Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/276

 268 RAM specimen of the oriental yeoman as is to be found anywhere, and one who will ever be respected by our countrymen for the asylum he offered to the officers of his district in the rebellion ; and also the Rájas of Manika- pur and Bhinga. Sir Henry Elliot affirms that the present Rája of Majhauli is in the hundred and fifteenth generation from Mewar Bhát, the devotee. The Oudh branch state that they broke off from the parent stem in the person of Ráe Húm, and settled in the province under the wing of Mánik Chand, the then powerful Gahrwár Raja of Mánikpur; he who so happily picked up the foundling mother of all the Kanhpuria clan. Within the last three years the present Rája of Majhauli took to bimself a wife from the Rajkumar house of Dera, a sure indication that the Bisens (indigenous devotee Chhattris of Gorakhpur though they be) are higher in the social scale than the Rajkumár offshoot of the Mainpuri ex-convert Chauhans.' Earliest Bisens settlement in the Partabgarh district.-The Bisens first settled in this district in the time of Mánik Chand, some few years prior to 590 Hijri (A.D. 1193). Their earliest settlement was Badgáwán in pargana Dhingwas. For three generations they do not seem to have made much way, or to have much enlarged their possessions. In the fourth generation from Ráe Hum, their pioneer setter, Ráe Rágho, appears to have made friends with the Gardezis of Manikpur, and from them to have obtained twelve villages, with headquarters at Derwa. The place was selected on a jungle site, as being on the borders of the Sombansi terri- tory, and a convenient and suitable spot for repelling those raids to which the Sombansis were formerly so much addicted, and which were frequently the cause of embroiling them with the Government officials. These twelve villages were the nucleus of the subsequent extended possessions of the Bisen clan. The Rámpur family has always been the most powerful of the Bisen taluqdars, amongst whom may be prominently mentioned Dhárú Sáh, Rae Shiám Singh, Ráe Sangrám Singh, Rae Bháo Singh, Rae Khushal Singh, Rae Balwant Singh, Lál Bairisál Singh, and Lăl Hanwant Singh (now known as Rája Hanwant Singh). The Bisen clan in the district of Partabgarh numbers three thousand (vide census); but of these only a portion belong to the blood of Ráe Nám; the larger number belong to anot line; they cla to be descended from a brother of Ráe Nám's; the taluqdar's line declares that they are bastards ; there is no commensality or friendship even between the two, and the inferior order has been rather severely treatod in the matter of its landed tepures. Of the pure Bisen nine men hold between them six taluqas embracing 532 villages; 20 zamindari villages and 54 sub-settlements are divided among the rest of the brotherhood, at least among its heads. The Bisen clan is a very weak one compared to the Sombansi, the Kanhpuria, or the Bachgoti; the connexion of Rámpur with Kaithaula, and the ancient position of the Bisen clan towards the Manikpur lords, are points for inquiry in future. SO