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cattle which they had swept together on their way through the savannahs of Khairigarh. On a sudden they were attacked on both flanks by invisible foes, who poured on them a continuous matchlock fire, which they were unable to reply to ; they fled at once there was little slaughter and no pursuit. In 1841 the complaints of the dispossessed Banjara chief were listened to by the Oudh Government ; a force was coK Raj Ganga Sah fled to Kanchanpi^ lected and advanced through Bhira. and for a year or so the Banjai-as remained in possession ; but dysentery and fever breaking out among the chakladar's troops, he retired to Newalkhar, a fort on the bank of the old bed where the Chauka once flowed. There he hoped to remain and gather strength, but the epidemic became tenfold more severe. The rains having set in early, the former channel of the river became a huge swamp, through which it was impossible to drag the cannon, and from which poisonous exhalations steamed up like dense fogs. The chakladar himself died with almost his entire force the few survivors crawled back from the fatal jungles unmolested by the Sllrajbans, who thenceforth were undisturbed in Khairigarh. The Banjara family entirely disappeared from Oudh. One ancient woman, the widow of Gain Singh, came forward in 1870 to claim her husband's property but as the raja's right to the entire estate had been admitted, both in 1856, when Oudh was annexed, and in 1858, after the mutiny, nothing could be done for her.

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This Siirajbans family, like their relatives of Kashipur, were noted, in the hills, for physical strength and proficiency in manly sports.; but they have fallen away immensely since their descent to the plains. To use the words of the Kashipur raja; " We have lost nearly a cubit in each generation; my grandfather was nearly five cubits, my father four, and I am the mannikin you see." Another noteworthy point is the good fortune which has raised the family to their present position. Two generations back they were suppliants to the neighbouring chief for a morsel of bread, and were without the smallest legal title or military strength. First they enlisted and fought under the British stand ard one got a perpetual pension of Rs. 2,400, which was followed by the grant of a large estate in pargana Palia to Pirthipdl Sah then Raj Ganga Sah occupied Kanchanpur, stretchiug for ninety miles north of the Mohan shortly afterwards Khairigarh, comprising 450 square miles, fdl almost without a struggle after a fight which, in America, would hardly be dignified by the name of a riot. In 1858 the r^ja, who had not the smallest expectation of receiving the estate from a British law court, and who had been actively deporting the tenantry to Kanchanpur, was admitted to be the rightful owner of Khairigarh and a r£ja of Oudh.

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In 1859 Kanchanpur, which had belonged to Kaipal up till 1814, was again transferred to that state. The Raja of Khairigarh, whose title originated in the murder of the Brahman proprietor, was compensated by the grant of a forfeited estate in Dhaurahra, 78 square miles in extent, and now estimated to yield an annual rental of Rs. 82,000. It is a sufficient commentary on the supposed preference of Indians for native rule that, in this instance, all the Surajbans family, many of whom had no ties of property in Khairigarh, have settled in Khairigarh,