Infanticide--Nekomee Rajpoots--Fallows in Oude created by disorders--
Their cause and effect--Tillage goes on in the midst of sanguinary
conflicts--Runjeet Sing, of Kutteearee--Mahomdee district--White
Ants--Traditional decrease in the fertility of the Oude soil--Risks
to which cultivators are exposed--Obligations which these risks
impose upon them--Infanticide--The Amil of Mahomdee's narrow escape--
An infant disinterred and preserved by the father after having been
buried alive--Insecurity of life and property--Beauty of the surface
of the country, and richness of its foliage--Mahomdee district--State
and recent history of--Relative fertility of British and Oude soil--
Native notions of our laws and their administration--Of the value of
evidence in our Courts--Infanticide--Boys only saved--Girls destroyed
in Oude--The priests who give absolution for the crime abhorred by
the people of all other classes--Lands in our districts becoming more
and more exhausted from over-cropping--Probable consequences to the
Government and people of India--Political and social error of
considering land private property--Hakeem Mehndee and subsequent
managers of Mahomdee--Frauds on the King in charges for the keep of
animals--Kunojee Brahmins--Unsuccessful attempt to appropriate the
lands of weaker neighbours--Gokurnath, on the border of the Tarae--
The sakhoo or saul trees of the forest.
Lalta Sing, of the Nikomee Rajpoot tribe, whom I had lately an
opportunity of assisting, for his good services in arresting outlays
[outlaws ?] from our territories, has just been to pay his respects.
Our next encamping ground is to be on his estate of Kurheya and Para.
He tells me that very few families of his tribe now destroy their
female infants; that tradition ascribes the origin of this evil to the
practice of the Mahommedan emperors of Delhi of demanding daughters
in marriage from the Rajpoot princes of the country; that some of
them were too proud to comply with the demand, and too weak to resist
it in any other way than that of putting all their female infants to
death. This is not impossible. He says that he believes the
_Dhankuries_, whom I have described above to be really the only tribe
of Rajpoots among whom no family destroys its infant daughters in
Oude; that all tribes of Rajpoots get money with the daughters they
take from tribes a shade lower in caste, to whom they cannot give
theirs in return; and pay money with the daughters they give in
marriage to tribes a shade higher, who will not give their daughters
to them in return. The native collector of Shahabad, a gentlemanly
Mahommedan, came out two miles to pay his respects on my approach,
and we met on a large space of land, lying waste, while all around
was covered with rich crops. I asked, "Pray why is this land left
waste?" "It is, sir, altogether unproductive." "Why is this? It seems
to me to be just as good as the rest around, which produces such fine
crops." "It is called _khubtee_--slimy, and is said to be altogether
barren." "I assure you, sir," said Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, "that it is
good land, and capable of yielding good crops, under good tillage, or
it would not produce the fine grass you see upon it. You must not ask
men like this about the kinds and qualities of soils for they really
know nothing whatever about them: they are _city gentlemen's sons_,
who get into high places, and pass their lives in them without
learning anything but how to screw money out of such as we are, who
are born upon the soil, and depend upon its produce all our lives for
subsistence. Ask him, sir, whether either he or any of his ancestors
ever knew anything of the difference between one soil and another."
The collector acknowledged the truth of what the old man said, and
told me that he really knew nothing about the matter, and had merely
repeated what the people told him. This is true with regard to the
greater part of the local revenue officers employed in Oude. "One of
these city gentlemen, sir," said. Bukhtawar Sing, "when sent out as a
revenue collector, in Saadut Allee's time, was asked by his
assistants what they were to do with a crop of sugar-cane which had
been attached for balances, and was becoming too ripe, replied, '_Cut
it down, to be sure, and have it stacked!_' He did not know that
sugar-cane must, as soon as cut, be taken to the mill, or it spoils."
"I have heard of another," said the old Rusaldar Nubbee Buksh, "who,
after he entered upon his charge, asked the people about him to show
him the tree on which grew the fine _istamalee_* rice which they used
at Lucknow." "There is no question, sir," said Bukhtawar Sing, "that
is too absurd, for these cockney gentlemen to ask when they enter
upon such revenue charges as these. They are the aristocracy of towns
and cities, who are learned enough in books and court ceremonies and
intrigues, but utterly ignorant of country life, rural economy, and
agricultural industry."
[* The _istamalee_ rice is rice of fine quality, which has been kept
for some years before used. To be good, rice must be kept for some
years before used, and that only which has been so kept is called
_istamalee_ or _useable_.]
For a cantonment or civil station, the ground to the north of
Shahabad, on the left-hand side of the road leading to Mahomdee,
seems the best. It is a level plain, of a stiff soil formed of clay
and sand, and not very productive.
The country, from Sandee and Shahabad to the rivers Ganges and
Ramgunga, is one rich sheet of spring cultivation; and the estate of
Kuteearee, above described, is among the richest portions of this
sheet. The portions on which the richest crops now stand became waste
during the disorders which followed the expulsion of Runjeet Sing, in
the usual way, in 1837, and derived the usual benefit from the
salutary fallow. A stranger passing through such a sheet of rich
cultivation, without communing with the people, would little suspect
the fearful crimes that are every year committed upon it, from the
weakness and apathy of the Government, and the bad faith and bad
character of its officers and chief landholders. The land is tilled
in spite of all obstacles, because all depend upon its produce for
subsistence; but there is no indication of the beneficial
interference of the Government for the protection of life, property,
and character, and for the encouragement of industry and the display
of its fruits. The land is ploughed, and the seed sown, often by
stealth at night, in the immediate vicinity of a sanguinary contest
between the Government officers and the landholders. It is only when
the latter are defeated, and take to the jungles, or the Honourable
Company's districts, and commence their indiscriminate plunder, that
the cultivator ceases from his labours, and the lands are left waste.
Runjeet Sing two or three years ago seized upon the village of
Mulatoo, in his vicinity, to which he had no claim whatever, and he
has forcibly retained it. It had long paid Government ten thousand a-
year, but he has consented to pay only one thousand. Lands yielding
above nine thousand he has cut off from its rent-roll, and added to
those of his hereditary villages on the borders. Last year he seized
upon the village of Nudua, with a rent-roll of fourteen hundred
rupees, and he holds it with a party of soldiers and two guns. The
Amil lately sent out a person with a small force to demand the
Government dues; but they were driven back, as he pretends that he
got it in mortgage from Dumber Sing, who had taken a short lease of
that and other khalsa villages, and absconded as a defaulter; and
that he has purchased the lands from the cultivating proprietors, and
is, therefore, bound to pay no revenue whatever for them-to the King.
All defaulters and offenders who take refuge on his estate he
instigates to plunder, and provides with gangs, on condition of
getting the greater part of the booty. He thinks that he is sure of
shelter in the British territory, should he be driven from Oude; he
feels also sure of aid from other large landholders of the same class
in the neighbourhood.
_January_ 30, 1850.--Kurheya Para, twelve miles, over a plain of
excellent muteear soil, a good deal of which-is covered with jungle.
Para is a short distance from Kurheya, and our camp is midway between
the two villages. The boundary of the Sandee Palee and Mahomdee
districts we crossed about four miles from our present encampment.
This district, of Mahomdee was taken in contract by Hakeem Mehndee,
at three lacs and eleven thousand rupees a-year, in 1804 A.D., and in
a few years he brought it into full tillage, and made it yield above
seven lacs. It has been falling off ever since it was taken from him,
and now yields only between three and four lacs. The jungle is
studded with large peepul-trees, which are all shorn of their small
branches and leaves. The landholders and cultivators told me that
they were taken off by the cowherds who grazed their buffaloes,
bullocks, and cows in these jungles; that they formed their chief
and, in the cold season, their best food, as the leaves of the
peepul-tree were supposed to give warmth to the stomach, and to
increase the quantity of the milk; that the cowherds were required to
pay nothing for the privilege of grazing their cattle in these
jungles, by the person to whom the lands belonged, because they
enriched the soil with their manure, and all held small portions of
land under tillage, for which they paid rent; that they had the free
use of the peepul-trees in the jungles, but were not permitted to
touch those on the cultivated lands and in villages.
