this he has a portion of land from the proprietor or holder of the village, which he tills himself or gets tilled by others.”  “And they are strong and faithful watchmen, are they not?” “Yes, sir, they are; and though they will thieve and join gangs of robbers in any enterprise, they will never betray their trust.  They consider it a point of honour not to trespass on fields or property under the guardianship of members of their own class with whom they are on good terms, or to suffer any persons whatever to trespass on what is under their own care.  The money which we send to the treasuries is commonly intrusted to pausees, and their fidelity and courage may be relied upon.  The gang robbers do little injury to our fields while the crops are green, for they take animals of hardly any kind with them in their enterprises; and having to move to and from their points of attack as quickly as possible, they could carry little of our crops with them; they are, too, afraid of the arrows of the pausee bowmen at night, if they venture to trespass upon our fields.”  “And are these pausee bowmen paid at the rate you mention all over the country?” “No, sir; they are in some parts paid in what is called the beega arhaeya, or two seers and half of grain from every beega.  From a pucka beega they get pucka two and half seers; and from a kutcha beega, a kutcha two and half seers."* “Your crops, my friends, are finer than I have ever before seen them in Oude.”  “Yes, sir, they are very fine; but how we shall gather them God only knows, with such gangs of desperate robbers all around us.  The alarm is sounded every night, and we have no rest.  The Government authorities are too weak to protect us, or too indifferent to our sufferings; and we cannot afford to provide the means to protect ourselves.”

[* The kutcha measure bears the same relation to the pucka in weight as in land measurement.]

As we went on, I asked the Amil what had become of Ahburun Sing, of Kyampore, the landholder who murdered his father to get possession of his estate, as mentioned in the early part of this Diary.  “Ahburun Sing, sir, is still in possession of his estate of Kyampore, and manages it exceedingly well.”  “I thought he had taken to the jungles with his gang, like the rest of his class after such a crime, in order to reduce you to terms?” “It was his father, sir, Aman Sing, that was doing this.  He was the terror of the country; neither road nor village was safe from him.  He murdered many people, and plundered and burnt down many villages; and all my efforts to put him down were vain.  At last I came to an understanding with his eldest son, who remained at home in the management of the estate, and was on bad terms with his father.  He had confidential persons always about his father for his own safety; and when he was one night off his guard, he went at the head of a small band of resolute men, and seized him.  He kept him in prison for six months, and