
+and there tortured them all for seven days. He then had the two boys,
+one nine years old and the other five, suspended to a tree and
+flogged; and Ramoutar himself tied to a thorny tree and beaten till
+the blood flowed down and drenched his waistband, because he could
+pay nothing, and would not sign a bond to pay two thousand rupees.
+His sufferings and the sight of those of his two sons made him at
+last sign one for one thousand rupees. He was flogged again till his
+friends brought four hundred out of the thousand, and Cheyt Sing,
+Thakoor, a respectable landholder of Koleea, in Rodowlee, consented
+to give security for the payment of two hundred and forty-two rupees
+more. Ramoutar and his family were then released, after they had been
+confined and tortured for thirty-six days, and they went off and
+resided at Bookcheyna in Khundasa. A year after his house was there
+attacked by Maheput Sing and his gang, and plundered of all it
+contained; and his brother Seetul, and his youngest son were seized
+and taken off to his fort at Bhowaneegur, and there tortured and
+starved for six months. Ramoutar then borrowed one hundred and sixty
+rupees, and obtained the release of his brother Seetul, and a year
+after he was able to raise forty-seven rupees more, with which he
+ransomed his son.
+
+In May 1847, Maheput Sing attacked the house of Seolal Tewaree of
+Torsompoor, in Rodowlee, at midnight; and after plundering it and
+stripping his mother and wife, and the wife of his brother, Jurbundun
+Sing, of all the clothes and ornaments they had, he bound and carried
+off to the jungle the two brothers, Seolal and Jurbundun. They were
+flogged, and had hot irons applied to their bodies every day for
+twenty days, and had only a little flour to eat and water to drink,
+once in three days. After twenty days they contrived to make their
+escape one dark and stormy night, and got home; but three days after
+he again attacked their house and burnt it to the ground, with all
+they possessed. He, at the same time, burnt down the house of their
+uncle, in the same village, and that of one of their ploughmen; and
+two cows and one bullock were burnt to death in the flames.
+
+In July 1847, Maheput Sing and his gang attacked the house of Chubbee
+Lal, Brahmin, in the village of Bunnee, in the Rodowlee district, and
+after plundering it of property to the value of five hundred rupees,
+he bound and took the old Brahmin off to the jungles, and demanded
+from him a ransom of eight thousand rupees. This sum the old man
+could not pay, and he was flogged with thorns, and had red-hot irons
+applied to his body every day. Maheput then sent a letter to the old
+man's son, Dwarka, desiring him to send the eight thousand rupees if
+he wished his father to live. The house having been plundered, the
+family had nothing left, and could persuade no one to lend them. On
+receiving a reply to this effect, Maheput had the old man's body
+plastered all over with moist gunpowder, and made him stand in the
+sun till it was dry. He then set fire to the powder, and the poor man
+was burnt all over. He then cut off both his hands at the wrists, and
+his nose, and sent them to his family, and in this condition be
+afterwards sent the poor man to his home upon a cot. The son met his
+father at the door, but the old man died as soon as his son had
+embraced him.
+
+Maheput carried off Pem, the son of Teeka, at the same time, and
+tortured him till his family paid the ransom demanded. He was witness
+to the tortures of the old Brahmin.
+
+In August 1847, Maheput and his gang attacked the house of Bichook, a
+Brahmin, in the village of Torsompoor, in Rodowlee, at midnight,
+while he was sleeping, and bound and carried him off to the jungle.
+The next day, when he was about to have him tortured for a ransom,
+one of his followers interceded for him, and he was released. But a
+month after, Maheput and his gang again attacked his house, and after
+plundering it of all it contained, they burnt it to the ground.
+Bichook had run off on hearing their approach, and he escaped to
+Syudpoor.
+
+In November, 1846, Maheput Sing attacked the house of Sook Allee, in
+Guneshpoor, at midnight, with a gang of one hundred men; and, after
+plundering it of all the property it contained, to the amount of four
+hundred rupees, he burnt it to the ground, and bound and carried off
+Sook Allee to the house of his friend, Byjonath Bilwar, a landholder
+in the village of Kholee, eight miles distant. He there demanded a
+ransom of five hundred rupees; and on his declaring that he neither
+had nor could borrow such a sum, he had him tortured with hot irons,
+and flogged in the usual way. He kept him for two months at Kholee,
+and then took him to Tukra, in the Soorajpoor purgunnah, where he
+kept him for another month, torturing, and giving him half a meal
+every other day. At the end of three months, Akber Sing and Bhowanee
+Deen, Rajpoot landholders of Odemow, contrived to borrow two hundred
+rupees for Sook Allee, and he was released on the payment of this
+sum. The marks of the hot irons, applied to his body by Maheput Sing,
+with his own hands, are still visible, and will remain so as long as
+he lives.*
+
+[* I saw these marks on the sufferer.]
+
+About the same time--the latter end of 1846--Maheput Sing sent to
+Sheik Sobratee, of the same place, a message through a pausee, named
+Bhowanee Deen, demanding twenty-five rupees. This sum was sent; but
+six weeks had not elapsed, before Sheik Sobratee received another
+demand for the same amount, through the same person. He had no money,
+but promised to send the sum in ten days. At midnight, on the fourth
+day after this, Maheput and his gang attacked his house, and
+plundered it of all they could find, female ornaments, and clothes,
+and brass utensils. Sobratee was that night sleeping at the house of
+his friend Peree, the wood-dealer, in the same town. Maheput tried to
+make his mother and wife point out where he was, by torturing them,
+but they either would not or could not do so. After some search,
+however, they discovered him, and bound and took him off, with
+handcuffs, and an iron collar round his neck, to the Kurseea jungle,
+in the Hydergur pergunnah. His son, a boy, had escaped. After
+torturing him in the usual way for eight days, they sent a message to
+his mother by Maheput's servant, Salar, to say, that unless she sent
+a ransom of five hundred rupees, her son's nose and hands should be
+cut off and sent to her as those of _Chubbee Lal_, Brahmin, of
+Bunnee, had been. She prevailed upon Baroonath Gotum to lend the
+money; and Maheput sent Sobratee to him, accompanied by one of his
+armed retainers, with orders to make him over to the Gotum, if he
+pledged himself in due form to pay. He did so, and Sobratee was made
+over to him, and the next day sent home to his wife and mother. Some
+months after, however, when he had completed his fort of Bhowneegur,
+Maheput sent to demand two hundred rupees more from Sobratee, and
+when he found he could not pay, he had his house pulled, down, and
+took away all the materials to his fort. What he did not require he
+caused to be burnt. He got from Sobratee, in ransom and plunder, more
+than three thousand rupees; and he has been ever since reduced to
+great poverty and distress.
+
+In November 1847, Maheput Sing and his gang seized and carried off
+Khosal, a confectioner, of Talgon, in Rodowlee, who had gone to his
+sister at Buhapoor, near Guneshpoor, to attend a marriage--took him
+to the jungle, and tortured and starved him in the usual way for five
+weeks. He had him burnt with red-hot irons, flogged and ducked in a
+tank every day, and demanded a ransom of two hundred rupees. At last,
+his brother, Davey Deen, borrowed thirty-three rupees from Rambuksh,
+a merchant of Odermow, and offered to pay it for his ransom. Maheput
+sent Khosal, with his agent, Bhowanee Deen, to Rambuksh, and he
+released him on getting the money. He still bears on his body the
+marks of the stripes and burnings.*
+
+[* These marks I have seen.]
+
+In December 1847, Maheput and his gang attacked the house of Motee
+Lal Misser, a Brahmin, in the village of------, and after robbing it
+of all that it contained, he seized and carried off his nephew, Ram
+Deen, a boy of seven years of age, and tortured him for a month in
+the jungle. He then cut off his left ear and the forefinger of his
+right hand, and sent them to the uncle in a letter, stating, that if
+he did not send him one thousand rupees, he would send the boy's head
+in the same manner. The boy's father had died, and his uncle, with
+great difficulty, prevailed upon his friends and neighbours to lend
+him two hundred and twenty rupees, which he sent to Maheput, and his
+nephew was released. The boy declares to me that Maheput cut off his
+ear and finger with his own hands.*
+
+[* This boy was present, as a witness, at the trial of Maheput.]
+
+In June 1848, Forsut Pandee, of Resalpandee-ka-Poorwa, in Rodowlee,
+accompanied Girwar Sing, a Rajpoot of Bowra, in Rodowlee, to
+Guneshpoor, on some business. They were smoking and talking together
+at the house of Mungul Sing, Thakoor, a large landholder of that
+place, when five of Maheput's armed men came up, and told Forsut
+Pandee to attend them to their master. Girwar Sing remonstrated and
+declared that his honour had been pledged for Forsut Pandee's
+personal safety. Mungul Sing, Thakoor, however, told him, that he
+must offer no opposition, as they seized all travellers who came that
+way, and it was dangerous to oppose them. He was taken to Maheput
+Sing, in his fort at Bhowaneegur, situated half a mile from
+Guneshpoor. Maheput told him that he had heard of his having a good
+flint gun, and a shawl in his house, and that he must have them.
+Forsut Pandee swore on the Ganges that he had no such things. He then
+had him tied up to a tree and flogged him with his own hands with
+thorny bushes, the scars of which are still visible. He then demanded
+a ransom of three hundred rupees, and had him flogged and tortured
+every day for a month, while he gave him to eat only half a pound of
+flour every two or three days. The prisoner's brother, Bhoree Pandee,
+sold all the clothes and ornaments of his family, utensils, and
+furniture, and their hereditary mango and mhowa grove, and raised two
+hundred and six rupees, which he sent to Maheput, through Baldan
+Sing, a landholder of Bharatpoor, two miles from Guneshpoor. On the
+receipt of this Forsut Pandee was released.
+
+In October 1848, Maheput Sing sent ten of his gang to seize a
+cultivator, by name Khosal, who was engaged in cultivating his land
+in a hamlet, one mile south of the town of Syudpoor. They seized and
+bound him and took him off to their leader, Maheput, who had him
+tortured for a month in the usual way. He had him tied up to a ladder
+and flogged. He had red-hot irons applied to different parts of his
+body--he put dry combustibles on the open palms of his hands and set
+fire to them, so that he has lost the use of his fingers for life.
+For the whole month he gave him only ten pounds of flour to eat; but
+his friends contrived to convey a little more to him occasionally,
+which he ate by stealth. He was reduced, by hunger and torture, to
+the last stage, when his family, by the sale of all they had in the
+world, and the compassion of their friends, raised the sum of one
+hundred and twenty-six rupees, which they sent to Maheput, by Thakoor
+Persaud, a landholder of the village of Somba, and obtained his
+release. The tortures have rendered him a cripple, and the family are
+reduced to a state of great wretchedness.*
+
+[* This man was a witness at the trial of Maheput, and I saw the
+signs of his sufferings.]
+
+The village of Guneshpoor yielded a revenue to Government of twenty-
+one thousand rupees a-year, and was divided into six and half shares
+each, held by a different person. One belonged to Omrow Sing,
+Rajpoot, the father of Hunmunt Sing, a corporal in the 44th Regiment
+Bengal Native Infantry, and descended to Omrow Sing's eldest son,
+Davey Sing. One share was held, jointly, by Maheput Sing and Chotee
+Sing, when, in October 1848, Maheput assembled a gang of about two
+hundred men, and attacked the house of Davey Sing, while his brother
+Hunmunt Sing was at home on recruiting service. There were in the
+house the corporal and his three brothers, and all mounted, with
+their friends, to the top of the house, with their swords and spears,
+but without fire-arms. The robbers, unable to ascend from the
+outside, broke open the doors, but the brothers descended and
+defended the passage so resolutely, that the gang was obliged to
+retire and watch for a better opportunity.
+
+Three months after, in January 1849, Maheput attacked the house
+again, with a gang of five hundred men and good scaling-ladders. Some
+ascended to the top on the ladders, while others broke open the doors
+and forced their way in. The brothers and the other male members of
+the family defended themselves resolutely. One of the brothers,
+Esuree Sing, his uncle, Runjeet Sing, sipahee of the 11th Regiment
+Bengal Native Infantry, his cousin, Beetul Sing, sipahee of the 8th
+Regiment Bombay Native Infantry, were all killed, and hacked to
+pieces by Maheput and his gang. No person came to the assistance of
+the family, and the robbers retired with their booty, consisting of
+five hundred and ten rupees in money, four muskets, and four swords,
+and twelve hundred maunds of corn, and all the clothes, ornaments,
+and utensils that could be found. They burnt down the house, and
+dispossessed the family of their share in the estate, and plundered
+all the cultivators. Davey Sine the eldest brother, went to reside at
+Bhanpoor, in the neighbourhood. While he was engaged in cutting a
+field of pulse, in the morning, about seven o'clock, in the month of
+March following, Maheput Sing, with a gang of two hundred men,
+attacked his house, killed his two brothers, Gordut and Hurdut Sing,
+and their servant, Omed, and shot down his nephew, Gorbuksh Sing.
+Ramsahae, the nephew of Maheput Sing, ran up to despatch him with his
+sword, but Gorbuksh rose, cut him down, and killed him with his sword
+before he himself expired.
+
+The corporal, Hunmunt Sing, of the 44th Native Infantry, described
+all these things in several petitions to the Resident, and prayed
+redress, but no redress was ever obtained. Saligram and other
+relatives of the corporal had been plundered and wounded by Maheput
+Sing and his gang, and he describes many other atrocities committed
+by the same gang. His petition of the 27th September 1849, was sent
+to the King by the Resident, who was told, that the Amil of the
+district of Dureeabad, Girdhara Lal, had been ordered to seize
+Maheput Sing and his gang. This Amil was always in league with them.
+
+In December 1847, Maheput Sing and his gang attacked the house of a
+female, named Arganee, the widow of Sheik Rozae, in the village of
+Pertab Pahae. It was midnight, and she was sleeping with her two
+grandchildren, the sons of her son, who was a sipahee in the 66th
+Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry. They bound her hands: and leaving
+her young grandchildren alone, took her off to the jungle eight miles
+distant. There Maheput demanded from her the seven hundred rupees
+which she was said to have accumulated; and when she pleaded poverty,
+and said that the sipahee's pay was their only means of subsistence,
+he had her stripped naked and flogged in the usual way. For a month
+he had her stripped and flogged in the same manner every day. She
+then signed a bond to pay one hundred rupees on a certain day, and
+was released. She sold all she had, and borrowed all she could, and
+on the fourth day sent him fifty, and the other fifty on the
+fifteenth day; but he afterwards had the poor widow's house pulled
+down and all the wood-work carried to his fort of Bhowaneegur.
+
+In April 1849, Maheput Sing and his gang attacked the house of
+Seodeen Misser, sipahee of the 63rd Regiment Bengal Native Infantry;
+and after plundering it, seized and carried off to the jungle his
+brother and that brother's two sons--one seven years of age and the
+other five--and his sister. He sold the two boys as slaves for two
+hundred rupees to a person named Davey Sookul, of Guneshpoor; and
+tortured the brother and sister till the sipahee and his friends sold
+all they had in the world for their ransom, when he released them.
+
+In the month of May 1849, Maheput Sing and his gang at midnight
+attacked the house of Eseree Sing, a Rajpoot of the Chouhan tribe, in
+the village of Salpoor, in Dureeabad; and after stripping his mother
+and all the other females of the family of their clothes and
+ornaments, plundering the house of all it contained, rupees, twenty-
+five in money, two handsome matchlocks, two swords, two spears, and
+two shields, and brass utensils, weighing one hundred and sixty
+pounds, he bound Eseree Sing himself, and took him off with his
+sister, four years of age, and his daughter, only three, to a jungle,
+four miles distant. He there released Eseree Sing himself, but took
+on the girls, and made over his daughter to Akber, one of his
+followers, and his sister to Bechoo, another of his gang, to be
+united to them in marriage. It was at their instigation, and for that
+purpose chiefly, that he made the attack.*
+
+[* Akber and Bechoo are now in prison, with Maheput, at Lucknow.]
+
+
+In August 1849, Maheput and his gang attacked the houses of Seetul,
+Gorbuksh, and Sook Lal, Brahmins, of Guneshpoor; and after plundering
+them, he carried off Gorbuksh and his son, Ram Deen, and Bhowanee,
+the son of Seetul, and Sook Lal, and murdered them. He carried off
+and tortured, in a shocking manner, Benee, of the same place, till he
+paid a ransom; and Ongud, son of Khunmun, an invalid Khalasie, of the
+26th Regiment Native Infantry.
+
+In September 1849, Maheput attacked and plundered the house of Ongud
+Sing, sipahee of the 24th Regiment Bengal Native Infantry, and
+confined the sipahee for some time. His petition was sent to the King
+on the 11th November 1849.
+
+On the 15th of December 1849, Monowur Khan, havildar of the 62nd
+Regiment Bengal Native Infantry, complained that Maheput Sing had
+seized him as he was walking on the high road, and extorted eleven
+rupees from him. His petition was sent to the King, with a request,
+that all local authorities might be urged to aid in his arrest; and
+orders were again sent to the Frontier Police.
+
+On the 24th December 1849, Madho Sing, sipahee of the 11th Regiment
+Bengal Native Infantry, complained that Maheput Sing had attacked and
+plundered his house twice, burnt it down, and cut down all the trees
+which the family had planted for generations, and turned them all out
+of the village--that in the second attack he had murdered his
+daughter, a girl of only nine years of age. His petition was sent to
+the King, who, on the 13th of February 1850, replied that he had
+proclaimed Maheput as a robber and murderer, and offered a reward of
+three thousand rupees for his arrest.
+
+On the 16th of March 1850, Goverdhun complained, that Maheput had
+attacked and plundered his house, and carried off his father to the
+jungles, and extorted from him a ransom of one hundred and ten
+rupees. His petition was sent to the King, who, on the 27th March,
+replied, that he had given frequent and urgent orders for the arrest
+of Maheput Sing.
+
+Gunga Deen, a trooper of the Governor-General's body-guard,
+complained to the Resident, on the 9th of August 1844, that Maheput
+Sing had attacked and killed with his own hand his agent, Thakoor
+Sing, while he was taking seven hundred and seventy-four rupees to
+the revenue-collector. On the 11th of September 1849, he again
+complained to the Resident, that Maheput Sing had plundered
+Bhurteemow and other villages, in Dureeabad, of property to the value
+of six thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine rupees, and murdered
+five men, besides Thakoor Sing, his servant, and had committed
+numerous robberies in other villages during the year 1848. Among them
+one in Bhurteemow, in which he killed Ramjeet and four other men--
+that he had soon after committed a robbery in which no less than
+twenty-two persons were killed and wounded, and property to the value
+of two thousand rupees was carried off. The King was frequently
+pressed most earnestly to arrest this atrocious robber; and on the
+9th of December 1849, the Frontier Police was, at the Kings request,
+directed to do all in their power to seize him.
+
+In July 1847, Maheput Sing and his gang attacked the house of Mungul
+Sookul, a corporal of the 24th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, at
+midnight, robbed it of property to the value of five hundred rupees,
+and so rent the ears of his little son, by the violence with which he
+tore the gold rings from them, that the boy was not likely to live.
+The commanding officer of the regiment sent the corporal's petition
+for redress, through the Resident, to the Durbar; and orders were
+sent to the local authorities to afford it, but they were unable or
+unwilling to do anything.
+
+Gunga Aheer, of Buroulee, in the district of Rodowlee, had been for
+three years a sipahee in the 48th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry,
+under the name of Mata Deen. Continued sickness rendered him unfit
+for duty, and he obtained his discharge, and came home to his family.
+In March 1850, having been long without employment, and reduced, with
+his family, to great distress, he went to his relation, Ramdhun, of
+the Intelligence Department, in the service of the King of Oude, and
+then; on duty at Dureeabad, with the Amil. A reward of three thousand
+rupees having been offered by the King for the arrest of Maheput
+Sing, the Amil ordered Ramdhun to try his best to trace him out, and
+he took Gunga Aheer with him to assist, on a promise of securing for
+him good service if they succeeded. They went to a jungle, about two
+miles from Guneshpoor, and near the foot of Bhowaneegur. While they
+were resting at a temple in the jungle, sacred to Davey, Maheput came
+up, with twenty followers, to offer sacrifice; and as soon as they
+recognized the Harkara, Ramdhun, they seized both, and took them off
+in the evening to a jungle, four miles distant. In the hope of
+frightening Maheput, the Harkara pretended to be in the service of
+the Resident at Lucknow; but as the reward for his arrest had been
+offered on the requisition of the Resident, on the application of
+injured sipahees of the British army, this did not avail him. Their
+hands were tied behind their backs, and as soon as it became dark,
+they took Ramdhun off to a distance of twenty paces from where
+Maheput Sing sat, and made him stand in a circle of men with drawn
+swords. One man advanced, and at one cut with his sword, severed his
+right arm from his body, and it fell to the ground. Another cut into
+the side, under the stump, while a third cut him across the left side
+of the neck with a back cut, he all the time calling out for mercy,
+but in vain. On receiving the cut across the neck he fell dead, and
+the body was flung into the river Goomtee. Maheput sat looking on
+without saying a word.
+
+They then amused themselves for some time by flogging Gunga Aheer
+with thorn bushes, while he in agony cried for mercy. The next day,
+by Maheput's orders, they laid him upon a bed of thorns and beat him
+again, while he screamed from pain, and they laughed at his cries.
+One of the followers told Maheput, that they had been cautioned by
+the outlaw, Jugurnath, the chuprassie, not to murder Ramdhun and his
+companion, or the English would some day avenge them; but he laughed
+and said that spies must be punished, to deter others from pursuing
+them. One of his followers then sat on Gunga's chest while another
+held his arms, and a third his legs, while a fourth cut off his nose,
+and one of his hands at the wrist, and the fingers of the other hand.
+He became senseless, and Maheput and his followers all left him in
+this state. In the evening a servant of Seochurn Chowdheree, of
+Bhowaneepoor, on his way to the jungle, saw him and reported his
+condition to his master, who sent people and had him taken to him on
+a litter. He had his wounds dressed by a village surgeon, and the
+next day sent him home to his wife and mother. The landlord of the
+village reported the case to Captain Orr, of the Frontier Police, at
+Fyzabad, who had Gunga taken off to the hospital at Lucknow, where he
+remained under the care of the Residency surgeon till he recovered.
+This poor man had to support his mother, wife, and daughter by his
+labour. His mother came in with him, and attended him in hospital,
+while his wife and child remained at their village.
+
+While in hospital recovering, Maheput Sing was brought before him, by
+the Frontier Police, to be recognized. As soon as he saw him all the
+terrible scene of Ramdhun's murder and his own torture came so
+vividly before him, that he trembled from head to foot, like a man in
+an ague fit, and was for some time unable to speak. At last, when he
+saw the fetters on Maheput's legs, and the handcuffs on his wrists,
+and armed Government servants around him, he recovered his senses;
+and by degrees, recorded what he had witnessed and suffered at his
+hands.
+
+On the 25th March 1850, Rajah Maun Sing, under orders from the
+Durbar, with all the force he could muster, invested the fort of
+Bhowaneegur, while the force under Captains Weston, Thomas, Bunbury,
+and Magness, attacked the three forts belonging to Rajah Prethee Put,
+of Paska. Maheput Sing left the fort on the 27th, with eleven
+followers, to collect reinforcements and harass the besiegers, and
+the garrison was commanded by his nephew.
