ade to pay ransoms
to get back, while all the plough-bullocks are put in requisition to
draw the guns which the King's bullocks are unable to draw
themselves. In short, that the approach of King's servants is dreaded
as one of the greatest calamities that can befal them."

I should here mention, that all the Telinga regiments, fourteen in
number, are allowed tents and hackeries to carry them. The way in
which the bullocks of such carts are provided with fodder has been
already mentioned; but no tents or conveyance of any kind are allowed
for the Nujeeb corps, thirty-two in number. Whenever they move (and
they are almost always moving), they seize whatever conveyance and
shelter they require from the people of the country around. Each
battalion, even in its ordinary incomplete state, requires four
hundred or five hundred porters, besides carts, bullocks, horses,
ponies, &c. Men, women, and children, of all classes, are seized, and
made to carry the baggage, arms, accoutrements, and cages of pet
birds, belonging to the officers and sipahees of these corps. They
are stripped of their clothes, confined, and starved from the time
they are seized; and as it is difficult to catch people to relieve
them along the road, they are commonly taken on two or three stages.
If they run away, they forfeit all their clothes which remain in the
hands of the sipahees; and a great many die along the road of
fatigue, hunger, and exposure to the sun. Numerous cruel instances of
this have been urged by me on the notice of the King, but without any
good effect. The line of march of one of these corps is like the road
to the temple of Juggurnaut! When the corps is about to move,
detachments are sent out to seize conveyance of all kinds; and for
one cart required and taken, fifty are seized, and released for a
donation in proportion to their value, the respectability of the
proprietors, and the necessity for their employment at home at the
time. The sums thus extorted by detachments they share with their
officers, or they would never be again sent on such lucrative
service.

It appears that in this part of Oude the people have not for many
years suffered so much from the depredations of the refractory
landholders as in other parts; and that the desolate state of the
district arises chiefly from the other three great evils that afflict
Oude--the rack-renting of the contractors; the divisions they create
and foster among landholders; and the dep