Baree-Biswa district–Force with the Nazim, Lal Bahader–Town of Peernuggur–Dacoitee by Lal and Dhokul Partuks–Gangs of robbers easily formed out of the loose characters which abound in Oude–The lands tilled in spite of all disorders–Delta between the Chouka and Ghagra rivers–Seed sown and produce yielded on land–Rent and stock –Nawab Allee, the holder of the Mahmoodabad estate–Mode of augmenting his estate–Insecurity of marriage processions–Belt of jungle, fourteen miles west from the Lucknow cantonments–Gungabuksh Rawat–His attack on Dewa–The family inveterate robbers–Bhurs, once a civilized and ruling people in Oude–Extirpated systematically in the fourteenth century–Depredations of Passees–Infanticide–How maintained–Want of influential middle class of merchants and manufacturers–Suttee–Troops with the Amil–Seizure of a marriage procession by Imambuksh, a gang leader–Perquisites and allowances of Passee watchmen over corn-fields–Their fidelity to trusts–Ahbun Sing, of Kyampoor, murders his father–Rajah Singjoo of Soorujpoor– Seodeen, another leader of the same tribe–Principal gang-leaders of the Dureeabad Rodowlee district–Jugurnath Chuprassie–Bhooree Khan– How these gangs escape punishment–Twenty-four belts of jungle preserved by landholders always, or occasionally, refractory in Oude –Cover eight hundred and eighty-six square miles of good land–How such atrocious characters find followers, and landholders of high degree to screen, shelter, and aid them.
February 14, 1850.–Peernuggur, ten miles south-east, over a plain of the same soil, but with more than the usual proportion of oosur. Trees and groves as usual, but not quite so fine or numerous. The Nazim of Khyrabad took leave of me on his boundary as we crossed it about midway, and entered the district of “Baree Biswa,” which is held in farm by Lal Bahader,* a Hindoo, who there met us. This fiscal officer has under him the “Jafiree,” and “Tagfore” Regiments of nujeebs, and eight pieces of cannon. The commandants of both corps are in attendance at Court, and one of them, Imdad Hoseyn, never leaves it. The other does condescend sometimes to come out to look at his regiment when not on service. The draft-bullocks for the guns have, the Nazim tells me, had a little grain within the last month, but still not more than a quarter of the amount for which the King is charged. Peernuggur is now a place of little note upon the banks of the little river Sae, which here flows under a bridge built by Asuf- od Dowlah some sixty years ago.
[* This man was in prison at Lucknow as a defaulter, but made his escape in October, 1851, by drugging the sentry placed over him, and got safe into British territory.]
Gang-robberies are here as frequent as in Khyrabad, and the respectable inhabitants are going off in the same manner. One which took place in July last year is characteristic of the state of society in Oude, and may be mentioned here. Twelve sipahees of the 59th Regiment Native Infantry, then stationed at Bareilly, lodged here for the night, in a surae, on their way home on furlough. Dal Partuk, a Brahmin by caste, and a man of strength and resolution, resided here and cultivated a small patch of land. He had two pair of bullocks, which used to be continually trespassing upon other men’s fields and gardens, and embroiling him with the people, till one night they disappeared. Dal Partuk called upon his neighbours, who had suffered from their trespasses, to restore them or pay the value, and threatened to rob, plunder, and burn down the town if they did not.
A great number of pausees reside in and around the town, and he knew that he could collect a gang of them for any enterprise of this sort at the shortest notice. The people were not disposed to pay the value of his lost bullocks, and they could not be found. While he was meditating his revenge, his relation, Dhokul Partuk, was by a trifling accident driven to take the field as a robber. An oil- vender, a female, from a neighbouring village, had presumed to come to Peernuggur, and offer oil for sale. The oil-venders of the town, dreading the consequences of such competition, went forthwith to the little garrison and prayed for protection. One of the sipahees went off to the silversmith to whom the oil-vender had sold twopence-worth of oil, and, finding the oil-vender still with him, proceeded at once to seize both, and take them off to the garrison as criminals. Dhokul Partuk, who lived close by, and had his sword by his side, went up and remonstrated with the sipahee, who, taking him to be another silversmith, struck him across the face with his stick. Dhokul drew his sword, and made a cut at the sipahee, which would have severed his head from his body had he not fallen backwards. As it was, he got a severe cut in the chest, and ran off to his companions. Dhokul went out of the town with his drawn sword, and no one dared to pursue him. At night he returned, took off his family to a distant village, became a leader of a band of pausee bowmen, and invited his kinsman, Dal Partuk, to follow his example.
Together, they made an attack at night upon the town, and burnt down one quarter of the houses. Dal Partuk offered to come to terms and live in the town again, if the people would pay the value of his lost bullocks, and give him a small income of five rupees a-month. This they refused to do, and the plunder and burning went on. At last they made this attack upon the party in the surae, which happened to be so full that several of the sipahees and others were cooking outside the walls. None of the travellers had arms to defend themselves, and those inside closed the doors as soon as they heard the alarm. The pausees, with their bows and arrows, killed two of the sipahees who were outside, and while the gang was trying to force open the doors of the surae, the people of the town, headed by a party of eight pausee bowmen of their own, attacked and drove them back. These bowmen followed the gang for some distance, and killed several of them with their arrows. The sipahees who escaped proceeded in all haste to the Resident, and the Frontier Police has since succeeded in arresting several of the gang; but the two leaders have hitherto been screened by Goorbuksh Sing and other great landholders in their interest. The eight pausees who exerted themselves so successfully in defence of the town and surae were expecting an attack from the pausees of a neighbouring village, and ready for action when the alarm was given.
These parties of pausee bowmen have each under their charge a certain number of villages, whose crops and other property they are pledged to defend for the payment of a certain sum, or a certain portion of land rent-free. In one of these, under the Peernuggur party, three bullocks had been stolen by the pausees of a neighbouring town. They were traced to them, and, as they would neither restore them nor pay their value, the Peernuggur party attacked them one night in their sleep, and killed the leader and four of his followers, to deter others of the tribe from trespassing on property under their charge. They expect, they told us, to be attacked in return some night, and are obliged to be always prepared, but have not the slightest apprehension of ever being called to account for such things by the officers of Government. Nor would Dal and Dhokul Partuk have any such apprehension, had not the Resident taken up the question of the murder of the Honourable Company’s sipahees as an international one. After plundering and burning down a dozen villages, and murdering a score or two of people, they would have come back and reoccupied their houses in the town without any fear of being molested or questioned by Government officers. Nor would the people of the town object to their residing among them again, provided they pledged themselves to abstain in future from molesting them. Goorbuksh Sing, only a few days ago, offered the contractor, Hoseyn Allee, the sum of five thousand, rupees if he would satisfy the Resident that Dal Partuk had nothing whatever to do with the Peernuggur dacoitee, and thereby induce him to discontinue the pursuit.*
[* Dhokul Partuk and Dal Partuk were at last secured. Dhokul died in the king’s gaol, but Dal Partuk is still in prison under trial.]
The people of towns and villages, having no protection whatever from the Government, are obliged to keep up, at their own cost, this police of pausee bowmen, who are bound only to protect those who pay them. As their families increase beyond the means derived from this, their only legitimate employment, their members thieve in the neighbouring or distant villages, rob on the highroads, or join the gangs of those who are robbers by profession, or take the trade in consequence of disputes and misunderstandings with Government authorities or their neighbours. In Oude–and indeed in all other parts of India, under a Government so weak and indifferent to the sufferings of its subjects–all men who consider arms to be their proper profession think themselves justified in using them to extort the means of subsistence from those who have property when they have none, and can no longer find what they consider to be suitable employment. All Rajpoots are of this class, and the greater part of the landholders in Oude are Rajpoots. But a great part of the Mahommedan rural population are of the same class, and no small portion of the Brahmin inhabitants, like the two Partuks above named, consider arms to be their proper profession; and all find the ready means of forming gangs of robbers out of these pausee bowmen and the many loose characters to whom the disorders of the country give rise.
A great many of the officers and sipahees of the King’s nujeeb and other regiments are every month discharged for mutiny, insubordination, abuse of authority, or neglect of duty, or merely to make room for men more subservient to Court favourites, or because they cannot or will not pay the demanded gratuity to a new and useless commandant appointed by Court favour. The plunder of villages has been the daily occupation of these men during the whole period of their service, and they become the worst of this class of loose characters, ready to join any band of freebooters. Such bands are always sure to find a patron among the landholders ready to receive and protect them, for a due share of their booty, against any force that the King’s officers may send after them; and, if they prefer it as less costly, they can always find a manager of a district ready to do the same, on condition that they abstain from plundering within his jurisdiction. The greater part of the land is, however, cultivated, and well cultivated under all this confusion and consequent insecurity. Tillage is the one thing needful to all, and the persons from whom trespasses on the crops are most apprehended are the reckless and disorderly trains of Government officials.
February 16, 1850.–Biswa, eighteen miles east, over a plain of excellent soil, partly doomut, but chiefly mutteear, well studded with trees and groves, scantily cultivated for the half of the way, but fully and beautifully for the second half. The wheat beginning to change colour as it approaches maturity, and waving in the gentle morning breeze; intervening fields covered with mixed crops of peas, gram, ulsee, teora, surson, mustard, all in flower, and glittering like so many rich parterres; patches here and there of the dark-green arahur and yellow sugar-cane rising in bold relief; mango-groves, majestic single trees, and clusters of the graceful bamboo studding the whole surface, and closing the distant horizon in one seemingly- continued line of fence–the eye never tires of such a scene, but would like now and then to rest upon some architectural work of ornament or utility to aid the imagination in peopling it.
The road for the last six miles passes through the estate of Nawab Allee, a Mahommedan landholder, who is a strong man and a good manager and paymaster. His rent-roll is about four hundred thousand rupees a-year, and he pays Government about one hundred and fifty thousand. His hereditary possession was a small one, and his estate has grown to the present size in the usual way. He has lent money in mortgage and foreclosed; he has given security for revenue due to Government by other landholders, who have failed to pay, and had their estates made over to him; he has given security for the appearance, when called for, of others, and, on their failing to appear (perchance at his own instigation), had their lands made over to him by the Government authorities, on condition of making good the Government demand upon them; he has offered a higher rate of revenue for lands than present holders could make them yield, and, after getting possession, brought the demand down to a low rate in collusion with Government officers. Some three-fourths of the magnificent estate which he now holds he has obtained in these and other ways by fraud, violence, or collusion within the last few years. He is too powerful and wealthy to admit of any one’s getting his lands out of his hands after they have once passed into them, no matter how.
The Chowka river flows from the forest towards the Ghagra, about ten miles to the east from Biswa, and I am told that the richest sheet of cultivation in Oude is within the delta formed by these two rivers.* At the apex of this delta stands the fort of Bhitolee, which I have often mentioned as belonging to Rajah Goorbuksh Sing, and being under siege by the contractor of the Khyrabad district when we passed the Ghagra in December. Biswa is a large town, well situated on a good soil and open plain, and its vicinity would be well suited for a cantonment or seat for civil establishments. Much of the cloth called sullum used to be made here for export to Europe, but the demand has ceased, and with it the manufacture.
[* This delta contains the following noble estates; 1, Dhorehra; 2, Eesanuggur; 3, Chehlary; 4, Rampore; 5, Bhitolee; 6, Mullahpore; 7, Seonta; 8, Nigaseen; and 9, Bhera Jugdeopore. The Turae forest forms the base of this delta, and the estates of Dhorehra, Eesanuggur, and Bhera Jugdeopore lie along its border. They have been much injured by the King’s troops within the last three years. Bhitolee is at the apex.]
February 17 and 18, 1850.–Detained at Biswa by rain.
February 19, 1850.–Yesterday evening came to Kaharpore, ten miles, over a plain of the same fine soil, mutteear of the best quality, running here and there into doomutteea and even bhoor. Cultivation good, and the plain covered with rich spring crops, except where the ground is being prepared to receive the autumn seed in June next. It is considered good husbandry to-plough, cross-plough, and prepare the lands thus early. The spring crops are considered to be more promising than they have been at any other season for the last twenty years. The farmers and cultivators calculate upon an average return of ten and twelve fold, and say that, in other parts of Oude where the lands are richer, there will be one of fifteen or twenty of wheat, gram, &c. The pucka-beega, two thousand seven hundred and fifty-six square yards, requires one maund of seed of forty seers, of eighty rupees of the King’s and Company’s coinage the seer.* The country, as usual, studded with trees, single, and in clusters and groves, intermingled with bamboos, which are, however, for the most part, of the smaller or hill kind.
[* The pucka-beega in Oude is about the same as that which prevails over our North-Western Provinces, two thousand seven hundred and fifty-six and a quarter square yards, or something more than one-half of our English statute acre, which is four thousand eight hundred and forty square yards. This pucka-beega takes of seed-wheat one maund, or eighty pounds; and yields on an average, under good tillage, eight returns of the seed, or eight maunds, or six hundred and forty pounds, which, at one rupee the maund, yields eight rupees, or sixteen shillings. The stock required in Oude in irrigated lands is about twenty rupees the pucka-beega. The rent on an average two rupees. In England an acre, on an average, requires two and three- quarter bushels of seed wheat, or one hundred and seventy-six pounds, or two maunds and sixteen seers, and yields twenty-four bushels, or one thousand five hundred and thirty-six pounds. This at forty shillings the quarter (512 lbs.) would yield six pounds sterling. The stock required in England is estimated at ten pounds Sterling per acre, or ten times the annual rent. It is difficult to estimate the rate of rent on land in England, since the reputed owner is said to be “only the ninth and last recipient of rent.”]
On reaching camp, I met, for the first time, the great landholder, Nawab Allee, of Mahmoodabad. In appearance, he is a quiet gentlemanly man, of middle age and stature. He keeps his lands in the finest possible state of tillage, however objectionable the means by which he acquires them. His family have held the estates of Mahmoodabad and Belehree for many generations as zumeendars, or proprietors; but they have augmented them greatly, absorbing into them the estates of their weaker neighbours.*
[* Akram Allee and Muzhur Allee inherited the estate in two divisions. Akram Allee got Mahmoodabad, and had two sons, Surufraz Allee, who died without issue, before his father; and Mosahib Allee, who succeeded to the estate, but died without issue. Muzhur Allee got the estate of Belehree, and had two sons, Abud Allee, and Nawab Allee. Abud Allee succeeded to the estate of Belehree, and Nawab Allee to that of Mahmoodabad by adoption.]
