rupees a-year. They
had, however, formerly yielded from two to three lacs of rupees a-
year to the Oude Government, and under good management may do so
again; but, at present, Oude draws from them a revenue of only
sixteen thousand, and that with difficulty. The rent-roll, however,
exceeds two hundred thousand, and may, in a few years, amount to
double that sum, as population and tillage are rapidly extending.

The holders of Khyreegur and Kunchunpoor are always in a state of
resistance against the Oude Government, and cannot be coerced into
the payment of more than their sixteen thousand rupees a-year; and
hundreds of lives have been sacrificed in the collection of this sum.
The climate is so bad that no people from the open country can
venture into it for more than four months in the year--from the
beginning of December to the end of March. The Oude Government
occasionally sends in a body of troops to enforce the payment of an
increased demand during these four months. The landholders and
cultivators retire before them, and they are sure to be driven out by
the pestilence, with great loss of life, in a few months; and the
landholders refuse to pay anything for some years after, on the
ground that all their harvests were destroyed by the troops. The rest
of the Tarae lands ceded had little of tillage or population at that
time, and no government could be less calculated than that of Oude to
make the most of its capabilities. It had, therefore, in a fiscal
point of view, but a poor equivalent for its crore of rupees; but it
gained a great political advantage in confining the Nepaulese to the
hills on its border. Before this arrangement took place there used to
be frequent disputes, and occasionally serious collisions between the
local authorities about boundaries, which were apt to excite the
angry feelings of the sovereigns of both States, and to render the
interposition of the paramount power indispensable.

It was at Bhinga, on the left bank of the Rabtee River, in the Gonda
district, and eight miles north-east from Bulrampoor, that Mr. George
Ravenscroft, of the Bengal Civil Service, was murdered on the night
of the 6th May, 1823. He had been the collector of the land revenue
of the Cawnpore district for many years; but, having taken from the
treasury a very large sum of money, and spent it in lavish
hospitality and unsuccessful speculations, he absconded with his wife
and child, and found an asylum with the Rajah