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 RAE 223 field. The survivor, Abhai Chand, escorted the rescued queen back to Argal. It was only natural that the young princess should fall in love with the soldier who had been wounded in her defence, and the king of Argal was himself in a position which made him very glad to secure the services of such a son-in-law. In the eastern part of his dominions was a large tract of country over which he exercised only a nominal authority, and which was thinly populated by a fierce intractable people called the Bhars, who paid him neither tribute nor respect. So he gave his daughter to Abhai Chand, and with her the vice-royalty of this unprofit- able province.* Whatever may be the value of this story, there can be no doubt that at about this time there was a very general advance of Hindus into this dis- trict. The Kanhpuriast at the eastern, and the Bais at the south-western corner, as well as several old zamindari families, such as the Pándes of Shiunám, are proved by the coincidence of their pedigrees to have settled nearly contemporaneously in the seats where they are now found; and it is clear that they were ons of one wave of Hindu The greater part of this district was then covered with extensive forest, and in the clear spaces the few brick buts and scattered hamlets of the Bhars were the only evidences of human life. The nationality and reli- gion of this people is a favourite topic for disquisition, and my truncated investigations have just so far enlightened me as to make me refrain from forming any opinion as to who or whence they were. A bad time was beginning for them now. Abhai Chand lost no time in proceeding to his newly gained dominions, and crossing the Ganges built a fort at Baksar as a basis of operations. His enemy was, however, too powerful for him, and he had to give up his position and retire to Abhaipur, the village he had founded in the Antarbed, where he died. His successor, Karan Ráe, prosecuted his enterprise and again occupied Bak- sar, but the first real success was obtained by his grandson Siddhú Ráe, who utterly routed the Bhars in a great battle, the memory of which is preserved in the name of the village Sangrampur, which he founded on the scene of his victory. Pushing on through the wooded ravines, and driv- ing his enemy before him, he took possession of Murármau and Daundia Khera, since famous as the seats of the two greatest of the Bais families, and was the first to establish his clan in the new country. His descend- ants continued to extend their dominion, and when in the fifth generation from him, and at the time of the Jaunpur invasion, Ráe Tás succeeded to the chieftainship, he was the acknowledged ruler of the seven and a half small parganas which form the kernel of Daiswara. I Whether this chieftain resisted and was defeated, or yielded without striking a blow to the vastly superior forces of the Muhammadans, I have been unable to discover ; but we find him with his family and retainers . At the present day a Bais considers a marriage with a Gautam peculiarly lucky. + If, indeed, the Kanbpuria, immigrated at all These were Únchgaon, Sidabúpur, now Daundia Khera. Bara, Kamu bhi, half thagwantnagar, now Bhagwantnagar, Ghélappur, Magáyar, Panbau,