incur heavy debts, and estate after estate is put up to auction, and
the proprietors are reduced to poverty. They say, that four times
more of these families have gone to decay in the half of the
territory made over to us in 1801, than in the half reserved by the
Oude sovereign; and this is, I fear, true. They named the families--I
cannot remember them.

In Oude, the law of primogeniture prevails among all the tallookdars,
or principal landholders; and, to a certain extent, among the middle
class of landholders, of the Rajpoot or any other military class. If
one co-sharer of this class has several sons, his eldest often
inherits all the share he leaves, with all the obligations incident
upon it, of maintaining the rest of the family.

The brothers of Soorujbulee, above named, do not pretend to have any
right of inheritance in the share of the lands he holds; but they
have a prescriptive right to support from him, for themselves and
families, when they require it. This rule of primogeniture is,
however, often broken through during the lifetime of the father, who,
having more of natural affection than family pride, divides the lands
between his sons. After his death they submit to this division, and
take their respective shares, to descend to their children, by the
law of primogeniture, or be again subdivided as may seem to them
best; or they fight it out among themselves, till the strongest gets
all. Among landholders of the smallest class, whether Hindoos or
Mahommedans, the lands are subdivided according to the ordinary law
of inheritance.

Our army and other public establishments form a great "safety-valve"
for Oude, and save it from a vast deal of fighting for shares in