Akram Allee held Mahmoodabad, and was succeeded in the possession by his son, Mosahib Allee, who died about forty years ago, leaving the estate to his widow, who held it for twenty-eight years up to A.D. 1838, when she died. She had, the year before, adopted her nephew, Nawab Allee, and he succeeded to the estate. The Belehree estate is held by his elder brother, Abud Allee, who is augmenting it in the same way, but not at the same rate. I may mention a few recent cases, as illustrative of the manner in which such things are done in Oude.
Mithun Sing, of an ancient Rajpoot family, held the estate of Semree, which had been held by his ancestors for many centuries. It consisted of twelve fine villages, paid to Government 4000 rupees a year, and yielded him a rent roll of 20,000. Nawab Allee coveted very much this estate, which bordered on his own. Three years ago, he instigated the Nazim to demand an increase of 5000 rupees a-year from the estate; and at the same time invited Mithun Sing to his house, and persuaded him to resist the demand, to the last. He took to the jungles, and in the contest between him and the Nazim all the crops of the season were destroyed, and all the cultivators driven from the lands. When the season of tillage returned in June, and Mithun Sing had been reduced to the last stage of poverty, Nawab Allee consented to become the mediator, got a lease from the Chuckladar for Mithun Sing at 4500 rupees a-year, and stood surety for the punctual payment of the demand. Poor Mithun Sing could pay nothing, and Nawab Allee got possession of the estate in liquidation of the balance due to him; and assigned to Mithun Sing five hundred pucka-beegas of land for his subsistence. He still resides on the estate, and supports his family by the tillage of these few beegas.
Amdhun Chowdheree held a share in the estate of Biswa, consisting of sixty-five villages; paying to Government 12,000 rupees a-year, and yielding a rent-roll of 65,000. His elder brother’s widow resided on the estate, supported by Amdhun, who managed its affairs for the family. Nawab Allee got up a quarrel between her and her brother-in- law; and she assumed the right to authorize Nawab Allee to seize upon the whole estate. Amdhun appealed to his clan, but Nawab Allee, in collusion with the Nazim, was too strong for him, and got possession by taking a strong force, and driving out all who presumed to resist him. The estate had been held by the family for many centuries.
Mohun Sing held the estate of Mundhuna, which had been in his family for many generations. He was, by the usual process, five years ago, constrained to accept the security of Nawab Allee for the punctual payment of the revenue; and his estate was absorbed in the usual way, the year after. He is now, like a boa-constrictor, swallowing up Chowdheree Pertab Sing, who holds a large share in the hereditary estate of Biswa, which has been in the possession of the family for a great many generations. This share consisted of thirty-six villages, and paid a revenue to Government of fourteen thousand. Last year, Nawab Allee instigated the Nazim to demand ten thousand more. The Nazim, to prevent all disputes, assigned the twenty-four thousand to Mirza Hoseyn Beg, the commandant of a troop of cavalry, employed under him, in liquidation of their arrears of pay. The commandant gave him a receipt for the amount, which the Nazim sent to the treasury, and got credit for the amount in his accounts. But poor Pertab Sing could not pay, and was imprisoned by the cavalry, who kept possession of his person, and took upon them the collection of his rents. Nawab Allee came in and paid what was due; and gave security for the punctual payment of the revenue for the ensuing year. The estate was made over to him; and he put on score after score of dustuk bearers, who soon reduced Pertab Sing to utter beggary. Ten thousand rupees were due to Nawab Allee, and he had nothing left to sell; and under such circumstances no man else would lend him anything.
The dustuk bearers are servants of the creditor, who are sent to attend the debtor, extort from him their wages and subsistence, and see that he does not move, eat, or drink till he pays them. During this time the creditor saves all the wages of these attendants; and they commonly exact double wages from the debtor, so that he is soon reduced to terms. In this stage we found the poor Chowdheree on reaching Biswa. I had him released, and so admonished Nawab Allee, that he has some little chance of saving his estate.
Bisram Sing held the estate of Kooa Danda, which had been in the possession of his family of Ahbun Rajpoots for many centuries. It consisted of thirty-five villages, paid a revenue of six thousand rupees a-year, and yielded a rent-roll of eighteen thousand and five hundred. Nawab Allee coveted it as being on his border, and in good order. As soon as his friend; Allee Buksh, was appointed Nazim of the district, he prevailed upon him to report to the Durbar that Bisram Sing was a refractory subject, and plunderer; and to request permission to put him down by force of arms. This was in 1844, while Bisram Sing was living quietly on his estate. On receiving the order, which came as a matter of course, the Nazim united his force with that of Nawab Allee, and attacked the house of Bisram Sing, which had only twenty-two men to defend it against two thousand. Six of the twenty-two were killed, eight wounded, and eight only escaped; and Nawab Allee took possession of the estate.
Bisram Sing was at Lucknow at the time, trying to rebut the false charges of the Nazim; but his influence was unhappily too strong for him, and he got no redress. Soon after Nirput Sing, a sipahee in the 9th Regiment Native Infantry, presented a petition to the Resident, stating that he was the brother of Bisram Sing, and equally interested in the estate; and a special officer, Busharut Allee, was ordered by the Durbar to investigate and decide the case. He decided in favour of Nirput, the sipahee, and Bisram Sing. Another special officer was sent out to restore Bisram to possession. Nawab Allee then pleaded the non-existence of any relationship between Nirput and Bisram; and a third special officer has been sent out to ascertain this fact.
Belehree, held by Abud Allee, consists of forty villages, pays a revenue of twelve thousand rupees a-year, and yields a rent-roll of forty thousand. Abud Allee holds also the estate of Pyntee, in the same district, consisting of eighty villages, paying a revenue of thirty-five thousand, and yielding a rent-roll of one hundred and forty thousand. It had been held by his relative Kazim Allee, who was succeeded in the possession by Nizam Allee, the husband of his only daughter. Nizam Allee was in A.D. 1841 killed by a servant, who was cut down and killed in return by his attendants. Nizam Allee’s widow held till 1843, when she made over the estate to Abud Allee, by whom she is supported.
Nawab Allee has always money at command to purchase influence at Court when required; and he has also a brave and well-armed force, with which to aid the governor of the district, when he makes it worth his while to do so, in crushing a refractory landholder. These are the sources of his power, and he is not at all scrupulous in the use of it–it is not the fashion to be so in Oude.
February 20th, 1850.–Came on sixteen miles to Futtehpore, in the estate of Nawab Allee, passing Mahmoodabad half way. Near that place we passed through a grove of mango and other trees called the “Lak Peree,” or the grove of a hundred thousand trees planted by his ancestors forty years ago. The soil is the same, the country level, studded with the same rich foliage, and covered with the same fine crops. As we were passing through his estate, and were to encamp in it again to-day, Nawab Allee attended me on horseback; and I endeavoured to impress upon him and the Nazim the necessity of respecting the rights of others, and more particularly those of the old Chowdheree Pertab Sing. “Why is it,” I asked, “that this beautiful scene is not embellished by any architectural beauties? Sheikh Sadee, the poet, so deservedly beloved by you all, old and young, Hindoos and Mahommedans, says, ‘The man who leaves behind him in any place, a bridge, a well, a church, or a caravansera, never dies.’ Here not even a respectable dwelling-house is to be seen, much less a bridge, a church, or a caravansera.” “Here, sir,” said old Bukhtawur, “men must always be ready for a run to the jungles. Unless they are so, they can preserve nothing from the grasp of the contractors of the present day, who have no respect for property or person–for their own character, or for that of their sovereign. The moment that a man runs to save himself, family, and property, they rob and pull down his house, and those of all connected with him. When a man has nothing but mud walls, with invisible mud covers, they give him no anxiety; he knows that he can build them up again in a few days, or even a few hours, when he comes back from the jungles; and he cares little about what is done to them during his absence. Had he an expensive house of burnt brick and mortar, he could never feel quite free. He might be tempted to defend it, and lose some valuable lives; or he might be obliged to submit to unjust terms. Were he to lay out his money in expensive mosques, temples, and tombs, they would restrain him in the same way; and he is content to live without them, and have his loins always girded for fight or flight.”
“True,” said Nawab Allee, “very true; we can plant groves and make wells, but we cannot venture to erect costly buildings of any kind. You saw the Nazim of Khyrabad, only a few days ago, bringing all his troops down upon Rampore, because the landlord, Goman Sing, would not consent to the increase he demanded of ten thousand, upon seventeen thousand rupees a-year, which he had hitherto paid. Goman Sing took to the jungles; and in ten days his fine crops would all have been destroyed, and his houses levelled with the ground, had you not interposed, and admonished both. The one at last consented to take, and the other to pay an increase of five thousand. Only three years ago, Goman Sing’s father was killed by the Nazim in a similar struggle; and landholders must always be prepared for them.”
February 21st, 1850.–Bureearpore, ten miles south-east, over a plain of the same fine soil, well cultivated, and carpeted with the same fine crops and rich foliage. Midway we entered the district of Ramnuggur Dhumeree, held by Rajah Gorbuksh Sing under the security of Seoraj-od Deen, the person who attempted in vain to arrest the charge of the two regiments upon the Khyrabad Nazim by holding up the sacred Koran over his head. He met me on his boundary, and Nawab Allee and the Nazim of Baree Biswa took their leave. Nawab Allee’s brother, Abud Allee, came to pay his respects to me yesterday evening. He is a respectable person in appearance, and a man of good sense. The landscape was, I think, on the whole richer than any other that I have seen in Oude; but I am told that it is still richer at a distance from the road, where the poppy is grown in abundance, and opium of the best quality made.*
[* Opium sells in Oude at from three to eight rupees the seer, according to its quality. In our neighbouring districts it sells at fourteen rupees the seer, in the shops licensed by Government. Government, in our districts, get opium from the cultivators and manufacturers at three rupees and half the seer. The temptation to smuggle is great, but the risk is great also, for the police in our districts is vigilant in this matter.]
Still lamenting the want of all architectural ornament to the scene, and signs of manufacturing and commercial industry, to show that people had property, and were able to display and enjoy it, and gradations of rank, I asked whether people invested their wealth in the loans of our Government. “Sir,” said Bukhtawur Sing, “the people who reside in the country know nothing about your Government paper; it is only the people of the capital that hold it or understand its value. The landholders and peasantry would never be able to keep it in safety, or understand when and how to draw the interest.”
“Do they spend more in marriage and other ceremonies than the people of other parts of India, or do they make greater displays on such occasions?”
“Quite the reverse, sir,” said Seoraj-od Deen; “they dare not make any display at all. Only the other day, Gunga Buksh, the refractory landholder of Kasimgunge, attacked a marriage-procession in the village of ——, carried off the bridegroom, and imprisoned him till he paid the large random demanded from him. In February last year Imam Buksh Behraleen, of Oseyree, having quarrelled with the Amil, attacked and carried off a whole marriage party to the jungles. They gave up all the property they had, and offered to sign bonds for more, to be paid by their friends for their ransom; but he told them that money would not do; that their families were people of influence, and must make the King’s officers restore him to his estate upon his own terms, or he would keep them till they all died. They exerted themselves, and Imam Buksh got back his estate upon his own terms; but he still continues to rob and plunder. These crimes are to them diversions from which there is no making them desist.”
“There are a dozen gang leaders of this class at present in the belt of jungle which extends westward from our right up to within fourteen miles of the Lucknow cantonments; and the plunder of villages, murder of travellers, and carrying off of brides and bridegrooms from marriage processions, are things of every-day occurrence. There are also in these parts a number of pansee bowmen, who not only join in the enterprises of such gangs as in other districts, but form gangs of their own, under leaders of their own caste, to rob travellers and plunder villages.
“Gunga Buksh of Kasimgunge has his fort in this belt of jungle, and he and his friends and relations take good care that no man cuts any of it down, or cultivates the land. With the gangs which he and his relatives keep up in this jungle, he has driven out the greater part of the Syud proprietors of the surrounding villages, and taken possession of their lands. After driving out the King’s troops from the town of Dewa, and exacting ransoms from many of the inhabitants, whom he seized and carried off in several attacks, he, in October last, brought down upon it all the ruffians he could collect, killed no less than twenty-nine persons–chiefly Syuds and land proprietors –and took possession of the town and estate. The chief proprietor, Bakur Allee, was killed among the rest; and Gunga Buksh burnt his body, and suspended his head to a post in his own village of Luseya. He dug down his house and those of all his relations who had been killed with him, and now holds quiet possession of his estate.”
This was all true. The Resident, on the application of Haffiz-od Deen, a native judicial officer of Moradabad district–one of the family which had lost so many members in this atrocious attack–urged strongly on the Durbar the necessity of punishing Gunga Buksh and his gang. The Ghunghor Regiment of Infantry, with a squadron of cavalry, and six guns, was sent out in October 1849, for the purpose, under a native officer. On the force moving out, the friends of Gunga Buksh at Court caused the commandant to be sent for on some pretext or other; and he has been detained at the capital ever since. The force has, in consequence, remained idle, and Gunga Buksh has been left quietly to enjoy the, fruits of his enterprise. The Amil having no troops to support his authority, or even to defend his person in such a position, has also remained at Court. No revenue has been collected, and the people are left altogether exposed to the depredations of these merciless robbers. The belt of jungle is nine miles long and four miles wide; and the west end of it is within only fourteen miles of the Lucknow cantonments, where we have three regiments of infantry, and a company of artillery.
