CHAPTER II.
Infanticide--Nekomee Rajpoots--Fallows in Oude created by disorders-- Their cause and effect--Tillage goes on in the midst of sanguinary conflicts--Runjeet Sing, of Kutteearee--Mahomdee district--White Ants--Traditional decrease in the fertility of the Oude soil--Risks to which cultivators are exposed--Obligations which these risks impose upon them--Infanticide--The Amil of Mahomdee's narrow escape-- An infant disinterred and preserved by the father after having been buried alive--Insecurity of life and property--Beauty of the surface of the country, and richness of its foliage--Mahomdee district--State and recent history of--Relative fertility of British and Oude soil-- Native notions of our laws and their administration--Of the value of evidence in our Courts--Infanticide--Boys only saved--Girls destroyed in Oude--The priests who give absolution for the crime abhorred by the people of all other classes--Lands in our districts becoming more and more exhausted from over-cropping--Probable consequences to the Government and people of India--Political and social error of considering land private property--Hakeem Mehndee and subsequent managers of Mahomdee--Frauds on the King in charges for the keep of animals--Kunojee Brahmins--Unsuccessful attempt to appropriate the lands of weaker neighbours--Gokurnath, on the border of the Tarae-- The sakhoo or saul trees of the forest.
Lalta Sing, of the Nikomee Rajpoot tribe, whom I had lately an opportunity of assisting, for his good services in arresting outlays [outlaws ?] from our territories, has just been to pay his respects.
Our next encamping ground is to be on his estate of Kurheya and Para.
He tells me that very few families of his tribe now destroy their female infants; that tradition ascribes the origin of this evil to the practice of the Mahommedan emperors of Delhi of demanding daughters in marriage from the Rajpoot princes of the country; that some of them were too proud to comply with the demand, and too weak to resist it in any other way than that of putting all their female infants to death.

This is not impossible.

He says that he believes the _Dhankuries_, whom I have described above to be really the only tribe of Rajpoots among whom no family destroys its infant daughters in Oude; that all tribes of Rajpoots get money with the daughters they take from tribes a shade lower in caste, to whom they cannot give theirs in return; and pay money with the daughters they give in marriage to tribes a shade higher, who will not give their daughters to them in return.

The native collector of Shahabad, a gentlemanly Mahommedan, came out two miles to pay his respects on my approach, and we met on a large space of land, lying waste, while all around was covered with rich crops.

I asked, "Pray why is this land left waste ?" "It is, sir, altogether unproductive." "Why is this?
It seems to me to be just as good as the rest around, which produces such fine crops." "It is called _khubtee_--slimy, and is said to be altogether barren." "I assure you, sir," said Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, "that it is good land, and capable of yielding good crops, under good tillage, or it would not produce the fine grass you see upon it.