The King declared that he had never given Captain Bird any such promise. Captain Bird then repeated to his Majesty the conversation which had taken place on that occasion. The King seemed to be staggered; but the minister came to his aid, and said—"that his Majesty had ascertained from Sadik Allee himself, that Gholam Ruza was not an accomplice in that affair." Captain Bird replied—"that the King had told him, that the deception had been so fully proved, that they were speechless; and that his Majesty had spit in their faces." The King said "not in Gholam Ruza's. His sister and Kotub Allee are alone guilty." Captain Bird urged, that all were alike guilty, and he besought the King to fulfil his promise, saying,—"that his, Captain Bird's, name was at stake; that if the parties were not removed, the whole city would say, that the King had bribed him, and bought off his promise." The King replied, "This is all nonsense; do you wish me to swear that Gholam Ruza is innocent, and that I never gave the promise you mention?" and, calling the minister, he placed his right hand on his head, and said,—"I swear, as if this was my son's head, and by God, that I believe Gholam Ruza to be entirely innocent; and that I never promised to turn him out, or to send him across the Ganges." Captain Bird then heard a movement of feet in the next room behind the closed doors. He was horrified; but returning to the charge, said, "Your Majesty has, at any rate, acknowledged the guilt of Gholam Ruza's sister, and that of Khotub Allee; pray fulfil your promise on the guilty." The King said—"When absent from my sight, they are as far off as across one hundred rivers. I know they are intriguers, and shall keep my eyes upon them." Captain Bird said—"I have reported the circumstances of the case thus far to the Resident. Your Majesty has made me a participator in the breaking of your word. I have told Colonel Sleeman you would turn these men out." The King said—"This case has reference only to my house—it has no connection with the Government; but if you wish to use force, take me also by the beard, and pull me from my throne!" Captain Bird said—"I pray your Majesty to recollect how often, when force might have been used, under your own sign-manual and seal, on these fiddlers interfering in State affairs, the Resident has hesitated to put your written permission for their removal into force; and now who can be your friend, or save you from any danger, which may hereafter threaten your life or your well-being? I must, of course, report all to the Resident." The minister now said—"Yes, report to the Resident that the King has changed his mind, broken his word, and will not fulfil his promise; and ask for permission to employ direct force for the removal of these men: see if he will give permission." Captain Bird replied, "that any orders he received from the Resident would certainly be carried, into effect; but if his Majesty's own acknowledgment of the deceitfulness of these men, and their intriguing rascality were not sufficient to induce him to remove them—if the King set so little value on his promise—a promise now known to the whole city, and which he must in self-defence now speak openly of, he foresaw the speedy downfall of the kingdom. Who, he asked, will subject themselves to be deceived in an endeavour to prop it up by the removal of those who were living on its heart's blood, or be made liars by reporting promises never to be fulfilled?" Thus ended this interview.
The next day Sadik Allee had a dress of honour conferred upon him, and an increase of one hundred rupees a-month made to his salary; and Gholam Ruza, and his relative the fiddler, Anees-od Dowla, were seated behind his Majesty in his carriage-and-four, and paraded through the city, as in full possession of his favour. After the King had alighted from the carriage at the palace, the coachman drove the two singers to their apartments in the Mukbura, seated as before in the khuwas, or hind seat. [On the 25th of May 1850, the King caused the chief singer, Gholam Ruza, his father, Nathoo, his sister, and her husband, Dummun Khan, Gholam Hyder Khan, Kotub Allee, his brother, Sahib Allee, and the females of his family, in all fourteen persons, to be seized and confined in prison. On the 2nd of June, all but Gholam Ruza and Dummun Khan were transported across the Ganges into British territory; and, on the 23rd of July, these two men were transported in the same manner. The immediate cause of the King's anger was the discovery that his divorced and banished wife, Surafrazmahal, had actually come back, and remained concealed for seven days and seven nights in the palace, in the apartments of the chief singer, Gholam Ruza. They were all made to disgorge the Company's notes and jewels found upon them, but the King visited Gholam Ruza the day before his departure, and treated him with great kindness, and seemed very sorry to part with him.]