February 22nd, 1850.–A brief history of the rise of this family may tend to illustrate the state of things in Oude. Khumma Rawut, of the pansee tribe, the great-grandfather of this Gunga Buksh, served Kazee Mahommed, the great-grandfather of this Bakur Allee, as a village watchman, for many years up to his death. He had some influence over his master, and making the most of this and of the clan feeling which subsisted among the pansees of the district, he was able to command the services of a formidable gang when the old Kazee died. He left a young family, and Khumma got possession of five or six villages out of the estate which the old Kazee left to his sons. The sons were too weak: to resist the pansees, and when Khumma died he left them to his five sons:– 1. Kundee Sing; 2. Bukhta Sing; 3. Alum Sing; 4. Lalsahae; 5. Misree Sing. As the family increased in numbers it has gone on adding to its possessions in the same manner, by attacking and plundering villages, murdering or driving off the old proprietors of the lands, and taking possession of them for themselves. Each branch of the family, as it separates from the parent stock, builds for itself a fort in one or other of the villages which belong to its share of the acquired lands. In this fort the head of each branch of the family resides with his armed followers, and sallies forth to plunder the country and acquire new possessions. In small enterprises each branch acts by itself; in larger ones two or more branches unite, and divide the lands and booty they acquire by amicable arrangement.
They seize all the respectable persons whom they find in the villages which they attack and plunder, keep them in prison, and inflict all manner of tortures upon them, till they have paid, or pledged themselves to pay, all that they have or can borrow from their friends, as their ransom. If they refuse to pay, or to pledge themselves to pay the sum demanded, they murder them. If they pay part, and pledge themselves to pay the rest within a certain time, they are released; and if they fail to fulfil their engagements, they and their families are murdered in a second attack. After the last attack above described upon Dewa, Gunga Buksh seized seven fine villages belonging to the family of Bakur Allee Khan, which they had held for many generations. He, Gunga Buksh, now holds no less than twenty-seven villages, all seized in the same manner, after the plunder and murder of their old proprietors. The whole of this family, descendants of Khumma Rawut, hold no less than two hundred villages and hamlets, all taken in the same manner from the old proprietors, with the acquiescence or connivance of the local authorities, who were either too weak or too corrupt to punish them, and restore the villages to their proper owners.*
[* Kundee Sing had two sons, 1. Cheytun Sing; 2. Ajeet Sing. Cheytun Sing had two sons, 1. Sophul Sing; 2. Thakurpurshad. Sophul Sing had two sons, 1. Keerut Sing; 2. Jote Sing. Ajeet Sing had two sons, 1. Bhugwunt Sing; 2. Rutun Sing. Thakur Purshad, Bhugwunt Sing, and Rutun Sing, reside in a fort which they have built in Bhetae, four miles from Dewa, in the north-west border of the belt of jungle. They hold forty villages, besides hamlets, which they have taken from the old proprietors of the Dewa and Korsee estates. Thakur Purshad has another fort called Buldeogur, near that of Atursae, two coss south of Dewa; and Bhugwunt Sing has the small fort of Munmutpore, close to Bhetae. Bukta Sing had only one son, Bisram Sing, who had only one son, Gunga Buksh, who built the fort of Kasimgunge, on the north- eastern border of the same belt of jungle, two miles south of Dewa, and on the death of his father, he went to reside in it with his family and gang. He holds twenty-seven fine villages, with hamlets. Twenty of these he seized upon from six to twelve years ago; and the other seven he got after the attack upon Dewa, in October last. He has also a fort called Atursae, two coss south from Dewa; a mile west from Buldeogur. Alum Sing’s descendants have remained peaceable cultivators of the soil in Dewa, and are, consequently, of too little note for a place in the genealogical table of the family.
Lalsahae had three sons, 1. Dheer Sing; 2. Bustee Sing; 3. Gokul Sing, all dead. Dheer Sing had two sons, Omed Sing and Jowahir Sing. Omed Sing had three sons, Dirgpaul Sing, Maheput Sing, and Gungadhur, who was murdered by Thakur Pershad, his cousin. Jowahir Sing had one son, Priteepaul Sing. Bustee Sing had two sons, Girwur Sing and Soulee Sing. Girwur Sing had two sons, Dhokul Sing and Shunker Sing. This branch of the family hold the forts of Ramgura and Paharpore, on the border of the jungle six miles south-west from Dewa, and twelve villages besides hamlets taken in the same manner from the old proprietors. Gokul Sing had two sons, Dulloo Sing and Soophul Sing. Dulloo Sing has one son. They reside with the families of Dheer Sing and Bustee Sing.
Misree Sing, the fifth son of Khumma, had three sons, 1. Boneead Sing; 2. Dureeao Sing; 3. name forgotten–all three are dead. Bonead Sing had two sons, 1. Anoop Sing; 2. Goorbuksh Sing. Dureeao Sing had two sons, 1. Anokee Sing; 2. name forgotten. The third son of Misree Sing had three sons, 1. Mulung Sing; 2. Anunt Sing; 3. name forgotten–all three still live.
This branch of the family resides in Satarpore, one mile west from Kasimgunge, in this belt of Jungle, and two miles from Dewa, in a fortified house built by them. They have got a small fort, called Pouree, near this place. They form part of Gunga Buksh’s gang, and share with him in the booty acquired.]
To record all the atrocities committed by the different members of this family in the process of absorbing the estates of their neighbours, and the property of men of substance in the countries around, would be a tedious and unprofitable task; and I shall content myself with mentioning a few that are most prominent in the recollection of the people of the district. About ten years ago, Gunga Buksh and his gang attacked the house of Lalla Shunker Lal, a respectable merchant of Dewa, plundered it, killed the tutor of his three sons, and carried them and their father off to his fort, where he tortured them till they paid him a ransom of nine thousand rupees. On their release they left Dewa, and have ever since resided in Lucknow. Two years after they attacked the village of Saleempore, two miles east from Dewa, killed Nyam Allee, the zumeendar, and seized upon his estate. About six years ago Munnoo, the son of Gunga Buksh, with a gang of near two thousand men, attacked the King’s force in the town of Dewa, killed four sipahees, two artillery-men, and two troopers, and plundered the place. About six months ago this gang attacked the house of Ewuz Mahommed, in Dewa, plundered it, levelled it with the ground, and took off all the timbers to their fort of Kasimgunge. Soon after he made the attack in which he killed twenty- nine persons in Dewa, as above described.
Thakur Purshad, about fourteen years ago, attacked the village of Molookpore, two miles east from Dewa, plundered it, took possession of the land, seized and carried off the proprietor, Sheikh Khoda Buksh, and put him to death in his fort of Bhetae. Three years after he attacked the house of Gholam Mostafa, in Dewa, killed him, and seized upon all the lands he held. Three years ago he attacked the house of Janoo, a shopkeeper, plundered it, and confined and tortured him till he paid a ransom of two hundred and fifty rupees. Three months after he seized and carried off to his fort Roopun, another shopkeeper, and confined and tortured him till he paid a ransom of three hundred rupees. Last year he seized and took off Jhow Dhobee from Dewa, and extorted forty rupees from him. Six months ago he attacked a marriage-procession in Dewa, plundered it, took off the bridegroom, Omed Allee, and confined and tortured him till he paid eleven hundred and fifteen rupees. These men all levy black mail from the country around; and it is those only who cannot or will not pay it, or whose lands they intend to appropriate, that they attack. They created the jungle above described, of nine miles long by four wide, for their own evil purposes, and preserve it with so much vigilance, that no man dares to cut a stick, graze a bullock, or browse a camel in it without their special sanction; indeed, they are so much dreaded, that no man or woman beyond their own family or followers dares enter the jungle.
Omed Sing, fifteen years ago, invited to his house the four proprietors of the village of Owree, Gholam Kadir, Allee Buksh, Durvesh Allee, and Moiz-od Deen, residents of Dewa, and put them to death because they could not, by torture, be made to transfer their lands to him. He then seized their village, and built the fort of Rumgura Paharpore upon it. Omed Sing, Jowahir Sing, Dhokul Sing, and Soophul Sing all reside in this fort with the son of Dulloo Sing. This family of pansees, or, as they call themselves, Rawuts, form at present one of the most formidable gangs of robbers in Oude, and one of the most difficult to put down from their union and inveterate habit of plunder. They can always, at short notice and little cost, collect bands of hundreds of the same tribe and habit to join them in plunder and resistance to lawful authority.
On the 25th of February, 1838, Rajah Dursun Sing, then in charge of the district, wrote to the Durbar to say, “that Gunga Buksh of Dewa was the worst robber in the district, would pay no revenue, and instigated others to withhold theirs; that numerous complaints had been made against him to the Durbar by the people, and that he had been urged by Government to do his best to punish him; that he had long tried all he could to do so, but had not sufficient troops; that his evil deeds increased, however, so much, that he at last determined to run all risks, and on the 27th of that month, on Friday, he left Amaneegunge, and marched forty-eight miles without resting; and on Saturday, before daybreak, reached the fort of Kasimgunge, and invested it on all sides; that he found the fort large and strong, and surrounded with dense jungle; that he had only three guns with him, but, as the enemy were taken by surprise, he took all their outworks one after another; that the besieged got a crowd of their adherents to attack his force in the rear on Saturday night, that they might get off in the confusion, but his troops were ready to intercept them at all points; and, in attempting to cut his way through, Gunga Baksh was seized with all his followers, but the women and children were permitted to go their way; that a good many of the enemy had been killed, and he, Dursun Sing, had had one golundaz and five sipahees killed and ten persons wounded.”
The King sent Dursun Sing a dress of honour with the title of Rajah on the 3rd of March, 1838, and ordered him to have the fort levelled with the ground. Dursun Sing, in reply, states that he had men employed in pulling down the fort; and, in reply to an order to send in a list of the property taken from the besieged, he states, on the 12th of March, 1838, that none whatever had been secured. Gunga Buksh soon bribed his way out of prison at Lucknow, returned to Kasimgunge, rebuilt his fort, and made it stronger than ever; and continued to plunder the country, and increase his landed possessions by the murder of the old proprietors. He became enlisted into the tribe of Rajpoots, and his sister was married to the Powar Rajah of Etonda, seven coss north from Lucknow. Jode Sing, the present Rajah of that place, is her son; and he is associated with Gunga Buksh in his depredations. Sahuj Ram, of Pokhura, of the Ametheea tribe of Rajpoots, in the Hydergurh purgunna, on the right bank of the Goomtee river, married a daughter of Gunga Buksh’s, and has a strong fort, called Raunee, thirty miles east from Lucknow. He is said to have been present at the murder of the twenty-nine persons at Dewa in October last, and to have had with him four hundred armed men and two guns. He and all his followers are notorious and inveterate robbers, like Gunga Buksh himself. The descendants of Khumma, the village watchman, have already built ten forts upon the lands which they have seized, and there are no less than seventy of these forts or strongholds within a circuit of ninety miles round Bhetae and Khasimgunge, the centre being not more than eighteen miles from the Lucknow cantonments.
The Minister having informed the Resident that, without some aid from British troops, it was impossible for him to put down or punish these atrocious murderers and robbers, who had so many mud-forts well garrisoned by their gangs, he, on the 26th of March, 1850, ordered a wing of the 2nd Battalion of Oude Local Infantry under Captain Boileau to join the force, consisting of, 1. A wing of the 2nd Oude Local Infantry; 2. Captain Barlow’s regiment, with two nine-pounders and one eight-inch howitzer; 3. Nawab Allee’s auxiliaries, two thousand men and three small guns; 4. Sufshikum Khan, the Amil of the district, with one thousand men and five guns; 5. Seoraj-od Deen, the Amil of Ramnuggur, with one hundred and fifty men and two guns; 6. Ghalib Jung, with one thousand foot soldiers, forty camel jinjals (tumbooraks), seven guns, and one hundred troopers, in an attack upon Kasimgunge. The different parts of this force had been so disposed as to concentrate upon and invest the fort at daybreak on the morning of that day. The surprise was complete.
Shells were thrown into the fort from Captain Barlow’s guns, but Captain Boileau did not consider the force sufficient to take the fort and secure, the garrison, and wrote to request a reinforcement. The distance from Kasimgunge to the cantonments was twenty miles. A wing of the 10th Regiment Native Infantry, with two guns, was sent off under Captain Wilson; but the garrison had evacuated the fort and fled on the night of the 26th, and the wing was ordered to proceed direct to the fort of Bhetae, four miles nearer to the cantonments, which was to be invested by the same force on the morning of the 28th.
Captain Wilson had with him Lieutenant Elderton, as adjutant of the wing, and Ensigns Trenchard and Wish, with a native officer in charge of the two guns. They reached Bhetae at 7 A.M., were joined by the Bhetae force at 8 A.M., and the two forts of Bhetae and Munmutpore were forthwith invested. Munmutpore stood about three hundred yards to the west of Bhetae; and both forts were held by Thakur Purshad and Bhugwunt Sing, members of the same family of pansee robbers, and their gangs. Captain Wilson was the chief in command; and he, with his own and Captain Boileau’s wing, took up his position on the north side of Bhetae, and placed Captain Barlow on the west side of Munmutpore. There was a deep dry ditch all round outside the outer wall, and a thick fence of bamboos inside. Between this fence and the citadel in both forts was a still deeper ditch. Between the fence of bamboos and the inner ditch was a small intricate passage, intersected by huts and trenches.
The wall of the citadel was about twenty feet high, and the upper part formed a parapet eight feet high, filled with loopholes for matchlocks. Between Bhetae and Munmutpore, midway, was a large bastion filled with matchlock-men, to keep open the communication and prevent an enemy from taking up any position between the two forts. The investing force was distributed all round, with orders to attack the nearest and weakest points as soon as Captain Wilson should commence his upon the main point, the northern face.
On the afternoon of the 29th, about half-past three, a small party of the garrison came out of the gate on the northern face, and appeared disposed to attack Captain Wilson’s two nine-pounders, and a third gun, which had all three been advanced on to within a short distance of the gate. During this time Captain Barlow was throwing shells into both forts from his position to the west of Munmutpore. The subahdar- major had command of the advanced party in charge of Captain Wilson’s three guns. He charged and drove back into the fort the small party which threatened his guns, and Captain Wilson hastily assembled all his and Captain Boileau’s force, and followed to support the subahdar-major. Finding his officers and men all excited and anxious to push on into the fort, Captain Wilson unfortunately yielded to the impulse, and entered the outer gate with one of his two nine- pounders, in the hope of taking the place by a coup-de-main.
