While Dursun Sing, and his brother, Bukhtawar, held the contract of Salone, the estate was put under management, and yielded one hundred and seventy-four thousand rupees a-year, out of which they allowed a deduction, on account of nankar, or subsistence, of some twenty thousand.  The Rajah and Bukhtawar Sing urge that this was, for the most part, paid out of the property left by Byree Saul, to whom Himmut Sing succeeded; and that the estate can now be made to yield only one hundred and sixteen thousand, from which is to be deducted a nankar of forty thousand.  They offer him a deduction of this forty thousand, out of a rent-roll rated at one hundred and thirty thousand; and threaten him with the vengeance of his Majesty if he refuses.  He looks at their military force and smiles.  The agents of all the tallookdars, who are in attendance on the Nazim, do the same.  They know that they are strong, and see that the Government is weak, and they cease to respect its rights and orders.  They see at the same time that the Government and its officers regard less the rights than the strength of the landholders; and, from fear, favour the strong while they oppress and crush the weak.*

[* Rajah Hunmunt Sing afterwards brought the contractor to consent to take the same rate as had been paid to his predecessor; but he was obliged to pay above six thousand rupees in gratuities.]

January 3, 1850.—­Gorbuksh Gunge, alias Onae, fourteen miles.  The soil of the country over which we came is chiefly a light doomuteea; but there is a good deal of what they call bhoor, or soil in which sand superabounds.  The greater part belongs to the estate of Benee Madho, and is admirably cultivated, and covered with a great variety of crops.  The country is better peopled than any other part that we have seen since we recrossed the Goomtee.  We passed through several villages, the people of which seemed very happy.  But their habitations had the same wretched appearance—­naked mud walls, with invisible mud coverings.  The people told me that they could not venture to use thatched or tiled roofs, for the King’s troops, on duty with the local authorities, always took them away, when they had any.  They were, they said, well secured from all other enemies by their landlord.  Bhopaul Sing, acting commandant of Sobha Sing’s Regiment, riding with me, said,-"Nothing can be more true than what the people tell you, sir; but the Koomukee Regiments, of which mine is one, have tents provided for them, which none of the Nujeeb and other corps have, and in consequence, these corps never take the choppers of the peasantry for their accommodations.  The peasantry, however, always suffer more or less even from the Koomukee corps, sir, for they have to forage for straw, wood, fuel, bhoosa, &c., like the rest, and to take it wherever they can find it.  When we have occasion to attack, or lay siege to a stronghold, all the roofs, doors, and windows of the people are, of course, taken to form scaling-ladders, batteries, &c.; and it is lamentable, sir, to see the desolation created around, after even a very short siege.”