The military chiefs, essentially either soldiers or robbers, were continually fighting, either against each other, or against the peasantry, or public officers of the paramount power, like the barons of Europe; and that paramount power, or its delegates, often found that the easiest way to crush one of these refractory vassals was to put him, as such men had been put in Germany, to _the ban of the empire_, and offer his lands, his castles, and his wealth to the victor. This victor brought his own clansmen to occupy the lands and castles of the vanquished; and, as these were the only things thought worth living for, the change commonly involved the utter destruction of the former occupants. The new possessors gave the name of their leader, their clan, or their former place of abode, to their new possession, and the tract of country over which they spread. Thus were founded the Bundêlas, Pawârs, and Chandêls [_sic_] upon the ruin of the Chandêls of Bundêlkhand, the Baghêlas in Baghêlkhand, or Rîwâ, the Kachhwâhâs, the Sakarwârs, and others along the Chambal river, and throughout all parts of India.[13] These classes have never learnt anything, or considered anything worth learning, but the use of the sword; and a Râjpût chief, next to leading a gang of his own on great enterprises, delights in nothing so much as having a gang or two under his patronage for little ones. There is hardly a single chief of the Hindoo military class in the Bundêlkhand or Gwâlior territories, who does not keep a gang of robbers of some kind or other, and consider it as a very valuable and legitimate source of revenue; or who would not embrace with cordiality the leader of a gang of assassins by profession who should bring him home from every expedition a good horse, a good sword, or a valuable pair of shawls, taken from their victims. It is much the same in the kingdom of Oudh, where the lands are for the most part held by the same Hindoo military classes, who are in a continual state of war with each other, or with the Government authorities. Three-fourths of the recruits for native infantry regiments are from this class of military agriculturists of Oudh, who have been trained up in this school of contest; and many of the lads, when they enter our ranks, are found to have marks of the cold steel upon their persons. A braver set of men is hardly anywhere to be found; or one trained up with finer feelings of devotion towards the power whose salt they eat.[14] A good many of the other fourth of the recruits for our native infantry are drawn from among the Ujainî Râjpûts, or Râjpûts from Ujain,[15] who were established many generations ago in the same manner at Bhôjpur on the bank of the Ganges.[16] Notes: 1. A purôhit is a Brahman family priest. 2. Four hundred thousand rupees, worth at that time more than forty thousand pounds sterling. 3. The magistrate was the author. 4. 'That' in author's text.