+
+On the 28th, Maun Sing had three men killed and several wounded, from
+the fire of the garrison, and wrote for reinforcements to Captain
+Weston, who was at Dureeabad, twelve miles distant. As soon as he got
+the letter, he mounted his horse, and leaving the force to follow,
+rode with his Assistant, Captain Orr, to the place, which is half a
+mile from Guneshpoor south, and two hundred yards from the left bank
+of the Goomtee river north. They were attended by a few sowars, under
+Seo Sing, and they reached the place before daybreak, on the 29th;
+and as soon as day appeared, proceeded with Captain Magness, who had
+galloped on in advance of his regiment to reconnoitre the fort, and
+were fired upon by the garrison wherever they were seen. Maun Sing's
+people had retired after the loss of a few men, to the distance of a
+mile, and lay scattered over the jungle.
+
+The Infantry came up before sunset, and the guns before it grew dark,
+and all were placed in position, and a fire opened upon the fort till
+it grew too dark to point the guns. The garrison soon after attempted
+to escape by the west side, and were fired upon by the parties posted
+on that quarter. Captain Weston, hearing the fire, collected all the
+men he could, and getting with difficulty into the fort, found it
+empty. In the attempt to cut their way through, the garrison had two
+men killed and fifteen wounded and taken, and five managed to escape,
+under cover of the night, into the thick jungle. Bikhai, one of the
+most atrocious of Maheput's followers, was killed; but he killed two
+of the besiegers, and wounded two more before he fell. Akber Sing,
+the most atrocious of all the gang, had his arm taken off by a
+cannon-shot, and was seized. Maheput's nephew, the commandant of the
+garrison, was taken, with one of Maheput's secretaries and advisers.
+
+Of Maun Sing's party, four were killed and thirteen wounded, and
+Captain Magness had one havildar severely wounded. The fort was
+levelled, and the jungle around cut down. The force then proceeded
+and took possession of the forts of Futtehpoor, Oskamow, Sorrea,
+Dyeepoor, and Etonja, all belonging to Jugurnath Chuprassie, another
+leader of banditti of that district They were only a few miles
+distant from Bhowaneegur, and were deserted by his gangs on their
+seeing a British force and hearing the guns open upon Bhowaneegur.
+Two hundred head of stolen cattle were found in the forts of
+Jugurnath, and restored to their proper owners. Parties were sent in
+pursuit of Maheput Sing, and two of his followers were secured; but
+he himself escaped for the time. The forts were all destroyed.
+Captain Orr, the Assistant Superintendent, in charge of the Frontier
+Police at Fyzabad, had been long in pursuit of Maheput Sing, and his
+parties, knowing all his haunts and associates, gave him no rest. His
+subadar, Seetul Sing, became acquainted with Prethee Paul, tallookdar
+of Ramnuggur, who had been deprived of his estate for defalcation,
+and become associated with Maheput Sing. The subadar persuaded this
+landholder that it would be to his advantage to aid in the arrest of
+so atrocious a robber and murderer; and when Maheput next came to him
+to seek some repose from his pursuers, and consult about future
+plans, he sent intimation to Seetul Sing, whose detachment of
+sipahees was at no great distance. On receiving the intimation, the
+subadar marched forthwith, and reached the place at the dawn of day,
+on the morning of the 1st of July 1850. Maheput Sing had just left
+the house to perform his ablutions, but on seeing them, he suspected
+their designs and re-entered the house. The subadar's party saw him,
+immediately surrounded the house, and demanded his surrender, Maheput
+Sing begged Prethee Paul to join him in defending the house or
+cutting their way through; but Prethee Paul told him that he had
+ruined himself by his atrocities, and must now submit to his fate,
+since he could not involve himself and all his family in ruin merely
+to assist him. Prethee Paul then took him by the arm, brought him
+out, and made him over to Seetul Sing, who had threatened to set fire
+to the house, forthwith unless he did so. He was then secured and
+taken off, well guarded, and in all possible haste, to Captain Orr,
+lest his gang might collect and attempt a rescue. Captain Orr sent
+him off, under a strong guard and well fettered, to Lucknow, to
+Captain Weston, the Superintendent of the Frontier Police.
+
+Prethee Paul, the tallookdar, for the good service, got back his
+estate from the Oude sovereign, and an addition of five hundred
+rupees a-year to his nankar or personal allowance. Gunga Aheer is now
+a pensioner on the Residency fund, and his family has been provided
+for. Maheput Sing and his associate Gujraj were sentenced to
+transportation beyond seas, and sent off in October 1851.
+
+It is remarked by the people, that few of these baronial robbers ever
+die natural deaths--that they either kill each other, or are killed
+sooner or later by the servants of Government. More atrocious crimes
+than those which they every month commit it is difficult to conceive.
+In the Bangor district, through which we passed last month, this
+class of landholders are certainly as strong and as much disposed to
+withhold the just dues of Government, and to resist its officers and
+troops, as they are here, but they do not plunder and burn down each
+other's villages, and murder and rob each other's tenants so often as
+they do here. The coalition has introduced among them a kind of
+_balance of power_, which makes them respect each other's rights, and
+the rights of each other's tenants, for the chiefs are dependent upon
+the attachment and fidelity of their respective tenants. The above
+list contains only a part of the leaders of gangs, by which the
+districts of Dureeabad, Rodowlee, Sidhore, Pertabgunge, Deva, and
+Jehangeerabad, are infested. We have seen no manufacture of any
+exportable commodity in Oude, nor have we seen traffic on any road in
+Oude, save that leading from Cawnpore to Lucknow.
+
+In consequence of some bad seasons, a good deal of the grain required
+at the Capital, and in the districts to the north-cast, comes from
+Cawnpore over this road. Were the road from Fyzabad to Lucknow good
+and safe, a good deal of land produce would, in ordinary seasons,
+come over it from the Goruckpoor district, and those intervening
+between Lucknow and Fyzabad. It would, however, be useless to make
+the road till the gangs which infest it are put down. A good and
+secure road from Lucknow through Sultanpoor to Benares, would be of
+still greater advantage.
+
+_February 25_, 1850.--Halted at Dureeabad. I here saw the draft-
+bullocks attached to the guns, with Captain Orr's companies of
+Frontier Police. They are of the best kind, and in excellent
+condition. They have the same allowance of a seer and half of grain
+a-day, which is drawn for every bullock attached to his Majesty's
+artillery. The difference is that they get all that is paid for in
+their name, while the others get one-third; and really got none when
+on detached duty till lately. On Fridays, Captain Orr's bullocks get
+only half; and this is, I believe, the rule with all the others that
+get any at all. His bullocks are bred in the Nanpara, Nigasun,
+Dhorehra, and other districts in the Oude Tarae, and are of an
+excellent quality for work. They cost from 40 to 75 rupees a-pair. In
+these districts of the Tarae forest, the cows are allowed to go
+almost wild in large grass preserves, where they are defended from
+tigers; and the calves are taken from them, when a year old, to be
+taken care of at home, till sold for the dairy or for work. Captain
+Orr's bullocks have no grazing-ground, nor are they sent out at all
+to graze--they get nothing but bhoosa (chaff) and corn. Of bhoosa
+they get as much as they can eat, when on detached duty, as they take
+it from the peasantry without payment; but when at Lucknow, they are
+limited to a very small quantity, as Government has to pay for it. On
+the 15th of May, 1833, the King prohibited any one from taking bhoosa
+without paying for it, either for private or public cattle; and
+directed that bhoosa, for all the Artillery bullocks, should be
+purchased at the harvests, and charged for in the public accounts;
+but the order was disregarded like that against the murder of female
+children.
+
+_February 26_, 1850--Sidhore, sixteen miles, W.S.W. The country, a
+plain, covered as usual with spring crops and fine foliage; but
+intersected midway by the little river Kuleeanee, which causes
+undulations on each side. The soil chiefly doomut and light, but
+fertile. It abounds more in white ants than such light soil generally
+does. We passed through the estate of Soorujpoor Behreylee, in which
+so many of the baronial robbers above described reside, and through
+many villages beyond it, which they had lately robbed and burnt down,
+as far as such villages can be burnt. The mud-walls and coverings are
+as good as bomb-proofs against the fire, to which they are always
+exposed from these robbers. Only twenty days ago, Chundee Behraleea
+and his party attacked the village of Siswae, through which we passed
+a few miles from this--plundered it, and killed three persons, and
+six others perished in the flames. They served several others in the
+neighbourhood in the same manner; and have, within the same time,
+attacked and plundered the town of Sidhore itself several times.
+
+The boundary which separates the Dureeabad from the Sidhore district
+we passed some four miles back; and the greater part of the villages
+lately attacked are situated in the latter, which is under a separate
+Amil, Aga Ahmud, who is, in consequence, unable to collect his
+revenue. The Amil of Dureeabad, Girdhara Sing,* on the contrary,
+acquiesces in all the atrocities committed by these robbers, and is,
+in consequence, able to collect his revenue, and secure the favour of
+the Court. Some of the villages of the estate, held by the widow of
+Singjoo, late Rajah of Soorujpoor, are under the jurisdiction of the
+Sidhore Amil; and, as she would pay no revenue, the Amil took a force
+a few days ago to her twelve villages of Sonowlee, within the
+Dureeabad district, and seized and carried off some three hundred of
+her tenants, men, women, and children, as hostages for the payment of
+the balance due, and confined them pell-mell, in a fort. The clamour
+of the rest of the population as I passed was terrible, all declaring
+that they had paid their rents to the _Ranee_, and that she alone
+ought to be held responsible. She, however, resided at Soorujpoor,
+within the jurisdiction, and under the protection of the Amil of
+Dureeabad.
+
+[* Girdhara Sing's patron is Chundee Sahaee, the minister's deputy,
+whose influence is paramount at present.]
+
+The Behraleea gangs have lately plundered the five villages of
+Sadutpoor, Luloopoor, Bilkhundee, and Subahpoor, belonging to
+Soorujbulee, the head Canoongo, or Chowdheree of Dureeabad, who had
+never offended them. Both the Amils were with me for the latter part
+of the road; and the dispute between them ran very high. It was
+clear, however, that Girdhara Sing was strong in his league with the
+robbers, and conscious of being able to maintain his ground at Court;
+and Aga Ahmud was weak in his efforts to put them down, and conscious
+of his being unable much longer to pay what was required, and keep
+his post. He has with him two Companies of Nujeebs and two of
+Telingas, and eight guns. The guns are useless and without
+ammunition, or stores of any kind; and the Nujeebs and Telingas
+cannot be depended upon. The best pay master has certainly the best
+chance. It is humiliating and distressing to see a whole people
+suffering such wrongs as are every day inflicted upon the village
+communities and town's people of Dureeabad, Rodowlee, Sidhore, and
+Dewa, by these merciless freebooters; and impossible not to feel
+indignant at a Government that regards them with so much
+indifference.*
+
+[* Poor Aga Ahmud was put into gaol, for defalcation, at the end of
+the season; but Girdhara Sing was received with great favour by the
+Court. The government of the district, for the next season, was
+confirmed, and the usual dress of honour was conferred upon him, but
+the Resident deemed it to be his duty to interpose and insist upon
+his not being sent out. The government of the district was, in
+consequence, taken from him, and made over to Rajah Maun Sing.]
+
+A respectable young agricultural capitalist from Biswa, Seetaram,
+rode along by my side this morning, and I asked him, "over whom these
+suttee tombs, near Biswa, and other towns were for the most part
+raised."--"Sir," said he, "they are chiefly over the widows of
+Brahmins, bankers, merchants, Hindoo public officers, tradesmen, and
+shopkeepers." "Are there many such tombs in Oude, over the widows of
+Rajpoot landholders?"--"I have not seen any, sir, and have rarely
+heard of the widow of a Rajpoot landholder burning herself." "No,
+sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "how should such women be worthy to become
+suttees? They dare not become suttees, sir, with the murder of so
+many innocent children on their heads. Sir, we Brahmins and other
+respectable Hindoos feel honoured in having daughters; and never feel
+secure of a happy life hereafter till we see them respectably
+married. This, sir, is a duty the Deity demands from us, and the
+neglect of which we do not believe he can ever excuse. When the
+bridegroom comes sir, to fetch our daughter, the priest reads over
+the marriage-service, and the parents of the girl wash her feet and
+those of her bridegroom; and, as they sit together after the
+ceremonies, put into her arms a tray of gold and silver jewels, and
+rich clothes, such as their condition in life enables them to
+provide; and then invoke the blessing of God upon their union; and
+then, and not till then, do they feel that they have done their duty
+to their child. What can men and women, who murder their daughters as
+soon as they are born, ever hope for in this life or in a future
+state? What can widows, conscious of such crimes, expect from
+ascending the funeral pile, with the bodies of their deceased
+husbands who have caused them to commit such crimes?" "And you think
+that there really is merit in such sacrifices on the part of widows,
+who have done their duties in this life?"--"Assuredly I do, sir; if
+there were none, why should God render them go insensible to the pain
+of burning? I have seen many widows burn themselves in my time, and
+watched them from the time they first declared their intention to
+their death; and they all seemed to me to feel nothing whatever from
+the flames: nothing, sir, but support from above could sustain them
+through such trials. Depend upon it, sir, that no widow of a Rajpoot
+murderer of his own offspring would ever be so supported; they knew
+very well that they would not be so; and, therefore, very wisely
+never ventured to expose themselves to the trial: faithful wives and
+good mothers only could so venture. The Rajpoots, sir, and their
+wives were pleased at the prohibition, because others could no longer
+do what they dared not do!" "What do you think, Seetarum?"--"I think,
+sir, that this crime of infanticide had its origin solely in family
+pride, which will make people do almost anything. These proud
+Rajpoots did not like to put it into any man's power to call them
+_salahs_ or _sussoors_,* (brothers-in-law or fathers-in-law).
+
+[* These are terms of abuse all over India. To call a man sussoor or
+salah, in abuse, is to say to him, I have dishonoured your daughter
+or your sister!]
+
+"I remember an instance of a woman burning herself at Lasoora, six
+miles from Biswa, when I was fifteen years of age, and I am now
+twenty-five. She certainly seemed to suffer no pain. One forenoon she
+told her husband that in a former birth she had promised him that
+when he should be born a _maha brahman_ at Biswa, she would unite
+herself in marriage to him, and live with him as his wife for twelve
+years; that these twelve years had now expired, and that she had that
+night received intimation from Heaven that her real husband, _Rajah
+Kirpah Shunker_, of Muthura, had died without having been married in
+this birth; that she was in reality his wife, and had already burnt
+herself five times with his body, and would now mix her ashes with
+his for the sixth time, and he must forthwith send her to the village
+of Lasoora, where she would become a suttee. The husband was
+astounded, for they had always lived together on the best possible
+terms, and out of the four children they had had two still survived.
+He and all their relations did all they could to dissuade her, but
+she disregarded them, and ran off to the Sewala (temple) in Biswa,
+which was built by my father. Thence she sent a Brahmin, by name
+Gokurn, to call me and my elder brother, Morlee Munohur, then
+seventeen years of age. We went, and she told us that she had been
+our mother in a former birth, and wished to see us once more before
+she died; she blessed us, and prayed that we might have each five
+sons, and then told us to arrange for her funeral pile at Lasoora, as
+all her former five suttees had been performed at that place.
+
+"We thought she was delirious, and no one supposed that she would
+really burn herself. She, however, left the temple and proceeded
+towards Lasoora on foot, followed by a party of women and children,
+and by her husband, who continued to implore her to return home with
+him. He had a litter with him to take her, but she would not listen
+to him or to any one else. We reached Lasoora about an hour and a
+half before sunset, and she ordered the people to collect a large
+pile of wood for her, and told them that she would light it with a
+flame from her own mouth. They seemed to regard her as an inspired
+person, and did so. She mounted the pile, and it soon took fire, how
+I know not! Many people said they saw the flame come from her month,
+and all seemed to believe that it did so. The flames ascended, for it
+was in the month of March, and the wood was dry, and she seemed to be
+quite happy as she sat in the midst of them, and was burnt to death.
+Her husband told us, that she had lost one son some years before, and
+another only four days before she burnt herself, and that she had
+been much afflicted at his death. Whether there really had been such
+a person as Rajah Kirpah Shunker, no one ever thought it necessary to
+inquire. Her suttee tomb still stands at Lasoora among many others.
+Our mother was alive, though our father had been dead many years, and
+she used to say that the poor woman must have become deranged at the
+death of her child. The people all believed that she told the truth,
+and the husband was obliged to yield, though he seemed much
+afflicted. Her two sons still live, and reside at Biswa." *
+
+[* Moorlee Monowur, a very respectable agricultural capitalist, tells
+me, that all that his younger brother, Seetaram, told me, about the
+suttee, if strictly true, and can be proved by a reference to the
+poor woman's husband and sons, who still survive, and to the people
+of Bilwa and Lasoora.]
+
+I asked the Amil, "How he fed, clothed, and lodged his prisoners?" He
+said, "We always take them with us in our marches, secured in stocks
+or fetters. We cannot leave them behind, because we have no gaols or
+other places to keep them in, and require all our troops to move with
+us. As to food and clothing, they are obliged to provide themselves,
+or get their families or friends to provide them, for Government will
+not let us charge anything for their subsistence and clothing in the
+accounts."
+
+"I understand that you and all other public servants who have charge
+of prisoners not only make them provide themselves with food and
+clothing, but make them pay for lamp-oil, whether they have a lamp
+burning at night or not?"--"When they require a lamp they must of
+course pay for it, sir; prisoners are always a source of much anxiety
+to us, for if we send them to Lucknow, they are almost sure to be let
+out soon, on occasions of thanksgiving, or on payment of gratuities,
+and enabled to punish all who have assisted us in the arrest; and
+with hosts of robbers around us, we are always in danger of an
+attempt to rescue them, which may cost us many lives." "If the gaol
+darogahs at Lucknow had not the power to sell his prisoners, sir,"
+said Bukhtawar Sing, "how should he be able to pay so much as he does
+for his place? He is obliged to pay five hundred rupees or more for
+his place, and is not sure of holding it a month after he has bought
+it, so many are the candidates for a place so profitable!" "But he
+gets a share of the subsistence money, paid for the prisoners from
+the Treasury, does he not?"--"Yes, sir; of the four pice a-day paid
+for them by the King, he takes two, and sends them to beg through the
+city for what more they require." "If they get more than what he
+thinks they require from the public or their friends, he takes the
+surplus from them, I am told?"--"It is very true, sir, I believe.
+Fellows, sir, who have no substantial friends, and cannot and will
+not beg, soon sink under this scanty supply of food."
+
+_February 27_, 1850--Sutrick, sixteen miles west, over a plain of
+muteear soil, tolerably well cultivated, and very well studded with
+trees of the finest kinds, single, in clusters and in groves. The
+mango-trees are in blossom, and promise well. The trees are said to
+bear only one season out of three, but some bear in one season, and
+others in another, so that the market is always supplied, though in
+some seasons more abundantly than in others. A cloudy sky and
+easterly wind, while the trees are in blossom, are said to be very
+injurious. A large landholder told me that they never took a tax upon
+any of the trees, not even the mhowa-trees, but the owner could not,
+except upon particular occasions, dispose of one to be cut down,
+without the permission of the zumeendar upon whose lands it stood. He
+might cut down one without his permission for building or repairing
+his house, or for fuel, on any occasion of marriage in his family,
+but not otherwise. A good many fine trees were, he said, destroyed by
+the local officers of Government. Having no tents, they collected the
+roofs of houses from a neighbouring village in hot or bad weather,
+cut away the branches to make rafters, and left the trunks as pillars
+to support the roofs, and under this treatment they soon died. He
+told me that cow-dung was cheaper for fuel than wood in this
+district, and consequently more commonly used in cooking; but that
+they gathered cow-dung for fuel only during four months in the year,
+November, December, January, and February; all that fell during the
+other eight months was religiously left, or stored for manure. In the
+pits in which they stored it, they often threw some of the inferior
+green crops of autumn, such as kodo and kotkee; but the manure most
+esteemed among them was _pigs' dung_--this, he said, was commonly
+stored and sold by those who kept pigs. The best muteear and doomut
+soils, which prevail in this district, are rented at two rupees a
+kutcha beegah, without reference to the crop which the cultivator
+might take from them; and they yielded, under good tillage, from ten
+to fifteen returns of the seed in wheat, barley, gram, &c. There are
+two and half or three kutcha beegahs in a pucka beegah; and a pucka
+beegah is from 2750 to 2760 square yards.
+
+Sutrick is celebrated for the shrine of Shouk Salar, alias _Borda
+Baba_, the father of Syud Salar, whose shrine is at Bahraetch. This
+person, it is said, was the husband of the sister of Mahmood, of
+Ghuznee. He is supposed to have died a natural death at this place,
+while leading the armies of his sovereign against the Hindoos. His
+son had royal blood in his veins, and his shrine is held to be the
+most sacred of the two. A large fair is held here in March, on the
+same days that this fair takes place at Bahraetch. All our Hindoo
+camp followers paid as much reverence to the shrine as they passed as
+the Mahommedans. It is a place without trade or manufactures; but a
+good many respectable Mahommedan families reside in it, and have
+built several small but neat mosques of burnt bricks. There is little
+thoroughfare in the wretched road that passes through it.
+
+The Hindoos worship any sign of manifested might or power, though
+exerted against themselves, as they consider all might and power to
+be conferred by the Deity for some useful purpose, however much that
+purpose may be concealed from us. "These invaders, however merciless
+and destructive to the Hindoo race, say they must have been sent on
+their mission by God for some great and useful purpose, or they could
+not possibly have succeeded as they did: had their proceedings not
+been sanctioned by Him, he could at any moment have destroyed them
+all, or have interposed to arrest their progress." These, however,
+are the speculations of only the thinking portion. At the bottom of
+the respect shown to such Mahommedan shrines, by the mass of Hindoos,
+there is always a strong ground-work of _hope_ or _fear_: the soul or
+spirit of the savage old man, who had been so well supported on
+earth, must still, they think, have some influence at the Court of
+Heaven to secure them good or work them evil, and they invoke or
+propitiate him accordingly. They would do the same to the tomb of
+Alexander, Jungez Khan, Tymour, or Nadir Shah, without any perplexing
+inquiries as to their creed or liturgy.
+
+_February 28_, 1850.--Chinahut, eleven miles west, over a plain
+intersected by several small streams, the largest of which is the
+Rete, near Sutrick. There is a good deal of kunkur-lime in the ground
+over which we have passed today; but the tillage is good where the
+land is at all level, and the crops are fine. The plain is cut up
+here and there by some ravines, but they are small and shallow, and
+render but a small portion of the surface unfit for tillage. The
+banks of the small streams are, for the most part, cultivated up to
+the water's edge.
