Lonee Sing, of Mitholee, offered the next contractor one thousand rupees a-year for the lease, and got it.  The village has now been permanently absorbed in his estate, in the usual way; and, as the Koormees are a peaceful body, they have quietly acquiesced in the arrangement, and get all the aid they require from their new landlord.  Before this time they had held their lands, as proprietors, directly under Government.  From allodial* proprietors they are become feudal tenants under a powerful Rajpoot chief.

[* By allodial, I mean, lands held in proprietary right, immediately under the crown, but liable to the land-tax.]

CHAPTER III.

Lonee Sing, of the Ahbun Rajpoot tribe—­Dispute between Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, and a servant of one of his relatives—­Cultivation along the border of the Tarae forest—­Subdivision of land among the Ahbun families—­Rapacity of the king’s troops, and establishments of all kinds—­Climate near the Tarae—­Goitres—­Not one-tenth of the cultivable lands cultivated, nor one-tenth of the villages peopled—­ Criterion of good tillage—­Ratoon crops—­Manure available—­Khyrabad district better peopled and cultivated than that of Mahomdee, but the soil over-cropped—­Blight—­Rajah Ajeet Sing and his estate of Khymara—­Ousted by collusion and bribery—­Anrod Sing of Oel, and Lonee Sing—­State of Oude forty years ago compared with its present state—­The Nazim of the Khyrabad district—­Trespasses of his followers—­Oel Dhukooa—­Khalsa lands absorbed by the Rajpoot barons—­Salarpoor—­Sheobuksh Sing of Kuteysura—­Bhulmunsee, or property-tax—­Beautiful groves of Lahurpoor—­Residence of the Nazim—­ Wretched state of the force with the Nazim—­Gratuities paid by officers in charge of districts, whether in contract or trust—­Rajah Arjun Sing’s estate of Dhorehra—­Hereditary gang-robbers of the Oude Tarae suppressed—­Mutiny of two of the King’s regiments at Bhitolee—­ Their rapacity and oppression—­Singers and fiddlers who govern the King—­Why the Amils take all their troops with them when they move—­ Seetapoor, the cantonment of one of the two regiments of Oude Local Infantry—­Sipahees not equal to those in Magness’s, Barlow’s, and Bunbury’s, or in our native regiments of the line—­Why—­The prince Momtaz-od Dowlah—­Evil effects of shooting monkeys—­Doolaree, alias Mulika Zumanee—­Her history, and that of her son and daughter.

Lonee Sing, who visited me yesterday afternoon with a respectable train, has, in this and other ways less creditable, increased his estate of Mitholee from a rent-roll of forty to one of one hundred and fifty thousand rupees a-year, out of which he pays fifty thousand to Government, and he is considered one of its best subjects.  He is, as above stated, of the Ahbun Rajpoot clan, and a shrewd and energetic man.  The estate was divided into six shares.  It had formed one under Rajah Davey Sing, whose only