to the deity, and after the twelfth day
they send for the family priest (Prohut), and, by suitable
gratuities, obtain absolution. This is necessary, whether the family
be rich or poor; but when the absolution is given, nothing more is
thought or said about the matter. The Gour and other Rajpoots who can
afford to unite their daughters in marriage to the sons of Chouhans,
Byses, and other families of higher grade, though they cannot obtain
theirs in return for their sons, commit less murders of this kind
than others; but all the Rajpoot clans commit more or less of them.
Habit has reconciled them to it; but it appears very shocking to us
Brahmins and all other classes. They commonly bury the infants alive
as soon as possible after their birth. We, sir, are helpless, living
as we do among such turbulent and pitiless landholders, and cannot
presume to admonish or remonstrate: our lives would not be safe for a
moment were we to say anything, or seem to notice such crimes."

I do not think that any landholder of this class, in the Bangur
district, would feel much compunction for the commission of any crime
that did not involve their expulsion from caste, or degradation in
rank. Great crimes do not involve these penalties: they incur them
only by small peccadillos, or offences deemed venal among other
societies. The Government of Oude, as it is at present constituted,
will never be able to put down effectually the great crimes which now
stain almost every acre of land in its dominions. It is painful to
pass over a country abounding so much in what the evil propensities
of our nature incite men to do, when not duly restrained; and so
little in what the good prompt us to perform and create, when duly
protected and encouraged, under good government.

_January_ 24, 1850.--Sandee, fourteen miles, over a plain of light
domuteea soil, which becomes very sandy for the last four or five
miles. The crops are scanty upon the more sandy parts, except in the
vicinity of villages; but there is a little jungle, and no undue
portion of fallow for so light a soil. About five miles from our last
ground, we came through the large and populous village of Bawun;
about three miles further, through another of nearly the same size,
Sungeechamow; and about three miles further on, through one still
larger, Admapoor, which is three miles from Sandee. Sandee and
Nawabgunge join each other, and are on the bank of the Gurra river, a
small stream whose