It is said that he was pointed out to the followers of the “Chhotee Gohur” by Peer Khan, of Khanseepore, in Deogon, whom Bhooree Khan had some time before plundered and tortured for a ransom, as already stated.  Bhooree Khan was sentenced to transportation beyond seas for life, and sent off in October, 1851.]

After reading such narratives, an Englishman will naturally ask what are the means by which such atrocious gangs are enabled to escape the hands of justice.  He will recollect the history of the MIDDLE AGES, and think of strong baronial castles, rugged hills, deep ravines, and endless black forests.  They have no such things in Oude.* The whole country is a level plain, intersected by rivers, which, with one exception, flow near the surface, and have either no ravines at all, or very small ones.  The little river Goomtee winds exceedingly, and cuts into the soil in some places to the depth of fifty feet.  In such places there are deep ravines; and the landholders along the border improve these natural difficulties by planting and preserving trees and underwood in which to hide themselves and their followers when in arms against their Government.  Any man who cuts a stick in these jungles, or takes his camels or cattle into them to browse or graze without the previous sanction of the landholder, does so at the peril of his life.  But landholders in the open plains and on the banks of rivers, without any ravines at all, have the same jungles.

[* The Terae forest, which borders Oude to the north, is too unhealthy to be occupied by any but those who have been born and bred in it.  The gangs I am treating of are composed of men born and bred in the plains, and they cannot live in the Terae forest.]

In the midst of this jungle, the landholders have generally one or more mud forts surrounded by a ditch and a dense fence of living bamboos, through which cannon-shot cannot penetrate, and man can enter only by narrow and intricate pathways.  They are always too green to be set fire to; and being within range of the matchlocks from the parapet, they cannot be cut down by a besieging force.  Out of such places the garrison can be easily driven by shells thrown over such fences, but an Oude force has seldom either the means or the skill for such purposes.  When driven out by shells or any other means, the garrison retires at night, with little risk, through the bamboo fence and surrounding jungle and brushwood, by paths known only to themselves.  They are never provided with the means of subsistence for a long siege; and when the Oude forces sent against them are not prepared with the means to shell them out, they sit down quietly, and starve or weary them out.  This is commonly a very long process, for the force is seldom large enough to surround the place at a safe distance from the walls and bamboo fence, so as to prevent all access to provision of all kinds, which the garrison is sure to get from their friends and allies in the neighbourhood, the garrison generally having the sympathy of all the large landholders around, and the besieging force being generally considered the common and irreconcilable enemy of all.