Dooneeaput succeeded to the reeasut on the death of his uncle, the Rajah, who died without issue; and he bestowed portions of the estate on his brothers, Burear and Zubur Sing, which their descendants enjoy, but which do not go to the eldest son, by the law of primogeniture. He was succeeded by his brother, Sookraj, whose grandson, Madhoo Persaud, now reigns as Rajah, and has the undivided possession of the lands belonging to this branch. All the descendants of his grandfather, Sookraj, and their widows and orphans, have a right to protection and support from him, and to nothing more. Jydut, who now holds the lands, yielding forty thousand rupees a-year, called upon me, this morning, and gave me this history of his family. The Rajah himself is in camp, and came to visit me this afternoon.
It is interesting and pleasing to see a large, well-controlled camp, moving in a long line through a narrow road or pathway, over plains, covered with so rich a variety of crops, and studded with such magnificent evergreen trees. The solitary mango-tree, in a field of corn, seems to exult in its position-to grow taller and spread wider its branches and rich foliage, in situations where they can be seen to so much advantage. The peepul and bargut trees, which, when entire, are still more ornamental, are everywhere torn to pieces and disfigured by the camels and elephants, buffaloes and bullocks, that feed upon their foliage and tender branches. There are a great many mhowa, tamarind, and other fine trees, upon which they do not feed, to assist the mango in giving beauty to the landscape.
The Korwar Rajah, Madhoo Persaud, a young man of about twenty-two years of age, came in the evening, and confirmed what his relative, Jydut, had told me of the rule which required that his lands should remain undivided with his eldest son, while those which are held by Jydut, and his other relatives, should be subdivided among all the sons of the holder. This rule is more necessary in Oude than elsewhere, to preserve a family and its estate from the grasp of its neighbours and Government officers. When there happens to be no heir left to the portion of the estate which has been cut off, it is re-annexed to the estate; and the head of the family frequently anticipates the event, by murdering or imprisoning the heir or incumbent, and seizing upon the lands. Another Rajah, of the same name, Mahdoo Persaud, of Amethee, in Salone, has lately seized upon the estate of Shahgur, worth twenty thousand rupees a-year, which had been cut off from the Amethee estate, and enjoyed by a collateral branch of the family for several generations. He holds the proprietor, Bulwunt Sing, in prison, in irons, and would soon make away with him were the Oude Government to think it worth while to inquire after him. He has seized upon another portion, Ramgur, held by another branch of the family, worth six thousand rupees a-year, and crushed all the proprietors. This is the way in which estates, once broken up, are reconsolidated in Oude, under energetic and unscrupulous men. Of course when they think it worth while to do so, they purchase the collusion of the local authorities of the day, by promising to pay the revenues, which the old proprietors paid during their tenure of office. The other barons do not interfere, unless they happen to be connected by marriage with the ousted proprietors, or otherwise specially bound, by interest and honour, to defend them against the grasp of the head of their family. Many struggles of this kind are taking place every season in Oude.
[CHAPTER IV.]
Recross the Goomtee river—Sultanpoor Cantonments—Number of persons begging redress of wrongs, and difficulty of obtaining it in Oude—Apathy of the Sovereign—Incompetence and unfitness of his Officers—Sultanpoor, healthy and well suited for Troops—Chandour, twelve miles distant, no less so—lands of their weaker neighbours absorbed by the family of Rajah Dursun Sing, by fraud, violence, and collusion; but greatly improved—Difficulty attending attempt to restore old Proprietors—Same absorptions have been going on in all parts of Oude—and the same difficulty to be everywhere encountered—Soils in the district, mutteear, doomutteea, bhoor, oosur—Risk at which lands are tilled under Landlords opposed to their Government—Climate of Oude more invigorating than that of Malwa—Captain Magness's Regiment—Repair of artillery guns—Supply of grain to its bullocks—Civil establishment of the Nazim—Wolves—Dread of killing them among Hindoos—Children preserved by them in their dens, and nurtured.
