lt of
jungle, fourteen miles west from the Lucknow cantonments--Gungabuksh
Rawat--His attack on Dewa--The family inveterate robbers--Bhurs, once
a civilized and ruling people in Oude--Extirpated systematically in
the fourteenth century--Depredations of Passees--Infanticide--How
maintained--Want of influential middle class of merchants and
manufacturers--Suttee--Troops with the Amil--Seizure of a marriage
procession by Imambuksh, a gang leader--Perquisites and allowances of
Passee watchmen over corn-fields--Their fidelity to trusts--Ahbun
Sing, of Kyampoor, murders his father--Rajah Singjoo of Soorujpoor--
Seodeen, another leader of the same tribe--Principal gang-leaders of
the Dureeabad Rodowlee district--Jugurnath Chuprassie--Bhooree Khan--
How these gangs escape punishment--Twenty-four belts of jungle
preserved by landholders always, or occasionally, refractory in Oude
--Cover eight hundred and eighty-six square miles of good land--How
such atrocious characters find followers, and landholders of high
degree to screen, shelter, and aid them.

_February_ 14, 1850.--Peernuggur, ten miles south-east, over a plain
of the same soil, but with more than the usual proportion of oosur.
Trees and groves as usual, but not quite so fine or numerous. The
Nazim of Khyrabad took leave of me on his boundary as we crossed it
about midway, and entered the district of "Baree Biswa," which is
held in farm by Lal Bahader,* a Hindoo, who there met us. This fiscal
officer has under him the "Jafiree," and "Tagfore" Regiments of
nujeebs, and eight pieces of cannon. The commandants of both corps
are in attendance at Court, and one of them, Imdad Hoseyn, never
leaves it. The other does condescend sometimes to come out to look at
his regiment when _not on service_. The draft-bullocks for the guns
have, the Nazim tells me, had a little grain within the last month,
but still not more than a quarter of the amount for which the King is
charged. Peernuggur is now a place of little note upon the banks of
the little river Sae, which here flows under a bridge built by Asuf-
od Dowlah some sixty years ago.

[* This man was in prison at Lucknow as a defaulter, but made his
escape in October, 1851, by drugging the sentry placed over him, and
got safe into British territory.]

Gang-robberies are here as frequent as in Khyrabad, and the
respectable inhabitants are going off in the same manner. One which
took place in July last year is characteristic of