White ants are so numerous in the argillaceous muteear soil, in which
their food abounds, that it is really dangerous to travel on an
elephant, or _swiftly_ on horseback, over a new road cut or enlarged
through any portion of it that has remained long untilled. The two
fore legs of my elephant went down yesterday morning into a deep pit
made by them, but concealed by the new road, which has been made over
it for the occasion of my visit near Shahabad, and it was with some
difficulty that he extricated them. We have had several accidents of
the same kind since we came out. In cutting a new road they cut
through large ant-hills, and leave no trace of the edifices or the
gulf below them, which the little insects have made in gathering
their food and raising their lofty habitation. They are not found in
the bhoor or oosur soils, and in comparatively small numbers in the
doomuteea or lighter soil, but they abound In the muteear soil in
proportion to its richness. Cultivation, where the crops are
irrigated, destroys them, and the only danger is in passing over new
roads cut through jungle, or lands that have remained long untilled,
or along the sides of old pathways, from which these land-marks have
been removed in hastily widening them for wheeled carriages.
A Brahmin cultivator, whose cart we had been obliged to press into
our own service for this stage, came along with me almost all the
way. He said, "The spring crops of this season, sir, are no doubt
very fine; but in days of yore, before the curse of _Bhurt Jee_ (the
brother of Ram) came upon the landholders and cultivators of Oude,
they were much finer; when he set out from his capital of Ajoodheea
for the conquest of Cylone, he left the administration to his
brother, Bhurt Jee, who made a liberal settlement of the land tax. He
put a ghurra or pitcher, with a round bottom, turned upside down,
into every half acre (beegha) of the cultivated land, and required
the landholder or cultivator to leave upon it, as much of the grain
produced as the rounded bottom would retain, which could not be one
ten-thousandth part of the produce; he lived economically, and
collected at this rate during the many years that his brother was
absent. But when his brother returned and approached the boundary of
his dominions, he met hosts of landholders and cultivators clamouring
against the _rapacity and oppression_ of his brother's
administration. The humanity of Ram's disposition was shocked, sir,
at all this, and he became angry with his brother before he heard
what he had to say. When Bhurt had satisfied his brother that he had
not taken from them the thousandth part of what he had a right to
take, and Ram had, indeed, taken from them himself, he _sighed_ at
the wickedness and ingratitude of the agricultural classes of Oude;
and the baneful effects of this sad _sigh_ has been upon us ever
since, sir, in spite of all we can do to avert them. In order to have
the blessing of God upon our labours, it is necessary for us to
fulfil strictly all the responsibilities under which we hold and till
the land; first, to pay punctually the just demands of Government;
second, all the wages of the labour employed; third, all the
charities to the poor; fourth, all the offerings to our respective
tutelary gods; fifth, a special offering to Mahabeer, alias Hunooman.
These payments and offerings, sir, must all be made before the
cultivator can safely take the surplus produce to his store-room for
sale and consumption."
Old Bukhtawar Sing, who was riding by my side, said, "A conscientious
farmer or cultivator, sir, when he finds that his field yields a
great deal more than the usual returns, that is when it yields twenty
instead of the usual return of ten, gives the whole in charity, lest
evil overtake him from his unusual good luck and inordinate
exultation."
I asked the Brahmin cultivator why all these offerings were required
to be made by cultivators in particular? He replied, "There is, sir,
no species of tillage in which the lives of numerous insects are not
sacrificed, and it is to atone for these numerous murders, and the
ingratitude to Bhurt, that cultivators, in particular, are required
to make so many offerings;" and, he added, "much sin, sir, is no
doubt brought upon the land by the murder of so many female infants.
I believe, sir, that all the tribes of Rajpoots murder them; and I do
not think than one in ten is suffered to live. If the family or
village priest did not consent to eat with the parents after the
murder, no such murders could take place, sir; for none, even of
their nearest relatives, will ever eat with them till the Brahmin has
done so."
The bearers of the tonjohn in which I sat, said, "We do not believe,
sir, that one girl in twenty among the Rajpoots is preserved. Davey
Buksh, the Gonda Rajah, is, we believe, the only one of the Biseyn
Rajpoot tribe who preserves his daughters;* his father did the same,
and his sister, who was married to the Bhudoreea Rajah of Mynpooree,
came to see him lately on the occasion of a pilgrimage to Ajoodheea,
on the death of her husband; of the six Kulhuns families of
Chehdwara, two only preserve their daughters--Surnam Sing of Arta,
and Jeskurn of Kumeear; but whether their sons or successors in the
estates will do the same is uncertain." These bearers are residents
of that district.
[* There are a great many families of the Biseyn Rajpoots who never
destroy their infant daughters.]
I may here remark, that oak-trees in the hills of the Himmelah chain
are disfigured in the same manner, and for the same purpose, as the
peepul and banyan trees are here; their small branches and leaves are
torn off to supply fodder for bullocks and other animals. The ilex of
the hills has not, however, in its nakedness the majesty of the
peepul and banyan of the plains, though neither of them can be said
to be "when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most."
_January_ 31, 1850.--Puchgowa, north-east, twelve miles over a plain
of doomuteea soil, a good deal of which is out of tillage at present.
On the road we came through several neat villages, the best of which
was occupied exclusively by the families of the Kunojeea Brahmin
proprietors, and the few persons of inferior caste who ploughed their
lands for them, as they are a shade too high in caste to admit of
their holding their own ploughs. They are, however, very worthy
people, and seemed very much pleased at being put so much at their
ease in a talk with the great man about their own domestic and rural
economy. They told me, that they did not permit Rajpoots to reside in
or have anything to do with their village.
"Why?" I asked.--"Because, sir, if they once get a footing among us,
they are, sooner or later, sure to turn us all out." "How?"--"They
get lands by little and little at lease, soon refuse to pay rent,
declare the lands to be their own, collect bad characters for
plunder, join the Rajpoots of their own clan in all the villages
around in their enterprises, take to the jungles on the first
occasion, of a dispute, attack, plunder, and burn the village, murder
us and our families, and soon get the estate for themselves, on their
own terms from the local authorities, who are wearied out by the loss
of revenue arising from their depredations; our safety, sir, depends
upon our keeping entirely aloof from them."
Under a government so weak, the only men who prosper seem to be these
landholders of the military classes who are strong in their union,
clan feeling, courage, and ferocity. The villages here are numerous
though not large, and by far the greater part are occupied by
Rajpoots of the Nikomee tribe.
The Amil of the Mahomdee district, Krishun Sahae, had come out so far
as Para to meet me, and have my camp supplied. He had earned a good
reputation as a native collector of long standing in the Shajehanpore
district, under Mr. Buller; but being ambitious to rise more rapidly
than he could hope to do, under our settled government, he came to
Lucknow with a letter of introduction from Mr. Buller to the
Resident, Colonel Richmond, paid his court to the Durbur, got
appointed Amil of the Mahomdee district, under the _amanee_ system,
paid his nazuranas on his investiture, in October last, and entered
upon his charge. A few days ago it pleased the minister to appoint to
his place Aboo Toorab Khan, the nephew and son-in-law of Moonowur-ood
Dowla; and orders were sent out immediately, by a camel-messenger, to
the commandants of the corps on duty, with Krishun Sahae, to seize
and send him, his family, and all his relations and dependents, with
all his property to be found upon them, to Lucknow. The wakeel, whom
he kept at Court for such occasions, heard of the order for the
supercession and arrest, and forthwith sent off a note to his master
by the fastest foot-messenger he could get. The camel-messenger found
that the Amil had left Mahomdee, and gone out two stages to Para, to
meet the Resident. He waited to deliver his message to the
commandants and subordinate civil officers of the district, and see
that they secured all the relatives, dependents, and property of the
Amil that could be found. The foot-messenger, more wise, went on, and
delivered his letter to Krishun Sahae; at Para, on the evening of
Tuesday the 29th. He ordered his elephant very quietly, and mounting,
told the driver to take him to a village on the road to Shajehanpoor.
