sometimes attack and plunder villages, and spare neither
age nor sex. They have some small strongholds in which they assemble
from different villages over pitchers of spirits, made from the fruit
of the mhowa tree, and purchased for them by their leaders; and,
having determined upon what villages to attack, proceed at once to
work before they get sober. Every town and village through which we
pass has suffered more or less from their atrocities, and the people
are in a continual state of dread.

In 1843, the pausees, who resided in the village of Chindwara, in the
Dewa district, ran off to avoid being held responsible for the
robbery of a merchant in the neighbourhood. They were pacified and
brought back; but the landholder was sorely pressed by the Government
collector to pay up his balance of revenue, and he, in turn, pressed
the pausees to pay up the balances due by them for rents. They ran
off again, but their families were retained by the landholder. The
pausees gathered together all of their clan that they could muster
from the surrounding villages, attacked the landholder's house,
killed his mother, wife, four of his nephews, the wife of one of his
nephews, two of the King's sipahees who attempted to defend them, and
several of the landholder, Yakoob Husun's, servants, and plundered
him of everything he had. The landlord himself happened to be absent
on business, and was the only one of the family who escaped. In all
twenty-nine persons were murdered by the pausees on that occasion.
They were all permitted to come back and settle in the village, as if
nothing had happened; the village was made over to another, and
Yakoob Husun has ever since been supplicating in vain for redress at
the King's gate.

About three miles from Badoosura, we passed from the Ramnuggur
district into that of Dureeabad Rodowlee; but the above description
is applicable to both, though in a somewhat less degree to Ramnuggur
than to Dureeabad. It is equally applicable to the Dewa district,
which we left on our right yesterday, midway between our road and
Lucknow. There Gunga Buksh Chowdheree and his relatives have large
gangs engaged in plundering towns, and seizing upon the lands of
their weaker and more scrupulous neighbours. In the Dureeabad
district, the leaders of gangs are chiefly of the Behraleea tribe of
Rajpoots, so called after the district of Behralee, in which they
reside.

I this morning asked Nowsing, a landholder of the Ry