d character of the administration; nor
would it be desirable for them to do so unless trained to civil
business, and able and disposed to commune freely with the people of
all classes. The advantages would hardly counterbalance the
disadvantages. When I apologize to the peasantry for the unavoidable
trespasses of my camp, they always reply good-humouredly, "The losses
we suffer from them are small and temporary, while the good we hope
from your visit is great and permanent." Would that I could realize
the hopes to which my visit gives rise.

_January_ 15, 1850.--To Meeangunge, five miles, over a plain of good
doomuteea soil, well studded with trees; but much of the land lies
waste, and many of the villages and hamlets are unoccupied and in
ruins. We passed the boundary of the Russoolabad district, about two
miles from our last ground, and crossed into that of Meeangunge or
Safeepoor. The Russoolabad district was held in contract for some
years by one of the greatest knaves in Oude, Buksh Allee, a dome by
caste, whose rise to wealth and influence may be described as
illustrative of the manners and customs of the Lucknow Court and
Government. This man and his deputy, Munsab Allee, reduced a good
deal of the land of the district to waste, and depopulated many of
its villages and hamlets by over-exactions and by an utter disregard
of their engagements with the landholders and cultivators; and they
were in league with many atrocious highway robbers, who plundered and
murdered so many travellers along the high road leading from Lucknow
to Cawnpoor, which runs through the district, that it was deemed
unsafe to pass it except in strong bodies.

When I took charge of my office in January last, they used to seize
every good-looking girl or young woman, passing the roads with
parents and husbands, who were too poor to purchase redress at Court,
and make slaves or concubines of them; and, feeling strong in the
assurance of protection from the fiddlers in the palace, who are of
the same caste--domes--Buksh Allee defied all authority, and kept
those girls and women in his camp and house at Lucknow, while their
parents and husbands, for months and years, in vain besought all who
were likely to have the least influence or authority to interpose for
their release. Some of them came to me soon after I took charge, and,
having collected sufficient proof of these atrocities, and of some
robberies which he had committed or caused to be co