Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, who was on his horse beside my elephant, said, "They are all punished in this world, and will, no doubt, be punished still more in the next. Scarcely any of the heads of these landed aristocracy are the legitimate sons of their predecessors; they are all adopted, or born of women of inferior grade. The heads of families who commit or tolerate such atrocities become leprous, blind, deaf or dumb, or are carried off in early life by some terrible disease. Hardly any of them attain a good old age, nor can they boast of an untainted line of ancestors like other men. If they get sons, they commonly die young. They unite themselves to women of inferior castes for want of daughters in families of their own ranks, and there is hardly a family among these proud Rajpoots unstained by such connections.* Even the reptile Pausies become Rajpoots by giving their daughters to Powars and other Rajpoot families, when by robbery and murder they have acquired wealth and landed property. The sister of Gunga Buksh, of Kasimgunge, was married to the Rajah of Etondeea, a Powar Rajpoot in Mahona; and the present Rajah—Jode Sing—is her son. Gunga Buksh is a Pausee, but the family call themselves Rawats, and are considered to be Rajpoots, since they have acquired landed possessions by the murder and ruin of the old proprietors. They all delight in murder and rapine—the curse of God is upon them, sir, for the murder of their own innocent children!"
[* A great number of girls are purchased and stolen from our territories, brought into Oude, and sold to Rajpoot families, as wives for their sons, on the assurance, that they are of the same or higher caste, and that their parents have been induced to part with them from poverty. A great many of our native officers and sipahees, who marry while home on furlough, and are pressed for time, get such wives. Some of their neighbours are always bribed by the traders in such girls, to pledge themselves for the purity of their blood. If they ever find out the imposition, they say nothing about it.]
"When I was sent out to inquire into the case of Brigadier Webber, who had been attacked and robbed while travelling in his palkee, with relays of bearers, from Lucknow to Seetapoor, I entered a house to make some inquiries, and found the mistress weeping. I asked the cause, and she told me that she had had four children, and lost all—that three of them were girls, who had been put to death in infancy, and the last was a fine boy, who had just died! I told her that this was a just punishment from God for the iniquities of her family, and that I would neither wash my hands nor drink water under her roof. I never do under the roof of any family in which such a cruel practice prevails. These Rajpoots are all a bad set, sir. When men murder their own children, how can they scruple to murder other people? The curse of God is upon them, sir.
"In the district of Byswara," he continued, "through which we have just passed, you will find at least fifty thousand men armed to fight against each other, or their government and its officers: in such a space, under the Honourable Company's dominion, you would not find one thousand armed men of the same class. Why is this, but because you do not allow such crimes to be perpetrated? Why do you go on acquiring dominion over one country after another with your handful of European troops and small force of native sipahees, but because God sees that your rule is just, and that you have an earnest desire to benefit the people and improve the countries you take?"
He told me that he had charge of the cattle under Saadut Allee Khan when Lord Lake took the field at the first siege of Bhurtpoor; that his master lent his Lordship five hundred elephants, eight thousand artillery bullocks, and five hundred horses; that two hundred and fifty of the elephants returned; but whether any of the bullocks and horses came back or not he could not say.
The country we came over to-day is well studded with groves and fine single trees, but the soil is generally of the lighter doomuteea kind, which requires much labour and outlay in water and manure. The irrigation is all from wells and pools. In the villages we came through, we saw but few of the sipahees of our army home on furlough; they are chiefly from the Byswara and Bunoda districts. We found our tents pitched upon a high and dry spot, with a tight soil of clay and sand. After the heavy rain we have had, it looked as if no shower had fallen upon it for an age. The mud walls of the houses we saw on the road were naked, as usual. The rapacity of the King's troops is everywhere, directly or indirectly, the cause of this: and till they are better provided and disciplined the houses in the towns and villages can never improve.
The commandant, Imdad Hoseyn, of the Akberee or Telinga Regiment, on duty with the Amil of the Poorwa district, in which our camp was last pitched, followed me a few miles this morning to beg that I would try to prevail upon the Durbar to serve out clothing for his corps. He told me that the last clothing it got from the Government was on the occasion of Lord Hastings' visit to Lucknow, some thirty-three years ago, in 1817; that many orders had been given since that time for new clothing, but there was always some one about Court to counteract them, from malice or selfishness; that his father, Zakir Allee, commanded the corps when it got the last clothing, and he succeeded him many years ago. The Telinga Regiments are provided with arms, accoutrements, and clothing by Government. The sipahees formerly got five rupees a-month, but for only ten months in the year; they now get four rupees and three and a-half annas a-month for all the twelve months. 'He is, he says, obliged to take a great many sufarashies, or men put in by persons of influence at Court, out of favour, or for the purpose of sharing in their pay; and, under the deductions and other disadvantages to which they are liable, he could get no good men to enlist. The corps, in consequence, has a wretched appearance, and certainly could not be made formidable to an enemy. The "Akbery" 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 principality. 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 classes. The advantages would hardly counterbalance the disadvantages. When I apologize to the peasantry for the unavoidable trespasses 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 passed 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 illustrative 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 pass it except in strong bodies.