is one of the Telinga corps of infantry, and was intended to be, in all things, like those of Captains Barlow, Bunbury, and Magness; but Imdad Hoseyn told me that they had a certain weight at Court, which secured for their regiments many advantages necessary to make the corps efficient, while he had none: that they had occasional intercourse with the Resident, and were all at Court for some months in the year to make friends, while he was always detached.
_January_ 14, 1850.--Halted at Russoolabad, for our second set of tents, which did not come up till night, when it was too late to send them on to our next ground. We have two sets of sleeping and dining tents--one to go on and the other to remain during the night--but only one set of office tents. They are struck in the afternoon, when the office duties of the day are over, and are ready by the time we reach our ground the next morning. This is the way in which all public functionaries march in India. Almost all officers who have revenue charges march through the districts under their jurisdiction during the cold season, and so do many political officers who have control over more than one native princ.i.p.ality. I have had charges that require such moving ever since the year 1822, or for some twenty-eight years; and with the exception of two intervals of absence on medical certificate in 1826 and 1836, I have been every cold season moving in the way I describe.
No Resident at the Court of Lucknow ever before moved, over the country as I am doing to inquire into the condition of the people, the state of the country, and character of the administration; nor would it be desirable for them to do so unless trained to civil business, and able and disposed to commune freely with the people of all cla.s.ses. The advantages would hardly counterbalance the disadvantages. When I apologize to the peasantry for the unavoidable trespa.s.ses of my camp, they always reply good-humouredly, "The losses we suffer from them are small and temporary, while the good we hope from your visit is great and permanent." Would that I could realize the hopes to which my visit gives rise.
_January_ 15, 1850.--To Meeangunge, five miles, over a plain of good doomuteea soil, well studded with trees; but much of the land lies waste, and many of the villages and hamlets are unoccupied and in ruins. We pa.s.sed the boundary of the Russoolabad district, about two miles from our last ground, and crossed into that of Meeangunge or Safeepoor. The Russoolabad district was held in contract for some years by one of the greatest knaves in Oude, Buksh Allee, a dome by caste, whose rise to wealth and influence may be described as ill.u.s.trative of the manners and customs of the Lucknow Court and Government. This man and his deputy, Munsab Allee, reduced a good deal of the land of the district to waste, and depopulated many of its villages and hamlets by over-exactions and by an utter disregard of their engagements with the landholders and cultivators; and they were in league with many atrocious highway robbers, who plundered and murdered so many travellers along the high road leading from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, which runs through the district, that it was deemed unsafe to pa.s.s it except in strong bodies.
When I took charge of my office in January last, they used to seize every good-looking girl or young woman, pa.s.sing the roads with parents and husbands, who were too poor to purchase redress at Court, and make slaves or concubines of them; and, feeling strong in the a.s.surance of protection from the fiddlers in the palace, who are of the same caste--domes--Buksh Allee defied all authority, and kept those girls and women in his camp and house at Lucknow, while their parents and husbands, for months and years, in vain besought all who were likely to have the least influence or authority to interpose for their release. Some of them came to me soon after I took charge, and, having collected sufficient proof of these atrocities, and of some robberies which he had committed or caused to be committed along the high road, I insisted upon his being deprived of his charges and punished. He remained for many months concealed in the city, but was at last seized by some of the Frontier Police, under the guidance of an excellent officer, Lieutenant Weston, the Superintendent.
I had prevailed on the King to offer two thousand rupees for his apprehension, and the two thousand rupees were distributed among the captors. The girls and young women were released, their parents and husbands compensated for the sufferings they had endured, and many of the persons who had been robbed by him and his deputy had the value of their lost property made good. Great impediments were thrown in the way of all this by people of influence about Court; but they were all surmounted by great skill and energy on the part of Lieutenant Weston and steady perseverance on mine; and Buksh Allee remained in gaol, treated as a common felon, till all was effected. All had, in appearance, been done by the King"s officers, but in reality by ours, under his Majesty"s sanction, for it was clear that nothing would be done unless we supervised and guided their proceedings. The district is now held in contract by a very respectable man, Mahommed Uskaree, who has taken it for four years.