On the 10th, I had written to Captain Bird to mention the distinction which he appeared to have overlooked in his zeal to get the fiddlers removed. The offence with which these persons stood charged in this case was a personal affront to the King, or an affront to his understanding, and not any interference with the administration of the Government; and the first Assistant was requested by the Resident to wait upon his Majesty, merely with a view to encourage him in his laudable resolution to banish them, and to offer his aid in doing so should his Majesty manifest any wish to have it; and not to demand their punishment on the part of the British Government. In the one case, if the King promised to punish the offenders and relented and forgave them, we could only regret his weakness; but in the other, if he promised to punish them and failed to do so, we should consider it due to the character of our Government to insist upon the fulfilment of his promise. On the evening of the 11th I got the above report of his interview with the King from Captain Bird; and, on the 12th, I wrote to tell him, that I considered him to have acted very indiscreetly; that he had brought this vexation and mortification upon himself by his overweening confidence in his personal influence over the King; that he ought to have waited for instructions from me, or at least for a reply from me to his letter, regarding the former interview at Court; that I could not now give him the support he required, as I could neither demand that his requisitions should be complied with, nor tell the King that I approved of them that he had been authorized by me to act on his own discretion in any case of great emergency, but this could not be considered of such a character, for no evil or inconvenience was to be apprehended from a day or two's delay, since the question really was, whether his Majesty should have a dozen fiddlers or only ten.
In the beginning of September 1850, the King became enamoured of one of his mother's waiting-maids, and demanded her in marriage. See was his mother's favourite bedfellow, and she would not part with her. The King became angry, and to soothe him his mother told him that it was purely out of regard for him and his children that she refused to part with this young woman; that she had a "sampun," or the coiled figure of a snake in the hair on the back of her neck. No man, will purchase a horse with such a mark, or believe that any family can be safe in which a horse or mare with such a mark is kept. His mother told him, that if he cohabited with a woman having such a mark, he and all his children must perish. The King said that he might probably have, among his many wives, some with marks of this kind; and that this might account for his frequent attacks of palpitation of the heart. "No doubt," said the old Queen Dowager; "we have long thought so; but your Majesty gets into such a towering passion when we venture to speak of your wives, that we have been afraid to give expression to our thoughts and fears." "Perhaps," said the King, "I may owe to this the death, lately, of my poor son, the heir-apparent." "We have long thought so," replied his mother. The chief eunuch, Busheer, was forthwith ordered to inspect the back of the necks of all save that of the chief consort, the mother of the late and present heir-apparent. He reported that he had found the fatal mark upon the necks of no less than eight of the King's wives, Nishat-mahal, Koorshed-mahal, Sooleeman-mahal, Huzrut-mahal, Dara Begum, Buree Begum, Chotee Begum, and Huzrut Begum. The chief priest was summoned, and the divorce, from the whole eight, pronounced forthwith; and the ladies were ordered to depart with all that they had saved while in the palace. Some of their friends suggested to his Majesty, that Mahommedans were but unskilful judges in such matters, and that a Court of Brahmins should be assembled, as they had whole volumes devoted exclusively to this science. The most learned were accordingly collected, and they declared that though there were marks resembling in some degree the sampun, it was of no importance; and the evil it threatened might be averted by singeing the head of the snake with a hot iron. The ladies were very indignant, and six of them insisted upon leaving the palace, in virtue of the divorce. Two only consented to remain, the Buree Begum and Chota Begum.
December 14, 1849.—Came on twelve miles to Gonda. The country well studded with groves and fine single trees; the soil naturally fertile, and water near the surface. Cultivation good about Gonda, and about some of the villages along the road it is not bad; but there is nowhere any sugar-cane to be seen beyond a small garden patch. The country is so wretchedly stocked with cattle that little manure is available for tillage.
