Rajah Hunmunt Sing and Benee Madho were riding with me, and when we had passed through a large crowd of seemingly happy peasantry in one village, I asked Benee Madho (whose tenants they were), whether they would all have to follow his fortunes if he happened to take up arms against the Government.

“Assuredly,” said he, “they would all be bound in honour to follow me, or to desert their lands at least.”

“And if they did not, I suppose you would deem it a point of honour to plunder them?”

“That he assuredly would,” said Rajah Hunmunt Sing; “and make them the first victims.”

“And if any of them fell fighting on his side, would he think it a point of honour to-provide for their families?”

“That we all do,” said he; “they are always provided for, and taken the greatest possible care of.”

“And if any one is killed in fighting for the King?”

They did not reply to this question, but the adjutant, Bhopaul Sing, said,—­“his family would be left to shift for themselves,—­no one asks a question about them.”

“This,” observed Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, “is one of the great sources of the evil that exists in Oude.  How can men be expected to expose their lives when they know that no care will be taken of their families if they are killed or disabled?”

It is the rule to give a disabled man one month’s pay and dismiss him; and to give the family of any one killed in the service two months’ pay.  But, though the King is charged for this, it is seldom that the wounded man, or the family of the killed, get any portion of it.  On the contrary, the arrears of pay due-which are at all times great—­are never paid to the disabled sipahee, or the family of the sipahee killed.  If issued from the Treasury, they are appropriated by the commandants and their friends at Court; and the arms and accoutrements, which the deceased has purchased with his own money, are commonly sold for the benefit of the State or its officers.

They mentioned, that the family of the person who planted a mango-tree, or grove, continued to hold it as their exclusive property in perpetuity; but, that the person who held the mhowa trees, was commonly expected to pay to the landlord, where there was one, and to the Government officers, where there was not, a duty amounting to from four annas to two rupees a-year for each tree, according to its fruitfulness—­that the proprietor often sold the fruit of one tree for twenty rupees the season.  The fruit of one mango-tree has, indeed, often been sold for a hundred rupees the season, where the mangoes are of a quality much esteemed, and numerous.  The groves and fine solitary trees, on the lands we have to-day passed through, are more numerous than usual; and the country being undulating and well cultivated, the scenery is beautiful; but, as everywhere else, it is devoid of all architectural beauty in works of ornament or utility—­