The district of Safeepoor, in which we are now encamped, has been held in contract for five years by Budreenath, a merchant of Lucknow, who had given security for the former contractor. He could not fulfil his engagements to Government, and the contract was made over to him as surety, on condition that he paid the balance. He has held it ever since, while his younger brother, Kiddernath, has conducted their mercantile affairs at Lucknow. Budreenath has always considered the affair as a mercantile speculation, and thought of nothing but the amount he has to pay to Government and that which he can squeeze out of the landholders and cultivators. He is a bad manager; the lands are badly tilled, and the towns, villages, and hamlets are scantily peopled and most wretched in appearance.
Near the border, we pa.s.sed one village, Mahommedpoor, entirely in ruins. After some search we found a solitary man of the Pausee tribe, who told us that it had been held for many generations by the family of Rugonath, a Gouree Rajpoot, who paid for it at an uniform rate of six hundred rupees a-year. About three years ago the contractor demanded from him an increased rate, which he could not pay. Being sorely pressed, he fled to the jungles with the few of his clan that he could collect, and ordered all the cultivators to follow his fortunes. They were of a different clan--mostly Bagheelas--and declined the honour. He urged that, if they followed him for a season or two, the village would be left untilled, and yield nothing to the contractor, who would be constrained to restore him to possession at the rate which his ancestors had paid; that his family had nothing else to depend upon, and if they did not desert the land and take to the jungles and plunder with him, he must, of necessity, plunder them. They had never done so, and would not do so now. He attacked and plundered the village three times, killed three men, and drove all the rest to seek shelter and employment in other villages around.
Not a soul but himself, our informant, was left, and the lands lay waste. Rogonath Sing rented a little land in the village of Gouree, many miles off, and in another district, still determined to allow no man but himself to hold the village or restore its tillage and population. This, said the Pausee, is the usage of the country, and the only way in which a landholder can honestly or effectually defend himself against the contractor, who would never regard his rights unless he saw that he was prepared to defend them in this way, and determined to involve all under him in his own ruin, depopulate his estate, and lay waste his lands.
Meean Almas, after whom this place, Meeangunge, takes his name, was an eunuch. He had a brother, Rahmut, after whom the town of Rahmutgunge, which we pa.s.sed some days ago, took its name. Meean Almas was the greatest and best man of any note that Oude has produced. He held for about forty years this and other districts, yielding to the Oude Government an annual revenue of about eighty lacs of rupees. During all this time he kept the people secure in life and property, and as happy as people in such a state of society can be; and the whole country under his charge was, during his life- time, a garden. He lived here in a style of great magnificence, and was often visited by his sovereign, who used occasionally to spend a month at a time with him at Meeangunge. A great portion of the lands held by him were among those made over to the British Government, on the division of the Oude territory, by the treaty of 1801, concluded between Saadut Allee Khan and the then Governor-General Lord Wellesley.
The country was then divided into equal shares, according to the rent-roll at the time. The half made over to the British Government has been ever since yielding more revenue to us, while that retained by the sovereign of Oude has been yielding less and less to him; and ours now yields, in land-revenue, stamp-duty, and the tax on spirits, two crore and twelve lacs a-year, while the reserved half now yields to Oude only about one crore, or one crore and ten lacs. When the cession took place, each half was estimated at one crore and thirty- three lacs. Under good management the Oude share might, in a few years, be made equal to ours, and perhaps better, for the greater part of the lands in our share have been a good deal impoverished by over-cropping, while those of the Oude share have been improved by long fallows. Lands of the same natural quality in Oude, under good tillage, now pay a much higher rate of rent than they do in our half of the estate.
Almas Allee Khan, at the close of his life, was supposed to have acc.u.mulated immense wealth; but when he died he was found to have nothing, to the great mortification of his sovereign, who seized upon all. Large sums of money had been lent by him to the European merchants at Lucknow, as well as to native merchants all over the country. When he found his end approaching, he called for all their bonds and destroyed them. Mr. Ousely and Mr. Paul were said to have at that time owed to him more than three lacs of rupees each. His immense income he had expended in useful works, liberal hospitality, and charity. He systematically kept in check the tallookdars, or great landholders; fostered the smaller, and encouraged and protected the better cla.s.ses of cultivators, such as Lodhies, Koormies, and Kachies, whom he called and considered his children. His reign over the large extent of country under his jurisdiction is considered to have been its golden age. Many of the districts which he held were among those transferred to the British Government by the treaty of 1801; and they were estimated at the revenue which he had paid for them to the Oude Government. This was much less than any other servant of the Oude Government would have been made to pay for them; and this accounts, in some measure, for the now increased rate they yield to us. Others pledged themselves to pay rates which they never did or could pay; and the nominal rates in the accounts were always greater than the real rates. He never pledged himself to pay higher rates than he could and really did pay.
