344

FERTILITY OF OUDE.

I would send him or some other messenger. But through the mercy of God, the remedies I took, almost in utter ignorance, proved successful, and I found myself so much better on the morning of Saturday, November the 6th, as to be enabled to perform my day's journey with ease in the palanquin; and I received the felicitations of all the elders of the camp on my recovery.

I believe my complaint to have been the Calcutta and Luck. now influenza, a little aggravated, perhaps, by my journey in the sun after tiffin on Monday afternoon. I did not feel, however, the same excessive and distressing languor as is said to have haunted convalescents in that disorder, or more indeed of weakness than might fairly be accounted for by the discipline which I had undergone.

Our stage to-day of seven coss, through the same level and fruitful style of country, was to Belgaram, a place remarkable as being the station first fixed on for the British "advanced force," as it then was, which was afterwards fixed at Cawnpoor. There are still several traces of what the King's suwarrs said were bells of arms, and officers' bungalows, which certainly might be such, but were now heaps of ruins.

The town of Belgaram itself is small, with marks of having been much more considerable, but still containing some large and good, though old Mussulman houses, the habitations of the tussuldar, cutwall, &c. Here again, after a long interval, I found a good many scattered palms, both of the date and toddy species, and there is a noble show of mangoe-trees in every direction. I found myself well enough in the evening to walk round the place, attended by the goomashta, whom I found a very sensible man, willing to give information, and well acquainted with most points which relate to the agriculture, rent, and taxes of this part of India. He said, what I could easily believe from all which I saw, that the soil of Oude was one of the finest in the world; that every thing flourished here which grew either in Bengal or Persia; that they had at once rice, sugar, cotton, and palm-trees, as well as wheat, maize, barley, beans, and oats: that the air was good, the water good, and the grass particularly nourishing to cattle: but he said, "the laws are not good, the judges are wicked, the Zemindars are worse, the Aûmeens worst of all, and the Ryuts are robbed of every thing, and the King will neither see nor hear." I asked him the rent per begah of the land. He said generally four rupees, but sometimes six; and sometimes the peasant had all taken from him. I observed that it was strange that, under such usage, they continued to cultivate the "What can they do?" he land so well as they seemed to do. answered; "they must eat; and when they have put the seed in

MUSSULMAN SUWARR.

345

the ground, they must wait till it comes up, and then take what they can get of it." I still, however, suspect exaggeration in all these stories.

We passed a neat garden of turnips and some potatoes looking very promising; these last, he said, were át first exceedingly disliked by the people, but now were becoming great favourites, particularly with the Mussulmans, who find them very useful as absorbents in their greasy messes. Our elephants were receiving their drink at a well, and I gave the suwarree some bread, which, before my illness, I had often been in the habit of doing. "He is glad to see you again," observed the goomashta, and I certainly was much struck by the calm, clear, attentive, intelligent eye which he fixed on me, both while he was eating and afterwards, while I was patting his trunk and talking about him. His mohout told me, that three or four years ago his trunk had received a very serious wound from the claw of a tiger which sprang on him, and from which he was rescued with great difficulty; the trunk was nearly torn off, but he was recovered by having a bandage applied kept constantly wet with brandy. He was, he said, a fine tempered beast, but the two others were "great rascals." One of them had once almost killed his keeper. I have got these poor beasts' allowance increased, in consideration of their long march; and that they may not be wronged, have ordered the mohout to give them all their gram in presence of a sentry. The gram is made up in cakes, about as large as the top of a hat-box, and baked on an earthen pot. Each contains a seer, and sixteen of them are considered as sufficient for one day's food for an elephant on a march. The suwarree elephant had only twelve, but I ordered him the full allowance, as well as an increase to the others. If they knew this they would indeed be glad to see me.

As I was slowly returning to my tents, a handsome young Mussulman came up, and seeing an European in plain clothes, with only three unarmed people, began talking civilly in point of language, but in a very free and easy sort of manner; he was smartly dressed, with a gold-laced skull-cap, an embroidered muslin shirt and drawers, ear-rings, collar, and ring, which professed to be of garnets with a few diamonds, and a showy shawl wrapped round his body, but none of his clothes clean or well put on, and had that sort of jaunty air about him, which, as it is more unusual, is even more offensive in an Eastern than a Western buck. He was followed by seven or eight very dirty ill-dressed fellows with swords, shields, and matchlocks, and had himself a sword, with a tarnished silver hilt, and a large pistol which he carried in his hand and kept playing with while he was speaking. He was evidently more than half drunk, and had the VOL. I.-44

346

MUSSULMAN SUWARR.

