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.]