The metalled road from Cawnpoor to Lucknow is covered
almost with carts and vehicles of all kinds. Guards have been
established upon it for the protection of travellers, and life and
property are now secure upon it, which they had not been for many
years up to the latter end of 1849. This road has lately been
completed under the superintendence of Lient. G. Sim of the
engineers, and cost above two lacs of rupees.
The minister came out with a very large cortege yesterday to see and
talk with me, and is to stay here to-day. I met him this morning on
his way out to shoot in the lake; and it was amusing to see his
enormous train contrasted with my small one. I told him, to the
amusement of all around, that an English gentleman would rather get
no air or shooting at all than seek them in such a crowd. The
minister was last night to have received the Rajahs and other great
landholders, who had come to my camp, but they told me this morning
that they had some of them waited all night in vain for an audience;
that the money demanded by his followers, of various sorts and
grades, for such a privilege was much more than they could pay; that
to see and talk with a prime minister of Oude was one of the most
difficult and expensive of things. Rajah Hunmunt Sing, of Dharoopoor,
told me that he feared his only alternative now was a very hard one,
either to be utterly ruined by the contractor of Salone, or to take
to his jungles and strongholds and fight against his Sovereign.
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