On reaching the village about midnight, the driver asked him whither
he was going--"I am flying from my enemies," said Krishun Sahae; "and
we must make all haste, or we shall be overtaken before we reach the
boundary." "But," said the driver, "my house and family are at
Lucknow, and the one will be pulled to the ground and the other put
into gaol if I fly with you." Krishun Sahae drew out a pistol and
threatened to shoot him if he did not drive on as told. They were
near a field of sugar-cane, and the driver hedged away towards it,
without the Amil's perceiving his intention. When they got near the
field the elephant dashed in among the cane to have a feast; and the
driver in his seeming effort to bring him out, fell off and
disappeared under the high cane. The Amil did all he could to get out
his elephant, but the animal felt that he was no longer in danger of
severe treatment from above, and had a very comfortable meal before
him in the fine ripe cane, and would not move. The poor Amil was
obliged to descend, and make all possible haste on foot across the
border, attended by one servant who had accompanied him in his
flight. The driver ran to the village and got the people to join him
in the pursuit of his master, saying that he was making off with a
good deal of the King's money. With an elephant load of the King's
money in prospect, they made all the haste they could; but the poor
Amil got safely over the border into British territory. They found
the elephant dining very comfortably on the sugar-cane. After abusing
the driver and all his female relations for deluding them with the
hope of a rich booty, they permitted him to take the empty elephant
to the new Amil at Mahomdee. News of all this reached my camp last
night.
I omitted to mention that, at Busora on the 27th, a Rajpoot
landholder of the Sombunsie tribe, came to my camp with a petition
regarding a mortgage, and mentioned that he had a daughter, now two
years of age; that when she was born he was out in his fields, and
the females of the family put her into an earthen pot, buried her in
the floor of the apartment, where the mother lay, and lit a fire over
the grave; that he made all haste home as soon as he heard of the
birth of a daughter, removed the fire and earth from the pot, and
took out his child. She was still living, but two of her fingers
which had not been sufficiently covered were a good deal burnt. He
had all possible care taken of her, and she still lives, and both he
and his wife are very fond of her. Finding that his tale interested
me, he went home for the child; but his village was far off, and he
has not been able to overtake me. He had given no orders to have her
preserved, as his wife was confined sooner than he expected; but the
family took it for granted that she was to be destroyed, and in
running home to preserve her he acted on the impulse of the moment.
The practice of destroying female infants is so general among this
tribe, that a family commonly destroys the daughter as soon as born,
when the father is from home, and has given no special orders about
it, taking it to be his wish as a matter of course.
Several respectable landholders of the Chouhan, Nikomee, and other
tribe of Rajpoots, were talking to me yesterday evening, and as they
were connected by marriage with Rajpoot families of the same and
higher clans in the British territories, I asked them whether some
plan could not be devised to suppress the evil in Oude, as it had
been suppressed there; for the disorders which prevailed seemed to me
to be only a visitation from above for such an all-pervading sin.
They told me that there would be little difficulty in putting down
this system under an honest and strong Government that would secure
rights, enforce duties, and protect life and property, as in the
British territories. Atrocious and cruel as this crime is in Oude, it
is hardly more so than that which not long ago prevailed in France
and other nations of Europe, of burying their daughters alive in
nunneries in order to gratify the same family pride.
It is painful to me to walk out of my tent of an evening, for I have
every day large crowds seeking redress for grievous wrongs, for which
I see no hope of redress: men and women, who have had their dearest
relatives murdered, their houses burnt down, their whole property
taken away, their lands seized upon, their crops destroyed by
ruffians residing in the same or neighbouring villages, and actually
in the camp of the Amil, without the slightest fear of being punished
or made to surrender any portion of what they have taken. The
Government authorities are too weak, even to enforce the payment of
the Government demand, and have not the means to seize or punish
offenders of any kind, if they have the inclination. In some
districts they not only acquiesce in the depredations of these gangs
of robbers, but act in collusion with their leaders, in order to get
their aid in punishing defaulters or pretended defaulters, among the
landholders. They murder the landholders, and as many as possible of
their families, and as a reward for their services the local
authorities make over their lands to them at reduced rates.
The Nazim of Sandee Palee told me on taking leave, that he had only
two wings of Nujeeb Regiments with him, one of which was fit for some
service, and in consequence, spread over the district on detached
duties. The other was with him, but out of the five hundred, for
which he had to issue monthly pay, he should not be able to get ten
men to follow him on any emergency. They are obliged to court and
conciliate the strong and reckless who prey upon the weak and
industrious; and in consequence become despised and detested by the
people. I feel like one moving among a people afflicted with
incurable diseases, who crowd around him in hope, and are sent away
in despair. I try to make the local authorities exert themselves in
behalf of the sufferers; but am told that they have already done
their utmost in vain; that if they seize robbers and murderers and
send them to Lucknow, they are sure to purchase their enlargement and
return to wreak their vengeance on them and on all who have aided
them in their arrest and conviction; that if they attempt to seize
one of the larger landholders, who refuses to pay the Government
demand, seizes upon the lands of his weaker neighbours, and murders
and robs them indiscriminately, he removes across the Ganges, into
one of the Honourable Company's districts, and thence sends his
myrmidons to plunder and lay waste the whole country, till he is
invited back by a weak and helpless Government upon his own terms;
that formerly British troops were employed in support of the local
authorities against offenders of this class; but that of late years
all such aid and support have been withdrawn from the Oude
Government, while the offenders find all they require from the
subjects and police authorities of the bordering British districts.
The country we passed over to-day, between Para and Puchgowa, is a
plain, beautifully studded with groves and fine solitary trees, in
great perfection. The bandha or mistletoe, upon the mhowa and mango
trees, is in full blossom, and adds much to their beauty; the soil is
good, and the surface everywhere capable of tillage, with little
labour or outlay; for the jungle where it prevails the most is of
grass, and the small palas-trees (butea-frondosa) which may be-easily
uprooted. The whole surface of Oude is, indeed, like a gentleman's
park of the most beautiful description, as far as the surface of the
ground and the foliage go. Five years of good Government would make
it one of the most beautiful parterres in nature. To plant a large
grove, as it ought to be, a Hindoo thinks it necessary to have the
following trees:--
The banyan, or burgut; peepul, ficus religiosa; mango; tamarind;
jamun, eugenia jambolana; bele, cratoeva marmelos; pakur, ficus
venosa; mhowa, bassia latifolia; oula, phyllanthus emblica; goolur,
figus glomerata; kytha, feronia elephantum; kuthal, or jack;
moulsaree, mimusops elengi; kuchnar, bauhinea variegata; neem, melia
azadirachta; bere, fizyphus jujuba; horseradish, sahjuna; sheeshum,
dalbergia sisa; toon, adrela toona; and chundun, or sandal.
