inspection of the patell, or superior of the village, are in a manner attached to the spot. The cattle for the plough, and other services of husbandry, are sometimes the common stock of the village, oftener the property of individuals. The patell provides seed and implements of agriculture, takes care that such as are able cultivate the land, and at the time of settling the jummabunda, or harvest-agreement, with the collector of the revenue, allots to each family their portion of grain, or a share of the money for which it has been sold; according to the number of the family, the quantity of their cattle, and the extent of the land they have cultivated. Some particular fields, called pysita and vajeefa lands, are set apart in each village for public purposes; varying, perhaps, as to the mode of application, in different districts; but in most the produce of these lands is appropriated to the maintenance of the Brahmins, the cazee, washerman, smith, barber, and the lame, blind, and helpless; as also to the support of a few vertunnees, or armed men, who are kept for the defence of the village, and to conduct travellers in safety from one village to another. An English reader may perhaps be surprized to see the barber in the list of pensioners: there is seldom more than one in each village; he shaves the inhabitants gratis; and as he has no exercise in the day, it is his province at night to carry a mussaul, or torch, to light travellers on the road, or for any other purpose required; no time remaining for him to attend to husbandry or to provide for his family, it is but just he should be maintained at the public expense: this is also applicable to the washerman and the smith, who work for the village, without any other emolu

ment. In some places, particularly in Mysore, there is an appropriation of grain to the saktis, or destructive spirits; and perhaps to many other deities who may be the objects of hope or fear in the worship of the villagers.

The occupation of massaulchee, or torch-bearer, although generally allotted to the village barber, in the purgunnas under my charge, may vary in other districts. The massaul, or torch, in India, is composed of coarse rags, rolled up to the size of an English flambeau, eighteen or twenty inches long, fixed in a brass handle: this is carried in the left hand; in the right the massaulchee holds a brass vessel containing the oil, with which he feeds the flame as occasion requires. By these means a bright extensive light is kept up. A great number of torch-bearers are assembled at the Hindoo festivals, especially weddings; they give a brilliant effect to the spectacle. I have sometimes, during a midnight journey in the ravines and nullahs between Baroche and Dhuboy, infested by wild beasts, and wilder men, been in a perilous situation from a failure of oil in a tract where there were no villages to replenish the vessels.

It may appear equally extraordinary to an European, to see the washerman mentioned among those who have a stipulated portion of grain. The Hindoo females in general do not wash either their own or their husbands' clothes: a public washerman, attached to each village, performs that office, which I believe is hereditary in his family; and for this duty he receives his portion of grain from the cullies. The washing in India, both for Europeans and natives, is performed without doors; if possible near a running

stream; if not, on the margin of a lake, where the inen is beaten violently against flat stones, or large blocks of wood, placed for the purpose, as in France: this mode of cleansing soon destroys the linens of Europe; but has no bad effect on the Indian cottons./

The cullies just noticed, are farm-yards, or receptacles at the different villages, for the general produce of the lands at the close of harvest. There the cotton, oil-seeds, and all kinds of grain are accumulated for the inspection of the zemindars, and officers of government, previous to the assessment for the revenue, and usual appropriations. The cully contains the thrashing floor, where the corn is trampled upon by oxen, the immemorial custom in the east. Here also are large receptacles for cotton, formed by digging holes in the earth, lined with cow dung, and filled with cotton as picked from the bushes; which are then covered with clods of dried earth, rubbed over with a cement of cow-dung, to preserve the contents from the weather.

In some places the cattle and implements of husbandry belong to individuls, who receive their proportion of land from the patell, to cultivate at their own expense, and to furnish their cattle and seed-grain. At the settling of the jummabunda, they pay their proportion of the village assessment to government, and then dispose of their grain, cotton, and fruit, without being accountable to the patell; for between the patell and the collectors belonging to government, are a set of venal corrupt men, called zemindars, who by a powerful influence in every district, take an advantage of both parties; these men, in fact, ought to be only intelligent clerks and accomptants, conversant

in the revenue department; and, from being acquainted with its forms and usages, should settle accounts between the collectors and patells, and see that justice is done on both sides. But so much is this office abused, that the zemindars are permitted to advance money to the patells and cultivators, to purchase cattle, seed, and other things wanted at the commencement of the rainy season, at the exorbitant interest of three and three quarters per cent. per mensem, or at the rate of five and forty per cent. per annum ; though it is always lent by the month. For the security of money thus advanced, the produce of the land is mortgaged to the zemindars, who, at the time of settling the Jummabunda, assume the new title of minutedars; which is a name and an office by right only belonging to the seraffs (bankers) and monied inen of the district; who, by a proper agreement, and for a reasonable consideration, take upon themselves to pay the sum assessed by the collectors, to the officers of government. The pernicious practice of permitting the zemindars, who have already too much influence, to be the minutedars also, extends their power to a dangerous length; and is productive of the worst consequences to the cultivators. The cunning, chicanery, and wickedness of the minutedars cannot easily be described, or comprehended, by a generous mind, unused to their artful wiles: yet pysita-lands are set apart in almost every village for these oppressors, who share with the industrious peasants and proper pensioners, the allotments before mentioned; and I must own, when I cheerfully acquiesced in every distribution to the poor, the maimed, and helpless objects of compassion, it was a painful

46

MODE OF ASSESSMENT.

imposition to reward these wretches for their cruelty and oppression. It is pleasing to reflect how similar were many of the Hindoo appropriations to the charities enjoyed by the Mosaical law. "When thou beatest thine olive tree, though shalt not go over the boughs again; when thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard thou shalt not glean it afterwards; when thou cuttest down thy harvest, and hast forgot a sheaf in thy field, thou shalt not go again to fetch it ; these shall be for the stranger, the fatherless, and for the widow; that the Lord thy God may bless thee !"— Deut. ch. xxiv. ver. 19-21.

I am decidedly of opinion from my own knowledge, founded on practice as well as theory, that however sanctioned by long habit and established custom, the mode of assessment by Jummabunda, in the districts under my cognizance, failed in many essential points to produce the good effects which might have been expected, could we have found men of humane character and responsibility to conduct the business. A better mode would be, were men of moral principles and probity to be found, to grant such leases as would give the former a secure and permanent interest in the land he cultivates, and such a tenure would be the only means of preventing the abominable fraud, plunder, and oppression, which the ryots suffer under the zemindars, and the whole mass of native officers employed in the cutcheree or revenue department. Such farmers were however not to be met with in the Company's territory, nor I believe throughout the whole province of Guzerat, while I resided there.

In different districts of Guzerat are different modes of cultivation, collecting the revenues, and distributing