The buildings in which they are lodged should all have thatched or tiled roofs, through which the hot and impure air, which has been already breathed, may pass, and be replaced within by the pure air of the atmosphere around, instead of roofs of pucka-masonry which confine this air to be breathed over again by the people within; and double or quadruple the space now allowed to each man should be given. At the cost now incurred in providing them with this insufficient room, under roofs of pucka-masonry, they could be provided with four times the space, under roofs of thatch and tiles, which would be so much more safe and suitable.
The state of the Bharwara district may be illustrated by that of one of its four divisions or mahals, Alleegunge. In the last year of Hakeem Mehudee's role (1818), this division was assessed at one hundred and thirty-eight thousand rupees, with the full consent of the people, who were all thriving and happy. The assessment was, indeed, made by the heads of the principal Ahbun families of the district, with Mahommed Hussan Khan as chief assessor. One hundred and thirty-two thousand were collected, and six thousand were remitted in consequence of a partial failure of the crops. Last year, by force and violence, the landholders of this division were made to agree to an assessment upon the lands in tillage of ten thousand and five hundred rupees, of which not six thousand can be collected. The other three divisions are in the same state. Not one-tenth of the land is in tillage, nor are one-tenth of the villages peopled. The soil is really the finest that I have seen in India; and I have seen no part of India in which so small a portion of the surface is unfit for tillage. The moisture rises to the surface just as it is required; and a tolerable crop is got by a poor man who cannot afford to keep a plough, and merely burns down the grass and digs the surface with his spade, or pickaxe, before he sows the seed. Generally, however, the tillage, in the portion cultivated, is very good. The surface is ploughed and cross-ploughed from six to twenty, or even thirty, times in the season; and the harrow and roller are often applied till every clod is pulverized to dust.
The test of first-rate preparation for the seed is that a ghurra, or earthen pitcher, full of water, let fall upon the field from a man's head, shall not break. The clods in the muteear soil are so pulverised only in the fields that are to be irrigated, or to the surface of which moisture rises from below as the weather becomes warm. The people say that it does so rise when required in land even a good way from the forest, and that the clods are, in consequence, not necessary to retain it. This is the only part of India in which I have known the people take ratoon, or second crops of sugar-cane from the same roots; and the farmers and cultivators tell me that the second crop is almost as good as the first. The fields in tillage are well supplied with manure, which is very abundant where so large a portion of the surface is waste; and affords such fine pasture. They are also well watered, for the water is near the surface, and in the tight muteear soil a kutcha well, or well without masonry, will stand good for twenty seasons. To make pucka-wells, or wells lined with burnt bricks and cement, would be costly. Each well of this kind costs about one hundred rupees. The kutcha-wells, which are lined with nothing, or with thick ropes of twigs and straw, cost only from five to ten rupees. The people tell me that oppression and poverty have made them less fastidious than they were formerly; that formerly it was considered disgraceful to plough with buffaloes, or to use them in carts, but they are now in common use for both purposes; that vast numbers of the Kunojee Brahmins and others, who could not formerly drive their own ploughs, drive them now; and that all will in time condescend to do so, as the penalties of higher payments with and for daughters in marriage cease to be exacted from men whose necessities have become so pressing.
March 6, 1850. **—Halted at Kurunpoor, where the gentlemen of my camp shot some floricans, hares, partridges, and a porcupine along the bank of the small river Ole, which flows along from north-west to south-east within three miles of Kurunpoor.
[** Transcriber's Note: The diary date jumps from the previous entry of February 5, 1850, at Kurrunpoor. This is a mistake in the date, as at the start of Chapter V the diary jumps back to February 14, 1850.]
