road to watch their fields as we passed, and see the cavalcade, told
me that the deficient tillage and population arose from his being in
opposition to Government and diligently employed in plundering the
country generally, and his own estates in particular, to reduce the
local authorities to his own terms. The Government demand upon him is
twenty thousand rupees. He paid little last year, and has paid still
less during the present year, on the ground that his estate yields
nothing. This is a common and generally successful practice among
tallookdars, who take to fighting against the Government whether
their cause be just or unjust. These peasants and cultivators told us
that they had taken to the jungles for shelter, after the last
harvest, till the season for sowing again commenced; remained in the
fields, still houseless, during the night, worked in their fields in
fear of their lives during the day; and apprehended that they should
have to take to the jungles again as soon as their crops were
gathered, if they were even permitted to gather them. They attributed
as much blame to their landlord as to the Nazim, Wajid Allee Khan.
He, however, bears a very bad character, and is said to have
designedly thrown a good deal of the districts under his charge out
of tillage in the hope that no other person would venture to take the
contract for it in that condition, and that he should, in
consequence, be invited to retain it on more favourable terms. He was
twelve lacs of rupees in balance when superseded at the end of the
year, in September last, by the present governor, Aga Allee, who
manages the same districts on a salary of two thousand rupees a-
month, without any contract for the revenues, but with the
understanding that he is to collect, or at least to pay, a certain
sum.

The late contractor will no doubt relieve himself from the burthen of