“Quite the reverse, sir,” said Seoraj-od Deen; “they dare not make any display at all.  Only the other day, Gunga Buksh, the refractory landholder of Kasimgunge, attacked a marriage-procession in the village of ------, carried off the bridegroom, and imprisoned him till he paid the large random demanded from him.  In February last year Imam Buksh Behraleen, of Oseyree, having quarrelled with the Amil, attacked and carried off a whole marriage party to the jungles.  They gave up all the property they had, and offered to sign bonds for more, to be paid by their friends for their ransom; but he told them that money would not do; that their families were people of influence, and must make the King’s officers restore him to his estate upon his own terms, or he would keep them till they all died.  They exerted themselves, and Imam Buksh got back his estate upon his own terms; but he still continues to rob and plunder.  These crimes are to them diversions from which there is no making them desist.”

“There are a dozen gang leaders of this class at present in the belt of jungle which extends westward from our right up to within fourteen miles of the Lucknow cantonments; and the plunder of villages, murder of travellers, and carrying off of brides and bridegrooms from marriage processions, are things of every-day occurrence.  There are also in these parts a number of pansee bowmen, who not only join in the enterprises of such gangs as in other districts, but form gangs of their own, under leaders of their own caste, to rob travellers and plunder villages.

“Gunga Buksh of Kasimgunge has his fort in this belt of jungle, and he and his friends and relations take good care that no man cuts any of it down, or cultivates the land.  With the gangs which he and his relatives keep up in this jungle, he has driven out the greater part of the Syud proprietors of the surrounding villages, and taken possession of their lands.  After driving out the King’s troops from the town of Dewa, and exacting ransoms from many of the inhabitants, whom he seized and carried off in several attacks, he, in October last, brought down upon it all the ruffians he could collect, killed no less than twenty-nine persons—­chiefly Syuds and land proprietors —­and took possession of the town and estate.  The chief proprietor, Bakur Allee, was killed among the rest; and Gunga Buksh burnt his body, and suspended his head to a post in his own village of Luseya.  He dug down his house and those of all his relations who had been killed with him, and now holds quiet possession of his estate.”

This was all true.  The Resident, on the application of Haffiz-od Deen, a native judicial officer of Moradabad district—­one of the family which had lost so many members in this atrocious attack—­urged strongly on the Durbar the necessity of punishing Gunga Buksh and his gang.  The Ghunghor Regiment of Infantry, with a squadron of cavalry, and six guns, was sent out in October 1849, for the purpose, under