CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

CONTENTS.

Bellasis turns over some more leaves in the volume of human life, ventures to prose a liltle, draws a picture that some will think unnatural.-Prosperity does not always contribute to happiness.

"And with his dying breath, resigned
The wreck of power he left behind
To Lachman Konwr the fond, the true,
Whose love's full spring-tide never knew
The ebbs and flows, the flaws and starts,
That win and alienate men's hearts;
But, in a stream, deep, full and clear,
Reflected back one image dear."

"Clasp me a little longer on the brink

M. S.

Of fate, while I can feel thy dear caress;
And, when this heart has ceased to beat, oh! think,
And let it mitigate thy woe's excess,

That thou, to me hast been all tenderness,

And friend, to more than mortal friendship just;
Oh, by that retrospect of happiness,

And by the hope of an immortal trust,

God shall assuage thy pangs, when I am laid in dust!
Half could I bear, methinks, to leave this earth,
And thee, more loved than aught beneath the sun,

If I had lived to smile but on the birth

Of one dear pledge. And shall there then be none
In after times-no gentle little one,

To climb thy knees, and look resembling me?"

Campbeй.

And now, having sketched the Bohurya, I will try to give some notion of the country and institutions of which he, and the many who resemble him, are the offspring. The little principality of Firozpur, in which I now found myself, is a fair specimen of the Sikh and border system, and I will enter into some details of a territory that is now familiar to the Company's servants, in order to give an idea of other Sikh States, little known to Europeans.

FF

The nominal extent of the old Râni's kingdom was a hundred square miles, but not one tenth of that land was in the undisputed possession of Lachman Konwar; indeed the town-lands alone could be called her's, and were cultivated by families living within the town, and crowded even into the ditch of the fort. therefore, though of great antiquity, was at the time I little more than an assemblage of Zamindars' huts, mixed a few Banya's shops, and overhung by an old crumbling fortress, crammed to the throat with dogs, filth and old women.

The town,

visited it,

up with

I paid my respects to the Râni, and found her very conversable, addressing me though she did from behind a thick hood thrown over her face. She told me she was a friend of the Mâharâjah's, but that her territory rejoiced in the British protection; her subjects, she said, were rebellious and idle, more apt to fight than to pay their dues, and being all Mahomedans, paid but little respect to a woman and a Sikhni ; they had broken her husband's heart, and in her absence they had admitted her enemy into the fortress, and, but for the British, would have deprived her of her right. "They have ever been a rebellious race" continued the old lady, "and are not the subjects for a woman's rule; would that I had half the lands in my own country on the pleasant and peaceful banks of Jamna!" (a) The old lady finding I listened, was rather more diffuse in her narrations and complaints than I need here be; suffice it that I paid her the more respect that I neither heard at Firozpur, nor on my road of any of the abominations occurring under her rule that were so common elsewhere; for whether it was as a woman, or as a stranger and of a different religion, among a wild and high-spirited people, she ruled with moderation, and seemed to be more respected than those who received more lip-service. (b)

I ascended the roof of Lachman Konwar's palace, if a couple of little rooms, each about fifteen feet by nine, and as many high, may be so called; and from the top had a good view of the surrounding country, of its desolation, of its endless bare plain, varied only by few and single trees, and by fewer and wretched village sites, which at large intervals covered, rather than ornamented: the country; the watch-towers already mentioned were the most striking points in the landscape, and gave fearful proof of the insecurity of all around; far in the distance South-west, the towers

of Mumdote were just perceptible, the only other object of note was the Kot of Dulchi, a large Dogar village, two miles north of the town of Firozpur, its inhabitants, nominally dependent, were always in rebellion against the Rani's authority as they had ever been against every ruler. Many of these rude people, whose clan forms the majority of the Firozpur population, were hanging about the outer Court of the Rani's dwelling while I was there; their appearance struck me; their immense noses and large strongly marked features, their spare but athletic frames, and their bold independent bearing, all brought to my mind legends of the gallant deeds of their reputed ancestors the Chohans of Delhi.

There was an air of poverty and of squalidness all around Firozpur; scarcely a thriving shop in the town, and not one acre in thirty of the land under cultivation; the inhabitants seeming to prefer waiting on Providence, doing anything but work, and following any pursuit but that of industry, and yet there was a something in the place that interested me, and there was much in the old Rani's situation that excited my best sympathies. Towardsevening I pursued my way to the ghat of Barake, five miles from the town; the first two ran nearly north, over high and tolerably cultivated lands, with good crops of wheat and barley on them, but without any fixed road or path between the fields; my way then inclined to the west for a mile, over a coarse grassy Kadir country, and then in the same direction for two miles, over a deep heavy sand. On the first part of my journey from the town, I met large flocks of cattle moving in to the walled inclosure for protection during the night; the cows and oxen seemed very much more numerous than the population, and the sheep and goats scarcely less so: as I now approached the ferry, I beheld with pleasure my own flag waving over my wife's boat, safely moored beside ten or twelve passage boats.

