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Rh families and people lived, and where they kept the amils at bay. The main strength of their strongholds lay in the high thick and impervious bamboo hedges which surrounded them outside their ramparts, and which were themselves surrounded by deep and dense jungles. The peasantry would fly to them for protection when attacked during the cultivating seasons; but the cultivated areas had been greatly reduced, and no security existed for life or property. The cultivation rarely extended beyond the range of the protection afforded by the forts and the jungles that surrounded them, and the outlying jungles were frequently infested by gangs of robbers and outlaws, though all the time the soil was of the best, and requiring nothing but cultivation.

After the Mutiny, it may be observed, the bulk of the people who had been driven out of Oudh by the cruelties of the amils poured back into the Province; and the population was also increased by the presence of those who would now have been serving in the army, but for the fact that they were in disfavour.

The Sepoys and all other Oudh people who were employed in the British service enjoyed special privileges, and were to a considerable degree able to protect their own families. Hence the evil rule in Oudh did not affect the feelings of the Oudh Sepoys. But the mischief and scandal were getting intolerable; the more so that it was possible to attribute some of the blame indirectly to the British Government itself, inasmuch as it was owing to its protection that the