muning with the people, would little suspect
the fearful crimes that are every year committed upon it, from the
weakness and apathy of the Government, and the bad faith and bad
character of its officers and chief landholders. The land is tilled
in spite of all obstacles, because all depend upon its produce for
subsistence; but there is no indication of the beneficial
interference of the Government for the protection of life, property,
and character, and for the encouragement of industry and the display
of its fruits. The land is ploughed, and the seed sown, often by
stealth at night, in the immediate vicinity of a sanguinary contest
between the Government officers and the landholders. It is only when
the latter are defeated, and take to the jungles, or the Honourable
Company's districts, and commence their indiscriminate plunder, that
the cultivator ceases from his labours, and the lands are left waste.

Runjeet Sing two or three years ago seized upon the village of
Mulatoo, in his vicinity, to which he had no claim whatever, and he
has forcibly retained it. It had long paid Government ten thousand a-
year, but he has consented to pay only one thousand. Lands yielding
above nine thousand he has cut off from its rent-roll, and added to
those of his hereditary villages on the borders. Last year he seized
upon the village of Nudua, with a rent-roll of fourteen hundred
rupees, and he holds it with a party of soldiers and two guns. The
Amil lately sent out a person with a small force to demand the
Government dues; but they were driven back, as he pretends that he
got it in mortgage from Dumber Sing, who had taken a short lease of
that and other khalsa villages, and absconded as a defaulter; and
that he has purchased the lands from the cultivating proprietors, and
is, therefore, bound to pay no revenue whatever for them-to the King.
All defaulters and offenders who take refuge on his estate he
instigates to plunder, and provides with gangs, on condition of
getting the greater part of the booty. He thinks that he is sure of
shelter in the British territory, should he be driven from Oude; he
feels also sure of aid from other large landholders of the same class
in the neighbourhood.

_January_ 30, 1850.--Kurheya Para, twelve miles, over a plain of
excellent muteear soil, a good deal of which-is covered with jungle.
Para is a short distance from Kurheya, and our camp is midway between
the two villages. The boundary of the Sande