[* The Sengers are almost the only class of Rajpoots in Bundelkund, and Boghilcund, Rewa, and the Saugor territories, who used to put their female infants to death; and here, in Oude, they are almost the only class who do not.]

Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, who was on his horse beside my elephant, said, “They are all punished in this world, and will, no doubt, be punished still more in the next.  Scarcely any of the heads of these landed aristocracy are the legitimate sons of their predecessors; they are all adopted, or born of women of inferior grade.  The heads of families who commit or tolerate such atrocities become leprous, blind, deaf or dumb, or are carried off in early life by some terrible disease.  Hardly any of them attain a good old age, nor can they boast of an untainted line of ancestors like other men.  If they get sons, they commonly die young.  They unite themselves to women of inferior castes for want of daughters in families of their own ranks, and there is hardly a family among these proud Rajpoots unstained by such connections.* Even the reptile Pausies become Rajpoots by giving their daughters to Powars and other Rajpoot families, when by robbery and murder they have acquired wealth and landed property.  The sister of Gunga Buksh, of Kasimgunge, was married to the Rajah of Etondeea, a Powar Rajpoot in Mahona; and the present Rajah—­Jode Sing—­is her son.  Gunga Buksh is a Pausee, but the family call themselves Rawats, and are considered to be Rajpoots, since they have acquired landed possessions by the murder and ruin of the old proprietors.  They all delight in murder and rapine—­the curse of God is upon them, sir, for the murder of their own innocent children!”

[* A great number of girls are purchased and stolen from our territories, brought into Oude, and sold to Rajpoot families, as wives for their sons, on the assurance, that they are of the same or higher caste, and that their parents have been induced to part with them from poverty.  A great many of our native officers and sipahees, who marry while home on furlough, and are pressed for time, get such wives.  Some of their neighbours are always bribed by the traders in such girls, to pledge themselves for the purity of their blood.  If they ever find out the imposition, they say nothing about it.]

“When I was sent out to inquire into the case of Brigadier Webber, who had been attacked and robbed while travelling in his palkee, with relays of bearers, from Lucknow to Seetapoor, I entered a house to make some inquiries, and found the mistress weeping.  I asked the cause, and she told me that she had had four children, and lost all—­ that three of them were girls, who had been put to death in infancy, and the last was a fine boy, who had just died!  I told her that this was a just punishment from God for the iniquities of her family, and that I would neither wash my hands nor drink water under her roof.  I never do under the roof of any family in which such a cruel practice prevails.  These Rajpoots are all a bad set, sir.  When men murder their own children, how can they scruple to murder other people?  The curse of God is upon them, sir.