Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/451

 MAL 15 but blood spurted out, a swarm of hornets attacked the godless host, and saved shrine and emblem from destruction, In 1226 Shitáb Ráe Káyath was chakladar. He had been díwán of Bahadur Shah. The judicial records of Mustafabad and Atwa tell how he found an unfailing means of acquiring land in his practice of bury. ing the owners alive and then inviting their heirs to execute deeds of sale. « The bones of the lambardars whom he buried are even now occa- sionally turned up by the plough in his old compound. During Shujá-ud-daula's campaign against the Nawab of Rámpur Mallánwáa was occupied by Ruhelias. Gházi-ud-dín Haidar (1814-1827) excavated the canal already men- tioned from the Ganges near Kanauj to the Gumti at Lucknow. “ The original idea says Mr. Maconochie, in his Unao report, was to join the Ganges and Gumti, but the levels were so infamously taken, and the money granted so misappropriated, that after spending lacs of treasure, and injuring more or less every village through which the canal was driven, the king found himself as far off as ever from the object be desired. It has never done aught but harm. Its bed shelters wild beasts and bad characters in the dry weather, and drains off all the water from the adjacent villages in the rains; thus not merely depriving the land of the water which would otherwise fertilize it, but causing a continual cutting and ravining away of all the neighbouring fields." The Raik wárs of Rodamau and Ruia deserve passing but unfavourable notice. Their connection with the pargana is not that of conquerors. They got their footing in it by the humbler method of clearing waste and by persistent fawning on and playing into the hands of the Nawabi officials. They acquired in recent times many villages. They were the first to rise in 1857. It was this clan which burned the Maliánwán (court-house), and which, headed by Nárpat Singh, defended the fort of Ruia so stubbornly against Brigadier Sir Robert Walpole, the lamented Adrian Hope, and the Black Watch. The obliteration of ancient proprietary title in this pargana was frequently noticed by the Judicial Courts at settlement. In illustra- tion I quote some passages of interest from the judicial record. Mauza Deomanpur.-" The Kurmis are the zamindars and are excellent landlords; they should not be disturbed. In this pargana the chaudhris and qánúngoes steadily ignored the rights of all Kurmis; but in times of difficulty the king's officers always came upon the resident communites." Marza Mustafabad." The title deeds in this pargana are of little value." Mariza Manawwar.--"The Shekhs never succeeded in trampling out the proprietary body on the spot. Panwar Rajputs, who held occasionally up to 1264 fasli (annexation); but, like all the proprietors in the pargana, could not keep their own against the mass of chaudhris and qánúngos of the town