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gold and silver into the markets of the whole world. I have collected average rates of all the different kinds of produce for the last forty years from the native dealers' chopras, or books, and the market prices of the metals and chief necessaries of life, see Appendix, which details may give some idea of the value, though the avarice of this class would naturally induce them to impose as much as they could on the people, having as little regard for the life of their fellow-creatures, or their preservation from starvation, as for a brute's.

When the Portuguese first settled* on the coast about Basseen and Salsette in the year of our Lord, 1534-6 they found the financial arrangements of the Bahmunee government in operation, and they continued them with very little alteration. So that in their territories we may learn what would have been the effect of the first system, as also that of Mulik Umbui's throughout the Kullian and Chewul prants, had not the Mahrattas overrun the country and imposed other grievous additional taxes. These particulars are to be learnt first from the revenue administration of the island of Salsette and the coast from Basseen to Duman, which were never at any time subject to the financial regulations of Mulik Umbur. The lands were then leased at an established rent, equal to one-third the entire produce. To the European Fazendars they were assigned at a small quit-rent, and the assessment which was supposed equivalent to the third or the fourth of the gross produce. There can be no

* It is very generally believed that the Portuguese obtained all their possessions from Buhadoor Shah of Goojrat by the valour of their first settlers. Nothing however is further from the truth; for I have found by searching the Portuguese state records that they were ceded at the instance of Akbar and Shah Jehan on the representation of the celebrated beauty in the imperial seraglio, the lady Donna Juliana Diez, who was captured by a corsair on her voyage to Terecira, and came by purchase into the possession of Sultan Selim, the Grand Signor, from the slave market of Constantinople. By him she was sent with other presents under a trusty convoy to Akbar, the youthful monarch of Delhi. Her case being desperate and no way of escape practicable she still adhered to her obligations to the land of her fathers—to her people and to her religion. Having won the emperor's affection, she applied herself with singular adroitness and success to promote the interests of her country and religion in India: what success she had in the latter, may be learnt on referring to the very curious particulars of Akbar's secession from the Mahomedan faith, and the new religion he proposed to set up. The explanation of this I believe has as yet remained a perfect mystery. This lady's history and her state correspondence with the Court of Portugal through the Jesuits were first pointed out to me by Don Manuel de Portugal, then viceroy of Goa. I have since obtained a manuscript memoir in Persian from the late Capt. Macan's library. Her fate is implicated in the earliest settlements of the British people also.

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question that the state of the country improved daily, and would certainly have completely recovered its former degree of productivity, when the whole of the lands were of the exact nature of perfect freehold, subject to the most ancient light assessment under its native Hindu sovereigns, of one-tenth the gross produce: but the intolerant spirit and determined bigotry of the Portuguese priesthood, towards their native subjects, precluded the benefits which would have attended this assignment of farms under the care of European managers*. There was at this time, no actual measurement of the lands, but so much land was estimated as a khundee, *moorah, parah*, and so forth. No mention is made of the various tenures which are now found throughout India, nor of the various offices of Koolkurnee, Patel, Bulotedars, Deshmookhs, Deshpandees, and so forth: the managers of the cultivation under the Portuguese were *Mahtaras*, a native word signifying an old man, but these were altogether of their own institution. Whatever changes they introduced, chiefly affected the revenue demands of the European proprietors, whose rental was increased differently in different places. Mr. Duncan has left exact details of the Portuguese system of revenue management in his account of the Island of Salsette, which he says was " parcelled out on its first conquest among the European subjects into village allotments at a small foro or quit-rent: those Europeans continuing the local usage of levying under the denomination of *tolcah*, or *dhemp* their ascertained and permanent rent from the natives, who cultivated their estates which were rated with a view to yield to the landlord, one half the crop." This difference of rental to the immediate tenants of the Portuguese government and the Portuguese landholder, constituted the European Fazendars' or landholder's profits, and the same is still the practice with all the Hindu farmers on a large scale; that is, to receive from the cultivator at secondhand, or under-tenant, a rent equal to the difference of one-third and one-half the gross produce, or one-sixth. As an instance of which all

* The nature of these assignments does not appear to have been clearly understood hitherto. The term Fazenda means revenue, as we say *Junta da Fazenda*, the Revenue Board. The Europeans received these grants of land on condition of the colonizing in India, and enforcing with their tenants the observance of the Roman Catholic faith, or if *Gentoos* (i. e. Gentes or Gentiles) of procuring their conversion, with strict limitation of succession to females; and this practice in process of time had the desired effect of attaching the proprietors or their female descendants to the soil, where they now vegetate, a miserable mixed race, little acquainted with their former religion, and perfectly ignorant of Christianity.

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the great landed proprietors, Nana Kholutkur, the greatest of these
proprietors in the Konkun, also Ramchundur Purub Gaonkur of
Mussooree, Goolam Hoossain Patel in Tulloja, Khan Sahib Bhensekur
at Nagotna, Dahim Khan at Mahar, Baba Burwa at Dhabol, Nana
Wahalkur at Sawurde, Anjunvel district, Naro Ramchundur at
Wurad, all receive one-half the gross produce, they themselves being
responsible to the British government for the land rental, their
tenants for such other extra cesses, as have been imposed beyond
the land rental. This, or the highest portion of the produce, was
confined however to those lands which produced either chowka, or
Khara bhat; that is, rice cultivated either on fresh alluvial, or salt
alluvial lands; from Dongur, or hill lands, a less proportion was
exacted by the European Fazendars, and a still less proportion de-
manded by the Portuguese government. The tenure of the native
peasantry was thus reduced in their territories to that of the urdhel,
or doolandee, who might, if they saw fit, throw up their fields, and
take service with another farmer; but even thus situated, the cul-
tivators of the Portuguese territories, were by all accounts extremely
happy, and easy in their circumstances, and the Fazendars them-
selves, enriched beyond measure, till the Portuguese was superseded
by the Mahratta government.

The European farmers supplied their under-tenants with seed or
rice plants, for which they received a heavy return, for interest and
principal, besides the fixed moiety, and thus brought them occasion-
ally into that state of bondage, which is the greatest reproach of
the Hindu landlord ; for the cultivators could not, without
incurring debt, pay more one year with another, than one-half the
produce, and support themselves and families with any degree of
comfort, they were either absolutely reduced therefore to have
recourse to downright knavery, or to submit to privations and
unwholesome fare, and the most abject dependence on their masters.
From a review of the effects of recent exaction of a like kind through-
out the Konkun, it is not to be doubted that wherever such practices
prevailed, the like consequences always ensued. It is not probable
however that this practice was at all general, in as much as cultiva-
tion improved, population increased, and new lands were cultivated
or recovered from the sea by fine embankments, or the clearing of
the forests and brushwood under their enterprizing European occu-
pants, who set the example to the natives. These new lands were
held by the tenure of Shilotur, paying probably according to some
more ancient custom, progressively the fourth, third, half, two-

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thirds, and the fifth year the full rental of (Khara bhat) salt alluvial,
or (dongur), hill land: such was also the analogous system of Todur
Mul in Akbar's reign, in regard to Khirdsar, Cheechur, or Bunjur
lands: of those last Abool Fuzul says thus: "When land, either
from excessive rain or by reason of inundation has suffered so much
that the husbandman finds difficulty in cultivating it, he is allowed
to pay the revenue in the following proportions. The first year two
fifths of the rent (produce); the second year three-fifths; the third
and fourth years, four-fifths each, and the fifth year, as poolej;
that is, one-third of the gross produce: and according to circum-
stances the revenue is received either in money, or in kind. In the
third year the charges of five per cent. and the duty of one dam per
beegah was collected. Such was the rule with Cheecher land:
in regard to Bunjur land, Akbar ordered that there should be taken
from each beegah, the first year only one or two seers, the second
year, five seers, the third year the sixth of the produce, together
with one dam, the fourth year a fourth of the produce, and after
that, as poolej. But this indulgence differs according to circum-
stances." This progressively increasing rent is what is now called
Istawa introduced by the Nizamshahee government, and practised
by the Mahrattas; whether it regarded new lands (now Khird)
brought into cultivation, or (Khirdsar), lands that had been culti-
vated, but are now waste: the only difference consisted in the
proportion of the full rent*; (not produce, as Gladwin has erroneously
translated it in the first passage regarding the recovery of Cheechur
land, to be paid for the period of five years, when it was supposed
equal to bear the full rental. Such might be the general rule in regard
to kowls, but certainly with a much longer term of years, 15, or 10
at least; the tenant subjected all the while to pay some rent, how-
ever small, gradually progressing the first five, however much
the remainder, till it arrived at the maximum, or one-third the
gross produce.

* The fact is, Gladwin did not understand clearly what was the meaning of rent and produce, for he has used them to signify at one time the government share, at another the whole rent or produce; now the matter stands thus, that the entire produce is the entire rental, of which produce he considers the government share only to be the rent, that is, he puts a part for the whole, and had he done so all along, his own meaning would have been perfectly intelligible though not accordant with the language of political economy, or so accurately expressed. It is of course to be understood of such produce that it is exclusive of attendant expenses of cultivation, and interest of capital.

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The lands they recovered or brought anew into a state of cultivation were then, and even now, are still termed *shilotur*: they were chiefly within the assigned limits of the European Fazendars' estates, by whom they were most frequently disposed of to the natives, who paid a fixed quit-rent to the Fazendars, and in the case of government grants, directly to the government, without any reference to the produce or nature of the soil. This shilotur property is met with all along the coast formerly subject to the Portuguese, as well as the Kallian, and Chewul prants, exhibiting proof how much could be done by embanking and draining lands*.

The Portuguese introduced or reinstated many other small taxes which had been disallowed by the Mahomedan government of Deoghur or Dowlutabad, which they commuted for a small money payment, that made the whole assessment amount to about one-half the value of the gross produce; whether of fruits, roots, corn or pulses: on the whole, however, the enterprize and intelligence of the Europeans, and the capital bestowed in the improvement of old, or the cultivation of new lands, compensated in a great measure for their misconduct in other respects: their finances were in a very flourishing condition, and the country thriving, but their intemperate zeal and forcible attempts to convert the Hindus to the Roman Catholic faith, with their threats to subject them to the terrors of the inquisition, brought upon them the whole powers of the Mahratta empire, who after a contest of three years finally expelled them in 1739 and detained their best troops as prisoners of war for nine years, when they were released by treaty†.

At this period the Beegaonee assessment was first extended by the Mahratta to the Wussaee prant, district of Basseen, so far as respected arable land. In the northern districts of Sunjan, and Tarapoor,

* All the Portuguese possessions in India were arranged by Don Joaò, the IVth A. D. 1526 under the head of Novas conquistas, and Provincias del Norte. I have obtained a complete copy of the curious Revenue report drawn up by the Junta da Fazenda of 1526 and His Majesty's Royal mandate, which exhibits a picture of Indian finance, before the Mahrattas existed as a nation, and before the Brahmins had arrived at any great power, and almost immediately after the breaking up of the Bahmunee sovereignty of the Deccan and the formation of the Nizamshahee and Beejapoor kingdoms.

† I obtained a copy of this most inglorious and dishonorable treaty, by which it appears they were compelled to pay down seven lacs of rupees, other two lacs within six months, and two more in a further period of six months. This was the foundation of the present debt of the Portuguese state, amounting this year to 22 lacs of Rupees, of which a particular account and the treaty above alluded to will be found in the Historical review of the province. See Appendix.

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the old system of estimation by the quantity of seed, the *khundee*, *moorah*, &c. necessary to sow the field, continued in force with respect to rice land: the *hul*, or *nangur*, i. e. the plough, to hill land, only that the lands were classified and assessed at different rates, some more, others less, than they had been before.

Captain Grant Duff observes in his Mahratta History, that Mullik ool Tijar was accompanied in his expedition against the poligars and their adherents A. D. 1429, by the hereditary Deshmoohks wherever they remained, and an experienced Brahmin, named Dadoo Nursoo Kallay: on his return to Beedur, Dadoo Nursay and a Turkish eunuch of the Court were left to arrange the country, and recal the inhabitants. As the former boundaries of villages were forgotten, Dadoo Nursay, in fixing new limits, extended them very much, and threw two or three villages into one; lands were given to all who would cultivate them: but for the first year, no rent was required; and for the second, a *tobra*, or basket full, for each beegah, was all that was demanded. Without any desire of criticising, for mere pastime's sake, this excellent and useful history, I would venture to affirm that at this time the idea of an exact land survey had not entered into the natives' minds; there might have been the *aslah*, *tenab*, or *dooree* survey, the meaning of each of the above three words being the same, a rope; but it is not probable that the reduced condition of the inhabitants of the Konkun, and the irruption of a large body of Mahomedans, would conduce much to the furtherance of such a settlement, and exact measurement of the lands.

A very respectable public servant, Mahommed Ibrahim Purkar, furnished me with an account of the Rygurb Talooka, which might be held up as a striking illustration of the indifference of the most intelligent natives to dates: this Talooka, in which stands the celebrated mountain fort, the great stronghold of the founder of the Mahratta empire, Seevajee, lay altogether north of the Savitree river. He describes it, as subject to the Ray, or Ram Raja, of Anagoondee, then king of Kurnata; the truth is, that Ibrahim Adil Shah stipulated with the Moghul emperor Shah Jehan, that he should receive the Nizamshahee Konkun north of the Savitree river, and the fort of Sholapoor, in return for assistance in reducing Mortiza Nizam Shah's territories to the Moghul sway: his successor, Moohummud Adil Shah, contrived to evade his engagements with the Mogul emperor but took possession of the Nizamshahee Konkun in 1632; Kullian being formally given up to him in 1636. The imbecility of Mortiza Nizam Shah and his faithless minister Futih

N

CAS B Germa n a and w to de Peth

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Khan, brought about an alliance, in which Moohummud Adil Shah got possession likewise of Sholapoor. The issue of Futih Khan's usurpations and injustice towards Shahjee Bhonsla, the father of Sevajee, produced a rupture which drove the latter into the service of the Beejapoor state. In this service he was deputed to obtain possession of Dowlutabad, in which he failed, though he resorted to every cunning expedient that a Mahratta could have devised. At the termination of this expedition however, Shahjee, aspiring covertly to the Nizamshahee government, got possession of all the Konkun formerly dependent on that state. He did not pretend at first to occupy for himself, but some supposed infant member of the old Nizamshahee family: his dependents, chiefly Mahrattas, were invested with powers to settle the provinces in his master's name. In the mean time, Shah Jehan, incensed at the seizure of this territory which had so long constituted part of Dowlutabad and fallen with it to the possessors of that fortress, insisted on Moohummud Adil Shah denouncing Shahjee Bhonsla. The emperor's troops having frequently defeated those of the Beejapoor state: Moohummud Adil Shah was compelled to sue for peace, and it was finally agreed by treaty, (A. D. 1636), that the Nizamshahee Konkun should be made over to the Beejapoor state, with other dependent territories in the Dukhun, subject to an annual tribute to the Moghul emperor, of 25 lacs of rupees. Shahjee Bhonsla was suffered to resume his station as a stipendiary of the Beejapoor state.

The country thus ceded to Beejapoor brought the whole of the Konkun completely under that government, from the Veeturunee river to the Phonda Punch Muhal, with the exception of the Portuguese conquests at Goa, Chewul or Rewudunda, Sashtee, and from Basseen to Duman, a slip of the coast varying from 10 to 20 miles in breadth. In the geographical distribution of the Mohamedans, the proper name of each province was restricted to that portion under their authority. The Konkun in this instance was divided into four Soobhadarees, or districts; the first extending from the Veeturunee river to the Nagotna river, was under the Soobhadar of Kullian, the second under the Hubshee of Junjeera, in farm, with reservation of his own immediate Jagheer, the half of Rajpooree Talooka; this extended to the Savitree river; the third was the Soobhadaree of Dhabol, extending to the Dewgurh or Gurnyee river; the fourth was confided to the Waree Sawunts, the Desaees, or poligars who had obtained possession during the distractions and weakness of the Anagoondee, or Kurnata princes.

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Shahjee, when he found all his schemes defeated, retired for a while to his jagheer at Poona, which was confirmed to him anew by Moohummud Adil Shah, but was soon dragged from his retirement to command an expedition against the rebellious chiefs of Kurnata. Seevajee, his eldest son, a boy of 10 years of age, was left under the care of Dadajee Kondeo, a Brahmin formerly in the service of Mortiza Nizam Shah, who had attached himself with many others of like persuasion and fortune, to Shahjee Bhonsla. In reward for the services of Shahjee, Moohummud Adil Shah annexed the Mawuls in the vicinity of Poona to his original jagheer, and in them, as well as in the Poona jagheer, Dadajee Kondeo introduced the revenue system of Mulik Umbur, wherever it had been left unfinished by that prince. Born and nurtured in the most turbulent period of the Indian history, Seevajee soon contracted an unconquerable aversion for the Mahomedans, who had in an especial manner injured his own family: while a youth, he listened with avidity to every tale which would either kindle or encourage his ambitious designs for their expulsion; and the return of those golden days, when the Hindu might dream on undisturbed, in the apathetic listlessness of his peculiar life and worship, when the records of his subjection to a foreign yoke should be blotted out for ever, were to him the first and greatest motives to that systematic course of treachery and deceit, to that strange method of revenge, which emboldens the robber to adventure. Seevajee having possessed himself, either by stratagem, or by intrigue with the Killadar, of the fort of Torna, commenced his career of disloyalty, contrary to the advice of his father and the repeated admonitions of his faithful instructor Dadajee Kondeo, and by a series of silent and imperceptible, but rapid strides, arrived at complete possession of the districts between Chakun and the Neera river: shortly after, he seized upon all the hill forts in the Mawuls and the fortress of Islamgurh or Rairee, Tulla, Gosala, and other mountain fastnesses in the Konkun. One of his emissaries, Abajee Kondeo, availing himself of the total supineness and imaginary security of Moolana Ahmed, the Beejapoor officer in charge of Kullian, came on him by surprise and made him a prisoner, his troops in the meanwhile, bringing all the dependant districts and forts under subjection to Seevajee. Shortly after this, he surprised and put to death Chunder Row Moria*, another officer of Moohummud Adil Shah of Beejapoor, and took

* A brave and celebrated poligar chief reduced by the Beejapoor troops, before adverted to in the notes.

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the hill forts on the range of ghats, as far south as Wassoota. He then entered into a correspondence with Aurungzeeb, the Moghul's viceroy in the Dukhun, and representing how greatly Moohummud Adil Shah had mismanaged the government of the Konkun, procured Aurungzeeb's concurrence to his taking it under his own superintendance for the emperor Shah Jehan. Without waiting for Aurungzeeb's answer he dispatched Shamraj Punt to attack and expel the Hubshee from Junjeera; but whether from mismanagement on the part of Shamraj Punt, or the superior numbers, strength, and skill of the Hubshee, the troops of Seevajee were completely defeated.

The Desaees or Poligar chiefs, Sawunts of Warree, perceiving the success of Seevajee's rebellion, proposed to come over to his party, with a proviso of holding their territory of Koodal prant in equal shares for him as their superior, and for themselves, instead of continuing as the allies, or servants of the Beejapoor government; the treaty however was not fulfilled till Seevajee was established as an independent prince. In 1659, Anajee Dhuttoo, one of Seevajee's dependents, was sent against Roostum Zuman, whose Jagheer or command, comprehended Miruj and Kolhapoor above the Ghauts, and below the ghats the whole Konkun, south of Dhabal to Rajamundroog, or Karwar, with the exception of that only, under the immediate management of the Warree Sawunts. Roostum Zuman was worsted by Anajee Dhuttoo, but the Warree Sawunts adhered to their allegiance to the Beejapoor government, and for some time kept him in check. In this struggle Bajee Rao Phasulkur, the Mahatta leader, and Kye Sawunt of Warree, were slain. In 1661, Seevajee extended his conquests to the whole of the Dhabal Soobha, but was unsuccessful in his attack of the Hubshee's Island forts of Junjeera. In the following year he compelled the Sawunts of Warree to submit, and built Reree, and Sindhodroog forts, which he garrisoned with his own troops. His last act was to repair all those forts on the coast which had been built by the Beejapoor and Nizamshahee governments: Veejydroog, Rutnagiri, Jygurh, Unjunvel, Soowurndroog and Koolaba.

Thus Seevajee became possessed of the whole Konkun, which on his visit to Aurungzeeb, at Delhi he entrusted to the care of Anajee Dhuttoo, Moro Trimmul Pingle, and Abajee Sondeo: the former had the Dhabal Soobha; the Peshwa, Moro Pingle, the Rajpooree and Raigurh districts, with the neighbouring Mawuls; Abajee Sondeo, Kullian. On his return he renewed his attempts to possess the Hubshee and Portuguese, that he might get complete

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session of the whole of that province which belonged to the ancient kings of Deogurh and Dowlutabad: but his efforts were altogether unsuccessful. In 1668, 1669, he turned his attention to the settlement and revenues of his newly acquired territories, and appointed Anajee Dhuttoo to make an exact survey of the lands, in some degree corresponding to that made by Dadajee Kondeo in the Poona jagheer, on the principle of Mulik Umbur's assessment and surveys. In this respect, however, they essentially differed, that whereas the former allotted one-third to government, and two-thirds to the ryot; this, by Anajee Dhuttoo, exacted two-fifths for the government, and left three-fifths only to the ryot: all other cesses however were at first interdicted, and the Patels, Khots, Koolkurnees, Deshmookhs, and Deshpandees prohibited from interfering with the government officers beyond the duties and offices strictly enjoined in their original *sunnuds*, grants, and *kowls* charters. Still in the midst of all this confusion, warfare, and general disloyalty, the state of the revenue and population is said to have prospered: if this had really been the case, it can be accounted for in no other possible way, but that the people were only subject to the land tax, from which Seevajee discharged all the expenses and grants to religious and charitable objects, whether Mahomedan or Hindu. In the subsequent appointment of his eight *prudhans*, or great ministers of state, the same Anajee Dhuttoo was first nominated to the office of *Soornees*, or general recordkeeper, superintendent of the department of correspondence, examiner of all letters: all deeds and grants were first copied by him, and the attestation of his examination, and their having been transcribed, was necessary to their validity. This Brahmin was probably selected to fill this office, from his conversance with the usages of the country, being also hereditary Desh Koolkurnee of Sungumeshwur, or general accountant of revenue of the Prubhawulee *Mooamila*, government, where all the business of the Dhabal Soobha was for a long time carried on.

The foregoing sketch of Seevajee's conquests of the Konkun, and of its principal political and geographical divisions, brings us to the period where the Mahratta revenue system was first projected by Seevajee and confided to Anajee Dhuttoo: we shall now examine more carefully the financial measures which were prosecuted towards the close of Seevajee's life, and during the short reign of his son and successor Sumbhajee, all in fact that remains worthy to be considered as in any degree systematic. Hitherto, the land had been assessed

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at one-third its gross produce. Seevajee at first adhered rigidly to Anajee Dhuttoo's interpretation and construction of the rules prescribed by the Hindu shasturs: but he subsequently raised his assessment on the best kind of land about seven per cent.: in the first instance, he levied only 33 per cent. of the gross produce, as had been the practice under the Beejapoor* and Nizamshahee government; he now levied 40 per cent. on the best, on the average one-third, as before. It is commonly believed indeed, that he measured and classified all the lands, and then ascertained the amount of their produce from one or two villages in each Muhal of the Ouchitgurh, Rajpooree, Rygurh, Soowurndroog, Unjunvel, Rutnagiri and Veejydroog† districts, for three successive years, from which data he established the rates, half in kind, half at a fixed commutation rate differing in each Talooka, to be paid by the beegah of each sort of land. The classification of the rice lands, *mule*, or *dhemp*, under twelve heads; the four first still retaining their former well known distinctions. *Uwul*, 1st and best sort; *Doom*, or *Dooyoom*, second sort; *Seem*, 3rd sort; *Charoom* or *Charseem*, 4th sort. The first was assessed at 12¼ muns; the second at 10, the third at 8, the fourth at 6¼ muns. These four descriptions of land paid a rent to the government of about two-fifths of the gross produce. We may judge therefore what was the productiveness of an English acre, in English measures. The beegah as we have before shown, was 4014 square yards; the *phera*, or *mun*, constructed either according to the rules of the Hindu books, or the Persian, Moghul, or lastly the Arabian, and Egyptian measures of the *urdub*, introduced by the Abyssinians, and Toorka, was the half of the cubic cubit = 3735 cubic inches: the *pylee* was the sixteenth part of the mun, exactly equivalent to the English wine gallon. The true content of the Winchester bushel is 2134 cubic inches; the corn gallon also deduced from the primitive standard = 266-8 cubic inches; all these particulars will be found most correctly and fully authenticated in my Essay on the primitive

* Under the Beejapoor government the two-fold measure of rental is very exactly defined in all the ancient *sunnuds* and *kowls*, i. e. grants and charters: the king's share is therein called *Rajbhag*, or one-sixth, *Prujabhag* the ryot and cultivator's share, five-sixths of the gross produce, from which one-sixth was assigned to Khyrat, Peer Durgah, or the general objects of charity and religion.