+
+We passed the Rete over a nice bridge, built by Rajah Bukhtawar Sing
+twenty-five years ago, at a cost of twenty-five thousand rupees, out
+of his own purse. He told me that one morning, in the rains, he came
+to the bank of this river, on his way to Lucknow from Jeytpoor, a
+town which we passed yesterday, and found it so swollen that he was
+obliged to purchase some large earthen jars, and form a raft upon
+them to take over himself and followers. While preparing his raft,
+which took a whole day, he heard that from five to ten persons were
+drowned, in attempting to cross this little river, every year, and
+that people were often detained upon the bank for four or five days
+together. He resolved to save people from all this evil; and as soon
+as he got home set about building this bridge, and got it ready
+before the next rains. It is a substantial work, with three good
+arches. About two miles on this side of the bridge he pointed out to
+me the single tree, near a mango-grove, where some eighteen or twenty
+years ago he overtook a large balloon, which the King, Nuseer-od Deen
+Hyder, had got made in the Dilkosha Park at Lucknow. It was made, he
+tells me, by a tall and slender young English gentleman, who visited
+Lucknow, with his uncle, for the special purpose of constructing and
+ascending in this machine. "When it was all ready, sir, the young man
+got into a small boat that was suspended under it, taking with him a
+gun and some artificial fish. We asked him what he intended to do
+with a gun in the clouds; and he told us, that in the sky he was in
+danger of meeting large birds that might hurt the balloon, and the
+gun was necessary to frighten them off. As the balloon began to
+ascend the old gentleman's eyes filled with tears, and I asked him
+why. He told me, that this young man's father had fallen into the
+sea, and been drowned; and he was always afraid, when the son went
+up, that he might never see him alive again.
+
+"The King was sitting at the window in the upper story of the
+Dilkosha house, with some English gentlemen, when the balloon passed
+up close by, and the gentleman took off his hat and bowed gracefully
+as he passed, at which the King seemed much pleased. I commanded a
+regiment of Dragoons, and the King told me to take a party of my
+boldest and best-mounted men and follow the balloon. I selected
+seventeen, and we were all ready in our saddles. The balloon went
+straight up, and we lost sight of the man and the boat in which he
+sat. The machine, though it was sixty feet long, including boat and
+all, and twelve feet wide, seemed at last to be no larger than a
+small water-jug. Below we had no wind, but we soon saw the balloon
+driven by an upper current to the eastward, along the Fyzabad road.
+We followed as fast as the horses could carry us, crossed the Goomtee
+river over the old stone bridge, and passed many travellers on the
+road staring at the extraordinary machine, for they had heard nothing
+about it, and we had no time to tell them. When we had gone about
+seventeen miles, the balloon began to descend. It was in the month of
+March, and the weather was hot, and I had lost three horses before it
+came to the ground. The young man then began to let go his fish, and
+they came fluttering down, while the oil-cloths about the balloon
+made a noise like the growling of a wild beast. Seeing the enormous
+machine going at this rate, followed by us at full speed, the people
+along the road, who are always numerous in the morning, became so
+panic-struck that a great many fell down senseless upon their faces,
+and some of them could not be got to rise for some hours afterwards.
+
+"We were not far from it when it approached the ground, and swept
+along on the border of this grove, on our left. Fortunately for the
+young man, it did not strike any trees. He was dressed all in black,
+and a very tall, handsome young man he was. As soon as he found
+himself near enough to the ground, he jumped out, holding one rope in
+his hand, and tried to stop the balloon, calling out to the people on
+the road, as loud as he could, _puckaro, puckaro!_--seize, seize! We
+were then within two hundred yards of it, and at full speed; and,
+instead of helping the young man, the people on the road, thinking
+the order was to seize them, fell down flat on their faces, unable to
+look upon the balloon, or utter a word. They all thought that it was
+some terrible demon from above come to seize and devour them. When we
+had headed it a little, we all sprang from our saddles, joined the
+young man at the ropes, and lashed them round anything we could find,
+as we were being dragged along. The young man took out his penknife,
+and gave the balloon a gash in the side, to let out the _smoke_ that
+inflated it, and it collapsed and stopped. The first thing, sir, that
+the young man did was to call for fire, take a cigar from his
+waistcoat pocket, and begin to smoke, while we went to the assistance
+of the panic-struck travellers, many of whom were still lying
+senseless on the ground. We got water, and threw it in their faces;
+and when they were able to sit up, we mounted the young man upon one
+of our horses, and took him back slowly to Lucknow. He told me that
+it was so very cold above, that it gave him a severe headache, and
+that he found a cigar a good thing to remove it. The King was very
+glad when we brought him back, and he gave him several thousand
+rupees over and above the cost of making the balloon, and providing
+him and his uncle during their stay. They soon after left Lucknow for
+Lahore, and what became of them I know not."
+
+Passing a Mahommedan village, I asked some of the landholders, who
+walked along by the side of my elephant, to talk of their grievances,
+whether they ever used pigs' dung for manure. They seemed very much
+surprised and shocked, and asked how I could suppose that Mahommedans
+could use such a thing. "Come," said Bukhtawar Sing, "do not attempt
+to deceive the Resident. He has been all over India, and knows very
+well that Mahommedans do not keep or eat pigs; but he knows, also,
+that there is no good cultivator in Oude who does not use the dung of
+pigs for manure; and you know that there is no other manure, save'
+pigeons' dung, that is so good." "We often purchase _manure_ from
+those who prepare it," said the landholders, "and do not ask
+questions about what it may be composed of; but the greater part of
+the manure we use is the cow-dung which falls in the season of the
+rains, and is stored exclusively for that purpose. In the dry months,
+sir, the dung of cows, bullocks, buffaloes, &c., is gathered, formed
+into cakes, and stacked for fuel; but in the rains it is all thrown
+into pits and stored for manure."
+
+Chinahut is the point from which we set out on the 2nd of December,
+and here I was met by the prime minister, Nawab Allee Nakee Khan, and
+the chancellor of the exchequer, Maharajah Balkrishun, to whom I
+explained my views as to the measures which ought to be adopted to
+save the peaceful and industrious portion of his Majesty's subjects
+from the evils which now so grievously oppress them.
+
+Here closes my pilgrimage of three months in Oude; and I can safely
+say that I have learnt more of the state of the country, and the
+condition and requirements of the people, than I could possibly have
+learnt in a long life passed exclusively at the capital of Lucknow.
+Any general remarks that I may have to make on what I have seen and
+heard during the pilgrimage I must defer to a future period.
+
+At four in the afternoon, I left Chinahut, and returned to Lucknow.
+At the old race-stand, about three miles from the Residency, I was
+met by the heir-apparent, and drove with him, in his carriage, to the
+Furra Buksh Palace, where we alighted for a few minutes, to go
+through the usual tedious ceremonies of an Oriental Court. On the way
+we were met by Mr. Hamilton, the chaplain, and his lady. Dr. and Mrs.
+Bell, and Captain Bird, the First Assistant, and his brother and
+guest. After the ceremony, I took leave of the Prince, and reached
+the Resident at six o'clock. My wife and children had left me at
+Peernuggur, to return, for medical advice, to the Residency, where I
+had the happiness to find them well, and glad to see me. Having
+broken my left thigh hone, near the hip joint, in a fall from my
+horse, in April, 1849, I was unable to mount a horse during the tour,
+and went in a tonjohn the first half of the stage, and on an elephant
+the last half, that I might see as much as possible of the country
+over which we were passing. The pace of a good elephant is about that
+of a good walker, and I had generally some of the landholders and
+cultivators riding or walking by my side to talk with.
+
+END OF THE TOUR.
+
+
+
+
+PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE
+
+RELATING TO THE ANNEXATION OF THE KINGDOM OF OUDE TO BRITISH INDIA.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+
+                               Camp, Nawabgunge, 5th December, 1849.
+
+My Dear Bird,
+
+I had heard from Mahomed Khan what you mention regarding the
+imposition practised on the King by the singers; but from his having
+conferred a khilaut on the knaves, they supposed that he had, as
+usual, pardoned all. If you have grounds to believe that the King is
+prepared to punish them, or to acquiesce in their punishment, pray
+ask an audience and ascertain his Majesty's wishes. When we last
+went, I was in hopes that he would tell me that he wished to be
+relieved of their presence, and did all I could to encourage him to
+do so. If the King wishes to have them removed, encourage him to give
+immediate orders to the minister to confine them; and offer any
+assistance that may be required to take them across the Ganges, or
+put them into safe custody. When it is done, it must be done
+promptly.
+
+As to the Taj Mahal, I went on an order by Richmond, "that the King
+should put a Mahaldarnee upon her if he wished." I was told that such
+was Richmond's order, and I give mine in consequence. I will refer to
+the Dufter for his order. But you must at once insist upon all
+sipahees being withdrawn from her house. This order was given by me
+and should be enforced by you. I said that the Mahaldarnee might
+remain, but it must be alone, without sipahees, &c.
+
+On emergency, act of course on your own discretion I only wish that
+the King may be induced to consent to the removal of all the singers,
+and meddling eunuchs also.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)             W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain Bird,
+First Assistant.
+
+Sadik Allee should be secured, and punished with the rest.
+
+
+
+
+                  (Signed)             W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                             Camp, Bahraetch, 10th December, 1849.
+
+My Dear Bird,
+
+The conduct of the singers which exasperated the King had no
+reference to public matters with which he was pledged not to permit
+them to interfere; and my only request was, that you should offer
+your aid in removing them should his Majesty indicate any wish for
+it. The King said he would himself punish them for their conduct by
+banishment across the Ganges, and he must be left to do so: it was
+not from any demand made by us, but from resentment for a personal
+affront, or an affront to his understanding. We cannot call upon the
+King to do what he said he would do under such circumstances, but
+must leave it to himself. The removal of two out of a dozen fellows
+of this description will be of no use--their places will soon be
+filled by others. Any attempt on your part to supply their places by
+better men will only tend to indispose the King towards them; and it
+is no part of our duty to dictate to his Majesty with whom he shall
+associate in his private hours.
+
+I have had abundant proof that, to reduce the influence of the
+present favourites, has no tendency to throw the power into better
+hands--no authority of any kind taken from them has, by the minister,
+been confided to better men; the creatures of one are not a whit
+better than the creatures of the other. If his Majesty were to rouse
+himself, and apply his own mind to business, we might hope for some
+good, and I see little chance of this.
+
+You are not to order that the King fulfil his promise, because, as I
+have said, it was no pledge made on the requisition of our Government
+on the Resident. If he does not fulfil it, it is only one proof more
+added to a hundred of his exceeding weakness. There are at least a
+dozen worse men now influencing all that the King and minister do
+than Kotab Alee and Gholam Ruza. The last order given regarding Taj
+Mahal by me was, that she should admit a Mahaldarnee from the King,
+but that no sipahees should be forced upon her. I wrote to the King
+to this effect, and my order must be enforced. I am told by the
+moonshee, that when the King expressed a wish to have such guardians
+upon many, Richmond replied that he might have one upon Taj Mahal,
+who had given such proof of profligacy. It was not a judicial
+decision, to be referred to as a guide under all circumstances, but a
+mere arrangement which might any day require to be altered. Taj Mahal
+is so profligate and insolent a woman, that if she refuses to obey my
+order, and receive the King's Mahaldarnee, I shall withdraw the
+Residents.
+
+After what the Governor-General had told the King in November, 1847,
+regarding what our Government would feel itself bound to do, unless
+his Majesty conducted the duties of a sovereign better than he had
+hitherto done; and after the experience we have since had of his
+entire neglect of those duties, you should not, I think, have said
+what you mention having said to him, that our Government had no wish
+to deprive him of one iota of the power he had. It was a declaration
+not called for by the circumstances, or necessary on the occasion,
+and should have been avoided, as it is calculated to impair the
+impression of his responsibility for the exercise of his power. No
+sovereign ever showed a greater disregard for the duties and
+responsibilities of his high office than he has done hitherto, and as
+our Government holds itself answerable to the people of Oude for a
+better administration, he should not be encouraged in the notion that
+he may always show the same disregard with impunity--that is,
+continue to retain every iota of his power whether he exercised it
+properly or not. No man, I believe, ever felt more anxious for the
+welfare of the King, his family, and country, than I do; but unless
+he exercises his fearful power better, I should be glad, for the sake
+of all, to see the whole, or part of it, in better hands.
+
+The minister has his Motroussil with me, and I have daily
+communications of what is done or proposed to be done, and you may be
+sure that I lose no occasion of admonition. I did not mention
+anything you said regarding your interview with the King in your
+letter to Mahomed Khan; but in a few hours after your letter came he
+got the whole from the minister, and reported it to me. He wants us
+to undertake the work of turning out the King's favourites, that he
+may get all the power they lose, without offending his master by any
+appearance of moving in the matter.
+
+We go hence to-morrow; hope to be at Gonda on the 14th, and Fyzabad
+on the 18th. I have requested the post-master to send all our letters
+to Fyzabad by the regular dawk from Thursday next, the 13th. From
+Fyzabad I will arrange for their coming to my camp.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain Bird,
+   &c. &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                             Camp, Ghunghole, 12th December, 1849.
+
+My Dear Bird,
+
+I got your letter of the 9th instant last night, at our last ground.
+In what you have done, you have not, I think, acted discreetly. You
+asked me whether, in any case of emergency, you should act on your
+discretion, and I told you in reply that you might do so; but surely,
+whether the King should have a dozen singers or only ten could not be
+considered one of such pressing emergency as not to admit of your
+waiting for instructions from me, or, at least, for a reply to your
+letter. The King has told you truly, that the matter in which the
+offenders had transgressed had reference to his house, and not to his
+Government or ours. This is a distinction which you appear to have
+lost sight of from the first. If I demand reparation from another for
+wrong or insults suffered from his servants, and he promises to
+punish them by dismissal from his service but afterwards relents and
+detains them, I consider it due to myself and my character to insist
+upon the fulfilment of his promise; but if I voluntarily visit any
+friend who has at last become sensible of the impositions of his
+servants which had long been manifest to all his neighbours, with a
+view to encourage him in his laudable resolution to dismiss them from
+his service, and to offer my aid in effecting the object should he
+require it, and he promises me not to swerve from it, but afterwards
+relents and retains the impostors, I pity his weakness, but I do not
+consider it due to myself, or to my character, to insist upon his
+fulfilling his promise. By considering two cases so very distinct,
+the same, you have placed yourself in a disagreeable situation, for I
+cannot support you; that is, I can neither demand that the
+requisitions made by you be complied with, nor can I tell the King
+that I approve of them. Had you waited for my reply, which was sent
+off from Bahraetch on the 10th, you would have saved yourself all
+this annoyance and mortification. It has arisen from an overweening
+confidence in your personal influence over his Majesty; the fact is,
+I believe that no European gentleman ever has had or ever will have
+any personal influence over him, and I very much doubt whether any
+real native gentleman will ever have any. He never has felt any
+pleasure in their society, and I fear never will. He has hitherto
+felt easy only in the society of such persons as those with whom he
+now exclusively associates, and to hope that he will ever feel easy
+with persons of a better class is vain. I am perfectly satisfied, in
+spite of the oath he has taken in the name of his God, and on the
+head of his minister, that he made to you the promise you mention;
+and I am no less satisfied that the minister wished for the removal
+of the singers, provided it should be effected through us without his
+appearing to his master to move in the matter, and that he wished
+their removal solely with a view to acquire for himself the authority
+they had possessed. You should not have any more audiences with the
+King without previous reference to me; nothing is likely to occur to
+require it.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain Bird,
+   &c. &c.
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                Camp, Fyzabad, 18th December, 1819.
+
+My Dear Bird,
+
+I send you the letter which you wish to refer to. As you quote my
+first letter, pray let me see it. I kept no copy, but have a distinct
+recollection of what I intended to say in it regarding this affair of
+the singers. It shall be sent back to you. The term "indiscreet" had
+reference only to your second visit, and demand from the King of the
+fulfilment of his promise. I had no fault whatever to find with your
+first visit. The term "private" must have had reference, not to the
+promise or to the person to whom it was made, but to the offence with
+which the singers stood charged. It was an affront offered to the
+King's understanding that he took affront at, and whether he had made
+a promise to resent it as such to me, or to you could make no
+difference. If he did not fulfil it, we should pity this further
+instance of his weakness, but could have no right to insist upon his
+doing so. Even had the offence been an interference in public
+affairs, and breach of the King's engagements, I should not have
+demanded their banishment without a reference to the Governor-
+General, because the delay of waiting for instructions involved no
+danger or serious inconvenience; that is, I should not have demanded
+it when the King was so strongly opposed to it. I must distinctly
+deny that you demanded the King's fulfilment of his promise in
+conformity to any instructions received from me, or in accordance
+with my views of what was right or expedient in this matter. Your
+second visit and demand were neither in conformity to the one nor in
+accordance with the other. You must have put a construction upon what
+I wrote which it cannot fairly bear. By "requisitions" I mean your
+requirements that the two men should be banished by the King,
+according to his promise. No notice has been made to me of your visit
+by the Court, and I have therefore had no occasion to say anything
+whatever about it in my communications to the Court, nor shall I have
+any I suppose. In your letter of the 4th instant, you say, with
+regard to the Taj Mahal's case, "Not knowing whether you do or do not
+wish me to act in any sudden emergency during your absence, I
+suppose, therefore, that had you had any such wish you would have
+instructed me on the subject." In reply, I requested that you would
+so act on your own discretion in any such sudden case of emergency.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain Bird,
+   &c. &c.
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                               Camp, Mahomdee, 2nd February, 1850.
+
+My Dear Sir Erskine,
+
+Had it not been too late for you to join my camp conveniently, I
+should have asked you to run out and see a little of the country and
+people of Oude, after you had seen so much of those of the Honourable
+Company's dominions. A few years of tolerable government would make
+it the finest country in India, for there is no part of India with so
+many advantages from nature. I have seen no soil finer; the whole
+plain of which it is composed is capable of tillage; it is everywhere
+intersected by rivers, flowing from the snowy chain of the Himmalaya,
+which keep the moisture near the surface at all times, without
+cutting up any of the land on their borders into deep ravines; it is
+studded with the finest groves and single trees, as much as the lover
+of the picturesque could wish; it has the boldest and most
+industrious peasantry in India, and a landed aristocracy too strong
+for the weak and wretched Government; it is, for the most part, well
+cultivated; yet with all this, one feels, in travelling over it, as
+if he was moving among a people suffering under incurable physical
+diseases, from the atrocious crimes every day perpetrated with
+impunity, and the numbers of suffering and innocent people who
+approach him, in the hope of redress, and are sent away in despair.
+
+I think your conclusion regarding the source of the signs you saw of
+beneficial interference in the north-west provinces a fair one. A
+Lieutenant-Governor is able to see all parts of the country under his
+charge every year, or nearly all; and while he is sufficiently
+"monarch of all he surveys" to feel an interest in, and to provide
+for the general good, he has a sufficient knowledge of the internal
+management of particular districts to control the proceedings of the
+local officers. He is also well seconded in a very efficient Board of
+Revenue. But I must not indulge in these matters any further, till I
+have the pleasure of meeting you where we can talk freely about them.
+
+I trust that all at Lucknow will be conducted to your satisfaction
+and that of Mrs. Erskine. I have this morning received a note from
+Mr. Erskine, who left you, it appears, before the little heir-
+apparent returned your visit. I expect to complete my tour and return
+to Lucknow on the 20th, when I shall have seen all that I required to
+see, to understand the working of the existing system, and the
+probable effects of any suggested changes.
+
+With kind regards to Mrs. Erskine,
+
+                      Believe me,
+                           Yours very sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir Erskine Perry.
+
+P.S.--I must not omit to thank you for the expression of your
+favourable opinion of the "Rambles." There is one thing of which I
+can assure you, that the conversations mentioned in it are genuine,
+and give the real thoughts and opinions of the people on the subjects
+they embrace.
+                                                    W. H. S.
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 26th April, 1850.
+My Dear Elliot,
+
+I did not send Weston's letters with the other papers, because they
+were not written in an official form. He was the senior officer with
+the force, and had authority from the Durbar to call upon all local,
+civil, and military authorities to co-operate in the work; but he did
+not take upon himself the command, or write in official form. He
+inspired all with harmony and energy, and brought the whole strength
+of the little force to bear upon the right points at the right time.
+
+The head of Prethee Put of Paska was cut off by Captain Magness's
+sipahees after his death, to be sent to the King as a trophy, but
+Captain Weston would not let it come in. The body was offered to his
+family and friends for interment, but none of the family or tribe
+(Kolhun's Rajpoots) would have anything to do with the funeral
+ceremonies of a man who had murdered his eldest brother and the head
+of his tribe. The body was, with the head, put into a sheet, taken to
+the river Ghagra, and committed to the stream, to flow to the Ganges,
+as the best interment for a Hindoo. These sipahees knew nothing of
+the man's history; but the people who saw the affair from the Dhundee
+Fort mentioned that the body was thrown into the river at the precise
+place where he had thrown in that of his eldest brother, after
+murdering him in the boat with his own hands, as stated in the
+extract from my Diary; and all believe that this retribution arises
+from an interposition from above. The eldest son of the murdered
+brother will, I hope, be put into possession of the estate.
+
+The Governor-General may like to peruse these letters, and I send
+them. They give, perhaps, a fuller and better account of what was
+done, and the manner in which it was done, than more studied
+compositions, in an official form, would have given.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir H. M. Elliot, K.C.B.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 8th July, 1850.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+I feel that my Indian career, which has now lasted forty years, must
+be drawing to a close, and I am anxious for the settlement in life of
+my only son, now between seventeen and eighteen years of age. Having
+no personal claims upon any member of the Home Government of India, I
+solicit the insertion of his name on his Grace the Duke of
+Wellington's list of candidates for a commission in the Dragoons; and
+he is now preparing for his examination under the care of Mr.
+Yeatman, at Westow Hill, Norwood, Surrey, near London. But he is
+ambitious to obtain an appointment to Bengal, where his father has
+served so long, and may, possibly, have friends and recollections
+that might be useful to him in the early part of his career. It falls
+to the lot of few to have the opportunities that I have had to carry
+out the benevolent views of Government in measures of great and
+general benefit to the people, and to secure their gratitude and
+affection to their rulers. All the measures which I have been
+employed to carry out have tended to display the benevolent
+solicitude of the Government of India for the welfare of the people
+committed to its charge; the object of all has been the greater
+security of life and property throughout the country, the greater
+confidence of the people in the wisdom and efficiency of our rule,
+and their greater feeling of interest in this stability. These
+measures, as far as they have been confided to my care, have all
+succeeded; but, as I have stated (p. 79) in a printed report, a copy
+of which will be sent to you, they have neither flattered the
+vainglory of any particular nation, nor enlisted on their side the
+self-love of any influential class or powerful individual, and they
+have, in consequence, been attended with little _eclat_. They have,
+however, tended to secure to the Government the gratitude and
+affection of the people of India, and are measures of which that
+Government may justly feel proud. The stability of our Government in
+India must depend less upon our military victories than upon the
+confidence and affection with which our civil and political
+administration may inspire the great mass of the people. The general
+belief is, that our object is their substantial good, and that we are
+instruments in the hands of Divine Providence to effect that object.
