usand head of
cattle; but, on his way back, he was attacked by a party of twenty
brave men (under a landholder named Nabee Buksh, whom he wished to
seize), and driven back to his camp at Busuntpoor, with the loss of
all his booty. He attempted no more enterprises after this check. The
tortures ceased, and ten days after he ran off, on hearing that
Rughbur Sing had been deprived of his charge by orders from Lucknow.
At this time one hundred and fifty prisoners remained at Busuntpoor,
and they were released by Incha Sing, the successor and uncle of
Rughbur Sing.

The Akhbar Naveeses, so far from admonishing the perpetrators of
these atrocities, were some of them among the most active promoters
of them. Jorakhun, the news-writer at Bondee, got one anna for every
prisoner brought in; and from two to three rupees for every prisoner
released. He got every day subsistence for ten men from Kurum Hoseyn.
All the news-writers in the neighbourhood got a share of the booty in
bullocks, cows, and other animals. Two chuprassies are said to have
come from Government, and remained at Busuntpoor for nearly the whole
two months, while these tortures were being inflicted, without making
any report of them. When the order for dismissing Rughbur Sing came
from the Durbar, Maharaj Sing went off, saying, that he would soon
smother all complaints, in the usual way, at Lucknow.

In September 1847, Rughbur Sing's agents, with a considerable force,
encamped at Parbatee-tolah, in the Gonda district, and made a sudden
attack upon the fine town of Khurgoopoor. After plundering the town,
the troops seized forty of the most respectable merchants and
shopkeepers of the place, and made them over to Rughbur Sing's
agents, at the rate agreed upon, of so much a head, as the
perquisites of the soldiers; and these agents confined and tortured
them till they each paid the ransom demanded, and rated according to
their supposed means. The troops did the same by Bisumberpoor,
Bellehree Pundit, Pyaree, Peepree, and many other towns and villages
in the same district of Gonda. A trooper and his son, who tried to
save the honour of their family, by defending the entrance to their
house, were cut down and killed at Khurgapoor; and in Bisumberpoor
one of the soldiers, with his sword, cut off the arm of a respectable
old woman, in order the more easily to get her gold bracelets. The
poor woman died a few hours afterwards. The only relative of the poor
old woman who