† The zumeendars gave me a very exact account of these surveys which were communicated to Mr. Dunlop, but he has made very little use of the information but of that of Unjunvel, although in many respects the classification of lands is materially different.

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standard of weights and measures. I need not therefore enlarge further in this place on that curious subject.

The first or *uwul* land paid a revenue of 46,687 cubic inches, *Doom*, 37,350 which being increased in the ratio of 29,880 five to two or 100 to 40, as it was levied in the proportion of two-fifths of the gross produce, we have the total for one beegah.

Produce of customary beegah of 4614 square yards, each beegah being reckoned 2/3 of actual measurement.

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Bushels-gallon.</th><th>Bushels-gallon.</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Uwul 116718 cubic inches, ...</td><td>54 6</td><td>57 2</td></tr><tr><td>Doom 93375 do.,...</td><td>43 6</td><td>or 45 0</td></tr><tr><td>Seem 74700 do.,...</td><td>35 0</td><td>36 5</td></tr><tr><td>Charseem 58359 do., ...</td><td>27 3</td><td>28 5</td></tr></tbody></table>

The remaining eight descriptions of land went by the following names, discriminating their respective qualities, and were assessed at the annexed rates. 1st, Raupal, on which small stunted brushwood grows; 2nd, Kharwut, lands in the neighbourhood of the sea or rivers, sometimes called salt bhatty lands; 3rd, Bawul, rocky soil; 4th, Khuree, stony soil; 5th, Kureyat or Toorwut, lands cultivated with pulse, hemp, &c.; 13 Manut, lands with the roots of large trees still uncleared, as near Indapoor and Goregaon.

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Bush. gallon.</th><th></th><th></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Raupal, ...</td><td>8 maunds per beegah.</td><td>35</td><td>0</td><td>36 5</td></tr><tr><td>Kharwut, ...</td><td>7¼ of 33 0</td><td>27 3</td><td>0</td><td>34 4</td></tr><tr><td>Bawul, ...</td><td>6¼ of 27 3</td><td>27 3</td><td>0</td><td>28 5</td></tr><tr><td>Khuree, ...</td><td>6¼ of 27 3</td><td>27 3</td><td>0</td><td>28 5</td></tr><tr><td>Kureyat, 1st sort, ...</td><td>6¼ of 22 0</td><td>22 0</td><td>0</td><td>28 5</td></tr><tr><td>Ruhoo, ...</td><td>5</td><td></td><td></td><td>23 0</td></tr><tr><td>Toorwut or Kattahnee, ...</td><td>5</td><td>22 0</td><td>0</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Manut, ...</td><td>5</td><td>22 0</td><td>0</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Subsequently the wretched cultivators have planted small spots on the most rocky eminences, wherever a little water lodged, and the least portion of soil favored the growth of rice; this is frequent about Unjunvel and Rutnagiri Talookas, and have been classed under two heads, both called *sirwut*, the former assessed at 3¼ maunds, the latter the half of that; the produce of the first kind, would be about 16 bushels per beegah, or 17¼ per acre, the inferior

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sort 8 bushels per beegah, or 8¼ bushels per acre; scarcely repaying the trouble of its planting, watching and reaping.

The assessment of hill cultivation, called *wurkus*, or *dongur* was levied by the *hul*, *nangur*, or plough, according to the rotation of the crops, large allowances being made for rocky and unproductive spots. This alternation is usually made in the following order, Nachnee, Wurree, Hureek, and Til: the ground then requires some time to recover, from three to seven years. These are called by the natives, dry grains, in contradistinction to the rice cultivation, called wet crops, not being in any case dependent on artificial irrigation, or other means than the periodical rains afford. In some few places, even *wurkus* was measured; and three, five, six, or seven beegahs, counted as one, according to the years required for one rotation of crops. Nachnee was assessed at 3¼ maunds per *nangur*, occasionally though rarely by the *beegah*, as now stated; inferior soil at three maunds. Wurree, also was assessed at three maunds, and 2½ maunds; Hureek, from its more abundant productiveness, at three maunds, and every other kind of inferior produce at 1¼ maunds.

All produce raised in the second or third crops paid, with reference to the land, and to the deteriorating qualities of the plant, that on *wwul*, or first class lands, very heavily. Turmeric, or Huldee, five maunds per beegah, each beegah, being 2/3 actual measurement. Hemp, or *Tag*, five maunds, each beegah being reckoned 1/2 actual measurement. Sugar-cane cultivation assessed from 6¼ mun to 3⅔ of raw sugar per beegah; the ground after this requiring a full year to recover. These articles were received by weight. The seer, as I have shown in my account of the primitive standard of weights and measures, and have likewise ascertained by numerous experiments, was of 28 tolas, equal to 5250 grains troy; that is, twelve avoirdupoise ounces: the mun weight of 40 seers or 4800 ounces; that is, exactly 30 avoirdupoise pounds. The produce of the beegah and English statute acre of each, is as follows, being reckoned at 1/2 of the government share.

Turmeric, .. 375 lbs.

Hemp, .... 375 lbs.

Raw Sugar, . 468⅔ to
234⅔.

Avoirdupois
per customary
beegah.

5352 square yards, or 340 lbs. per
English statute acre.

5018 ditto or 360 lbs. per ditto.

4014 ditto or 452 lbs. to 226 lbs.
per ditto.

The above was the revenue system and assessment carried into effect by Annajeeh Dhuttoo towards the close of Seevajee's life; as it included none of those extra cesses and exactions with which the

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revenue accounts are now overloaded, it appears to have been rather a modification of Mulik Umbur's plan, than an increased tax; for the produce of the best kinds of land, which bear a very small proportion to that of middling or inferior quality, is much under-estimated, and the average produce about 40, or 42 mun: whence it would appear that he in reality levied something more than the two-sixths or one-third, but less than two-fifths. The produce of the first and best sort of rice land called *wwul*, has reached in good years to 75 mun; in the general run to about 55 mun: the produce of the second, to 52 mun, and in ordinary seasons to 40 or 45; the third sort *seem* to 37 in the best, or in ordinary seasons to 26 or 28; the produce of the fourth to 20, or 22 in the best, or in ordinary seasons to 15 or 16 mun. *Baool* may be computed, one year with another, from 30 to 36; *Kharwut* from 25 to 30 mun; *Manut* from 16 to 22; *Sirwut* from 6 to 12. The produce of *wurkus* or hill land varies with the grain, with the soil, and with the seasons; of all these small grains, Nachnee, Naglee, or Ragee, yields the most astonishingly productive returns, having occasionally amounted to 400, or even to 600-fold*. Hureek or Kodroo, according to the exact measure of a beegah; produces from 5 to 20 mun. Wurree from 2 to 12 mun. Hureek from two to ten mun. Til from one to four mun. Ooreed from one to five mun. Kooleet or Koolthee produces from ½ to three mun. The ordinary return of the small corn, in a very moderate season of rain, is about four hundred fold. It constitutes the chief support of the poorer classes, and is their last stand by against starvation, and seasons of extreme distress, or when the rains have fallen partially and irregularly; for the autumnal dews suffice, after a certain period, to mature the seed of the hill grains, which yet are quite insufficient to bring the rice crops to maturity. In the southern districts, that is, from Mal-

* The usual produce of the *wurkus* grains averages from 50 to 100-fold. Dr. Roxburgh in his botanical account of *Eleusine stricta* (Cynosurus indicus, Linn. Eleusine indica, Lamarek: Poa digitata, R. Br.) has the following apposite observation. "About twenty years ago there came up accidentally amongst some rabbish in my garden at Samulcottah two tufts of this plant, each upon examination I found to be the produce of one seed, each had 25 culms and each of these culms had, on an average, two lateral branches, making in all 75 culms and each branches; each produced upon an average 6 spikes, (for they had from 4 to 8, and branches) each of these had at a medium 60 spikelets, and each spikelet in all 450 spikelets, each of these had at 4 seeds, total produce (81,000) eighty-one thousand. I was myself particularly attentive in counting the above produce because it was so astonishingly great." At this distance of time I was disposed to disbelieve my own notes till I accidentally met with this corroborative testimony. This is the Nachnee or Naglee of the *wurkus*, or hill lands.

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wun south, there is but little of this cultivation compared with *bhat*, or rice cultivation. It is abundant over the whole of the Veejydroog, Rutnagiri, Unjunvel, Soovurndroog, and Rajpooree Talookas, where the laterite appears approaching the surface and the general face of the country is mountainous, rocky, and poor; north of this limit the hilly tracts are rich, but so over-run with jungle, forests, close brushwood, bamboos, and the Schœnanthus, or Lemon-grass*, and Doob, or Dab†, a gigantic species of coarse grass, that it is a work of infinite labour to prepare the soil for cultivation, and when the grain at length is ripening, it is at the entire mercy of innumerable depredators, locusts, deer, bears, and wild hogs, which infest these inaccessible retreats in vast numbers: added to this, the population is extremely scanty from former wars, mismanagement, the oppressive conduct of the Mahratta Soobhadars, and the great scarcity of water.

It should be observed here, that the Brahmins, in the first instance and after them the Moghuls, had arrived at the utmost limit of taxation with which the cultivation and moral character of the people could possibly consist: one-sixth for the state, one-sixth for the priesthood and service of religion; that is, two-sixths or one-third of the gross produce: this was 33⅓ per cent. Seevajee, whether he designed it or not, and it is generally believed that he did not contemplate the slightest deviation from the Hindu shasturs, or customs, levied two-fifths of the gross produce, that is, 40 per cent.; but this amount exceeded the capability of the ryot to pay; the ryot and all the parties concerned in the realization of the revenue, began to scheme how they could get over this difficulty: the conclusion was, they demanded or introduced by stealth the practice of reckoning 23 pands, instead of 20, to one beegah: twenty rods of 5⅝ cubits, as we have above explained, each way, made a beegah; that is, each rod of 5⅝ cubits squared, made the 20th part of a beegah. In a tabular view we may understand this superficial measure more

* Cymbopogon Schœnanthus, of Sprengel: a native of the Cape of Good Hope, Arabia, and India; it covers immense tracts in the northern uncultivated plains of Bengal, and I found it on all the northern face of the Nilgherres. It is the same as the Andropogon Schœnanthus of Linnæus, and citriodorus vel citratus, Hortus Malab.

† The Doob, or Dab, here mentioned, is not the Doorva of Sir Wm. Jones, the Agrostis linearis of Linnæus, or the Hurrialee of the Mahrattas and Canarese: that plant which is identically the same with the fiorin grass of English farmers, is, as rich and nutritious, as this is rank and pernicious. This is the Pœa cynosuroides of Linnæus.

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exactly. 5⅝ cubits = 114.03542 inches, which squared = 10.0847
sqr. yds. 20 poluhs, or 200.694 square yards, = 1 pand. 20 pand,
or 400 poluhs, = 1 beegah, = 4014 square yards. The consequence
of this over-taxation, whether it were conceded by Anajee Dhuttoo;
or the understood clandestine work of the Mhars and Patels, by
connivance with the land measurers and village officers to adjust
with the Koolkurnee for the revenue, was to require each beegah to
be of 23 pands, or in other words, that for each 23 pands, or 4014
sqr. yds. + 3 × 200.694 = or 4616 sqr. yds, the government rent
should only be levied as far 4014: now 602 sqr. yds. the extra
quantity of land, was considered a compensation equivalent to the
extra assessment beyond one-third the gross produce; it was in fact
the exact compensation in land for the precise addition of government
rent now first imposed by Anajee Dhuttoo: for the rent at two-
fifths the gross produce was 40 per cent., at one-third the gross
produce 33⅓ per cent.; the difference therefore of 40 and 33⅓ was
6⅔ or 666 or 15 per cent.: but as the land was over-charged, it was
under estimated in actual extent, 23 pands being reckoned for
every 20, and thus three pands were passed over, or unaccounted
for in every 20; that is, one beegah in every 7⅔ of the actual measure-
ment by the rod, or 15 per cent. In the first case, the difference
of ⅔ and ⅓ the gross produce, is 1⅓: they reckoned also one beegah in
excess, over each 6⅔ beegahs or 15 per cent. We have here therefore
the plain instructive hint that there is a certain maximum beyond
which the gross produce cannot pay a rent to the government, nor
the farmer or landholder, without bringing the most disastrous and
certain consequences on himself and his occupancy. It is a difficult
and delicate question, which determines the capability of the soil and
the ryot to pay, the farmer to produce, and the produce to exhibit an
undisputed test of agricultural skill on the one hand, or moral
responsibility on the other. This was the first occasion of all that
misery, malversation, demoralization, and deceit, which has ever since
been growing out of this revenue system, the last, the most unhappy
of the procedures that is entitled to any such distinction; for all
after that are rather to be accounted tribute and extortion than fair
and unexceptionable revenue arrangements.

The consequences of further oppression are not to be seen at once
in the same plain unequivocal expression of disagreement between the
land measure and the impositions heaped upon the people by the
government and its agents; they are to be seen in all the collusions of
the revenue servants at fraudulency, and the pretexts, whether true or

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false, of the landlords and cultivators, for remission, the neglect of agriculture or the impoverished nature of the soil and marketable value of its produce.

It has been very long affirmed that two-fifths of the gross produce has been collected from the ryot without his incurring any such loss as to drive him to defraud his landlord, or government. It has likewise been affirmed that Seevajee's, or his minister's, Anjee Dhuttoo's assessment was reckoned in exact conformity to the Hindu shasturs, at one-sixth the gross produce of the soil, without any extra cesses of whatever kind; but the foregoing discredits the probability of any such statement: inasmuch as when the government rent had passed the precise limit which enabled the ryot to support himself and meet the expence of cultivation the government were compelled to indemnify him by an equivalent in land. Had the land been assessed at one-sixth the produce, the sextuple amount of each rate would give a total produce that is very rarely known in the most favorable seasons on the best lands, and certainly, with all the best not excepted, very considerably more than the average. But enough has already been said on the subject of the progressive increase of the rent, from two-tenths or one-fifth under its two distinct heads, to two-sixths or one-third. The rise from one-sixth to two-fifths must, if introduced at a later period, have occasioned a sensation in the minds of the people, that could not have been lightly forgotten, but the transition from one-third to two-fifths was easy, the increase of the rent however being one-fifteenth, the ryot was allowed, or took, fifteen beeghais additional for every hundred, from which the government derived no revenue whatever, and so at length it came to the same thing as the former assessment of Mulik Umbur, one-third the gross produce.

There was then a practice, which existed from the times of the more ancient monarchs of India, to collect by the *Tukbundee*, or *Hoondabundee* system wherever the coolies had retired before the Mahrattas. It subsisted, till superseded by the new plans of Anjee Dhuttoo, and Trimbuk Veenaiak in the districts north of the Ouchitgurh Talooka: at that time the proportion of land so assessed was very great, but may be estimated at this present time somewhat less than one to ten of the whole arable, or *mule* cultivation, north of the Oolas river. The hill cultivation, of the southern Konkun is almost exactly as one to three of the rice, or *dhemp* produce. From this we may form a tolerable judgment of the obstacles and existing scantiness of *wurkus*, or hill cultivation in those quarters

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which pay altogether by this method. It appeared to me on inquiry to conform exactly to the rude practice which is prevalent with the celebrated mountaineers, the Todawurs and Burghurs of the Nilgiri hills: they judge by the eye, that a certain piece of land may produce so much; it is sold, it is leased, and rated accordingly. The eye and the judgment of a savage or a poor untutored being as the Todawur is, has acquired by exercise, in matters such as these, a degree of precision and skill which would scarcely obtain credit with those who had not tried them. I have frequently put their native talent to the proof, and am satisfied that a far greater degree of exactness was attained in the ancient Nuzur undazee or Nuzur pahanee of the former revenue officers, than we should be willing to concede as probable. In the northern, or Sunjan districts, the *Hoondabundee* assessment is more frequent; in Munohur, Washalee, Wara, Kolwun and the Dang, the *Tukbundee* system prevails. It is extremely light, and comprehends all other sorts of demands on the soil, the *babtees* and *sayer* of the Mahrattas being altogether unknown beyond our own possessions. Seevajee did not make any alterations in the revenue system of the southern provinces from the Salsee muhal to Karwar, which was then under the exclusive management of the Sir-Desaee of Koodal, or chief of the Desaees in charge of the five Muhals, Koodal, Phonda Punch Muhal, Karwar, Mirjan, and Ankola. We have therefore an insight into the revenue management of the Beejapoor government anterior to the Mahratta reforms, since the *Koomula* assessment still continues. This assessment was on the number of *Blurus*, *Khundees*, and *kooroo* of seed; and the whole collective amount, as well as the whole collective share of each man's rental, was called after the Arabic word *Koomula*. See Golius sub verbo, *كول كومول*, perfectum efficit: so *Kool*, or Kumul, totum, omnimodo; signifying altogether, absolute amount. The grain measure of these districts is as

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th>Cub. in.</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>4 seers</td><td>= 1 pylee,</td><td>1 kooroo,</td><td>146.3</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>= 2 pylees</td><td>= 8 = 1 pura or mun,</td><td>292.5</td></tr><tr><td>64</td><td>= 16</td><td>= 20 = 1 koodalee khundee,</td><td>2341.0</td></tr><tr><td>160</td><td>= 40</td><td>= 80 = 4 = 1 bhuru,</td><td>5853.0</td></tr><tr><td>640</td><td>= 160</td><td></td><td>23412.5</td></tr></tbody></table>

These measures I have ascertained from a great number of very careful experiments, and have traced to their true original standard. The average dimension of the pylee measure varies from 5.7 inches

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diameter to 5.675 inches or 5.7 inches deep; those dimensions give a small quantity less in the cubic content or 145.45 to 144.2 cubic inches: they are made on the principle that the koodalee khundee should correspond to 24 pylees, or English wine gallons, the English gallon, as I have before observed, being an exact counterpart of the Mahratta pylee. The quantity of seed necessary to sow the different descriptions of ground varies from six or eight seers, to 16 seers for one khundee of the produce, according as the seed is planted and transplanted out, (laonee) or sown broadcast, (ompnee.) It appears on inquiry that the first method is always resorted to in rich productive lands, and the division of the plants when taken up and the offsets separated, although attended with much additional labour, yields a considerably larger and more perfect crop, than by the broadcast sowing: the roots germinate again into many distinct additional offsets, each of which, when matured, yields a full good ear of corn; for when these offsets are divided, it would seem that the plant puts forth still greater efforts to mature the seed, and throw out others, all of which likewise with proper culture, and judiciously planted at proper intervals, when the rain falls heavily, produce a full good ear. It is not to be doubted that the repetition of the process would increase the return still more and more. As it is, the rice plants when first planted out are not so thick set, by which means they have more room to spread, and more air, light and wind, which are all very essential requisites to the perfection of the vegetable creation. The system of sowing broadcast, is a slovenly method, quite undeserving of the well-earned praise of agricultural skill, where the improved but more laborious process is exhibited as a proof of the capab lities of the soil with a better management. From the quantity of seed sown therefore, the exact quantity of ground cannot be determined without reference to the method of sowing or planting, but it is probable that 7 to 10 kooroos of laonee may be reckoned to a beegah, and 18 to 25 kooroos of ompnee, or broadcast cultivation. The crops were divided, as elsewhere, into the Paosale, or Sird (wet, cold, rainy); Veedul or after crops, called in the central districts south of the Savitree, Kurdun, and north of that boundary Katahnee; the third Geemvus, or crops raised by artificial irrigation, which are exclusively confined to the Koodal and southern districts of Warree, Goa, Novas conquistas and Phonda punch Muhal. All arable land was called either Jeerayet, or if used for gardens, cocoanuts, betel-nuts, &c. Baghaet, a distinction very general throughout India. Whatever land did not come under these

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heads, was either Bhurud, or Dongur: the former answering to the Mal Zumeen of the rest of the northern and southern zillahs, as Dongur, or hill lands, corresponded to Wurkus. All the first description of land was appropriated, in the first instance, (the sird crop,) to raising rice: in the second or Veedul cultivation, to koolthee, chillees, ooreed, and very rarely a third and after crop of Nachnee: but the quick succession of crops without a rest, or fallow, effectually exhausts the soil, and detracts from the general profits of husbandry. In the foregoing system the Koomulu respected the quantity of seed sown, and the average produce: the government rental averaged from 1/8th to 13/8th of the gross produce; it now stands nominally at one-fourth in the mule, or rice cultivation, and one-third in the Bhurud or Dongur cultivation, the last two appropriated exclusively to dry grains, to hemp, and pulses. The assessment of Baghaet, or lands planted with cocoanuts, betel-nuts, &c. was fixed upon the number and productiveness of the trees; from the average return of all the trees, young and old, producing fruit, in whatever situation: the utmost produce of a cocoanut tree in the best situation and attended with the greatest care, may be about 140 or 175 nuts, from which it ranges to 20: the first and last years of its bearing, the number is still less. The money rate or assessment on each tree, one with another, varied from 40 to 50 nuts or about two-fifths, possibly about one-half the gross produce. Sooparee or betel-nuts, are of much more delicate growth; the produce by weight, is from two to 12, or 20 seers: of this the government rental or tax was one-third, or in some cases as low as one-fourth, where the labour was excessive, and the returns extremely uncertain. The old Koomula rental of Baghaet was in the highest degree impolitic and ruinous. At Mr. Dunlop's suggestion the assessment was very much reduced. By what I could learn, it was the practice of the revenue managers to go into a cocoanut oart, or sooparee bagh, (betel-nut plantation) and estimate the produce of the trees at sight; saying, all these trees may yield one with another, so many thousand cocoanuts; on these different rates were assigned per 100, according to the reputed capability of the soil, the out-turn of the dried kernel, cobra, or the requisite labour, the extent of ground occupied, and means of irrigation. In Mussoora and Wurad, the rental, or tax of Baghaet for cocoanuts, was in the Koomula 16 1/2 anas per 100 nuts: in Maloondee, 17 3/4 anas; in Pat, and Malwun, or the immediate coast, where the sea air favored the growth and maturity of these palms, about 18 1/2 anas per 100. The cocoanut is from

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7 to 8 or 10 years before it produces fruit; from the 7th to the 11th year it yields from 25 to 70 nuts, and if watered, the roots loosened and manured with Koothee (salt fish), occasionally salt, and in good grounds, lives for 30 or 35 years, and produces 140 to 170; after which, it gradually falls off, declines, becomes sterile, and dies. The assessment, on an average, contemplated a sixth of the true produce of all the trees collectively, the Koomula, or in the aggregate indiscriminately.

