me one of
Saadut Alee's favourite orderlies, and rose to the command of a
squadron. In a fine picture of Saadut Allee and his Court on the
occasion of a Durbar, at which the Resident, Colonel Scott, and his
suite were present, Bukhtawar Sing is represented in the dress he
wore as an orderly cavalry officer. This picture is still preserved
at Lucknow. His brothers, Dursun, Incha, and Davey Sing became, one
after the other, orderlies in the same manner, under the influence of
Bukhtawar Sing, during the reign of Saadnt Allee, and his son,
Ghazee-od Deen. Dursan Sing got the command of a regiment of Nujeebs
in 1814, and Incha Sing and Davey Sing rose in favour and rank, both
civil and military.

Bhudursa and five other villages were held in proprietary right by
the members of a family of Syuds. They enjoyed Bhudursa rent free,
and still hold it; but the other five villages (Kyl, Mahdono,
Tindooa, Teroo, and Pursun) were bestowed, in jagheer, upon another
Syud, a Court favourite, Khoda Buksh, in 1814. He fell into disfavour
in 1816, and all these and other villages were let, in 1817, to
Dursun Sing, in farm, at 60,000 rupees a-year. The bestowal of an
estate in jagheer, or farm, ought not to interfere with the rights of
the proprietors of the lands comprised in it, as the sovereign
transfers merely his own territorial rights, not theirs; but Dursun
Sing, before the year 1820, had, by rack-renting, lending on
mortgage, and other fraudulent or violent means, deprived all the
Syud proprietors of their lands in the other five villages. They
were, however, still left in possession of Bhudursa. He pursued the
same system, as far as possible, in the other districts, which were,
from time to time, placed under him, as contractor for the revenue.
He held the contract for Sultanpoor and other districts, altogether
yielding fifty-nine lacs of rupees a-year, in 1827; and it was then
that he first bethought himself of securing his family permanently in
the possession of the lands he had seized, or might seize upon, by
_bynamahs_, or deeds of sale, from the old proprietors.

He imposed upon the lands he coveted, rates which he knew they could
never pay; took all the property of the proprietors for rent, or for
the wages of the mounted and foot soldiers, whom he placed over them,
or quartered upon their villages, to enforce his demands; seized any
neighbouring banker or capitalist whom he could lay hold of, and by
confinement and harsh