The garrison all retired into the citadel as he entered, and kept up a distressing fire upon the assailants as they went along the narrow passage between the bamboo fence and the ditch in search of a way into the citadel. Several rounds were fired from the gun, in the hope of making a breach in the wall, but the balls penetrated and lodged midway in the wall, without bringing down any part of it; and musketry was altogether useless against a thick parapet with loopholes, so slender on the outside and so wide within. The huts, which might have sheltered officers and men, were set fire to by accident, and tended to increase the confusion. The entrance to the citadel was over a narrow mud causeway, which the garrison had not had time to remove; but it was hidden from the assailants by a projection which they could not attain, and the men began to fall fast before the fire from the loopholes of the parapet.
On hearing the firing on Captain Wilson’s side, the officers commanding the troops on the other three sides, commenced their attack on the nearest and seemingly weakest points, as before directed. Captain Barlow lost some men in an unsuccessful attempt to enter the fort of Munmutpore on the west side; but the auxiliary force of Nawab Allee effected an entrance on the east side of that fort. They were, however, arrested by the second ditch within, in the same manner as Captain Wilson’s force had been, and a good many men were shot down in the same manner, in attempting to get over it. The force under Sufshikum Khan, on the east side of Bhetae, effected an entrance, but was arrested by the second ditch in the same manner, and lost many men. The enemy in Bhetae had eleven men killed and nineteen wounded, a good many of them from the shells thrown in by Captain Barlow. The loss of the enemy in Munmutpore was never ascertained.
After Captain Wilson had been engaged within the wall about three- quarters of an hour, and the ammunition of the gun had become exhausted. Lieutenant Elderton, who had behaved with great gallantry during the whole scene, and was standing in advance with Captain Boileau, received a shot in the neck, and fell dead by his side. Having lost so many men and officers in fruitless efforts to penetrate into the citadel, and seeing no prospect of carrying the place by remaining longer under the fire from the parapet, Captains Wilson and Boileau drew off their parties; but the bullocks which drew the gun had been all killed or wounded, and they were obliged to leave it behind with the bodies of the killed. The men attempted to draw off the gun; but so many were shot down from above that it was deemed prudent to abandon it. About midnight both garrisons vacated the forts, and retired unmolested through the jungle to the eastward, where Ghalib Jung’s troops had been posted. There is good ground to believe that he connived at their escape, and purposely held back from the attack as a traitor in connivance with some influential persons in the Durbar.
The 10th Native Infantry had one European officer, Lieutenant Elderton, ten sipahees, and one calashee, killed; five native officers and twenty-two privates, wounded.
The 2nd Oude Local Infantry, six sipahees, and one calashee, killed; and seven native officers and thirteen privates, wounded.
The artillery had one native officer and nine privates wounded.
This reverse arose from the commandant’s yielding to the impetuosity of his officers and sipahees, and attempting to take by a rush a strong fort whose defences he had never examined and knew nothing whatever about, as he had never before seen any place of the kind, or had one described to him. He and all his men had courage in abundance, but they wanted prudence.
Gunga Buksh and his son, Runjeet Sing, were afterwards taken, convicted before the highest tribunal in Oude, of the murder of the twenty-seven persons in Dewa, in October, 1849, and executed on the 18th of September, 1850. Thakur Purshad and his cousin, Bhugwunt Sing, remained at large, and at the head of their gang of robbers continued to plunder the country, and levy blackmail from landholders and village communities till the 1st of February 1851, though pressed by a force of one thousand infantry, fifty troopers, and some ten guns. On the morning of that day, Captain Hearsey, commanding a detachment of the Oude Frontier Police, who had been ordered to co- operate with this force in putting down this gang, took advantage of a dense fog, fell upon them, and with the loss of one non- commissioned officer killed, and three non-commissioned officers and three sipahees wounded, killed one of the chief leaders, Bhugwunt Sing, and twenty-two of their followers, wounded many more, and took eight prisoners, among them the son of the leader Bhugwunt Sing. The other two leaders, Thakur Purshad and Keerut Sing, were bathing at the time in the river Goomtee, and escaped by swimming across.
Rajah Bukhtawur Sing declares, that the taking of daughters from families of this caste by Rajpoots is one of the punishments inflicted upon them for the murder of their own. They will not condescend to give daughters in marriage to such persons; and they take daughters from them merely to get their money, and assistance on emergency in resisting the Government, and murdering and plundering its subjects.
This part of Oude, comprising the districts of Dureeabad Rudowlee, Ramnuggur Dhumeree, Dewa Jahangeerabad, Jugdispoor, and Hydergur, has more mud forts than any other, though they abound in all parts; and the greater part of them are garrisoned in the same way by gangs of robbers. It is worth remarking, that the children in the villages hereabout play at fortification as a favourite amusement, each striving to excel the others in the ingenuity of his defences. They all seem to feel that they must some day have to take a part in defending such places against the King’s troops; and their parents seem to encourage the feeling. The real mud forts are concealed from sight in beautiful clusters of bamboos or other evergreen jungle, so that the passer-by can see nothing of them. Some of them are exceedingly strong, against troops unprovided with mortars and shells. The garrison is easily shelled out by a small force, or starved out by a large one; but one should never attempt to breach them with round shot, or take them by an escalade or a rush.
It is still more worthy of remark, that these great landholders, who have recently acquired their possessions by the plunder and murder of their weaker neighbours, and who continue their system of pillage, in order to acquire the means to maintain their gangs, and add to these possessions, are those who are most favoured at Court, and most conciliated by the local rulers; because they are more able and more willing than others to pay for the favours of the one, and set at defiance the authority of the other. They often get their estates transferred from the jurisdiction of the local governors to that of the person in charge of the Hozoor Tuhseel at Lucknow. Almost all the estates of this family of Rawuts have been so transferred.
Local governors cannot help seeing or hearing of the atrocities they commit, and feeling some sympathy with the sufferers; or at least some apprehension, that they may lose revenue by their murder, and the absorption of their estate; but the officer in charge of the Hozoor Tuhseel sees or hears little of what they do, and cares nothing about the sufferers as long as their despoilers pay him liberally. If the local governor reports their atrocities to Government, this person represents it as arising solely from enmity; and describes the sufferers as lawless characters, whom it is meritorious to punish. If the Court attempts to punish or coerce such characters, he gives them information, and does all he can to frustrate the attempt. If they are taken and imprisoned, he soon gets them released; and if their forts and strongholds have been taken and pulled down, he sells them the privilege of rebuilding or repairing them. It is exceedingly difficult at all times, and often altogether impossible, to get one of these robber landholders punished, or effectually put down, so many and so formidable are the obstacles thrown in the way by the Court favourite, who has charge of the Hozoor Tuhseel, and their other friends at the capital. Those who suffer from their crimes have seldom any chance of redress. Having lost their all, they are no longer in a condition to pay for it; and without payment nothing can be got from the Court of Lucknow.
February 23, 1850.–Badoosura, ten miles south-east over a plain covered with rich crops and fine foliage; soil muteear generally, but in some parts doomut; tillage excellent. Passed over some more sites of Bhur towns. The Oude territory abounds with these sites, but nothing seems to be known of the history of the people to whom they belonged. They seem to have been systematically extirpated by the Mahommedan conquerors in the early part of the fourteenth century. All their towns seem to have been built of burnt brick, while none of the towns of the present day are so. There are numerous wells still in use, which were formed by them of the finest burnt brick and cement; and the people tell me that others of the same kind are frequently discovered in ploughing over fields. I have heard of no arms, coins, or utensils peculiar to them having been discovered, though copper sunuds, or deeds of grant from the Rajahs of Kunoje, to other people in Oude, six hundred years ago, have been found. The Bhurs must have formed town and village communities in this country at a very remote period, and have been a civilized people, though they have not left a name, date, or legend inscribed upon any monument. Brick ruins of forts, houses, and wells, are the only relics to be found of these people. Some few of the caste are still found in the humblest grade of society as cultivators, police officers, &c., in Oude and other districts north of the Ganges. Up to the end of the thirteenth century their sovereignty certainly extended over what are now called the Byswara and Banoda districts; and Sultanpore, under some other name, appears to have been their capital. It was taken and destroyed early in the fourteenth century by Allah-od Deen, Sultan of Delhi, or by one of his generals, and named Sultanpore. Chandour was another great town of these Bhurs. I am not aware of any temples having been found to indicate their creed.*
[* The Bhur Goojurs must, I conclude, have been of the same race.]
The landholders, who have become leaders of gang-robbers, are more numerous here than in any other part of Oude that I have seen, save Bangur: but they are not here, as there, so strongly federated. The Amil is so weak, that, in despair, he connives at their atrocities and usurpations as the only means of collecting the Government revenue, and filling his own pockets. The pausee bowmen are here much more formidable than they are even in Bangur. There they thieve, and join the gangs of the refractory landholders; but here they have powerful leaders of their own tribe, and form formidable independent gangs. They sometimes attack and plunder villages, and spare neither age nor sex. They have some small strongholds in which they assemble from different villages over pitchers of spirits, made from the fruit of the mhowa tree, and purchased for them by their leaders; and, having determined upon what villages to attack, proceed at once to work before they get sober. Every town and village through which we pass has suffered more or less from their atrocities, and the people are in a continual state of dread.
In 1843, the pausees, who resided in the village of Chindwara, in the Dewa district, ran off to avoid being held responsible for the robbery of a merchant in the neighbourhood. They were pacified and brought back; but the landholder was sorely pressed by the Government collector to pay up his balance of revenue, and he, in turn, pressed the pausees to pay up the balances due by them for rents. They ran off again, but their families were retained by the landholder. The pausees gathered together all of their clan that they could muster from the surrounding villages, attacked the landholder’s house, killed his mother, wife, four of his nephews, the wife of one of his nephews, two of the King’s sipahees who attempted to defend them, and several of the landholder, Yakoob Husun’s, servants, and plundered him of everything he had. The landlord himself happened to be absent on business, and was the only one of the family who escaped. In all twenty-nine persons were murdered by the pausees on that occasion. They were all permitted to come back and settle in the village, as if nothing had happened; the village was made over to another, and Yakoob Husun has ever since been supplicating in vain for redress at the King’s gate.
About three miles from Badoosura, we passed from the Ramnuggur district into that of Dureeabad Rodowlee; but the above description is applicable to both, though in a somewhat less degree to Ramnuggur than to Dureeabad. It is equally applicable to the Dewa district, which we left on our right yesterday, midway between our road and Lucknow. There Gunga Buksh Chowdheree and his relatives have large gangs engaged in plundering towns, and seizing upon the lands of their weaker and more scrupulous neighbours. In the Dureeabad district, the leaders of gangs are chiefly of the Behraleea tribe of Rajpoots, so called after the district of Behralee, in which they reside.
I this morning asked Nowsing, a landholder of the Rykwar Rajpoot clan, who came to me, in sorrow, to demand redress for grievous wrongs, whether he did not think that all the evils they suffered arose from murdering their female infants. “No, sir, I do not.” “But the greater part of the Rajpoot families do still murder them, do they not?” “Yes, sir, they still destroy them; and we believe that the father who preserves a daughter will never live to see her suitably married, or that the family into which she does marry will perish or be ruined.” “Do you recollect any instances of this?” “Yes, sir, my uncle, Dureeao, preserved a daughter, but died before he could see her married; and my father was obliged to go to the cost of getting her married into a Chouhan family at Mynpooree, in the British territory. My grandfather, Nathoo, and his brother, Rughonath, preserved each a daughter, and married them into the same Chouhan families of Mynpooree. These families all became ruined; and their lands were sold by auction; and the three women returned upon us, one having two sons and a daughter, and another two sons. We maintained them for some years with difficulty, but this year, seeing the disorder that prevailed around us, they all went back to the families of their husbands. It is the general belief among us, sir, that those who preserve their daughters never prosper, and that the families into which we marry them are equally unfortunate.”
“Then you think that it is a duty imposed upon you from above to destroy your infant daughters, and that the neglect and disregard of that duty bring misfortunes upon you?” “We think it must be so, sir, with regard to our own families or clan.”
I am satisfied that these notions were honestly expressed, however strange they may appear to others. Habit has brutalized them, or rendered them worse than brutes in regard to their female offspring. They derive profit, or save expense and some mortification, by destroying them, and readily believe anything that can tend to excuse the atrocity to themselves or to others. The facility with which men and women persuade themselves of a religious sanction for what they wish to do, however cruel and iniquitous, is not, unhappily, peculiar to any class or to any creed. These Rajpoots know that the crime is detestable, not only to the few Christians they meet, but to all Mahommedans, and to every other class of Hindoos among whom they live and move. But the Rajpoots, among whom alone this crime prevails, are the dominant class in Oude; and they can disregard the feelings and opinions of the people around them with impunity. The greater part of the land is held by them, and in the greater part of the towns and villages their authority is paramount.
Industry is confined almost exclusively to agriculture. They have neither merchants nor manufacturers to form, or aid in forming, a respectable and influential middle class; and the public officers of the state they look upon as their natural and irreconcileable enemies. When the aristocracy of Europe buried their daughters alive in nunneries, the state of society was much the same as it now is in Oude. The King has prohibited both infanticide and suttee. The latter being essentially a public exhibition, the local authorities have continued, in great measure, to put down; but the former was certainly never more common than it is at present, for the Rajpoot landholders were never before more strong and numerous. That suttees were formerly very numerous in Oude is manifest from the numerous suttee tombs we see in the vicinity of every town and almost every village; but the Rajpoots never felt much interested in them; they were not necessary either to their pride or purse.*
[* Suttee, infanticide, suicide, the maiming of any one, or making any one an eunuch, were all prohibited by the King of Oude, on the 15th of May, 1833, as reported to Government by the Resident on the 6th November, 1834. These prohibitions were reported to the Resident, by the King, on the 14th of June, 1833.]
