Part 27 (2/2)

Fidda Hoseyn, of course, paid a high sum for the command to be exacted from his subordinates, or the people of the district in which it might be employed; and the regiment has remained worse than useless. Of the eleven guns, five are useless on the ground, and without bullocks. The bullocks for the other six are present, but too weak to draw anything. They had had no grain for many years; but within the last month they have had one-half seer each per day out of the one seer and half paid for by Government. There is no ammunition, stores, or anything else for the guns, and the best of the carriages are liable to fall to pieces with the first discharge. They are not allowed to repair them, but must send them in to get them changed for others when useless. The Durbar knows that if they allow the local officers to charge for the repair of guns, heavy charges will be made, and no gun ever repaired; and the local officers know that if they send in a gun to be repaired at Lucknow, they will get in exchange one _painted_ to look well, but so flimsily done up that it will go to pieces the first or second time it is fired.

Captain Barlow's corps is a good one, and the men are finer than any that I have seen in our own infantry regiments, though they get only five rupees a-month each, while ours get seven. They prefer this rate under European officers in the Oude service, to the seven rupees a- month which sipahees get in ours, though they have no pension establishment or extra allowance while marching. They feel sure that their European commandants will secure them their pay sooner or later; they escape many of the hara.s.sing duties to which our sipahees are liable; they have leave to visit their homes one month in twelve; they never have to march out of Oude to distant stations, situated in bad climates; they get fuel and fodder, and often food, for nothing; their baggage is always carried for them at the public cost. But to secure them their pay, arms, accoutrements, clothing, &c., the commandant must be always about the Court himself, or have an _amba.s.sador_ of some influence there at great cost. Captain Barlow is almost all his time at Court, as much from choice as expediency, drawing all his allowances and emoluments of all kinds, while his second in command performs his regimental duties for him. The other officers like this, because they know that the corps could not possibly be kept in the state it is without it. Captain Barlow has lately obtained three thousand rupees for the repair of his six gun- carriages, tumbrils, &c., that is, five hundred for each. They had not been repaired for ten years; hardly any of the others have been repaired for the last twenty or thirty years.

The n.a.z.im of this district of Khyrabad has taken the farm of it for one year at nine lacs of rupees, that is one lac and a half less than the rate at which it was taken by his predecessor last year. He tells me, that he was obliged, to enter into engagements to pay in gratuities fifty thousand to the minister, of which he has as yet paid only five thousand; twenty-five thousand to the Dewan, Balkishun, and seven thousand to Gholam Ruza, who has charge of the Huzoor Tuhseel--that he was obliged to engage to pay four hundred rupees a-month, in salaries, to men named by the Dewan, who do no duty, and never show their faces to him; and similar sums to the creatures of the minister and others--that he was obliged to pay gratuities to a vast number of understrappers at Court--that he was not made aware of the amount of these gratuities, &c., till he had received his dress of invest.i.ture, and had merely promised to pay what his predecessor had paid--that when about to set out, the memorandum of what his predecessor had paid was put into his hand, and it was then too late to remonstrate or draw back. There may be some exaggeration in the rate of the gratuities demanded; but that he has to pay them to the persons named I have no doubt whatever, because; all men in charge of districts have to pay them to those persons, whether they hold the districts in contract, or in trust.

The Zuffer Mobaruk regiment, with its commandant, Fidda Hoseyn, is now across the Ghagra in charge of Dh.o.r.ehra, an estate in the forest belonging to Rajah Arjun Sing, who has absconded in consequence of having been ruined by the rapacity of a native collector last year; and they are diligently employed in plundering all the people who remain. The estate paid 2,75,000 a-year till these outrages began; and it cannot now pay fifty thousand. Arjun Sing and Seobuksh Sing, of Kuteysura, are the only refractory landholders in the Khyrabad district at present.

_March_ 10, 1850.--Halted at Lahurpoor. There is good ground for large civil and military establishments to the south of the town, about a mile out, on the left of the road leading to Khyrabad. It is a fine open plain of light soil. New pucka-wells would be required; and some low ground, near the south and north, would also require to be drained, as water lies in it during the rains. There is excellent ground nearer the town on the same side, but the mango-groves are thick and numerous, and would impede the circulation of air. The owners would, moreover be soon robbed of them were a cantonment, or civil station, established among or very near to them. The town and site of any cantonment, or civil station, should be taken from the Kuteysura estate, and due compensation made to the holder, Seobuksh.

The town is a poor one; and the people are keeping their houses uncovered, and removing their property under the apprehension that Seobuksh will attack and plunder the place. All the merchants and respectable landholders, over the districts bordering on the Tarae forest, through which we have pa.s.sed, declare, that all the colonies of Budukh dacoits, who had, for many generations, up to 1842, been located in this forest, have entirely disappeared. Not a family of them can now be found anywhere in Oude. Six or eight hundred of their brave and active men used to sally forth every year, and carry their depredations into Bengal, Bebar and all the districts of the north- west provinces. Their suppression has been a great benefit conferred upon the people of India by the British Government.