I found Mahtab well and comfortable; she had been five days making the voyage from Rupar, including one whole day, she halled at Tihara, to visit again the scenes of our upward voyage; the weather had been unsettled, and the river had very much fallen during our stay at Rupar, but there was still ample water for her boats, and, unused as she was to such conveyance, she found the trip as comfortable a one, as loving wife could do in her busband's absence.

We halted for a day at Barake Ghat for the double purpose of enabling me to make out my report for the Maharajah, and to observe the nature of the ferry and the extent of traffic that passed it.

The village of Barake is a large Dogar settlement, divided into three hamlets, called Chyneke, Syteke and Barake Khas; they are situated at intervals of about half a mile from one another, but the lands of all are in common; five thousand acres may be the area, half in the Kadir, half in the high ground; the latter portion has six or eight wells, around each of which a few acres are cultivated, and perhaps five hundred acres of the low land may be loosely so, but no care or labour is expende d, the ground being merely scratched up, and the seed then thrown in to take its chance; the produce consequently is seldom above ten or twelve maunds, when it might be twenty or even thirty, and no such thing is known as raising a second crop in the year on the same ground.

The population of the three hamlets may be five hundred Dogars, Machis and Mallahs; the latter as their name denotes are boatmen, they also fish, one division of them with nets, another only with hooks. The Machis are more agricultural and domestic, working as servants, cooks and labourers; the lordly Dogurs, who form the majority, sit, smoke, sleep and talk during the day under the half dozen meagre Barkaen trees that adorn their villages, and sally out at night to avenge their real or fancied wrongs, to carry off their neighbours' cattle, or to recover their own; they of course lose as much as they gain by such practices, for the trackers of the country are expert, and for one cow or buffalo that they steal, they are liable in retaliation to lose a flock; they are the village maliks in the Firozpur territory, and for some miles along the river on either side, and eke out their means by their hereditary right to a third of the village produce, and by the ghi and milk from their large flocks; but as I have said, their loved pursuit is plunder, even though they must know it is little productive. They follow it, I presume, for its excitement, and are known to undergo more danger and fatigue in their unlawful enterprizes than in more legitimate pursuits, would gain them a fair competence; their common weapon is the sword and shield, and in their raids they are generally accompanied by another class whom I omitted before to mention, I mean the scavengers of the village, here called chulahs, and

elsewhere known as halalkhor, khakrob, &c., and all over India employed asguides, watchmen, and carriers. In this part of the country they are a peculiarly hardy and bold race, they profess no particular religion, pursuing at a humble distance the rites of the Musalman, Hindu or Sikh, according to the leading tenets of the village they inhabit, or rather of the suburb they are permitted to defile; they are to all intents slaves here; and indeed throughout India, they are the property of the village or of the liege Lord, just as so many cattle, are scarcely better cared for, and much worse thought of; their only safeguard, indeed, be ing the facility with which they can move to a neighbouring or hostile territory, in which case their secession, or abduction is looked on quite in the light of • so many head of oxen being stolen; as I passed by more than one place in my late ride, I found the inhabitants warm on the loss, by such means, of a portion of their "hereditary bondsmen."

Strange as it may appear, under such nurture, scantily fed and clothed, and from infancy looked on and treated as vermin, these people (Chulahs) are hardy, bold, and enterprizing; like wolves they are from childhood, put in a defensive position, if they are starved by their village masters, they must, in self-defence, steal with them or from them, plunder the crop they are set to watch, or live jollily on the enemy in their excursions with their masters, who in their raids seldom touch grain, or eatables, or indeed anything, but cattle and coin.

The Chulah weapon is a light, short spear, or more frequently a heavy, iron-headed lathie; the latter, though formidable in appearance, is really less effective than a lighter and more handy stick, being top heavy and requiring great strength to wield it with effect.

But I have quite run away from the gäht to the Bārake locations, which are about a mile and half from it; the ferry is just below the termination of a newly formed Island, five miles long, and averaging half a mile broad; this Island is covered with high rank grass, and is frequented by tigers, who feed upon hog-deer, and on the cattle driven there from both sides for pasturage; the ferry at this time, (early in November,) was three hundred yards wide, but in the rainy season the stream is not less than two miles broad, and runs with a force of not less than five miles an