308 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



classes, such as officials now in employ, or who had been employed under 

 former ministers, cultivators, shopkeepers, pensioned sepoys, chokeydars, 

 & c>> they all declared that oppressive taxation occasioned this melancholy 

 state of things ; that it was the same whether an aumil (agent) or a renter 

 farmed ; that no faith was kept ; that the rent assessed was merely nominal, 

 there being no limit to the demand, except the degree of means and power to 

 enforce it. This it was which drove the stronger malgoozars (landholders) 

 into resistance, and forced the weaker to fly the country. It is a matter for 

 surprise that any cultivators remain : but the tenacity with which this class 

 cling to their homes is notorious, and it is probable, indeed, that the very 

 lowest grade of the people, the ryots, suffer least, because oppression falls 

 principally on the chiefs of villages ; while it is certain that the custom of 

 paying rent in kind by buttai, which prevails uniformly in Oude, is beneficial 

 to the mere ryot. In our provinces, money-rents, fixed without advertence 

 to fluctuation of prices, and adhered to for several successive years, have 

 much injured our cultivators. 



" ' At no time, and on no occasion, did I ever feel more proud of being in 

 the service of the British Indian government, than on recrossing within its 

 frontier. After having travelled through a wilderness, we passed the small 

 stream called Sooketa, which divides Oude from our territory, and is not 

 more than ten yards wide. Up to this point we scarcely saw a tilled field ; 

 from it, all the way to Shajehanpore, about four coss, we gazed upon one 

 vast sheet of rich cultivation, wheat, barley, urhur (a species of rye), grain of 

 all kinds, cotton, sugar-cane, &c. ; the road bounded by banks or ditches ; 

 in short, every indication of industry, prosperity, and security. There is no 

 perceptible change in the nature of the soil, nor is any thing changed, in fact, 

 except the ruling power.' 



" The king of Oude has kept up a greater degree of state than his more 

 highly descended, but less fortunate, contemporary of Delhi ; and, in fact, 

 Lucknow is the only native court in Hindostan which can afford any idea of 

 the princely magnificence affected by the former rulers of India; that of 

 Gwalior can bear no comparison, nor are those in the central provinces dis- 

 tinguished by the pomp and splendour which still characterise the throne of 

 this ill-governed kingdom. 



" Both the present and former rulers of Oude have manifested a strong 

 partiality for European fashions and European manufactures, but their love 

 of novelty has not been productive of any national improvement; they have 

 thought of nothing beyond some idle gratification or indulgence, and their 

 minds have not expanded, or their views become more enlightened, by con- 

 stant intercourse with the people who possess so much knowledge, both 

 moral and political. A great number of foreigners have for many years 

 been attached to the court of the king of Oude ; a large proportion unques- 

 tionably might be styled mere adventurers, ignorant of every art excepting 

 that which teaches them to profit by the follies and weaknesses of mankind ; 

 but there were others of a superior order, from whom many lessons of the 

 highest practical utility might have been acquired. 



" The king of Oude has selected English officers for his aides-de-camp, 

 his physicians belong to the company's medical establishment, and he has 

 also other persons of equal rank and intelligence attached to his household. 

 An artist cf great respectability and very considerable talent grew old in the 

 service of Saadut Ali and his successor. This gentleman retired, at an ad- 

 vanced age, to spend the remainder of his days at Cawnpore, where he kept 

 up a handsome establishment, and, until the loss of his daughter and in- 

 creasing infirmities rendered him averse to society, had been wont to exercise 

 the most extensive hospitality to the residents of the station. The place of 

 Mr. Home is supplied, at the court of Lucknow, by Mr. George Bcechy, 

 who had distinguished himself by several masterly efforts of the pencil 

 before he left England, and whose portrait of a native female, sent over and 