manner of a foolish boy who wants to play the great man, but is not sure how he will be received, and undecided whether he is to pick a quarrel or no. He salamed, and asked me what I was about, and where I had been, which I answered civilly but shortly; he then inquired whence I came and where I was going. I asked him why he wanted to know; to which he answered, that he was a man of consequence in the neighbourhood, and it was his business to make inquiries; but added more civilly, that seeing a Sahib, he came to offer salutation. I said I was obliged to him, and asked him his name, which he told me, but which I forget, except that he professed to be a Syud, inquiring at the same time what my name was. "Lord Padre Sahib" did not explain the matter at all; he resumed, however, his inquiries about my route next day, and where I intended to halt. I had forgotten the name, and on turning towards the goomashta, he, very eagerly and with an expressive look, said, "Sandee," which I knew was not the place; but as he seemed to wish to see no more of the gentleman, I did not interfere. He then again launched out into an account of his own influence in the neighbourhood, "East, West, North, and South," and added, as I seemed a good man, he would come in the morning with his friends to protect me. I thanked him, but said he need not trouble himself, since, besides my own servants, I had already fifty sepoys, and ten of the King's suwarrs. While I said this, a very whimsical change took place in his countenance. His head was before thrown back in a protecting way, and his eyes were half shut. These he now opened very wide, and raised his head to a perpendicular posture so suddenly, that, since I had, during the conversation, drawn up pretty closely to him, in order to prevent, if necessary, any further evolutions with his pistol, our noses and breasts were almost brought into contact. He hastily drew back, called me "Huzoor," instead of "Ap," and again renewed his offer, not of protection, but of service. I cut the matter short, however, by taking a civil leave of this young descendant of Fatima and the Imâms. When he was gone, I asked the goomashta if he knew any thing of him. He shook his head, saying that there were many such hurramzadus about the country, who were too proud to enter into the Company's army, and who could not find employ in the little army of the King, and were, consequently, idle, drunken, and ready for any mischief. I asked if he were a Zemindar; he said he did not believe that he was either Zemindar or Tusseldar, or that, whatever his family might be, he had any other profession or character than that of suwarr, and a candidate for employment in some of the mercenary armies of India. He concluded with hoping we should see no more of him, which, indeed, seemed most likely. I was a little tired with

my walk, but slept all the better for it, and waked at half-past three on Sunday the 7th, with no traces of sickness. I had ordered the tents and luggage to a station seven coss distant, but the foolish khânsaman, finding a want of trees and water there, instead of pushing on further, or trying to the right or left, returned two coss to Sandee, so that the animals and people had a nine coss march, while our actual progress was only five! I was very angry when I came up and found what had happened, but it was then too late to be remedied.

The country through which we passed to-day was extremely pretty, undulating, with scattered groves of tall trees, and some extensive lakes which still showed a good deal of water. The greater part of the space between the wood was in green wheat; but there were, round the margins of the lakes, some small tracks of brushwood and beautiful silky jungle-grass, eight or ten feet high, with its long pendant beards glistening with hoar frost, a sight enough, in itself, to act as a tonic to a convalescent European. The morning was very cold, however, to my feelings, and though I had a woollen great coat, pantaloons, and worsted stockings, I was not sorry to draw my cloak also about me. Sandee is a poor little village, shaded by some fine trees, with a large jeel in the neighbourhood swarming with wild-fowl. It was described to me as a very dangerous place for travellers without my present advantages, and I was told that from thence to the Company's frontier the country bore an extremely bad character, and several robberies and murders had taken place lately. For us there could, I should think, be no fear, but when I went to take my usual walk in the evening, the jemautdar of the King's horsemen and one of his troopers came up with their swords and pistols, and begged leave to join me.

I had an opportunity, on this occasion, of seeing the manner in which the ground is irrigated from wells, of which there are great numbers. The water is poured into narrow channels conducted all over the field, round the little squares into which the land is divided all through India, and the use of which I before understood but imperfectly. I now found that these ledges are adapted to receive and retain the precious fluid with as little waste as possible, each serving as a small lock, in which, when the water has done its duty, a hole is made by the hand and the stream passed on to the next. The industry and neatness exhibited in this work were very pleasing, and I rejoiced to see the favourable appearance which the young wheat bore. The lake was half dry already, and would, they said, in three months' time be quite so; as it recedes, it leaves a fine bed of grass and aquatic plants, on which a large herd of cattle was now eagerly grazing. The Ganges, I was told, was not above four coss distant, and an

angle of the Company's frontier hardly so far. One of the King's couriers passed, dressed like a suwarr and well armed, on a good horse, and riding at a great rate with a mounted and armed attendant behind him. There were, the jemautdar said, a great many of these people, who brought news from different quarters, the greater part of which was afterwards inserted in the court intelligencer. The only regular post in Oude is carried on by the British Government, and is under the management of the Resident. This was a lonely Sunday, except that in the evening I said prayers with Abdullah. I hope, however, it was not a misspent one. I hope and believe I was really thankful to God for his late goodness to me. My travelling to-day was not to be avoided, since, otherwise, I could not have reached Bareilly by the following Sunday.

November 8.-Our march to-day, thanks to the blunder of yesterday, was ten coss, or twenty miles, to a large village with an old fortress, named Suromunuggur. The country improved in beauty, becoming more and more woody and undulating, but was neither so well inhabited nor so well cultivated as that which we had gone through before. The King's Aûmeen had urged my people to pitch their tents two coss short of Suromunuggur, at another village, but the water was bad and dirty, and they remembered my recent scolding too well to stop again short of the appointed place. In consequence, however, of their advance, a messenger came from the "Foujdar" (chatellain) of Suromunuggur, asking why we were not content with the quarters at first assigned us, adding that the men of their place neither wanted to see the King nor any of his friends, that they had no supplies to spare, and were able and determined to defend themselves against us. At almost the same time a similar message came from the first village, bidding us go on in God's name, for they did not want us there; but if the people of Suromunuggur refused to receive us, they would help us with five hundred men. I was asleep in my palanquin, it being early in the morning when this occurred; but Abdullah, who was a little in advance, answered the first messengers very properly, that "His Lord did not come there to take any part in their quarrels; that it was known to all the country that I was travelling peaceably, and that instead of using the King's authority to strip the Ryuts, I had paid for every thing which was brought, and had not allowed either servant or soldier to take a blade of corn without leave of the owner. That if their tradesmen would not furnish us with supplies, we would buy them elsewhere, and content ourselves with telling the King and the Resident the reception we had met with; but that he (Abdullah) did not dare propose to me to go, in consequence of their foolish threats, to any other place than that