Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/504



492 OUDH. afford aid to their neighbour on hearing the concerted signal of distress; that this league, offensive and defensive, extended all over the Bangar district, into which we entered about midway between this and our last stage; and that we should see how much better it was peopled and cultivated in consequence, than the District of Muhamdi, to which we were going; that the strong only could keep anything under the Oudh Government, and as they could not be strong without union, all landholders were solemnly pledged to aid each other to the death, when oppressed or attacked by the local officers. The Nazim of the Tandiawan or Bangar district met me on his border, and told me "that he was too weak to enforce the King's orders or to collect his revenues; that he had with him one efficient company of Captain Bunbury's corps, with one gun in good repair, and provided with draught-bullocks in good condition, and that this was the only force he could rely upon; while the landholders were strong, and so leagued together for mutual defence, that at the sound of a matchlock, or any other concerted signal, all the men of a dozen large villages would in an hour concentrate upon and defeat the largest force the King's officers could assemble; that they did so almost every year, and often frequently within the same year; that he had nominally eight guns on duty with him, but the carriage of one had already gone to pieces, and those of the rest had been so long without repair that they would go to pieces with very little firing; that the draught-bullocks had not had any grain for many years, and were hardly able to walk, and he was in consequence obliged to hire plough-bullocks to draw the gun required to salute the Resident. ... A large portion of the surface is covered with jungle, useful only to robbers and refractory landholders, who abound in the paryaná of Bangar. In this respect it is reported one of the worst districts in Oudh. Within the last few years, the King's troops have been frequently beaten and driven out with loss, even when commanded by a European officer. The landholders and armed peasantry of the different villages unite their quotas of auxiliaries, and concentrate upon them on a concerted signal, when they are in pursuit of robbers and rebels. Almost every able-bodied n of every village in Bangar is traincd to the use of arms of one kind or another, and none of the King's troops, save those who are disciplined and commanded by European officers, will venture to move against a landholder of this district; and when the local authorities cannot obtain the aid of such troops, they are obliged to conciliate the most powerful and unscrupulous by reductions in the assessment of the lands, or additions to their nanark.” To illustrate the spirit and system of union among the chief landholders of the Bangar district, I may herc mention a few facts within my own knowledge, and of recent date. Bhagwant Singh, who held the