ake them pay in some proportion to their
usurpations.

Benee Madho called upon me after breakfast, and gave me the little of
his history that I desired to hear. He is of the Byans Rajpoot clan,
and his ancestors have been settled in Oude for about twenty-five
generations, as landholders of different grades. The tallook or
estate now belongs to him, and is considered to be a principality, to
descend entire by the law of primogeniture, to the nearest male heir,
unless the lands become divided during his life-time among his sons.
Such a division has already taken place, as will be seen by the
annexed note :*

[* Abdool-Sing, the tallookdar of Shunkurpoor, had three sons; first,
Doorga Buksh, to whom he gave three shares; second, Chundha Buksh, to
whom he gave two shares; third, Bhowanee Buksh, to whom he gave one
and half share. The three shares of Doorga Buksh descended to his
son, Sheopersaud, who died without issue. Chunda Buksh left two sons,
Ramnaraen and Gor Buksh, Ramnaraen inherited the three shares of
Sheopersaud, as well as the two shares of his father. He had three
sons, Rana Benee Madho, Nirput Sing, and Jogray Sing; Benee Madho
inherited the three shares, and one of the other two was given to
Nirput Sing, and the other to Jogray Sing. Gorbuksh Sing left one
son, Sheopersaud, who gets the one and half share of Bhowanee Buksh,
whose son, Joorawun, died without issue. Benee Madho is now the head
of the family; and he has more than quadrupled his three shares by
absorptions, made in the way above mentioned.]

The three and half shares held by his brothers and cousins are liable
to subdivision by the Hindoo law of inheritance, or the custom of his
family and clan; but his own share must descend undivided, unless he
divides it during his lifetime, or his heirs divide it during theirs,
and consent to descend in the scale of landholders. He says that,
during the five years that Fakeer Mahommed Khan was Nazim, a quarrel
subsisted between him and the tallookdar of Khujoor Gow, Rugonath
Sing, his neighbour; that Sahib Rae, the deputy of Fakeer Mahommed,
who was himself no man of business, adopted the cause of his enemy,
and persuaded his master to attack and rob him of all he had, turn
him out of his estate, and make it over to Rugonath Sing. He went to
Lucknow for redress, and remained there urging his claims for
fourteen months, when he got an order from the minister, Ameen-od
Dowlah, for the estate being restored