_March_ 11, 1850.--Kusreyla, ten miles, over a plain of excellent muteear soil scantily cultivated, but studded with fine trees, single and in groves. Kusreyla is among the three hundred villages which have been lately taken in mortgage from the proprietors, and in lease from Government, by Monowur-od Dowlah, the nephew and heir of the late Hakeem Mehndee. He is inviting and locating in these villages many cultivators of the best cla.s.ses; and they will all soon be in a fine state of tillage. No soil can be finer, and no acre of it is incapable of bearing fine crops. The old proprietors and lessees, to whom he had lent money on mortgage, have persuaded him to foreclose, that they may come under so substantial and kind a landholder. They prefer holding the sub-lease under such a man, to holding the lease directly under Government, subject to the jurisdiction of the n.a.z.im.

Monowur-od Dowlah pays forty thousand rupees a-year for the whole to Government, and has had the whole transferred to the Huzoor Tuhseel.

The n.a.z.im of Khyrabad rode by my side during this morning's march, and at my request he described the mutiny which took place in two of the regiments that attended him in the siege of Bhitolee, just before I crossed the Ghagra at Byramghat. These were the Futteh Aesh, and the Wuzeeree. Their commandants are Allee Hoseyn, a creature of one of the singers, Kootab Allee; and Mahommed Akhbur, a creature of the minister's. They were earnestly urged by the minister and n.a.z.im to join their regiments for the short time they would be on this important service, but in vain; nothing could induce them to quit the Court. All the corps mentioned above, as attending the n.a.z.im, were present, and the siege had begun when, on the 17th of November, some shopkeepers in camp, having been robbed during the night by some thieves, shut up their shops, and prepared to leave the camp in a body. The siege could not go on if the traders all left the place; and he sent a messenger to call the princ.i.p.al men that he might talk to them. They refused to move, and the messenger, finding that they were ready to set out, seized one of them by the waist-hand, and when he resisted, struck him on the head with a stick, and said he would make him go to his master. The man called out to some sipahees of the Wuzeeree regiment, who were near, to rescue him. They did so: the messenger struggled to hold his grasp, but was dragged off and beaten. He returned the blows; the sipahees drew their swords: he seized one of the swords and ran off towards his master's tent, waiving it over his head, to defend himself, followed by some of the sipahees. The others ran back to the grove in which their regiment and the Futteh Aesh were bivouaced; both regiments seized their arms and ran towards the n.a.z.im's tents; and when they got within two hundred yards, commenced firing upon them.

The n.a.z.im had with him only a few of his own armed servants. They seized their arms, and begged permission to return the fire, but were restrained till the regiment came near, and two tomandars, or officers, who stood by the n.a.z.im, were shot down, one dead; and the other disabled. His men could be restrained no longer, and they shot down two of the foremost of the a.s.sailants. The n.a.z.im then sent off to Lieutenant Orr, who was exercising his corps with blank cartridge on the parade; and, supposing that one of these regiments was doing the same thing near the n.a.z.im's tents, he paid no attention to them.

He and his brother, the Adjutant, ran forward, and entreated the two regiments to cease firing; and the n.a.z.im sent out Syud Seoraj-od Deen (the commandant of the Bhurmar regiment, stationed in the adjoining district of Ramnugger Dhumeree, who had just come to him on a visit), with the Koran in his hand, to do the same. The remonstrances of both were in vain. They continued to fire upon the n.a.z.im, and Lieutenant Orr went off to bring up his regiment, which stood ready to move on the parade. Alarmed at this, the two regiments ran off to their grove, and the firing ceased.

During all this time, the other two regiments, the Zuffer Mobaruk and Futteh Jung, stood looking on as indifferent spectators; and afterwards took great credit to themselves for not joining in this attempt to blow up the viceroy, who was obliged, the next day, to go to their camp and apologize humbly for his men having presumed to return their fire, which he declared that they had done without his orders! On his doing this, they consented to forego their claim to have the unhappy messenger sent to their camp to be _executed_; and to remain with him during the siege. As to taking any part in the siege and a.s.sault on the fort, that was altogether out of their line.

Ruza Kolee Khan, the commandant of the Futteh Jung, was at Lucknow during this mutiny, but he joined a few days after. Lieutenant Orr gave me the same narrative of the affair at the dinner-table last night; and said, that he and his brother had a very narrow escape-- that his regiment would have destroyed all the mutineers had they been present; and he left them on the parade lest he might not be able to restrain them in such a scene. Even this mutiny of the two regiments could not tempt their commandants to leave Court, where they are still enjoying the favour of their patrons, the minister and the singers, and a large share of the pay and perquisites of their officers and sipahees, though the regiments have been sent off to the two disturbed districts of Sundela and Salone.