Now the tallookdars keep the country in a perpetual state of disturbance, and render life, property, and industry everywhere insecure. Whenever they quarrel with each other, or with the local authorities of the Government, from whatever cause, they take to indiscriminate plunder and murder over all lands not held by men of the same cla.s.s; no road, town, village, or hamlet is secure from their merciless attacks; robbery and murder become their diversion-- their sport; and they think no more of taking the lives of men, women, and children who never offended them, than those of deer or wild hogs. They not only rob and murder, but seize, confine, and torture all whom they seize, and suppose to have money or credit, till they ransom themselves with all they have, or can beg or borrow.
Hardly a day has pa.s.sed since I left Lucknow in which I have not had abundant proof of numerous atrocities of this kind committed by landholders within the district through which I was pa.s.sing, year by year, up to the present day. The same system is followed by landholders of smaller degrees and of this military cla.s.s--some holders of single villages or co-sharers in a village. This cla.s.s comprises Rajpoots of all denominations, Mussulmans, and Pausies.
Where one co-sharer in a village quarrels with another, or with the Government authorities, on whatever subject, he declares himself in a _state of war_, and adopts the same system of indiscriminate plunder and reckless murder. He first robs the house and murders all he can of the family of the co-sharer with whom he has quarrelled, or whose tenement he wishes to seize upon; and then gets together all he can of the loose characters around, employs them in indiscriminate plunder, and subsists them upon the booty, without the slightest apprehension that he shall thereby stand less high in the estimation of his neighbours, or that of the officers of Government; on the contrary, he expects, when his _pastime_ is over, to be at least more feared and courted, and more secure in the possession of increased lands, held at lower rates.
All this terrible state of disorder arises from the Government not keeping faith with its subjects, and not making them keep faith with each other. I one day asked Rajah Hunmunt Sing how it was that men guilty of such crimes were tolerated in society, and he answered by quoting the following Hindee couplet:--"Men reverence the man whose heart is wicked, as they adore and make offerings to the evil planet, while they let the good pa.s.s unnoticed, or with a simple salute of courtesy."*
[* There is another Hindee verse to the same effect. "Man dreads a crooked thing--the demon Rahoo dares not seize the moon till he sees her full." They consider the eclipse to be caused by the demon Rahoo seizing the moon in his mouth.]
The contractor for this district, Budreenath, came to call in the afternoon, though he is suffering much from disease. He bears a good character with the Government, because he contrives to pay its demand; but a very bad one among the people, from whom he extorts the means. He does not adhere to his engagements with the landholders and cultivators, but exacts, when the crops are ripe, a higher rate than they had engaged to pay at the commencement of tillage; and the people suffer not only from what he takes over and above what is due, but from the depredations of those whom such proceedings drive into rebellion. Against such persons he is too weak to protect them; and as soon as the rebels show that they can reduce his income by plundering and murdering the peasantry, and all who have property in the towns and villages, he re-establishes them on their lands on their own terms. He had lately, however, by great good luck, seized two very atrocious characters of this description, who had plundered and burnt down several villages, and murdered some of their inhabitants; and as he knew that they would be released on the first occasion of thanksgiving at Lucknow, having the means to bribe Court favourites, he begged my permission to make them over to Lieutenant Weston, superintendent of the Frontier Police, as robbers by profession. "If they come back, sir, they will murder all who have aided in their capture, or given evidence against them, and no village or road will be safe."
Some shopkeepers in the town complained that the contractor was in the habit of forcing them to stand sureties for the fulfilment, on the part of landholders, of any engagements they might make, to pay him certain sums, or to make over to him certain land produce at the harvest. This, they said, often involved them in heavy losses, as the landholders frequently could not, or would not, do either when the time came, and they were made to pay. This is a frequent practice throughout Oude. Shopkeepers and merchants who have property are often compelled by the contractors and other local officers to give such security for bad or doubtful paymasters with whom they may happen to have had dealings or intercourse, and by this means robbed of all they have. All manner of means are resorted to to compel them: they and their families are seized and confined, and harshly or disgracefully treated, till they consent to sign the security bonds.
