r-cropping--Probable consequences to the
Government and people of India--Political and social error of
considering land private property--Hakeem Mehndee and subsequent
managers of Mahomdee--Frauds on the King in charges for the keep of
animals--Kunojee Brahmins--Unsuccessful attempt to appropriate the
lands of weaker neighbours--Gokurnath, on the border of the Tarae--
The sakhoo or saul trees of the forest.

Lalta Sing, of the Nikomee Rajpoot tribe, whom I had lately an
opportunity of assisting, for his good services in arresting outlays
[outlaws ?] from our territories, has just been to pay his respects.
Our next encamping ground is to be on his estate of Kurheya and Para.
He tells me that very few families of his tribe now destroy their
female infants; that tradition ascribes the origin of this evil to the
practice of the Mahommedan emperors of Delhi of demanding daughters
in marriage from the Rajpoot princes of the country; that some of
them were too proud to comply with the demand, and too weak to resist
it in any other way than that of putting all their female infants to
death. This is not impossible. He says that he believes the
_Dhankuries_, whom I have described above to be really the only tribe
of Rajpoots among whom no family destroys its infant daughters in
Oude; that all tribes of Rajpoots get money with the daughters they
take from tribes a shade lower in caste, to whom they cannot give
theirs in return; and pay money with the daughters they give in
marriage to tribes a shade higher, who will not give their daughters
to them in return. The native collector of Shahabad, a gentlemanly
Mahommedan, came out two miles to pay his respects on my approach,
and we met on a large space of land, lying waste, while all around
was covered with rich crops. I asked, "Pray why is this land left
waste?" "It is, sir, altogether unproductive." "Why is this? It seems
to me to be just as good as the rest around, which produces such fine
crops." "It is called _khubtee_--slimy, and is said to be altogether
barren." "I assure you, sir," said Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, "that it is
good land, and capable of yielding good crops, under good tillage, or
it would not produce the fine grass you see upon it. You must not ask
men like this about the kinds and qualities of soils for they really
know nothing whatever about them: they are _city gentlemen's sons_,
who get into high places, and pass their lives in them without
learning anything b