February 24th, 1850.–Dureeabad, ten miles south-east, over a plain of good soil–doomut and mutteear–covered with the same rich crops and fine foliage. There is at present no other district in Oude abounding so much in gang robbery and other crime as this of Dureeabad Rodoulee, in which the Amil, Girdhara Sing, is notoriously conniving at these crimes from a consciousness of utter inability to contend with the landholders who commit them, or employ men to commit them. Yet he has at his disposal a force that ought to be sufficient to keep in order a district five times as large. He has the Jannissar battalion of nujeebs, under Seetla Buksh at present; the Zoolfukar Sufderee battalion of nujeebs, under Bhow-od Dowlah, who never leaves Court; and the Judeed, or new regiment, consisting of a thousand men. He has nine guns, and a squadron of horse. Of the guns, five are on the ground, utterly useless; four will bear firing a few rounds. For these four he has bullocks, but they are not yet in condition. Of the seer and half of corn, drawn for each bullock per diem, only half a seer is given. Of the corps, more than one-half of the men are at Lucknow, in attendance upon Court favourites; and of the half present not one-third are fit for the work of soldiers.
The Amil rode by my side, and I asked him about the case of the marriage-procession. “Sir,” said he, “what you heard from Seoraj-od Deen is all true. Imam Buksh had a strong fort in his estate of Ouseyree, five miles to our right, where he had a formidable gang, that committed numerous dacoitees and highway robberies in the country around. I was ordered to attack him with all my force. He got intimation, and assembled his friends to the number of five thousand. I had not half the number. We fought till he lost seventy men, and I had thirty killed and fifteen wounded. He then fled to the jungles, and I levelled his fort with the ground. He continued, however, to plunder, and at last seized the bridegroom and all the marriage party, and took them to his bivouac in the jungles. The family was very respectable, and made application to me, and I was obliged to restore him to his estate, where he has lived ever since in peace. I attacked him in November 1848, and he took off the marriage party in February following.” “But,” said a poor hackery driver, who was running along by my side, and had yesterday presented me a petition, “you forgot to get back my two carts and bullocks which he still keeps, and uses for his own purpose, though I have been importuning you ever since.” “And what did he do to you when he got you into the jungles?” “He tied up and flogged all who seemed respectable, and worth something–such as merchants and shopkeepers–and poked them with red-hot ramrods till they paid all they could get, and promised to use all the influence and wealth of their families to force the Amil to restore him to his estate on his own terms.” “And were the parties married after their release?” “Yes, sir, we were released in April, after the Amil had been made to consent to his terms; and they were married in May; but I could not get back my two carts.” “And on what terms did you restore this Imam Buksh to his estate?” “I granted him a lease, sir,” said the Amil, “at the same rate of five thousand rupees a-year which he had paid before.”*
[* This Imam Buksh, in April, 1850, went in disguise to the annual fair held at Bahraetch, in honour of the old saint. He was recognized by some of Captain Bunbury’s soldiers, who attempted to seize him. He was armed with sword, spear, and shield, and defended himself as long as he could. Seeing no chance of escape, he plunged both sword and spear into his own belly, and died, though Captain Bunbury came up, had his wounds sewn up, and did all he could to save him.]
Stopping to talk with the peasantry of a village who had come out to the roadside to pay their respects and see the procession, I asked them how, amidst such crimes and disorders, they could preserve their crops so well. “Sir,” said they, “we find it very difficult and expensive to do so, and shall find it still more so when the crops are cut and stacked, or have been threshed and stored; then these gangs of robbers have it all their own way, and burn and plunder all over the country; we are obliged to spend all we have in maintaining watchmen for our fields.” “But the pausee bowmen have an allowance for this duty, have they not?” “Yes, sir, they have all an allowance. Every cultivator, when he cuts his crop, leaves a certain portion standing for the pausee who has guarded it, and this we call his Bisar. Over and above this he has a portion of land from the proprietor or holder of the village, which he tills himself or gets tilled by others.” “And they are strong and faithful watchmen, are they not?” “Yes, sir, they are; and though they will thieve and join gangs of robbers in any enterprise, they will never betray their trust. They consider it a point of honour not to trespass on fields or property under the guardianship of members of their own class with whom they are on good terms, or to suffer any persons whatever to trespass on what is under their own care. The money which we send to the treasuries is commonly intrusted to pausees, and their fidelity and courage may be relied upon. The gang robbers do little injury to our fields while the crops are green, for they take animals of hardly any kind with them in their enterprises; and having to move to and from their points of attack as quickly as possible, they could carry little of our crops with them; they are, too, afraid of the arrows of the pausee bowmen at night, if they venture to trespass upon our fields.” “And are these pausee bowmen paid at the rate you mention all over the country?” “No, sir; they are in some parts paid in what is called the beega arhaeya, or two seers and half of grain from every beega. From a pucka beega they get pucka two and half seers; and from a kutcha beega, a kutcha two and half seers.”* “Your crops, my friends, are finer than I have ever before seen them in Oude.” “Yes, sir, they are very fine; but how we shall gather them God only knows, with such gangs of desperate robbers all around us. The alarm is sounded every night, and we have no rest. The Government authorities are too weak to protect us, or too indifferent to our sufferings; and we cannot afford to provide the means to protect ourselves.”
[* The kutcha measure bears the same relation to the pucka in weight as in land measurement.]
As we went on, I asked the Amil what had become of Ahburun Sing, of Kyampore, the landholder who murdered his father to get possession of his estate, as mentioned in the early part of this Diary. “Ahburun Sing, sir, is still in possession of his estate of Kyampore, and manages it exceedingly well.” “I thought he had taken to the jungles with his gang, like the rest of his class after such a crime, in order to reduce you to terms?” “It was his father, sir, Aman Sing, that was doing this. He was the terror of the country; neither road nor village was safe from him. He murdered many people, and plundered and burnt down many villages; and all my efforts to put him down were vain. At last I came to an understanding with his eldest son, who remained at home in the management of the estate, and was on bad terms with his father. He had confidential persons always about his father for his own safety; and when he was one night off his guard, he went at the head of a small band of resolute men, and seized him. He kept him in prison for six months, and told me that while so much plunder was going on around, he did not feel secure of keeping his father a single night; that many of his old followers wanted him back as their leader, and would certainly rescue him if he was not disposed of; that he could not put him to death, lest he should be detested by his clan as a parricide; but if I would make a feigned attack on the fort, he would kill him, and make it appear that he had lost his life in the defence of it. I moved with all the force I had against the fort, discharged many guns against the walls, made a feigned attempt at escalade; and in the midst of the confusion Aman Sing was killed. As soon as this was done, I returned with my force; the son remained in possession of the estate, and all the surrounding country was delighted to hear that so atrocious a character had been got rid of.”
This was all true, and the Amil did not seem to think that any one who listened to him could suppose that he had done anything dishonourable in all this: he seemed to think that all must feel as he did, seeing his utter inability to cope with these baronial robbers in any other way, and the evils they every day inflicted upon the people. This Aman Sing was the most formidable of these robbers in this district, and the high road from Lucknow to Fyzabad was for some time closed by his gang. Of those whom he robbed, he used to murder all who appeared likely to be able to get a hearing at Court or at the Residency.
The Behraleea Rajpoots, of the Soorujpore Behreyla purgunna, are now the most formidable and inveterate robbers and plunderers in the district. The Rajah of this estate, Singjoo, was for some years the most formidable robber in Oude. He had taken a dislike to the family of a sipahee of the Governor-General’s bodyguard; and, in an evil hour, he buried the sipahee’s father, and some members of his family, alive. Strong remonstrances were made through the Resident, and Man Sing, the son of Dursan Sing, who has been already mentioned in this diary, had orders to seize him. In March, 1845, he made a march of forty miles at the head of five hundred active and brave men; and, on the night of the 20th of that month, reached the gate of the fort of Soorujpore, broke it open, entered, killed and wounded fifty of the Rajah’s men, and lost five of his own.
The Rajah escaped and took shelter in the fort of Goura. After taking possession of the fort, eight guns, and some elephants, and releasing two hundred unhappy prisoners, Man Sing followed the Rajah to Goura, where he was joined by Captain Magness and his corps. The gate of this fort was giving way before Man Sing’s pickaxemen, when Singjoo surrendered. He was taken to Lucknow, and there died in gaol. The village, in which his father had been buried alive, Hukkamee, was given to the sipahee, and is still held by the family;* but they are a good deal worried in the possession by the widow of the old Rajah, who still lives at Soorujpore, and would be as formidable as her late husband was if she could.
[* In the interval, during which Singjoo held this village, he had added to its boundaries a good deal of land belonging to himself and others, under the impression that he was secure in the hereditary possession. The sipahee’s family seized upon all these lands, while they paid Government only the old rate of revenue. The widow of Singjoo has been ever since trying to recover them, in the usual way, by night attacks, and a good many lives have been lost on both sides, but most on the side of the sipahee’s family. December 4th, 1851.]
Seodeen, another leader of the same tribe, had been seized in the same manner by Man Sing’s father, Dursun Sing, in October, 1830; and soon after three of his nephews were seized, and all four died in gaol at Lucknow; but Chunda and Indul, the brothers of these three men, are still among the most formidable robbers of the district. Hardly a night passes without their plundering some village or other, though Chunda continues to hold his estate, which yields 2250 rupees a-year, under the security of Seetla Buksh, the commandant of the Jannissaree battalion, for the payment of four hundred and fifty rupees a-year. The other robbers of the Dureeabad Rodowlee district, most formidable, are–
- Imambuksh, above described, as having seized the marriage party. In October last he attacked the town of Syud Mahomedpore, killed three of the Syud proprietors, and plundered it of all he could find. In the interval between his being driven out of his stronghold and restored, he attacked and plundered no less than twelve villages, in the same purgunna of Bussooree Mowae. In one of them, Myrmow, belonging to Ameer Chowdheree, he killed no less than twelve of the inhabitants. He still keeps up his gang, and plunders, though restored to his estate on his own terms.*
[* The death of this robber, Imam Buksh, has been already described in a note.]
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Junuck Sing, Behraleea, and his brother, Jeskurun, only twenty days ago, attacked, plundered, and burnt down the town of Meeangunge, through which we passed this morning, and carried off all the inhabitants from whom they thought they could extort any ransom. Only two days ago, they attacked and plundered the village of Bhojpore, belonging to Soorujbulee Canoongo, one of the most respectable men in the district; and cut off the hands of six persons, one of whom died from loss of blood. The next day they attacked and plundered Gorawa, a village belonging to the same person, and burnt it down. Two of the inhabitants were severely wounded, and many bullocks perished in the flames. Within the last year they have taken off more than two thousand head of cattle from the purgunna of Soorujpore Behreyla, in which these villages are situated. Their chief associates in the crimes they commit every day are Chunda and Indul, their clansmen above named.
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Daood Khan, zumeendar of Sundona, in Mowae Bussooree. He has murdered several of his co-sharers in the estate, and taken their lands–frightened out others, and taken theirs, and at the head of his band of ruffians he robs on the highway, and plunders villages.
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Benee Sing Kana, Rajpoot of Deeh, in the Mohlara purgunna. He is blind of one eye, and has a small but formidable gang. In November, 1850, the native collector of Mohlara, sent a detachment of one hundred men, accompanied by Seonath Sing, a co-sharer of Benee Sing, in the village of Deeh, and Oree Sing, a sipahee, in Captain Orr’s Frontier Police, to attack his small gang in their stronghold at Atgowa, in the Rodowlee purgunna. They reached the place at the dawn of day, and forthwith commenced the attack. Benee Sing and his men made a stoat defence. Rajah Man Sing came up, and great numbers of the armed peasantry joined in the attack. They took the place about nine o’clock; but Benee Sing, with fourteen of his stoutest men, defended his house as a citadel till morning, when the house was set fire to by the assailants. One of the fourteen was burnt and disabled, when Benee Sing and the remaining thirteen rushed out, sword in hand, to sell their lives as dearly as possible. Benee Sing and twelve of the thirteen were killed; and the thirteenth at last threw down his arms, and called for quarter. He got it, and was saved. Six of his men had before been killed in defending the place. Man Sing had three men wounded and one killed; three more of the assailants were killed, and seven wounded. The head of the “one-eyed robber” was sent in to the king, and was received with much joy.
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Jeskurun Behraleea, zumeendar of Kiteya, in Soorujpore.
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Rughbur Behraleea, of Kiteya, an associate of Imam Buksh and Chunda. Four months ago his gang seized two carts laden with valuable property belonging to Seodeen subahdar, of the Honourable Company’s service. Through the interposition of the Resident they were restored fifteen days ago.
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Jugurnath Chuprassee, a bhala soltan Rajpoot. This is one of the most formidable of the leaders of banditti in this and the adjoining district of Jugdeespore. He and his elder brother, Surubdowun Sing, were chuprassees on the establishment of Captain Paton, when he was the First Assistant at Lucknow, and had charge of the Post-office, in addition to his other duties. A post-office runner was one night robbed on the road, and Jugurnath was sent out to inquire into the circumstances. The Amil of the district gave him a large bribe to misrepresent the case to his master; and as he refused to share this bribe with his fellow-servants, they made known his manifold transgressions to Captain Paton, who forthwith dismissed him. Surubdowun Sing was soon after dismissed for some other offence, and they both retired to their estate of Oskamow, in the Jugdeespore district.
This estate comprised fifteen villages. They obtained the leases of these villages by degrees, through the influence which their position at the Residency gave them. As soon as they got the lease of a village, they proceeded to turn out all the old proprietors and cultivators, in order the better to secure possession in perpetuity; and those among them of the military class, fought “to the death,” to retain or recover possession of their rights. To defend what they had iniquitously acquired, Jugurnath and his brothers collected together bands of the most desperate ruffians in the country, and located them in the several villages, so as to be able to concentrate and support each other at a concerted signal. The ousted proprietors attacked only those who presumed to reside in or cultivate the lands of which they had been robbed; but Jugurnath and his brethren were less scrupulous; and as they could afford to pay such bands in no other way, they gave them free licence to plunder all the villages around, and all travellers on the highway. Their position and influence at the Residency enabled them to deter the local authorities from exposing their iniquities; and they went on till all the villages became waste, and converted into dens of robbers.