The plea that the bonds had been forced from them would not avail in any tribunal to which they might appeal: it would be urged against them that the money was for the State; and this would be considered as quite sufficient to justify the Government officer who had robbed them. The brief history which I propose to give of Buksh Allee, the late contractor for the Russoolabad district, is as follows:--
Mokuddera Ouleea, one of the consorts of the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, was the daughter of Mr. George Hopkins Walters, a half-pay officer of one of the regiments of British Dragoons, who came to Lucknow as an adventurer. He there united himself (though not in marriage) to the widow of Mr. Whearty, an English merchant or shopkeeper of that city, who had recently died, leaving this widow, who was the daughter of Mr. Culloden, an English merchant of Lucknow, and one son, now called Ameer Mirza, and one daughter, now called Shurf-on Nissa. By Mr. Walters this widow had one daughter, who afterwards became united to the King in marriage (in 1827), under the t.i.tle of "Mokuddera Ouleea." Mr. Walters died at Lucknow, and the widow and two daughters went to reside at Cawnpoor. The daughters were good-looking, and the mother was disposed to make the most of their charms, without regard to creed or colour.
Buksh Allee, a dome by caste, who had been by profession a drummer to a party of dancing-girls, served them as a coachman and table attendant. At Cawnpoor he cohabited with Mrs. Walters, and prevailed upon her to take her children back to Lucknow as the best possible market for them, as he had friends at Court who would be able to bring them to the notice of the sovereign. They were shown to the King as soon as he succeeded his father on the throne in 1827. He was captivated with the charms of Miss Walters, though they were not great, demanded her hand from the mother, and was soon after united to her in marriage according to the Mahommedan law. A suitable establishment was provided by the King for her mother, father-in-law, brother, and sister; and as his Majesty considered that the manner in which Buksh Allee and her mother had hitherto lived together was unsuitable to the connection which now subsisted between them, he caused them to be married in due form according to the Mahommedan law. The mother and her three children now changed their creed for that of Islamism, and took Mahommedan names.
By a deed of engagement with the British Government, hearing date the 1st of March 1829, the King contributed to the five per cent loan the sum of sixty-two lacs and forty thousand rupees, the interest of which, at five per cent., our Government pledged itself to pay to the four females.*
[* Mulika Zumanee, 10,000; Taj Mahal, 6,000; Mokuddera Ouleea, 6,000; Zeenut-on Nissa, the daughter of Mulika Zumanee, 4,000.]
These pensions were to descend in perpetuity to their heirs, if they left any; and if they left none, they were to have the power to bequeath them by will to whomsoever and for what purposes soever they chose, the British Government reserving to itself the power to pay to the heirs the princ.i.p.al from which the pensions arose, instead of continuing the pensions.
The King died in July 1837, and Mokuddera Ouleea went to reside near her mother and Buksh Allee, taking with her great wealth in jewels and other things, which she had acc.u.mulated during the King"s lifetime. Her sister, Ashrof--_alias_ Shurf-on Nissa--resided in the same house with her mother and Buksh Allee. Mokuddera Ouleea had from the time she became estranged from her husband, the King, led a very profligate life, and she continued to do the same in her widowhood.
On the 14th of September 1839, the mother died; and the sister, Shurf-on Nissa, supplied her place, as the wife or concubine of Buksh Allee.
Mokuddera Ouleea became pregnant, and on the 9th of November 1840, she was taken very ill from some violent attempt to produce abortion.
She continued insensible and speechless till the evening of the 12th of that month, when she expired. The house which Buksh Allee occupied at that time is within the Residency compound, and had been purchased by Mr. John Culloden, the father of Mrs. Walters, from Mr. George Prendergast on the 22nd of February 1802. Mr. Prendergast purchased the house from Mr. S. M. Taylor, an English merchant at Lucknow, who obtained it from the Nawab a.s.suf-od Dowlah, as a residence. The Nawab afterwards, on the 5th of January 1797, gave him, through the Resident, Mr. J. Lumsden, permission to sell it to Mr. Prendergast.
The remains of Mokuddera Ouleea were interred within the compound of that house, near those of her mother, though the King, Mahommed Allee Shah, wished to have them buried by the side of those of her husband, the late King. The house is still occupied by Shurf-on Nissa, who succeeded to her sister"s pension and property, under the sanction of the British Government, and has built, or completed within the enclosure, a handsome mosque and mausoleum.
