have heard of another,” said the old Rusaldar Nubbee Buksh, “who, after he entered upon his charge, asked the people about him to show him the tree on which grew the fine istamalee* rice which they used at Lucknow.”  “There is no question, sir,” said Bukhtawar Sing, “that is too absurd, for these cockney gentlemen to ask when they enter upon such revenue charges as these.  They are the aristocracy of towns and cities, who are learned enough in books and court ceremonies and intrigues, but utterly ignorant of country life, rural economy, and agricultural industry.”

[* The istamalee rice is rice of fine quality, which has been kept for some years before used.  To be good, rice must be kept for some years before used, and that only which has been so kept is called istamalee or useable.]

For a cantonment or civil station, the ground to the north of Shahabad, on the left-hand side of the road leading to Mahomdee, seems the best.  It is a level plain, of a stiff soil formed of clay and sand, and not very productive.

The country, from Sandee and Shahabad to the rivers Ganges and Ramgunga, is one rich sheet of spring cultivation; and the estate of Kuteearee, above described, is among the richest portions of this sheet.  The portions on which the richest crops now stand became waste during the disorders which followed the expulsion of Runjeet Sing, in the usual way, in 1837, and derived the usual benefit from the salutary fallow.  A stranger passing through such a sheet of rich cultivation, without communing with the people, would little suspect the fearful crimes that are every year committed upon it, from the weakness and apathy of the Government, and the bad faith and bad character of its officers and chief landholders.  The land is tilled in spite of all obstacles, because all depend upon its produce for subsistence; but there is no indication of the beneficial interference of the Government for the protection of life, property, and character, and for the encouragement of industry and the display of its fruits.  The land is ploughed, and the seed sown, often by stealth at night, in the immediate vicinity of a sanguinary contest between the Government officers and the landholders.  It is only when the latter are defeated, and take to the jungles, or the Honourable Company’s districts, and commence their indiscriminate plunder, that the cultivator ceases from his labours, and the lands are left waste.

Runjeet Sing two or three years ago seized upon the village of Mulatoo, in his vicinity, to which he had no claim whatever, and he has forcibly retained it.  It had long paid Government ten thousand a-year, but he has consented to pay only one thousand.  Lands yielding above nine thousand he has cut off from its rent-roll, and added to those of his hereditary villages on the borders.  Last year he seized upon the village of Nudua, with a rent-roll of fourteen hundred rupees, and he holds it with a party of soldiers