They were, in all, six brothers, and they found their new trade so profitable and exciting, that they all became leaders of banditti, by profession, long before the dismissal of the two brothers from the Residency, though no one, I believe, ventured to prefer charges against them to the Resident or the Durbar. Soon after their dismissal, however, Jugurnath one night attacked and murdered his eldest brother, Surubdowun Sing, in order to get the whole estate to himself, and put his widow and daughter into prison. His other four brothers became alarmed, separated from him, and set up each his separate gang. But Jugurnath contrived soon after, in a dark night, to shoot the third brother, Himmut, dead, with one ball through the chest. Purmode Sing, the youngest brother, was soon after shot dead by some villager, whose cattle he was driving off in a night attack. Bhugwunt Sing the fourth, and Byjonath, still survive, and have gangs of their own, afraid to trust themselves with Jugurnath, who has built two forts, Oskamow and Futtehpore, in the Jugdeespore district, and a third in two small villages, which he has lately seized upon and made waste, in the Rodowlee district, in order that he may have a stronghold to fly to when pressed by the governors of other districts.
They pay no rent or revenue to Government for any of the villages they hold. The king’s officers are afraid to demand any from them. They have plundered a great many villages, and are every month plundering others. They have murdered a great many persons of both sexes and all ages, and tortured more into paying ransoms in proportion to their supposed means. Jugurnath is still the terror of the surrounding country, and a reward of five hundred rupees has been offered for his apprehension.*
[* See note to Chapter VI., Vol. II., on the capture of Maheput Sing. A reward of one thousand rupees has since been offered for Jugurnath’s arrest. See in Chapter IV., Vol. II:, an account of his desertion of his master, Captain Paton. He is still at large, and plundering. December 4th, 1851.]
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Moorut Sing, of Kiteya, which has eleven small villages depending upon it, all occupied by Rajpoot robbers. Nowgowa, in Mohlara, in Rodowlee, on the left bank of the Goomtee river, twenty miles below Lucknow, has, in the same manner, twelve villages depending upon it, all occupied by Rajpoots, who rob, or shelter robbers, when pursued from the east. On the opposite bank is the village of Kholee, in the Hydergurh purgunna, held by Surfraz Chowdheree, and occupied by Brahmans and Musulmans, who shelter robbers in the same way. When they are pressed in Nowgowa they take shelter in Kholee, and when pressed in Kholee they take shelter in Nowgowa. All the robbers above named find shelter in these villages when pursued, and share their plunder with the inhabitants.
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Bhooree Khan. The great-grandfather of Bhooree Khan, Rostam Khan. was the leader of a large gang of Musulman freebooters. The estate of Deogon, containing thirty-seven villages, belonged to a family of Bys Rajpoots. Rostam Khan and his gang seized upon them all, and turned out the Rajpoot proprietors, and by force made three of them Musulmans, Kanhur, Bhooree, Geesee; and all their descendants are of the same creed.
Imam Buksh, the father of Bhoree Khan, built a fort in Deogon, which the family still held. In 1829, Rajah Dursun Sing took the mortgage of the estate for twenty-eight thousand one hundred and ten rupees, to enable Imam Buksh to liquidate a balance of revenue due to Government. When the time of payment came, in 1832, Imam Buksh could pay nothing; and he transferred the estate to Dursun Sing, on a deed of sale or bynama. He continued to manage the estate for Dursun Sing in farm; but, falling in balance, he was put into confinement, where he remained till he died, three years after, in the year 1842. Bhooree Khan was then a boy, but he continued to receive the usual perquisites from the estate while Dursan Sing held it. In the year 1846, the governor of the district, Wajid Allee Khan, took the estate from Dursun Sing’s family, and made it over to Bhooree Khan for a present of five thousand rupees. He ceased to pay the Government demand, collected a gang, and became a leader of banditti. He plundered all the people around, and all travellers on the road, seized and confined all who seemed likely to be able to pay ransom, and tortured and maimed them till they did pay; and those who could not or would not pay, he put to cruel deaths. The thirty-six villages on his estate became deserted by all save his followers, and those whom he could make subservient to his purposes, as robbers and murderers.
Ousan Opudeea resided at the village of Etapore, in the estate of Deogon, and possessed and cultivated lands in that and other villages around, for which he paid an annual rent of five hundred and ninety- nine rupees. In 1846, Bhooree Khan demanded from Ousan an increase of one hundred and fifty rupees, which he paid. The year after 1847, he demanded a further increase of the same amount, which he paid. He was then summoned to appear before Bhooree Khan, and was on his way when told that he would be seized with all his family, and tortured. He, in consequence, took his family to the village of Patkhoree. Bhooree Khan followed with a gang of several hundred men, and two guns, attacked, plundered, and burnt down his house, and fifteen bullocks and buffaloes perished in the flames. One hundred and fifty head of cattle belonging to the village were taken off by the gang. Dwarka, one of Ousan’s sons, was killed in defending the house; and the other two, Davey, aged sixteen, and Seochurun, aged seventeen, were seized, bound, and taken off to the jungle, with Ramdeen, Ousan’s nephew, and many others of the respectable inhabitants of the village. After exacting a ransom from all the rest, he let them go; but retained the two sons of Ousan, and demanded twelve hundred rupees for their ransom. Ousan had lost all his property in the attack, and could raise no more than seven hundred rupees among his relatives and friends. This would not satisfy Bhooree Khan, who, after torturing and starving the boys for twelve months, and taking the seven hundred rupees, took them to the jungle of Gaemow, with fetters on their legs, and bamboo collars round their necks. He there had them tied to trees, and after firing at them as targets, for some time, with bows and arrows, he had them cut to pieces with swords, and then seized upon all the lands which their father held.
In 1848, Bhooree Khan attacked and plundered the house of Peer Khan, in Khanseepoor in Deogon, and bound and carried him off with his two brothers, Ameer Khan and Jehangeer Khan. He had them beaten with sticks, and caused small iron spikes to be driven up under their nails, and their eyelids to be sewn up with needle and thread, and their beards to be burned, till he extorted from them a ransom of eight hundred rupees.
While they were thus confined and being tortured, they saw four travellers brought in by the gang, and tortured and beaten to death, because they could not pay the ransom demanded from them.
Bhoree Khan, in this month of August 1848, attacked the house of Sirdar Khan, an invalid naek of the 36th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, and, after robbing it, burnt it to the ground, and bound and carried off to his fort in Deogon, Sirdar Khan himself and his three sons, Khoda Buksh, Allah Buksh, and Allee Buksh; the first fourteen years of age, the second eight, and the third seven years. He tortured all three, and demanded a ransom of nineteen hundred rupees. This sum was borrowed and paid by Jehangeer Khan, the brother of the naek, and the naek was released. Bhooree Khan would not, however, release either of the sons till he got five hundred rupees more; but Sirdar Khan was unable to procure this further sum, and, in April 1849, Bhooree Khan had two of the boys, Khoda Buksh and Alla Buksh, tied to trees and shot to death with arrows, for the amusement of his gang. They were then hacked with swords, and their bodies were thrown into a ditch, whence he would not permit their friends to remove them for burial. Sirdar Khan became for a time deranged on hearing of the sufferings of his sons, and wandered about the country. Bhooree Khan, with his gang, again attacked the village, and burned it all down, and drove off all the cattle, including all that Sirdar Khan possessed. He recovered, and changed his residence to the village of Deokalee. Bhooree Khan still retained the third son, Allee Buksh, alias Pulleen, and he is still in prison.*
[* The Resident effected the release of the third son, Allee Buksh, in January, 1851, through the aid of Captain Orr, of the Frontier Police.]
Sirdar Khan’s ancestors were the Rajpoot proprietors of the estate of Deogon, and were forcibly converted to Mahommedanism by Bhooree Khan’s ancestors when they seized upon the estate. Sirdar Khan cultivated eighteen beegahs of land in the village of Salteemow, in Deogon, for which he had long paid thirty-six rupees a year rent. Bhooree Khan demanded sixty-five a-year before the attack, and this sum Sirdar Khan paid, but it had no effect in softening the robber leader.
In the year 1847, soon after he took possession of the estate, Bhooree Khan sent a gang under the command of his cousin, Mungul Khan, to attack the house of Dulla, the most opulent and respectable merchant of the district, who resided in the town of Mukdoompore. Dulla had two sons, Nychint and Pursun Sing. After plundering the house, the gang seized Dulla, his son Nychint, Golbay the son of Pursun Sing, and Ajoodheea the son of Nychint. Pursun Sing, the other son of the old merchant, had gone off to the Governor of the district, Rajah Incha Sing. to adjust his annual accounts. The females of the family got out through the back-door of the female apartments, and escaped to the village of Etwara, in the Jugdeespore district, where they had a residence. All the valuables had been buried in a pit in the house, some ten feet deep, and the females had no time to take them up.
The old man, his son Nychint, and his two sons, were sent off to Bhooree Khan, who, on learning that the valuables had not been found, came with fifty more armed men, accompanied by Baboo Mudar Buksh, the tallookdar of Silha in Jugdispore, his own agent Muheput, and a Brahmin prisoner named Cheyn, who knew Dulla, and the wealth he possessed. He brought with him the merchant’s son Nychint, and commanded him to point out the place in which the valuables lay concealed. He would not do so, and Bhooree Khan then drove four tent- pins into the ground in the courtyard, placed Nychint on his face, and tied his hands and feet to these pegs. He then had him burnt into the bones with red-hot ramrods, but the young man still persisted in his refusal. He had then oil boiled in a large brass pot which they found in the house, and poured it over him till all the skin of his body came off. He became insensible for a time, and when he recovered his senses he pointed out the spot. Gold and silver ornaments and clothes of great value, and brass utensils belonging to the family, or held as pledges for money due to the old man, were taken up, with one hundred and fifty matchlocks and the same number of swords. They found also many pits, containing several thousand maunds of grain. The valuables, and as much of the grain as he could find carriage for, Bhooree Khan and his gang carried off, and the rest of the grain he gave to any one who would take it. The value of the whole plunder was estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand rupees.
Nychint was unbound, but died that night, and the body was made over to the Brahmin, Cheyn, who had now become a Mussulman. He took it to the jungle, where he had it burnt with the usual ceremonies. Bhooree Khan still detained Ajodheea, the son of Nychint, and Golbay, the son of Pursun Sing, and demanded a further ransom for them, but he released Dulla, who came home and died of grief and of the tortures inflicted upon him in less than a month after. Cheyn, Dabey Sookul, and Forsut, all Brahmins of Mukdoompoor, were witnesses to the tortures inflicted upon Nychint, and to the plunder of the house. He kept Dulla’s grandsons for a year more, with occasional tortures, but the surviving son, Pursun Sing, had nothing more to give, and no one would give or lend him anything. Golbay, his son, at last contrived to get a letter conveyed to him, stating that he was now less carefully guarded than he had been; that he and his cousin, Ajodheea, were sent to take their meals with a bearer, who lived in a hamlet on the border of the jungle, where they were guarded by only four pausee bowmen, and if his father could come with fifty armed men, and surprise them at a certain hour, he might rescue them. He assembled fifty men from surrounding villages, and at the appointed time, before daybreak, he surprised the guard, and rescued his son and nephew.
Gunga Purshad, son of Chob Sing, canoongo of Silha, in Deogon, left the place when Bhooree Khan took to plundering, and went off, in 1847, with his family to reside at Budulgur, a village held by Allee Buksh, a mile distant. A month after he had settled in that place, Bhooree Khan came with his gang, surrounded his house at night, plundered it, and seized and took off his brother, Bhowanee Purshad, two younger brothers, and his, Gunga Purshad’s, daughter and son, with Gowree Lall and Gunesh Purshad, his relations, who had come on a visit to congratulate him on the prudence of his change of residence. Gunga Purshad was absent at the time on business. All the prisoners were taken to the jungles and tortured with red-hot iron ramrods, and put into heavy fetters. He demanded a ransom of nine hundred and fifty rupees for all. Gunga Purshad sold all he had except some cows and bullocks, and collected four hundred rupees, and his relation’s clubbed together and raised one hundred more. The five hundred were sent to Bhooree Khan, and he took them and released all but Bhowanee Purshad. His two younger brothers collected the cows and bullocks, and went with them to Mukdoompoor, in the hope of being allowed to till their lands; but Bhooree Khan and his gang came, seized and sold all the cows and bullocks they had saved, plundered them of everything, and took their lands from them. They all fled once more, and went to reside at Putgowa. At Mukdoompoor, Bhooree Khan had Bhowanee Purshad flogged so severely that he fell down insensible, and he then had red-hot iron spikes thrust into his eyes, and a few days after he died in confinement of his sufferings. The value of the property taken from the family, besides the five hundred rupees’ ransom, was one thousand rupees. He, about the same time, seized and carried off from Mukdoompoor Gunga Sookul, a Brahmin, tortured him to death, and threw his body into the river.
About the same time, August 1847, he seized and carried off Cheyn, a Brahmin of Mukdoompoor, son of Bhowanee Buksh. He had come to him to pay the year’s rent for the lands he held in that village. After paying his own rents and those of others who were afraid to put themselves into Bhooree Khan’s power, and had sent by Cheyn all that was due, he demanded from him a ransom of four hundred rupees. He could give no more, and was put under a guard and tortured in the usual way. As he persisted in declaring his inability to pay more, a necklace of cow’s bones was put round his neck, and one of the bones was thrust into his mouth, and the blood of a cow was thrown over him, from which he became for ever an outcast from his religion. He expected to be put to death, but a friend conveyed to him the sum of ten rupees, which he gave to the robbers employed to torture him, and they spared his life. His son had taken shelter in the village of Pallee, whence he sent a pausee bowman, named Bhowaneedeen, to inquire after him, and offered him ninety rupees if he would rescue his father. The pausee pledged himself to Bhooree Khan to pay the money punctually, and Cheyn was released. But Bhooree Khan had cut down all the crops upon the lands, and taken them away, and cut down also the five mango-trees which stood upon his land and had been planted by his ancestors. During his confinement, Cheyn saw Bhooree Khan torture and murder many men, and dishonour many respectable women, whom he had seized in the same way.
