This estate comprised fifteen villages.  They obtained the leases of these villages by degrees, through the influence which their position at the Residency gave them.  As soon as they got the lease of a village, they proceeded to turn out all the old proprietors and cultivators, in order the better to secure possession in perpetuity; and those among them of the military class, fought “to the death,” to retain or recover possession of their rights.  To defend what they had iniquitously acquired, Jugurnath and his brothers collected together bands of the most desperate ruffians in the country, and located them in the several villages, so as to be able to concentrate and support each other at a concerted signal.  The ousted proprietors attacked only those who presumed to reside in or cultivate the lands of which they had been robbed; but Jugurnath and his brethren were less scrupulous; and as they could afford to pay such bands in no other way, they gave them free licence to plunder all the villages around, and all travellers on the highway.  Their position and influence at the Residency enabled them to deter the local authorities from exposing their iniquities; and they went on till all the villages became waste, and converted into dens of robbers.

They were, in all, six brothers, and they found their new trade so profitable and exciting, that they all became leaders of banditti, by profession, long before the dismissal of the two brothers from the Residency, though no one, I believe, ventured to prefer charges against them to the Resident or the Durbar.  Soon after their dismissal, however, Jugurnath one night attacked and murdered his eldest brother, Surubdowun Sing, in order to get the whole estate to himself, and put his widow and daughter into prison.  His other four brothers became alarmed, separated from him, and set up each his separate gang.  But Jugurnath contrived soon after, in a dark night, to shoot the third brother, Himmut, dead, with one ball through the chest.  Purmode Sing, the youngest brother, was soon after shot dead by some villager, whose cattle he was driving off in a night attack.  Bhugwunt Sing the fourth, and Byjonath, still survive, and have gangs of their own, afraid to trust themselves with Jugurnath, who has built two forts, Oskamow and Futtehpore, in the Jugdeespore district, and a third in two small villages, which he has lately seized upon and made waste, in the Rodowlee district, in order that he may have a stronghold to fly to when pressed by the governors of other districts.

They pay no rent or revenue to Government for any of the villages they hold.  The king’s officers are afraid to demand any from them.  They have plundered a great many villages, and are every month plundering others.  They have murdered a great many persons of both sexes and all ages, and tortured more into paying ransoms in proportion to their supposed means.  Jugurnath is still the terror of the surrounding country, and a reward of five hundred rupees has been offered for his apprehension.*