+In our military glory they can feel no sympathy, and in our
+territorial acquisitions little interest; but they can and do
+appreciate every measure which tends to improve the security of life,
+property, and industry through the land--to restore the bond of good
+feeling between the Government and governed, where it has for a time
+been severed or impaired by accident--to provide the people with
+works tending to improve their comfort and convenience--to mitigate
+sufferings from calamities of season, and to encourage all to exert
+themselves honestly in their proper sphere. In carrying out the views
+of Government in such measures, and such only, has my life in India
+been spent; and for doing so to the best of my humble ability I have,
+I believe, done much to make its rule revered throughout India. It is
+by such measures that the respect and confidence of the great mass of
+the people have been secured, so as to enable Europeans, male and
+female, to pass from one end of the country to the other with the
+assurance, not only that they will suffer no personal injury, but no
+mark of disrespect. Should anything occur to deprive us of this
+confidence and respect among the great mass of the people, the
+recollection of our victories, and assurance of our superior military
+organization will avail us but little; and it is as one who has
+zealously and successfully aided Government in securing them, that I
+now venture to address you, in the hope that you will--if you can do
+so consistently with your public duties and pledges to others--open
+to my son the same career of usefulness by conferring upon him a
+nomination to the civil service of India. He is now five months above
+seventeen years of age; and by the time he is eighteen, he will, I
+hope, under Mr. Yeatman's judicious care, be able to pass his
+examination for Haileybury, should he, through your means, obtain
+this the utmost object of his ambition. Over and above the desire to
+follow his father's footsteps in India, he is anxious to avoid the
+necessity of encroaching so much upon the small means I have to
+provide for his four sisters, by entering so expensive a branch of
+the public service as the Dragoons. I know the great nature of the
+favour I ask from you. It is the first favour that I have ever asked
+from any member of the Home Government of India; and I solicit it
+from you solely on the ground of service rendered to the Government
+and people of India. I am told that I must address my application to
+an individual; and I address it to you, under the impression that you
+are the member with whom such ground is likely to meet with most
+consideration;--not that I think any member of the Honourable Court
+would disregard it; for I believe, after long and varied experience
+in public affairs, and much thought and reading, that no body
+intrusted with the Government of a distant possession ever performed
+their duties with more earnest solicitude for its welfare than the
+Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company; but because
+your public career has inspired me with more confidence than that of
+any other member of the Court as now constituted. If you cannot grant
+me the favour I ask, you will, I know, pardon the liberty I have
+taken in asking it.
+
+            And believe me, with great respect,
+                           Yours faithfully,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 20th September, 1850.
+
+My Dear Sir Charles,
+
+The papers give us reason to hope that it is your intention to visit
+Lucknow on your way down from the hills, and if you can make it
+convenient to come, I shall be rejoiced to have the opportunity of
+showing you all that is worth seeing, and be able to afford all who
+come with you, ladies and gentlemen, accommodation.
+
+The only road to Lucknow for carriages is from Cawnpore, and if you
+come that way, I will have carriages sent for you. If you come by any
+other road, I will have elephants sent to whatever place you may
+mention, and tents if required. It has been usual, when the
+Commander-in-chief visits Lucknow, for Government to intimate the
+intention to the King through the Resident in Oude, that preparation
+may be made for his reception in due form.
+
+I mention this that you may make known your wish or intention to the
+Governor-General, in time for me to prepare the King and his Court.
+
+From Cawnpore to this is only a drive of six hours, the distance
+being fifty miles, and the road good. All officers, &c., will be glad
+to have an opportunity of paying their respects to their
+distinguished Chief.
+
+                     Believe me,
+                           Yours very faithfully,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To his Excellency
+Sir Charles Napier, G.C.B.,
+     &c.  &c.  &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 7th November, 1850.
+
+My Dear Allan,
+
+In the "Englishman" of the 28th, and the "Hurkara" of the 29th, there
+are some strictures on Oude affairs. The editors of both papers are,
+I believe, sturdy, honest men; but their correspondents are not
+acquainted with the merits of the particular case referred to, or
+with Oude affairs generally. I vouch for the truth of everything
+stated in the enclosed paper, and shall feel obliged if you will give
+it to the one most likely, in your opinion, to make a fair use of it.
+There can be no harm in putting an editor in possession of the real
+truth in a question involving not only individual but national
+honour; for he must be anxious to make his paper the vehicle of truth
+on all such questions.
+
+I do not like to address either of the editors, because Government
+expect all their servants will abstain from doing so in their own
+vindication, and will leave their honour in their keeping. I have
+done so since 1843, and should now do so were I alone concerned in
+this affair. You may mention my name as authority for what is stated,
+but pray let it be mentioned confidentially. Government has been
+informed of the truth, and it is well that the public should be so.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN
+
+To J. Allan, Esq.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 17th November, 1850.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+I thank you for your very kind letter of the 7th ultimo: my son is
+preparing for his examination, and expects his commission in some
+regiment of cavalry very soon. He has not only become reconciled to
+it, but would, I believe, now prefer remaining at home as a cavalry
+officer to coming to India in any capacity. As I have only one son,
+and he has four sisters to look after, I should be unwilling to have
+him sent out to India as a cadet, were he anxious to be so. A good
+regiment is an excellent school for a young man, but no school could
+be worse than a bad regiment; and among so many, there must always be
+some bad. I have seen some of the sons of my old friends utterly
+ruined in character and constitution by being posted to such
+regiments when too young to think for themselves. I feel, however, as
+grateful to you for your very kind offer as I should be, were I to
+avail myself of it.
+
+If I return to England, I shall take advantage of the earliest
+opportunity to pay my respects and become personally acquainted with
+you; but I have no intention to leave India as long as I feel that I
+can perform efficiently the duties intrusted to me.
+
+I had a few days ago, in referring to Government an important
+question that must some day come before you, occasion to mention an
+important and interesting fact. During the last collision with the
+Seiks, I found that the Government securities kept up their value
+here, while in Calcutta they fell a good deal; and the merchants here
+employed agents in Calcutta to purchase largely for sale here. Paper
+to the value of more than three millions sterling, or three crores of
+rupees, is held by people residing in the city of Lucknow, and the
+people had never the slightest doubt that we should be ultimately
+triumphant. The question was whether heirs and executors of persons
+domiciled here and leaving property in Government securities, should
+apply to Her Majesty's Supreme Court in Calcutta, for probates to
+wills and letters of administration, or whether an act should be
+passed to render the decision of the highest Court at Lucknow,
+countersigned, by the Resident, as valid as the certificate of a
+judge in our own provinces, as far as such property in Government
+securities might be concerned. A provision of this sort had been
+omitted in Act 20 of 1841, which was considered applicable to all
+British India, of which the kingdom of Oude was held to form a part.
+
+We have now a fair prospect of long peace, during which I hope our
+finances will improve. The lavish life-pensions granted after wars in
+Central and Southern India will be lapsing with the death of the
+present incumbents, many of whom are becoming old and infirm, and our
+means of transit and irrigation will increase with the new works
+which are being formed, and we shall always have it in our power to
+augment our revenue from indirect taxation, as wealth and industry
+increase.
+
+                   Believe me, My Dear Sir James,
+                Very faithfully and obligedly yours,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 2nd March, 1851.
+
+My Lord,
+
+The mail of the 24th January has just come in, and I find my only son
+Henry Arthur gazetted for the 16th Dragoons. He told me by the last
+mail that he was to be so if he passed his examination on the 10th of
+that month, which he hoped to do; but I deferred writing to thank you
+for your kind exertions in his behalf till his name should appear in
+the "Gazette." I pray your Lordship to accept my most grateful
+acknowledgments for this act of kindness, added as it has been to the
+many others which I have received at your hands. It is not the less
+valuable that it is the only favour I have received from England
+since I left it more than forty years ago, though, I believe, few
+have done more to benefit the people of its eastern dominions, and to
+secure for it their esteem and affection.
+
+I trust that my son will never do anything to make your Lordship
+regret the favour conferred upon me and him on this occasion. He is,
+I believe, in disposition, manners, and education a little gentleman;
+and in time he will, I hope, become a good officer.
+
+If I might take the liberty, I would pray your Lordship to offer, in
+such terms as may appear to you suitable, my grateful acknowledgments
+for the consideration I have received, to his Grace the Duke of
+Wellington, and to Lord Fitzroy Somerset. My London Agents, Messrs.
+Denay, Clark, and Co., of Austin Friars, have been instructed to pay
+for my son's commission and outfit, and to provide him with the funds
+indispensably necessary in addition to his pay.
+
+We shall now look with much interest to the Parliamentary discussions
+on Indian affairs, for we must expect some important changes on the
+renewal of the Charter. Whatever these changes may be for the home or
+local Government, I trust the benefit of the people of India will be
+considered the main point, and not the triumph of a party. The
+statesman who shall link India more closely with New Zealand will be
+a benefactor to both England and India, and that colony also. It
+might, with advantage to itself, take those children of Indian
+officers who cannot find employment of any kind in India, and ought
+not to be thrown back upon the mother-country. With this view, it
+might be useful to transfer our orphan institutions to that island,
+to direct that way our invalid and pensioned officers, who, while
+subsisting upon their pensions or stipends, would be able to
+establish their children in a climate suitable to the preservation of
+their race, which that of India certainly is not.
+
+India is at present tranquil, and likely to remain so. We have no
+native chiefs, or combination of native chiefs, to create uneasiness;
+and if we continue to satisfy the great body of the people that we
+are anxious, to the best of our ability, to promote their happiness
+and welfare, and are the most impartial arbitrators that they could
+have, we shall have nothing to fear. The moment that this mass is
+impressed with the belief that we wish to govern India only for
+ourselves, or as the French govern Algiers, from that moment we must
+lose our vantage ground and decline. We may war against the native
+chiefs of India, but we cannot war against the people--we need not
+fear what may be called political dangers, but we must guard
+carefully against those of a social character which would unite
+against us the members of all classes and all creeds.
+
+But I must no longer indulge in speculations of this sort, in which
+you can now feel little interest amidst the important changes which
+are now taking place in the institutions and relations of European
+nations. With grateful recollections of kindness received, and great
+respect,
+          I remain,
+              Your Lordship's obedient servant,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Right Hon.
+the Earl of Ellenborough.
+
+P.S.--Since writing the above, I have received your Lordship's letter
+of the 18th of January, and have been much gratified with the
+favourable opinion you entertain of the commandant and officers. It
+is the best assurance I could have of my boy being safe. Nothing
+could be more auspicious than the opening of the lad's career, and I
+trust he will profit by the advantage.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 18th March, 1851.
+
+My Dear Sir Erskine,
+
+I have read over with much interest the two small works you have done
+me the favour to send me, the one on Buddhism, and the other on Law
+Reform; but I have not ventured upon the Seventh Report of the Board
+of Education yet, because I have had a good deal to do and think
+about; and a good deal of it is in small print, very trying for my
+eyes, which are none of the strongest. I shall, however, soon read
+it.
+
+I concur in all your views about the necessity of throwing overboard
+the whole system of special pleading, and have been amused with Sir
+J. P. Grant's horror of your proposed innovations. It is not less
+than that which he expressed at the little Macaulay Code, intended to
+blow up the whole pyramid raised by "the wisdom of our ancestors," in
+which so many illustrious characters he entombed. He was, indeed, as
+you say, "a great _laudator temporis acti_;" but the number of those
+like him at all times in England and its distant possessions is
+fearful. One likes to look to America in this as in all things
+tending to advancement; but there the "damned spot" stares us in the
+face, blights our hopes, and crushes our sympathies--hideous slavery
+--hideous alike in the recollection of the past, the contemplation of
+the present, and the anticipation of the future. I wish two things--
+1. That you would write a work on the subject less "sketchy and
+perfunctory," as you call it, so that any one not versed in English
+law and procedure might be able to understand it and appreciate it
+thoroughly. 2nd. That you would, when relieved from your present
+office, come out as our law member of council, to press your views on
+our Government with effect. With these law reforms, as with
+railroads, there were less impediments in India than in England; but
+there is one thing that I would observe. In our own Indian Courts our
+judges would--for a time at least--want the aid of honest _masters_
+to condense and report upon cases under trial. Such men would be made
+in time; and in considering such things, we must recollect that
+almost the only persons in India who can send agents into all parts
+of it, with a perfect assurance of honest dealing, are the native
+merchants and bankers. But I won't dwell on this subject. I can't
+find amongst the numerous Buddhists here, one who knows anything
+about "Kapila vasta," which you place near to Lucknow. I should like
+to visit the birth-place of a man who did so much for mankind as
+Sakeen Gantama.
+
+He would hardly have done as I have, placed my only son in the 16th
+Lancers. However, I may console myself, for he may be in it a long
+time without doing much mischief, for I do hope that the people of
+the nations of modern Europe are too strong and too wise to let their
+sovereigns and ministers play such fantastic tricks as they were
+"wont to play," when George the 3rd, and Edward the 3rd, and Henry
+the 5th were kings. Property, good sense, and good business have
+greatly increased and spread, and are every day producing good
+fruits.
+
+                     Believe me,
+                           Yours very trusting,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir Erskine Perry,
+     &c.  &c.
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 31st March, 1851.
+My Dear Sir,
+
+I grieve to say that I can do nothing whatever for the son of my late
+friend Colonel Ouseley, and have been obliged to write to him to that
+effect, as to many other sons of old and valued friends whom I should
+be glad to aid if I could.
+
+Tens of thousands of the most happy families I have seen in India owe
+all they have to the able and judicious management of the late
+Colonel Ouseley when in the civil charge of the districts of
+Houshengabad and Baitool, in the Saugor territories; and no man's
+memory is more dear to the people of those districts than his now is.
+The family of a man who had done so much to make his government
+beloved and respected over so large a field should never want if I
+could prevent it; but I have no situations whatever in my gift, nor
+have I any influence over any persons who have such situations to
+bestow.
+
+                    Believe me,
+                           Yours truly,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain Harrington.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 24th November 1851.
+
+My Lord,
+
+Lucknow affairs are now in a state to require the assumption of the
+entire management of the country; and the principal question for your
+Lordship's consideration is, whether this shall be done by a new
+treaty or by simple proclamation. Treaties not only justify but
+enjoin the measure; our pledges to the people demand it; and all
+India are, I believe, satisfied of its justice, provided we leave the
+revenues for the maintenance of the royal family in suitable dignity,
+and for the benefit of the people.
+
+We may disencumber our Government of the pay of two regiments of Oude
+Local Infantry, and incorporate them with the Oude force to be
+raised, and of that of the officers of the residency, altogether
+about two lacs and a-half of rupees; and when things are settled down
+a little, the brigade now here--of three infantry regiments and a
+company of artillery, costing some four lacs more--may be dispensed
+with, perhaps.
+
+If I may be permitted to give an opinion as to the best mode of the
+two, I should say proclamation, as the more dignified.
+
+I have prepared all the information I believe your Lordship will
+require, and am ready to wait upon you with it when and where it may
+seem most convenient.
+
+The treasury is exhausted, and fifty lacs are required to pay the
+stipendiaries of the royal family and establishments; and assuredly
+all the members of that family, save the King's own household, are
+wishing for some great measure to place them under the guarantee of
+the British Government. The people all now wish for it, at least all
+the well-disposed, for there is not a man of integrity or humanity
+left in any office. The King's understanding has become altogether
+emasculated; and though he would not willingly do harm to any one, he
+is unable to protect any one. He would now, I believe, willingly get
+rid of his minister; and, having exhausted the treasury, the minister
+would not much dislike to get rid of him. I shall do my best to
+prevent his being released from the responsibility of his misdoings
+till I meet your Lordship. I should like, if possible, to meet your
+Lordship where there is likely to be the least crowd of expectants
+and parade to take up your time and distract your attention. If at
+Cawnpore, I hope you will permit me to have my camp on the Oude side
+of the river, with a tent in your camp for business during the day.
+With your Lordship's commands to attend, it will be desirable to have
+an order to make over my treasury to the First Assistant, to prevent
+delay. Should you desire any memoranda to be sent, they shall be
+forwarded as soon as ordered. If any further public report upon the
+state of Oude affairs appears to be required, I must pray your
+Lordship to let me know as soon as convenient. I shall not propose
+any native gentlemen for the higher offices; but it will be necessary
+to have a great many in the subordinate ones, to show that your
+Lordship wishes to open employment in all branches of the new
+administration to educated native gentlemen.
+
+                      I remain,
+            Your Lordship's obedient servant,
+                 (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie,
+Governor-General,
+   &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 18th March, 1852.
+
+My Lord,
+
+I was favoured with your Lordship's letter of the 24th ultimo in due
+course, and did not reply immediately as I had stated, or was about
+to state, in a public form, all that seemed to be required about
+Captain Bird and Dr. Bell. Dr. Bell had apologised for indiscretions
+in conversation, but denied ever having authorised Mr. Brandon to
+make use of his name; and pretended utter ignorance of the intrigues
+which he was carrying on at the time that he was doing his utmost to
+convey wrong impressions to the Durbar. I feel grateful for the
+support your Lordship has given me. I cared nothing about the
+intrigues of these very silly men while under the impression that it
+was your intention to interpose effectually for the benefit of the
+people of Oude, because the new arrangements would have rendered them
+harmless; but when I found that you could not do so at present, it
+became necessary, for my own dignity and that of the Government, to
+do my best to put a stop to them. Most assuredly Captain Bird had
+been trying hard to persuade the King and his minister that our
+Government could not interfere, and that all the threats of the
+Governor-General would continue to be what they had hitherto been,
+and might be disregarded.
+
+I find that your Lordship has departed slightly from your original
+plan in regard to Burmah, by sending a detachment to make a
+demonstration upon Rangoon and Martaban. There is no calculating upon
+the result of such a demonstration in dealing with a Government so
+imbecile, and so ignorant of our resources. The places are too far
+from the capital, and the war party may succeed in persuading the
+King that in this demonstration we put forth all our strength. I can
+appreciate your motive--the wish to avoid, if possible, a war of
+annexation, which a war upon any scale must be. We should have to
+make use of a vast number of suffering people, whom we could not
+abandon to the mercy of the old Government.
+
+In the last war our great difficulties were the want of quick transit
+for troops and stores by sea, the want of carriage cattle, and
+sickness. These three impediments will not now beset us. Our own
+districts on the coast will supply land-carriage, steam-vessels will
+carry our troops and stores, and subsequent experience will enable us
+to avoid sources of endemial diseases. I have no map of the country;
+but some letters in the papers about the Busseya river interested me
+much. Our strong point is steam; and the discovery of a river which
+would enable us to use it in getting in strength to the rear or flank
+would be of immense advantage. There must be healthy districts;
+indeed Burmah generally must be a healthy country, or the population
+would not be so strong and intelligent as they are known to be. In
+religious feeling they are less opposed to us than any other people
+not Buddhists. Indeed, from the people we should have nothing to
+fear; and the army must be insignificant in numbers as well as
+equipments. I am very glad to find that so able and well-trained a
+statesman as Fox Maule has been put at the head of the Board of
+Control; and trust that your Lordship will remain at our head till
+the Burmah affair is thoroughly settled.
+
+The little affair of the Moplars, on the Malabar coast, may grow into
+a very big one unless skilfully managed. A brother of the Conollys is
+the magistrate, I believe. We can learn nothing of the cause of the
+strong feeling of discontent that prevails among this fanatical
+people. No such strong feeling can exist in India without some
+"canker-worm" to embitter the lives and unite the sympathies of large
+classes against their rulers or local governors, and make them think
+that they cannot shake it off without rebelling and becoming martyrs.
+I must pray your Lordship to excuse this long rambling letter, and
+
+          Believe me, with great respect,
+                         Your obedient servant,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie,
+Governor-General,
+Calcutta.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 4th April, 1852.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+Your present of the cadetship for her son made the poor widow's heart
+glad, and I doubt not that she has written to express her grateful
+feelings. The young man will, I hope, prove himself deserving of the
+favour you have conferred upon him so gracefully. The Court has
+called for a copy of my Diary of the tour I made through Oude soon
+after I took charge of my office; and I have sent off two copies, one
+for Government and the other for the Court. I purchased a small press
+and type for the purpose of printing it in my own house, that no one
+but myself and the compositor might see it. I will send home two
+copies for yourself and the chairman as soon as they can be bound in
+Calcutta. The Diary contains a faithful picture of Oude, its
+Government, and people, I believe. I have printed only a few copies,
+and they will not be distributed till I learn that the Court consider
+them unobjectionable. In spirit they will be found so. I intend, if I
+can find time, to give the history of the reigning family in a third
+volume. My general views on Oude affairs have been given in my
+letters to Government, which will, I conclude, be before the Court. A
+ruler so utterly regardless of his high duties and responsibilities,
+and of the sufferings of the people under his rule, as the present
+King, I have never seen; nor have I ever seen ministers so
+incompetent and so unworthy as those whom he employs in the conduct
+of his affairs. We have threatened so often to interpose for the
+benefit of the poor people, without doing anything, that they have
+lost all hope, and the profligate and unprincipled Government have
+lost all fear. The untoward war with Burmah prevents our present
+Governor-General from doing what he and I believe the Honourable
+Court both wish. We certainly ought not any longer to incur the odium
+of supporting such a Government in its iniquities, pledged as we are
+by treaties to protect the people from them. I do not apprehend any
+serious change in the constitution of the Court of Directors in the
+new charter. No ministers would hazard such a change in the present
+state of Europe. The Court is India's only safeguard. No foreign
+possession was ever so governed for itself as India has been, and
+this all foreigners with whom I have conversed, admit. The Governor-
+General of the Netherlands India was with me lately on his way home.
+He is a first-rate statesman, and he declared to me that he was
+impressed and delighted to see a country so governed, and apparently
+so sensible of the benefits conferred upon it by our paternal rule.
+He will tell you the same thing if you ever meet him. His name is
+Rochasson. The people appreciate the value of the Court of Directors,
+and no act, as far as it is known to them, has tended more to
+strengthen their confidence in it than that which has brought
+retribution on the great sinner in Scinde, Allee Murad. No punishment
+was ever more just or merited. Scinde, however, is too remote for the
+people in general to feel much interest in its affairs or families.
+Our weak points in the last Burmese war were:--1. The want of
+transport for troops and stores; 2. The want of carriage by land, for
+arms and stores; 3. Sickness. All these things have been remedied,
+and the war, when begun in earnest, can last but a short time. We
+know more of the country and shall avoid the sources of endemial
+disease; our steam provides for the rapid transport of troops and
+stores; and draft-cattle will be supplied from our own districts on
+the coast. Where our Government has no representative as Resident or
+Consul, all Europeans should be told that they remain entirely on
+their own responsibility. Unless this is done, the Governments must
+be eternally in collision. If war be carried on in earnest, it must
+be one of annexation: we must make use of persons whom we cannot
+abandon to the mercy of the Burmese Government. We have nothing to
+fear from the people: they have no religious feeling against us,
+being all Buddhists; and they have seen too much of the benefits
+conferred by us on the territories taken during the last war to have
+any dead of our dominion. Lord Dalhousie has, I believe, been most
+anxious to avoid a war--it has been forced upon him.
+
+                      Believe me,
+                           Yours very faithfully,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir James W. Hogg,
+Deputy Chairman,
+India House.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 6th April, 1842.
+
+My Dear Mr. Halliday,
+
+We are all wrong here in the Martiniere institution, and you have now
+an admirable opportunity of setting all right and doing an infinite
+deal of good with little trouble. I know how little you have of time
+and attention to devote to such things, and conclude that Mr.