Where he can get or afford to plant only a small space, he must
confine himself to the more sacred and generally useful of these
trees; and they are the handsomest in appearance. Nothing can be more
beautiful than one of those groves surrounded by fields teeming with
rich spring crops, as they are at present; and studded here and there
with fine single banyan, peepul, tamarind, mhowa, and cotton trees,
which, in such positions, attain their highest perfection, as if
anxious to display their greatest beauties, where they can be seen to
the most advantage. Each tree has there free space for its roots,
which have the advantage of the water supplied to the fields around
in irrigation, and a free current of air, whose moisture is condensed
upon its leaves and stems by their cooler temperature, while its
carbonic acid and ammonia are absorbed and appropriated to their
exclusive use. Its branches, unincommoded by the proximity of other
trees, spread out freely, and attain their utmost size and beauty.
I may here mention what are the spring crops which now in a
luxuriance not known for many years, from fine falls of rain in due
season, embellish the surface over which we are passing :--
_Spring Crops_.--Wheat; barley; gram; arahur, of two kinds (pulse);
musoor (pulse); alsee (linseed); surson (a species of fine mustard);
moong (pulse); peas, of three kinds; mustard; sugar-cane, of six
kinds; koosum (safflower); opium; and palma christi.
_February_ 1, 1850.--Mahomdee, eleven miles, over a level plain
of muteear soil of the best quality, well supplied with groves and
single trees of the finest kind; but a good deal of the land is out
of tillage, and covered with the rank grass, called garur, the roots
of which form the fragrant khus, for tatties, in the hot winds; and
dhak (butea frondosa) jungle. Several villages, through and near
which we passed, belong to Brahmin zumeendars, who were driven away
last year by the rapacity of the contractor, Mahomed Hoseyn, a
senseless oppressor, who was this year superseded by a very good
officer and worthy man, who was driven out with disgrace, as
described yesterday, while engaged in inviting back the absconded
cultivators to these deserted villages, and providing them with the
means of bringing their lands again into tillage. Hoseyn Allee had
seized and sold all their plough-bullocks, and other agricultural
stock, between the autumn and spring harvests, together with all the
spring crops, as they became ripe, to make good the increased rate of
revenue demanded; and they were all turned out beggars, to seek
subsistence among their relatives and friends, in our bordering
district of Shajehanpoor. The rank grass and jungle are full of
neelgae and deer of all kinds; and the cowherds, who remain to graze
their cattle on the wide plains, left waste, find it very difficult
to preserve their small fields of corn from their trespass. They are
said to come in herds of hundreds around these fields during the
night, and to be frequently followed by tigers, several of which were
killed last year, by Captain Hearsey, of the Frontier Police. Waste
lands, more distant from the great Tarae forest, are free from
tigers.
I had a long talk with the Brahmin communities of two of these
villages, who had been lately invited back from the Shajehanpoor
district, by Krishun Sahae, and resettled on their lands. They are a
mild, sensible, and most respectable body, whom a sensible ruler
would do all in his power to protect and encourage; but these are the
class; of landholders and cultivators whom the reckless governors of
districts, under the Oude Government, most grievously oppress. They
told me--"that nothing could be better than the administration of the
Shajehanpoor district by the present collector and magistrate, Mr.
Buller, whom all classes loved and respected; that the whole surface
of the country was under tillage, and the poorest had as much
protection as the highest in the land; that the whole district was,
indeed, a garden." "But the returns, are they equal to those from
your lands in Oude?"--"Nothing like it, sir; they are not half as
good; nor can the cultivator afford to pay half the rate that we pay
when left to till our lands in peace." "And why is this?"--"Because,
sir, ours is sometimes left waste to recover its powers, as you now
see all the land around you, while theirs has no rest" "But do they
not alternate their crops, to relieve the soil?"--"Yes, sir, but this
is not enough: ours receive manure from the herds of cattle and deer
that graze upon it while fallow: and we have greater stores of manure
than they have, to throw over it when we return and resume our
labours. We alternate our crops, at the same time, as much as they
do; and plough and cross-plough our lands more." "And where would you
rather live--there, protected as the people are from all violence, or
here, exposed as you are to all manner of outrage and extortion."--
"We would rather live here, sir, if we could; and we were glad to
come back." "And why? There the landholders and cultivators are sure
that no man will be permitted to exact a higher rate of rent or
revenue than that which they voluntarily bind themselves to pay
during the period of a long lease; while here you are never sure that
the terms of your lease will be respected for a single season."--
"That is all true, sir, but we cannot understand the '_aen_ and
_kanoon_' (the rules and regulations), nor should we ever do so; for
we found that our relations, who had been settled there for many
generations, were just as ignorant of them as ourselves. Your Courts
of justice (adawluts) are the things we most dread, sir; and we are
glad to escape from them as soon as we can, in spite of all the evils
we are exposed to on our return to the place of our birth. It is not
the fault of the European gentlemen who preside over them, for they
are anxious to do, and have justice done, to all; but, in spite of
all their efforts, the wrong-doer often escapes, and the sufferer is
as often punished."
"The truth, sir, is seldom told in these Courts. There they think of
nothing but the number of witnesses, as if all were alike; here, sir,
we look to the quality. When a man suffers wrong, the wrong-doer is
summoned before the elders, or most respectable men of his village or
clan; and if he denies the charge and refuses redress, he is told to
bathe, put his hand upon the peepul-tree, and declare aloud his
innocence. If he refuses, he is commanded to restore what he has
taken, or make suitable reparation for the injury he has done; and if
he refuses to do this, he is punished by the odium of all, and his
life becomes miserable. A man dares not, sir, put his hand upon that
sacred tree and deny the truth--the gods sit in it and know all
things; and the offender dreads their vengeance. In your adawluts,
sir, men do not tell the truth so often as they do among their own
tribes, or village communities--they perjure themselves in all manner
of ways, without shame or dread; and there are so many men about
these Courts, who understand the 'rules and regulations,' and are so
much interested in making truth appear to be falsehood, and falsehood
truth, that no man feels sure that right will prevail in them in any
case. The guilty think they have just as good a chance of escape as
the innocent. Our relations and friends told us, that all this
confusion of right and wrong, which bewildered them, arose from the
multiplicity of the 'rules and regulations,' which threw all the
power into the hands of bad men, and left the European gentlemen
helpless!"
"But you know that the crime of murdering female infants, which
pervades the whole territory of Oude, and brings the curse of God
upon it, has been suppressed in the British territory, in spite of
these '_aens and kanoons?_'"--"True, sir, it has been put down in
your bordering districts; but the Rajpoot families who reside in them
manage to escape your vigilance, and keep up the evil practice. They
intermarry with Rajpoot families in Oude, and the female infants,
born of the daughters they give in marriage to Oude families, are
destroyed in Oude without fear or concealment; while the daughters
they receive in marriage, from Oude families, are sent over the
border into Oude, when near their confinement, on the pretence of
visiting their relations. If they give birth to boys, they bring them
back with them into your districts; but if they give birth to girls,
they are destroyed in the same manner, and no questions are ever
asked about them." "Do you ever eat or drink with Rajpoot parents who
destroy their female infants?"--"Never, sir! we are Brahmins, but we
can take water in a brass vessel from the hands of a Rajpoot, and we
do so when his family is unstained with this crime; but nothing would
ever tempt us to drink water from the hands of one who permitted his
daughters to be murdered." "Do you ever eat with the village or
family priest who has given absolution to parents who have permitted
their daughters to be murdered, by eating in the room where the
murder has been perpetrated?"--"Never, sir; we abhor him as a
participator in the crime; and nothing would ever induce one of us to
eat or associate with him: he takes all the sin upon his own head by
doing so, and is considered by us as an outcast from the tribe, and
accursed! It is they who keep up this fearful usage. Tigers and
wolves cherish their offspring, and are better than these Rajpoots,
who out of family or clan pride, destroy theirs. As soon as their
wives give birth to sons, they fire off guns, give largely in
charity, make offerings to shrines, and rejoice in all manner of
ways; but when they give birth to poor girls, they bury them alive
without pity, and a dead silence prevails in the house; it is no
wonder, sir, that you say that the curse of God is upon the land in
which such sins prevail!"
