a native officer.  On the force moving out, the friends of Gunga Buksh at Court caused the commandant to be sent for on some pretext or other; and he has been detained at the capital ever since.  The force has, in consequence, remained idle, and Gunga Buksh has been left quietly to enjoy the, fruits of his enterprise.  The Amil having no troops to support his authority, or even to defend his person in such a position, has also remained at Court.  No revenue has been collected, and the people are left altogether exposed to the depredations of these merciless robbers.  The belt of jungle is nine miles long and four miles wide; and the west end of it is within only fourteen miles of the Lucknow cantonments, where we have three regiments of infantry, and a company of artillery.

February 22nd, 1850.—­A brief history of the rise of this family may tend to illustrate the state of things in Oude.  Khumma Rawut, of the pansee tribe, the great-grandfather of this Gunga Buksh, served Kazee Mahommed, the great-grandfather of this Bakur Allee, as a village watchman, for many years up to his death.  He had some influence over his master, and making the most of this and of the clan feeling which subsisted among the pansees of the district, he was able to command the services of a formidable gang when the old Kazee died.  He left a young family, and Khumma got possession of five or six villages out of the estate which the old Kazee left to his sons.  The sons were too weak:  to resist the pansees, and when Khumma died he left them to his five sons:—­ 1.  Kundee Sing; 2.  Bukhta Sing; 3.  Alum Sing; 4.  Lalsahae; 5.  Misree Sing.  As the family increased in numbers it has gone on adding to its possessions in the same manner, by attacking and plundering villages, murdering or driving off the old proprietors of the lands, and taking possession of them for themselves.  Each branch of the family, as it separates from the parent stock, builds for itself a fort in one or other of the villages which belong to its share of the acquired lands.  In this fort the head of each branch of the family resides with his armed followers, and sallies forth to plunder the country and acquire new possessions.  In small enterprises each branch acts by itself; in larger ones two or more branches unite, and divide the lands and booty they acquire by amicable arrangement.

They seize all the respectable persons whom they find in the villages which they attack and plunder, keep them in prison, and inflict all manner of tortures upon them, till they have paid, or pledged themselves to pay, all that they have or can borrow from their friends, as their ransom.  If they refuse to pay, or to pledge themselves to pay the sum demanded, they murder them.  If they pay part, and pledge themselves to pay the rest within a certain time, they are released; and if they fail to fulfil their engagements, they and their families are murdered in a second attack.  After the last attack above described upon Dewa, Gunga