+Devereux cannot have much more, and you may feel assured that I shall
+do all in my power to assist you. We are here attempting to give the
+education of gentlemen to beggar-boys, who must always depend upon
+their daily work for their daily bread. The senior boys are in
+despair, for they find that they have learnt hardly anything to fit
+them for the only employments open to them, and this tends to
+discourage the younger ones. The Roorkee Civil Engineering School
+seems to have been eminently successful, and a fine field is open to
+all who are taught in it. We shall no doubt have a similar field open
+in Oude when Government interposes in behalf of the suffering people,
+and we might prepare for it by converting the Martiniere into a
+similar school or college. The committee has just expressed to you a
+hope that Mr. Crank, the officiating principal, may be able to pass
+an examination in the native languages. This hope can never be
+realised; and if he does I shall have to record my opinion that he is
+otherwise unfitted. The power of nominating a principal rests
+entirely with the trustees; and if you concur in my views you might
+at once prepare for the change by getting a man from England or
+elsewhere, such as Mr. Maclagan, the late superintendent of the
+Roorkee school, fitted to teach civil engineering in all its
+branches. You have the command of funds to provide him with
+assistants of all kinds; and we have accommodations and funds to
+raise more, and provide machinery, books, &c. The thing might be set
+going at once, after you send a competent man to superintend it; and
+the work will be honourable to our Government and ourselves, and of
+vast benefit to the boys brought up at this Martiniere, and to their
+parents and families. If you think favourably of the proposed change,
+and will direct the committee to take it into consideration, I will
+do my best to make it respond cordially to your call; or if you
+direct the measure to be adopted at once, I will see that it is
+worked out as it should be. Mr. Crank has a good knowledge of
+mathematics and mechanics, and will make a good second under a good
+first; but he would be quite unfit for a first. Mr. Maclagan intended
+going home, via Bombay, as soon as relieved by Captain Oldfield, and
+has embarked by this time. He might be written to, to send out a
+competent person and the required machinery. Constantia is admirably
+adapted for such an establishment; the river Goomtee flows close
+under it; the grounds are ample, open, and level, and the climate
+fine. It would interest the whole of the Oude aristocracy, and induce
+them to send their sons there for instruction. It would be gratifying
+to the Judges of the Supreme Court to know that the funds available
+were devoted to a purpose so highly useful; and you would carry home
+with you the agreeable recollection of having engrafted so useful a
+branch upon the almost useless old trunk of the Martiniere.
+
+                           Yours very truly,
+                 (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To F. J. Halliday, Esq.
+Secretary to Government,
+Calcutta.
+
+Mr. Maclagan is a Lieutenant of Engineers, and lives in Edinburgh.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow. 10th April, 1852.
+
+My Lord,
+
+In September 1848, I took the liberty to mention to your Lordship my
+fears that the system of annexing and absorbing native States--so
+popular with our Indian service, and so much advocated by a certain
+class of writers in public journals--might some day render us too
+visibly dependent upon our native army; that they might see it, and
+that accidents might occur to unite them, or too great a portion of
+them, in some desperate act. My only anxiety about Burmah arises from
+the same fears. Our native army has been too much _petted_ of late;
+and they are liable to get into their heads the notion that we want
+them more than they want us. Had the 38th been at first ordered to
+march to Aracan, they would, in all probability, have begged their
+European officers to pray Government to permit them to go by water.
+
+We committed a great mistake in not long ago making all new levies
+general service corps; and we have committed one not less grave in
+restricting the admissions into our corps to high-caste men: and
+encouraging the promotion of high-caste men to the prejudice of men
+equally deserving but of lower caste. The Brahmins in regiments have
+too much influence, and they are at the bottom of all the mischief
+that occurs. The Rajpoots are too numerous, because they are under
+the influence of the Brahmins, and feel too strong from their
+numbers.
+
+We require stronger and braver men than the Madras Presidency can
+afford, with all their readiness for general service. The time may
+not be distant when England will have to call upon India for troops
+to serve in Egypt; and the troops from Madras, or even from Bombay,
+will not do against Europeans. Men from Northern or Western India
+will be required, and, in order to be prepared, it would be well to
+have all new corps--should new corps be required--composed of men
+from the Punjaub or the Himmalayah chain, and ready for any service.
+Into such corps none but Seiks, Juts, Goojurs, Gwalas, Mussulmans,
+and Hillmen should be enlisted. Too much importance is attached to
+height, merely that corps may look well on parade. Much more work can
+be got out of moderate sized than tall men in India. The tall men in
+regiments always fail first in actual service--they are fit only for
+display at reviews and on parades: always supposing that the
+moderate-sized men are taken from Western and Northern India, where
+alone they have the strength and courage required.
+
+No recruit should henceforward be taken except on condition of
+general service; and by-and-by the option may be given to all
+sipahees, of a certain standing or period of service, to put their
+names down for general service, or retire. This could not, of course,
+be done at present. No commanding officer can say, at present, what
+his regiment will do if called upon to aid the Government in any way
+not _specified in their bond_. They have too commonly favourites, who
+persuade them, for their own selfish purposes, that their regiments
+will do anything to meet their wishes, at the very time that these
+regiments are watching for an occasion to disgrace these favourites
+by refusal. I have known many occasions of this. None but general
+service corps or volunteers should be sent to Burmah from Bengal
+during this campaign, or we shall hazard a disaster. There are, I
+believe, several that your Lordship has not yet called upon. They
+should be at hand as soon as possible, and their present places
+supplied by others. In the mean time, corps of Punjaubies and Hillmen
+should be raised for general service. Not only can no commanding
+officer say what his corps will do under circumstances in which their
+religion or prejudices may afford a pretext for disobedience, but no
+officers can say how far their regiments sympathise with the
+recusant: or discontented, corps, and are prepared to join them.
+
+In case it should ever be proposed to make all corps general service
+corps, in the way I mention, a donation would, of course, be offered
+to all who declined of a month's pay for every year of past service,
+or of something of that kind. A maximum might be fixed of four, five,
+or six months. It would not cost much, for but few would go. I must
+pray your Lordship to excuse the liberty I take in obtruding my
+notions on this subject, but it really is one of vital importance in
+the present state of affairs in India, as well as in Europe.
+
+                 With great respect, I remain, &c.,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Moat Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.
+Governor-General of India,
+Calcutta.
+
+
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+_Memorandum_.
+
+In the year 1832 or 1833 the want of bamboos of large size, for yokes
+for artillery bullocks, was much felt at Saugor and the stations of
+that division; and the commissariat officer was authorised to form a
+bamboo grove, to be watered by the commissariat cattle, in order to
+supply the deficiency for the future. Forty beegas, or about twenty
+acres of land, were assigned for the purpose, and Government went to
+the expense of forming twelve pucka-wells, as the bamboos were
+planted upon the black cotton-soil of Central India, in which kutcha-
+wells do not stand. The first outlay was, therefore, greater than
+usual, being three thousand rupees. The establishment kept up
+consisted of one gardener, at five rupees a month, and two assistants
+at three rupees each. The bamboos were watered by the artillery
+bullocks and commissariat servants.
+
+In a few years the bamboos became independent of irrigation, and no
+outlay has since been incurred upon them. The bamboos are now between
+forty and fifty feet high, and between four and five inches in
+diameter. They are used by the commissariat and ordnance departments
+at Saugor, but are not, I believe, required for yokes for the
+artillery bullocks.
+
+There is a grove of sesum trees near the Lucknow cantonments formed
+in the same way, but with little or no outlay in irrigation. The
+trees were planted, and all the cost incurred has been in the people
+employed to protect them from trespass. In a dryer climate they might
+require irrigation for a few years. Groves of saul, _alias_ sukhoo
+trees, might be formed in the same manner in the vicinity of all
+stations where there are artillery bullocks; and the bullocks
+themselves would benefit by being employed in the irrigation. The
+establishments kept up for the bullocks would be able to do all the
+work required.
+
+The complement of bullocks for a battery of 6 guns, 6 waggons, and 2
+store carts, is 106. The number yoked to each gun and waggon is 61,
+[transcriber's note, should be 6], and to each cart 4, leaving a
+surplus of 26 for accidents. There would, therefore, be always a
+sufficient number of bullocks available for the irrigation of such
+groves where such a battery is kept up. These bullocks are taken care
+of by 4 sirdars and 59 drivers; and an European sergeant of artillery
+is appointed as bullock-sergeant to each battery, to superintend the
+feeding, cleaning, &c. &c. The officer on duty sees the bullocks
+occasionally, and the commanding officer sometimes. Such groves might
+be left to the care of the commandant of artillery at small stations,
+and to the commissariat officer at large ones.
+
+At every large station there might be a grove of sesum, one of
+sakhoo, and one of bamboos, each covering a hundred acres; and at all
+stations with a battery, three groves of the same kind, covering each
+twenty acres or more. For the convenience of carriage by water, such
+groves might be formed chiefly in the vicinity of rivers, or in that
+of the places where the timber is most likely to be required; but no
+battery should be without such groves. The men and bullocks would
+both benefit by the employment such groves would give them. The men,
+to interest them, might each have a small garden within the grove
+which he assists in watering.
+
+Such groves would tend to improve the salubrity of the stations where
+they are formed, and become agreeable and healthful promenades for
+officers and soldiers. In most stations, kutcha-wells, formed at a
+cost of from 20 to 50 rupees, would suffice for watering such groves.
+They might be lined, like those of the peasantry, by twisted cables
+of straw and twigs; and the men who attend the bullocks might be
+usefully employed in weaving them, as all should learn to make
+fascines and gabions. Willows should be planted near all the wells,
+to supply twigs for making the cables for lining the wells, and the
+manure of the artillery draft-bullocks should be appropriated to the
+groves.
+
+[Submitted to the Governor-General through the Private Secretary, in
+March, 1852, with reference to a conversation which I had with his
+Lordship in his camp.]
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 23rd August, 1852.
+
+My Lord,
+
+Permit me to offer my congratulations, not only on the success which
+has hitherto attended your Lordship's arrangements in Burmah, but on
+the very favourable impression which that success has made upon the
+Sovereign and people of England. It has enabled you to show that the
+war is not with the people of Burmah, but with a haughty, insolent,
+and incompetent Government, with whom that people has no longer any
+sympathy; and that, should circumstances render the annexation of any
+portion of its territory necessary, the people of that portion would
+consider the measure a blessing, and be well pleased to live in
+harmony under the efficient protection of the new rule.
+
+They are not in any way opposed to us from either religions or
+political feelings, for they seem to consider Christianity as a
+branch only of their own great system of Buddhism, which includes
+almost half of the human race; and they are evidently weary of the
+political institutions under which they now live, and which have
+ceased to afford them protection of any kind. In the annexation of
+Pegu--should it be forced upon your Lordship--there would be nothing
+revolting to the feelings of its people or to those of the people of
+England; on the contrary, both would be satisfied, after the
+disposition the people of Pegu have manifested towards us, that the
+measure was alike necessary to their security and to the honour and
+interest of our Government.
+
+Nor do I think that there would be any ground to apprehend that the
+resources of the territory taken would not, after a time, be
+sufficient to defray the costs of the establishments required to
+retain and govern it. Among the people of Pegu we should find men
+able and willing to serve us faithfully and efficiently in both our
+civil and military establishments, and the drain for the maintenance
+of foreigners would not be large. I have heard the mental and
+physical powers of the men of Pegu spoken of in the highest terms by
+persons who have spent the greater part of their lives among them;
+and a country which produces such men cannot be generally
+insalubrious. This early demonstration has enabled your Lordship to
+ascertain and expose the determination of the Government of Ava not
+to grant the redress justly demanded for wrongs suffered, so as to
+enlist on our side the sympathy of all civilized nations, and at the
+same time to discover the real weakness of the enemy and the
+facilities offered to us, in their fine rivers, for the use of our
+strong arm--the steam navy. Not a single "untoward event" has yet
+occurred to dispirit our troops, or give confidence to the enemy, or
+to prejudice the people of Burmah against us: and there certainly is
+nothing in this war to make us apprehend "that our political
+difficulties will begin when our military successes are complete." It
+is not displeasing to perceive the strong tendency to an early onward
+move, while your Lordship has so prudent a leader in General Godwin
+to restrain it within due bounds.
+
+                       I remain, &c.,
+                 (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.
+Governor-General of India.
+Calcutta.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, September, 1852.
+
+My Lord,
+
+The longer the present King reigns, the more unfit he becomes to
+reign, and the more the administration and the country deteriorate.
+The State must have become bankrupt long ere this, but the King, and
+the knaves by whom he is governed, have discontinued paying the
+stipends of all the members of the royal family, save those of his
+own father's family, for the last three years; and many of them are
+reduced to extreme distress, and without the hope of ever getting
+their stipends again unless our Government interferes. The females of
+the palaces of former sovereigns ventured to clamour for their
+subsistence, and they were, without shame or mercy, driven into the
+streets to starve, beg, or earn their bread by their labour. This
+deters all from complaining, and they are in a state of utter dismay.
+No part of the people of Oude are more anxious for the interposition
+of our Government than the members of the royal family; for there is
+really no portion more helpless and oppressed: none of them can ever
+approach the King, who is surrounded exclusively by eunuchs,
+fiddlers, and poetasters worse than either; and the minister and his
+creatures, who are worse than all. They appropriate at least one-half
+of the revenues of the country to themselves, and employ nothing but
+knaves of the very worst kind in all the branches of the
+administration. The King is a crazy imbecile, who is led about by
+these people like a child, and made to do whatever they wish him to
+do, and to give whatever orders may best suit their private
+interests. At present, the most powerful of the favourites are
+Decanut od Doula and Husseen od Doula, two eunuchs; Anees od Doula
+and Mosahib od Doula, two fiddlers; two poetasters, and the minister
+and his creatures. The minister could not stand a moment without the
+eunuchs, fiddlers, and poets, and he is obliged to acquiesce in all
+the orders given by the King for their benefit. The fiddlers have
+control over the administration of civil justice; the eunuchs over
+that of criminal justice, public buildings, &c. The minister has the
+land revenue; and all are making enormous fortunes. The present King
+ought not certainly to reign: he has wilfully forfeited all right to
+do so; but to set him aside in favour of his eldest, or indeed any
+other son, would give no security whatever for any permanent good
+government A well-selected regency would, no doubt, be a vast
+improvement upon the present system; but no people would invest their
+capital in useful works, manufactures, and trades, with the prospect
+of being handed over a few years hence to a prince brought up
+precisely in the same manner the present King was, and as all his
+sons will be. What the people want, and most earnestly pray for is,
+that our Government should take upon itself the responsibility of
+governing them well and permanently. All classes, save the knaves,
+who now surround and govern the King, earnestly pray for this--the
+educated classes, because they would then have a chance of
+respectable employment, which none of them now have; the middle
+classes, because they find no protection or encouragement, and no
+hope that their children will be permitted to inherit the property
+they may leave, not invested in our Government securities; and the
+humbler classes, because they are now abandoned to the merciless
+rapacity of the starving troops, and other public establishments, and
+of the landholders, driven or invited into rebellion by the present
+state of misrule. There is not, I believe, another Government in
+India so entirely opposed to the best interest's and most earnest
+wishes of the people as that of Oude now is; at least I have never
+seen or read of one. People of all classes have become utterly weary
+of it. The people have the finest feelings towards our Government and
+character. I know no part of India, save the valley of the Nurbuddah,
+where the feeling towards us is better. All, from the highest to the
+lowest, would, at this time, hail the advent of our administration
+with joy; and the rest of India, to whom Oude misrule is well known,
+would acquiesce in the conviction, that it had become imperative for
+the protection of the people. With steamers to Fyzabad, and a
+railroad from that place to Cawnpore, through Lucknow, the Nepaul
+people would be for ever quieted, with half of the force we now keep
+up to look after them; and the N. W. Provinces become more closely
+united to Bengal, to the vast advantage of both. I mentioned that we
+should require a considerable loan to begin with; but I think that an
+issue of paper money, receivable in Oude in revenue, and payable to
+public establishments in Oude, might safely be made to cover all the
+outlay required to pay off odd establishments and commence the new
+work. Little money goes out of Oude, and the increased circulating
+medium, required for the new public works and new establishments,
+would soon absorb all the paper issued. It might be issued at little
+or no cost by the financial department of the new administration.
+Though everybody knows that the King has become crazy and imbecile,
+it would be difficult to get judicial proof that he is so, where the
+life and property of every one are at his mercy and that of the
+knaves who now govern him. His every-day doings sufficiently manifest
+it. There is not the slightest ground for hope that he will ever be
+any other than what he now is, or that his children will be better.
+There are too many interested in depriving them of all capacity for a
+part in public affairs that they may retain the reins in their own
+hands when the children come of age to admit of their ever becoming
+better than their father is. I have not lately made the reports which
+Lord Hardinge directed the Resident to make periodically, but shall
+be prepared to resume them whenever your Lordship may direct. I
+suspended them on account of hostilities with Burmah. I have printed
+eighteen copies of the establishments, as they are and were last
+year, and as I proposed for the new system. I shall not let any one
+have a copy till your Lordship permits it, and they are all at your
+disposal if required. This, and the "Substantive Code," are the only
+papers connected with Oude, except the Diary that I have had printed,
+or shall have printed, unless ordered by you.
+
+             I remain, with great respect,
+                  Your Lordship's obedient servant,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+P.S.--I believe that it is your Lordship's wish that the whole of the
+revenues of Oude should be expended for the benefit of the royal
+family and people of Oude, and that the British Government should
+disclaim any wish to derive any pecuniary advantages from assuming to
+itself the administration.
+
+                 (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.
+Governor-General,
+  &c. &c. &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 21st September, 1852.
+
+My Dear Sir,
+
+I will reply to the queries contained in your letter of the 16th
+instant to the best of my recollection. I was in Calcutta in January,
+1838, when the late Dyce Sombre was there, and about to embark for
+England. I had seen a good deal of him at Sirdhanah, in March 1836,
+soon after the Begum Sumroo's death, and he afterwards spent a short
+time with me at Mussoorie, and consulted me a good deal on the
+subject of a dispute with his father.
+
+Colonel James Skinner and Dr. Drener were, I believe, executors to
+his will. Colonel Skinner was at Delhi, and Dr. Drener had either
+gone home or was going, I forget which, and Dyce Sombre asked me to
+consent to become one of his trustees, for the conduct of his affairs
+in this country. I consented, and I think the circumstance was
+inserted in a codicil or memorandum added to his will or deed; but my
+recollection on this point is not distinct.
+
+I had, however, nothing to do with the conduct of his affairs in this
+country until the death of Colonel James Skinner, which took place in
+December, 1841, when Mr. Reghilini, the overseer or agent at
+Sirdhanah, got my sanction to the outlay for establishments, &c. At
+this time I corresponded with Dyce Sombre, and continued to do so
+until his affairs were thrown into Chancery. I then sought a lawyer's
+opinion as to my proper course, and refused to give Mr. Reghilini any
+further orders. The opinion was, "that my only safe course was to do
+nothing whatever in the conduct of his affairs;" and I never
+afterwards did anything. I never heard of any Colonel Sheerman, and
+his name may have been inserted by mistake for mine; but I was then
+(1838) only a major, and was not promoted until 1843. I never heard
+of any desire on the part of Dyce Sombre, or the Begum Sumroo, to
+found a college other than as an appendage to the Sirdhanah church,
+nor of his having given the residue of his property for the purpose;
+at least, I have no recollection of having heard of such desire. I
+always hoped, and expected, until I heard of his marriage, that he
+would return and reside at Sirdhanah.
+
+Dyce Sombre always spoke to me of Mrs. Troup and Mrs. Soloroli as his
+sisters: he regarded them alike as such, and so did the Begum Sumroo.
+I always understood them to be the children of the same mother; but
+the question was never mooted before me, and I have always heard that
+Mrs. Troup was very like Dyce Sombre in appearance, and that Mrs.
+Soloroli was not so.
+
+Mr. Reghilini, who is, I believe, still at Sirdhanah, may know
+whether a Colonel Sheerman was appointed executor or not. Dr. Drener
+must know. The notes which passed between me and Dyce Sombre, after
+he left India, were on the ordinary topics of the day, and were
+destroyed as soon as read. I have none of them to refer to, nor would
+they furnish any confirmation on the matter in question if I had.
+
+             Believe me, yours, very truly,
+                 (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+Charles Prinsep, Esq.,
+Barrister-at-Law,
+Calcutta.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+_To Messrs. Molloy, Mackintosh, and Poe, Calcutta_.
+
+Dear Sirs,
+
+In reply to your letter of the 16th instant, I enclose the copy of a
+letter addressed by me on the 21st ultimo to Mr. Charles Prinsep, in
+reply to similar queries. To what I stated in that letter I can add
+but little.
+
+Dyce Sombre always spoke to me of Mrs. Soloroli and Mrs. Troup as his
+sisters, and of the former as the eldest of the two; and Mrs. Troup
+spoke of Mrs. Soloroli as her eldest sister. They were always treated
+by the Begum Sumroo as his sisters; and when Dyce Sombre went to
+England I think he left the same provision for both in addition to
+what they had received from the Begum.
+
+I was introduced to Mrs. Troup by her husband as an old friend on my
+way back from Mussoorie in November, 1837, but I did not see Mrs.
+Soloroli, though she and her husband were at the same place,
+Sirdhanah, at that time. They both lived under the curtain, secluded
+from the sight of men, after the Hindoostanee fashion, as long as
+they remained in India, I think; and I was introduced to Mrs. Troup
+as a friend of the family, whom all might require to consult. Her
+husband only was present during the interview. Dyce Sombre had left
+the place for Calcutta. I never heard a doubt expressed of their
+being sisters by the same mother and father till the new will came
+under discussion at the end of last year.
+
+I may refer you to pages 378 and 396 of the second volume of a work
+by me, entitled "Rambles and Recollections," in which you will find
+it mentioned that the grandmother of Dyce Sombre died insane at
+Sirdhanah in 1838. She must have been insane for more than forty
+years up to her death. Her son Zuffer Yab Khan was a man of weak
+intellect, and he was the father of Dyce Sombre's mother, of whom I
+know nothing whatever.
+
+Dyce Sombre, showed no symptoms of derangement of mind while I knew
+him; but he inherited from his grandmother a predisposition to
+insanity, which I apprehended might become developed by any very
+strong feelings of excitement; and I urged him to return and settle
+at Sirdhanah, when he had seen all he wished to see in Europe.
+
+He saw a good deal of English society in India, and understood well
+the freedom which English wives enjoy in general society; but I
+doubted whether he could ever thoroughly shake off his early
+predilections for keeping them secluded. It would, I thought, be
+always to him a source of deep humiliation to see his wife mix with
+other men in the manner in which English married ladies are
+accustomed to do. Since his affairs were put into Chancery I have
+always felt persuaded that this must have been the principal
+"exciting cause" acting upon the predisposition derived from his
+grandmother, which led to it. I have never had the slightest doubt
+that he suffered under an aberration of mind upon this point, though
+he never mentioned the subject in any of his short letters to me from
+England, nor did he in any of them show signs of such aberration.
