ight did
little apparent injury to the crops; but the wheat crops, generally,
over Oude and the adjoining districts, was shrivelled and deficient
in substance. It had "run to stalk" from the excess of rain.]

The landholders of this purgunnah are chiefly Janwar Rajpoots.
Kymara, a fine village, through which we passed, about five miles
from Kurunpoor, is the residence of the present head of this family,
Rajah Ajeet Sing. He has a small fort close by, in which he is now
preparing to defend himself against the King's forces. The poor old
man came out with all his village community to meet and talk with me,
in the hope that I might interpose to protect him. He is weak in mind
and body, has no son, and, having lately lost his only brother and
declared heir to the estate, his cousins and more distant relations
are scrambling for the inheritance. The usual means of violence,
collusion, and intrigue have been had recourse to. The estate is in
the Huzoor Tuhseel, and not under the jurisdiction of the contractor
of Khyrabad. The old man seemed care-worn and very wretched, and told
me that the contractor, whom I should meet at Teekur, had only
yesterday received orders from Court to use all his means to oust him
from possession, and make over the estate to his cousin, Jodha Sing,
who had lately left him in consequence of a dispute, after having,
since the death of his brother, aided him in the management of the
estate; that he had always paid his revenues to the King punctually,
and last year he owed a balance of only one hundred and sixty rupees,
when _Anrod Sing_, his distant relative, wanted him to declare his
younger brother, Dirj Bijee Sing, his heir to the estate, in lieu of
Jodha Sing.

This he refused to do, and Anrod Sing came, with a force of two
thousand armed men, supported by a detachment from Captain Barlow's
regiment, and laid siege to his fort, on the pretence that he was
required to give security for the more punctual payment of the
revenue. To defend himself, he was obliged to call in the aid of his
clan and neighbours, and expend all that he had or could borrow, and,
at last, constrained to accept Anrod Sing's security, for no
merchants would lend money to a poor man in a state of siege. Anrod
Sing had now gone off to Lucknow, and bribed the person in charge of
the Huzoor Tuhseel, Gholam Ruza Khan, one of the most corrupt men in
the corrupt Court of Lucknow, to get an order issued by the Minister
to have him