The preceding exhibits a summary but correct outline of the last revenue arrangements that are entitled to the name of systematic; and here we may pause to inquire what is the full amount that the ryot or cultivator can afford to pay without difficulty for a continuance; for whatever rent he cannot discharge without recourse to forced methods, whether it be the relinquishment of personal gain, comforts, or the destruction of his capital, are undeniably and evidently calculated to draw down ruin on him, as well as on his landlord, to paralyze his exertions, and to annihilate that return which is the reward proportioned to increased skill and increased industry. We have seen the origin of the government rent, the acknowledged right of the renter or sovereign to the lesee's rent for the usufruct of his property, first a tenth as embracing both the sovereign's and state rights, next as distinguishing these rights. It was first a tenth, or a sixth, then two-tenths, or one-fifth; or two-sixths, or one-third; lastly two-fifths; but which was subsequently, as obligatory on the state, reduced to the former rate of two-sixths, or one-third. It was the opinion of no questionable authority, Sir Thomas Munro, that one-third the gross produce is the utmost amount that can ever be levied with any colour of justice from the cultivator, nor can it be doubted from a review of the revenue system of Akbar, that this last amount is more than could be taken for any continuance, unless the cultivator be permitted to sell his produce without restriction; one-fifth the gross produce, is, or should be, sufficient to meet all the expenses of the government and the service of religion, and a country which takes so much only from its subjects, leaving the cultivator four-fifths, would soon derive a larger revenue from the diminished rental of lands, than from any tax in excess of it, for the whole capital would necessarily be employed in its tillage and improvement, which is now abstracted in a thousand unseen ways, altogether unconnected with agriculture or commerce. There are two modes of considering the land rental of India: first, as it is paid by each individual proprietor; secondly,

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as paid by the country collectively: for if the amount paid by one class of proprietors is returned to another, to be distributed again to the people at large, the capital is not abstracted, but circulated through additional channels; and this is the case where the government is not exclusive in its religious persuasion. It was the case under the Hindu and Mahomedan governments, and was so also under the Portuguese, where the ministers of religion being of the same country, spent all their income in the country, either in agriculture, or on those who followed agriculture as a means of livelihood; but it is quite otherwise when the revenue is withdrawn by persons in no way interested in those matters, and in this view of the question, a heavy rental which passes through the hands of the servants of a state, and is not abstracted, is by no means so oppressive as a light assessment derived to a government which has no inducement to spend its acquisitions in the country, beyond the admonitions of justice and propriety. For this reason we find the mass of the people far more contented under their own oppressive governments, and infinitely more prosperous and happy than under the British. The fact is not to be doubted, as it regards the population in the aggregate, but not so individually; oppression and cruelty fall very grievously upon the individual, which yet may not be felt by the multitude; and it is from persons so aggrieved, that we are flattered into the belief of the vast superiority of our own government to that of the native powers. If those, who are so credulously disposed, would take a little tour into the provinces under native chiefs, and so far disrobe themselves of the haughtiness and complacency of British subjects, as to listen to a plain unvarnished tale, they would come away with very different impressions of the excellence of the system, which is so much commended, and that rigid discipline and stern uncompromising good faith and justice which we believe to be the stronghold of our security: we should be disposed to inquire whence this great difference arises, that men should prefer oppression, misrule, and misery, to that fair, smooth, even-handed justice, which maintains the cause of all the poorest and least important without discrimination of persons, against their wealthy superiors. Inquiry would inevitably convince us that there is something defective in the British revenue management which more than compensates for all the blessings of security, justice, and happiness. It is the insecurity of the foundation of all property, the silent abstraction of capital, and the reliance on the capabilities of a code of laws which was never enforced, but by our government.

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The parallel holds good in every class and order of society, and we know as a fact, that no native that can get a miserable pittance under a native master, will take service under a European. The cause is identically the same: they have the entire disposal of their time, and their earnings, under a native, which yet they have less enjoyment of, under a European: the poor menial who can get three or four rupees per mensem, will think himself but ill paid at eight or 10 rupees per mensem, from a European; and the reason is obviously this, that he can dispose of his time and the smaller salary with less drawbacks than he can the larger amount. Some shortsighted persons, are apt to adjudge this predilection to their own masters, to other causes: but any one who is anxious to satisfy himself upon this point will find all the shades of dislike to the high wages and service of foreign masters, from the poorest villager, to the peon in the cucherry, the temporary attendants of his household, and the regular servants of government: those who hold the last situations are esteemed the least by their countrymen, being considered by far the least independent, even among themselves.

The master key of all this is every where the same: for the agriculturist and the domestics of our households can make no progress beyond a certain point; they can feed and clothe themselves and their families also, but this is all: whereas in the native service, they can lay by, or increase their capital, and this, by degrees, surprisingly reconciles them to many hardships.

Many attempts have been made to estimate the probable profit remaining to the cultivator after the payment of his rental. Sir Thomas Munro was satisfied from his own calculations, that every thing in excess of one-third the gross produce, trenched upon his actual and necessary requirements. Mr. Colebrooke supposed two-fifths the utmost amount that could safely be required, allowing that one-half, with the advantage of second and third crops, was just sufficient to maintain the cultivator, and his family also, provided they assisted him in his labours. Mr. Chaplin in his report on the Dukhun, considers the ryot may have about five per cent. profit. Supposing his grain crops pay a rental of 2/3ths and the *Baghaet* 1/4th the gross produce, and this with all the little helps of his cattle, occasional hire for labour elsewhere, and the additional gains of his family in spinning, superior skill, or other industry. The effect of this rate of assessment, 2/3ths of the gross produce, is to be seen in the general decrease of revenue in the Nerwa villages of Goojrat, and in no country can the change for the worse be so perceptibly

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traced as there, since the days of Akbar, when although assessed one-fifteenth less, and not burthened with *sayer*, or *puttees*\* of any sort, the revenue was from one-sixth to one-half more than at present: the condition of the ryots must therefore be far less favorable, and their profits little or nothing. Mr. Dunlop avowed to the government that from the most carefully prepared statements which he had been able to procure or frame, the present rates of assessment left the cultivator without the means of subsisting, and though he believed he must have been imposed on, he was convinced that the peasantry subsist themselves and their families on much less than he could imagine. The straits to which they are reduced are not merely those of coarse and homely fare, but even of that, he inclined to the belief, that the far greater proportion could not afford for themselves so much as one daily plentiful meal of any sort of grain throughout the year. In speaking of such privation we are to consider it as consequent to the continuance of that assessment, 2/3ths, which was no sooner enforced, than it was evaded: for we cannot believe it possible that any body of men should ever submit to be absolute losers by husbandry, and when it passed that first limit of one-third the gross produce, the government was compelled to compromise the matter by allowing more land, or 23 square pands, (4616 sqr. yds.) to the beegah, for 20 (4014 sqr. yds.) So also, when the Mahratta farmers exacted anew, other demands, the cultivator resorted to other methods to enable him to pay up his rent, of which we can only learn the amount, by judging impartially of his continuing to cultivate at a certain yearly loss to himself. The exact limit to the rental of the land, with a possibility of its continuing to pay without the necessity of great remissions, is one-third the gross produce. But the exact limit which shall enable the country to increase in productiveness, in capital, in wealth, and in industry, is one-fifth; of which, a fair proportion should be assigned to those purposes for which it is expressly levied; and as we have no interest in the furtherance of idolatry or wickedness, it needs not much argument to show that such objects would best be fulfilled in the furtherance of education, the preservation of the public peace, and the administration of justice. An inspection of any of the old revenue accounts of Akbar's time would fully satisfy every impartial mind that the foregoing reasoning is substantially true, with a far lighter land rental, and no extra demands but the duties on commerce, of 5 per cent., the revenue was far

\* Extra cesses.

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greater than has ever been realized by the British government; for this two-fold reason, the continuance of an enhanced rental, and the effects resulting from its exaction before we acquired the country, capital previously withdrawn.

We have now only to consider the progress of the Mahratta revenue system subsequently to the death of Seevajee, in 1693. In the northern districts, all those lands which were planted out with cocoanut and betel-nut trees, were classed under the head of Baghaet, and assessed according to the number and productiveness of the trees planted, at a fixed money rate; this addition was called Jhar Jharora, and constituted together with the land rental, the Toka* or increased rental. In the southern districts these plains planted out in Baghaet lands were assessed in kind, at so many cocoanuts per tree, or so many seers weight of betel-nuts, the gross produce being divided in equal shares between the proprietor and government. For the rest, the land rental continued some time at a stay, nominally ⅙ths of the gross produce, actually about one-third. About three years after Seevajee's death, a Kunoje Brahmin, by name Kuloosha, having ingratiated himself in the eyes of Sumbhajee, the son and successor of Seevajee, commenced overthrowing all that had been effected by the unfortunate Anajee Dhuttoo, the late Soornees, whom Sumbhajee had put to a cruel death from a belief that he had been implicated in a conspiracy against his life, exercised unlimited authority over the Konkun: he imposed a number of extra cesses on the land which, with the original demands, raised the land rental from about a half, to two-thirds of the gross produce. He was soon obliged however to consign the exaction of these impositions to others; finding a number of persons about him willing enough to exaggerate the real state of the country, he at first procured the displacement of the revenue officers left in charge by Seevajee, and Anajee Dhuttoo, and commenced farming out the districts which he entrusted to the management of his minions, armed with authority to collect for the government to the amount specified, two-thirds of the gross produce. The cultivators, landed proprietors, and public officers, being no longer able to discharge these heavy demands, resorted to a predatory life which entailed infinite misery and loss on all the surrounding countries, and gave rise to that spirit of lawless depredation and plunder, the evils of which many of us have witnessed at the distance of a century and

* This word had a very different signification under the Mahomedans and Portuguese, as will be seen in the accounts of the latter territories.

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a half. For six years this grievous injustice was suffered to go on without interruption; till in 1689, Aurungzeeb's officers having intelligence of the negligence and effeminacy of the Mahratta Court, came upon Sumbhajee and Kuloosha by surprise, at the little walled enclosure at Sungumeshwur, and brought them to Aurungzeeb, who immediately put them both to an ignominious death.

There were still many of Seevajee's adherents who had judgment and virtue enough to see the necessity of re-establishing the former order of things, and Raja Ram having been elected to the regency during the minority of Sumbhajee's son, every thing that could be effected was ordered; but the Seedee*, exasperated at the Mahrattas, and fearing the approach of the Moghuls, procured a new sunnud from the emperor Aurungzeeb for the confirmation of his jagheer, binding himself to the personal service of the empire, as admiral, and to convey pilgrims to Mecca free of charge: armed with this diploma, he attacked the Mahratta troops and defeated them, near Unjunvel. He possessed himself of the Soowurndroog and Unjunvel districts, and fort of Rajpooree and Rygurh, indemnifying himself for his former losses, by the land rental of these districts and a variety of cesses which differed only in name from those so injudiciously imposed by Kuloosha; this event took place A. D. 1699, nine years after Seevajee's death and shortly after Raja Ram's servants had entered upon their work of reform. These territories were for the most part under the Seedee's authority, until the year 1734, entrusted to the care of Khyrat Khan and other dependants of the Seedee. In the year 1736, the Seedee's possessions were limited to four and a half muhals of the Rajpooree Talooka, which were confirmed to him by a Tuhnama, or treaty with the Peshwa, and these he has held ever since†.

The land rental was now for the first time distinguished by the

* The first Seedee (Yakoot Khan) was an Abyssinian officer in the service of the kings of Ahmednuggur, or Nizamshahee government, who having dispossessed the last brave chieftain of the Koolce caste, Eetbarow, was invested with the hereditary jagheer of the entire Rajpooree districts, lying between the Savitree and Koondulecka rivers. On the decline of that government, his successor, choosing rather to uphold any Mahomedan government, than a Hindu, and being unable altogether to stand by himself, tendered his services and fealty to Akbar, who appointed him, with the same immunities, high admiral of the Moghul empire—by a regular title-deed. The descendants of this family of Abyssinian pedigree, frequently intermarried, and keeping up their connection and intercourse with Abyssinian families, still retain their half possessions.

† A copy of this Tuhnama and a translation will be found with the Statistical Tables, at the end of this article.

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name *een dust*, two Arabic words, *dust* signifying rental, *een* the thing itself: this *een dust*, as it was now designated, had been heretofore collected wholly in kind, *een jinnus* the thing, or actual produce. The government rental was called *dhara*, if however any portion of the *dhara* remained due to government at the expiration of the year, it was usual in Seevajee's time to commute such due, for a money payment, at the market price of the day. The object of all the native princes, and Seevajee in particular, was to store up grain for their troops and followers, which in a country like the Konkun, could not easily be procured for large bodies, without great difficulty, or an expensive commissariat train, of which they rendered themselves almost independent by this method. The troops and followers were paid in kind, and had usually some lands allotted them in the neighbourhood, which in the language of Beejapoor, were styled *budul moshaira*, (Arab.) or, lands in lieu of pay, or service money. During the disgraceful government of his confidant Kuloosha, all these service lands had been thrown up, and plunder became a very general resource of livelihood to the military servants, companions, and freebooters, of Seevajee's army. Nothing had been conducted with that regularly organized and warlike preparation under Sumbhajee, which had distinguished and facilitated the distant forays of his predecessor. Seevajee's injunctions were all in view to the forage of his cavalry or the maintenance of his troops when the severity of the seasons precluded activity: these were all renewed at Sumbhajee's death; and may enable us to understand better the policy which dictated a different course to the Hubshee and Angria, of commuting the grain-rental for a money payment, since it is certain there could be no motive of enlightened government when so much misrule and folly prevailed in the camps and durbars of these marauding chief-tains.

The Seedee made it a rule that three mun of every Khundee of *een jinnus*, that is 2/3ths of the grain rental, should be commuted at the following rates.

For *bhat* (rice) and *Naglee*, (Cynosurus coracanus,) 22¼ Rs. per

Khundee, or 20 muns.

For *Wuree*, (Panicum Brizoides,) ............ 17½

The following produce was commuted entirely at the rates subjoined.

*Hureek*, (Paspalum Frumentaceum,) ............ 7 Rs. per Khundee.

*Tilgore*, (Sesamum orientale,) ............ 75 Rs. per ditto.

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*Til Kale*, (Sesamum orientale,) .......................... 60 Rs. per Khundee.

*Toour*, (Cytisus cadjan,) .......................... 60 Rs. per Khundee.

*Til sale*, (Sesamum,) .......................... 60 Rs. per Khundee.

*Moong*, (Phaseolus,) .......................... 60 Rs. per Khundee.

*Powte*, (Dolichos lablab,) .......................... 40 Rs. per ditto.

*Chowlee*, (Dolichos lablab,) .......................... 40 Rs. per ditto.

*Koolid or Koolthee*, (D. biflorus,) .......................... 7 Rs. per ditto.

*Salt, Meet*, .................................... 7 Rs. per ditto.

This was called *Tusur*, literally commutation; *Byldam*, or a tax upon bullocks kept by the petty traders, or others engaged in the transit commerce of the country, at 1½ Rs. for each bullock per annum, whether actually employed or not; previously, this tax did not exist. Mohturfa, a tax upon shopkeepers from one to 5 Rs. or more, according to their circumstances.

A further tax was levied on Baghaet lands beyond the half of the produce levied by Kuloosha; for each hundred cocoanuts allotted to the ryot or cultivator, as his half share, ten anas, and on each mun of sooparee or betel-nuts, by weight twelve anas.

The Seedee likewise brought into the government account the Sirdesh Koolkurnee's, or Anajee Dhuttoo's huqs, namely, half a mun of grain in each Khundee of *dhara*, that is, one-fortieth of the grain rental. This amount was the allotted stipend of Anajee Dhuttoo from Seevajee, and was defrayed from the Mahratta treasury, but the Hubshee collected it over and above the government grain rental, and made that which was a motive to Anajee Dhuttoo to increase cultivation and protect the cultivator, a ruinous tax. The Seedee further extended this principle to his new taxes, whether *Tusur*, a money commutation for produce in kind; *Mohturfa*, shop tax; *Byldam*, bullock tax; or *Baghaet*, gardens assessed at a fixed assessment in money. On all these items he levied half an ana per rupee or ½ of the total amount of the produce commuted, over and above the former established rates. On all produce sold by weight, called *wujnee jinnus* he levied 1½ ana per mun of rental, or rather less than one-eleventh, over and above the established rates; lastly, one-sixteenth, or one ana in every rupee of hemp produced, over and above the established government rental.

Besides this, the Seedee made over the Sirdeshmookhee huqs, stipend, or fees, which had been paid out of the treasury, or rather the government share, by Seevajee to the proprietor, with the exception of two muhals Gohaghur and Huvelee Humzabad, which

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he reserved to himself. This stipendiary percentage was now for
the first time levied from the ryot's share of the produce at the
former rates established by Seevajee, namely, four anas per Khun-
dee of all the grain rental, half an ana on commuted produce, or
garden lands; 1½ anas on Wuznee dust, or produce sold by weight,
as turmeric, sugar, sooparee or betel-nuts, &c.; on hemp, one
ana per mun.

In the year 1744 Angria obtained possession of the districts included in the old Dhabool Soobhadaree, and held them till he was finally expelled by Lord Clive in 1756: not anticipating any permanent authority, he added still more oppressive burdens to the already straitened condition of the people. He introduced a new tax called Puttesbab, or Hubshee puttee, being a cess of two anas for each rupee of revenue on laden bullocks, jack trees, Bheerly mar, Caryota Urens* Bhundar Mhar*, Oondinee trees Calophyllum Inophyllum and† Mohturfa, likewise a cess on all kinds of grain, Hureek excepted, of three Rs. a Khundee. The latter paid two Rs. only, likewise on turmeric and raw sugar, six anas per mun, and four anas for hemp.

Angria further imposed a house tax of one rupee per head, per annum, which was levied from all alike, the village and district officers and persons of large property being alone exempted; widows were charged half *ghurputtee*, or house cess.

Cattle if milked, were assessed annually at one rupee per head, if old or poor, but half a rupee per head.

From each *Mach*, or score of goats, one was exacted yearly, for the use of the forts.

As a number of persons were found to be profitable subjects for taxation, and did not come under any of the cesses above specified, they were distinctly taxed. Thus, the Gaolees, Dhungurs, Kharvees, and Daldees, the two former subsisting themselves by the rearing and tending of cattle, the two latter by the catching and preserving of fish, and navigating vessels along the coast, were brought under the operation of the new system whether they took to their proper pursuit or not, distinctions being made however in favor of any persons employed by the district officers who went by the names of

* Two fine descriptions of Palms from which the natives procure arrak or toddy, materials for manufacturing rope; from the toddy itself, sugar, and from the nuts, a useful oil for domestic purposes, for food, and for burning.

† From the nuts of which oil is extracted.

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Paluk, fed or nourished. The Gaolees and Dhungurs paid for their cattle, and a capitation tax for all adults and women house-holders : the cattle were assessed from 30 to 10 seers of ghee per head, if milch, according to their age and classification in the accountant's books. The capitation tax was ten seers of ghee, (loop) per mun for women being house-holders; or the half of this quantity for a widow's cess. The Dhungurs paid also from 8 to 15 anas per head for each milch buffalo.

The principle of exempting the heads of castes and trades from
imposts, which had grown out of the abuses of former governments
to be an established custom, was extended throughout the whole
Konkun to every taxable class, and those who ought to have con-
tributed, and were far more able to contribute to the public burthens,
were allowed entire exemption in many cases, and were dealt with
on the whole with a degree of partiality that betrayed the character
of the policy which dictated each particular tax; on this principle,
the Gowdas, Chowgulas, and Mookudums were excluded from the
taxation imposed by Angria on the Dhungurs and Gowlees; and all
who possessed great influence in realizing the government demands
were likewise favored by the same privileges.

The Kharvees and Daldees were subject to a capitation tax in kind, as well as a particular cess on each boat, or fishing vessel, of whatever description: this averaged from half, to one mun of oil, tel *seepa*, per head, for all males from 15 to 60 years, and 1½ mun of oil per boat. The object of this tax was ostensibly to furnish oil without any charge to the government servants, and originated in their exaction of it from the fishermen without the authority of the rulers of the country; it eventually became a regular impost, and was commuted for a money payment which is still enforced by the British government.

No attempts were made to bring the innumerable wild and uncivilized tribes under the power of the revenue officers during the Moghul government, but as the country became more tranquillized, the Peshwa's officers introduced like imposts on each particular tribe according to its occupation, which they usually farmed out on account of the great difficulty and uncertainty of realizing it. In this way a much larger proportion of the whole population is now accessible to the government officers than heretofore, and all items so collected, and which swell the total amount of the *jumma*,* must

* *Jumma*, the collective aggregate of all descriptions of taxes, cesses, &c. An Arabic term.

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first be deducted, before we can form any opinion of the comparative
state of the revenue and land rental at different periods.

Whatever may have been the spirit which dictated these taxes,
they are justly demandable in proportion to the agriculturist's rent,
and do not appear to bear very heavily upon them; but the farming
system, and the duties on salt, and land customs, prevent the most
industrious from rising above the same condition of poverty in which
we found them. They can easily obtain a subsistence by fishing,
and find occupation in the small trading vessels on the coast, but
they can find no time for agriculture, and must depend on the
cultivators for the little grain they consume, for which they barter
fish; as this pays a heavy duty as well as the grain, it is absolutely
limited to their most pressing wants.

It appears that the government share of the grain, (Aeen Jinnus)
had hitherto been received by the striked measure*, but after Seeva-
jee's death, the revenue officers required it to be heaped. Angria
renewed the former orders on the representation of the ryots, on
which, by the collusion of the persons appointed to measure the
grain, there appeared a deficiency, on remeasurement, by the pylee
measure, of a fourteenth or somewhat less. To meet this supposed
deficiency Angria imposed a tax called wurtala, that is, a further
cess of three seers (three quarters of a pylee) in every phara of
grain. The government produce in kind with this allowance, was
lodged in the nearest government Kothee, or store-house, which was
erected near the village temple. The store-house was a wooden
building, raised about five or six feet from the ground, the sides
planked, the roof tiled, usually about 30 feet by 20 and as many
feet in height.

To compensate for the losses by vermin, called *Kothee-toot*, a
further impost was levied of one seer on each phara, called *seer
wurtala*: in contradistinction to the *Map wurtala* (*Map*, measure;
wurtee, excess; *ala* come, Mahratta).

To meet the expenses of his vessels of war, which consisted of
eight vessels of about four hundred tons burthen, with an extrava-
gant proportion of men, Angria required a proportion of each ryot's
produce at a low fixed price, without reference to the market price

* Small measures or aliquot parts of the bushel, phara, mun, and such like dry measures, should be heaped. The larger, as the bushel, phara, mun, &c. exceeding the ordinary power of one person to take up and fill with the hand, as also not being of a cylindrical form, should always be striked, or struck off even by a bar to avoid the great uncertainty and difference of heaping in vessels or measures of different dimensions, which in the case if the latter are square, or rectangular cubes.

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of the day. This extended to all kinds of grain but Hureek, which
forms the last precarious resource for the subsistence of the very
poorest classes, and was therefore in no great request, as an article
of food, for the government servants. The amount of this impost
was a twentieth in excess of each ryot's payment in kind, for which
he received credit in the public accounts at the rate of half a rupee
per phara, or ten rupees per Khundee of grain, and one seer of
ghee for every Khundee of produce sold by weight indiscriminately,
for which the ryots received credit in like manner at the fixed rate
of three rupees per mun.

These vessels of war were supplied with rope by an impost on
seven villages in the Gohaghur muhal, of two maunds 2¼ seers, on
every thousand nuts of the government share, for which credit
was likewise given at the rate of one rupee per mun.

It may well be imagined how complicated each ryot's accounts
had now become by these additional cesses: it was no longer
possible for the ryots themselves to reckon them, and they were
therefore completely at the mercy of the village and district officers,
who, for such services, required also the same indulgences to them,
over and above their demands. By this means the subordinate
peasantry were almost annihilated, and the condition of the far
greater part reduced to that of serfs, entirely dependant on some
one individual, who gradually obtained by length of occupancy a
title to the lands which had devolved on him by the necessities of
the rightful owners.

It was probably at this period that the district and village officers
first established themselves in those rights which they now claim as
their ancient paternal inheritance, and as we see the like doubts
existing in other parts of India regarding their existence before
the Moghul government, it is fair to conclude that their origin
was to be attributed elsewhere to like causes. In this manner
every description of fee or emolument may be traced, by attention
to the practice of the successive governments; for their demands
were always a pretext for like demands on the part of their servants,
and farmers of revenue.

The proportion of the produce commuted for a money pay-
ment had been fixed by the Seedee, at three mun per Khundee;
Angria increased the quantity of grain, and reduced the rates: it
was now reckoned at one-fourth the whole grain rental of each ryot.
The comparative rates were fixed prospectively as follows, and

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may be understood with reference to the Seedee's previous regula-
tion from the annexed table.

Tusur of Bhat according to Angria's
system one-fourth or 5 mds. at 20 Rs.
per Khundee.

Seedee's rate, 3 mds. at
22½ Rs. per 20 mds.

Tusur of Naglee, (Cynosurus Cora-
canus) one-fourth, or 5 mds. at 16 Rs. per
Khundee.

Tusur of Wuree, (Panicum Brizoides) 5
mds. at 13½ Rs. per 20 maunds.

Seedee's rate, 3 mds. at
17½ Rs. per 20 mds.

Tusur of Til Kale, (Sesamum orientale)
Til sale, (Sesamum orientale,) Moong,
(Phaseolus mungo,) Powte, (Dolichos
lablab,) Kuduve, Chowlee and Koolid, for
all the former, 40 Rs. per 20 mds. and
the three last 30 Rs. per 20 mds.

