If the landholders could be made to feel that
they would not be permitted to seize other men's possessions, nor
other men to seize theirs, as long as they obeyed the Government and
paid its just dues, they would disband these armed followers, and the
King might soon reduce his. He will never make them worth anything;
there are too many worthless, but influential persons about the
Court, interested in keeping up all kinds of abuses, to permit this.
These abuses are the chief source of their incomes: they rob the
officers and sipahees, and even the draft-bullocks; and you
everywhere see how the poor animals are starved by them."
Within a mile of the camp I met the Nazim, Hoseyn Allee Khan, who
told me that Rajah Goorbuksh Sing, of Ramnuggur Dhumeree, had
fulfilled all the engagements entered into before me at Byramghat, on
the Ghagra, on the 6th of December, and was no longer opposed to the
Government; and that the only large landholder in his district who
remained so at present was Seobuksh Sing, of Kateysura, a strong
fort, mounted with seven guns, near the road over which I am to pass
the day after tomorrow, between Oel and Lahurpoor. As he came up on
his little elephant along the road, I saw half-a-dozen of his men,
mounted on camels, trotting along through a fine field of wheat, now
in ear, with as much unconcern as if they had been upon a fine sward
to which they could do no harm.
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