Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/265

KHE 257 one of them can state correctly even his three or four immediate predeces- sors; annually a bard comes from the ancient city of their kings in Sau- rashtra, makes his rounds among them, and recites to dull or sleeping audi- ences annals which should thrill them with pride. The Ahbans are in fine now more bigoted, more deeply plunged in debt, more superstitious, void of enterprise, and uneducated, than the average Hindu peasant in similar circumstances. They are noteworthy for their willingness to deceive, and the ease with which they are deceived themselves is equally notorious; and their history presents too many instances of cunning and treachery combined with Boeotian sluggishness and stolidity. Their ill- luck has become proverbial, and it seems to arise from the fact that they always hesitated about taking sides in civil wars till the contest was almost decided and then took the wrong one. Rája Mán Singh, after the battle of Buxar, having delayed to join his sovereigu till it was too late, presumed to oppose the march of the victorious English with his raw levies, The rája appeared at the head of his warriors swathcd in the huge paijámas or sleeping drawers which are worn in the zanána. At the first charge his troops fled headed by the rája; the latter tumbled from his horse. He was unable to rise being entangled in the cumbrous folds of his dress, and a British soldier transfixed him with a bayonet as he lay on his stomach. The chief of Kukra, Ali Bakhsh Khan, who had built himself a castle in a dismal swamp six miles north of Gola, did not wish to pay land tax to Government, and endeavoured to secure that object by murdering in their beds a number of Government surveyors whom he had received with pre- tended hospitality. But for treachery, cruelty, and suicidal folly combined, Rája Lone Singh claims the pre-eminence. His treatment of the English refugees from Shahjahánpur was in some respects the blackest instance of wickedness and ingratitude which the mutiny presents. But the few events in the obscure annals of this family must now be detailed. It was thought instructive to collocate before the reader accounts of the past and present state of this race. Gopi is alleged to have founded the town of Gopamau, to have held the pargana of that name, to have marr the daughter of some rája of Kanauj, and to bave received forty- two villages as her dowry. His descendants still hold considerable Pro- perty in Bhainsari and neighbouring villages. Sopi, the second brother, settled first in the village of Bhúrwára which lies two miles north-east of Gola Gokarannáth, He conquered the country subduing the Rájpásis, whose dominions then extended from Sandíla to Dhaurahra, and preferred claims to be lords of the soil even in Humáyún's time, one of whose sanads is still extant declaring that they had not proved their title. Rája Nirajdeo, eighth in descent from Sopi, settled in the town of Pataunja, three miles west of Misrikh, in the Sitapur district. It is reported that he was aided in all his affairs by a supernatural being called Aħbáwan. He and the clan ever since bore the name of Ahban. For twenty-six generations the family lived in Pataunja ; then two bro- thers represented it, Alam Sáh and Kunwar Sáh. The latter left the old family castle and settled in Kunwar Danda in Khairabad, which town was founded by a Pási Khaira, the servant of Bhím Sen, the Ahban rája of that