They dare not face the most contemptible enemy, but they spare not the weak and inoffensive of any cla.s.s, age, or s.e.x. A respectable landholder, in presenting a pet.i.tion, complaining of the outrages committed upon his village and peasantry, said a few days ago--”The oppression of these revenue collectors, and their disorderly troops, is intolerable, sir--they plunder all who cannot resist them, but cannot lift their arms, or draw their breath freely in the presence of armed robbers and rebels--it is a proverb, sir, that _insects_ prey upon soft _wood_; and these men prey only upon the peaceful and industrious, who are unable to defend themselves.” The n.a.z.im tells me, that the lamentations of the poor people, plundered and maltreated, were incessant and distressing during the whole time these two corps were with him; and that he could exercise no control whatever over them, protected as they were, in all their iniquities, by the Court favour their two commandants enjoyed at Lucknow.*

[* Kootab Allee was one of the singers who were soon after banished from Oude in disgrace. But all the influence they exercised over the King has been concentrated in the hands of the two singers who remained, Mosahib Allee and Anees-od Dowla. All are despicable _domes_; but the two, who now govern the King, are much worse characters than any of those who were banished.]

I asked Bukhtawur Sing, before the n.a.z.im overtook us this morning, why it was, that these governors always took so many troops with them when they moved from place to place, merely to settle accounts and inspect the crops. ”Some of them,” said he, ”take all the troops they can muster, to show that they are great men; but, for the most part, they are afraid to move without them. They, and the greater part of the landholders, consider each other as natural and irreconcilable enemies; and a good many of those, who hold the largest estates, are at all times in open resistance against the Government. They have their Vakeels with the contractors when they are not so, and spies when they are. They know all his movements, and would waylay and carry him off if not surrounded with a strong body of soldiers, for he is always moving over the country, with every part of which they are well acquainted. Besides, under the present system of allowing them to forage or plunder for themselves, it is ruinous to any place to leave them in it for even a few days--no man, within several miles, would preserve shelter for his family, or food for his cattle, during the hot and rainy months--he is obliged to take them about with him to distribute, as equally as he can, the terrible burthen of maintaining them. Now that the sugar-cane is ripe, not one cane would be preserved in any field within five miles of any place where the n.a.z.im kept his troops for ten days.”

_March_ 12, 1850.--Seetapoor, nine miles over a plain of muteear soil, the greater part of which is light, and yields but scanty crops without manure, which is very scarce. Immediately about the station and villages, where manure is available, the crops are good. The wind continues westerly, the sky is clear, and the blight does not seem to increase.

The 2nd Regiment of Oude Local Infantry is stationed at Seetapoor, but it has no guns or cavalry of any kind. Formerly there was a corps of the Honourable Company's Native Infantry here, with two guns and a detail of artillery. The sipahees of this corps, and of the 1st Oude Local Infantry, at Sultanpoor, are somewhat inferior in appearance to those of our own native infantry regiments, and still more so to the Oude corps under Captains Barlow, Magness, and Bunbury. They receive five rupees eight annas a-month pay, and batta, or extra allowance, when marching; and the same pay as our own sipahees of the line (seven rupees a-month) when serving with them. But the commandants cannot get recruits equal to those that enlist in our regiments of the line, or those that enlist in the corps of the officers above named. They have not the rest and the licence of the one, while they have the same drill and discipline, without the same rate of pay as the other. They have now the privilege of pet.i.tioning through the Resident like our sipahees of the line, and that of the pension establishment, while Barlow's, Bunbury's, and Magness's corps have neither. They have none but internal duties--they are hardly ever sent out to aid the King's local authorities, and do not escort treasure even for their own pay. It is sent to them by drafts from Lucknow on the local collectors of the district in which they are cantoned; and the money required for the Resident's Treasury--a great portion of which pa.s.ses through the Seetapoor cantonments--is escorted by our infantry regiments of the line, stationed at Lucknow, merely because a General Order exists that no irregular corps shall be employed on such duties while any regular corps near has a relief of guards present. The corps of regular infantry at Shajehanpoor escorts the treasure six marches to Seetapoor, where it is relieved by a detachment from one of the regular corps at Lucknow, six marches distant.