Seedee's rate, 3 mds. at
60 Rs. per 20 mds.; 3
maunds at 40 Rs. for
Powte, Kuduve, Kool-
thee.

One-fourth also til gore, at the rate of
50 Rs. per 20 pharas.

The Seedee's rate, 3 mds.
at 75 Rs. per 20 mds.

On the whole, therefore, the ryots gained considerably by the
new rates, and it is equally plain that the demand of grain for the
use of the armed vessels was only a pretext for the state necessity,
as two mun of the government grain was commuted for a money
payment. It is supposed by the zumeendars that the abatement
in the rates was made in consequence of the inability of the ryots
to pay the sum fixed by the Seedee, but was more probably the
consequence of fresh imposts established by Angria.

In this manner the Mahrattas carried on their exactions, their
officers introducing successively as many cesses corresponding to
them, in name and amount, while the ryots endeavoured by their
collusion, or pretexts of losses by fire or bad seasons, to evade the
government dues. By such methods the greater part of the landed
property came into the hands of the Brahmins, Mahrattas, and
Mahomedans, who certainly are not the aborigines of India, and
could only have gained their present permanent footing by the
slow but sure working of this system for many centuries.

Besides the foregoing, every transaction in which government
engaged was made an excuse for new demands; the tradesmen were
henceforth compelled to contribute a proportion of their manual
labour, receiving while employed a daily subsistence: carpenters
and blacksmiths were bound to serve one month every year, and
received two anas in money, daily, or two seers of rice. Oil-makers

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were assessed at ten seers of sweet oil per head, this last impost
was called Shoobrat.

During Angria's government, the privilege of stamping the
coin, received in payment of the revenue, which had been given by
the former Mahratta rulers to a Brahmin, was sequestered and
brought into the government claims. Under this head one quarter
of an ana was now levied on every rupee, excepting money cesses
entitled nugdee bab, and lands exempted by special grants.

The repair and maintenance of the hill forts furnished a pretext
for another petty tax called Karsaee, which was levied from every
cultivator in kind, and consisted of grass to thatch the public
buildings, baskets, mats, sticks, and timbers from the cultivators;
also vegetables, veerlas, (a kind of umbrella,) used by the Mahrattas,
as a protection against the rain, firewood, torches, brooms, earthen
vessels, and a variety of petty articles which each house-holder was
obliged to contribute as they might happen to be required. This
last tax was extended by the Peshwa's officers, subsequently, to
every part of the Konkun from Kalian to Malwun, and has been
partially commuted by the British government for a money pay-
ment, the greater portion being altogether discontinued.

This vexatious opening for oppressive exaction was carried to an
incredible extent by the Peshwa's people, and every peon or under-
ling considered himself entitled to help himself to any thing he
might require, without the consent of the cultivator. It is in con-
sequence of this grievous system, that so many complaints have
been made against the servants of Europeans travelling through the
country. They have seen their fellow-men pillaged with perfect
impunity, and suppose that their employment by the sirkar, or
under the sirkar's officers, gives them an equal right to exercise the
same authority, without compensation of any sort. It may be long
before the ryot can be brought to understand that he is not required
to submit to such exactions, or our servants to practise them, and
the latter will be very slow to perceive that in forbidding them, any
one is a loser of their just rights but themselves.

It might be supposed that the natives of this country would at
least make some distinction amongst those with whom they are on
terms of equality and have known from their infancy: but this is
far from the case; no sooner has a poor indigent cultivator
mounted his belt, or become enrolled in the service of government,
than he thinks it an unquestionable right to enforce his demands
for any little article that comes under the head of kharsaee, though

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it were from his own relatives, and the same extortion is carried on
through every grade, to the most wealthy proprietors and officers
in the country.

There were imposts likewise for the Hindu festivals called *Dussara khurch*, and *Gokul Ushtummee khurch*; the former consisted of a fowl or goat for sacrifice; the latter, of a pot of butter-milk, which taxes were no further oppressive, but as they introduced an inquisitorial system into every cottage or family, and induced the people to secrete their property from the agents of Government, or bribe them to plead exemptions in their favour.

All trees, not cultivated, as the *Beerly Mhar*, *Borassus Flabelliformis*, the *Elate Sylvestris*, or wild date, and *Tar*, all palms producing toddy, were charged on the persons who drew the liquor, at the rate of six anas per tree; and those producing *Kath* or *Terra Japonica* were charged on the hearths of the *Kathkurees*, a class who manufacture it, half a rupee for each hearth.

Bullocks, or cattle of any kind, coming within the limits of the Konkun, were assessed at half a rupee per head: and the amount so levied, called *wunchuraee*, or the privilege of grazing in the forests: (*wun* forest, *churaee* pasturage.)

The last item imposed by Angria was personal service exacted from the low caste tribes and Mahars: these were required to serve in the forts, one month in the year, and receive their subsistence 2¼ seers of bhat, or rice daily, from government. They were called *Rabte Mahars*; the gooroo or village priest was required to give a bundle of *pan* leaves (piper betel) every week, at the government cucherry, and the Kharvees and Daldees were bound to supply one man in every eight capable of bearing arms, to serve for eight months in the year on board the vessels of war. In such cases these persons were exempt from all other taxes, and were likewise free of all other requisitions for personal service, on any account whatever: they received 1½ maunds of bhat monthly, and one quarter of a rupee for *meet*, *mirchee*, salt and condiments.

The exemption from all forced service may enable us to understand how perfectly unwilling any of the natives would be, to contribute their assistance, where any such grant has been once made: nothing in fact would induce any people of this class to carry a burthen even for money, in any of the villages on the coast, as they consider it would be the forfeiture of a right which they had once acquired by a compact with Angria's government, but they would have no compunction, when in the service of natives or

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Europeans, in compelling the villagers who have never received such exemptions to work by compulsory methods.

Under the Mahratta rule, the system of compulsory service extended to all other classes, beginning with the lowest and poorest; and all artificers and trades-people were laid under contribution in some shape. This of course was soon brought to light under the British government, and has been gradually abandoned, in consequence of the repeated injunctions of the civil and military authorities; in process of time it will be effectually discontinued, and new means will be provided for the convenience of travellers and merchants, which at present are not foreseen.

In the year 1756, Lord Clive took Veejydroog; Commodore James, Soowurndroog; and Commodore Watson, Sindoodroog; from that time to the month of November, 1818, the Konkun, with the exception of Bombay and Salsette, the Portuguese viceroyalty and the petty chieftaincies of Angria, the Jowar Raja, the Hubshee and Sawunt warree desaee, has been under the Peshwa's officers; and the changes or reforms introduced, followed the temper or particular information of these persons: generally speaking, they introduced changes for the worse, and confirmed every injudicious practice which had been invented by their predecessors: there is therefore little account taken of Anajee Dhutoo's and the Punt Amatyu's surveys, though they form the ground-work of all the subsequent surveys.

The rates and names of the imposts differ in some respects in every different district, but the principle of all is the same, it may suffice therefore to state the most remarkable.

The most grievous of these was *Durbar khurch*, which was levied generally on the village, to enable the Durukdars to attend in becoming style at the Hoozoor or presence of the Peshwa, to meet the expense of complimentary presents, and the mamlutdar's own personal expenses, while away from his particular station. This was usually levied in money, but occasionally in kind, at the rate of two pharas of rice in the husk*, per rupee. The institution of this tax went down from the mamlutdar to the inferior officer of each district, and swelled the total amount to an enormous sum.

The Peshwa, on the representation of his ministers, disposed of the government grain at a fixed rate on any quantity purchased, but not exceeding one-fourth the total rental of each cultivator receivable in kind: with the former rates commuted by the Seedee, and

* That is, uncleaned, but cleared of the outer husk.

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Angria, they had altogether one-half their produce to pay in kind, one-half was commuted: this last was called *Tusur Furokht*; *Tusur* meaning commutation, *Furokht*, sale. The sum of money required for the grain so disposed of, was at the rate of 17 rupees per khunde of bhat, 15 rupees per khundee of wuree, 30 rupees per khunde of koolid, chowlee and cuduve, 40 rupees per khundee of moog, powte, til sale, ooreed, toour, and til kale; 50 rupees for til gore per khundee. The *Tusur* rates continued stationary.

So also the produce of articles sold by weight, was sold to the ryots at the following fixed rates: Betel-nuts, 5 rupees per mun; raw-sugar, or gool, 2 rupees per mun; hullud, or turmeric, 3 rupees per mun; til gore, sweet oil, at 5 rupees; coir, at 1½ rupees; and til seempa, oil for burning, at 3 rupees the mun.

Articles received by number were resold at the following rates: cocoanuts, 3 rupees per 100; kadjans, 1½ rupees per 100; rice straw, 1 rupee per 100 bundles.

This system of *Tusur Furokht* prevails in all the southern districts, Veejydroog, Rutnagiri, Unjunvel, &c, but varies in the rates. The proportion in Salsee, Veejydroog and Rutnagiri, and Ryghur, is one-half, though in the latter it goes by the name of *Tusur* only; the fourth or five mun in every khundee being established on the first rate, according to Angria's system; the remaining fourth, or five mun according to the rates introduced by the Peshwa's mamlutdars. In the Soowurndroog and Unjunvel districts the two items collectively amount, at present, to one-fourth only, though at one time the amount of *Tusur* and *Furokht* were severally one-fourth of the grain rental. In Rajpooree, and Ouchitgurh, one-fourth only is commuted, which is called *Tusur*; north of this, the grain is either received wholly in kind, or wholly commuted.

Among other changes, the Peshwa's officers attempted also an exact survey of the *wurkus*, or hill lands, and made several deductions and allowances; but the measure was attended with very little success, and these lands continue for the most part to be estimated, as before, either by the eye survey, or by the plough. The measurement where it was carried into effect was by the beegah or area of ground 25 sticks long, and 25 broad, with a further allowance of one quarter of a beegah in excess of each beegah, or 125 beegahs to count for 100 so measured. The *Dhara*, or assessment, on each beegah, was according to Anajee Dhutoo's rule.

The mamlutdars usually held their offices for a period of four years, and as they seldom exercised office a second time in the

same country, made a point of realizing as large a sum as they possibly could under any pretence whatever; their object was therefore two-fold, to insist on as much in the shape of new, or unauthorized cesses, as they had ingenuity to extort; and to set forth all the difficulties of the ryots, or pleas for remissions and particular exemptions in order to shelter them selves from impeachment when called before the Peshwa for a final account of their stewardship.

Whatever may have been the amount brought into the treasury of the state, there can be little doubt that it formed a very small portion of the amount collected from the ryots. The introduction of this vicious system had become so general, from the highest dignitaries to the meanest servant of the Mahratta empire, since the decline of its power under Sumbhajee, that it gradually became a necessary consequence of arrival at authority, to judge of the talent, or fitness, of the government agent by his resources in elud-ing the vigilance of informants, and getting as much as he could out of every class under his authority.

In furtherance of this system, a body of men had gradually risen up, whose interests were completely identified with the most corrupt attendants of a despotic prince. It does not appear that the Mahrattas, as a body, had any such rights in the soil, or the hereditary offices they subsequently claimed under their princes who governed at the time the Mahomedans invaded the south of India. The state of anarchy and disorganization which ensued upon the defection of the Mahomedan deputies of southern India, from the Emperor of Dehli, in the first instance, and then from the recently established kingdom of Dowlutabad, contributed more than any other event to the effectual colonization of all those tribes, who had followed the fortunes of the princes of Rajpootana, and who, up to this period, sat perfectly loose to society, only waiting, as it were, till their prey had settled down, for an opportunity to make it their own.

We have nothing to show that the Mahrattas, the Mahratta Brahmins especially, had then either such extensive claims as they now possess, or that they were even reckoned with the people of the country. They first insinuated themselves into office, and then contrived to make the whole political machine work together throughout every part of the dominions, to which they had ready access, so as to favor the aggrandizement of their own peculiar possessions. Taking advantage of the natural indolence of the higher classes of

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Mahomedans, they diligently cultivated a knowledge of the particular subjects which gave them a preference in the discharge of the Revenue functions. The most intricate questions were familiarized by early education, and an aptitude at perplexing or mystifying a simple rule, was considered the highest effort of wisdom both in political and religious matters; hence, the Brahmins soon obtained an influence which easily passes with the indolent or illiterate for authority, and by their combined efforts established themselves in all those rights which we now find them possessed of.

So far as the ancient institutions could consist with their own views, they appear to have made no innovations, but every measure was made to square, as if by previous arrangement, to the claims and interests of the first or privileged order, and no jealousy could exceed that with which they withheld information connected with the real interests of the state.

Had the revenue and district officers who are styled zumeendars or wuttundars, existed under the ancient government of the Hindus, they would have been expressly specified in their law books and deeds, as possessors of rights independent of the prince, but there is no mention made of them, otherwise than as temporary servants of the state, who had an implied privilege of hereditary succession, so long as they gave satisfaction to their superiors, and fulfilled their obligations of service, as the cultivator his, by rendering a portion of the produce of the lands he occupied in return for its usufruct.

Through the indolence of the first Mahomedan conquerors, the more intelligent Hindus were led to a perception of their strength, in construing the individual rights of property to their own advantage: the progress of their acquisition of them was a work of time and labour, but it would never have been discovered, had not the weakness of the Mahomedan governments led to the foundation of new Hindu principalities, which required some regard to the former order of things.

We are therefore to distinguish the progressive changes which supervened, if we would understand the relative claims of the state and zumeendars to the revenue and other privileges issuing out of the soil: they are seen to have originated, in the foregoing account of the Mahratta system, in a series of oppressive innovations, without express object or plea of expediency, beyond the will of an arbitrary prince. The exactions of the zumeedars were usually concurrent with the general receipts of the state, as unauthorized, or cognizable only by the chief authority.

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The only remaining reforms introduced by the Peshwa's officers which it is necessary to explain more particularly, are the Behura rates, or rates at which the portion of the government rental, terminated Furokht, was commuted, or any further portion not required by the district authorities for the maintenance of the garrisons, public servants or followers; secondly, the Nugdee Cowlee Sherista, or fixed money rentals of Bhagaet, or garden lands, hitherto received in kind. These commendable changes were brought about at the instance of the Furkia family, who occasionally resided in the Konkun, and undoubtedly had the greatest influence of any persons about the Peshwa's court, both with the celebrated Nana Furneaves, and the Peshwa himself.

Until 1790, the Peshwa's officers had been in the practice of receiving all grain not included under the head of Tusur or Furokht, into the Dasthan, or Kothee, from whence it was transported to the different depôts of troops, to be distributed in lieu of pay; but the quantity being more than sufficient for such purposes, the Peshwa ordered a fixed rate of commutation to be established throughout the whole of the districts from Kullian, south, but it was optional with the ryot to pay in kind, or at the Behura rates, whatever did not come under the head of Tusur, or Furokht.

The Behura rates were then probably the same as the market prices of the day; they are now considerably higher in consequence of the cheapness of grain, and the import of it from Malabar, and Canara, into those districts which before were supplied almost exclusively from the Konkun. Such is one of the undoubted benefits attendant on the amalgamation of all the Provinces into one government, and all subordinate to one rule.

The Rates were as follows :

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th>per khundee.</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Bhat,</td><td>20 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Naglee,</td><td>16 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Wuree,</td><td>13 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Tilgore,</td><td>50 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Toour,</td><td>40 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Koolid,</td><td>30 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Kuduve,</td><td>30 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Til Kale,</td><td>40 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Ooreed,</td><td>40 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Til sale,</td><td>40 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Powte,</td><td>40 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr><tr><td>Chowlee,</td><td>30 Rs.</td><td>ditto.</td></tr></tbody></table>

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The Nugdee cowlee rates were fixed at four anas per cocoanut tree, or one ana per suparee tree, for a period of years; generally five or seven, after which the full rent was taken as for baghaet lands.

The only regular surveys of the lands were those instituted by Mulik Umbur, Dadajee Kondeo, Anajee Dhutoo, the Punt Amatyu, and Gunesh Punt. Subsequently partial surveys were made during the early part of Nana Furnavees' administration, between the years of 1772 and 1790, but these did little more than change the classes of the inferior lands, and bring some little new land into the village assessment. The government claimed all waste land unconditionally, as their own property, and leased it out without any reference to the *khots*, or *meerassee* cultivators. It is said they did so on the plea of its being disputed property, but the assertion is not borne out by any plea of a contested interest by the village communities, or *dharakuree* and *koolarug* ryots.

After this period, the corruption of the Peshwa's court became so general, that the office of Koomavishdar was sold or entrusted to some profligate unfit person, who had plausible schemes to recommend him to notice, either for securing, or increasing the revenue received in former years. The usual resort of these persons was to farm, or sublet their own farms, and the subordinate agents threatened the villages with a new survey from year to year, which was relinquished for a compromised *chur*, or increase on the preceding rental.

It is no wonder that such a train of events for 20 or 25 years, had a most pernicious effect on the cultivation, and more particularly on the general morals of the people. The produce of the very best lands is said to have diminished beyond all calculation, and it is not to be expected that any improvement can take place till every impediment which has been gradually growing out of such abuses, is entirely removed.

The foregoing exhibits a full account of the progressive advances of taxation over and above the original land rent which was customary under the former rulers of India. Although the British Government have made great reductions in the most oppressive and unjustifiable taxes, there is ample room for further reductions. The system of the Mahrattas is still for the most part the same that is now pursued: it is therefore extremely improbable that the circumstances of the cultivator will make any advance beyond a precarious and scanty subsistence: the length of time that has elapsed, added

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to the consequences of our rigid severity, and the previous malver-
sations of the Peshwa's farmers, have deteriorated the general cir-
cumstances of the lower classes of cultivators, and deprived them of
every thing in the shape of capital, so that the government is a suf-
ferer, both from their poverty, and the neglect of all advantages
that might be discovered by a new survey.

Nana Furnavees had it in contemplation to simplify the whole of
the land revenue by a general assessment in money, according to
the beegahs cultivated, but it was never carried into effect beyond
the Kullian Prant. This tract of country, with some few exceptions,
was surveyed and assessed between the years 1772 and 1790, all
land of the first quality, at 5 Rs. 13 anas per beegah: land of the
second quality, at 4½ Rs., and of every other description, on which
rice was raised, at 3 Rs. 11 anas. The survey was conducted by the
Sursubhedar Sudashew Kesho, and was concluded for the turufs of
Tuloja and Waje of the Panwel district; for Moorbar, Gorut, and
Korkuda, of the Korkuda talock; for Sonalla, Doogar, and Bhewn-
dee in the Bhewndee turuf; in the Umburnath, Wasoondree, Bare,
Konde, Khambale, muhals of Kullian, in Wurede turuf; Shewre,
Uliannee and Rahoor muhals, dependant on Sakoorlee. There are
therefore three descriptions of rental; 1st, Dhemp or Koomula, being
an assessment by the total produce in kind, which in the northern
districts is commuted at the market price, and in the Malwan district
is put up to auction; 2nd, The Begownee money rental, and third,
the Begownee rental received partly in kind and partly in Tusur,
(the Hubshee's commutation rates,) part in Furokht, (the Peshwa's
fixed sale prices:) all the produce in kind is disposed of by auction.

The amount of the land revenue is about one-third the gross pro-
duce: with the extra cesses, it amounts however to about 70 or
even 80 per cent. on the line of coast from Basseen to Duman. The
cultivators continue to pay the rates fixed by the Portuguese; that
is, one-half to the immediate proprietor, who is charged with a
small *foro*, or quit-rent: the produce and revenue differ so little in
quantity from the rates established by Anajee Dhutoo, taking lands
of the same name or quality by way of comparison, as to lead to a
general belief that Anajee Dhutoo's rates were fixed with reference
to Mulik Umbur's at a previous date: the assessment varies from 6
to 32 muns per moorah.

Of the more ancient systems little remains, and that is now
principally confined to the immediate neighbourhood of Jowar,
which the Peshwa's people had a particular dread of examining,

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from fear of the Kooles: it consisted in a certain stipulated sum for a certain quantity of ground, and even now, is not very regularly or punctually enforced.

In the Kullian district the *wurkus* land is called *Rubbbee*, and is assessed at 1½ rupees per nominal beegah, that is the estimated quantity equivalent to a beegah, with a due allowance for rock, and underwood; this description of land is far more fertile, however, and altogether of a better quality, than land turned to the same uses, in raising nachnee hemp, khorasnee, til, naglee, &c.; but no distinction is made where all the land is computed by the seed required to sow it, except in the diminished rates.

Generally speaking, the assessment by the fixed money rental is extremely light, as is that by the estimated produce throughout the northern and southern districts: there are also few extra cesses beyond the land rental, but they are not in so flourishing a condition as the districts where the payments are made up of a great variety of imposts: the reason appears to be, a want of population, cattle, and persons of substance, perhaps in some measure also, the great scarcity of water, and the consequent unhealthiness of the wastes and forests.

Many of the principal officers of the Peshwa's court were natives of the districts of Soowurndroog, Unjunvel, and Rutnagiri; they had considerable estates there, and expended large sums in their improvement: it is to this most probably that the superior degree of success in the culture of rice and garden lands is mainly ascribable, and to the greater affluence of the inhabitants generally, the individual members of whose families are found, in greater or less numbers, in the establishments of every great person throughout India. The money they hoard up in such foreign service is spent in some manner amongst their own people, and a large amount finds its way to the pockets of the agricultural classes.

The general amount of the land revenue, as will be seen on reference to the official returns for a series of fifteen successive years, is very variable*: the fluctuation is chiefly owing to the difference on the auction returns of grain sold. The demand for grain is altogether uncertain, being affected by partial droughts in all parts of India, and is supplied as occasion requires from Malabar and other coast districts, and introduced to the interior by the innumerable rivers, intersecting the Konkun, accessible to vessels of small burthen.

* See Table of the Revenue for fifteen successive years in the Appendix.

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In bringing this account to a close, it appears to me, that there are three principal objects to be attended to, in order to promote the general interests of the cultivators and government, to revert to the original ancient rule of taking no more than the rent, that is, one-fifth of the gross produce: to collect that fifth by commuting it at the market price of the season; to ascertain the produce by periodical surveys at intervals of five, or seven years, on a correct measurement and valuation of the lands, with a correspondent enumeration of the people; by this means, it would appear satisfactorily whether any, and what proportion of capital was abstracted from the ryots, and a very accurate estimate be formed in process of time of the ratio of the wages of labour, to the rent and qualities of the soil.

Lastly, that a just proportion of that rent should be set aside, as it was in its original design, for the improvement of the country and inhabitants, in any way most suited to the intentions and character of the British Government, whether in the construction of roads, the repair and embankment of tanks, rivers, or ghats, or encouragement in the shape of tukavee advances on loan or respon-
dentia; in the cultivation of useful timber trees, or the clearing and draining of wastes, and salt marshes; in the appropriation of any quantity to charitable designs, as vaccination, infirmaries, ophthalmic institutions, and, lastly, education. Under such a system it is not to be doubted for a moment that a very few years would produce a sur-
prising change, both in the mass of the people, and the revenues of the country; forasmuch as labour, intelligence and the moral charac-
ter of a people contribute infinitely more to the production of wealth, than any amount of capital, however judiciously laid out, even on the best descriptions of land: it is such labour alone which creates wealth, and although the experiment may appear hazardous, it is borne out by the concurrent testimony of present and past ages.

Belgam, 16th April, 1835.

APPENDIX.

No. I.

Treaties made between the Portuguese Viceroy of Goa and the Mahrattas or Peshwa.

FIRST TREATY.

An agreement made by Venkata Rao and Dadajee Rao, generals of the magnificent Bagi Rao Prudhan, the Plenipotentiaries of the Portuguese states being present, namely, Antonia Carneiro de Aleacoa and Joze Pedro Emaus, on the 17th of April, 1739.

That the Portuguese states shall contribute seven lacs of rupees, each rupee being equal to two Xerafins of Goa coinage, for defraying the expenses made by the forces at present occupying their territories, in order that the aforesaid forces may break up their camp: and it is stated as follows:—As soon as the stipulations are signed by both parties, two Portuguese of note shall be sent, bringing with them two lacs of rupees for defraying the first instalment: that the army immediately after having received this first instalment, shall decamp, and that all the troops, which are to be found in* Salset and Bardez, shall quit these two provinces and abandon the fortresses they may hold, thus leaving the country free to be inhabited and cultivated by its proper inhabitants, and that the main body of the army shall go up the ghats, leaving behind one chieftain with some people beyond the dominions of the Portuguese, where also the two Portuguese shall remain as hostages, until the second instalment be duly paid.

