“I found,” says Captain Orr, “the estate of Pyagpoor in a desolate condition; village after village presenting nothing but bare walls—­the finest arable lands lying waste, and no sign of cultivation was anywhere to be seen.  Even the present Nazim, Mahommed Hussan, after conciliating and inviting in the Rajah on further solemn assurances of personal security, seized him and all his family, and kept them confined in prison for several months, till they paid him an exorbitant ransom.  The poorer classes told me, that it was impossible for them to plough their fields, since all their plough-bullocks had been seized and sold by the Nazim’s agents.  Great numbers in this and the adjoining estates have subsisted entirely upon wild fruits, and some species of aquatic plants, since they were ruined by these atrocities.”

This picture is not at all overdrawn.  In passing through the estate, and communing with the few wretched people who remain, I find all that Captain Orr stated in his report to be strictly correct.

In the Hurhurpoor district similar atrocities were committed by Rughbur Sing and his agents.  He confided the management to his agent, Goureeshunker.  In 1846 he made his settlement of the land revenue, at an exorbitant rate, with the tallookdar, Chinghy Sing; and, in the following year, he extorted from him an increase to this rate of twenty-five thousand rupees.  He was, in consequence, obliged to fly; but he was soon invited back on the usual solemn assurances for his personal security, and induced to take on himself the management of the estate.  But he was no sooner settled in his house than he was again attacked at night and plundered.  One of his attendants was killed, and another wounded; and all the respectable tenants and servants who had ventured to assemble around him on his return were seized and tortured till they paid ransoms.  No less than two thousand and five hundred bullocks from this estate were seized and sold, or starved to death.  A great many women were seized and tortured till they paid ransoms like the men; and many of them have never since been seen or heard of.  Some perished in confinement of hunger and cold, having been stripped of their clothes, and exposed at night to the open air on the damp ground, while others threw themselves into wells and destroyed themselves after their release, rather than return to their families after the exposure and dishonour they had suffered.

In the Bahraetch district, the same atrocities were practised by Rughbur Sing and his agents.  Here also Goureeshunker was the chief agent employed, but the few people who remained were so terrified, that Captain Orr could get but little detailed information of particular cases.  The present Nazim had been one of Rughbur Sing’s agents in all these atrocities, and the people apprehended that he was in office merely as his “locum tenens;” and that Rughbur Sing would soon purchase his restoration to power, as he boasted that he should.  The estate of the Rajah of Bumunee Paer was plundered in the same manner; and Rughbur Sing’s agents seized, drove off, and sold two thousand bullocks, and cut down and sold or destroyed five hundred and five mhowa-trees, which had, for generations, formed the strongest local ties of the cultivators, and their best dependence in seasons of drought.