In the same month, August 1847, Bhooree Khan seized Sudhae, the son of Tubbur Khan, of Salteemow, in Deogon, and his (Sudhae’s) two sons, Surufraz and Meerun Buksh, and took them to the jungle. Sadhae had paid him the eighty rupees rent due for the land he tilled, but Bhooree Khan demanded one hundred rupees more; and when he could not pay he made him over to the Jumogdar, to whom he had become pledged for the payment of a certain sum. The Jumogdar had him beaten till he saw that nothing could be beaten out of him, when he let him go to save the cost of keeping him. Bhooree Khan became very angry, and, with his gang, attacked and plundered the house of Sudhae’s brother, Badul Khan, in Salteemow, with whom Sudhae lived. The two brothers and their families expected this attack, and escaped unhurt, and fled, but they lost all their property.
Bhooree Khan then ordered one of his followers, Mirdae, to take Surufraz to a tank outside the village and cut off his nose. He took out at the same time Bukhtawur, a Brahmin, and cut off his nose first. Mirdae then ordered a Chumar, of Deogon, to cut off the nose of Surafraz, and standing over him with a sword, told him to cut it off deep into the bone. Surufraz prayed hard for mercy, first to Bhooree Khan and then to Mirdae; but his prayers were equally disregarded by both. The Chumar cut off his nose with a rude instrument into the bone, and with it-all his upper lip. He was then let go; but he fell down, after going a little distance, from pain and the loss of blood, and was there found by his uncle, Badul Khan, who had gone in search of him. He was taken home, but died the same night. His brother, Meerun Buksh, was soon after released for a ransom of fifty rupees.
Golzar Khan, sipahee of the Dull Regiment, in the King of Oude’s service, tilled some lands in the village of Mukdoompore, for which he paid rent to Bhooree Khan. In 1847 he first extorted from him double the rent agreed upon, then seized all the crops, and plundered his house, and lastly seized the sipahee’s sister, and had her forcibly married to his servant and relative, Mungul Khan.
In 1846 Bhooree Khan attacked the house of Allah Buksh of Gaemow, in Deogon, plundered it, killed his brother, Meerun Buksh, cut off the hands of his relative, Peer Buksh, and wounded three other relatives who happened at the time to be on a visit with his family. The articles of property that were taken off by Bhooree Khan and his gang consisted of five horses and mares, fifteen matchlocks, four maunds of brass utensils, three hundred and twenty-five maunds of grain, five swords, four boxes of clothes, fifteen cows and bullocks, five hundred and forty rupees in money. The houses of all the rest of the village community were plundered in the same manner. They cut down all the mango and mhowa trees belonging to the family, as well as all those belonging to other people of the village.
In 1847 he attacked the house of Akber Khan, in the village of Kanderpore, in Deogon; and after plundering it, he bound and carried off his son, Rumzam, a lad of fifteen years of age; and the year after, 1848, he again attacked his house, and seized and took off his brother, Wuzeer Khan. He has them still in confinement under torture, because Akber Khan cannot get the sum demanded for their ransom; and all applications for their release to the Government authorities have been disregarded.*
[* The Resident could not effect the release of these two persons, the son and brother of Akber Khan, till January, 1851.]
In the month of August, 1848, Pransook, a Rajpoot, and Lullut Sing, his cousin, of Booboopore, in Rodowlee, went to purchase a supply of bhoosa for their cattle to Mukdoompore, in the Deogon estate, and were there seized by Aman Sing, an agent of Bhooree Khan, who pretended that they had given shelter to some of the cultivators who had fled from Deogon, and demanded their surrender. They protested that they had never seen any such cultivators, and knew nothing whatever about them. They were bound and taken off to Deogon to Bhooree Khan, who had them both put into the stocks. After having been in the stocks for five days, they were again taken to Bhooree Khan, who ordered them to produce the cultivators, or pay a ransom of one hundred and five rupees. They were then taken back to prison, and confined for eighteen days more; and having no food supplied them, they were obliged to sell all the clothes they wore to procure a scanty supply.
To frighten them, Bhooree Khan one day ordered his followers to make outcasts in their presence of two respectable men whom he had in prison, Deena Sing, a Chowan Rajpoot of Jooreeum, and a Brahmin of Poorwa, a small hamlet near Deogon, while he sat on the roof of his house to look on. One of his Musulman followers forced open Deena Sing’s mouth, and spit into it; and the others tied the bones of a neelgae round the neck of the Brahmin, by which both of them were deprived of their caste. They then told Pransook and Lullut Sin that they would be served in the same manner unless they paid the ransom demanded. They became alarmed, and sent to their friends to request them earnestly to borrow all they could, and send it for their ransom. Their cousin, Sheobuksh Sing Jemadar, an invalid pensioner from the 2nd Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, collected one hundred and eighteen rupees, and sent them. Bhooree Khan took one hundred and five for himself, and his servants took thirteen, and they were released; but they were made to swear on the tomb of the saint Shah Sender that they would not complain of the treatment they had received, and had their swords and shields taken from them. They had been confined twenty-seven days.
In 1846 Davey Sookul, a Brahmin, cultivated land in Mukdoompore, for which he paid an annual rent of seventy-one rupees. In consequence of murders and robberies perpetrated by Bhooree Khan and his gang, he went off with his family to reside at Budulgur, under the protection of Rajah Allee Buksh, a mile distant. He had witnessed the murder of Bhowanee Purshad and the torture of many other persons. One morning his brother, Gunga Purshad, returned to Mukdoompore to gather some mangoes from trees there planted by their ancestors. He was there seized by Bhooree Khan and his gang, who were lying in wait for him. They demanded a ransom of three hundred rupees, which Davey Sookul could not raise. He kept Gunga Purshad in prison for four months, and had him tortured every day. Finding that the money was not forthcoming, Bhooree Khan had a firebrand thrust into one of his eyes, and then had him flogged with bunches of sticks till he died. Khoda Buksh, of Kurteepore, one of the followers of Bhooree Khan, went and reported this to his brother and widow, who wept over the tale of his sufferings. His brother, Boodhoo Sookul, a sipahee of the 45th Regiment, presented a petition to the Resident, describing these atrocities, and praying redress, but none was afforded.
Bukhtawur, son of Kaushee, a Brahmin, tilled lands in Deogon, for which he paid an annual rent of sixty-eight rupees. In 1847 Bhooree Khan demanded double that sum; and when he could not pay, he seized and sold all the stock on the land, and seized and took off to the jungles Bukhtawur and his two brothers, Heeralall and Jankee, and seized upon all their lands, and all the property they had to the value of five hundred rupees. He kept them in prison for six months, and then had Bukhtawur’s nose cut off by a Chumar, because he could not pay him the ransom demanded. The nose of Surufraz was cut off at the same time, as above described, and he died in consequence. Bukhtawur’s two brothers made their escape three months afterwards.
In 1848 he attacked the house of Choupae Tewaree, a Brahmin of Ottergow, and after plundering it he took off the son of Choupae, then thirteen years of age, and his, the son’s, wife, and his young son and his wife, and tortured all, till Choupae borrowed and begged all he could, and paid the ransom demanded.
Purotee Aheer tilled sixteen beegahs of land in Deogon, for which he paid an annual rent of thirty-two rupees a-year. As soon as Bhooree Khan got the estate from Maun Sing, in November, 1846, he demanded double the sum, and exacted it. He, in 1848, demanded two hundred and fifty, seized Purotee, sold all his cows and bullocks, sixteen in number, and other property, and then released him. Purotee then sent off secretly all his family to Duheepore, two miles distant; but Bhooree Khan sent off his servants, Bundheen and Bugolal pausees, to trace them. They seized his two daughters, one fourteen and the other ten years of age, and his son Nihal’s wife, and his son, then only four years of age. Bhooree Khan ravished the two girls, and then released them, with Nahal’s wife and her little son. Purotee saw the noses of Bukhtawar and Surafraz cut off while he was in confinement, and saw Bhooree Khan put them on a plate, which he placed in a recess in the wall. It was in March, 1848, when he went to pray that his daughters might be released after they had been ravished. The family went to reside in the village of Mohlee, in Khundara, but have all been turned out of their caste in consequence of the dishonour of his daughters.
In the same year he attacked the house of Foorsut Aheer of Dehpal ka Poorwa, made him prisoner, and tortured him till he paid eight hundred rupees. After this he made his escape; but Bhooree Khan seized and sold all his bullocks, cows, and buffaloes, and stores of grain.
In 1845 Bhoore Khan and his gang attacked the house of Buldee Sing, subahdar in the Honourable Company’s service, in the village of Ghurwae, and, after plundering him of all the property they could find, they seized him and his wife, and took them to the jungles, where they tortured them till they gave all they could borrow or beg to the amount of many thousand rupees.
About the same time he seized and carried off Eesuree Purshad, a Brahmin, who had fled from Palpore, in Deogon, and gone for shelter to the Bazaar of Ottergow; and after cutting off his nose, he put him on an ass with a young pig tied to his neck, and paraded him through the bazaar, with a drummer before him, to render him an outcast.
In the same year, 1848, he seized Rampurshad Tewaree, and his son Runghoor, cultivators of Deogon, and demanded from them four times the rent due for the land they tilled; and when they could not pay, be sold all their cattle, grain, and other property, and had iron spikes driven up under their nails. Unable to extort money by this means, he caused Sotun Bhurbhoonja, or grain-parcher, to —— in his father’s face, and then released him.
In 1848 he demanded from Junga Salor, a cultivator of Bhudalmow, in Deogon, double rent for the land he tilled; and when he could not pay, seized and took off his wife, and cohabited with her four or five days, and then made some of the followers do the same before he released her.
In the same year, 1848, he and his gang attacked the village of Byrampore, in the Kisnee purgunna, and seized Omrow Sing, a Bys Rajpoot, and Boodhea, a Goojur, and all the respectable inhabitants they could get hold of, with their families. After torturing the rest for eight days, and extorting from them all they could pay, he let them go; but detained Omrow Sing, and had him flogged every day till he reduced him to a dying state, when he let him go. He was taken off to his home; but he died as soon as he entered the house and saw his family. The wife of Boodheea, the Goojur, he confined and violated. Bukhtawur deposes that he saw all this while he was in confinement.
He, in 1848, seized and carried off to his stronghold Kaseeram, a Brahmin, of Deogon, and cut off his nose, and tortured him with hot irons till he got from him all that he and his relations could be made to pay, and then let him go.
In the same year and month be attacked and plundered the village of Puttee, in the Jugdeespore purgunna, carried off all the shopkeepers of the place, and tortured them till they paid him altogether three thousand rupees.
In the same year he attacked the village of Koteea, in the Rodowlee district, carried off one of the shopkeepers, and drove iron pins up under his nails till he paid a ransom of one hundred and fifty rupees. He drove off and sold all the cattle of the village.
In the same year he attacked and plundered the village of Budulgur, in the Jugdeespore purgunna, in the same way.
In the same year he attacked and plundered the village of Khorasa, in Rodowlee, carried off Sopae, the Putwaree, with his mother and wife, and tortured them till they paid a ransom of two hundred rupees. He murdered about the same time the son of Buksh Khan, the holder of the village of Gaepore, and two members of the family of Poorae, a carpenter of Almasgunge, in Deogon.
After plundering the house of Sungum Doobee, a respectable Brahmin of Mukdoompore, he seized him and his nephew, took them off to his fort, and, because they could not pay the ransom he demanded, he caused melting lead to be poured into their ears and noses till they died. About the same time he, with his own hands, for some slight offence, cut the throat of his table-attendant, Kbyratee, of Kunhurpore.
About the same time he seized two travellers; and, because they could not pay the ransom demanded, he suspended one of them to a tree in the village of Sathnee, on the bank of the Goomtee river, and the other to a tree in the village of Mukdoompore. He had their arms first broken with bludgeons, and then their feet cut off, and at last they were beaten over the head till they died.
[Bhooree Khan, in March, 1850, went with a gang of three hundred men to assist Gunga Buksh and his family in the defence of Kasimgunge and Bhetae; but he was too late. On his way back, in the beginning of April, he left his gang in a grove, six miles from Lucknow, and entered the city alone in a disguise to visit a celebrated dancing- girl of his acquaintance, named Bunnee. He had been with her two days, and on the 15th of April he went to see the magnificent tomb of Mahommed Allee Shah, of which he had heard much. While sauntering about this place he was recognised by three or four persons belonging to another dancing-girl of his acquaintance, named the Chhotee Gohur, or “little Gem,” whom he had formerly visited. They seized him. As soon as Bunnee heard of this she sent ten or twelve of her own men, and rescued him from the followers of the “Little Gem.” They took him to Bunnee, who made a virtue of necessity, and went off with him forthwith to the Minister, who rewarded her with a pair of shawls, and made suitable presents to her followers.
It is said that he was pointed out to the followers of the “Chhotee Gohur” by Peer Khan, of Khanseepore, in Deogon, whom Bhooree Khan had some time before plundered and tortured for a ransom, as already stated. Bhooree Khan was sentenced to transportation beyond seas for life, and sent off in October, 1851.]
After reading such narratives, an Englishman will naturally ask what are the means by which such atrocious gangs are enabled to escape the hands of justice. He will recollect the history of the MIDDLE AGES, and think of strong baronial castles, rugged hills, deep ravines, and endless black forests. They have no such things in Oude.* The whole country is a level plain, intersected by rivers, which, with one exception, flow near the surface, and have either no ravines at all, or very small ones. The little river Goomtee winds exceedingly, and cuts into the soil in some places to the depth of fifty feet. In such places there are deep ravines; and the landholders along the border improve these natural difficulties by planting and preserving trees and underwood in which to hide themselves and their followers when in arms against their Government. Any man who cuts a stick in these jungles, or takes his camels or cattle into them to browse or graze without the previous sanction of the landholder, does so at the peril of his life. But landholders in the open plains and on the banks of rivers, without any ravines at all, have the same jungles.
[* The Terae forest, which borders Oude to the north, is too unhealthy to be occupied by any but those who have been born and bred in it. The gangs I am treating of are composed of men born and bred in the plains, and they cannot live in the Terae forest.]