That within a fortnight the second instalment of three lacs of rupees shall be made up, payable in money, gold, silver, coral, cochineal and other different goods, and that after having paid this second instalment, the Portuguese shall deliver up an obligatory writing for the payment of the two other lacs which are left, to be

* The province of Salset extending south from Murmagon, harbour of Goa to Cab di Ram—Cape Ramas.

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paid within six months; and that, for assurance of this last instal-
ment, two natives of the *Camaras Geraes*, municipal members of
Salset and Bardez, shall be delivered as hostages, and they shall
remain in such place as may be assigned to them until, in effect,
the said instalment shall be made good; and that, as soon as the
aforesaid obligatory writing shall be delivered up, together with the
said hostages, the two first white men who had been given as
sureties for the first five lacs of rupees, shall be at liberty to return
home. At Raia, on the 27th of April, 1739.

(Signed.) ANTONIA CARNEIRO DE ALEACOA, JOZE PEDRO EMAUS.

SECOND TREATY.

Stipulations of peace agreed to between the magnificent Bagi
Rao Prudhan, and the Portuguese states, in presence of Venkata
Rao and Dadajee Rao, generals of the magnificent Bagi Rao, and
Antonio Carneiro Aleacoa, and Joze Pedro Emaus, Plenipotentiaries
of the said Portuguese states, on the 27th of April, 1739.

That the provinces of Salset and Bardez, with all their fortresses,
belong to the Portuguese states, and in order that the same
states may enjoy them, they shall be evacuated by all the troops
at present occupying them; but with declaration that from the
royal quit-rents (Foros Reaes) paid every year by the villages to
the said states, 40 per cent. shall be deducted and delivered to
the magnificent Bagi Rao Prudhan.

As the said provinces of Salset and Bardez are found to be
ravaged by the frequent irruptions of native armies, the magnifi-
cent Bagi Rao Prudhan, and his chieftains shall fulfil the seguro, and
quito, the states may have granted to the villages :—that the islands
of Karjooen and Panelem shall be delivered up to the Bhonselo,
who shall be released and continue exempt from a contribution to
the states of 1000 Xerafins (500 rupees) yearly, as promised in
the stipulations made in the time of Siva Bhutt, and that a paper
shall be given to him showing that he is exempted from paying
the aforesaid sum.

That the prisoners of the provinces del Norte Basseen, Sashtee*,
Chewul, northern districts of Goa viceroyalty†, and of the provinces
of Salset and Bardez, including also the Negros, shall be set free
by both parties without any ransom, and that the engagements

* The island near Bombay.

† Perna, Beecholim and Sanklee.

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or bonds which any of the said prisoners might have made for
his ransom, shall be delivered up to the states and shall have
no effect at all.

That the merchants of Goa shall be allowed to trade freely in
the territories of Phonda, now subjected to Bagi Rao Prudhan, and
they shall not be compelled to pay more duties than were always
usual; that the said merchants shall be allowed also to convey
their goods by water on the river, and enjoy the liberty they
always have had heretofore without any alteration.

That the Portuguese states shall not intrude into the territories
of the magnificent Bagi Rao, but on the contrary, they shall
maintain with them a good intercourse, and the magnificent Bagi
Rao, and his chieftains shall act in the same manner towards the
dominions of the states of the Portuguese.

That under these conditions, there is established a firm peace
between the Portuguese states, and the magnificent Bagi Rao, as
also between the same states and Ramchundra Sawunt, and Jairam
Sawunt Bhonsla, and Sur Dessaees of Koodal, whose Brahmin or
officer Nurba Shenwee, son of Sivajee Shenwee, was present in this
army, at the execution of the act of settlement in these stipulations,
in which also he is comprised, in consequence of the protection
of the same magnificent Bagi Rao. Done at Raia, on the 27th of
April, 1739.

(Signed) ANTONIO CARNEIRO DE ALEACOA, JOZE PEDRO EMAUS,
Ministers plenipotentiary on the part of the Viceroy of Goa.

No. II.

Tuhnama or Treaty of Adjustment entered into between Bullajee
Vishwunath Peshwa, and Seedee Yakoot Khan of Jungeera: on the
conclusion of hostilities, A. D. 1732.

On the 2nd of Shaban Soorsun 1133, during the government of
Seedee Abdool Rahman, a Treaty or Tuhnama was formed between
the Junjeerkur and Peshwa, respecting the system of governing
the joint countries, which system is even yet observed, and remains
in full force.

The Treaty issued from the Rekht khana (store of household furniture and garments) of the Fort of Juzeerut*, Dunda Rajpooree

* Juzeerut, an Arabic word variously applied to an island, oasis, or insulated tract of country surrounded by foreign lands.

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in the *Soorsun* 1133, A D. 1732. The ryots and cultivators of the different muhals have suffered grievously and ruinously from calamitous distresses and repeated disturbances, whereupon the whole of the zumindars and ryots of all the nine muhals appeared and submissively represented that unless a treaty is formed between this government and the Peshwa, the country will never be restored to the enjoyment of peace, tranquillity and happiness, and more particularly the fields will never be cultivated; therefore on hearing their petition it was incumbent on these authorities to satisfy and quiet their subjects and restore them to that peace and tranquillity; in consequence whereof from the present year the following mode and systems were jointly adopted for the future to conduct the affairs and collect the respective and proper revenue of all the following eleven muhals, viz.

1. Mamle Tule, exclusive of the Kusba* (chief town.)

2. Tupa Nizampoor, excepting the Kusba.

3. Tupa Goregaon, excepting the village Oonegaon.

4. Purgunna Nadgaon Moorood.

5. Purgunna Dive.

6. Purgunna Gosale, excepting the Kusba.

7. Purgunna Beerwadee, excepting the Kusba.

8. Tupa Govele.

9. Tupa Mandle.

10. Purgunna Sreevurdhun.

11. Purgunna Mhysle.

This is the treaty for the arrangements of the abovementioned eleven muhals, and it contains and comprehends the following claims, articles, and conditions.

1. Whatever jumabundy (revenue assessment) is to be made in the abovementioned muhals, must be made with the joint consent of the executing parties (both governments). The officers of both governments must attend to it, and it must be done by their calculation and estimation; and whatever agriculture and sown fields, gardens, sayer, or variable impost, including moh turfa (taxes annually received from shop-keepers and artificers), zureebe gowlee (annual taxes received from butter and ghee makers from the produce of their kine), and kowls (waste land) allowed by government to be cultivated and enjoyed by ryots for so many years: after the expiration of the time specified in the *kowl* or lease they must

* Kusba (a chief town); Mowje, a village; Wara, Para, a hamlet; Mujre, a small village; Poora, a suburb.

133

pay in the rent thereof at the rate settled and mentioned in it. And whatever be the produce, rents and income of the aforementioned items, the officers of both governments being stationed at each muhal must receive it half and half equally; and if they think proper they may for the future let out the sown fields and gardens by farms or *Muktuhs* (contracts), and if any where the measurement and survey of land is required, they both must attend and receive half and half produce equally; whatever muhals adjoin the Peshwa's dominions, and are settled by them, their Vetbeegars* and all other Babuts (as to fowls, cucumbers, pompions, &c.) they must take, receive, and collect: whatever muhals are assigned the Seedee and settled for him, that Vetbeegar and all other Babuts we shall take, receive, and collect; and if the officer of any government in any muhals shall collect more than the half of the due, he is liable to be called to account and make good to the other the deficiency of his half, in short they must receive the whole income half and half. Should any of our sepoys go on any business into the country, he must first apply to the Sooba of Tula, and take with him a sepoy from this Sooba; if any sepoy of the Peshwa's government shall have any business in this country, he must first apply to our Sooba at Rajpooree, and take thence one of our sepoys with him.

The undermentioned muhals are assigned to each government as follows.

To the Seedee's Sirkur, 5½ muhals, namely:

1. Purgunna Nadgaon.

2. Purgunna Sreevurdun.

3. Purgunna Dive.

4. Purgunna Mhysle.

5. Tuppa Mandle.

Half of Tuppa Govele, being fifty villages; one village named Varouly is excepted, it being the Eenam of the Deshmook: and the remainder, forty-nine, were divided half and half, 24 villages and ½ being the share of this government as follows:

To the Peshwa Pundit Prudhan's Govt., 5½ muhals, namely:

1. Mamle Tule.

2. Purgunna Gosale.

3. Tuppa Nizampoor.

4. Tuppa Goregaon.

5. Purgunna Burvadee.

Half of Tuppa Govele, being fifty villages; one village named Varouly is excepted, it being the Eenam for the Deshmook: and the remainder, forty-nine villages were divided half and half, 24 villages and ½ being the share of the Pundit Prudhan's or Peshwa's government as follows:

* Forced service or labour exacted by the Mahrattas of all labouring classes,— one day's gratuitous service in every eight from each cultivator's household.

OAS
B
tho
Gernsau
and
i
to
die
Peth

134

1. Mowje Ambet.

2. Mowje Soorgaon.

3. Mowje Vamve.

4. Mowje Lipnee.

5. Mowje Kole.

6. Mowje Kunghar.

7. Mowje Khamgaon.

8. Mowje Lep.

9. Mowje Sangnud.

10. Mowje Poorar.

11. Mowje Vhadgur.

12. Mowje Moodre.

13. Mowje Mauzraone.

14. Mowje Koortoode.

15. Mowje Shile.

16. Mowje Punuderee.

17. Mowje Manddatne.

18. Mowje Kharvat.

19. Mowje Varnat.

20. Mowje Vangnee.

21. Mowje Pajtee.

22. Mowje Salegur.

23. Mowje Vagrhe.

24. Mowje Tamane.

25. Mowje Kolmandle, (one half.)

1. Mowje Dabole.

2. Mowje Tolboodrook.

3. Mowje Bhanddiulee.

4. Mowje Sunderee.

5. Mowje Sapam.

6. Mowje Tolkhoord.

7. Mowje Karikara.

8. Mowje Nandree.

9. Kusba Govele.

10. Mowje Dhaimvalee.

11. Mowje Chanddore.

12. Mowje Siraolep.

13. Mowje Tarane.

14. Mowje Yankee.

15. Mowje Kachaler.

16. Mowje Madhegaon.

17. Mowje Hurdee.

18. Mowje Kussindee.

19. Mowje Koomsed.

20. Mowje Nawassee.

21. Mowje Fullanee.

22. Mowje Hurkool.

23. Mowje Alsoonde.

24. Mowje Palsup.

24½

24½

3. For the collection of land and sea customs the officers of both governments should be stationed at the usual places; whatever may be the produce therefrom, it is to be divided also half and half, reserving the privilege of the sea customs of the port of Rajpooree to be entirely collected by the Seedee's government, and also that of the port of Roya, entirely by the Pundit's (Peshwa's) government; excepting these two ports the income and produce of the rest, in toto, are to be equally divided half and half, and whatever be the income arising out of fines and mulcts for adultery*, (fines imposed on adulterers male or female,) that also

* Known in Goograt under the head of Chaimhoree, literally, Skin-stealing. It was rated very high in all the cessions of the Peshwa to the British government: in 1817 in the Duskoroee Purgunna seventy-five thousand rupees annually. It was always looked upon as one of the most iniquitous of the Mahratta resources for raising public money; and the informants were frequently stoned to death, or torn in pieces by the populace, as was Gazeeram, a Brahmin at Poona in 1760.

135

must be divided equally, half and half, and in case of the servants of either governments being fined, the fine so imposed on them, must be collected by their employers, masters, or governments.

4. In exchange for the port of Rajpoore, the Pundit (Peshwa) was allowed the entire and full enjoyment of the 5 (five) under-mentioned villages with their entire income, rents, &c. and one only seaport of Roga.

1st, Kusba Tule; 2nd, Kusba Gosale; 3rd, Kusba Beervadee; 4th, Kusba Nizampoor, and 5th, Mowje Oonegaon in the Tuppa or distinct of Goregaon. The sea customs of Roya are also entirely allowed to the Pundit, but its other revenue, rents, &c. are to be equally divided half and half.

5. In exchange for the port of Rajpooree, the Pundit Prudhan is allowed the full enjoyment of five pents, or kusbas, and the sea port of Roya; therefore it must be understood that whatever things and merchandize come and go from Yacootnuggur, (or Juzeerut province) although agreeably to our agreements the duty thereof is to be collected at Mera, or at other stations, the pundit nevertheless is not to interfere with any, salt only excepted.

6. The tolls of passengers, and goods, both of the ferry-boats of Rajpooree and Moorood, are to be the entire property of this (Seedee's) government, exclusive of the customs, but the tolls of all other ferry-boats at different places belong to both governments, together with the customs collected on the merchandize imported and exported by and through these ferry-boats, and also the customs collected on the goods imported and exported by Rajpooree and Moorood ferry-boats is to be divided half and half between both governments, but the Pundit's government is not to interfere at all with the passage-money of these two ferry-boats, (Rajpooree, and Moorood.)

7. Whatever balance of revenue department or of fines, levied in criminal and other cases, shall or may now appear to be due to both governments on the day of executing this treaty, the ryots applied for its remission and exemption—therefore although in the year last it has been graciously ordered that they should be exempted and excused, and the declaration to this effect had been previously issued, notwithstanding it is declared that the people and zumindars may and should in virtue of this declaration peaceably and happily come to their respective places and residences, and people the country, and cultivate the fields, and whatever is due by them for the past in the aforementioned way is declared to be remitted, and cancelled, and they are to consider this to be a final order and recapitulation of the same.

136

8. Whatever merchants from the ghats and Konkun shall come to Yacootnuggur (Juzeerut) with their merchandize, and will proceed from this, the regular dues or the custom on their respective goods is to be collected by both governments only at Mera, or any other place that may be fixed for this purpose.

9. Whatever ship or vessel belonging to this (Seedee's) government may go to any of the Pundit's ports or to the ports of their dependents, it is to be safely allowed them to touch at, and to arrange their affairs there, and take in cargo or every requisite for its lading, or provisioning, exempt from all duties and customs: in accordance with this, the like will be also observed with all the vessels, or ships belonging to the pundit's government, whenever they may touch at this or any ports of its dependants.

10. Whatever persons, or the families of any one, being the servants of either government, shall appear to be in confinement, or imprisoned by either government, it is agreed that they are to be liberated by the respective governments.

11. The income of the provinces of Nagotna, Ushtummee, Seemuhul, and Palee is divided into two shares; one-half is to be received by the Mahratta, one-half by the Busalatpuna. It is agreed that it should continue, and the Seedee not interfere.

This treaty is formed in the above manner, consisting of the aforementioned eleven articles, all of those being agreed to and ratified by both parties: therefore both must quietly observe its contents, and never deviate therefrom. Executed by Dilavur Khan in conjunction and agreement with Ragojee Naik Darekur Afrad, on the 2nd day of the month Shaban, in the year 1133 Soorsun, A. D. 1732.

No. III.

Authentic account of the Land Revenue, Sayer or variable Imposes; Land and Sea Customs of the North and South Konkun, (9755 Sq. Miles) under British administration, for a period of 15 years from the date of its first acquisition by Congress.

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="3">Years.</th><th colspan="6">Land Revenue.</th><th colspan="6">Sayer or Variable Imposes.</th><th colspan="6">Land Customs or Transit duties.</th><th colspan="2">Sea Customs.</th></tr><tr><th colspan="3">North and South Konkun.</th><th colspan="2">Collective revenue, say.</th></tr><tr><th>Rs.</th><th>q.</th><th>r.</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1819-20</td><td>13.57,922</td><td>1</td><td>24</td><td>13.20,154</td><td>3</td><td>25</td><td>26.77,976</td><td>2.62,001</td><td>2</td><td>58</td><td>2.16,702</td><td>1</td><td>06</td><td>4.78,703</td><td>2.03,381</td><td>3</td><td>22</td><td>70.442</td><td>2.75</td><td>2.73,823</td><td>4.11,833</td><td>37</td><td>38.42,335</td></tr><tr><td>1820-21</td><td>12.52,476</td><td>3</td><td>45</td><td>11.64,433</td><td>2.79</td><td>24.16,909</td><td>2.74,262</td><td>2</td><td>02</td><td>2.19,202</td><td>2</td><td>45</td><td>4.93,464</td><td>1.85,754</td><td>3</td><td>72</td><td>98.501</td><td>3</td><td>2.84,258</td><td>3.98,712</td><td>1</td><td>32</td><td>35.93,343</td></tr><tr><td>1821-22</td><td>11.61,699</td><td>2</td><td>86</td><td>11.52,157</td><td>2.51</td><td>23.13,856</td><td>2.54,213</td><td>3</td><td>55</td><td>2.29,574</td><td>1</td><td>07</td><td>4.83,787</td><td>1.80,354</td><td>3</td><td>45</td><td>75.261</td><td>1</td><td>2.55,615</td><td>4.26,504</td><td>3</td><td>02</td><td>34.79,762</td></tr><tr><td>1822-23</td><td>11.37,210</td><td>1</td><td>80</td><td>10.56,593</td><td>1</td><td>15</td><td>21.93,803</td><td>2.22,747</td><td>2</td><td>03</td><td>2.29,370</td><td>1</td><td>48</td><td>4.52,117</td><td>1.91,089</td><td>2</td><td>36</td><td>83.912</td><td>1</td><td>2.75,001</td><td>4.69,516</td><td>1</td><td>19</td><td>33.90,437</td></tr><tr><td>1823-24</td><td>11.98,282</td><td>1</td><td>64</td><td>11.78,045</td><td>3</td><td>46</td><td>23.76,327</td><td>2.16,698</td><td>2</td><td>86</td><td>2.75,699</td><td>2</td><td>16</td><td>4.92,397</td><td>1.44,512</td><td>1</td><td>52</td><td>64.962</td><td>1</td><td>2.09,474</td><td>4.55,015</td><td>1</td><td>15</td><td>35.33,213</td></tr><tr><td>1824-25</td><td>12.03,406</td><td>2</td><td>76</td><td>6.76,310</td><td>1</td><td>02</td><td>18.79,716</td><td>2.11,419</td><td>1</td><td>95</td><td>3.02,605</td><td>1</td><td>41</td><td>5.14,024</td><td>1.35,407</td><td>3</td><td>73</td><td>50.791</td><td>1</td><td>1.86,198</td><td>3.36,675</td><td>1</td><td>43</td><td>29.16,613</td></tr><tr><td>1825-26</td><td>12.38,904</td><td>1</td><td>59</td><td>10.94,129</td><td>3</td><td>24</td><td>23.24,282</td><td>2.52,584</td><td>3</td><td>59</td><td>3.27,600</td><td>1</td><td>91</td><td>5.80,184</td><td>1.37,303</td><td>3</td><td>57</td><td>50.970</td><td>1</td><td>1.88,278</td><td>4.46,997</td><td>3</td><td>65</td><td>34.63,329</td></tr><tr><td>1826-27</td><td>11.39,717</td><td>1</td><td>61</td><td>11.90,914</td><td>3</td><td>90</td><td>23.83,631</td><td>2.70,354</td><td>2</td><td>66</td><td>1.54,591</td><td>1</td><td>43</td><td>4.24,945</td><td>1.45,458</td><td>3</td><td>48</td><td>52,254</td><td>1</td><td>47</td><td>1.97,712</td><td>5.42,226</td><td>3</td><td>37</td><td>35.63,673</td></tr><tr><td>1827-28</td><td>11.92,777</td><td>1</td><td>67</td><td>10.70,198</td><td>3</td><td>96</td><td>20.78,457</td><td>2.89,181</td><td>2</td><td>81</td><td>2.41,306</td><td>1</td><td>39</td><td>5.29,487</td><td>2.43,165</td><td>2</td><td>98</td><td>41.692</td><td>1</td><td>90</td><td>2.17,713</td><td>4.46,313</td><td>1</td><td>75</td><td>35.16,602</td></tr><tr><td>1829-29</td><td>10.08,259</td><td>1</td><td>67</td><td>10.70,198</td><td>3</td><td>48</td><td>48.21,21,284</td><td>3.32,489</td><td>1</td><td>21</td><td>2.80,647</td><td>1</td><td>03</td><td>6.03,136</td><td>2.25,269</td><td>2</td><td>27</td><td>47.376</td><td>2</td><td>08</td><td>2.75,647</td><td>6.59,907</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>35.85,933</td></tr><tr><td>1830-30</td><td>10.65,833</td><td>3</td><td>64</td><td>10.55,461</td><td>3</td><td>48</td><td>48.21,21,284</td><td>3.32,489</td><td>1</td><td>21</td><td>2.80,647</td><td>1</td><td>03</td><td>6.03,136</td><td>2.70,511</td><td>3</td><td>32</td><td>41.692</td><td>1</td><td>90</td><td>2.75,647</td><td>6.59,907</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>35.16,602</td></tr><tr><td>1830-31*</td><td>20.76,837</td><td>3</td><td>49</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>35.85,936</td></tr><tr><td>1831-32*</td><td>21.69,918</td><td>3</td><td>26</td><td>6.53,716</td><td>1</td><td>05</td><td>20.75,774</td><td>6.05,483</td><td>3</td><td>85</td><td>6.93,402</td><td>1</td><td>52</td><td>5.87,304</td><td>2.07,441</td><td>3</td><td>36</td><td>2.67,441</td><td>1</td><td>10</td><td>2.67,441</td><td>6.50,115</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>35.71,305</td></tr><tr><td>1832-33†</td><td>14.20,058</td><td>3</td><td>50</td><td>7.23,686</td><td>1</td><td>05</td><td>24.13,355</td><td>4.20,028</td><td>3</td><td>85</td><td>6.37,304</td><td>1</td><td>65</td><td>1.91,777</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>1.90,149</td><td>1</td><td>06</td><td>6.57,489</td><td>6.50,038</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>35.63,871</td></tr><tr><td>1833-34†</td><td>16.39,665</td><td>1</td><td>52</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>...</td><td>35.23,295</td></tr><tr><td>Average p.annum,</td><td>12.37,857</td><td></td><td></td><td>10.32,377</td><td></td><td></td><td>22.50,674</td><td>2.89,914</td><td></td><td></td><td>2.35,592</td><td></td><td></td><td>5.98,495</td><td>1.85,103</td><td></td><td></td><td>2.67,441</td><td>2</td><td>10</td><td>2.40,594</td><td>6.50,115</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>35.67,922</td></tr><tr><td>do. p. sq. mile,</td><td>..</td><td>..</td><td>..</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Rs. 127.7</td><td></td><td></td><td>Rs. 105.8</td><td></td><td></td><td>Rs. 230.7</td><td>Rs. 29.7</td><td></td><td></td><td>Rs. 24.1</td><td></td><td></td><td>Rs. 55.52</td><td>Rs. 18.9</td><td></td><td></td><td>Rs. 5.7</td><td></td><td>..</td><td>..</td><td>..</td><td>..</td><td>..</td><td>..</td><td>..</td></tr></tbody></table>

* NOTE.—The whole of the Revenues were collected and brought to account under one head, in these years.

† The greater amount of revenue shown under the head of the Northern Konkun on this one hand, and the decrease of the revenue of the Southern on the other, arises out of the annexation of some of the latter territories to the former. The aggregate of both is pretty nearly the same.

138

No. IV.

The Kushlee Grant, dated A. D. 1191, June 20th.
No. 1, on three Copper-plates.

