ere too high, and the
managing officers never thought the necessity of reduction
established, till the villages were partially or wholly deserted. The
farmers and cultivators all emigrated, by degrees, into the
neighbouring districts of Nagpoor and Rewa, where they had more
consideration and lighter assessments, and the markets for land
produce were improving. The lands of Mundula became waste, and
covered with rank grass filled with deer; tigers followed to feed
upon them, and carried off all the poor peasantry, who remained and
attempted to cultivate small patches; malaria followed and completed
the work.

Like the _tharoos_ of the Oude forest, the Gonds born in this malaria
are the only people who can live in it; and the ravages of tigers and
endemial disease prevent their numbers from increasing. Those who
once emigrate never come back, and population and tillage have been
decreasing ever since we took possession, or for thirty-three years.
The same process has been going on in other parts of the Nerbudda
valley with the same results. In Oude, from the causes above
described, lands of the same denomination and kind often yield double
the rate of rent that they yield in our own conterminous districts,
or districts on the opposite side of the Ganges, and other rivers
that separate our territories from those of Oude. Under a tolerable
Government, Oude would soon become one of the most beautiful
countries in India; but the lands would fall off, in fertility, as
ours do from over-cropping, no doubt.

_January_ 28, 1850.--Shahabad, ten miles. We crossed, close under
Palee, the little river Gurra, which continued for some miles to flow
along, in its winding course, close by on our left. It is here some
five or six miles to the south-west of the town. The soil we have
come over is chiefly muteear, or the doomuteea, tightened by a
mixture of clay, or argillaceous earth. Rich crops of rice are grown
on this muteea, which retains its moisture so much better than the
looser doomutea soil.

Half-way we came through a neat village, the lands of which are
subdivided between the members of a large family of Kunojee Brahmins,
who came out to see us pass, and pay their respects. The cultivation
was so fine that I hoped they were of the class who condescended to
hold their own ploughs. I asked them; and they, with seeming pride,
told me that they did not--that they employed servants to hold their
ploughs for them. When I told the