In the midst of this jungle, the landholders have generally one or more mud forts surrounded by a ditch and a dense fence of living bamboos, through which cannon-shot cannot penetrate, and man can enter only by narrow and intricate pathways. They are always too green to be set fire to; and being within range of the matchlocks from the parapet, they cannot be cut down by a besieging force. Out of such places the garrison can be easily driven by shells thrown over such fences, but an Oude force has seldom either the means or the skill for such purposes. When driven out by shells or any other means, the garrison retires at night, with little risk, through the bamboo fence and surrounding jungle and brushwood, by paths known only to themselves. They are never provided with the means of subsistence for a long siege; and when the Oude forces sent against them are not prepared with the means to shell them out, they sit down quietly, and starve or weary them out. This is commonly a very long process, for the force is seldom large enough to surround the place at a safe distance from the walls and bamboo fence, so as to prevent all access to provision of all kinds, which the garrison is sure to get from their friends and allies in the neighbourhood, the garrison generally having the sympathy of all the large landholders around, and the besieging force being generally considered the common and irreconcilable enemy of all.
As soon as the garrison escapes, it goes systematically and diligently to work in plundering indiscriminately all the village communities over the most fertile parts of the surrounding country, which do not belong to baronial proprietors like themselves till it has made the Government authorities agree to its terms, or reduced the country to a waste. The leaders of the gang may sometimes condescend to quicken the process by appropriating a portion of their plunder to bribing some influential person at Court, who gets an injunction issued to the local authorities to make some arrangement for terminating the pillage and consequent loss of revenue, or he will be superseded or forfeit his contract. The rebel then returns with his followers, repairs all the mischief done to his fort, improves its defences, and stipulates for a remission of his revenue for a year or more, on account of the injury sustained by his crops or granaries. The unlucky Amil, whose zeal and energy have caused the necessity for this reduction, is probably thrown into gaol till “he pays the uttermost farthing,” or bribes influential persons at Court to get him released on the ground of his poverty.
I may here mention the jungles in Oude which have been created and are still preserved by landholders, almost solely for the above purposes. They are all upon the finest soil, and in the finest climate; and the lands they occupy might almost all be immediately brought into tillage, and studded by numerous happy village communities.
I may, however, before I begin to describe them, mention the fact that many influential persons at Court, as well as the landholders themselves, are opposed to such a salutary measure. If brought under tillage and occupied by happy village communities, all the revenue would or might flow in legitimate channels into the King’s treasury; whereas in their present state they manage to fill their own purses by gratuities from the refractory landholders who occupy them, or from the local authorities, who require permission from Court to coerce them into obedience. Of these gratuities such a salutary measure would deprive them; and it is, in consequence, exceedingly difficult to get a jungle cut down, however near it may be to the city where wood is so dear, and has to be brought from jungles five or ten times the distance.
In the Sultanpore District.
1st.–The Jungle of Paperghat, about one hundred miles south-east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Goomtee river, ten miles long, and three wide, or thirty square miles.
In this jungle Dirgpaul Sing, tallookdar of Nanneemow, has a fort; and Rostum Sing, tallookdar of Dera, has another.
2nd.–The Dostpore Jungle, one hundred and twenty miles south-east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Mujhoee river, twelve, miles long, and three broad, or thirty-six square miles.
3rd.–The Khapra Dehee Jungle, one hundred miles south-east from Lucknow, on the plain, about ten miles long, and six miles broad, or sixty square miles.
4th.–The Jugdeespore Jungle, on the bank of the Goomtee river, fifty miles south-east from Lucknow, sixteen miles long, and three miles broad, forty-eight square miles.
Allee Buksh Khan, tallookdar, has the fort of Tanda in this jungle, on the bank of the Kandoo rivulet, which flows through it into the Goomtee. The fort of Bechoogur in this jungle is held by another tallookdar.
5th.–Gurh Ameytee, seventy miles from Lucknow, south-east, on the bank of the Sae river, nine miles long and three broad, or twenty seven square miles.
Rajah Madhoe Sing has a fort in this jungle, and is one of the very worst, but most plausible men in Oude.
6th.–Daoodpoor Jungle, seventy miles south-east from Lucknow, on the plain, four miles long and three broad, or twelve square miles.
The Beebee or Lady Sagura has her fort and residence in this jungle.
7th.–Duleeppore Jungle, one hundred and ten miles east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Sae river, ten miles long, and three miles wide, thirty square miles.
Seetla Buksh, who is always in rebellion, has a fort in this jungle.
8th.–The Matona Jungle, fifty miles south-east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Goomtee river, twelve miles long and three wide– square miles, thirty-six.
Allee Buksh Khan, a notoriously refractory tallookdar, has a fort in this jungle.
In the Uldeemow District.
9th.–Mugurdhee Jungle, one hundred and forty miles east from Lucknow, on the bank of Ghogra river, eight miles long and three broad–square miles, twenty-four.
10th.–Putona Jungle, one hundred and twenty miles east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Tonus river, eight miles long and four miles broad–square miles, thirty-two.
11th.–Mudungur Jungle, one hundred and twenty miles east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Tonus river, six miles long, and three miles broad–square miles, eighteen.
Amreys Sing and Odreys Sing, sons of Surubdowun Sing (who was killed by the King’s troops thirty years ago), hold the fort of Mudungur in this jungle.
12th.–Bundeepore Jungle, east from Lucknow one hundred and forty miles, on the plain, seven miles long and one broad–seven square miles.
13th.–Chunderdeeh, south-east from Lucknow one hundred and ten miles, on the bank of the Goomtee river, seven miles long, and three miles wide–square miles, twenty-one.
In the Dureeabad District.
14th.–Soorujpore Behreyla Jungle, east from Lucknow forty miles, on the bank of the Kuleeanee river, sixteen miles long, and four miles broad–square miles, sixty-four.
Chundee Sing has a fort in this jungle, and the family have been robbers for several generations. The widow of the late notorious robber, Rajah Singjoo, the head of the family, has a still stronger one.
15th.–Guneshpore Jungle, sixty miles south-east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Goomtee river, six miles long and two broad–twelve square miles.
Maheput Sing, an atrocious robber, holds his fort of Bhowaneegur in this jungle.
In the Dewa Jahangeerabad District.
16th.–The Kasimgunge and Bhetae Jungle, eighteen miles north-east from Lucknow, sixteen miles long, and four miles wide–square miles, sixty-four, on the bank of the little river Reyt.
Gunga Buksh holds the forts of Kasimgunge and Atursae in this jungle; Thakur Purshad those of Bhetae and Buldeogur; and Bhugwunt Sing that of Munmutpore. Other members of the same family hold those of Ramgura Paharpore. The whole family are hereditary and inveterate robbers.
In the Bangur District.
17th.–Tundeeawun Jungle, on the plain, west from Lucknow, seventy- two miles, twelve miles long and six broad–square miles, seventy- two.
In the Salone District.
18th.–The Naen Jungle, eighty miles south from Lucknow, on the bank of the Sae river, sixteen miles long and three wide–square miles, forty-eight.
Jugurnath Buksh, the tallookdar, holds the fort of Jankeebund, in this jungle; and others are held in the same jungle by members of his family.
19th.–The Kutaree Jungle, on the bank of the Kandoo river, south- east from Lucknow sixty miles, eight miles long and three broad– square miles, twenty-four.
Surnam Sing, the tallookdar, has a fort in this jungle.
In the Byswara District.
20th.–The Sunkurpore Jungle, south of Lucknow seventy miles, on the plain, ten miles long and three wide–square miles, thirty.
Benee Madhoe, the tallookdar, has three forts in this jungle.
In the Hydergur District.
21st.–The Kolee Jungle, fifty miles south-east from Lucknow, on the bank of the Goomtee river, three miles long and one and a half wide–square miles, four and a half.
The rebels and robbers in this jungle trust to the natural defences of the ravines and jungles.
22nd.–Kurseea Kuraea Jungle, south-east from Lucknow fifty miles, on the bank of the Goomtee river, three miles long and one wide– square miles, three.
The landholders trust in the same way to natural defences.
In the Khyrabad and Mahomdee Districts.
23rd.–Gokurnath Jungle, north-west from Lucknow one hundred miles, extending out from the Terae forest, and running south-east in a belt thirty miles long and five wide–square miles, one hundred and fifty.
Husun Rajah, the tallookdar of Julalpore, has a fort in this jungle. Sheobuksh Sing, the tallookdar of Lahurpore, holds here the fort of Katesura; and Omrow Sing, the tallookdar of Oel, holds two forts in this jungle.
In the Baree and Muchreyta Districts.
24th.–The Suraen Jungle, north-west from Lucknow thirty-four miles, along the banks of the Suraen river, twelve miles long and three miles wide–square miles, thirty-six.
In this jungle Jowahir Sing holds the fort of Basae Deeh; Khorrum Sing, that of Seogur; Thakur Rutun Sing, that of Jyrampore. They are all landholders of the Baree district, and their forts are on the north bank of the Saraen river. Juswunt Sing holds the fort of Dhorhara; Dul Sing, that of Gundhoreea; Rutun Sing holds two forts, Alogee and Pupnamow.–They are all landholders of the Muchreyta district, and their four forts are on the south bank of the Saraen river.
This gives twenty-four belts of jungle beyond the Terae forest, and in the fine climate of Oude, covering a space of eight hundred and eighty-six square miles, at a rough computation.* In these jungles the landholders find shooting, fishing, and security for themselves and families, grazing ground for their horses and cattle, and fuel and grass for their followers; and they can hardly understand how landholders of the same rank, in other countries, can contrive to live happily without them. The man who, by violence, fraud, and collusion, absorbs the estates of his weaker neighbours, and creates a large one for himself, in any part of Oude, however richly cultivated and thickly peopled, provides himself with one or two mud forts, and turns the country around them into a jungle, which he considers to be indispensable as well to his comfort as to his security.
[* The surface of the Oude territory, including the Terae forest, is supposed to contain twenty-three thousand seven hundred and thirty- nine square miles. The Terae forest includes, perhaps, from four to five thousand miles; but within that space there is a great deal of land well tilled and peopled.]
The atrocities described in the above narrative were committed by Bhooree Khan, in the process of converting his estate of Dewa into a jungle, and building strongholds for his gang as it increased and became more and more formidable. Having converted Deogon into a jungle, and built his strongholds, he would, by the usual process of violence, fraud, and collusion with local authorities, have absorbed the small surrounding estates of his weaker neighbours, and formed a very large one for himself. The same process, no doubt, went on in England successively under the Saxons, Danes, and Normans; and in every country in Europe, under successive invaders and conquerors, or as long as the baronial proprietors of the soil were too strong to be coerced by their Sovereign as they are in Oude.
An Englishman may further ask how it is that a wretch guilty of such cruelties to men who never wronged him, to innocent and unoffending females and children, can find, in a society where slavery is unknown, men to assist him in inflicting them, and landholders of high rank and large possessions to screen and shelter him when pursued by his Government. He must, for the solution of this question, also go back to the MIDDLE AGES, in England and the other nations of Europe, when the baronial proprietors of the soil, too strong for their sovereigns, committed the same cruelties, found the same willing instruments in their retainers, and members of the same class of landed proprietors, to screen, shelter, and encourage them in their iniquities.
They acquiesce in the atrocities committed by one who is in armed resistance to the Government to-day, and aid him in his enterprises openly or secretly, because they know that they may be in the same condition, and require the same aid from him to-morrow–that the more sturdy the resistance made by one, the less likely will the Government officers be to rouse the resistance of others. They do not sympathise with those who suffer from his depredations, or aid the Government officers in protecting them, because they know that they could not support the means required to enable them to contend successfully with their Sovereign, and reduce him to terms, without plundering and occasionally murdering the innocent of all ages and both sexes, and that they may have to raise the same means in a similar contest to-morrow. They are satisfied, therefore, if they can save their own tenants from pillage and slaughter. They find, moreover, that the sufferings of others enable them to get cultivators and useful tenants of all kinds upon their own estates, on more easy terms, and to induce the smaller allodial or khalsa proprietors around, to yield up their lands to them, and become their tenants with less difficulty. It was in the same manner that the great feudal barons aggrandised themselves in England, and all the other countries of Europe, in the MIDDLE AGES.
In Oude all these great landholders look upon the Sovereign and his officers–except when they happen to be in collusion with them for the purpose of robbing or coercing others–as their natural enemies, and will never trust themselves in their power without undoubted pledges of personal security. The great feudal tenants of the Crown in England, and the other nations of Europe, did the same, except when they were in collusion with them for the purpose of robbing others of their rights; or fought under their banners for the purpose of robbing or destroying the subjects and servants of some other Sovereign whom he chose to call his enemy.
Only one of these sources of union between the Sovereign and his great landholders is in operation in Oude. Some of them are every year in collusion with the governors of districts for the purpose of coercing and robbing others; but the Sovereign can never unite them under his banners for the purpose of invading and plundering any other country, and thereby securing for himself and them present glory, wealth, and high-sounding titles, and the admiration and applause of future generations. The strong arm of the British Government is interposed between them and all surrounding countries; and there is no safety-valve for their unquiet spirits in foreign conquests. They can no longer do as Ram did two thousand seven hundred years ago–lead an army from Ajodheea to Ceylone. They must either give up fighting, or fight among themselves, as they appear to have been doing ever since Ram’s time; and there are at present no signs of a disposition to send out another “Sakya Guntama” from Lucknow, or Kapila vastee to preach peace and good-will to “all the nations of the earth.” They would much rather send out fifty thousand more brave soldiers to fight “all the nations of the east,” under the banners of the Honourable East India Company.
An English statesman may further ask how it is that so much disorder can prevail in a small territory like Oude without the gangs, to which it must give rise, passing over the border to depredate upon the bordering districts of its neighbours. The conterminous districts on three sides belong to the British Government, and that on the fourth or north belongs to Nepaul. The leaders of these gangs know, that if the British Government chose to interpose and aid the Oude Government with its troops, it could crush them in a few days; and that it would do so if they ventured to rob and murder within its territory. They know, also, that it would do the same if they ventured to cross the northern border, and rob and murder within the Nepaul territory. They therefore confine their depredations to the Oude territory, seeing that, as long as they do so, the British Government remains quiet.