The native officers and sipahees of these two corps have leave of absence to visit their families just as often and for just as long periods as those of the corps under the three above-named officers-- that is, for one month out of twelve. The native officers and sipahees of these three corps are not, however, so much drilled or restrained as those of the two Oude local corps, in which no man dares to help himself occasionally to the roofs of houses and the produce of fields or gardens; nor to take presents from local authorities, as they are hardly ever sent out to a.s.sist them. The native officers and sipahees of the very best of the King of Oude's corps do all this more or less; and they become, in consequence, more attached to their officers and the service. Moreover, the commandants of the two corps of Oude local infantry never become _mediators_ between large landholders and local governors as those of the King of Oude's corps so often do; nor are any landed estates ever a.s.signed to them for the liquidation of their arrears of pay, and confided to their management. So highly do the native officers of these three Oude _Komukee_ corps appreciate all the privileges and perquisites they enjoy, when out on duty under district officers, that they consider short periods of guard duty in the city, where they have none of them, as serious punishments.

The drainage about Seetapoor is into the small river Surain, which flows along on the west boundary, and is excellent; and the lands in and about the station are at all times dry. The soil, too, is good; and the place, on the whole, is well adapted for the cantonment of a much larger force.

_March_ 13, 1850.--Khyrabad, east nine miles, over a plain of doomuteea soil with much oosur. A little outlay and labour seem, however, to make this oosur produce good crops. On entering the town on the west side, we pa.s.sed over a good stone bridge over this little stream, the Surain; and to the east of the town is another over the still smaller stream of the Gond. Khyrabad is not so well drained as Seetapoor, nor would it be so well adapted for a large cantonment. It is considered to be less healthy. There is an avenue of good trees all the way from Seetapoor to Khyrabad, a distance of six miles, planted by Hakeem Mehndee. Our camp being to the eastern extremity of the town, renders the distance nine miles.

Yesterday at Seetapoor I had a visit from Monowur-od Dowla, late prime minister, and Moomtaz-od Dowla, grandson to the late King, Mahommed Allee Shah, on their way out to the Tarae forest to join Kindoo Rao, the brother of the Byza Bae, of Gwalior, in pursuit of tigers. This morning on the road, old Bukhtawur Sing, after a sigh, said: ”I presented a nazur to the prince, Moomtaz-od Dowla, sir; he is the grandson of a King, and the victim of the folly and crime of shooting a monkey! His father, Asgur Allee Khan, was the eldest son of Mahommed Allee Shah, and elder brother of Amjud Allee Shah, the father of the present King. He was fond of his gun, and one day a monkey, of the red and short-tailed kind, came and sat upon one of his out-offices. He sent for his gun, and shot it dead with a ball.

The very next day, sir, he had a severe attack of fever, which carried him off in three days. During this time he frequently called out in terror, 'Save me from that monkey! save me from that monkey!'

--pointing to the part of the room in which he _saw him_. The monkey killed Asgur Allee Khan, sir; and no man ever escapes death or misery who wilfully kills one. Moomtaz-od Dowla might, sir, have been now King of Oude had his father not shot that monkey.”

”But I thought,” said I, ”it was the _hanoomaun_, or long-tailed monkey, that was held sacred by the Hindoos?”--”Sir,” said Bukhtawur Sing, ”both are alike sacred.* Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, the predecessor of Mahommed Allee Shah, went one day shooting in the dilkhoosha park.

Several of the long-tailed monkeys came and sat upon a mango-tree near him. He could not resist the temptation, and shot several of them, one after another, with ball. He returned to the palace; but had not been home more than three hours, when he and his favourite wife, the Kooduseea Begum,** had a fierce quarrel, in which both became insane; she was so enraged that she took poison forthwith, and, in her agony, actually spit up her liver, which had been torn to pieces by the force of the poison! The King could not stand the horrible sight, and ran off and hid himself in the race-stand, near which you fell and broke your thigh-bone in April last; there he remained shut up till she died. He had had warning, sir, for a few months after his accession to the throne; I attended him and his minister, Aga Meer, on a visit to the garden, called padshah baag, on the opposite side of the river: he had a gun with him, and, seeing a monkey on a tree, he ordered the prime minister to try his hand at it. I told Aga Meer that evil would certainly befall him or his house if he shot the animal, and begged his Majesty not to a.s.sist upon the minister's doing it. Both laughed at what they thought my folly; the minister shot the monkey; and in a few days he was out of office and in a prison. One way or other, sir, a man who wilfully destroys a monkey is sure to be punished.”

[* That Asgur Allee Khan, the eldest son of the King, Mahommed Allee Shah, did shoot the monkey, got a fever a few days after, and died of it, are facts well known at Lucknow. That he often mentioned the monkey during his delirium, is generally believed; and that his death was the consequence of his shooting that animal is the opinion of all the Hindoo, and a great part of the Musulman, population. His death, while his father lived, deprived his son, Moomtaz-od Dowla, of the throne.]

[** The Kooduseea Begum had been introduced into the palace as waiting-woman to Mulika Zumanee, whom she soon superseded in the King's affections, which she retained till her death. She was married to the King on the 17th December, 1831, and died on the 21st of August 1834.]

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