blind, deaf or dumb, or are carried off in early life by some
terrible disease. Hardly any of them attain a good old age, nor can
they boast of an untainted line of ancestors like other men. If they
get sons, they commonly die young. They unite themselves to women of
inferior castes for want of daughters in families of their own ranks,
and there is hardly a family among these proud Rajpoots unstained by
such connections.* Even the reptile _Pausies_ become _Rajpoots_ by
giving their daughters to Powars and other Rajpoot families, when by
robbery and murder they have acquired wealth and landed property. The
sister of Gunga Buksh, of Kasimgunge, was married to the Rajah of
Etondeea, a Powar Rajpoot in Mahona; and the present Rajah--Jode
Sing--is her son. Gunga Buksh is a Pausee, but the family call
themselves Rawats, and are considered to be Rajpoots, since they have
acquired landed possessions by the murder and ruin of the old
proprietors. They all delight in murder and rapine--the curse of God
is upon them, sir, for the murder of their own innocent children!"

[* A great number of girls are purchased and stolen from our
territories, brought into Oude, and sold to Rajpoot families, as
wives for their sons, on the assurance, that they are of the same or
higher caste, and that their parents have been induced to part with
them from poverty. A great many of our native officers and sipahees,
who marry while home on furlough, and are pressed for time, get such
wives. Some of their neighbours are always bribed by the traders in
such girls, to pledge themselves for the purity of their blood. If
they ever find out the imposition, they say nothing about it.]

"When I was sent out to inquire into the case of Brigadier Webber,
who had been attacked and robbed while travelling in his palkee, with
relays of bearers, from Lucknow to Seetapoor, I entered a house to
make some inquiries, and found the mistress weeping. I asked the
cause, and she told me that she had had four children, and lost all--
that three of them were girls, who had been put to death in infancy,
and the last was a fine boy, who had just died! I told her that this
was a just punishment from God for the iniquities of her family, and
that I would neither wash my hands nor drink water under her roof. I
never do under the roof of any family in which such a cruel practice
prevails. These Rajpoots are all a bad set, sir. When men murder
their own children, how can they sc