On the death of Mr. Walters, Mrs. Whearty made application, through the house of Colvin and Co., for the arrears of pension or half-pay due to him up to the time of his death, and for some provision for herself as his widow; but she was told that unless she could produce the usual certificate, or proof of her marriage with him, she could get neither. No proof whatever of the marriage was forthcoming, and the claim was prosecuted no further. Shurf-on Nissa, and her brother and his son, continued to live with Buksh Allee, who, upon the wealth and pension left by Mokuddera Ouleea to her sister, kept up splendid establishments both at Lucknow and Cawnpoor.
At the latter place he a.s.sociated on terms of great intimacy with the European gentlemen, and is said to have received visits from the Major-General commanding the Division and his lady. With the aid of his wealth and the influence of his brother domes (the singers and fiddlers who surround the throne of his present Majesty), Buksh Allee secured and held for some years the charge of this fertile and populous district of Russoolabad, through which pa.s.ses the road from Lucknow to Cawnpoor, where, as I have already stated, he kept up bands of myrmidons to rob and murder travellers, and commit all kinds of atrocities. This road became, in consequence, the most unsafe of all the roads in Oude, and hardly a day pa.s.sed in which murders and robberies were not perpetrated upon it. Proof of his partic.i.p.ation in these atrocities having been collected, Buksh Allee was, in October 1849, seized by order of the Resident, tried before the King"s Courts, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, and ordered to restore or make good the property which he was proved to have taken, or caused to be taken, from travellers. His house had become filled with girls of all ages, whom he had taken from poor parents, as they pa.s.sed over this road, and converted into slaves for his seraglio.
They were all restored to their parents, with suitable compensation; and the Cawnpoor road has become the most safe, as well as the best, road in Oude.
On the death of Mokuddera Ouleea, a will was sent to the Resident by her sister, who declared that it had been under her sister"s pillow for a year, and that she had taken it out on finding her end approaching, and made it over to her, declaring it to contain her last wishes. By this doc.u.ment pensions were bequeathed to the persons mentioned in the note below* out of one-third, and the other two- thirds were bequeathed to her sister and brother. In submitting this doc.u.ment to Government, the Resident declared that he believed it to be a forgery; and in reply he was instructed to ascertain whether the persons named in the doc.u.ment had any objections to consider Shurf-on Nissa sole heir to her sister"s property and pension. Should they have none to urge, he was directed to consider her as sole heir, and the pretended will as of no avail. They all agreed to consider her as sole heir; and the Resident was directed to make over to her the property, and pay to her the pension or the princ.i.p.al from which it arose. The Resident considered the continuance of the pension as the best arrangement for the present, and of this Government approved.
[* Buksh Allee, 1,000 rupees per month; Allee Hoseyn, 75; Sooraj Bhan, 40; Syud Hoseyn, 30; Sheik Hingun, 20; Mirza Allee, 30; Ram Deen, 12; Meea Sultan, 15; Sudharee, 10; Imam Buksh, 3; Ala Rukhee, 10; Sadoo Begum, 20; Akbar, 15; Mahdee Begum, 30.]
Shurf-on Nissa has no recognised children, and her brother and his reputed son are her sole heirs, so that no injury can arise to him from the omission, on the part of Government and the Resident, of all mention of his right as co-sharer in the inheritance. Neither brother nor sister had really any legal right whatever to succeed to this pension, for Mokuddera Ouleea was an illegitimate child, and had no legal heirs according to either English or Mahommedan law. This fact seems to have been concealed from the Resident, for he never mentioned it to Government. It was the dread that this fact would cause the whole pension to be sent to the shrines in Turkish Arabia, that made them forge the will. All readily consented to consider Shurf-on Nissa the heir, when they found that our Government had no objection to consider her as such. The King wished to have the money to lay out on bridges and roads in Oude, and the Resident advocated this wish; but our Government, ignorant of the fact of the illegitimacy of the deceased, and with the guaranteed bequest of the late King before them, could not consent to any such arrangement.
