d with Hakeem Mehndee. The
Oude Government has often remonstrated against the protection which
this contumacious and atrocious landholder receives from our subjects
and authorities.* Crimes in this district are not quite so numerous
as in Bangur; but they are of no less atrocious a character. The
thieves and robbers of Bangur, when taken and taxed with being so,
say, "of course we are robbers--if we were not, how should we have
been permitted to reside in Bangur?" All are obliged to fight and
plunder with the landholders, or to rob for them on distant roads,
and in distant villages.

[* See the Resident's letter to Government North-Western Provinces,
3rd August, 1837. The King's letter to the Resident, 7th April, 1837.
The same to the same, 19th May, 1837. Depositions and urzies. Runjeet
Sing was attacked by the King's troops and driven across the Ganges
again in June 1851, and died during the contest, which is being
continued by his son. 1851.--W. H. S.]

My camp has been robbed several times within the time I have been
out, and the property has been traced to villages in the Sundeela and
Bangur districts. In the Sundeela district it can be recovered when
traced with a small force, and the thieves taken; but in the Bangur
district it would require a large military force well commanded, and
a large train of artillery to recover the one or seize the other.

A respectable landholder of this place, a Sombunsie, tells me, that
the custom of destroying their female infants has prevailed from the
time of the first founder of their race; that a rich man has to give
food to many Brahmins, to get rid of the stain, on the twelfth or
thirteenth day, but that a poor man can get rid of it by presenting a
little food in due form to the village priest; that they cannot give
their daughters in marriage to any Rajpoot families, save the
Rhathores and Chouhans; that the family of their clan who gave a
daughter to any other class of Rajpoots, would be excluded from caste
immediately and for ever; that those who have property have to give
all they have with their daughters to the Chouhans and Rhathores, and
reduce themselves to nothing; and can take nothing from them in
return, as it is a great stain to take "_kuneea dan_," or virgin
price; from any one; that a Sombunsie may, however, when reduced to
great poverty, take the "_kuneea dan_" from the Chouhans and
Rhathores for a virgin daughter without being excommunicated from the
clan,