The Bulrampore Rajah, a lively, sensible, and active young man, joined me this morning, and rode along by the side of my elephant, with the capitalist, Ramdut Pandee, the Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, and old Bukhtawar Sing, the brother of the late Dursun Sing, whom I have often mentioned in this Diary. Rajah Bukhtawar Sing is the King's Mohtamin, or Quartermaster-General of the Resident's' camp. The Rajah of Toolseepore also, who has been ousted by his son from his estate, joined me last night; but he was not well enough to ride with me. Dogs, hawks, and panthers attend for sport, but they afford little or no amusement. Hawking is a very dull and very cruel sport. A person must become insensible to the sufferings of the most beautiful and most inoffensive of the brute creation before he can feel any enjoyment in it. The cruelty lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the hawks. I have ordered all these hunting animals to return to Lucknow.
Although the personal character of the Toolseepoor Rajah is not respected, that of his son is much worse; and the Bulrampoor Rajah and other large landholders in the neighbourhood would unite and restore him to the possession of his estate, but the Nazim is held responsible for their not moving in the matter, in order that the influential persons about the Court may have the plucking of it at their leisure. The better to insure this, two companies of one of the King's regiments have been lately sent out with two guns, to see that the son is not molested in the possession. The father was restored to his estate in 1850, and the son fled again to the Goruckpoor district. He became reconciled to his father some months after, through the mediation of the magistrate, Mr. Chester, and returned to Toolseepoor. The father and son, however, distrusted each other too much to live long together on amicable terms, and the son has gone off again to Goruckpoor.
The Toolseepoor estate extends along from east to west for about one hundred miles, in a belt of from nine to twelve miles wide, upon the southern border of that part of the Oude Tarae forest which we took from Nepaul in 1815, and made over to the Oude Government by the treaty of the 11th May 1816, in lieu of the one crore of rupees which our Government borrowed from Oude for the conduct of that war. The rent-roll of Toolseepoor is now from two to three lacs of rupees a-year; but it pays to the Oude Government a revenue of only one lac and five thousand, over and above gratuities to influential officers. The estate comprises that of Bankee, which was held by a Rajah Kunsa. Dan Bahader, the father of the present Rajah of Toolseepoor, attacked him one night in 1832, put him and some two hundred and fifty of his followers and family to death, and absorbed the estate. Mahngoo, the brother of Kunsa, escaped and sought redress from the Oude Durbar; but he had no money and could get no redress; and, in despair, he went off to seek employment in Nepaul, and died soon after. Dan Bahader, enriched by the pillage of Bankee, came to Lucknow, and purchased permission to incorporate Bankee with his old estate of Toolseepoor.
Khyreeghur and Kunchunpoor, on the western border of that forest, were made over by us to Oude at the same time, as part of the cession. They had been ceded to our Government by the treaty of 1801, at an estimated value of two hundred and ten thousand, but, up to 1816, they had never yielded to us fifty thousand rupees a-year. They had, however, formerly yielded from two to three lacs of rupees a-year to the Oude Government, and under good management may do so again; but, at present, Oude draws from them a revenue of only sixteen thousand, and that with difficulty. The rent-roll, however, exceeds two hundred thousand, and may, in a few years, amount to double that sum, as population and tillage are rapidly extending.
The holders of Khyreegur and Kunchunpoor are always in a state of resistance against the Oude Government, and cannot be coerced into the payment of more than their sixteen thousand rupees a-year; and hundreds of lives have been sacrificed in the collection of this sum. The climate is so bad that no people from the open country can venture into it for more than four months in the year—from the beginning of December to the end of March. The Oude Government occasionally sends in a body of troops to enforce the payment of an increased demand during these four months. The landholders and cultivators retire before them, and they are sure to be driven out by the pestilence, with great loss of life, in a few months; and the landholders refuse to pay anything for some years after, on the ground that all their harvests were destroyed by the troops. The rest of the Tarae lands ceded had little of tillage or population at that time, and no government could be less calculated than that of Oude to make the most of its capabilities. It had, therefore, in a fiscal point of view, but a poor equivalent for its crore of rupees; but it gained a great political advantage in confining the Nepaulese to the hills on its border. Before this arrangement took place there used to be frequent disputes, and occasionally serious collisions between the local authorities about boundaries, which were apt to excite the angry feelings of the sovereigns of both States, and to render the interposition of the paramount power indispensable.