The quality of testimony, no doubt, like that of every other
commodity, deteriorates under a system, which renders the good of no
more value in exchange than the bad. The formality of our Courts
here, as everywhere else, tends to impair, more or less, the quality
of what they receive. The simplicity of Courts, composed of little
village communities and elders, tends, on the contrary, to improve
the quality of the testimony they get; and in India, it is found to
be best in the isolated hamlets of hills and forests, where men may
be made to do almost anything rather than _tell a lie_. A Marhatta
pandit, in the valley of the Nerbudda, once told me, that it was
almost impossible to teach a wild Gond of the hills and jungles the
_occasional_ value of a lie! It is the same with the Tharoos and
Booksas, who are, almost exclusively the cultivators of the Oude
Tarae forest, and with the peasantry of the Himmalaya chain of
mountains, before they have come much in contact with people of the
plains, and become subject to the jurisdiction of our Courts. These
Courts are, everywhere, our _weak point_ in the estimation of our
subjects; and they should be, everywhere, simplified to meet the
wants and wishes of so simple a people.
That the lands, under the settled Government of the Honourable East
India Company, are becoming more and more deteriorated by
overcropping is certain; and an Indian statesman will naturally
inquire, what will be the probable consequence to the people and the
Government? To the people, the consequence must be, a rise in the
price of land produce, proportioned to the increased cost of
producing and bringing to market what is required for consumption.
The price in the market must always be sufficient to cover the cost
of producing, and bringing what is required from the poorest and most
distant lands to which that market is at any time obliged to have
recourse for supply; and as these lands deteriorate in their powers
of fertility, recourse must be had to lands more distant, or more
cost must be incurred in manure, irrigation, &c., to make these,
already had recourse to, to produce the same quantity, or both. The
price in the market must rise to meet the increased outlay required,
or that outlay will not be made; and the market cannot be supplied.
As men have to pay more for the Land produce they require, they will
have less to lay out in other things; and as they cannot do without
the land produce, they must be satisfied with less of other things,
till their incomes increase to meet the necessity for increased
outlay. People will get this increase in proportion as their labour,
services, talents, or acquirements are more or less indispensable to
the society; and the price of other things will diminish, as the cost
of producing and bringing them to market diminishes, with
improvements in manufactures, and in the facilities of transport. No
very serious injury to the people of our territories is, therefore,
to be apprehended from the inevitable deterioration in the natural
powers of the soil, under our settled Government, which gives so much
security to life, property, and character, and so much encouragement
to industry.
The consequence to the Government will be less serious than might at
first appear. Under a system of limited settlements of the land-
revenue, such as prevail over all our dominions, except in Bengal,
the Government is in reality the landlord; and our land-revenue is in
reality land-rent.* We alienate a portion of that rent for limited
periods in favour of those with whom we make such settlements, and
take all the rest ourselves. On an average, perhaps, our Government
takes one-sixth of the gross produce of the land; and the persons,
with whom the settlements are made, take another sixth. The net rent,
which the Government and they divide equally between them, may be
taken, on an average, at one-third of the gross produce of the land.
The cultivator would, I believe, always be glad to take and cultivate
land, on an average, on condition of giving one-third of the gross
produce, or the value of one-third, to be divided between the
Government and its lessee; and the lessee will always consider
himself fortunate if he gets one-half of this third, to cover the
risk and cost of management.
* I believe our Government committed a great _political_ and _social_
error, when it declared all the land to be the property of the
lessees: and all questions regarding it to be cognizable by Judicial
Courts. It would have been better for the people, as well as the
Government, had all such questions been left to the Fiscal and
Revenue Courts. There is the same regular series of these Courts,
from the Tuhseeldar to the Revenue Sudder Board, as of the Judicial
Courts, from the Moonsiff to the Judicial Sudder Board; and they are
all composed of the same class of persons, with the same character
and motives to honest exertion. Why force men to run the gauntlet
through both series? It tends to make the Government to be considered
as a rapacious tax-gatherer, instead of a liberal landlord, which it
really is; and to foster the growth of a host of native pettifogging
attorneys, to devour, like white ants, the substance of the
landholders of all classes and grades.
Where the soil of a particular village in a district deteriorates, an
immediate reduction in the assessment must be given, or the lands
will be deserted. If the Government does not consent to such a
reduction, the lessee must sustain the whole burthen, for he cannot
shift it off upon the cultivators, without driving them from the
lands. The lessee may sustain the whole burthen for one or two years;
but if the officers of Government attempt to make him sustain it
longer, they drive him after his cultivators, and the land is left
waste. I have seen numerous estates of villages and some districts
made waste by such attempts in India. I have seen land in such
estates, which, when unexhausted, yielded, on an average, twelve
returns of the seed, without either manure or irrigation, and paid a
rent of twenty shillings an acre, become so exhausted by overcropping
in a few years as to yield only three or four returns, and unable to
pay four shillings an acre--indeed, unable to pay any rent at all.
The cultivator, by degrees, ceases to sow the more exhausting and
profitable crops, and is at last obliged to have recourse to manure,
or desert his land altogether; but no manure will enable him to get
the same quantity of produce as he got before, while what he gets
sells at the same rate in the market. He can, therefore, no longer
pay the same rate of rent to Government and its lessee. He has got a
less quantity of produce, and it has cost him much more to raise it,
while it continues to sell at the same price in the market.
But when the lands of a whole country, or a large extent of country,
deteriorate in the same manner, and all cultivators are obliged to do
the same thing, the price of land produce must rise in the markets,
so as to pay the additional costs of supply. All but the poorest and
most distant to which these markets must have recourse for supply, at
any particular time, will pay rent, and pay it at a rate proportioned
to their greater fertility or nearer proximity to the markets. Such
Markets must pay for land produce a price sufficient to cover the
costs of producing and bringing it from the poorest and most distant
lands, to which they are obliged at any particular time to have
recourse for supply. All land produce of the same quality must, at
the same time and place, sell in the market at the same price; and
all that is over and above the cost of producing and bringing it to
market will go to the proprietors of the land, that is, to the
Government and its lessees. The poorest and most distant land, to
which any market may have recourse at any particular time, may pay no
rent, because the price is no more than sufficient to pay the cost of
producing and bringing their supply to that market; but all that is
less poor and distant will pay rent, because the price which their
produce brings in that market will be more than sufficient to pay the
cost of producing and bringing their supply to that market.
The increase in the price of land produce which must take place, as
the lands become generally exhausted by overcropping, will, probably,
prevent any great falling off in the money rate of rents and
revenues, from the land in our Indian possessions; and with the
improvements in manufactures, and in the facilities of transport,
which must tend to reduce the price of other articles, that money
will purchase more of them in the market; and the establishments
which have to be maintained out of these rents and revenues may not
become more costly. Government and its lessees may have the same
incomes in money, and the greater price, they and their
establishments are obliged to pay for land produce may be compensated
by the lesser price they will have to pay for other things.
As facilities for irrigation are extended and improved in wells and
canals, new elements of fertility will be supplied to the surface, in
the soluble salts contained in their waters. The well-waters will
bring these salts from great depths, and the canal-waters will
collect them as they flow along, or percolate through, the earth; and
as they rise, by capillary attraction, they will convey them to the
surface, where they are required for tillage. The atmosphere, in
water, ammonia, and carbonic-acid gas will continue to supply plants
with the oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon which they require
from it; and judicious selection and supply of manure will provide
the soil with those elements in which it happens to be deficient.
