bad has
declined almost in the same proportion.

The Nazim has six regiments, and part of a seventh, on duty under
him, making, nominally, six thousand fighting men, but that he
cannot, he tells me, muster two thousand; and out of the two
thousand, not five hundred would, he says be ready to fight on
emergency. All the commandants of corps reside at Court, knowing
nothing whatever of their duties, and never seeing their regiments.
They are mere children, or Court favourites, worse than children. He
has, nominally, forty-two guns, of various calibre; but he, with
great difficulty, collected bullocks enough to draw the three small
guns he brought with him from Sultanpoor, to salute the Resident, on
his entering his district. I looked at them in the evening. They were
seventy-four in number, but none of them were in a serviceable
condition, and the greater part were small, merely skin and bone. He
was obliged to purchase powder in the bazaar for the salutes; and
said, that when he entered his charge two months ago, the usual
salute of seven guns, for himself, could not be fired for want of
powder, and he was obliged to send to the bazaar to purchase what was
required. The bazaar-powder used by the Oude troops is about one-
third of the strength of the powder used by our troops. His authority
is despised by all the tallookdars of the district, many of whom
refuse to pay any rent, defy the Government, and plunder the country,
as all their rents are insufficient to pay the armed bands which they
keep up. All his numerous applications to Court, for more and better
troops and establishments, are disregarded, and he is helpless. He
cannot collect the revenue, or coerce the refractory landholders and
robbers, who prey upon the country.*

[* The Nazim for 1850-51, got both Captain Magness's and Captain
Banbury's regiments.]

He says that the two companies and two guns, which were sent out at
the Resident's urgent recommendation, to take possession of
Shahgunge, and prevent the two brothers, Maun Sing and Rughbur Sing,
from disturbing the peace of the country, in their contests with each
other, joined Maun Sing, as partisan; to oppose his brother; and that
Maun Sing has taken for himself all the _bynamah_ lands, from which
his brother, Rughbur Sing, has been ousted, under the favour of the
minister. He tells me also, that Beebee Sogura, the lady who holds
the estate of Muneearpoor, and pays fifty thousand rupees a-year to
the