ans of the town to insist upon taking them
out ten days after the 29th, and persuaded them that the order had
been fabricated, or altered, by the malice of their Hindoo deputy,
_to insult their religious feelings_. They were taken out
accordingly, and having to pass the house of Subsookh Rae, when their
excitement, or spirit of religious fervour, had reached the highest
pitch, they there put them down, broke open the doors, entered in a
crowd, and plundered it of all the property they could find,
amounting to above seventy thousand rupees. Subsookh Rae was obliged
to get out, with his family, at a back door, and run for his life. He
went to Shajehanpoor, in our territory, and put himself under the
protection of the magistrate. Not content with all this, they built a
small miniature mosque at the door with some loose bricks, so that no
one could go either out or in without the risk of knocking it down,
or so injuring this _mock mosque_ as to rouse, or enable the evil-
minded to rouse, the whole Mahommedan population against the
offender. Poor Subsookh Rae has been utterly ruined, and ever since
seeking in vain for redress. The Government is neither disposed nor
able to afford it, and the poor boy who has now succeeded his learned
father in the contract is helpless. The little mock mosque, of
uncemented bricks, still stands as a monument of the insolence of the
Mahommedan population, and the weakness and apathy of the Oude
Government.

CHAPTER II.

Infanticide--Nekomee Rajpoots--Fallows in Oude created by disorders--
Their cause and effect--Tillage goes on in the midst of sanguinary
conflicts--Runjeet Sing, of Kutteearee--Mahomdee district--White
Ants--Traditional decrease in the fertility of the Oude soil--Risks
to which cultivators are exposed--Obligations which these risks
impose upon them--Infanticide--The Amil of Mahomdee's narrow escape--
An infant disinterred and preserved by the father after having been
buried alive--Insecurity of life and property--Beauty of the surface
of the country, and richness of its foliage--Mahomdee district--State
and recent history of--Relative fertility of British and Oude soil--
Native notions of our laws and their administration--Of the value of
evidence in our Courts--Infanticide--Boys only saved--Girls destroyed
in Oude--The priests who give absolution for the crime abhorred by
the people of all other classes--Lands in our districts becoming more
and more exhausted from ove