Peace, security, instruction, and a due encouragement to industry,
will, it may be hoped, secure to the people all that they require
from our Government, and to our Government all that it can fairly
require from the people.
The soil of Mahomdee is as fine as that of any part of Oude that I
have seen; and the soil of Oude, generally, is equal to the best that
I have seen in any part of India. It is all of the kinds above
described--muteear (argillaceous), doomuteea (light), bhoor (sandy),
and oosur (barren), as far as I have seen. In some parts, the muteear
is more productive than in others, and the same may be said of all
the other denominations of soil. In the poorer parts of the muteear,
the stiff clay, devoid of decayed vegetable and animal matter, seems
to superabound, as the sand does in the lightest or poorer portions
of the soil, called doomuteea, which runs into bhoor. The oosur, or
soil rendered unproductive by a superabundance of substances not
suitable to the growth of plants, seems to be common to both kinds.
In all soils, except the oosur, fine trees grow, and good crops are
produced under good tillage; but in the muteear, the outlay to
produce them is the least. It is an error to suppose that a soil,
even of pure sand, must be absolutely barren. Quartz-sand commonly
contains some of the inorganic substances necessary to plants--
silica, lime, potash, alumina, oxide of iron, magnesia, &c.--and they
are rendered soluble, and fit for the use of plants by atmospheric
air and water, impregnated with carbonic-acid gas, as all water is
more or less. The only thing required from the hand of man, besides
water, to render them cultivable, is vegetable or animal substances,
to supply them, as they decay or decompose, with organic acids.
The late Hakeem Mehndee, took the contract of the Mahomdee district,
as already stated, in the year A.D. 1804, when it was in its present
bad state, at 3,11,000 rupees a-year; and he held it till the year
1819, or for sixteen years. He had been employed in the Azimgurh
district, under Boo Allee Hakeem, the contractor; and during the
negotiations for the transfer of that district, with the other
territories to the British Government, which took place in 1801; he
lost his place, and returned to Lucknow, where he paid his court to
the then Dewan, or Chancellor of the Exchequer, who offered him the
contract of the Mahomdee district, at three lacs and eleven thousand
rupees a-year, on condition of his depositing in the Treasury a
security bond for thirty-two thousand rupees. There had been a
liaison between him and a beautiful dancing-girl, named Peeajoo, who
had saved a good deal of money. She advanced the money, and Hakeem
Mehndee deposited the bond, and got the contract. The greater part of
the district was then, as now, a waste; and did not yield more than
enough to cover the Government demand, gratuities to courtiers, and
cost of management. The Hakeem remained to support his influence at
Court, while his brother, Hadee Allee Khan, resided at Mahomdee, and
managed the district. The Hakeem and his fair friend were married,
and lived happily together till her death, which took place before
that of her husband, while she was on a pilgrimage to Mecca. While
she lived, he married no other woman; but on her death he took to
himself another, who survived him; but he had no child by either. His
vast property was left to Monowur-od Dowlah, the only son of his
brother, Hadee Allee Khan, and to his widow and dependents. The
district improved rapidly under the care of the two brothers; and, in
a few years, yielded them about seven lacs of rupees a-year. The
Government demand increased with the rent-roll to the extent of four
lacs of rupees a-year. This left a large income for Hakeem Mehndee
and his family, who had made the district a garden, and gained the
universal respect and affection of the people.
In the year 1807, Hakeem Mehndee added, to the contract of Mahomdee,
that of the adjoining district of Khyrabad, at five lacs of rupees a-
year, making his contract nine lacs. In 1816, he added the contract
for the Bahraetch district, at seven lacs and seventy-five thousand;
but he resigned this in 1819, after having held it for two years,
with no great credit to himself. In 1819, he lost the contract for
Mahomdee and Khyrabad, from the jealousy of the prime minister, Aga
Meer. In April 1818, the Governor-General the Marquess of Hastings
passed through his district of Khyrabad, on his way to the Tarae
forest, on a sporting excursion, after the Marhatta war. Hakeem
Mehndee attended him during this excursion, and the Governor-General
was so much pleased with his attentions, courteous manners, and
sporting propensities, and treated him with so much consideration and
kindness, that the minister took the alarm, and determined to get rid
of so formidable a rival. He in consequence made the most of the
charge preferred against him, of the murder of Amur Sing; and
demanded an increase of five lacs of rupees a-year, or fourteen lacs
of rupees a-year, instead of nine. This Hakeem Mehndee would not
consent to give; and Shekh Imam Buksh was, in 1819, sent to supersede
him, as a temporary arrangement.
In 1820, Poorun Dhun, and Govurdhun Dass, merchants of Lucknow, took
the contract of the two districts at twelve lacs of rupees a-year, or
an increase of three lacs; and from that time, under a system of
rack-renting, these districts have been falling off. Mahomdee is now
in a worse state than Khyrabad, because it has had the bad luck to
get a worse set of contractors. Hakeem Mehndee retired with his
family, first to Shajehanpoor, and then to Futtehgurh, on the Ganges,
and resided there, with his family, till June 1830, when he was
invited back by Nusseer-do Deen Hyder, to assume the office of prime
minister. He held the office till August 1832, when he was removed by
the intrigues of the Kumboos, Taj-od Deen Hoseyn, and Sobhan Allee
Khan, who persuaded the King that he was trying to get him removed
from the throne, by reporting to the British Government the murder of
some females, which had, it is said, actually taken place in the
palace. Hakeem Mehndee was invited from his retirement by Mahomed
Allee Shah, and again appointed minister in 1837; but he died three
months after, on the 24th of December, 1837.
During the thirty years which have elapsed since Hakeem Mehndee lost
the contract of Mahomdee, there have been no less than seventeen
governors, fifteen of whom have been contractors; and the district
has gradually declined from what it was, when he left it, to what it
was when he took it--that is from a rent-roll of seven lacs of rupees
a-year, under which all the people were happy and prosperous, to one
of three, under which all the people are wretched. The manager,
Krishun Sahae, who has been treated as already described, would, in a
few years, have made it what it was when the Hakeem left it, had he
been made to feel secure in his tenure of office, and properly
encouraged and supported. He had, in the three months he had charge,
invited back from our bordering districts hundreds of the best
classes of landholders and cultivators, who had been driven off by
the rapacity of his predecessor, re-established them in their
villages and set them to work in good spirit, to restore the lands
which had lain waste from the time they deserted them; and induced
hundreds to convert to sugar-cane cultivation the lands which they
had destined for humbler crops, in the assurance, of the security
which they were to enjoy under his rule. The one class tells me, they
must suspend all labours upon the waste lands till they can learn the
character of his successor; and the other, that they must content
themselves with the humbler crops till they can see whether the
richer and more costly ones will be safe from his grasp, or that of
the agents, whom he may employ to manage the district for him. No man
is safe for a moment under such a Government, either in his person,
his character, his office, or his possession; and with such a feeling
of insecurity among all classes, it is impossible for a country to
prosper.*
[* Krishun Sahae has been restored, but does not feel secure in his
tenure of office.]
I may here mention one among the numerous causes of the decline of
the district. The contract for it was held for a year and half, in
A.D. 1847-48, by Ahmed Allee. Feeling insecure in his tenure of
office, he wanted to make as much as possible out of things as they
were, and resumed Guhooa, a small rent-free village, yielding four
hundred rupees a-year, held by Bahadur Sing, the tallookdar of
Peepareea, who resides at Pursur. He had recourse to the usual mode
of indiscriminate murder and plunder, to reduce Ahmed Allee to terms.
