haracters, ready to join any band of freebooters. Such bands are
always sure to find a patron among the landholders ready to receive
and protect them, for a due share of their booty, against any force
that the King's officers may send after them; and, if they prefer it
as less costly, they can always find a manager of a district ready to
do the same, on condition that they abstain from plundering within
his jurisdiction. The greater part of the land is, however,
cultivated, and well cultivated under all this confusion and
consequent insecurity. Tillage is the one thing needful to all, and
the persons from whom trespasses on the crops are most apprehended
are the reckless and disorderly trains of Government officials.

_February_ 16, 1850.--Biswa, eighteen miles east, over a plain of
excellent soil, partly doomut, but chiefly mutteear, well studded
with trees and groves, scantily cultivated for the half of the way,
but fully and beautifully for the second half. The wheat beginning to
change colour as it approaches maturity, and waving in the gentle
morning breeze; intervening fields covered with mixed crops of peas,
gram, ulsee, teora, surson, mustard, all in flower, and glittering
like so many rich parterres; patches here and there of the dark-green
_arahur_ and yellow sugar-cane rising in bold relief; mango-groves,
majestic single trees, and clusters of the graceful bamboo studding
the whole surface, and closing the distant horizon in one seemingly-
continued line of fence--the eye never tires of such a scene, but
would like now and then to rest upon some architectural work of
ornament or utility to aid the imagination in peopling it.

The road for the last six miles passes through the estate of Nawab
Allee, a Mahommedan landholder, who is a strong man and a good
manager and paymaster. His rent-roll is about four hundred thousand
rupees a-year, and he pays Government about one hundred and fifty
thousand. His hereditary possession was a small one, and his estate
has grown to the present size in the usual way. He has lent money in
mortgage and foreclosed; he has given security for revenue due to
Government by other landholders, who have failed to pay, and had
their estates made over to him; he has given security for the
appearance, when called for, of others, and, on their failing to
appear (perchance at his own instigation), had their lands made over
to him by the Government authorities, on condition of making good the