Government has long been strongly and justly opposed to all such guarantees, and the Resident was told on the 14th November 1840, "that the Governor-General in Council could not consent to grant the absolute and unqualified pledge of protection which the King was solicitous of obtaining in favour of four other females; and directed to state to his Majesty that, although in the instances he had cited, such guarantees had certainly been afforded in former times, yet they were always given either under the impression of an overruling necessity, or in consequence of some acknowledged claims, or previously existing engagements, the force of which could not be avoided; that their existence had often operated practically in the most embarra.s.sing manner, while it const.i.tuted a standing and perpetual infringement of the rights of the Government of Oude; and that his Lordship in Council was, consequently, decidedly opposed to the continuance of a system so plainly at variance with every just principle of policy." The objections of the British Government to such guarantees are stated in letters dated 18th February, 28th March, 20th May, 3rd October, and 19th December 1839, and 11th May 1848.
In a despatch from the Honourable the Court of Directors, dated 4th March 1840, their just disapprobation of such guarantees is expressed; and reference is made to former strong expressions of disapprobation. In their despatch of the 28th March 1843, the Honourable Court again express their disapprobation of such guarantees; and refer to their letter of the 16th March, in which they gave positive orders that no such engagement should ever be concluded without a previous reference to the Court. The argument that the arrangement did not, in any particular case, add to the number of guaranteed persons, such persons being already under guarantee, did not in the opinion of the Court touch the stronger objection to such a measure, that of the impropriety of our aiding, especially by the grant of peculiar privileges, the appropriation of the resources of the State to the advantage of individuals. The Court expresses a hope that they shall never have occasion to notice any future violation of their orders as respects such engagements.
_January_ 16, 1850.--We were to have gone this morning to Ouras, but were obliged to encamp at Burra, eight miles from Meeangunge, on the left bank of the Saee river, which had been too much increased by the late rains to admit of our baggage and tents pa.s.sing over immediately on anything but elephants. As we have but few of them, our tents were pitched on this side of the river, that our things might have the whole day before them to pa.s.s over on carts and camels, as the river subsided. Ouras is three miles from our camp, and we are to pa.s.s through it and go on to Sundeela to-morrow. There is no bridge, and boats are not procurable on this small river, which we have to cross and recross several times.
The country from Meeangunge is scantily cultivated, but well studded with trees, and generally fertile under good tillage. The soil is the light doomuteea, but here and there very sandy and poor, running into what is called bhoor. The villages and hamlets which we could see are few and wretched. We have few native officers and sipahees in our army from the districts we are now in, and I am in consequence less oppressed with complaints from this cla.s.s of the Oude subjects.
We met, near our tents, a party of soldiers belonging to Rajah Ghalib Jung, a person already mentioned, and at present superintendent of police, along the Cawnpoor road, escorting a band of thieves, who robbed Major Scott some ten months ago on his way, by dawk, from Lucknow, and an European merchant, two months ago, on his way, by dawk, from Cawnpoor to Lucknow. They had been seized in the Sundeela districts, and the greater part of the stolen property found in their houses. They are of the Pausie tribe, and told me that thieving was their hereditary trade, and that they had long followed it on the Cawnpoor road with success. The landholder, who kept them upon his estate and shared in their booty, was also seized, but made over to the revenue contractor, who released him after a few days"
imprisonment for a gratuity.
Of these Pausies there are supposed to be about one hundred thousand families in Oude. They are employed as village watchmen, but, with few exceptions, are thieves and robbers by hereditary profession.
Many of them adopt poisoning as a trade, and the numbers who did so were rapidly increasing when Captain Hollings, the superintendent of the Oude Frontier Police, arrested a great many of them, and proceeded against them as Thugs by profession, under Act III. of 1848. His measures have been successfully followed up by Captain Weston, his successor, and this crime has been greatly diminished in Oude. It prevails still, however, more or less, in all parts of India.
These Pausies of Oude generally form the worst part of the gangs of refractory tallookdars in their indiscriminate plunder. They use the bow and arrow expertly, and are said to be able to send an arrow through a man at the distance of one hundred yards. There is no species of theft or robbery in which they are not experienced and skilful, and they increase and prosper in proportion as the disorders in the country grow worse. They serve any refractory landholder, or enterprising gang-robber, without wages, for the sake of the booty to be acquired.
Many of the sipahees of the Mobarick Pultun, on detached duty with the king"s wakeel in attendance upon me, were this morning arrested, while taking off the choppers from the houses of villages along the road and around my camp, for fuel and fodder, in what they called the "_usual way_." The best beams and rafters and the whole of the straw were fast moving off to my camp; and when seized, the sipahees seemed much surprised, and asked me what they were to do, as they had not received any pay for six months, and the Government expected that they would help themselves to straw and timber wherever they could most conveniently find it. All were fined; but the hope to put a stop to this intolerable evil, under the present system, is a vain one.