At the same time, he resumed the small village of Kombee, yielding
three hundred rupees a-year, held rent-free by Bhoder Sing,
tallookdar of Magdapoor, who resided in Koombee; and, in consequence,
he united his band of marauders to that of Bahadur Sing; and together
they plundered and burnt to the ground some dozen villages, and laid
waste the purgunnah of Peepareea, which had yielded to Government
twenty-five thousand rupees a-year, and contained the sites of one
hundred and eight villages, of which, however, only twenty-five were
occupied.
During the greater part of the time that these depredations were
going on, the two rebels resided in our bordering district of
Shajehanpoor, whence they directed the whole. Urgent remonstrances
were addressed to the magistrate of that district, but he required
judicial proof of their participation in the crimes, that were
committed by their followers, upon the innocent and unoffending
peasantry; and no proof that the contractor could furnish being
deemed sufficient, he was obliged to consent to restore the rent-free
villages. The lands they made waste, still remain so, and pay no
revenue to Government.
Saadut Allee Khan (who died in 1814), when sovereign of Oude, was
fond of this place, and used to reside here for many months every
year. He made a garden, about a mile to the east of the town, upon a
fine open plain of good soil, and planted an avenue of fine trees all
the way. The trees are now in perfection, but the garden has been
neglected; and the bungalow in the centre, in which he resided, is an
entire ruin. He kept a large establishment of men and cattle, for
which sixty thousand rupees a-year were regularly charged in the
accounts of the manager of the district, through his reign and those
of Ghazee-od Deen, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, Mahomed Allee Shah, and
Amjud Allee Shah, and the first year of the reign of his present
Majesty, Wajid Allee Shah; though, with the exception of two bullocks
and two gardeners, the cattle had all disappeared, and the servants
been all discharged some thirty years before.
In October last, when six guns were required from the great park of
artillery at Lucknow, to be sent out on detached duty with the
Gungoor Regiment, an inspection of the draft-bullocks took place, and
it was found, that the Court favourite who had charge of the park had
made away with no less than one thousand seven hundred and thirty of
them, and only twenty could be found to take the guns. He had been
charging for the food of these one thousand seven hundred and thirty
for a long series of years. On mentioning this fact to a late
minister, he told me of two facts within his own knowledge,
illustrative of these sort of charges. This same Court favourite, in
the reign of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, in 1835, received charge of
sixteen bullocks, of surpassing beauty, which had been presented to
the King, and he was allowed to draw, from the Treasury, a rupee a-
day, for the food of each bullock.
In the reign of Mahomed Allee Shah, his prudent successor, a muster
of all the bullocks was called for, and Ghalib Jung, to whom the
muster was intrusted, to spite the favourite, called for these
sixteen bullocks. The favourite had disposed of them, though, he
continued to draw the allowance; and, to supply their place, he sent
to the bazaar and seized sixteen of the bullocks which had that day
brought corn to market. They were presented to Ghalib Jung for
muster. He pretended to be very angry, declared that it was
disgraceful to keep such poor creatures on the King's establishment,
and still more so to charge a rupee a-day for the food of each, and
ordered them to be sold forthwith by auction. Soon after they had
been sold, the poor men to whom they belonged came up to claim them,
but could never get either the bullocks or their price, nor could the
favourite ever be persuaded to refund any portion of the money he had
drawn for the sixteen he had sold.*
[* The favourite, in both these cases, was Anjum-od Dowlah.]
In the early part of the reign of Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, a fine dog
from the Himmalaya Hills was presented to him, and made over to the
charge of one of the favourites, who drew a rupee a-day for his food.
Soon after his Majesty became ill and very irritable, and one day
complained much of this dog's barking. He was told that the only way
to silence a dog of this description was to give him a seer of
conserve of roses to eat every day, and a bottle of rose-water to
drink. His Majesty ordered them to be given forthwith, and his repose
was never after disturbed by the dog's barking. A rupee a-day
continued to be drawn for these things for the dog for the rest of
the long reign of Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, and through that of his
successor, Nuseer-od Deen, which lasted for ten years, and ended in
1837, though the animal had died soon after the order for these
things was given, or in 1816, and he believed it continued to be
drawn up to the present day.
The cantonment at Mahomdee stands between this garden of Saadut
Allee's and the town, and this is the best site for any civil or
military establishments that may be required at Mahomdee. The Nazims
usually reside in the fort in the town.
_February_ 2, 1850.--Halted at Mahomdee. The spring crops around the
town are very fine, and the place is considered to be very healthy.
There is, however, some peculiarity in the soil, opposed to the
growth of the poppy. The cultivators tell me that they have often
tried it; that it is stunted in growth, whatever care be taken of it,
and yields but little juice, and that of bad quality, though it
attains perfection in the Shahabad and other districts around. The
doomuteea soil is here esteemed better than the muteear, though it
requires more labour in the tillage. It is said that _mote_ and
_mash_, two pulses, do not thrive in the muteear soil so well as in
the doomuteea.
_February_ 3, 1850.--Poknapoor, eight miles. We crossed the Goomtee
about midway, over a bridge of boats that had been prepared for us.
The boats came up the river thus far for timber, and were detained
for the occasion. The stream is here narrow, and said to flow from a
basin (the phoola talao) in the Tarae forest, some fifty miles to the
north, at Madhoo Tanda. There is some tillage on the verge of the
stream on the other side; but from the river to our tents, four
miles, there is none. The country is level and well studded with
groves and fine single trees, bur, peepul, mhowa, mango, &c., but
covered with rank grass.
Near the river is a belt of the sakhoo and other forest trees, with
underwood, in which tigers lodge and prey upon the deer, which cover
the grass plain, and frequently upon the bullocks, which are grazed
upon it in great numbers. Several bullocks have been killed and eaten
by them within the last few days; and an old fakeer, who has for some
months taken up his lodging on this side the river under a peepul-
tree, in a straw hut just big enough to hold him, told us that he
frequently saw them come down to drink in the stream near his
lodging. We saw a great many deer in passing, but no tigers. The soil
near the river is sandy, and the ground uneven, but still cultivable;
and on this side of the sandy belt it is all level and of the best
kind of doomuteea. Our tents are in a fine grove of mango-trees, in
the midst of a waste, but level and extensive, plain of this soil,
not a rood of which is unfit for the plough or incapable of yielding
crops of the finest quality. It is capable of being made, in two or
three years, a beautiful garden.
The single trees, which are scattered all over it, have been shorn of
their leaves and small branches by the cowherds for their cattle, but
they would all soon clothe themselves again under protection. The
groves are sufficiently numerous to furnish sites for the villages
and hamlets required. All the large sakhoo-trees have been cut down
and taken away on the ground we have come over, which is too near the
river for them to be permitted to attain full size. Not an acre or a
foot of the land is oosur, or unfit for tillage. Poknapoor is in the
estate of Etowa, which forms part of the pergunnah of Peepareea, to
which Bahadur Sing, the person above described, lays claim. He holds
a few villages round his residence at Pursur; but the pergunnah is
under the management of a Government officer, under the Amil of
Mahomdee. The Rajah, Syud Ashruf Allee Khan, of Mahomdee, claims a
kind of suzerainty over all the district, and over this pergunnah of
Peepareea among the rest. From all the villages tilled and peopled he
is permitted to levy an income for himself at the rate of two rupees
a-village. This the people pay with some reluctance, though they
recognise his right.
The zumeendars of Poknapoor are Kunojee Brahmins, who tell me that
they can do almost everything in husbandry save holding their own
ploughs: they can drive their own harrows and carts, reap their own
crops, and winnow and tread out their own corn; but if they once
condescend to _hold their own ploughs_ they sink in grade, and have
to pay twice as much as they now pay for wives for their sons from
the same families, and take half of what they now take for their
daughters from the same families, into which they now marry them.
