434 MAL doubtful that both agreed to abide by their ancient landmark, the Akrahdi stream. These Rajputs practice female infanticide, and are too proud to hold their own ploughs, and too dignified to run. They hold almost all their old villages, but some five have come into the possession of the taluq- dars-Ahmad Khan and Nasím Khan. The Nikumbhs of Siswara (Bharad-dwaj Gotr) hold an estate of some twenty-four villages in the centre of the pargana. They are said to have invaded the pargana under two brothers, Kánb and Kbarak, and to have acted in concert with the Gahilwár, Ráe Paitawan Singh, wbo colonized a large tract of the same pargana to their east. Their native country is said to have been Narwar in the west. With the Gahilwars they drove out the original Jhojha inhabitants and seized their villages. The remains of forts and deserted sites of villages, specially in Tharri, Pára, Siswára, Diláwarnagar, show that these Jhojhas inhabited the country in considerable strength. Their villages are all said to be very ancient. The time of their foundation and origin of their names are unknown. These Rajputs have no history beyond their own villages ; they partitioned out their villages amongst themselves at various times; and the Diláwarnagar family to better their position became Muhammadans. The Bais of Tappa Dakláwal (Bhárad-dwaj Gotr). This was a tappa consisting of fifty-two villages which belonged to Rája Tej Singh of the Bamhan-Gaur tribe. The greater part of this tappa is now included in- the Hardoi distriet, but twenty-two villages lie in this pargana at the extreme north-east. The story goes that Rám Chandar, a Bais of the Tilok-Chandi clan, who had married into the Panwar's family of Itaunja, had taken service with the Rája Tej Singh, and having fallen out with him about his pay returned to his native country of Baiswara. Thence he returned with a large force, and drove out the Bamhan-Gaur rája, who fled to some more of their kith and kin on the banks of the Gogra in Khairabád. In Dukbáwal still stands a Pípal tree, and there is a small monument--a memorial of the place where the Bamhan-Gaur widows used to rm their suttees- to which the Bamban-Gaurs to this day bring their offerings for the old Parohits of their tribe on the occasion of a marriage or any other solemn ceremony in their house. Rám Chandar had three sons,--Alsukh Ráe, Lákim Ráe, and Kans-- who settled in Bangálpur, Pípargaon, and Bhithri, and their descendants are now known as the Bangáli, Piparhár, and Bhitharia Bais. It is not known when or how they divided their villages, but by superior energy and address the latter family became possessed of forty-two villages, while the two former got respectively five only. But the fortunes of the family changed in these latter days, and Thákur Srípál Singh, a descendant of the Bangáli branch, has become the taluqdar of Mansurgarh, and now possesses a large estate in Hardoi. He holds only a few villages in this pargana, and his history more properly belongs to the Hardoi district. Agaiu, Rája Randhir Singh of the same family, has reached the dignity of a taluqdar, and holds a still larger estate in the same district, Am