March 7, 1850.—Teekur, twelve miles. The road, for three miles, lay through grass jungle to the border of the Khyrabad district, whence the plain is covered with cultivation, well studded with trees, clusters of bamboos, and well peopled with villages, all indicating better management. A great many fields are reduced to the fine dust above described to receive the sugar-cane, which is planted in February. The soil is muteear, but has in many parts become impaired by over-cropping. The people told me that the crops were not so rich as they ought to be, from the want of manure, which is much felt here, where there is so little pasture for cattle. The wheat has almost everywhere received an orange tint from the geerwa, or blight, which covers the leaves, but, happily, has not as yet settled upon the stalks to feed on the sap. This blight, the cultivators say, arises from the late and heavy rain they have had, and the easterly wind that prevailed for a few days. The geerwa is a red fungus, which, when it adheres to the stems, thrusts its roots through the pores of the epidermis and robs the grain of the sap as it ascends. When easterly winds and sultry weather prevail, the pores of the epidermis appear to be more opened and exposed to the inroads of these fungi than at other times. If the wind continue westerly for a fortnight more, little injury may be sustained; but should easterly winds and sultry weather prevail, the greater part may be lost. "We cultivators and landholders," said Bukhtawur Sing, "are always in dread of something, and can never feel quite easy: if little rain falls, we complain of the want of more; if a good deal comes down, we are in dread of this blight, and never dare to congratulate ourselves on the prospect of good returns." To the justice and wisdom of this observation all assented.*
[* Westerly winds and cold weather prevailed and the blight did little apparent injury to the crops; but the wheat crops, generally, over Oude and the adjoining districts, was shrivelled and deficient in substance. It had "run to stalk" from the excess of rain.]
The landholders of this purgunnah are chiefly Janwar Rajpoots. Kymara, a fine village, through which we passed, about five miles from Kurunpoor, is the residence of the present head of this family, Rajah Ajeet Sing. He has a small fort close by, in which he is now preparing to defend himself against the King's forces. The poor old man came out with all his village community to meet and talk with me, in the hope that I might interpose to protect him. He is weak in mind and body, has no son, and, having lately lost his only brother and declared heir to the estate, his cousins and more distant relations are scrambling for the inheritance. The usual means of violence, collusion, and intrigue have been had recourse to. The estate is in the Huzoor Tuhseel, and not under the jurisdiction of the contractor of Khyrabad. The old man seemed care-worn and very wretched, and told me that the contractor, whom I should meet at Teekur, had only yesterday received orders from Court to use all his means to oust him from possession, and make over the estate to his cousin, Jodha Sing, who had lately left him in consequence of a dispute, after having, since the death of his brother, aided him in the management of the estate; that he had always paid his revenues to the King punctually, and last year he owed a balance of only one hundred and sixty rupees, when Anrod Sing, his distant relative, wanted him to declare his younger brother, Dirj Bijee Sing, his heir to the estate, in lieu of Jodha Sing.
This he refused to do, and Anrod Sing came, with a force of two thousand armed men, supported by a detachment from Captain Barlow's regiment, and laid siege to his fort, on the pretence that he was required to give security for the more punctual payment of the revenue. To defend himself, he was obliged to call in the aid of his clan and neighbours, and expend all that he had or could borrow, and, at last, constrained to accept Anrod Sing's security, for no merchants would lend money to a poor man in a state of siege. Anrod Sing had now gone off to Lucknow, and bribed the person in charge of the Huzoor Tuhseel, Gholam Ruza Khan, one of the most corrupt men in the corrupt Court of Lucknow, to get an order issued by the Minister to have him turned out, and the estate made over to Jhoda Sing, from whom he would soon get it on pretence of accumulated balances, and make it over, in perpetuity, to his brother, Dirj Bijee Sing. In this attempt, the old man said, a good many lives must be lost and crops destroyed, for his friends would not let him fall without a struggle.*
[* The old man has been attacked and turned out with the loss of some lives, in spite of the Resident's remonstrance, and the estate has been made over to Jodha Sing, on the security for the payment of the revenue of Anrod Sing. Jodha Sing is, naturally, of weak intellect; and Anrod Sing will soon have him turned out as an incompetent defaulter, and get the estate for himself, or for his younger brother. Luckily Anrod Sing and Lonee Sing, of Mitholee, are at daggers-drawn about some villages, which Anrod Sing has seized, and to which Lonee Sing thinks he has a better right. Their dread of each other will be useful to the Government and the people.]