They have, they say, been settled in these pergunnahs, north-east of
the Goomtee River, for fifty-two generations as farmers and
cultivators; and their relatives, who still remain at Aslamabad, a
village one koss south-east of Mahomdee, which was the first abode of
the tribe in Oude, have been settled there for no less than eighty-
four generations. They form village communities, dividing the lands
among the several members, and paying over and above the Government
demand a liberal allowance to the head of the village and of the
family settled in it, to maintain his respectability and to cover the
risk and cost of management, either in kind, in money, or in an extra
share of the land.
The lands of Poknapoor are all divided into two equal shares, one
held by _Dewan_ and the other by _Ramnath_, who were both among the
people with whom I conversed. Teekaram, who has a share in Dewan's
half, mentioned that about thirteen years ago the Amil, Khwaja
Mahmood, wanted to increase the rate of the Government demand on the
village from the four hundred, which they had long paid, to four
hundred and fifty; that they refused to pay, and Hindoo Sing, the
Rajpoot tallookdar of Rehreea, one koss east of Poknapoor, offered to
take the lease at four hundred and fifty, and got it. They refused to
pay, and he, at the head of his gang of armed followers, attacked,
plundered, and burnt down the village, and killed his, Teekaram's,
brother Girdharee, with his two sons, and inflicted three severe cuts
of a sabre on the right arm of his wife, who is now a widow among
them. Hindoo Sing's object was to make this village a permanent
addition to his estate; but, to his surprise, the Durbar took serious
notice of the outrage, and he fled into the Shajehanpoor district,
where he was seized by the magistrate, Mr. Buller, and made over to
the Oude authorities for trial. He purchased his escape from them in
the usual way; but soon after offered to surrender to the collector,
Aboo Torab Khan, on condition of pardon for all past offences.
The collector begged the Brahmins to consent to pardon him for the
murders, on condition of getting from Hindoo Sing some fifty beeghas
of land, out of his share in Rehreea. They said they would not
consent to take five times the quantity of the land among such a
turbulent set; but should be glad to get a smaller quantity, rent-
free, in their own village, for the widow of Girdharee. The collector
gave them twenty-five beeghas, or ten acres, in Poknapoor; and this
land Teekaram still holds, and out of the produce supports the poor
widow. A razenamah, or pardon, was given by the family, and Hindoo
Sing has ever since lived in peace upon his estate, The lease of the
village was restored to the Brahmin family, at the reduced rate of
two hundred and fifty, but soon after raised to four hundred, and
again reduced to two hundred and fifty, after the devastation of
Bahadur Sing and Bhoder Sing.
These industrious and unoffending Brahmins say that since these
Rajpoot landholders came among them, many generations ago, there has
never been any peace in the district, except during the time that
Hakeem Mehndee held the contract, when the whole plain that now lies
waste became a beautiful _chummun_ (parterre); that since his
removal, as before his appointment, all has been confusion; that the
Rajpoot landholders are always quarrelling either among themselves or
with the local Government authorities; and, whatever be the nature or
the cause of quarrel, they always plunder and murder,
indiscriminately, the unoffending communities of the villages around,
in order to reduce these authorities to their terms; that when these
Rajpoot landholders leave them in peace, the contractors seize the
opportunity to increase the Government demand, and bring among them
the King's troops, who plunder them just as much as the rebel
landholders, though they do not often murder them in the same
reckless manner. They told me that the hundreds of their relatives
who had gone off during the disorders and taken lands, or found
employment in our bordering districts, would be glad to return to
their own lands, groves, and trees, in Oude, if they saw the
slightest chance of protection, and the country would soon become
again the beautiful parterre which Hakeem Mehndee left it thirty
years ago, instead of the wilderness in which they were now so
wretched; that they ventured to cultivate small patches here and
there, not far from each other, but were obliged to raise small
platforms, upon high poles, in every field, and sit upon them all
night, calling out to each other, in a loud voice, to keep up their
spirits, and frighten off the deer which swarmed upon the grass
plain, and would destroy the whole of the crops in one night, if left
unprotected; that they were obliged to collect large piles of wood
around each platform, and keep them burning all night, to prevent the
tigers from carrying off the men who sat upon them; that their lives
were wretched amidst this continual dread of man and beast, but the
soil and climate were good, and the trees and groves planted by their
forefathers were still standing and dear to them; and they hoped, now
that the Resident had come among them, to receive, at no distant day,
the protection they required. This alone is required to render this
the most beautiful portion of Oude, and Oude the most beautiful
portion of India.
_February_ 4, 1850.--Gokurnath, thirteen miles, north-east, over a
level plain of the same fine muteear soil, here and there running
into doomuteea and bhoor, but in no case into oosur. The first two
miles over the grass plain, and the next four through a belt of
forest trees, with rank grass and underwood, abounding in game of all
kinds, and infested by tigers. Bullocks are often taken by them, but
men seldom. The sal (_alias_ sakhoo) trees are here stunted, gnarled,
and ugly, while in the Tarae forest they are straight, lofty, and
beautiful. The reason is, that beyond the forest their leaves are
stripped off and sold for _plates_. They are carried to distant
towns, and stored up for long periods, to form breakfast and dinner
plates, and the people in the country use hardly anything else.
Plates are formed of them by sewing them together, when required; and
they become as pliable as leather, even after being kept for a year
or more, by having a little water sprinkled over them. They are long,
wide, and tough, and well suited to the purpose. All kinds of food
are put upon them, and served up to the family and guests. The cattle
do not eat them, as they do leaves of the peepul, bur, neem, &c. The
sakhoo, when not preserved, is cut down, when young, for beams,
rafters, &c., required in building. In the Tarae forest, the
proprietors of the lands on which they stand preserve them till they
attain maturity, for sale to the people of the plains; and they are
taken down the Ghagra and other rivers that flow through the forest
to the Ganges, and vast numbers are sold in the Calcutta market. The
fine tall sakhoos in the Tarae forest are called "sayer"; the
knotted, stunted, and crooked shakoos, beyond the forest, are called
"khohurs." There are but few teak (or sagwun) trees in this part of
the Tarae forest. The country is everywhere studded with the same
fine groves and single trees, and requires only tillage to become a
garden. From the belt of jungle to our camp at Gokurnath, seven
miles, the road runs over an open grass plain, with here and there a
field of corn. The sites of villages are numerous, but few of them
are occupied at present. All are said to have been in a flourishing
state, and filled by a happy peasantry, when Hakeem Mehndee lost the
government. Since that time these villages and hamlets have
diminished by degrees, in proportion as the rapacity of the
contractors and the turbulence of the Rajpoot landholders have
increased.
The first village we passed through, after emerging from the belt of
jungle, was Pureylee, which is held and occupied by a large family of
cultivating proprietors of the Koormee caste. Up to the year 1847, it
had for many years been in a good condition, and paid a revenue of
two thousand rupees a-year to Government. In that year Ahmud Allee,
the collector, demanded a thousand more. They could not pay this, and
he sold all their bullocks and other stock to make up the demand; the
lands became waste as usual; and Lonee Sing, of Mitholee, offered the
next contractor one thousand rupees a-year for the lease, and got it.
The village has now been permanently absorbed in his estate, in the
usual way; and, as the Koormees are a peaceful body, they have
quietly acquiesced in the arrangement, and get all the aid they
require from their new landlord. Before this time they had held their
lands, as proprietors, directly under Government. From allodial*
proprietors they are become feudal tenants under a powerful Rajpoot
chief.
[* By allodial, I mean, lands held in proprietary right, immediately
under the crown, but liable to the land-tax.]