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.