ting the following Hindee couplet:--"Men reverence the man whose
heart is wicked, as they adore and make offerings to the evil planet,
while they let the good pass unnoticed, or with a simple salute of
courtesy."*

[* There is another Hindee verse to the same effect. "Man dreads a
crooked thing--the demon Rahoo dares not seize the moon till he sees
her full." They consider the eclipse to be caused by the demon Rahoo
seizing the moon in his mouth.]

The contractor for this district, Budreenath, came to call in the
afternoon, though he is suffering much from disease. He bears a good
character with the Government, because he contrives to pay its
demand; but a very bad one among the people, from whom he extorts the
means. He does not adhere to his engagements with the landholders and
cultivators, but exacts, when the crops are ripe, a higher rate than
they had engaged to pay at the commencement of tillage; and the
people suffer not only from what he takes over and above what is due,
but from the depredations of those whom such proceedings drive into
rebellion. Against such persons he is too weak to protect them; and
as soon as the rebels show that they can reduce his income by
plundering and murdering the peasantry, and all who have property in
the towns and villages, he re-establishes them on their lands on
their own terms. He had lately, however, by great good luck, seized
two very atrocious characters of this description, who had plundered
and burnt down several villages, and murdered some of their
inhabitants; and as he knew that they would be released on the first
occasion of thanksgiving at Lucknow, having the means to bribe Court
favourites, he begged my permission to make them over to Lieutenant
Weston, superintendent of the Frontier Police, as robbers by
profession. "If they come back, sir, they will murder all who have
aided in their capture, or given evidence against them, and no
village or road will be safe."

Some shopkeepers in the town complained that the contractor was in
the habit of forcing them to stand sureties for the fulfilment, on
the part of landholders, of any engagements they might make, to pay
him certain sums, or to make over to him certain land produce at the
harvest. This, they said, often involved them in heavy losses, as the
landholders frequently could not, or would not, do either when the
time came, and they were made to pay. This is a frequent practice
throughout Oude. Shopkeepers and