_December_ 4, 1849.--Gunesh Gunge, _alias_ Byram-ghat, on the right bank of the river Ghagra, distance about twelve miles. The country well cultivated, and studded with good groves of mango and other trees. We passed through and close to several villages, whose houses are nothing but mud walls, without a thatched or tiled roof to one in twenty. The people say there is no security in them from the King's troops and the passies, a large class of men in Oude, who are village watchmen but inveterate thieves and robbers, when not employed as such. All refractory landholders hire a body of passies to fight for them, as they pay themselves out of the plunder, and cost little to their employers. They are all armed with bows and arrows, and are very formidable at night. They and their refractory employers keep the country in a perpetual state of disorder; and, though they do not prevent the cultivation of the land, they prevent the village and hamlets from being occupied by anybody who has anything to lose, and no strong local ties to restrain him. The town of Ramnuggur, in which Gorbuksh resides occasionally, is on the road some five miles from the river. It has a good many houses, but all are of the same wretched description; mud walls, with invisible coverings or no coverings at all; no signs of domestic peace or happiness; but nothing can exceed the richness and variety of the crops in and around Ramnuggur. It is a fine garden, and would soon be beautiful, were life and property better secured, and some signs of domestic comfort created. The ruined state of the houses in this town and in the villages along the road, is, in part, owing to the system which requires all the King's troops to forage for themselves on the march, and the contractors, and other collectors of revenue, to be continually on the move, and to take all their troops with them. The troops required in the provinces should be cantoned in five or six places most convenient, with regard, to the districts to be controlled, and most healthy for the people; and provided with what they require, as ours are, and sent out to assist the revenue collectors and magistrates only when their services are indispensably necessary. Some Chundele Rajpoot landholders came to me yesterday to say, that Ghoolam Huzrut, with his bands of armed ruffians, seemed determined to seize upon all the estates of his weaker Hindoo neighbours, and they would soon lose theirs, unless the British Government interposed to protect them. Gorbuksh has not ventured to come, as he was ordered, to pay his respects to the Resident; but has shut himself up in his fort at Bhitolee, about six miles up the river from our camp. The Chouka is a small river which there flows into the Ghagra. He is said to have four or five thousand men with him; and several guns mounted in his fort. The ferry over the Ghagra is close to our tents, and called Byram-ghat.