खल्लीः ॥ जयत्यविष्कृतं विष्णीवाराहं द्वीभितार्थं वद्दिमीङ्गतवं-  
ङ्गाप्यविष्णातभूमवनं वयः ॥ खासीदिद्याधरः पूर्वान्प्राश्चा जीमूतवाह्यनः ॥  
पराधीं जीवित येन गरहाय निवैदितं ॥ ग्रिलाभाराख्यवयोँ यं गम-  
रेश्वरभूम्भतां ॥ तदंघे जतिगो राजाजनि भूम्भक्किखामशः ॥ खल्ली  
जतिगच्चितीषतनयो नायिम्नानामा नृयः पुच्चस्ताच च चन्द्रराट् एथुय  
ग्राक्सापि छूनुः किल ॥ संजातो जतिगो जग्जननुतः [तः]  
श्रीमांस्ख तम्नदनः गोक्क्नो भूवि भूमिपालितक्कस्यायभूम्दावदितः ॥  
गूवल्गेषाध तद्ध्रता कौतिराजो नुजास्थ च ॥ चंद्रदित्य रित्थातक्ष्मै  
राज्यमर्कंटकं ॥ श्रीमद्दूँक्कबभूमिपालतनय [यः] श्रीमारसिंहू नृयः  
तत्सुनुच्छेपनीलिबालितपदं [वः] श्रीगूबलाख्या च्याः ॥ तद्ध्रता भुवि  
भीजद्वेहपदपत्विरेभपर्चाननस्खक्ने राज्यमखंडतं एथुयग्रांबेग्रत्त्यं  
किल ॥ तस्यानुज्जातो विद्यिप्रतापी वक्खान्देवच्चितिपक्ष्देव ॥ श्विका  
मिनीशिर्विनतावनीशी दिक्षांतरुष्टप्रघितः [तः] प्रतापः ॥ तस्यानुज्जा  
धमंधरेः धरिच्चा दधार वशीनखिलान् खधमै ॥ धीर्यांग्धुर्यें धनदेहो  
धनानां श्रीगंडरादिहित इतिप्रसिद्धः [ङ्कः] दीनानायद्विरिद्धुर्दुः खिरक्कल-  
य्याको गैनानाविधप्राचिन्यापरारयाः श्रांगतिर्दिनं गृग्षाख्यादानेन यः ॥  
यच्छूः [यः] श्रायिनधेनुभूम्भुयतीं स्त्यादिदिनापदं ॥ श्रवन्धूक्त्रामितप्र-  
वीयाहृदयेः भूद्देवक्ल्यदन्नुमः ॥ तुलापुष [रुष] दानादिघिषडक्कुतक्रा-  
रकः ॥ ग्रांचगांगेवकीत्येकनिलय [यः] खगुभेभूवि ॥ तम्नदन [नः]  
प्रबलमङ्गलिक्कदिपेन्द्रपच्चाननोजनि जगचि [ल्नि] तचेक्कवीरः ॥ प्रत्य थीं  
पाधिंवल्बाटतस्थप्रादपीठस्फ़्टोज्ज्व [ज्ज्व] लयष्रा विजय वर्केंव [वः] ॥  
दानाय द्र [वाचाज्जीनं जनपरिचायाय वीरत्रतं सत्याय प्रियमायग्यां  
इरिपदध्यानाय चेतस्थितिः संपत्तिस्तुमनीविपदिगतये यस्त्र प्रकासं  
क्विः चक्खात्त्राः प्रविच्च तस्त्र विजयदित्यस्त वर्त्तुं गुनान् ॥ येन  
स्थानक्नमंडले तद्धिपारः भ्रट्टाः पुनस्थापिताः गोवायां परिनहरूभूमिस-  
पतयः सुस्यापितास्तेजसा ॥ यस्त्थख्येन च चक्कवर्चंपदवीं धापातुकौ-  
विज्ञास्त्राभूत् श्रीविजयार्केंवच्चपत्विरेवर्षभक्तीरवः ॥ तन [तम्र]  
दनः सक्कलदिश्चतवर्त्तीकीर्तिमूँभंगमाचपरिसाधितवैरवर्णः ॥ विश्वः

139

भरामर्दुरीयभुम्जस्त्वैव विभ्वाजते व्यवधरो भुवि भाजदेहः ॥ संयामांगभाभिरवः चितिभुजां संद्भारमेरिरवः कीर्त्यांकजतग्रवः [क्व] व्यक्तनुम्भतां निधूः [सूत्र] ततापच्य ॥ श्रीरतापियनंदनः परिजनांनंदेकसंद्भनः प्राप्ताप्रेषमचैतलस्त्रजयतात् श्रीभोजरताचनः ॥ खल्लिसमधिगतपच्चमग्राप्पव्द ॥ च्चमांस्तुलग्नश्चर । तगरपुरवराधीश्चर । जग-ज्जनं सनोजरागसागरप्रवर्दः [धीं] नग्रारच्छंद । श्रीगिराहारनदेवः । विद्भजनमनीरेयधलप्रदपरिजात जीमूतवाह्यनवयस्त्रहत । विरोधिधराधीषग्रवंग्राहनदहनधुमध्यमध्यज । सुवर्गांगरुदध्यज । रिपुसंदेभविद्भनीलाभटकारीवर्मंलिकभैरव । वद्दिशमंडलिकपद्गमवैनवय । ग्रीचगांगीयायवतिजनमनसंभेषानाभिनवकंदर्पमहर् [ह] बक्कसर्प । च्च चियगिराखामशी । श्रीविजयादित्यदेवनसिंग [ह] । साइशोत्तुङ्ग । बरिचन्द्रपालराज्यलक्ष्मीसमकर्षणांचसिद्धः [ज्ज] प्रनिवारसिद्ध । सक्कलग्नास्त्रापरावारपारायग्रा । रुपनारायग्रा । सक्कलजगतीजनस्तुत्राहृ इवरारित्य । जयपताकापबनविवर्षितारातिसीनायनगरिगरिदुर्गी-बंघन । उद्भः [द्व] तथराधीषग्रकुलग्रिखरिकुलिष्र । कलिगल [लां] कुष्र । वीरलक्ष्मीलतान्बनप्रचंडभुजरंड । मंडलिकजवंड । मंडलिकजरनारसिंग [ह] । मरुषलिक वेष्या भुजेंग । व [व] बन्दरद्विचतुरमग-संघट । वैरिचरट्ट । बरसासवारिमदनमहेश्चर । प्रतापर्लंकेश्चर । मंडलिकगंडरेपं [पं] डार । रकांगवीर । ग्रिलग्रायातभूम्भन्निर-वहृद्ग्रासमसुद । परबलविलयकालाम्निरुद्ध । सुगीतकुतिचा तु-येंहधितिरिवांरगं । प्रग्रस्तवस्तुकवितापसंग । विविधरम निर्माण नित्यप्रमोदश्मीचाहलक्ष्मीदेवीलवः [ब्व] वरसप्रदाःदिसमत्तराजा वर्लीविरारिज । श्रीमचाह्यांसंडलेश्चरभीजदेवः प्रदनालद्गर्गेंगे सुखसंक्षयायविनेदं राच्यं कुर्बाः । स [ग्र] क्वचर्धेचु सचयेदप्रश्नताधिकसहङ्गेचु गरेचु वर्तमानविरोधिकृत्तंवत्स्तरे आघाः [ट्ट] चतुर्थींवृ-[ट्ट] हस्पतिवारेद्विच्छायनसंज्ञासमापर्वांनिमचं कुमारगंडरादित्यविच्छापनेन तस्यान्युदयार्थं ॥ चट्टविरेकंप्रामायधवर्तिकसेलियामे प्रतिदिनं दादप्रग्राह्याभेजनायं नदूमपिंडादानद्वां सर्वं तचय्यगोविद्भरट्ट हेक्त धारयार्चवंक र्वंनमस्यं सर्ववाधापरिद्भारे राजकीयानामनंगरिल मिच्चीयमानंद्भकौं धापारात् । तस्त्र यामस्त्र सीगम । पूर्वस्त्रांदिगिः कुरुलनामनदीः दिद्युतस्त्रांदिगिःसावरिनामसुक्षेताः । पद्धिमस्त्रांदिगिः सरित्यतिः । उत्तरस्त्रांदिगिःकैखंडिकाः खृद्युत्रसुक्षेताः । अवंवेवेरिद्ग

6

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

G

["140", "॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥\n॥

142

No. 1.

A Translation of an ancient grant in the Sunskrit language, inscribed on three copper-plates, dated Shalivahan Shuk 1113, or June 20th, A. D. 1191, being at this present date, 1840, six hundred and forty-nine years old: from Bhoja Devu Rajah of Tuguru to Govinda Bhut, assigning to him the entire land rental, or revenues of Kushelee village in the district of Attaveerakun to feed twelve Brahmins.

Glory be to Vishnoo in the form of Varaha the Boar who agitated the waters of the ocean, and on whose up-lifted right tusk, the earth found its repose.

There was formerly a Viddyadhun, (a kind of demi-god) by name Jeemootavahanu, who offered his life for other's sake, to Gurooda, king of birds, (i. e. to save a serpent whom Gurooda has destroyed.) In his race is the origin of the family of Sheelahar, the kings of Tuguru. In this Sheelahar family was born king Jatiga; he gave birth to king Nayyumna; from him sprung king Chundrarat; from him Jatiga the 2nd. He begat Gonkulla; from Gonkulla were born the king Goovull, Keerteeraja, Chundraditya and Mana sinha; Mana sinha gave birth to Goovulla the 2nd, and Bhoj, Dheva Bullala Deva and Gundaraditya; Gundaraditya begat Veejayarka, from whom sprung Bhoja Deva the 2nd, famous for many excellent qualities, and favored by Maha Lukshmee the goddess of riches. Whilst Bhoj Deva reigned in the Fort of Pudma Nulla (perhaps Punnalla) he at the request of his son Gundaraditya 2nd, on the 4th of Ashadha Shooddh, the bright half of the month of Ashadha, Thursday, in the year named Veerodhukrut of the æra of Shalivahan 1113 (20th June, A. D. 1191) at the meritorious hour when the sun directed his course towards the south, gave in gift, for the purpose of feeding 12 Brahmins daily in the village Kushelee in (the district of) Attaveerakun, the whole of the revenue of that village, unto Govinda Bhut of the same village, after pouring water on his hands, a gift universally respected and freed from the least claim of the reigning family. The boundaries of this village are: on the east, the river Coorul; on the south a dry current called Savoree: on the west, the S. ocean, and on the north the dry current called Kakhund, limiting the number of betel-nut trees of Umvarika.

From the great king Suggur downward many have gifted people with lands, and the givers to whom they belonged, obtained the merit thereof. To those monarchs of my race, whose minds shun the commission of sin and who will keep this my donation inviolate, I do join my hands on my head (meaning I do make my numuskar or obeisance.)

143

* Whoever resumes, land whether given by himself or by others, he in after life becomes a worm, and is reduced to a most painful lot, becoming as it were excrement for the period of sixty thousand years.

Those who give gifts of land enjoy Swurgu (the region of bliss) for the period of sixty thousand years, and those that resume them or those that give advice to that effect, remain in hell for the same number of years. Among all gifts the greatest is a gift of land; land is permanent, it fulfils the expectations of the donor. The giver of land gives as it were gold, silver, copper, gems and pearls. Those that devote themselves to their master's cause, those that die in battle face to face, do not attain to that bliss in after life, which the giver of land attains. The great Rama thus addressed kings (when) he gave land: O ye kings! that shall come after me, I entreat of you, again and again, to keep from time to time this common duty of those that govern from violation, namely, the duty of continuing the possession of land to those to whom it was made over as a gift.

*Engraved by Vameeyana Brahmin. May it prosper.*

No. 2.

A Translation of an ancient grant in the Sunskrit language inscribed on three copper-plates, dated Shalivahan Shuk 1182. Poush Vudya (A. D. 1260, Saturday, 20th December,) in the year of the Cycle named Roudra, being at this present time, 1840, five hundred and eighty years old.

On Poush Vudya 7th (Saturday) in the æra of Shalivahan Roudra, the name of the year at the time when the sun entered his course

* The Hindu imprecation and denunciation, may appear strong to those who have not examined the spirit of such documents issued in the time of our Saxon and Norman forefathers. The words of the laws of the XII. Tables, and Magna Charta, and Charlemagne are pretty much to the same effect, but more delicate as to the language. "These things we offer to God, from whom if any take them away (i. e. the land, &c.) which we hope no man will attempt to do, but if any shall, let his account be without favour in the last day, when he cometh to receive the doom which is due for sacrilege against that Lord and God unto whom we dedicate the same.—Leg. XII. Tab. Cap. II. Carol I. VI. c. 285; Mag. Chart c. 1.

"Others also, who having wastefully eaten out their own patrimony would be glad to repair, if they might, their decayed estates with the ruin they care not of what nor of whom, so the spoil was theirs: whereof in some part if they happen to speed, yet commonly they are born under that constellation which maketh them, I know not how, as unapt to enrich themselves, as they are ready to impoverish others: it is their lot to sustain during life both the misery of beggars

144

towards the north, this day Keshow Mahajun, the chief Muntree (minister) of the great king Coombadeva, the Lord of Cullianpoor, and who is born in the race of Jeemootavahana, gave in gift to the extent of its four boundaries the village Tayravutta unto Keshow Prabhuvu, at the head of 20 Brahmins, together with all the trees and its other appurtenances, with the authority of judging and punishing its inhabitants, and with all the treasure and deposits that may be hidden in it. The names of the Brahmins are, 1st, Keshow Prubhuvu: 2nd, Madhow Dewa of the race of Bharudwaja, to him is given all the land relating to Jhataseevara, on which Soodras subject to this village earn their livelihood; this together with the land in the vicinity of Veemalashwur Muhadeva are gifted to defray the expenses of the Pagoda: 3rd, Nagdawa Kramate of the race of Bhargava: 4th, Withul Ghaishasha of the race of Kashyuppa: 5th, Withul Ghaishasha of the race of Bhargava: 6th, Ookulla Ghai-shasha of the race of Bharudwaja: 7th, Govinda Bhut of the race of Gargeja: 8th, Soma Dewa Bhut of the race of Utree: 9th, Soma Deva Krumate, of the race of Vasishta: 10th, Keshow Bhut of the race of Vasishta: 11th, Madhow Bhut of the race of Kashyuppa: 12th, Wasoodewa Bhut of the race of Moodgul: 13th, Pudmon Bhut of the race of Vasishta: 14th, Madhow Bhut of the race of Gaurgya: 15th, Utchyoota Bhut of the race of Utree: 16th, Vamun Bhut of the race of Kashyuppa: 17th, Narayun Bhut of the race of Bharu-dwaja: 18th, Narayun Thakoor Chowtree (he is to take care of the village) of the race of Bharudwaja: 19th, Hurreedeva Bhut of the race of Bharudwaja: 20th, Teekulla Bhut of the race of Bhargava.

A permanent house in the vicinity of Dewa (Veemulashwur Muhadeo) and the orchard named Zaticka Vateeku measuring four unks (a land measure) are also given in danu to Go-ool Raool, the son of Jalhunna Raool, presenting him with a gift, a deed engraved on copper-plates.

May the kings of the race of Koombadeva or those of other race protect (the gift of) the village; may they, from the merit of this gift, be qualified to govern the whole earth.

From the great King Suggur downwards many, &c. &c.—
(see the last three paragraphs of the preceding inscription, which
exactly correspond with the concluding passages in this inscription.)

and the infamy of robbers. But though no other plague and revenge should follow sacrilegious violation of holy things, the natural secret, disgrace and ignominy, the very turpitude of such actions in the eye of a wise understanding heart is itself a heavy punishment." Hooker's Eccl. Polity, book 5, vol. 2. p. 462.

A Copy of an ancient grant of land in the
Original Sunskrit, found at the Village
of Kushelw in the Viprodog Talooka
in the Konkun dated in the year of
Thalivahan 1113 in this year of the cycle
named Virodhukrit.

कशीवीगांबचेनान्नपटया चीनकल शोधित

स्वस्तिश्रीः जयत्याविक्षूनंविष्णोर्वार्शहं श्वोभिनार्णवं दशिणोज्ज
नदंष्टाय्रविश्वांनुभुनंबसुः आशीह्द्याधरः पूर्वेनाम्जीमूर्तवा
हनः परार्थंजीवितंनेनगरज्ञायनिर्विहिनं शिलाहाराश्वचंशोयंन
गरेश्वरभूभूतो तहं शेजनिगोराजाजनिभूपृष्ठिरुवामणिः स्व
स्तिश्रीजनिग्निश्चितीशतनयोनायथम्मनामानुपः पुत्रस्तस्यच्चंद
राष्ट्रपृथ्युषशा स्तस्यापिसूजुः किल संजानोजनिगोजगज्जननु
तः श्रीमांश्च नन्दंद्नो गोंकल्लो पुविपूर्मिपालनिलकस्त्याप्य भू
दाद्हितः गृवलेशो थनद्गनाकीर्निराजोतुजोस्यच्चंद्रादित्यइं
निख्यात श्चकेराज्यमकंटके श्रीमद्गोंकलभूमिपालननयः श्रीमा
रसिहोनृपस्तस्तृब्दुर्वैषमोलिलालिनपदः श्रीगृवलाख्योनुपः
तद्गनाभुविभोजदेवनुपतिर्वर्षीभवेचाननश्चकेराज्यमरबं डिनं
पृथ्युषशालं केशुल्यंकिल तस्यातुजानोविदिनप्रनापोबल्ला
लदेवस्थितिपःसदेव श्रीकामिनी शोबिनताबनी शोदिच्छानं रु

ट:

३: प्रथित प्रतापः तस्यातुजो धर्मपरे धरित्यांदधारवर्णानखिलान्त्व धर्ममै धैर्याग्रधुर्यो धनदो धनानांशीगंडरादित्य इन्दितसिद्धः दीनाना थदरिद्दुः खबविकल्याकीर्णनाना विधराणित्राणपरायणः सतिदिनंगु मार्च्यदानेनयः यः कृष्णाजिनधेनु भूम्युभयतौ मुरच्या द्दानसदः शश्बद्भल्मनिः सबीणहृद्यो भूत्तदेवकल्येदुः तुलापुरुषदानाद्दिषोदशक्तुकारकः शोचगोगेयक्षित्येकनिलयः स्वगुणेणुवित तन्नंदनः सबलमंडलिकद्दिपेंद्रपंचान नोजमिजगन्तित यैकेवीरः सत्यर्थिपार्थिवलाटतस्स्थपादपीठः स्कुटोज्ज्वलयशीविज्ञाकर्कदेवः दानायद्विणाजनंजनपरित्राणायबीरब्रन्तस्यायशिष्टभाषणं हरिपदध्यानायचेतःस्थितिः संपन्निःरूपमनोविपद्दिगत येयस्यप्रक्रमांकविः कःशक्तः सबिबिच्यतस्यविजयाद्वित्यस्यबकुंगुणान्त येनस्थानकमंडलेतद्धिपाभ्रष्टाः पुनःस्थापिनागोबायांपरिणष्टभूमिपतयः रूपस्थापिनास्तेजसा यस्तर्व्येनचबक्वर्निष्ठबर्षीमापातुलोविज्जणस्तोभूष्ट्वीविजयाकीदेव नृपातिवैर्षीभकर्कीरवः तन्नंदनः सकलदिक्तटबर्निकीर्न्थूभंगमात्रपरिसाधितवैरिवर्गः विश्वभराभरधुरीणभुजः सदैव विभ्याजने नृष्ठबरोधुविबोजनदेवः संग्रामांगणभैरवः श्लितिभुजोसंहारभेरीरवः कीर्त्याक्रीतजगज्जयलुतुभृतांनिर्धूतनापत्रयः श्लीरलाशियनंदनः परिजनानंदैकसंकेंदनः शास्त्राशेषमहीनलः सजयता व्द्यूभीभोजरत्नाच्चनः स्त्तिसमधिगतपंचमहा शब्द महामंडलेश्वर तगरपुरबराधीष्टवर्जनमनोसुरागसागरप्रवर्धनशरब्जेंड्र शीशालहारनरेंद्र विद्यञ्जनमनोरथफलसद्पारिजान जीवूतबाहुना

न्यय

न्ययसपूर्तत विरोधिभराधीशबेशगहनदहनधूमध्जन रिपुमदेभविद्लनोल्कंटकंवीरव मंडलिकभैरव विद्विष्टमंडलिकपन्नग वैनतेय शोचगोगेय युवतिजनमनःसंमोहनाभिनवकंदर्षमरुबकसर्प श्चतियशिर्भामधा श्राविजयाद्वित्यदेवसिंह साहसोतुंग अरिन्द्रपालजन्यलश्मीसमाकर्षणमंत्रसिद्धै शनिवारसिहू सकलशास्त्रपाराबारपारयण रूपनारायण सकलज गतीजनस्तुय इंदुबराद्वित्य जयपत्ताकापवनविधटिनाराति सेनाघन गिरिदुर्गलिंघन उष्टनधराधीशकुलशिर्खरिकुलिश लकिगल्लकु श बीरलश्मीलनालेबन सबचेंड भुजदेंड मंडलिकजबदेंड मंडलिकनरनारसिहू मंडलिकबेशया धुनंग बलवद्विरितुरेगमंघइ वैरिषरइ अरसासवारिमदनहेश्वरसतापलंकेश्वर मंडलिकगंडपंडार एकांगवीर शरणायातभूभृन्निवहरक्षणसमुद्र परबलविलयकालजिरनूद्र सर्गीतकुनिचातुर्यहर्षित शिबोतरेग स्रशस्तबक्कविता सप्रसंग विधिधर्मनिर्माणनित्यसमोद श्रीमहालश्मीदेवीलब्धवरसादा हेदसमस्तराजाबलीविराजित श्रीमत्स्महामंडलेश्वर श्रीभोजदैवः पद्धतनालदुर्गेंरूपसंकथाविनोदेनराज्येकुर्वणः शक्वर्षेवुसत्रयोद्शाशनाधिकसहन्नेषुगतेनु वर्तमानविरोधिकृतसंतरेष आषाढशुद्धचतुर्थ्यान्वृत्तस्यतिबारे द्शिणायन संक्रमणापवर्णनिभिन्न कुमारगंडराद्वित्यविज्ञापनेन तस्याभ्युद्यार्थं अष्टबिरेकंपणमध्यवर्निकसंलिखामे प्रातिदिनंद्रद्शशास्त्रणभोजनार्थं तङ्गामधिंडा द्शानुद्यंच्येसर्वे तत्रत्यगोवितः द्शपट्टहस्ते धारापूर्वकंसर्वनमस्ये सर्वभाषापरिहारें राजकीया नाम

["नामनंगुलिमेक्षणीयमावेज्जाकेस्रादार नम्ब्रस्यामस्मिमीमा\nपूर्वस्योदिशाकुरलमामनदी दश्लिपास्योदिशामस्ताबुरेरेन्द्रमस्तु\nक्षेतोत : पश्चिमस्योदिशारम्भिर्निर्मित : उन्हस्योदिशारम्भिर्निर्मित\nविकारस्कद्रशुक्तस्नोत : अवेबेबेहरिकस्कदिशारम्भिर्निर्मित\nवृन्दसीमा बढुनिर्वक्तधादनारायनसिंहसगरादिशिक्षस्वमस्तु\nस्ययहोदभूमिसम्बन्धनम्बरहोदकले महिन्द्रस्यामस्तु\nजागापादवेनमस्योसुमिर्वभूमिपालय : जागापादवेनमस्योसुमिर्वभूमिपालय\nमिमसमस्यानंदेस्योमावरस्वामिर्वभूमिस्तु वर्षदम्बर्दमस्तु\nकृषिबन्धायद्याप्तिबन्धायद्याप्तिबन्धायद्याप्तिबन्धायद्याप

STATISTICS OF THE WESTERN COAST OF INDIA; BY MAJOR T. B. JERVIS OF THE ENGINEERS. EXTRACTED FROM A MEMOIR OF THE KONKUN DRAWN UP IN 1823 — 30.

The following brief notice of the population, and its classification and distribution; — as well as the geographical distribution of the more remarkable plants on the Western coast of India, comprises within a small compass a large amount of most interesting information, which may probably stimulate enquiry, and lead to the investigation of the population and resources of other portions of the British territories with which we are at present but imperfectly acquainted. The originals of the tables here presented to the reader, were accompanied with illustrative maps exhibiting at one view, by proper colours, divisions and printed remarks, all that the Geographer or Botanist could have desired, as to the precise limits, and other points, connected with the vegetation of this region. Without pretending to unimpeachable accuracy, the generality of the subjects have been drawn up with so much attention and exactness as entitles them to consideration for their specification and details.

### 1. — Sketch of the Geographical Distribution of the most remarkable and useful families of plants on the Western Coast of India.