+
+             Believe me, yours, faithfully,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+26th October, 1852.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 28th October, 1852.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+Your letter of the 6th ultimo reached me by the last mail, and I
+trust we shall see your hopes of an early renewal of the Charter with
+few alterations realised. I entirely concur with you in opinion that
+the power of recall is indispensable to the due authority of the
+Court; and was much surprised to find Maddock opposed to it. Many
+thinking men at home have been of opinion that the Ministers would
+secure for the Queen the nomination of a certain number to the
+Direction, on the ground that many of the best men from India are
+deterred from becoming candidates by the time and pledges required in
+the canvass. The late elections, however, seem to have come in time
+to increase the Jealousy of ministerial influence, and prevent such a
+measure.
+
+Hostilities with Burmah have prevented my making public periodical
+reports to Government about Oude affairs since I submitted my Diary.
+I took the liberty to send, through my London agents copy to yourself
+and the Deputy Chairman. Things have not improved since it was
+written. The King is as regardless of his high duties and
+responsibilities as ever: he is, indeed, an imbecile in the hands of
+a few fiddlers, eunuchs, and poetasters, and the minister, who is no
+better than they are, and obliged to provide for all these men out of
+the revenues and patronage of the country, and sundry women about the
+Court, also, to secure their influence in his favour.
+
+The King contrives to get the stipends of those immediately about
+him, and of his mother, brothers, and sisters, paid out of the
+revenues; but is indifferent about those of his more distant
+relatives, and hardly any of them have had any stipends for the last
+two and even three years. Those who happen not to have a little
+Company's paper given to them by former Sovereigns, or pensions
+guaranteed by our Government and paid out of our Treasury, are
+starving, and pray for the day when our Government may interpose in
+the administration. The expenditure is much above the income, and the
+reserved treasury is exhausted; but the King has his jewels and some
+personal property in Government notes, derived from his father and
+grandmothers. He thinks himself the best of kings and the best of
+poets, and nothing will induce him willingly to alter his course or
+make room for a better ruler or better system.
+
+If our Government interpose, it must not be by negotiation and
+treaty, but authoritatively on the ground of existing treaties and
+obligations to the people of Oude. The treaty of 1837 gives our
+Government ample authority to take the whole administration on
+ourselves, in order to secure what we have often pledged ourselves to
+secure to the people; but if we do this we must, in order to stand
+well with the rest of India, honestly and distinctly disclaim all
+interested motives, and appropriate the whole of the revenues for the
+benefit of the people and royal family of Oude. If we do this, all
+India will think us right, for the sufferings of the people of Oude,
+under the present system, have been long notorious throughout India;
+and so have our repeated pledges to relieve the people from these
+sufferings, unless the system should be altered. Fifty years of sad
+experience have shown to us and to all India, that this system is
+incapable of improvement under the present dynasty; and that the only
+alternative is for the paramount power to take the administration
+upon itself.
+
+Under the treaty of 1801, we took one-half of the territory of Oude,
+and that half yields to us above two crores of rupees; though, when
+taken, it was estimated at one hundred and thirty-three lacs. The
+half retained by the Oude Sovereign was estimated at the same; but it
+now yields to the Sovereign only one crore. The rest is absorbed by
+the knaves employed in the administration and their patrons at Court.
+All that is now so absorbed would come to the Treasury under us, and
+be employed in the maintenance of efficient establishments, and the
+construction of useful public works; and we should have ample means
+for providing for all the members of the royal family of Oude.
+
+We should derive substantial benefit from the measure, without in any
+degree violating our declaration of disinterestedness. We now
+maintain five regiments of Infantry, and a company of Artillery, at a
+cost of from five to six lacs a-year. We maintain the Residency and
+all its establishments at a cost of more than one lac of rupees a-
+year. All these would become fairly chargeable to the Oude revenues
+under the new administration; and we might dispense with half the
+military forces now kept up at Cawnpore and Dinapore on the Ganges,
+as the military force in Oude would relieve us from all apprehension
+as to Nepaul.
+
+Oude would be covered with a network of fine macadamised roads, over
+which the produce of Oude and our own districts would pass freely to
+the benefit of the people of both; and we should soon have the river
+Ghagra, from near Patna on the Ganges, to Fyzabad in Oude, navigable
+for steamers: with a railroad from Fyzabad, through Lucknow to
+Cawnpore, to the great benefit of the North-West Provinces and those
+of Bengal.
+
+Were we to take advantage of the occasion to _annex_ or _confiscate_
+Oude, or any part of it, our good name in India would inevitably
+suffer; and that good name is more valuable to us than a dozen of
+Oudes. We are now looked up to throughout India as the only impartial
+arbitrators that the people generally have ever had, or can ever hope
+to have without us; and from the time we cease to be so looked up to,
+we must begin to sink. We suffered from our conduct in Scinde; but
+that was a country distant and little known, and linked to the rest
+of India by few ties of sympathy. Our Conduct towards it was preceded
+by wars and convulsions around, and in its annexation there was
+nothing manifestly deliberate. It will be otherwise with Oude. Here
+the giant's strength is manifest, and we cannot "use it like a giant"
+without suffering in the estimation of all India. Annexation or
+confiscation are not compatible with our relations with this little
+dependent state. We must show ourselves to be high-minded, and above
+taking advantage of its prostrate weakness, by appropriating its
+revenues exclusively to the benefit of the people and royal family of
+Oude. We should soon make it the finest garden in India, with the
+people happy, prosperous, and attached to our rule and character.
+
+We have at least forty thousand men from Oude in the armies of the
+three Residencies, all now, rightly or wrongly, cursing the
+oppressive Government under which their families live at their homes.
+These families would come under our rule and spread our good name as
+widely as they now spread the bad one of their present ruler.
+Soldiers with a higher sense of military honour, and duty to _their
+salt_, do not exist, I believe, in any country. To have them bound to
+us by closer ties than they are at present, would of itself be an
+important benefit.
+
+I can add little to what I have said in the latter end of the fourth
+chapter of my Diary (from p. 187*, vol. ii.), on the subject of our
+relations with the Government of Oude; and of our rights and duties
+arising out of those relations. The diaries political, which I send
+every week or fortnight to the Government of India, are formed out of
+the reports made every day to the Durbar, by their local or
+departmental authorities. The Residency News-writer has the privilege
+of hearing these reports read as they come in; and though the reports
+of many important events are concealed from him, they may generally
+be relied upon as far as they go. The picture they give of affairs is
+bad enough, though not so bad as they deserve.
+
+[* Transcriber's note. From the text "By the treaty of 1801 we bound
+ourselves......."--to the end of the chapter IV in vol. ii]
+
+There are so many worthless and profligate people about the Court,
+interested in smothering any signs of common sense and good feeling
+on the part of the heir apparent to the throne, in order to maintain
+their ascendancy over him as he grows up, that he has not the
+slightest chance of becoming fit to take any part in the conduct of
+public affairs when he comes of age. The present King has three or
+four sons, all very young, but it is utterly impossible for any one
+of them to become a man of business; and it would be folly to expect
+any one of them to make a better Sovereign than their father. He is
+now only twenty-eight or twenty-nine years of age; but his
+understanding has become quite emasculated by over-indulgencies of
+all kinds. He may live long, but his habits have become too
+inveterate to admit of his ever becoming better than he now is or fit
+to be intrusted with the government of a country.
+
+I shall recommend that all establishments, military, civil, and
+fiscal, be kept entirely separate from those of our own Government,
+that there may be no mistake as to the disinterestedness of our
+intentions towards Oude. The military establishments being like
+Scindiah's contingent, in the Gwalior state, or the Hydrabad
+contingent in the Nizam's. I estimate the present expenditure at,
+civil and fiscal establishments, and stipendiaries, 38 lacs. Military
+and police, 55. King's household, 30. Total, 123 lacs. Establishments
+required for an efficient administration--civil and fiscal--at 22
+lacs. Military, 26 lacs. Families and dependents of former Sovereigns,
+12 lacs. Household of the Sovereign, his sons, brothers, and sisters,
+15 lacs. Total, 75 lacs.
+
+This would leave an abundant store for public works, military stores,
+contingent charges, pension establishments for the civil and military
+officers employed under us, &c. To pay off all the present heavy
+arrears of stipends, salaries, to provide arms, ammunition, and
+stores, and to commence upon all the public works, our Government
+would have either to give or guarantee a loan; or to sanction the
+issue of a certain amount of paper money, to circulate exclusively in
+Oude, by making it receivable in the Oude Treasuries in taxes.
+
+The revenues would be at once greatly increased, by our taking for
+the treasury all that is now intercepted and appropriated by public
+officers and Court favourites for their own private purposes, by our
+making the great landholders pay a due portion of their assets to the
+state, and by our securing the safe transit of raw produce and
+manufactured goods to their proper markets.
+
+By adopting a simple system of administration, to meet the wishes of
+a simple people, we should secure the goodwill of all classes of
+society in Oude; and no class would be more pleased with the change
+than the members of the royal family themselves, who depend upon
+their stipends for their subsistence, and despair of ever again
+receiving them under the present Sovereign and system.
+
+I hope a happy termination of the present war with Burmah will soon
+leave Lord Dalhousie free to devote his attention to Oude affairs. As
+far as I am consulted, I shall advocate, as strongly as may be
+compatible with my position, the measures above described, because I
+think they will be found best calculated to benefit the people of
+Oude, to meet the wishes of the home Government, and to sustain his
+Lordship's own reputation, and that of the nation which he represents
+throughout our Eastern empire.
+
+You are aware of some of the difficulties that I have had to contend
+with, in carrying out important measures beneficial to the people,
+and honourable to the Government of India; but in no situation in
+life have I ever had to struggle with so many as here, in pursuing an
+honest and steady course of policy, calculated to secure the respect
+of all classes for the Government which I represent. Such a scene of
+intrigue, corruption, depravity, neglect of duty, and abuse of
+authority, I have never before been placed in, and hope never again
+to undergo; and I have had to contend with bitter hostility where I
+had the best right to expect support. I have never yet failed in the
+performance of any duty that Government has intrusted to me, and,
+under Providence, I hope that I shall ultimately succeed in the
+performance of that which I have committed to me here.
+
+Lucknow is an overgrown city, surrounding an overgrown Court, which
+has, for the last half century, exhausted all the resources of this
+fine country; and so alienated the feelings of the great body of the
+people that they, and the Sovereign, and his officers, look upon each
+other as irreconcileable enemies. Between the city, the pampered
+Court and its functionaries, and the people of the country beyond,
+there is not the slightest feeling of sympathy; and if our troops
+were withdrawn from the vicinity of Lucknow, the landholders and
+sturdy peasantry of the country would, in a few days, rush in and
+plunder and destroy it as a source of nothing but intolerable evil to
+them.
+
+Though I have written a long letter, I may have omitted many things
+which you wished me to notice. In that case I must rely upon your
+letting me know; and in the mean time, I shall continue to write
+whenever I have anything to communicate that is likely to interest
+you.
+
+                Believe me, dear Sir James,
+                           Yours very faithfully,
+                                W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.
+    &c.     &c.     &c.
+
+P.S. By treaty, we are bound to keep up a certain force near the
+capital for the protection of the Sovereign; and we should be
+obliged, till things were quite settled under the new system, to
+retain the brigade we now have of our regular troops in the
+cantonments, which are three miles from the city.
+
+                                W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 20th November, 1852.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+To be prepared for accidents, I deem it right to send a duplicate of
+the letter which I sent to you by the last mail, addressed to the
+care of my London agents, Messrs. Denny and Clark, Austin Friars. I
+have nothing new or interesting to communicate from Oude. The Burmese
+war seems likely to divert the Governor-General's attention from Oude
+and Hydrabad affairs for some time to come; and the death of the Duke
+of Wellington, and probable changes in the ministry at home, may
+prevent him from venturing upon any important change in the Oude
+administration when that war closes.
+
+The war is an "untoward event," arising from a very small cause; and
+it should prevent our ever guaranteeing British subjects in countries
+where we have no accredited agents to conduct our relations with the
+Government. All such subjects, and all the subjects of our European
+and American allies, should in future be made to understand that they
+enter such countries entirely upon their own responsibility. Without
+some such precaution we must always be liable to be involved in war
+with bordering countries by adventurers of one land or another; and
+as war is almost always followed by annexation or confiscation, our
+Indian empire, like that of the Romans, must soon sink from its own
+weight. The people will think that we are perpetually seeking
+pretexts for war in order to get new territories, and the general or
+universal impression will be dangerous.
+
+When the public press of England abuse those who have to conduct the
+present war for delay, they do not sufficiently consider our
+ignorance of the state of the rivers and of the military resources of
+the country in which it was to be carried on when we entered upon it.
+We did not know that the rivers were navigable, nor did we know how
+they were defended; nor did we know what forces Burmah could muster,
+nor how they were distributed. It was not intended to commence the
+war till after the rains, when it would be safe to move troops over
+the country; for it was not reasonable to suppose that the Government
+of the country could be so haughty and insolent without military
+force to support its pretensions, and we have often had sad
+experience of the danger of underrating the power of an enemy. The
+object of the earlier movement was merely to secure some points of
+support, at which to concentrate our forces as they came up, and not
+to advance at once on the capital or into the country at a season
+when no troops could move by land.
+
+Our strong arm was, no doubt, the steam flotilla; but it would have
+been madness in us, with our ignorance of the rivers and resources of
+the country, to have calculated upon conquering Ava by steamers
+alone. With what we now know, people may safely say that General
+Godwin has failed to make all the use he might of the flotilla, as
+Lord Gough failed to make all the use he might of his "strong arm,"
+the artillery, in the battles of the Punjaub; but Lord Gough was not
+ignorant of the country in which he had to operate, nor of the
+resources of the country he had to contend with. According to
+previous calculations, the war ought not to have begun till this
+month. The earlier movement has, however, been of great advantage--it
+has taught us what the rivers and resources of the country are; and,
+what is of still more importance, what the people and their feelings
+towards their Government and ours are. It is manifest that they fully
+appreciate the value of the protection which the people, under our
+rule, enjoy; and that they have neither religious nor political
+feelings of hostility towards us; and that the people of Pegu, at
+least, would hail the establishment of our rule as a blessing.
+
+You were so kind as to express a wish to see my son. He is now with
+his regiment, the 16th Lancers, in Ireland, and has lately obtained
+his Lieutenancy. He will be twenty years of age in January. I will
+make known to him your kind wish, and doubt not that he will pay his
+respects when he visits London.
+
+                  Believe me, My Dear Sir James,
+                            Yours very faithfully,
+                                  W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart,
+       &c.   &c.     &c.
+
+P.S.--In page 217, line 4, vol. i., of my Diary, the printer has put
+"months" for weeks. Pray do me the favour to have this corrected.--W.
+H. S.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+My Lord,
+
+Your Lordship's wishes in regard to the papers on Oude affairs shall
+be strictly attended to. They are locked up in my box, and no one
+shall see them. I had no wish to print any but those I mentioned in
+my last letter, and they are locked up with the others, which I have
+not looked at since I left your Lordship's camp; the Diary, excepted.
+
+Things in Oude are just as they were; and the King's ambition seems
+to be limited to the reputation of being the best drum-beater,
+dancer, and poet of the day. He is utterly unfit to reign; but he is
+himself persuaded that no man can be more fit than he is for
+anything, and he will never willingly consent to make over the reins
+of Government to any one. It would be impossible to _persuade_ him to
+abdicate even in favour of his own son, much less to resign his
+sovereignty in perpetuity. If our Government interpose, it must be by
+the exercise of a right derived from the existing relations between
+the two Governments, or from our position as the paramount power in
+India.
+
+Of this your Lordship will have to consider and decide when your mind
+is relieved from Burmese affairs, which appear to be drawing very
+_quietly_ to a close. I shall not write publicly about Oude affairs
+generally till I have your Lordship's commands to do so. The Diary
+will continue to be transmitted regularly; but the Periodical General
+Report will be suspended.
+
+Mr. Bushe remained a few days at Lucknow. He has since seen Agra,
+Bhurtpoor, and other places, and is now on his way back to Calcutta,
+well pleased with his tour.
+
+          With great respect,
+               Your Lordship's obedient Servant,
+                                  W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.,
+Governor-General of India.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 2nd January, 1853.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+I enclose two sets of Tables of Errata for the Diary, and must pray
+you to do me the favour to have one set put into the two volumes of
+the copy you have, and the other sent to the Deputy-Chairman for
+insertion in his copy. I did not take the liberty to send a copy to
+the President of the Board of Control, but if you think I should do
+so, I will.
+
+The King of Oude is becoming more and more imbecile and crazy, and
+his servants continue more and more to abuse their power and neglect
+their duty. The King, every day manifests his utter unfitness to
+reign, in some new shape. He, on several occasions during the
+Mohurrum ceremonies which took place lately, went along the streets
+beating a drum tied round his neck, to the great scandal of his
+family and the amusement of his people. The members of his family
+have not been paid their stipends for from two to three years, and
+many of them have been reduced to the necessity of selling their
+clothes to purchase food. All classes, save the knaves who surround
+him, and profit by his folly, are become disgusted with and tired of
+him.
+
+I do not interfere, except to protect our pledges and guarantees; and
+to conduct the current duties of the Residency in such a manner as to
+secure the respect of all classes for the Government which I
+represent. While the present King reigns, or has anything whatever to
+do with the Government, no interference could produce any substantial
+and permanent reform. The minister is a weak man and a great knave;
+but he has an influence over his master, obtained by being entirely
+subservient to his vices and follies, to the sacrifice of his own
+honour; and by praising all that he does, however degrading to him as
+a man and a sovereign.
+
+Though the King pays no attention whatever to public affairs or to
+business of any kind, and aims at nothing but the reputation of being
+the best dancer, best versifier, and best drummer in his dominions,
+it would be impossible to persuade him that any man was ever more fit
+to reign than he is. Nothing would ever induce him willingly to
+abdicate even in favour of his own son, much less to make him
+willingly abdicate in perpetuity in favour of our Government, or make
+over the conduct of the administration to our Government. If,
+therefore, our Government does interfere, it must be in the exercise
+of a right arising out of the existing relations between the two
+States, or out of our position as the paramount power in India. These
+relations, under the Treaty of 1837, give our Government the _right_
+to take upon itself the administration, under present circumstances;
+and, indeed, imposes, upon our Government the _duty_ of taking it:
+but, as I have already stated, neither these relations nor our
+position, as the paramount power, gives us any right to _annex_ or to
+_confiscate_ the territory of Oude. We may have a right to take
+territory from the Nizam of Hyderabad in payment for the money he
+owes us; but Oude owes us no money, and we have no right to take
+territory from her. We have only the right to interpose to secure for
+the suffering people that better Government which their Sovereign
+pledged himself to secure for them, but has failed to secure.
+
+The Burmese war still prevents the Governor-General from devoting his
+attention to Oude and Hyderabad. In the last war we did not march our
+armies to the capital because we were not prepared to supply a new
+Government for the one which we should thereby destroy; and
+insurrection and civil war must have followed. Our conduct in that
+was wise and benevolent. When we moved our armies to Rangoon this
+time, we upset one Government without providing the people with
+another. The Governor-General could not provide for the Civil
+Government, because he could not know that the Government of Ava
+would force us to keep possession of any portion of its dominions;
+and taking upon ourselves the civil administration would compromise
+the people, should he have to give them up again to their old rulers.
+The consequence has been great suffering to a people who hailed us as
+deliverers. The folly of supposing that any country can be taken by
+steamers on their rivers alone has now become sufficiently manifest.
+The Governor-General has however, adopted the best possible measures
+for securing ultimate good government to Pegu. It would have been
+more easily effected had they been taken earlier, but this
+circumstance prevented.
+
+There is a school in India, happily not yet much patronised by the
+Home Government nor by the Governor-General, but always struggling
+with more or less success for ascendancy. It is characterised by
+impatience at the existence of any native State, and its strong and
+often insane advocacy of their absorption--by honest means, if
+possible--but still, their absorption. There is no pretext, however
+weak, that is not sufficient, in their estimation, for the purpose;
+and no war, however cruel, that is not justifiable, if it has only
+this object in view. If you know George Clerk or Mr. Robertson, both
+formerly Governors of our North-West Provinces, they will describe to
+you the school I mean. They, I believe, with me, strongly deprecate
+the doctrines of this school as more injurious to India and to our
+interest in it, than those of any other school that has ever existed
+in India. Mr. George Campbell is one of the disciples of this
+school.--See the 4th chapter of his "Modern India." The "Friend of
+India" is another, and all those whom that paper lauds most are also
+disciples of the same school. The Court of Directors will have to
+watch these doctrines carefully; and I wish you would speak to George
+Clerk and Mr. Robertson about them. They are both men of large views
+and sound judgment.
+
+               Believe me, My Dear Sir James,
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Sir James Weir Hogg,
+    &c.   &c.   &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 12th January, 1853.
+
+My Dear Sir James,
+
+I wrote to you on the 23rd October, 20th November, and the 2nd of
+this month; I mention this lest any of my letters miscarry; of the
+first letter I sent a duplicate on the 2nd, but I shall not send
+duplicates of the last two, or of this. I now write chiefly to call
+your attention to a rabid article in the "Friend of India," of the
+6th of this month, written by Mr. Marshman, when about to proceed to
+England, to become, it is said, one of the writers in the London
+"Times." Of coarse, he will be engaged to write the Indian articles;
+and you will find him advocating the doctrines of the school
+mentioned in my last letter of the 2nd of this month. I consider
+their doctrines to be prejudicial to the stability of our rule in
+India, and to the welfare of the people, which depends on it. The
+Court of Directors is our only safeguard against these Machiavellian
+doctrines; and it may be rendered too powerless to stem them by the
+new arrangements for the Government of India. The objects which they
+propose for attainment--religion, commerce, &c.--are plausible; and
+the false logic by which they attempt to justify the means required
+to attain them, however base, unjust, and cruel, is no less so. I was
+asked by Dr. Duff, the editor of the "Calcutta Review," before he
+went home to write some articles for that journal, to expose the
+fallacies, and to counteract the influences of the doctrines of this
+school; but I have for many years ceased to contribute to the
+periodical papers, and have felt bound by my position not to write
+for them. Few old officers of experience, with my feelings and
+opinions on this subject, now remain in India; and the influence of
+this school is too great over the rising generation, whose hopes and
+aspirations they tend so much to encourage. Mr. Elphinstone, Mr.
+Robertson, and George Clerk will be able to explain their danger to
+you. India must look to the Court of Directors alone for safety
+against them, and they will require the exertion of all its wisdom
+and strength.
