ent and its officers, and no less so to the landholders,
cultivators, and people of all classes. Their wealth consists in
their credit in different parts of India; and he who has most of it
may have little at his house to tempt the robber, while the
Government officers stand generally too much in daily need of his
services and mediation to molest him. A pledge made by these officers
to landholders and cultivators, or to these officers by such persons,
is seldom considered safe or binding till the respectable banker or
capitalist has ratified it by his mediation, to which all refer with
confidence.

He understands the characters and means of all, and will not venture
to ratify any pledge till he is assured of both the disposition and
ability of the party to fulfil it. Chundun Lal is one of the most
respectable of this class in Oude. He resides at this place, Morowa,
but has a good landed estate in our territories, and banking
establishments at Cawnpoor and many other of our large stations. He
is a very sensible, well-informed man, but not altogether free from
the ailing of his class--a disposition to abuse the confidence of the
Government officers; and, in collusion with them, to augment his
possessions in land at the cost of his weaker neighbours.

I am told here that the Tilokchund Byses, when bitten by a snake, do
sometimes condescend to apply a remedy. They have a vessel full of
water suspended above the head of the sufferer, with a small tube at
the bottom, from which water is poured gently on the head as long as
he can bear it. The vent is then stopped till the patient is equal to
bear more; and this is repeated four or five times till the sufferer
recovers. I have not yet heard of any one dying under the operation,
or from the bite of a snake. I find no one that has ever heard of a
member of this family dying of the bite of a snake. One of the Rajahs
of this family, who called on me to-day, declared that no member of
his family had ever been known to die of such a bite, and he could
account for it only "from their being descended from Salbahun, the
rival and conqueror of Bickermajeet, of Ojein."

This Salbahun* is said to have been a lineal descendant of the _sake-
god!_ He told me that the females of this family could never wear
cotton cloth of any colour but plain white; that when they could not
afford to wear silk or satin they never wore anything but the piece
of white cotton cloth which formed, in one, the