CEREA LIA. The corn produce of India may be generally considered, at present, as that of its natural indigenous locality. Its abundance therefore is circumscribed only by the indolence and apathy of the agriculturists, and the two great physical causes which retard the extension of plants in all parts of the earth: soil and climate; (in which last, are comprehended both that dependent on absolute elevation, or latitude, and the seasons). The subjects of culture express therefore with tolerable accuracy, the general difference between the climate of the narrow belt of land from Cape Comorin to the Nurbudha, bounded on either side by the Indian Ocean and the Suhya purwut, or western range of Ghats, and the upland elevated tracts which slope gradually from the Nilgherry mountains and the crest of the Ghats, the one South Easterly, the other North Easterly, towards the Bay of Bengal and the Northern Circars. In all the lowest regions of the former, rice of every variety is the staple produce; in the more dry and mountainous parts, Hureek (paspalum frumentaceum) Wurree (Panicum brizoides). Naglee, or Nachnee, (Cynosurus coracanus) and several other small grains, the cultivation of which is altogether determined by the periodical rains: the produce of all indeed, in good seasons, is prodigiously great. In the second or upland tracts above the Subya mountains, wheat, barley, jowarree (holcus sorghum), hurburra (cicer arietinum), indigo, maize (zea mays) mustard, cotton, Sugarcane, and second to these, by means of artificial irrigation, the various products foreign to these regions, as tobacco, coffee, the poppy, potatoes and European pulses. Wheat and barley indeed are both foreign grains, but have been so long cultivated in all parts of Europe and Asia, that it is not yet known in what part of the earth they are indigenous. Their existence bespeaks a very extensive intercourse between the inhabitants of central Asia, their supposed native site, and the surrounding nations at a very remote period. The introduction of these grains into Spanish America is due to the benevolence of a monk, one of the very few blessings to compensate for the miseries entailed by the conquests, and cruelties of the first European discoveries of those fertile and beautiful regions.
The total area or absolute quantity of land now under cultivation, waste, or capable of being turned to account, is as follows: —

The area of the North Konkun, prior to 1830, was 4,524 square miles; the area of the south Konkun, 5,232; the Portuguese territories, 1,402 square

["## Tabular Summary of the Average Annual produce of the Portuguese Territories — continued.", "<table><thead><tr><th rowspan=\"3\">Area or Provinces.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Number of<br>Prove.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Canad.<br>Manos.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Arraete.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Num<br>ber</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Cham.<br>Manos.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Man.<br>Arraete.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Pepper<br>vines.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Produce</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Salt.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Flax.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Coffee trees.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Teak or<br>Terra Ja-<br>ponica.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Wax.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Kath or<br>Terra Ja-<br>ponica.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Timber trees not producing fruit.</th><th rowspan=\"3\">Total of Trees of all sorts.</th></tr><tr><th colspan=\"2\">Fruit bearing trees.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Mango trees.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Teak trees.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Palm trees.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Bentleak.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Pan de Roza.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Voncolaras.</th><th colspan=\"2\">Canelas.</th></tr><tr><th>Jack trees.</th><th>Rambod trees.</th><th>4,865</th><th>312</th><th>46</th><th>75</th><th>70</th><th>50</th><th>600</th><th>7</th><th>40</th><th>248</th><th>31</th><th>140</th><th>95</th><th>252</th><th>1</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>217,516</td><td>713</td><td>9</td><td>30</td><td>4,890</td><td>16</td><td>15</td><td>13</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>221,126</td><td>171</td><td>5</td><td></td><td>525</td><td>1</td><td>10</td><td>13</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>15,820</td><td>211</td><td>13</td><td>7</td><td>3,881</td><td>1</td><td>7</td><td>19</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>5,250</td><td>2</td><td>10</td><td>2</td><td>1,055</td><td>1</td><td>17</td><td>17</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>2,855</td><td>9</td><td>13</td><td>4</td><td>191</td><td>1</td><td>13</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>32,621</td><td>301</td><td>14</td><td>3</td><td>3,728</td><td>9</td><td>4</td><td>8</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>32,325</td><td>351</td><td>5</td><td>16</td><td>675</td><td>15</td><td>8</td><td>12</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>72,012</td><td>145</td><td>11,386</td><td>3</td><td>6,767</td><td>3</td><td>8</td><td>6</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>34,714</td><td>913</td><td>13</td><td>3</td><td>10</td><td>9</td><td>4</td><td>13</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>38,587</td><td>401</td><td>5</td><td></td><td>990</td><td>6</td><td>2</td><td>6</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td></td><td>150</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody><tfoot><tr><td></td><td>856,655</td><td>1,109</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>68,933</td><td>44</td><td>17</td><td>92</td><td>125</td><td>15</td><td>0.557</td><td>4</td><td>24</td><td>543</td><td>4</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>7,477</td><td>18</td><td>1</td><td>4</td><td>218</td><td>0</td><td>3</td><td>256</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>18</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>74,554</td><td>106</td><td>18</td><td>1</td><td>5,794</td><td>4</td><td>8</td><td>3</td><td>815</td><td>1</td><td>0.10</td><td>16</td><td>10</td><td>1,084</td><td>14</td><td>97,324</td><td>27</td><td>6</td><td>661</td><td>7</td><td>28</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>54,406</td><td>471</td><td>11</td><td>2</td><td>9,448</td><td>3</td><td>19</td><td>12</td><td>3,364</td><td>12</td><td>6</td><td>3</td><td>16</td><td>1,013</td><td>6</td><td>19,205</td><td>17</td><td>4</td><td>834</td><td>11</td><td>1</td><td>3</td><td>31</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>19,938</td><td>170</td><td>2</td><td></td><td>1,453</td><td>4</td><td>9</td><td>4</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tfoot></table>", "Note. The weights of Go agree with those of the adjoining states of Sawant, Wares, Comas, and the Mharatta states. In all matters of revenue, and transit trade 244 arraetes or Rattu one mun; 20 mun = 1 Candin; but in Caximias, the arraetes of Portugal of 38 lbs British are 157 lbs average, are commonly used; = 1 Candin = 3 Kocos; = 1 Candin = 3 Kocos one man, or man; 20 Candins = 1 Kocos one Koores; = 1 Koores one Koores one Koores. The Koores is 462.28 cubic inches English; the Candin 8065.6 or rather less than 40 gallons, corn measure, British.", "", "", "### LEGUMINOSE.\nThe observations of Decandolle on the plants of this order are singularly illustrated in many beautiful specimens of the indigenous productions of the Western coast of India. The extractive principle with which they chiefly abound, furnishes many medicinal oils and gums, many which they chiefly employ, and which are used as food and cultivated by the peasantry or natives of India, it is difficult to determine, but it is probable some few are indigenous. The gum of the pods of cassia fistula (bhawe) is used as a mild laxative. Cassia fatida (yoorte) is valuable as a remedy in obstinate cutaneous eruptions. The butea, erythrina, (two species), furnish rich scarlet dyes; the indigofera, the well known blue dye; crotolaria juncea, rich scarlet dyes; the indigofera, the well known blue dye; c

8

either entirely ignorant of their value or prejudiced against them as an article of food. It is a question whether the two species the curcuma longa, or huldee, and zingiber officinale or common ginger were not introduced into India, by the early Arabian navigators from Amboyna, for I have no where found or so much as heard of these being indigenous in any parts of India. The fecula when crystallized would be a valuable article in commerce; and in seasons of scarcity, a large supply of wholesome food might be drawn from the most sterile and uncultivated tracts sufficient for many hundreds of poor. When mixed with wheaten flour it acts as a leaven, and corrects the bad qualities of old musty flour. The simple manufacture of this substance, by the maceration, washing, and comminution of the farina by repeatedly removing the water in which it is washed and evaporating to dryness, was communicated to me when the British troops first took possession of the Konkun by a native of Malabar: having pointed out the advantage of the manufacture to Mr. Hale, then Judge, he ordered it to be introduced into the Zillah Jail, and it has ever since been made in large quantities and sold to European families. It may thus in time be brought generally to the knowledge of all the poorer classes in the event of famine, even should they continue to entertain a pre-judice against it when they can obtain other food. The plants most used are curcuma aromatica and montana. The alpinia cardamomum has recently been cultivated about Rajapoor, with tolerable success, but the singular requisites for the maturity of this valuable aromatic, preclude any great expectations from its culture in fields or gardens. Plants sent to me to Belgaum completely failed in spite of every precaution owing to the excessive richness of the soil and unseasonable moisture. They are abundant and tolerably productive as far north as Soonda and Hullial, but only in the forests.

**SOLANEE.** — The order of Solanee which inhabits every climate from the utmost extremes of the temperate Zones on either side of the equator, evinces the facility and advantages of acclimating plants in lower latitudes, which are of service to mankind, either as medicines, or food. The verbascum virgatum is found in England: 48 species are found progressing thence from Germany and the South of Italy, Palestine, &c. till they reach the elevated mountains of Southern India, and Ceylon. As the plants of this order range from a cold, to a temperate, and thence to the hottest cli-mates, we find the capsicum, solanum, datura, hyoscyamus, physalis, man-dragora, and the various nicotiana, flourish with increasing vigour as they are cultivated within these limits. The verbascum blattaria naturally in-habits the upland country as far north as the Gutturbha river, and is found also on the Nilgherries, at an elevation of 6350 feet above the level of the ocean associated with verbascum linifolia. The solanum melongena is cul-tivated throughout India, as a favorite vegetable. The datura and physalis-extend from the 13th degree of latitude northerly, and the tobacco (nico-tiana tabacum) of West India agriculture, introduced into Asia about 95 years ago, though altogether of foreign origin flourishes with proportionate vigour in rich soils within the extreme limits of the natural abodes of this order. It is therefore a mere exotic on the Western coast of India, within the latitudes of the Konkun province, rather more easy of cultivation in the dry climates of the Deccan, but superior in every respect, as a subject of culture, in Goojerat, and the more northerly climate of Persia. It is the culture, in Goojerat, and the more northerly climate of Persia. It is the culture, in Goojerat, and the more northerly climate of Persia. It is the chief subject of cultivation in the rich purgunnahs of Pitlad, Neriad, and Oomreit in Goojerat, whither it is said to have been introduced 80 or 90 years ago; although in an economical view the introduction of such rich years ago; although in an economical view the introduction of such rich and valuable articles as tobacco, poppy, and indigo, is calculated to stimulate and valuable articles as tobacco, poppy, and indigo, is calculated to stimulate the avarice of the more opulent farmers, and, withdraw them from the production of articles more immediately essential to sustenance, it has the effect of alternating the crops, which otherwise natives would never think of.

9

An acre of land produces from 25 to 46 maunds of tobacco, if properly irrigated, but little more than half that quantity if exclusively dependant on the periodical rains, and dews, but the full maturity of exotics is rarely attained by artificial culture; the vegetation being to appearance more full and rapid, nevertheless altogether deficient in fibre and substance, which is the consequence of a more gradual and natural growth. With the indigenous timber trees, the reverse appears to be the case, those that grow fast-est yield the best, strongest and most durable, wood, the sole modification observable in these, is in a high or low, an open, dense, rich, or rocky soil. The quality of tobacco produced by artificial irrigation is far less valuable than that obtained without it; and these facts, as to exotic and indigenous plants, may instruct us how far we should attend to the natural processes of cultivating, and acclimating productions under like circumstances.

**MYRISTICEE LAURINEE.** Of the valuable spice bearing plants of these orders, the Myristica Moschata is found growing to a prodigious size in the forest on the ghats as far north as the Vindya range, though thinly scattered, in comparison of its abundance, in the neighbourhood of Soonda and as far south as Coorug. It is little sought after, except in North Canara, probably on account of the number of wild beasts in the forests where it is most frequent: though the size of the nutmegs and mace I collected there greatly exceeds that of the cultivated nutmeg of the spice Islands. Of the Laurinee the most abundant are the Persea, Cassia, and the Cassyta filiformis — the former the bastard cinnamon, the latter, a singular threadlike parasitical plant growing in hedges all over India, called by the natives Akash vel.

**SOILS.** The Soils of the Western Coast in an agricultural point of view, may be classed under six heads. — First, Soils containing marine deposits, a large portion of sand and other matters in concretion. — Second, Diluvial and alluvial soils, composed of various disintegrated rocks of the overlay-ing trap formation, with a very large or small proportion of calcareous sub-stances. — Third, Those at the foot of amygdaloidal rocks. — Fourth, The soils formed by the disintegration of laterite and trap with Amygdaloid. — Fifthly, Soils formed from sandstone shale, slate and granite. — Sixthly, Alluvial soils resting on granite with a considerable portion of mica. Of all these the second is by far the richest and occupies the greater part of the North Konkun, but the best soil is in the Kolwan districts below the ghats, where however unfortunately there is a great scarcity of water. — The Co-lumnar basalt formation on the North East of Salsette island marks the Southern limit of this Soil and the boundary line diverges across to Pen and the Bhor ghat, or perhaps a little more Northerly : the productivity of this soil is to be ascribed chiefly to the presence of lime which is found both in nodules, called Kunkur, occasionally as double refracting spar, and finely pulverized; there is also a great deal of vegetable matter near shores, and the banks of the rivers. The first description of soil is found all along the coast, in some places the concretion of the sand and shells is so perfect and so extremely hard, as at Salsette, Bombay, and on the coast of Gooha-ghur, in the Unjunvel district, and near Rutnagiri, that it is used for a build-ing material and resists the elements for many years. Such concretions of course can only serve as a substratum for better soil, the drifted sand forms a light shifting covering at first which the elymus arenarius and a hardy coarse grass soon binds together; the process going on, various kinds of Seilla (Squills), the pandanus, (or ketuku) and other plants carry on the work till at length there is sufficient for the cocoanut to take hold by, and fix its roots firmly, when this, the most improving of all, yields a large and useful return with little expence or labour. Such are the sites of many of the plantations of palms, won in the course of years from the ocean: and much more might be done in this way by taking a lesson from nature, and assisting

2

OAS
BORDO
DE
GERMANN
AND
DE
PÉT

10

the progress of the work by artificial means. The third description of soil
occupies the tract from the foregoing southern limit to the Mhysla district
and Rajpooree harbour — where the boundary line inclines to the South-
east, nearly parallel to the former, towards Muhabaleswur, and I have observ-
ed that the general inclination of all the boundary lines of each distinction,
is at the same angle, running parallel to each other: not only below, but
above the Ghats, till they meet the black diluvial soil of the Deccan or
western limit of the wheat cultivation. The third description of soil is
not so productive as the soil of the north Konkun, there is less indication
of the presence of lime and the amygdaloidal and quartz fragments appear to
occasion this poverty in its quality. The richness of the soil of the Northern
Districts is proverbially greater than that of the lands to the south. The
fourth description of soil is preferable to that in which greenstone and trap
is the prevailing rock. Where the laterite is not thought any thing of from
its tabular, indurated surface, the natives overlook the first operation by which
it is naturally prepared for the cultivator. The trees and shrubs are cut
down year after year, which if suffered to grow would break up the rock and
allow the introduction of earthy matters to form the bed for new vegeta-
tion, and gradually pulverize and bring its ochreous and earthy particles in
contact with the air, in which case, it would soon be fitted for the smaller
kinds of corn which is raised on hill lands in India. In all the valleys the
recurrence of this natural process assisted by the periodical rains, has formed
many rich and productive tracts on which the accumulation of vegetable
substances has enabled the farmer to gather large harvests of rice, and rear
the cocoanut and beetle palms, although it would appear that the proper na-
tive abode of the latter is considerably more south, probably within the 14th
degree of latitude on either side the equator.

The coloured line of demarcation* points out the peculiarities of site,
elevation, and climate, which determines each description of produce; that, is,
where it is regularly and easily matured without the labour and artifice of a
refined husbandry; for at present, except in the article of artificial irrigation,
very little or no attention is paid by any class of native farmers to rotation, or
change of crops, continual ploughing, turning up, digging, and clearing the
lands, or to the exhibition of manure, salt, or the mixture of other foreign
soils. Nor have the Hindoos any regular fallows. It is hardly possible to
calculate what might be the productiveness of India under a better system
of management since it is now so great and easily obtained. †

#### IV. — Sketch of the principal tribes or castes throughout the Konkun.

BRAHMUNS. There are two great divisions and ten distinct classes of persons who come under this denomination, the Punch Draveed, and Punch Gour; the former five acknowledging the superiority or rule of life of the Draveed or Tamil priesthood, the latter that of the Gour or Bengal priesthood. The five classes of the Punch Draveed are these, 1st Draveed, 2d Tylung, 3d Kurnatuk, 4th Maharashtru, 5th Goojur. The five classes of the Punch Gour Division are, 1st Gour, 2d Saruswut or Shenwe, 3d Kanyukoobju, 4th Ootkul and 5th Mythil. The four first classes of the first, or Punch Draveed division,

* We regret we are not able to publish the colored maps which illustrate the little notices here presented to the reader, of the population produce, &c of the Konkun.

† The average revenue of the whole Konkun, north and south for 13 years including sayer, land revenue, land and sea customs (British) was Rs. 35,67,922. Bowra chief's rental, Rs. 33,276. Goa, Rs. 10,25,619. Duman, Rs. 2,79,477. Bombay land rental, 70,437. Angria's, 1,29,770. Hubshee's, 1,12,447. Warree chief, 3,66,760. Jowar chief, 12,000. The Veshalgurh and Sucheen, about Rs. 8000. Total Rs. 56,05,708, commuted at the rate of Rs. 10 to the pound = £560,571, or about Rs. 423 per square mile.

11

and, 2d of the second, or Punch Gour, division, are chiefly located throughout Peninsular India. The Draveed on the coast of Coromandel, Malabar and Tanjore; the Tylung, in Telingana, Orissa, Kuttak, the Nizams dominions and Northern Circars; the Kurnatuk, in the countries South of the Toongabhuddra; the Goojur in the Province of Surat, but more particularly throughout Goojerat and Rajpootana; the Mharatta throughout Berar, Kandeish, the Decan or late Peishwas Dominions and the Konkun; lastly the Saruswut, or Shenwee Brahmuns, in the Southern districts of the Konkun. These six sects above mentioned are further distinguished into two orders, the first styled Smartal, men who observe the law; Yujoorvedee readers of the Yujoorved; and Sheewubughturs worshippers of Sheeva, the second Vyshnoovus or Vishnoobhugt, worshippers of Vishnoo, and Rigvedee readers of the Rigved, the one origin was near Ahmednuggur; the Tirgool, Kanow, and Prutbum Shakee, to Bagulkota, Raichoor, and a few in the ceded districts of Mysore; besides these are many other classes numbering very few families in each of all which are off sets by interdicted marriages or delinquences with other castes of the Maharashtra order; the Deshust and Konkunnust are the wealthiest, most powerful and numerous: the Kools, families, or patronymics are not enumerated; the Kokunust comprise first the Chitpawuns who reckon 64 Kools, families, or patronymics, 2d the Kurade, 3d the Deorookhee, 4th the Pulsya, 5th Goluk, 6th the Juwul, the three last are of illegitimate or uncertain Original. The Shenwees or Saruswut Brahmuns of the Punch Gour, or engal division, have added also another illegitimate race the Koodaldehyskur Brahmuns, who are located in the Southern districts; of these various classes it would be impracticable to sum up a more faithful and just character than in the celebrated words of Passienus regarding his master Caligula; Nemo servus fuit melior, nemo dominus deterior. They are excellent as servants, but as masters, intolerable.

MHRATTAS. In its general acceptation this term is applied to every
class of the natives of Maharashtra but by the Hindoos themselves, it is re-
stricted to the original Rajpoot or other northern colonists, or emigrants, who
settled here in the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era, and to their li-
neal descendants. The chief of these are distinguished among themselves
in common with the Mharatta Brahmins by the title of Row and all wear
the Janwa or sacrificial thread, they arrogate to themselves a great superiority
over the other races of Hindoos; claiming to Kshutriyu descent, which the
Brahmins protest against, as unfounded, averring that they are Shoodrus.
The families of most note are the Powars, Jadows, Mohitye, Ghorpure, Ambre,
Nimbalkur, Soorve, Khanveetkur, Mankur, Maloosre, Kurude, Bhonsle, Cho-
wan, Ghag, Sirke, Shinde, Gaekwar, Humbeer, Kudum, Jugtap, and many
others; these have multiplied and spread in every direction and not a few ri-
sen to extensive power and sovereignty.

PURBHOOS. There are three distinctions of this industrious race, all of
whom devote themselves to the service of writing, either in the English, or

12

Native languages: the first in rank is the Kayusth Purbhoo, or Kast Purvoe as they are misnamed by ignorant persons, second Patanee Purvoe, third Downe Purbhoo; last the illigitimate offspring of the second class. The Kayusth Purbhoo, are found at Bombay, Tannah, Chewul, Wussyee, Callian, and a few at Surat; their occupation is that of English copyists at which they attain to a surprizing degree of neatness, accuracy, and dispatch, considering their utter ignorance of the purport of the greater part of what they transcribe: they are faithful servants of the British Government. They are rarely cultivators either of their own or rented lands. The second class Kayusth Purbhoos, are found in the Sanksee, Kurnala and Rajpooree Prants, chiefly about Nagotna, Tulla, the Hubshees country, and the chief towns of the Rygurh Talooka, Mhar, Goregaon Toodeel, Nateh, Beerwaree and Poladpoor, their occupation is that of native copyists in which they are laborious and expert; their acquirements are quite those of the village school, extending to plain work, where no great exercise of the understanding is required. They neither eat, nor intermarry, nor claim to any connection with the Patanee Purbhoos and the third or Downe Purbhoos is cut off from relationship with both classes; the latter are few in number, and reside in the Portuguese Territories where their pedigree is not much cared for. There are a few families of the Downe Purbhoos at Bombay. The Kayusth Purbhoos cultivate their own land, and are the chief village officers of Sanksee, Ouchitgurh, Rajpooree, and Rygurh Talooka, also in the principal Revenue Offices in the Northern Concan, and some few at Rutnagherry and Poona (about the Collectors); they sometimes embrace the Military profession, but very rarely under the British Government: they are cunning, intriguing, and cowardly, but may improve by intercourse with the world and a better education.

The Patanee Purboos claim descent from Chandrasenu Raja and to come from Puttun, whence they obtain their name.

**KOOLEES.** These people according to their own traditionary accounts have extended themselves in remote times from the same stock and class as the Koolees of Guzerat, but have only the superstitious uncivilized character, without the bravery and enterprise, of their northern brethren. They devote themselves to hunting and the cultivation of the hill grains, and such other rude descriptions of husbandry as require no great foresight or labour; they are pooly clad, and housed; subsisting in good seasons for a few months on th e produce of their lands and trusting during the rest, to the resources of the chase and whatever roots and leaves they can find in the woods.

**WARLEES AND THAKOORS.** A wild uncivilized race, resembling the Gonds of Telingana, they are unsettled in habits, subsisting as they can at one time by the chase, in plunder, or when these fail them, on the fruits, roots, and leaves, of their native woods. Having no inducements of good treatment from their more civilized fellow creatures, their natural ferocity, sullenness, anshyness is increased to a degree that renders them insufficient to the Hind doors of the open country who believe them endowed with all the powers of necromancy, and witchcraft. With his bow and arrow the Thakoor is a match for the Tiger, and so expert and quick as to find himself abundant sustenance when roused from his natural indolence by the cravings of hunger. I took out a party with a number of gentlemen who chanced to cross my path when surveying in the woods, and after we had rambled about the hills for some hours, the party begged to retire promising to bring us their sport; in the course of three hours they returned with a Samber, or Elk, a hog deer, a hare and some spurfowl, besides what they might not have thought fit to offer us, all gained by dint of hot pursuit and skilful archery, their dwellings are rude in the extreme, and their vestments confined to the least appendages of decency: their marriages are contracted quite differently from that of the

01
The
Ganesh
Man
To
Poo.

13

followers of Hindooism, by the choice of the female from among many males whom she points out by preceding the man from a place selected as the spot for her to determine: and they all contract marriages after puberty.

**RAMOOSEES, BERUDS, WUDDARS.** These tribes present the first connecting links between the most uncivilized Coolees and Bheels and the Koombees or humblest description of the Hindoo agriculturists. They retain a great deal of the thievish adventurous character of the former with the simplicity and bluntness of the latter. They have spread over a large tract of country and are employed as a precautionary measure in most villages of the Deccan as guards and watchman. Their easy return to a life of plunder on any favorable opportunity speaks very little for their attention to agriculture or any quiet useful occupation. It is not likely that these and other wild tribes will use the power of showing their collective strength so long as the British Government retains its present vigour, but an irruption such as that of the Pindarries would bring them all together and give us indescribable trouble, if their interests are not now consulted in time of peace.