+
+Mr. Robertson will be able to tell you that, when I was sent to
+Bundelcund, in 1842, the feelings of the people of that province were
+so strongly against us, under the operation of the doctrines of this
+school, that no European officer could venture, with safety, beyond
+the boundary of a cantonment of British troops; and their servants
+were obliged to disguise themselves in order to pass from one
+cantonment to another. In a brief period, I created a feeling
+entirely different, and made the character of British officers
+respected and beloved. In the Gwalior territories the same result was
+obtained by the same means. However impulsive on other occasions,
+Lord Ellenborough behaved magnanimously after his victories over the
+Gwalior troops; but in sparing the State, he acted, I believe,
+against the feelings of his Council, amongst whom the doctrines of
+the absorbing, annexing, and confiscating schools prevailed; and the
+"Friend of India" condemned him, though the invasion was never
+justified, except on the ground of expediency. Had I, on these
+occasions, adopted the doctrines of the absorbing school, I might
+have become one of the most popular and influential men in India; but
+I should, at the same time, have rendered our rule and character
+odious to the people of India, and so far have injured our permanent
+interest in the country. I mention all this merely to show that my
+opposition to the doctrines of this school is not new, nor in theory
+only, but of long standing and practice, as far as my influence has
+extended. I deem them to be dangerous to our rule in India, and
+prejudicial to the best interests of the country. The people see that
+these annexations and confiscations go on, and that rewards and
+honorary distinctions are given for them, and for the victories which
+lead to them, and for little else; and they are too apt to infer that
+they are systematic, and encouraged, and prescribed from home. The
+native States I consider to be breakwaters, and when they are all
+swept away, we shall be left to the mercy of our native army, which
+may not always be sufficiently under our control. Such a feeling as
+that which pervaded Bundelcund and Gwalior in 1842 and 1843, must,
+sooner or later, pervade all India, if these doctrines are carried
+out to their full extent; and our rule could not, probably, exist
+under it. With regard to Oude, I can only say that the King pursues
+the same course, and every day shows that he is unfit to reign. He
+has not the slightest regard for the duties or responsibilities of
+his high position; and the people, and even the members of his own
+family, feel humiliated at his misconduct, and grow weary of his
+reign. The greater part of these members have not received their
+stipends for from two to three years, and they despair of ever
+receiving them as long as he reigns. He is neither tyrannical nor
+cruel, but altogether incapable of devoting any of his time or
+attention to business of any kind, but spends the whole of his time
+with women, eunuchs, fiddlers, and other parasites. Should he be set
+aside, as he deserves to be, three courses are open: 1. To appoint a
+regency during the minority of the heir-apparent, who is now about
+eleven years of age, to govern with the advice of the Resident; 2. To
+manage the country by European agency during the regency, or in
+perpetuity, leaving the surplus revenue to the royal family; 3. To
+confiscate and annex the country, and pension the royal family. The
+first plan was prescribed by Lord Hardinge, in case of accident to
+the King; the second is what was done at Nagpore, with so much
+advantage, by Sir Richard Jenkins in 1817; the third is what the
+absorbing school would advocate, but I should most deprecate. It
+would be most profitable for us, in a pecuniary point of view, but
+most injurious, I think, in a political one. It would tend to
+accelerate the crisis which the doctrines of that school must, sooner
+or later, bring upon us. Which course the Governor-General may prefer
+I know not.
+
+                      Believe me,
+                   My Dear Sir James,
+                           Yours very faithfully
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN
+
+To Sir James Weir Hogg, Bart.,
+       &c.   &c.    &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 12th January, 1853.
+
+My Dear Sir,
+
+I shall send you by this mail a copy of my Diary under cover,
+addressed, as you suggest, to Mr. Secretary Melvill. It is coarsely
+bound, as I could find no good binder here. I printed eighteen
+copies, and have sent one to Government, in Calcutta, for itself, and
+one for the Court of Directors; one to the Governor-General, and one
+each to the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman. I have also sent one to a
+brother, and one to each of my five children. All to whom I have sent
+it of my family have been enjoined to consider it as private and
+confidential, and they will do so. Government may publish any portion
+of it they please. A memorandum of errata has been added to the copy
+to be sent to you.
+
+Over and above what you justly observe as to the cultivation and
+population not being much diminished, and the State not having
+incurred any public debt, I may mention the fact noticed, I believe,
+somewhere in the Diary, that the landed aristocracy of the half of
+Oude, reserved in 1801, has been better preserved than that of the
+half made over to us. Had they not combined generally against the
+Government, they would all have been crushed ere this, as ours have
+been. This makes me mention a school of too much influence in India,
+of whose doctrines I have a great abhorrence. They are best expounded
+by the so-called "Friend of India," in the last number of which (6th
+January, 1851) there is a rabid article on the subject worthy of your
+perusal, and that of all men interested in the welfare of India and
+the stability of our rule over it. It is in the true Machiavellian
+spirit, which justifies, or would persuade the world to justify,
+every means, however base, dishonest, and cruel, required to attain
+any object which they have persuaded themselves to be desirable for
+ourselves. This school is impatient at the existence of any native
+principality in India, however related to or dependent upon us. Mr.
+George Campbell is a disciple of this school, almost as rabid as the
+"Friend of India," as you will see in the fourth chapter of his book
+on "Modern India." If Mr. Marshman is to write the Indian articles
+for the "Times," as reports give out, you will see these doctrines
+advocated in that influential journal. The Court of Directors is the
+only safeguard of India, and of our stability in it, against those
+doctrine which, in my opinion, tend strongly to the injury of both;
+and its power may be rendered too powerless to shun them.
+
+               Believe me,
+                    My Dear Sir,
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Colonel Sykes,
+Director Hon. East India Company,
+London.
+
+P.S.--I have felt much interested in the geology of Central and
+Southern India; and if you have seen any satisfactory account of the
+origin of the stratum which caps the basaltic plateau, shall feel
+obliged if you will point it out to me.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 24th April, 1853.
+
+My Dear Sir,
+
+By the last mail I received from a friend in London two articles,
+whose merits had been much canvassed at the clubs, one from the
+London "Times," of the 9th February, and the other from the "Daily
+News," a Manchester paper. The "Times" article must have been written
+by Mr. J. Marshman, or one of the most rabid members of the school of
+which he is the great organ, and whose chief characteristic is
+impatience at the existence of any native territorial chief or great
+landholder in India. The other article is a reply to it, and
+generally supposed to have been written by Sir George Clerk. I feel
+quite sure that it was written either by him or by Mr. T. C.
+Robertson, who preceded him in the government of our North-West
+Provinces. The article from the "Times" has been noticed in most of
+the Indian papers--the "Friend of India," April 7th, 1853, and the
+"Englishman," 15th April. But I have not seen that in the "Daily
+News" noticed in any Indian papers, though admirably written. I
+intended to send it to you, but have mislaid it. I think you can
+advocate the cause it adopts more consistently, more powerfully, and
+more wisely than any other editor now in India. I hope you will do
+so; for I consider the doctrines of the "Times" disgraceful to our
+morality, and dangerous to the stability of our rule. As I consider
+the welfare of the people of India to depend upon the stability of
+our rule, I am very anxious to see the fallacies of the atrocious
+doctrines which endanger it ably exposed. In no publication are these
+fallacies more obvious or more numerous than in Mr. George Campbell's
+"Modern India," chapter fourth, with, perhaps, the exception of the
+"Friend of India." With the "Friend," the theory of confiscation and
+annexation has become a disease, and he cannot praise or even
+tolerate any public officer or statesman who is not known to be a
+convert to the doctrines of this school.
+
+I forget the date of the "Daily News" in which Sir George Clerk's
+article appeared, but it was immediately after the article appeared
+in the London "Times" of the 9th February. I hope you will give the
+article a prominent place in your paper, for it really deserves to be
+printed in letters of gold. Though I feel that the character of our
+nation, and our safety in India, are compromised by the open avowal
+of such atrocious doctrines in our leading journals, still the orders
+against officers in political employ writing in the papers are so
+strict, that I dare not attempt to expose the fallacies on which they
+are based, or express the indignation which they excite in me, in any
+public paper. To my superiors, and in the discharge of my public
+duties, I shall never cease to express my abhorrence of such
+doctrines, for I look upon them as worse than any that Machiavelli
+ever wrote.
+
+                      Believe me,
+                           Yours very sincerely,
+                 (Signed)         W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To G. Buist, Esq.
+
+P.S.--Of course, this note will be considered as confidential.
+
+                 (Signed)         W. H. S.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 24th April, 1853.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+An article in your paper of the 15th instant, on the subject of the
+international law of India, has interested and pleased me much. It
+has reference to an article in the London "Times" of the 9th February
+last; and I write to invite your attention to an article which
+appeared in the "Daily News," a Manchester paper, in reply to it,
+written by Sir G. Clerk, lately Governor of Bombay. Both these
+articles have been much discussed at the London clubs, and the
+morality of the "Daily News" article has been very favourably
+contrasted with that of the article in the "Times." The article in
+the "Times" is supposed to have been penned by Mr. J. Marshman
+himself, or by one of the most rabid members of the school whose
+Machiavellian doctrine he advocates.
+
+These doctrines are considered by some of our wisest statesmen to be
+as dangerous to the stability of our rule in India as they are
+disgraceful to our morality; and as these statesmen consider the
+well-being of the people of India to depend upon that stability, they
+are always glad to see their fallacies exposed and their iniquities
+indignantly denounced by the moat able and steady of our public
+journalists. I hope you will be able to find the able article in the
+"Daily News" to which I refer, and consent to give it a prominent
+place in the "Englishman." It was sent to me by a friend in London,
+but I have, unfortunately, mislaid it. This note will, of course, be
+considered as confidential.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                                  W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To W. C. Harry, Esq.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 5th June, 1853.
+
+My Lord,
+
+I have read with great interest in the English journals your
+Lordship's able Minute on the Burmese war, and am glad that it has
+been published, as it cannot fail to disabuse the public mind at
+home, and bring about a reaction in the feeling of the people excited
+by some very unfair articles in the London "Times." I attributed
+these articles to the Napiers, who, however talented, are almost
+always wrong-headed.
+
+I am persuaded that the new Sovereign will acquiesce in your
+possession of Pegu, and that he would not have ceded it by treaty
+under any circumstances. The old Sovereign might have done it, though
+at great risk, but the new Sovereign could not dare to do it.
+
+Our own history affords us instances enough of powerful ministers
+anxious, for the public good, to get rid of conquered, but expensive
+and useless possessions, but deterred from proposing the measure by
+the dread of popular odium, which ambitious and factious rivals are
+always ready to excite.
+
+There is one argument against the advance which I do not think that
+your Lordship has urged with the force of the rest. While the new
+Sovereign remains undisturbed in the rest of his dominions he will
+maintain his authority over them, and do his best to prevent our new
+frontier from being disturbed, knowing that we can advance to his
+capital and punish him if he does not. But, were he to be driven from
+his capital, all the rest of his dominions would soon fall into a
+state of anarchy, and our frontiers would soon be disturbed by
+leaders of disorderly bands, anxious to carve out principalities for
+themselves, and having no other means than plunder to maintain their
+followers. For the acts of such men we could hold no one responsible,
+after we had driven their Sovereign from his capital to the hills and
+jungles; and half a century might elapse before order could be
+restored. In the mean time, wealth would be growing up within our
+border to invite their aggression, while they would become poorer and
+poorer from disorders, and more and more anxious to seize upon it.
+
+With regard to an advance upon Amarapoora, it will not be difficult
+after the rains, if circumstances render it necessary. The Madras
+cattle are much better for hard work and all climates than those of
+Bengal, and sufficient could be collected for the occasion by sea.
+Your Lordship's reasons for not trusting to steamers alone are
+unanswerable, and it seems impossible for a land and river force to
+act jointly. In this, we almost realize the contest between the winds
+and the moschettoes before the court of the genii in the Arabian
+tale: when the winds appeared, the moschettoes could not, and when
+they appeared, the winds could not. For the prestige of our own name
+in the rest of India, to advance to the capital and then give the
+rest of the country to the Sovereign might, perhaps, be the best; but
+for the security of our new acquisition, and that of the people of
+the rest of Burmah, it would certainly be better to stay where we
+are. The benefits of our rule might, by degrees, be imparted to that
+of the rest of Burmah. The Government would be obliged to treat their
+people better than they have done in order to keep them.
+
+Here everything still is what I have described it to be so often;
+that is, as bad as it can be. The King is the same, and the officers
+and favourites whom he employs are the same. I shall not write public
+reports on the state of affairs till I learn that your Lordship
+wishes it, which will be, I conclude, when you have carried out your
+arrangements in Burmah.
+
+The terrible war of races in China, to which I have been looking
+forward for some years, seems to be coming slowly on. I wrote to Sir
+H. M. Elliot about it some two or three years ago, and recommended
+him to write a better life than we have of Jungez Khan, in order to
+show what the Tartars now really are. When he led his swarms of them
+over China, Central Asia, and a great part of Europe, they worshipped
+the god of war; they now worship the god of peace: but there are
+millions of Lamas in Tartary who would change their crosiers for the
+sword at the call of a kindred genius, and are now impatient to do
+so, and prophesying his advent, just at the time that the rebels
+threaten the capital of China and the extinction of the Tartar
+dynasty. That dynasty will throw itself upon Tartary, and a new one
+will be raised by the successful leader.
+
+         Your Lordship's faithful and obedient servant,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.,
+Governor-General.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 24th June, 1853.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+Your letter of the 20th instant perplexes me a good deal. I have no
+place in my own office to offer you, and I never recommended any one
+for employment to the King. You cannot, according to rules laid down
+for our guidance, act as an advocate in any case before the Resident
+or his assistants. All landholders in Oude, except the few whose
+estates are included in what is called the Hozoor Tuhseel, transact
+their business through the Amils, Chuckladars, and Nazims of
+districts, and have nothing to do directly with the Durbar at
+Lucknow. Having nothing to do with their affairs, I cannot have
+anything to say with the employment by them of wakeels, or advocates.
+They, the landholders, generally employ native wakeels, who are
+willing to bear a good deal of ill-treatment on the part of Durbar
+officials for the sake of very small salaries. Your situation as a
+wakeel on their part would be ill remunerated and exceedingly
+humiliating.
+
+If the son of Ghalib Jung has offered to introduce you to the
+minister, and to assist in getting employment for you at Lucknow, he
+must, I think, do so in the hope of being able to make use of you in
+some intrigue; for those only who can aid in such intrigues are
+fostered and paid at Lucknow. Honest men can get nothing, and find no
+employment about the Court. If you secure employment about the Court,
+I cannot hold any communication with you. I should compromise myself
+by doing so. In your situation, I would rather be a section writer in
+Calcutta, or at Agra, than hold any employment in the Oude Durbar
+that you can get by honest means. One of the tasks imposed on you
+would be, I conclude, to praise bad persons and things, and abuse
+good, in the newspapers. This, of course, you would not do, and you
+would be punished accordingly. I strongly advise you to have nothing
+to do with Oude at present.
+
+                           Yours very truly,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To G. Norton, Esq.,
+Azimgurh.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 11th August, 1853.
+My Dear Sir,
+
+Your brother, the late Lieut.-Colonel Ouseley, was a valued friend of
+mine. Before his appointment as Governor-General's Agent of the
+south-eastern frontier districts, he had for many years held the
+civil charge of different districts in the Sangor and Nerbudda
+territories. I had for many years the civil charge of districts
+bordering on those under his charge, and abundant opportunity of
+seeing how much he had made himself beloved, and the character of his
+Government respected, by the manner in which he conducted the duties
+confided to him.
+
+When I became Commissioner over those territories in 1844, I passed
+through the districts which had so long been under his charge, and I
+can honestly say that I have never known a man who had made himself
+more beloved and revered by the people. Thousands of happy families
+were proud to acknowledge that they owed all their happiness to the
+careful and liberal revision of the settlement of the land-revenue
+made by him, in which he had provided for the interests of the higher
+and middle classes connected with the land, while he secured the
+rights of the humblest.
+
+I visited at the same time the districts of those territories which
+bordered upon his then charge of the south-east frontier, and
+communed with many people from that quarter. They all spoke of him as
+beloved and respected by all classes as much in his then charge as he
+had been in his old one. In a country where it is the duty of every
+Englishman to make the character of his Government and his nation
+respected and beloved, one cannot but feel proud to hear a countryman
+and fellow-labourer spoken of by tens of thousands of respectable,
+contented, and happy people as your brother was and still is. I know
+no part of India where the people of all classes and all grades are
+so attached to our character and our Government as that of the Saugor
+and Nerbudda territories, and I believe that no man did more to
+establish that fine feeling than your brother.
+
+Your brother's temper was warm, and he was not always happy in
+putting his thoughts and feelings to paper. Hence arose occasional
+misunderstandings with his official superiors. But while those
+superiors were men who could understand and appreciate his noble
+nature, such occasional misunderstandings never led to serious
+consequences. In the bitterness of his anguish, after his removal
+from the south-east frontier, he wrote to me; and it was most painful
+to me to feel that I was not in a position, or in circumstances, to
+advocate his cause, and describe the value of such a man as the
+representative of the Government and the national character among a
+wild and half-civilized people like those over whom he had been
+placed. I think it was on the representation of the late Mr.
+Launcelot Wilkinson, one of the most able and estimable members of
+the India Civil Service, that he was sent to the south-east frontier.
+He had seen his value in the Saugor and Nerbudda districts while he
+was political agent at Bhopaul, which bordered on the districts under
+your brother's charge.
+
+It has been to me a source of much regret that I have not had it in
+my power to aid his son in getting employment in India.
+
+                       Believe me,
+                           Yours very truly,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Major Ouseley,
+    &c.   &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 14th September, 1853.
+
+Dear Sir,
+
+The King of Oude will certainly not assist you to get up a newspaper
+at Lucknow; and you will certainly be disappointed if you come in
+expectation of such assistance from him. If you can get into his
+service in any other capacity, I am not aware of any objections to
+it, but as I have already told you and many others, I cannot
+recommend any one for employment under him. The humiliations to which
+honest and respectable Christians have to submit in his service, from
+the jealousies of influential persons about the Durbar, are such as
+few can or ought to submit to; and I certainly would not advise any
+one to enter such a service. Under whatever pledge or whatever
+influence they might enter it, their tenure of office and their pay
+would be altogether precarious, and the Resident would be unable to
+assist them in retaining the one or recovering the other.
+
+                           Yours faithfully,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To G. Norton, Esq.
+
+P.S.--The King of Oude and his family are in no danger from the
+British Government, on whose good faith they repose. I only wish that
+his honest and industrious subjects were as safe from the officers
+whom he employs in all branches of the administration, and from whom
+they are nowhere safe I fear.
+
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 27th September, 1853.
+
+My Dear James,
+
+Under the circumstances you mention, I see but one course open to
+you; and that is, to recommend to the Government of Bombay to do as
+Lord William Bentinck did in the Bengal Presidency under similar
+circumstances, appoint a special Commissioner for the trial of
+offenders under Acts XX.[_sic_] of 1836, and XXIV. of 1843; or for
+the revision of trials under these Acts, conducted by Sessions'
+Judges.
+
+The first would be the best if feasible; but the second would do,
+since the Sessions' Judges seem now to be disposed to give their aid
+to Government in putting down the evil, and the Sudder Judges do not.
+Formerly, I believe, the Sudder Judges were so disposed, and the
+Sessions Judges not. In my reply to the Government of Bombay, you
+will see reference made to Lord William's appointment of Mr.
+Stockwell as special Commissioner. He was at the time Commissioner of
+the Allahabad division, and the work was imposed upon him in addition
+to his other duties.
+
+If the Bombay Government does not think it has authority to appoint
+such a special Commission, they may apply to the Legislative Council
+to pass an Act authorising the Government of every Presidency to
+appoint such a Commission when circumstances may render it necessary.
+
+This will be better and safer than to frame and enforce new rules of
+evidence for the guidance of existing Judicial Courts. The one would
+be for a special emergency, and temporary; and Government would not
+be very averse to it; but the other they certainly would not venture
+upon, particularly at this time. A great fuss would be made about it
+here and at home; and lawyers are too influential in both places.
+
+You can show that there is no alternative--that this system of crime
+must be left to prosper in the Bombay Presidency, where alone it now
+prevails, or such a Commission must be appointed; and as the Acts and
+the machinery for giving effect to them have succeeded in putting it
+down in all the rest, it would be hard to leave the people of Bombay
+exposed to all the evils arising from the want of such a special
+Commission. Such Commissions have been adopted to relieve the people
+from the hardships of the resumption laws, which affected but a small
+portion of the community; and you hope it would not be considered
+unreasonable in you to propose one for the relief of the whole
+community; for the life and property of no family will be safe an
+hour, if these classes of offenders by hereditary profession are
+assured that they may carry on their trade with impunity, as they
+must be if your agency be withdrawn, and all the prisoners be
+released.
+
+If you make a forcible representation to the Bombay Government in
+this strong case, they will adopt the measure if they have the power,
+or ask the power from the supreme Government; and I think the supreme
+Government will give it. I would say a special Commission for the
+trial of commitments under XXX. of 1836, and XXIV. of 1843, or a
+special Commission for the revision of trials under these Acts, as
+may seem best to Government; but you can say that you think the first
+would answer the purpose best in the Bombay Presidency. You may offer
+to run down to Bombay and submit your views to the Government in
+Council if required. They would not think it necessary, but would be
+pleased with the offer. Where men are committed on the general
+charge, it has always been thought necessary to show that the gang
+committed a murder or a robbery, though it is not so to show what
+part the prisoners took in them. If your assistant has not done this,
+he has failed in a material point. He should be very cautious in
+dealing with whole classes. The fault of our Bombay assistants has
+always been a disposition to make offenders of whole classes, when
+only some of the members are so.
+
+You must make your best of the present case--show the necessity of
+the remedy clearly, and urge it respectfully without pretending to
+find fault with the Judges; merely say that their interpretation of
+the laws of evidence laid down for their guidance, however
+conscientious, forms an insurmountable obstacle to the conviction of
+offenders by hereditary profession, whose system has been founded
+upon the experience of their ancestors in the most successful modes
+of defeating these laws, and the technicalities of ordinary Judicial
+Courts. This is, I think, all that I can say on the subject at
+present. The Moncktons leave us this evening, and Amelie intends to
+set out for the hills on the 6th proximo.
+
+                           Yours affectionately,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain J. Sleeman.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 28th September, 1853.
+My Dear James,
+
+On further consideration, I think that you should say nothing about
+the second proposal of a special Commissioner to revise the trials of
+offenders tried by Sessions Judges. You should suggest the first
+proposal of a special Commissioner to try all prisoners committed for
+trial under Acts XXX. of 1836, and XXIV. of 1843, and perhaps also
+XI. of 1841. See my Printed Report, page 357.
+
+You may mention that such Commissioner should be required to submit
+his sentences for the consideration and final orders of Government,
+as all political officers did till March, 1835; or merely for the
+information of Government, as political officers did after that time.
+
+On the 23rd of March, 1835, the Secretary to the Government of India
+forwarded to the Resident of Lucknow, for his guidance, the copy of a
+letter addressed on that date to the Agent of the Governor-General in
+the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, requesting that he would carry
+into execution his sentences on Thugs, and not make any reference to
+Government for confirmation, but merely submit to Government abstract
+statements of sentences; but desiring that the sanction of the King
+of Oude should be required before any capital sentence was carried
+into effect. No capital sentence was from that time passed. As all
+prisoners will be tried on the general charge, no capital sentence
+will ever be passed by the special Commissioner, and the Bombay
+Government may be disposed to give him the same orders. But the
+Governor in Council at Bombay will be the best judge of that.
+
+Lord Falkland may possibly be deterred by apprehensions that late
+events may have altered the tone of feeling at home towards him; but
+I am persuaded that he would be glad to carry this measure into
+effect. I will send you a copy of the Government letter to the
+Resident here; and you may get from the agent's office a copy of that
+sent on the same date to him, though you may not readily find that
+office under the new arrangements. You will, I think, have a strong
+case, and I wish you success in it.
