olation of their orders as respects such engagements.

_January_ 16, 1850.--We were to have gone this morning to Ouras, but
were obliged to encamp at Burra, eight miles from Meeangunge, on the
left bank of the Saee river, which had been too much increased by the
late rains to admit of our baggage and tents passing over immediately
on anything but elephants. As we have but few of them, our tents were
pitched on this side of the river, that our things might have the
whole day before them to pass over on carts and camels, as the river
subsided. Ouras is three miles from our camp, and we are to pass
through it and go on to Sundeela to-morrow. There is no bridge, and
boats are not procurable on this small river, which we have to cross
and recross several times.

The country from Meeangunge is scantily cultivated, but well studded
with trees, and generally fertile under good tillage. The soil is the
light doomuteea, but here and there very sandy and poor, running into
what is called bhoor. The villages and hamlets which we could see are
few and wretched. We have few native officers and sipahees in our
army from the districts we are now in, and I am in consequence less
oppressed with complaints from this class of the Oude subjects.

We met, near our tents, a party of soldiers belonging to Rajah Ghalib
Jung, a person already mentioned, and at present superintendent of
police, along the Cawnpoor road, escorting a band of thieves, who
robbed Major Scott some ten months ago on his way, by dawk, from
Lucknow, and an European merchant, two months ago, on his way, by
dawk, from Cawnpoor to Lucknow. They had been seized in the Sundeela
districts, and the greater part of the stolen property found in their
houses. They are of the Pausie tribe, and told me that thieving was
their hereditary trade, and that they had long followed it on the
Cawnpoor road with success. The landholder, who kept them upon his
estate and shared in their booty, was also seized, but made over to
the revenue contractor, who released him after a few days'
imprisonment for a gratuity.

Of these Pausies there are supposed to be about one hundred thousand
families in Oude. They are employed as village watchmen, but, with
few exceptions, are thieves and robbers by hereditary profession.
Many of them adopt poisoning as a trade, and the numbers who did so
were rapidly increasing when Captain Hollings, the superintendent of
the Oude Frontier Police, arrested a great