December 22, 1849.—Sultanpoor, eight miles. Recrossed the Goomtee river, close under the Cantonments, over a bridge of boats prepared for the purpose, and encamped on the parade-ground. The country over which we came was fertile and well cultivated. For some days we have seen and heard a good many religions mendicants, both Mahommedans and Hindoos, but still very few lame, blind, and otherwise helpless persons, asking charity. The most numerous and distressing class of beggars that importune me, are those who beg redress for their wrongs, and a remedy for their grievances,—"their name, indeed, is Legion," and their wrongs and grievances are altogether without remedy, under the present government and inveterately vicious system of administration. It is painful to listen to all these complaints, and to have to refer the sufferers for redress to authorities who want both the power and the will to afford it; especially when one knows that a remedy for almost every evil is hoped for from a visit such as the poor people are now receiving from the Resident. He is expected "to wipe the tears from off all faces;" and feels that he can wipe them from hardly any. The reckless disregard shown by the depredators of all classes and degrees to the sufferings of their victims, whatever be the cause of discontent or object of pursuit, is lamentable. I have every day scores of petitions delivered to me "with quivering lip and tearful eye," by persons who have been plundered of all they possessed, had their dearest relatives murdered or tortured to death, and their habitations burnt to the ground, by gangs of ruffians, under landlords of high birth and pretensions, whom they had never wronged or offended; some, merely because they happened to have property, which the ruffians wished to take—others, because they presumed to live and labour upon lands which they coveted, or deserted, and wished to have left waste. In these attacks, neither age, nor sex, nor condition are spared. The greater part of the leaders of these gangs of ruffians are Rajpoot landholders, boasting descent from the sun and moon, or from the demigods, who figure in the Hindoo religious fictions of the Poorans. There are, however, a great many Mahommedans at the head of similar gangs. A landholder of whatever degree, who is opposed to his government from whatever cause, considers himself in a state of war', and he considers a state of war to authorize his doing all those things which he is forbidden to do in a state of peace.
Unless the sufferer happens to be a native officer or sipahee of our army, who enjoys the privilege of urging his claims through the Resident, it is a cruel mockery to refer him for redress to any existing local authority. One not only feels that it is so, but sees, that the sufferer thinks that he must know it to be so. No such authority considers it to be any part of his duty to arrest evil-doers, and inquire into and redress wrongs suffered by individuals, or families, or village communities. Should he arrest such people, he would have to subsist and accommodate them at his own cost, or to send them to Lucknow, with the assurance that they would in a few days or a few weeks purchase their way out again, in spite of the clearest proofs of the murders, robberies, torturings, dishonourings, house-burning, &c., which they have committed. No sentence, which any one local authority could pass on such offenders, would be recognised by any other authority in the State, as valid or sufficient to justify him in receiving and holding them in confinement for a single day. The local authorities, therefore, either leave the wrong-doers unmolested, with the understanding that they are to abstain from doing any such wrong within their jurisdictions as may endanger or impede the collection of revenues during their period of office, or release them with that understanding after they have squeezed all they can out of them. The wrong-doers can so abstain, and still be able to murder, rob, torture, dishonour, and burn, upon a pretty large scale; and where they are so numerous, and so ready to unite for purposes "offensive and defensive," and the local authorities so generally connive at or quietly acquiesce all their misdeeds, any attempt on the part of an honest or overzealous individual to put them down would be sure to result in his speedy and utter ruin!
To refer such sufferers to the authorities at Lucknow would be a still more cruel mockery. The present sovereign never hears a complaint or reads a petition or report of any kind. He is entirely taken up in the pursuit of his personal gratifications. He has no desire to be thought to take any interest whatever in public affairs; and is altogether regardless of the duties and responsibilities of his high office. He lives, exclusively, in the society of fiddlers, eunuchs, and women: he has done so since his childhood, and is likely to do so to the last. His disrelish for any other society has become inveterate: he cannot keep awake in any other. In spite of average natural capacity, and more than average facility in the cultivation of light literature, or at least "de faire des petits vers de sa focon," his understanding has become so emasculated, that he is altogether unfit for the conduct of his domestic, much less his public, affairs. He sees occasionally his prime minister, who takes care to persuade him that he does all that a King ought to do; and nothing whatever of any other minister. He holds no communication whatever with brothers, uncles, cousins, or any of the native gentlemen at Lucknow, or the landed or official aristocracy of the country. He sometimes admits a few poets or poetasters to hear and praise his verses, and commands the unwilling attendance of some of his relations, to witness and applaud the acting of some of his own silly comedies, on the penalty of forfeiting their stipends; but any one who presumes to approach him, even in his rides or drives, with a petition for justice, is instantly clapped into prison, or otherwise severely punished.
His father and grandfather, while on the throne, used to see the members of the royal family and aristocracy of the city in Durbar once a-day, or three or four times a-week, and have all petitions and reports read over in their own presence. They dictated the orders, and their seal was affixed to them in their own presence, bearing the inscription molahiza shud, "it has been seen." The seal was then replaced in the casket, which was kept by one confidential servant, Muzd-od Dowlah, while the key was confided to another. Documents were thus read and orders passed upon them twice a-day-once in the morning, and once again in the evening; and, on such occasions, all heads of departments were present. The present King continued this system for a short time, but he soon got tired of it, and made over seal and all to the minister, to do what he liked with them; and discontinued altogether the short Durbar, or levees, which his father, grandfather, and all former sovereigns had held—before they entered on the business of the day—with the heads of departments and secretaries, and at which all the members of the royal family and aristocracy of the city attended, to pay their respects to their sovereign; and soon ceased altogether to see the heads of departments and secretaries, to hear orders read, and to ask questions about state affairs.