+
+                           Yours affectionately,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Captain Jas. Sleeman.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 4th November, 1853.
+
+My Dear Malcolm,
+
+I should recommend for the Baee a money stipend for life of five
+thousand rupees a-month, with the understanding that if she adopted a
+child she would have to provide for him out of her savings from this
+stipend, and out of her private property. All the Rajah's private
+property, save what he may will away to others, will of course be
+left to her, to be disposed of as she may think fit. But this stipend
+should be independent of those to be continued to the stipendiaries
+of the Rajah. There are several who have nothing else to depend on
+but the stipends which they now receive from the Rajah; and it must
+be borne in mind that they have no longer Bajee Rao, Benaek Rao, the
+Jhansi and Saugor chief, to go to. This will be the last of the
+Brahmin dynasties founded in that part of the world by the Peshwas.
+Our Government should therefore be liberal in taking possession of
+the estate as an escheat.
+
+The Mahratta language in accounts should at once be done away with;
+but out of the revenues of the estate, Government should found a good
+school for English and Hindoo, and Persian; and, above all, for a
+very good hospital and dispensary, under well educated and tried
+surgeons, native and European, capable of throwing out branches.
+
+All the public officers of the Rajah should have stipends or
+employment, or both, in proportion to their period of service and
+respectability. If they take employment the stipends should be
+deducted from their salaries while in office, as in our own service.
+
+In the case of the Baee Regent at Saugor, we continued a small part
+of her pension to her adopted son,--one thousand rupees a-month,--to
+enable him to provide for her non-pensioned dependents. We took the
+management long before her death, and left her only a private lady,
+with a large pension of, I think, eight thousand rupees a-month;
+besides pensions--too large--to the family of her manager, Benaek
+Rao: this will be unnecessary at Jhansi. All the large hereditary
+landholders of the Jhansi estate should have liberal settlements at
+fixed rates. They are all from the landed aristocracy of Bundelcund,
+and should be treated with consideration. The first settlement of the
+land revenue should be very moderate. The lands will lose the most
+valuable market for their produce in the breaking up of the Court and
+establishment of the Rajah at the capital, and yield less money, &c.,
+than before. This must be borne in mind.
+
+You may freely use these my views as you think best on the Jhansi
+question.
+
+As to the management, I should make as little changes possible, till
+the final orders arrive from the Court of Directors, that you may
+have nothing to undo of what you have done. I would leave the
+management to Ellis, under your supervision, and interfere only on
+references in special cases, except, of course, on emergency. I know
+not what the system is to be, or what system the Governor-General has
+recommended, except that there is to be one head, as in Rajpootana;
+and that all correspondence with Government is to go through that
+head, In this state of the matter I know not what to suggest or say.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Major Malcolm,
+    &c. &c.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 11th November, 1853.
+My Lord,
+
+I feel grateful for your Lordship's letter of the 27th ult., but
+cannot say that I have any hope of discovering the instruments
+employed, or the employer, in the late affair. The whole power of the
+Government is in the hands of men who are deeply interested in
+concealing the truth, and making it appear that no attempt was really
+made. The minister has, by his intrigues, put himself so much in the
+power of the knave whom I suspect, that he dares not do anything to
+offend him. The man could at once ruin him by his exposures if he
+chose, and he would do so if he found it necessary for his own
+security. The man is biding his time, as he has often done with
+former ministers; and the time would have come ere this had not the
+King, to save himself, married one of the minister's pretty
+daughters.
+
+The King's chief consort; was the niece of the minister, and her son
+is the heir-apparent; so that it was her interest, and that of her
+uncle, the minister, to get rid of the King as soon as possible. She
+is a profligate woman, and the King's mother is supposed to have
+given him a hint of his danger. He took a liking to one of the
+daughters, and married her, in order to make it the minister's
+interest to keep him alive as long as possible. He now contrives to
+make the King believe that neither his life nor reign can be in any
+danger as long as he is in his present position.
+
+The night after this affair took place, a sipahee of the 35th Native
+Infantry, standing sentry at one end of the house, fell asleep while
+he was leaning with his right wrist on the muzzle of his musket. The
+musket went off; the ball passed through his wrist, grazed a large
+beam above him, struck against a stone in the roof of the portico,
+and fell down flattened by the side of the sentry, as he lay
+insensible and bleeding on the ground below. The wrist was
+sahttered,[_sic_] and several of the arteries cut through. He bled
+profusely, and when taken up he talked incoherently, declaring that
+some man had fired at him from behind the railing, twenty paces off.
+I have seen similar cases of incoherency, arising from a similar
+cause. As soon as day appeared the ball was found, and its marks on
+the beam and stone above showed the real state of the case. His right
+knee was probably leaning on the lock of the musket when he fell
+asleep. I have made no public or official report of this circumstance
+to Government.
+
+I have now before me a curious instance of the difficulty of getting
+at the truth when it is the interest of the minister and others about
+this Court to prevent it. A wanton attack was made in April last by
+about one hundred armed men, led by one of the King's collectors, on
+a native British subject coming from Cawnpore to visit a brother in
+Oude. The man himself received a wound, from which he some days
+afterwards died at Cawnpore; two of his attendants were killed, and
+twenty thousand rupees were taken from him. I have investigated the
+case myself, with the aid of my assistant, Captain Hayes, and with
+the attendance of an assessor on the part of the King. The case is a
+very clear one, but they have produced about thirty witnesses to
+swear that no man of the poor merchant's party was hurt; and that,
+instead of being attacked, he invaded the Oude territory with more
+than one hundred armed followers, and wantonly attacked the King's
+party of only fifteen unoffending men, while engaged in the discharge
+of their duty in collecting the revenue. I have translated the
+depositions with the prospect of having ultimately to submit the case
+to Government, unless the King consents to punish the offenders and
+afford redress. The assessor, an old man, bewildered by the
+conflicting testimony, and anxious to escape from all responsibility,
+slept soundly through the greater part of the inquiry, which has been
+a very tedious one.
+
+            I remain, your Lordship's
+                 Most obedient and humble servant,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+the Governor-General of India.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 28th December, 1853.
+
+My Dear Mr. Colvin,
+
+I was glad to see your handwriting again, and to find that time had
+made so little alteration in it. Oude affairs are, as you suppose,
+much as they used to be, save that the King is now persuaded by his
+minister and favourite that, had his predecessors had men and women
+about them so wise as they are, they never would have acted as if
+they believed that the Government of India ever really intended to
+carry into effect the penalty of misgovernment, so often threatened.
+Our Government has cried "wolf" so often that no one now listens to
+it. The King is an utter imbecile, from over-indulgences of all
+kinds; and the knaves whom he employs in his administration contrive
+to persuade him that the preservation of his life and throne depends
+entirely upon their vigilance and his doing nothing. Had I come here
+when the treasury was full, and Naseer-od Doon Hyder was anxious to
+spend his money in the manner best calculated to do good and please
+our Government, I might have covered Oude with useful public works,
+and much do I regret that I came here to throw away some of the best
+years of my life among such a set of knaves and fools as I have to
+deal with.
+
+I think you will do much good in your present charge in the subject
+to which you refer. In the matter of discourtesy to the native
+gentry, I can only say that Robert Martin Bird insulted them whenever
+he had the opportunity of doing so; and that Mr. Thomason was too apt
+to imitate him in this as in other things. Of course their example
+was followed by too many of their followers and admirers; but, like
+you, I have been delighted to see a great many of the elder members
+of the civil service, in spite of these bad examples, treat the
+native gentry with all possible courtesy, and show them that they had
+their sympathy as long as they deserved it by their conduct.
+
+It has always struck me that Mr. Thomason, in his system, did all he
+could to discourage the growth of a middle and upper class upon the
+land--the only kind of property on which a good upper and middle
+class could be sustained in the present state of society in India.
+His village republics and the Ryutwar system of Sir Thomas Munro had
+precisely the same tendency to subdivide minutely property in land,
+and reduce all landholders to the common level of impoverishment. The
+only difference was that the impoverished tenants in the North-
+Western Provinces were supposed to manage their own affairs, while
+those at Madras had them managed by a very mischievous class of
+native public officers. He (Mr. Thomason) would have forced his
+village republics upon any new country or jungle that came under his
+charge, and thereby rendered improvement impossible. I would have
+introduced into all such new countries a system of paternal
+government in imitation of our Government of India itself, which
+would have rendered improvement certain, and the growth of a middle
+and higher class no less so. He would have put the whole under our
+judicial courts, and thereby have created a middle class of
+pettifogging attorneys to swallow up all the surplus produce of the
+land. I would have kept the whole of the land in the hands of our
+fiscal courts, by making it all leasehold property, and maintaining
+the law of primogeniture in all estates of villages. Mr. Thomason, I
+am told, systematically set aside all the landed aristocracy of the
+country as a set of middlemen, superfluous and mischievous.
+
+The only part of our India in which I have seen a middle and higher
+class maintained upon the land is the moderately-settled districts of
+the Saugor and Nerbudda territories; and there is no part of India
+where our Government and character are so much beloved and respected.
+You have sent Mr. Read to that part; and if he be bigoted to Mr.
+Thomason's system, he will upset all this, and, in my opinion, lay
+the foundation of much evil. We found a system of paternal government
+in every village, and maintained and improved it. They were all
+little principalities; and by the printed rules of the Sudder Board
+of Revenue, which are very good, all the sub-tenants were effectually
+secured in their rights.
+
+In making a tour through Oude in the end of 1849 and beginning of
+1850 I had a good deal of talk with the people. Many of them had
+sojourned in our territories in seasons of disturbance. The general
+impression was that they would be glad to see the country taken under
+British management, provided we could dispense with our tedious
+procedure in civil cases. They all had a very unfavourable impression
+of our civil courts, and of the cost and delay of the procedure.
+Mills and Harrington, to whom the duty, which was to have devolved on
+you, has been confided, may do much good, and I hope will, for there
+really is nothing in our system which calls so much for remedy. I am
+persuaded that, if it were to be put to the vote among the people of
+Oude, ninety-nine in a hundred would rather remain as they are,
+without any feeling of security in life or property, than have our
+system introduced in its present complicated state; but that ninety-
+nine in a hundred would rather have our Government than live as they
+do, if a more simple system, which they could understand, were
+promised at the same time.
+
+In 1801, when the Oude territory was divided, and half taken by us
+and half left to Oude, the landed aristocracy of each were about
+equal. Now hardly a family of this class remains in our half, while
+in Oude it remains unimpaired. Everybody in Oude believes those
+families to have been systematically crushed. If by-and-by we can get
+the people to take an interest in our railroads, and outlays upon
+other great public works, it will tend to create the middle class
+upon which I set so much value, and to give that feeling of interest
+in the stability of our rule which we so much require. We shall then
+have objects of common interest to talk and think about, and become
+more united with them in feeling.
+
+Maddock is in Ceylon, but intends to return by the steamer which is
+to leave Calcutta on the 5th proximo. His speculations there have
+been failures. Had he looked after his estates there instead of
+joining the effete party of the Derbyites he might have done well. He
+has made great mistakes, and he now suffers for them. His support of
+Lord Torrington was his first.
+
+                      Believe me,
+                           Yours very sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Mr. Colvin.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 5th March, 1854.
+My Dear Low,
+
+I have to-day written to Government a letter, which you will of
+course see, on the subject of a proposal made to me by Mr. B.
+Government will, I have no doubt, consider the reason assigned by me
+for refusing to permit him to send an European agent to Lucknow,
+ostensibly to collect debts, sufficient; but whether it will consent
+to adopt my suggestion, and empower the Resident to assure the King
+that it will not again consent to permit Mr. B. to return and reside
+at Lucknow, after he has been twice expelled for his misdeeds, I know
+not. One thing is certain, that his residence at Cawnpore, under the
+assurance from the minister that he shall come back and be made
+wealthy if he can aid in getting rid of the Resident, is very
+mischievous.
+
+B., Wasee Allee, and the Minister, succeeded in persuading the King
+that Shurfod Dowla, and all the most respectable members of the
+Lucknow aristocracy, had signed a memorial to the Government of
+India, praying that it would set aside the present King as an
+incompetent fool, and put Mostafa Alee on the throne in his place.
+All this was reported by me to Government on the 2nd of March, 1853.
+
+The seals were all forged or filched here at Lucknow, but the papers
+were written in Calcutta, under the agency, I believe, of Synd Jan,
+Sir H. E.'s moonshee, from Bilgram, where his family have long
+enjoyed an estate rent-free, for the aid he has given to the minister
+in his intrigues. I have never been able to remove this delusion from
+the mind of the imbecile King; and it is the "_raw_" on which these
+knaves have been ever since acting; for it enables the minister to
+persuade him that his vigilance-alone preserves his life and crown.
+
+The minister is aware that I know all this, and may some day be able
+to show the King how he has been deluded and befooled by him; and he
+would give all he is worth to get rid of me in any way. He would give
+any sums to B. and his other agents to bribe editors to write against
+me; but the only editors who have yielded have been those of the
+"Mofussilite," before Mr. C. took the management. Mr. B. complains at
+Cawnpore, that he gave Mr. L. a large sum to do his dirty work at
+home; but that he did nothing for it. This is not unlikely. That the
+minister and Wasee Alee got up the attempt at the Residency, either
+to make away with me, or to alarm me into going away, I am persuaded;
+but to get judicial proof of it I shall not attempt. It would be vain
+here, where the minister has all the revenues of the State to work
+with.
+
+All the native gentlemen whose seals were forged to this document,
+look to me for protection; and they have been ever since in a state
+of great alarm. It was to keep up this alarm that they tried to turn
+Shurfod Dowla out of Oude. I had rarely seen him before that time;
+and I have only seen him once since he went to the cantonments; and
+then only for five minutes during my walk in the garden, to talk
+about Mulki Jahan's affairs. They punish any one who ventures to
+approach the King; and they would ruin any one who ventured to
+approach the Resident if they could, lest he might open the eyes of
+the King to the iniquities they commit. The troops are starved, and
+almost all the old members of the royal family, who had no Government
+paper or guarantees, have been already starved or driven out. Oude
+has never before been afflicted by a Sovereign so utterly imbecile
+and regardless of his duties and the sufferings of his people; nor
+has there ever been a minister so utterly regardless of his own
+reputation and that of his master. He bribes with money, power, and
+patronage, every one who has access to the King, to sound his praise
+in prose or verse; and the King is persuaded that his life and throne
+depend upon his abstaining altogether, from interfering in the
+conduct of affairs.
+
+When I was in the Governor-Generals camp at Futtehgur, M. H., the son
+of S. A. K., came there armed, I knew, with four lacs of rupees. He
+was an old acquaintance of E.'s, and he (E.) told me that he had
+asked for an interview, and asked me whether he ought to consent to
+see him. I told him that, if he did see him, he must make up his mind
+to the man's persuading the King that he had given him the greater
+part of the money, though the man himself kept all that he did not
+give to his moonshee. He refused to see the man; but he has ever
+since been with Mr. L. at Allahabad, intriguing with his people to
+chouse men out of their ancient possessions; or with the Oude people,
+to keep up the _raw_ they have established on the King's mind. The
+King, by over-indulgence, has reduced his intellect below the
+standard of that of a boy of five years of age. It is painful to talk
+to a man with a mind so utterly emasculated.
+
+Our Government would be fully authorized at any time to enforce the
+penalty prescribed in your treaty of 1837, and it incurs great odium
+and obloquy for not enforcing it. But Lord D. has, no doubt, solid
+reasons for not taking such responsibility upon himself at this time.
+I do all I can to save the people, and the people are sensible of
+what I do, and grateful for it; for the Resident is the only person
+they can look up to with any hope. If Government can comply with my
+wish to have the King assured that it will not permit Mr. B. to
+return and reside at Lucknow again, it will be of great use to me and
+to the people, for the hopes held out to him are like a premium
+offered for my head, or for my ruin; and one never feels very
+comfortable under such offers, at any time or in any country. The
+reckless lies which this man gets adventurers at Cawnpore to write
+for him, and careless or corrupt editors to publish, are apt to
+stagger those who do not know the vile character of the individual,
+or the true nature of the facts referred to.
+
+I am glad you saw W. He is a man of high character and first-rate
+ability, and has abundance of sagacity and energy. I miss him very
+much. He will be a credit to his regiment if engaged on active
+service.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To Colonel Low, C.B.
+
+P.S.--I shall say nothing in this of your domestic bereavement,
+though I have felt much for you.
+
+                                  W. H. S.
+
+In my public letter, I have referred to that of the Marquess of W. to
+L., when he was Resident. Do refer to it Page 388, Vol. 1.,
+"Despatches."
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 1st June, 1854.
+
+My Dear Low,
+
+In my letter of the 10th of November, 1853, I solicited permission to
+retain Weston with me for reasons stated therein. In reply, I was
+told, in Mr. Dalrymple's letter of the 2nd of December, "that the
+Governor-General in Council had every wish to consult my views, but,
+for the present at least, his Lordship in Council thinks that
+Lieutenant Weston must in fairness be required to join his regiment,
+like other officers."
+
+I am so very anxious to have his services again in the office he
+filled, that I have to-day ventured, in a public letter to the
+Foreign Secretary, to request that he will submit my wishes to the
+Governor-General in Council, should they deem the state of affairs in
+Burmah at present to be such as to admit of his being withdrawn from
+his regiment I have said, in my public letter, that should any
+exigency arise he could, of course, quickly join his regiment on
+service again.
+
+If you can give me any assistance in obtaining his services, I shall
+feel very much indebted to you, for I have that confidence in his
+abilities and high-mindedness which I cannot feel in those of his
+_locum tenens_; and I am very anxious to keep things in good train
+here till the end of the cold weather, when I must go on leave to
+recruit. I am really in a very difficult position here, not with
+regard to the King, for he has, I believe, entire confidence in me;
+but he has become so entangled with his minister, that he is afraid
+of him; and the minister would give all he has (and he has all the
+revenues of the country) to get me out of the way.
+
+I carried the Government orders regarding Shurfod Dowla into effect,
+and he is now, with his family, quiet and safe. The King behaved very
+well, and resisted all the attempts of the minister to persuade him
+to remonstrate. I am to-day to submit Shurfod Dowla's letter of
+grateful thanks to Government. I hope Government will not write to
+him in reply, as this might mortify and vex the King, since he is not
+written to by the Governor-General.
+
+I think I told you of the _raw_ the minister, Wasee Alee and Co., had
+established on the King's mind--the belief that a party of the
+members of the royal family and native gentlemen at Lucknow had been
+trying to persuade Government to set him aside, and put his reputed
+brother, Mostafa Alee, on the throne. Whenever they want to make the
+King angry with any one, they tell him that he is a leader in this
+cabal. But the King is, by degrees, growing out of this folly. There
+never was on the throne, I believe, a man more inoffensive at heart
+than he is; and he is quite sensible of my anxious desire to advise
+him rightly, and see justice done in all cases. But I am a sad
+stumbling-block to the minister and the other bad and incompetent
+officers employed in the administration.
+
+If you wish it, I will be more circumstantial about Weston's _locum
+tenens_, Lieut. B., of the 1st Cavalry. For his own repute, and that
+of the Government, I think the less he has to do with the political
+department the better. He would be better in a military staff
+appointment than a political one.
+
+                           Yours sincerely,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Hon. Colonel Low, C.B.
+
+
+                 __________________________
+
+
+                                       Lucknow, 11th September, 1854.
+
+My Lord,
+
+The post which this morning brought me your Lordship's letter of the
+6th instant brought me also one from Bombay, which I enclose for your
+Lordship's perusal. Should you think it worth while, Colonel Outram
+will be able to sift the matter to which it refers. I have long been
+aware of the intrigue, and have taken care to let the King know that
+I am so; but as I knew, at the same time, that the object was merely
+to get money out of him, and to strengthen his confidence in his
+minister, which had begun to give way, I did not think it necessary
+to trouble your Lordship with any reference on the subject. I knew
+that letters had been forged as from the King of Persia to the King
+of Oude, proposing to divide Hindoostan between them, and I thought
+it to be my duty to tell him so, in order to warn him; but, as he
+denied ever having received such letters, I told him that I should
+take the word of a King, and say no more about it. He is certainly
+not of sound mind, and things must, ere long, come to a crisis. His
+mind may have been of an average kind when he was young, but it has
+long become emasculated by over-indulgence; and the minister and his
+minions can make him believe or do what they please. They know that
+it cannot last long, and they have agents in Bombay and Calcutta to
+assist them in fleecing the King of money on all manner of false
+pretences.
+
+The minister, a consummate knave, and one of the most incompetent men
+of business that I have ever known, has all the revenues and
+patronage of the country to distribute among those who have access to
+the King exclusively--they are poets, fiddlers, eunuchs, and
+profligate women; and every one of them holds, directly or
+indirectly, some court or other, fiscal, criminal, or civil, through
+which to fleece the people. Anything so detestable as the Government
+I have nowhere witnessed, and a man less competent to govern them
+than the King I have never known.
+
+Had your Lordship left the choice of a successor to me, I should have
+pointed out Colonel Outram; and I feel very much rejoiced that he has
+been selected for the office, and I hope he will come as soon as
+possible. There are many honest men at Lucknow, and a finer peasantry
+no country can boast. But no honest man can obtain or retain office
+under Government with the present minister and heads of departments.
+
+But where the whole revenues of a fine country are available to
+suborn witnesses to prove the King to be a _Solomon_, no Resident
+would be able to find judicial proof of his being a fool; but that he
+is so I have had abundance of, to me, satisfactory evidence ever
+since I have been here. It must soon, however, become clear, without
+the Resident's efforts to make it so. Where the Government of India
+is so solemnly pledged to see justice done to the people of a
+country, it cannot fairly permit them to be reigned over much longer
+by so incompetent a Sovereign. Proofs enough of bad government and
+neglected duties were given in my Diary; and a picture more true was,
+I believe, never drawn of any country. The duty of remedying the
+evils, and carrying out your Lordship's views in Oude, whatever they
+may be, must now devolve on another.
+
+No one of my present assistants knows anything whatever about Oude,
+its Government, or its people; and Colonel Outram will, therefore,
+labour under great disadvantages. I hope, therefore, that your
+Lordship will pardon the liberty I take in suggesting that he be
+allowed the aid of Captain Weston. He went over the whole of Oude
+with me, and knows almost all who have made themselves prominent for
+good or for evil within the last five years. I know that, as soon as
+I go, some of the most atrocious villains whom I have kept out of
+office will try to purchase their way back; and there is no man too
+bad for the minister, provided he pays for his restoration.--The
+murderer of the banker, mentioned in my Diary, vol. i., p. 131, and
+the murderer of thousands mentioned in the same volume. Captain
+Weston is high minded, sagacious, energetic, hard-working,
+conciliatory and, to Colonel Outram, his services in the new charge
+would be invaluable.
+
+                  I have the honour to remain,
+          Your Lordship's faithful and obedient servant,
+                  (Signed)        W. H. SLEEMAN.
+
+To the Most Noble
+The Marquis of Dalhousie, K.T.
+Governor-General.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        THE END.
+
+
+
+     LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude,
+Volumes I & II, by William Sleeman
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