The evil has the acquiescence and encouragement of the Government and its functionaries of all kinds and grades throughout the country. It is distressing to witness every day such melancholy proofs of how much is done that ought not to be done, and how much that ought to be done is left undone, in so fine a country.
A want of sympathy or fellow-feeling between the governing and governed is common in all parts of India, but in no part that I have seen is it so marked as in Oude. The officers of the Government delight in plundering the peasantry, and upon every local Governor who kills a landholder of any mark, rewards and honours are instantly bestowed, without the slightest inquiry as to the cause or mode. They know that no inquiry will be made, and therefore kill them when they can; no matter how, or for what cause. The great landholders would kill the local Governors with just as little scruple, did they not fear that it might make the British Government interpose and aid in the pursuit after them.
_January_ 17, 1850.--Sundeela, about thirteen miles from our last camp, on the bank of the little River Saee, over a plain of good doomuteea soil, very fertile, and well cultivated in the neighbourhood of villages. The greater portion of the plain is, however, uncultivated, though capable of the best tillage, and shows more than the usual signs of maladministration. In this district there are only three tallookdars, and they do not rob or resist the Government at present. They distrust the Government authorities, however, and never have any personal intercourse with them. The waste is entirely owing to the bad character of the contractors, and the license given to the troops and establishments under them. The district is now held in _amanee_ tenure, and under the management of Hoseyn Buksh, who entered into his charge only six weeks ago. He is without any experience in, or knowledge of, his duties; he has three regiments of Nujeebs on duty under him, and all who are present came out to meet me. Anything more unlike soldiers it would be difficult to conceive. They are feared only by the honest and industrious.
Wherever the Amil goes they go with him, and are a terrible scourge to the country--by far the worst that the country suffers under.
The first thing necessary to effect a reform is--to form out of these disorderly and useless bodies a few efficient regiments; do away with the purveyance system, on which, they are now provided with fuel, fodder, carriage, &c.; pay them liberally and punctually; supply them with good clothing, arms, accoutrements, and ammunition; and concentrate them at five or six points in good cantonments, whence they can move quickly to any part where their services may be required. No more than are indispensably required should attend the local authorities in their circuits. All the rest should remain in cantonments till called for on emergency; and when so called for, they should have all the conveyance they require, and the supplies provided for them--the conveyance at fixed rates, and the supplies at the market price, in good bazaars. For police duties and revenue collections there should be a sufficient body of men kept up, and at the disposal of the revenue and police authorities. The military establishments should be under the control of a different authority.
But all this would be of no avail unless the corps were under able commanders, relieved from the fear of Court favourites, and under a Commander-in-Chief who understood his duty and had influence enough to secure all that the troops required to render them efficient, and not a child of seven years of age.
Several of the villages of Sundeela are held by Syud zumeendars, who are peaceable and industrious subjects, and were generally better protected than others under the influence of Chowdhere, Sheik Hushmut Allee, of Sundeela, an agricultural capitalist and landholder, whom no local authority could offend with impunity. His proper trade was to aid landholders of high and low degree, by becoming surety for their punctual payment of the Government demand, and advancing the instalments of that demand himself when they had not the means, and thereby saving them from the visits of the local authorities and their rapacious and disorderly troops: but in an evil hour he ventured to extend his protection a little further, and, to save them from the oppressions of an unscrupulous contractor, he undertook to manage the district himself, and make good all the Government demand upon it. He was unable to pay all that he had bound himself to pay.
His brother was first seized by the troops and taken to Lucknow. He languished under the discipline to which he was there subjected, and when on the point of death from what his friends call a _broken heart_, and the Government authorities _cholera-morbus_, he was released. He died immediately after his return home, and Hushmut Allee was then seized and taken to Lucknow, where he is now confined.
The people here lament his absence as a great misfortune to the district, as he was the only one among them who ever had authority and influence, united with a fellow-feeling for the people, and a disposition to promote their welfare and happiness.*
[* Hushmut Allee is still in confinement, but under the troops at Sundeela, and not at Lucknow. July 20, 1851.]
END OF VOL. 1.