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 RAE 233 which retained almost all the rája's villages till it was reducod by Rája Digbijai Singh in the present century. Debi Singh, when he came of age, sought and obtained the sympathy of the Delhi emperor, but the farmáns by which Muhammad Shah reinstated him in his ancestral dignity were mere waste paper to the practically independent chieftains of Baiswara. In the two long reigns of Purandar Singh and Mardan Singh, the bábus reached the zenith of their fortunes, and acquired the supremacy of the whole of Baiswara, with the exception of the territories of the powerful Simbasis of Dalmau and the Naisthas of Sidhauli. The reaction against the encroachments of the raos in Bihár was headed by the young Chet Rée, an illegitimate son of Ban Singh of Sidhauli. He collected the forces of his house and effectually deterred the aggressor from making any attempt in that direction. His services do not appear to have commanded the gratitude of the reigning chief, who was only compelled by force to recognize his independent position in the pargana of Mau- ránwán. Alone among the Bais he ventured to offer any serious opposition to Nawab Saadat Khan. The story of his siege in his fort at Pachhimgaon is mentioned further on, but some doubt is thrown on the accounts which represent it as merely a sham fight, by the fact that he remained for some time an exile at the court of Panna, and did not return till after the death of the great Nawab. The Simbasis in the meanwhile continued to increase and spread in peace, only perhaps occasionally interrupted by boundary disputes with their Kanhpuria neighbours. Rána Ajit Mal's younger son, Guláb Sáh, separated, and was the founder of the Gaura house, second in importance to that of Khajúrgáon. Rána Kharag Singh, who succeeded Ajit Mal, had two sons, the younger of which built a fort at Shankarpur, since famous as the home of Shiu Parshád Singh and his still greater son, Rána Beni Mádho Bakhsh. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Chhabíle Rám, an official in the Allahabad district, was one of the numerous leaders, who, throwing off the semblance of subordination, endeavoured to erect an independent kingdom on the ruins of tho Mughal empire. Having occupied the fort at Allahabad, and collected for his own use the revenues of the surro- unding country, he crossed the Ganges at Dalmau, and was met by the Simbasi clans under the chieftains of Gaura and Khajúrgáon. After an obstinate resistance the Rajputs were defeated; Chhabile Rám possessed himself of the western parganas of the district, On the accession of Mubammad Shab, he was recalled to Allahabad, and after successfully repulsing two imperial armies, was converted, not conquered, by being re- cognized as Subahdar of Allahabad. Amar Singh never recovered his position, and it was not till some twenty years later that bis grandson, Pahár Sáh, was admitted to engage for the four villages of Khajúrgaon, Sareli, Bajpaipur, and Hájípur, and resumed the lead of his clau levics. . It is possible that if their rána had been present, Saádat Khan's assessment of the Dalmau parganas would not have been without its romance: 30