rnment. 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.

As soon as the garrison escapes, it goes systematically and
diligently to work in plundering indiscriminately all the village
communities over the most fertile parts of the surrounding country,
which do not belong to baronial proprietors like themselves till it
has made the Government authorities agree to its terms, or reduced
the country to a waste. The leaders of the gang may sometimes
condescend to quicken the process by appropriating a portion of the