**KATHKUREES.** An uncivilized race of people who occupy the fastnesses of themountains below the Ghats from the district of Shapoor, (Lat. 18° 30' North), to the Kheir district, (Lat. 17° 30') they go by this name from their chief means of livelihood, although there are other people also of the poorest classes, but of Mharatta origin, as far south as the frontiers of Corug, who likewise prepare the Kath or Terra Japonica, a valuable species of astringent medicinal drug exported in considerable quantities to Europe, containing rather more than half the quantity of Tannin or 55 parts in 100. The annual quantity of Kath or Catechu exported by sea from the Konkan probably 1100 maunds or 25 cwts. English, amounts in value to 10.915 Rupees which finds its way principally to Europe. It is bought up by the petty traders from the Kathkurees, in consideration of trifling advances in money, and a few articles of the coarsest kind of clothing; but the ignorance in which they are kept of the ultimate sales operates equally to keep this class in their present degraded state, and to set limits to the more extended introduction of this article in India and Europe for curing of leather, in which it is more especially useful. They migrate from place to place without any fixed abodes, and do not cultivate grain of any kind.

**AGREES, KARVEES, GABEET, GOWDES.** These are all aboriginal races probably kooles, who having no longer any opportunity of plundering, and being deprived of all their land by the Mharrattas and Mahommedans, have taken themselves principally to fishing and the manufacture of salt, or occasionally the collection of wax and honey. As sailors they are a bold and active class of people, who might be trusted with a vessel in the worst weather; they are all given to drinking and are still in every part of their character the exact counterpart of the kooles: they are found under different names all along the coast of India. In Canara they are chiefly called Gowdes and could always be recognized there, by the enormous masses of beads with which they decorate their women; a necklace of beads might probably weigh from two to three pounds.

**PARSEES.** The first emigrants of this ancient race, driven by the Saracen persecution, from their native land to the mountains of Kohistan, thence to the province of Ormus in Persia, betook themselves for security first to Diu, the Southern promontory of Kattiawar, and finally sought refuge at Sunjun or Sunjan and Dhanoo, where they arrived A. D. 716, in the 85th year of Yezdegirds aera. Being favorably received by the Hindoo princes of the country, they gradually extended themselves along the whole line of coast north and south, and established their sacred fire at Oodwarra, about five miles north

14

of Downe, or Duman, where it is still kept up. They appear to have entered into certain stipulations with respect to animal food, and the religious observances practised by the Hindoo towards kine, which formed no essential part of the Sabian worship. They are a peaceable and wonderfully industrious body of people, of very marked and fine countenance, open, manly, and the PARSIS FOR THE COW. THE BOHORA'S.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORIENTAL CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

Sir,—In the interesting paper by Major Jervis on the Statistics of the Western Coast of India published in your December number, I find it stated ap. 538, that tobacco was introduced into Asia only 95 years since. I should like to know the learned officer's authority for such a statement. In an order by Rao Raidenji of Kach now before me, taken from the original and authentic records of the Bhuj Darbár, and dated Kártiksud, viz. 1706 or about November of A. D. 1649, I find a seer of tobacco among other articles enumerated as the perquisite of the party charged with the enforcement of the order. Major Jervis' record was drawn up in 1823, yet this extract from the Durbar records evinces that tobacco had been introduced at least 194 years before the period.

We know that it was introduced into Turkey by the English in the 17th century. I forget the exact date and my authority, but the latter I think is in p. 543, that it was introduced into India by the route of the Persian Gulf as well as by the Portuguese, probably 95 is a misprint for 195 which would carry back the period of its introduction to A. D. 1628.

If it were possible to trace the history of the propagation of tobacco since its discovery, the paper would not only possess great interest but might lead to many curious and perhaps useful speculations. It was first imported about the year 1560, hardly more than 280 years since; then, it was known only to the spot where it was indigenous. What part of the world is now a stranger to this most popular of narcotics? It was first introduced into England about 1586. Potatoes, as some assert, about the same period, while tea was imported by the Dutch about 1610. All have been distinguished, but perhaps in the inverse value of their real worth. Coffee was also first made known by the enterprising Thevenot about 1650.

Again at p. 544, with, reference to the Pársís, Major Jervis observes that the religious observances practised by the Hindú towards kine formed "no essential part of the Sabian worship"— perhaps not. Yet that the followers of Zoroaster regard the cow and its products with a superstitious veneration, independently of any contact with the Hindós, may be inferred from Sir John Chardin's * minute account of the practices of the Persian Pársís, as

* See his Travels in the middle of the 17th century. I refer, from memory.

he witnessed them himself, and as he had learnt from authentic sources. Indeed from the admirable extracts from Mr. Elphinstone's India, it would appear that they are not a whit behind their Hindú brethren in all puerile and debasing superstitions. Can you refer me to any good authority on the origin of the respect paid by Pársís to this very dull and useful animal ?

Again the origin of the Bohorás noticed in the same page is subject well worthy of inquiry. The peculiarities of their religious creed have never been published. As regards the ingenious suggestion that they are the descendants of the Hasánis of Egypt, I may observe that the learned Von Hammer in his history of the Assissins, proposes them to be the remnants of one of the sects of those Ismailís. The chief seat of their power to the successors of Jinghiz Nanláki Khan, I believe, but I have here no access to any books of reference. Von Hammer suggests that fugitives may have found their way on this occasion to India, Arabia, &c. where the Bohorás now flourish. It is singular that this should be the opinion of several Mulláhs of the orthodox Suní persuasion with one of whom I was only the other day conversing on this subject. The Ismailís however were Shiáhs though

the Sara-shelter in the coast of Persia, they have a area about Nizam-á-bly about a cter for plling mix-and-mix which the Chris-he native d-cleanli-the weal-ns for all the pre-Queens, a priest is but occa-from Per-

s a sect of England on which though and Chota their pa-commu-Cazees: ship with son those he latter, their pur-to avoid ing since h, blend-god with which and bi-ir, Luck-ian else-the Indus forming the three se state-

colonists

15

correspond with the Moplays of Malabar, but in cases of emergency refer with equal confidence to the gods of the Hindoos, as the followers of the prophet; their occupation is that of fishing and making cotton yarn, nets and rope of all sorts.

### HUBSHEES OR ABYSSINIANS.
The little colony of this people stretching from 18 to 19° North Latitude on the Western Coast, had its origin, not in any commercial enterprise, but in the policy of the first Mahometan king of the Deccan; who instructing their own relatives and dependants as well as the people they had subjected rallied around them all the brave and adventurous foreigners who had distinguished themselves in battle and thus formed a mixed body of active household troops. Georgians, Circassians, Moghuls, Patans, Arabs, Hubshees or Abyssinians, and Toorns: many of these deservedly rose by their merit, fidelity and prowess, to the highest offices of the state. The Abyssinians especially intermarried with the families of the kings, and being deputed to distant commands they were obliged to assert their independance, and defend themselves against their aspiring neighbours in default of that support and countenance which their own masters either could not, or would not afford them. Thus rose the Hubshee or Abyssinians colony of Dunda, Rajpooree, A. D. the first chieftain being invested with discretionary power to make conquests was forced eventually to make good his stand against the Maratha and Mahometan armies of Beeja-poor by the exercise of the sovereign power, which he eventually proffered as a dependency, on the pleasure of the Emperor of Delhi, and to effect this, invited, in his turn, others of his countrymen, and adventurers in like circumstances who there took up their permanent abode. Their numbers are not considerable, probably about 70 families: they have also another small settlement at Jaffrabad on the coast of Kattiawar from which they still maintain occasional intercourse with their parent country but generally speaking do not intermix with the Mahometan families of India; the poorer sort marrying Seedees or slaves or the mixed descendants of the Hubshees and Seedees. Hence they have got the misnomer of Seedee.

### SLAVERY.
In 1824 there were 13,580 slaves and the offspring of slaves in the South Konkun Zillah, distinguished as follows; Hindoo Gholool, males 3576, Ghoolamchee Female slaves 3369. Moosulman Gholool 94 males, 33 females. Hindoo Butkees 1737 males, 4547 females. Moosulman Butkees 41 males 183 females. In the Portuguese Viceroyalty of Goa there were 802 male African slaves, and 952 females, total 1754 slaves, not manumitted; those who have been manumitted are still considered in some degree bondsmen.

### EDUCATION.
In 1824 there were 5080 children of all classes and ages instructed in the rudiments of reading writing and arithmetic, of which 5 only were girls, throughout the whole Southern Konkun Zillah, in 160 villages there were therefore 2080 villages without any school either private or public. The number of boys under 12 years according to the census was 123,652 girls 77,409. There were three public free schools, the principal of which at Rutnagiri had 146 children, another at Nandewre 44, a third at Chiploon had 32: of the total number educated 1354 were Brahmuns, and the aggregate expence of the instruction of 4858 children was 13,295 Rupees per annum defrayed entirely by themselves. The number of private village schools had increased from 86 to 160 in four years, and the number of scholars from 1500 to 5800, after this period the Scottish and American Missionaries made still greater improvements in this important branch of moral Government which has been followed up with great success by the Church Missionaries in the Northern Concan.

18

STATISTICS OF SURAT CITY, COMMUNICATED BY MAJOR
T. B. JERVIS.

The city of Surat comprises according to a census completed in May 1816, by John Romer, Esq. Judge and Magistrate, Twenty-six thousand, seven hundred and sixty houses, and the following population.

<table><tr><td>Hindoos of all Casts</td><td>52,418</td></tr><tr><td>Moohumedans.</td><td>31,183</td></tr><tr><td>Parsees.</td><td>10,507</td></tr><tr><td>Christians.</td><td>231</td></tr><tr><td>Jews.</td><td>67</td></tr></table>

Total population 124,406

It is divided into Chuklas within the inner wall, and into Pooras between the inner and the outer walls: the boundaries of these divisions have been ascertained as nearly as practicable and laid down on the Plan. The distinct around Gopee Tulao is the only exception, being called Gopee Tulao Thana.

It has been thought sufficient to give a general idea of the population at the head of each Chukla and Poora as hereunder, but when these are very extensive, or the different classes of inhabitants much intermixed, then the description of population in every Mehla, &c. is taken notice of: this is particularly the case in the extensive Pooras of Nanpoora and Sugrampoora.

It is not to be supposed that all the space included within the walls is actually built upon: although the houses are close and compact on the lines of streets yet the spaces between the different ranges are frequently divided into many small court-yards and gardens, particularly in some of the Pooras where the streets are straight and nearly parallel to each other. When it is considered, as well as the large space taken up by cultivation, perhaps it will not appear surprising, that the total population of Surat proved by the late census, much smaller than it used formerly to be estimated.

The inner wall is in a ruinous state every where, and most so along the south face, and thence along the river as far as the Castle. The height of the Inner Wall varies from twenty to twenty-eight feet. Its thickness on the river side from ten to twelve feet, and every where else, from eight to ten feet.

1. GASTEE POORA, inhabited by all Casts.

2. SYUD POORA, the northerly parts, chiefly by Hindoos, the southerly by Moosulmans and some Parsees, the huts below the Wall by Dhers and other low casts.

3. RAM POORA, included with Mehdurpoora, and Roognathpoora in one Police division, the southerly parts chiefly inhabited by Hindoos, the northerly and the huts near the gardens, by Dhers, Wagrees, Kalpas and Bungeas.

4. ROOGNATH POORA, inhabited by Hindoos.

5. MEHDUR POORA, inhabited chiefly by Hindoos of various casts, and by some Moosulmans in the westerly parts.

6. HUREE POORA, inhabited chiefly by Moosulmans in the north and west, by Hindoos and Shrawucks in the south and east.

7. HYDUR POORA, inhabited by Hindoos chiefly in the northern parts, and by Moosulmans in the south.

8. BEGUM POORA, inhabited in the northern parts by Hindoos, in the vicinity of the Nawab's Palace chiefly by Moosulmans, in the South by Hindoos and some low casts; in the west by Borahs.

19

9. NUWA POORA, the northerly parts inhabited by Moosulmans, the southerly by Hindoos, and a great portion of the easterly by Borahs.

10. ENDUR POORA, included in Sulabutpoora by the Police, is inhabited by Hindoos and Moosulmans in nearly equal numbers and by low casts

11. GOPEETULAO THANA.

12. SULABUT POORA, the greater parts of this Poora is occupied in garden ground, it is inhabited chiefly by Hindoos and Moosulmans, but near Mahan Gate entirely by Muchees and Dhers.

13. ROOSTUM POORA, is included in Sugrampoora by the Police, and is inhabited chiefly by Parsees, where inhabited by other casts it is mentioned.

14. NAN POORA, is very extensive and inhabited by every description of people. A great part is taken up by cultivated land, and by the enclosures of the houses occupied by the European Public Servants.

15. SUKRAM POORA, inhabited by every description of people; it is very extensive, but a large space is laid out in garden ground.

1. MOOLNA CHUKLA.

2. MUCHLEEPETH CHUKLA, inhabited chiefly by Parsees.

3. RANEETALAO CHUKLA, inhabited by all casts, the Hindoos chiefly eside near the Wall.

4. CHUOKBAZAR CHUKLA, inhabited by all casts.

5. KELAPEETH CHUKLA, almost entirely inhabited by Hindoosaud Shrawucks.

6. KUNPEETH CHUKLA, chiefly inhabited by Buneeas, and is the grain market.

7. KUHEEASONEE CHUKLA, inhabited by Moosulmans and Hindoos, such as Rungrez, Choorgurhs, Cheepas, Durzees, &c. and many Marwarees.

8. BAREEPHULIYA CHUKLA, inhabited by Hindoos of all descriptions, some Moosulmans reside near the Booranoogree gate.

9. BHAGATALAO CHUKLA, the westerly parts chiefly by Moosulmans, and the rest by Hindoos of all descriptions.

10. KHAPATIA CHUKLA, inhabited by Brahmins, Buneeas, Hindoos, of every description, and some Shrawucks.

11. GOPEEPOORA CHUKLA, inhabited by Moosulmans chiefly in the western parts, and in the other by Hindoos and some Shrawucks

12. BUREKHAN CHUKLA, chiefly inhabited by Moosulmans.

13. SUNKARIYIWAR CHUKLA, inhabited chiefly by Moosulmans in the western parts, and in the eastern by various descriptions of Hindoos.

14. ASHOORBEG CHUKLA, chiefly inhabited by Moosulmans.

*Note*.— The population of the City of Surat used to be much overrated. The abovementioned census was taken with great minuteness. Yet as the people most likely suspected the object to be taxation, it may be concluded that the return from each family was as low as possible; but there is no reason to suppose that the population of Surat, allowing for this circumstance, exceeded one hundred and fifty thousand souls.

REVIEW

OF A

NARRATIVE OF THE CAMPAIGN

of the Army of the Indus

IN SINDH AND KABUL

In 1838, 1839.

BY R. H. KENNEDY, M. D.

2 VOLS. LONDON, BENTLEY.

Written for the Oriental Christian Spectator, Bombay, January, 1841.

BY MAJOR T. B. JERVIS, F. R. S.

BOMBAY:
PRINTED AT THE AMERICAN MISSION PRESS.

1841.

REVIEW.

*Narrative of the Campaign of the Army of the Indus in Sindh and Kābāl, in 1838—39.* By R. H. Kennedy, M. D. 2 vols. Bentley.

It will probably constitute one of the highest enjoyments of a future existence, to contemplate the explication of that mysterious providence which orders the movements of the human race, directing the whole machinery of the universe to one great definite end: when intellect shall be enabled to grasp the whole concatenation of moral agency, and, in a God-like spirit, to behold, and do justice to the wisdom, the patience, and the goodness, which has carried every object forward to this one issue of the Divine praise and glory. And it is our privilege to calculate, in a kindred spirit, on the result of every stirring revolution, which in these latter days is hurrying on the civilization of those dark places of the earth, reclaiming as by a miracle, from the listless stupor of death, and bringing nations, shut out from the involitions of the Gospel, to the feet of its beloved messengers. Whatever things reach us from such quarters, may justly quicken us to bestir ourselves and trim our lamps, lest the Bridegroom should come, and we find ourselves equally unimpressed with the signs of His approach, and unaffected by those sympathies which His followers are peculiarly called on to illustrate, in countries where Satan's seat is, where cold-hearted, self-dependent Idolatry steels the breasts of its votaries against all the dearest claims of social order, of fellowship, and of humanity.

As, at the eventful period of the great catastrophe which involved a world in ruin, and at that, which first brought life and immortality to light, there were those who could see nothing in the progress of events to indicate any such amazing consequences, as we now refer to as matters of scriptural record; so, there are but too many, alike indifferent to the indisputable evidences of those portentous changes in the great drama of life, and the consummation of that last act, in which all are alike interested. But one incident after another, trifling and immaterial as it may seem to us, invites reflection, and encourages us to believe this much at least, that the lofty mountains are now being brought low, and the rough places made smooth, preparatory to that general display of Gospel grace in which the Israelite, the Gentile, and the Christian, will be invited to participate in a common blessing. The narratives of the recent political changes on the Western frontiers of British India, in Central Asia, and China, must contribute, in a greater or less degree, to draw attention to those most interesting topics. Whatever be the spirit of the various writers, and however casually they may advert to some matters, which, to our minds, are among the weightiest attendant considerations of military diplomacy, there is much in them that is entitled to regard, as illustrating the character of the people and countries with which we are now brought into immediate connection.

We consider the work before us to be the production of a gifted and benevolent mind. It purports to be extracted from a private correspondence " with two near relatives whose position made it more than a mere matter of curios-

4

## Campaign in Sindh and Kabul.

ity that they should be accurately informed of every occurrence in the Camp of the Army of the Indus." It has all the freshness, occasionally, the haste, of notes taken on the spot. If duty calls upon us to say, that a witty remark may be unintentionally carried too far, and that some invidious comparisons might have been dispensed with, we are equally bound to state that the author's reflections are in general, judicious, distinguished as they are by the plainest appeals to common sense, and good English feeling. The numerous intelligent remarks interspersed throughout the work are strangely mixed up, with the Author's characteristic love of the "anecdotic." Still, none will fail to appreciate the sterling good derivable in the shape of positive ocular testimony, and the practical information which conversance with public life, and the experience of a well-spelt twenty-eight years service in India, have enabled him to bring to his subject. The topics which he suggests for our consideration are abundantly varied and awakening, but time and space scarcely permit us to allude even to those of them which are most important.

From the days of Alexander to those of Mámód, the frontier tribes of India have ranged undisturbed over the deserts and mountain fastnesses of Central Asia, which precluded the invasion of India on the one hand, and egress to its singular inhabitants on the other. Thus, through a long series of years, have they withstood the access of civilization and commerce to those remote regions where no wholesome laws could impose restraint on the worst of human passions. Hence the Sarmation horse issued forth on their forays to the westward, till the growing weakness of the Roman Empire under Constantine and his successors, and the wealth of its capital presented too strong a temptation to the cupidity of their restless hordes; whilst in the opposite direction, the Tátár races gradually extended themselves over the richest provinces of the East, and furnished successive dynasties of potentiates to the great empires of China, Japan, and India. On the Southern confines of this unfrequented region, lies Afghanistan, which has ever assumed a greater or less importance, as the adjacent powers have been concentrated and energetic. In the person of Sebaktagin, the father of the celebrated Mámód of Ghizni, it may be said to have enjoyed a peculiar distinction, as its sovereign,—the paramount influence over the whole surrounding countries of Asia. But its political existence as a monarchy, dates, at furthest, from the death of Nádir Sháh. On his arrival on the plains of Sultán Maldán, Nádir communicated to the Uzbek, Túrkomán, and Tátár chiefs, whom he had summoned to his presence, after imposing an oath of secrecy, his intention of putting to the sword all the Persians in his Camp. Of Tátár extraction, of the tribe of the Afshárs, and brought up in the nomade habits of his fathers, he seems to have largely imbibed the characteristic spirit of cruelty of these predatory people. From first to last, his career was exemplified by rapine, murder, and iniquity; and his name stands on record as one of those terrible scourges of Divine judgment, which like the pestilence, in a morbid condition of vitality, is appointed to correct the overflowings of moral depravity. His design was accidentally overheard by a Georgian slave, and the Persians having intimation that the Tátárs were sharpening their swords, decided on the immediate destruction of Nádir. He was returning from his tent when he received a mortal wound from a Persian by name Sáleh Beg. The indignant reply of the assassin to his suppliant, was a just retributive,— " You have shewn no mercy, and you deserve none."

Ahmed Sháh Abdallí, a youth of twenty three, having fallen upon a con-
voy of treasure destined for the deceased king, seized the occasion of his
presence at the head of a body of resolute Afgháns, to establish an independ-
ent throne; and to unite the fealty of those tribes, whose compulsory submis-
sion to Nádir had taught them to feel the necessity of some stronger league,

5

with a chief more congenial to their own mode of life. His decision of charac-
ter must have been singularly great, thus to associate the Belúchí, the Hazári,
the Uzbeks and the Afgháns, under one standard : but it is remarkable that the
sons of great princes rarely inherit the vigorous character of their fathers,
and in the short space of sixty five years from the death of Ahmed Sháh
Abdallí, in which the administration of a very large portion of Central Asia
was contingent on the princes of Afghanistan, one tribe after another, one
province after another, re-assumed the ancient style of plunder and law
less adventure, which that great mind had given some promise of reducing
to a better order of things.

It is not to be supposed, that the British Government could at once count-
teract the ancient and inbred feelings of animosity of the Persians and
the Afgháns; or work such a change in a society, disorganized as this, con-
federate only, in its every principle, for the perpetration of bloodshed, and
the uncontrolled license of robbery: nor is it altogether just to pass a
sweeping condemnatory sentence on the unprecedented difficulties and se-
verity which occasionally marked the march of our troops. The mode, the
terms, in which that severity was exercised, we unhesitatingly condemn, and
we could wish all our countrymen felt alike with the intelligent author, that
those vast acquisitions of power and political influence which we were per-
mitted to make over to the deposed prince, Sháh Shájah, were never entrust-
ed to our beloved country and its delegates, but with a view to the diffusion
of knowledge and liberty; to open up the great fountain-head of those bless-
ings, pure Christianity, and in the consistency of that character to set forth
every son and daughter of Britain, those especially in authority, as noble
examples of forbearance and humanity, of disinterestedness and virtue.
The follies of this, or that one man would then be immaterial to the pro-
gress of truth; and the exhibition of other kindlier virtues, would be found
of more influence in the determination of our political existence, than any
force of arms, or the lavish expenditure of any amount of treasure.

The first passage which we have marked for quotation, presents a whimsical illustration of the doctor's discursive train of thought. Products of every description and clime are of small account in the ample cast of his net.

> "The cod-sounds described as the lungs, or air vessels of the fish, are cut out, and the fish itself thrown away, not being eatable: these sounds are dried, and sold at the rate of three for a rupee, for exportation to China. When dried they are like lumps of glue; and form with the gummy bird's nests, and dried shark fins, &c. the glutinous luxury of the Chinese gourmands, who seem ingnorant of the simple fact that all gluten of animal matter may be boiled down to any particular consistence required, and that the strength of the jelly that results, depends upon the quantity and the boiling. In reference to this market, the salop misri of Ghizni, a bulbous root not unlike a small turnip, and dried in the sun for exportation, will be a valuable article, forming a finer and richer jelly than arrow root or sago." p. 42, Vol. 1.

The analogy between the substance of which the edible bird's nests are
formed, sharkfins, and the isinglass produced from the cod sounds, is all
natural enough, but in anticipation of his future elevation to the mountain
land of Ghizni, the doctor submits to his readers, the preferable quality
of the jelly obtained from salumb misri (or root of the Orchis mascula) "a
bulbous root," as he tells us, "not unlike a small turnip" to the arrow root or
sago—both plants wholly unknown to the regions under consideration. Had
he told us, on his arrival on the shores of Sindh, of any nutritious marine plant
such as that which is of so much service to our invalids, as a vegetable jelly,
on the coasts of Ireland, or that of a like description and excellence, in equal
abundance also, at the Moluccas, and Singapúr, we should not have been so

The Golden Ratio

6

much surprised by the incidental mention of vegetable, in correlation to animal jelly, as by this unceremonious transition from the finny inhabitants of the mouth of the Hajamri to the mountain products of Kabul. We would add also, in passing, that the so called cod, is far more probably a species of *polynemus*, which is found in the grand estuaries of all the principal rivers of Southern Asia, the Euphrates, Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra and Irāwādi &c., as in those of China also, * being peculiar to such localities.

The second subject, the equipment of the Commissariat, we have advertised to, as an instance of the total disregard to locality and suitableness, displayed by the Home authorities in the administrative arrangements of the several Presidencies.—A proof that legislation, to be operative and salutary, must proceed from the seat and heads of each distinct government.

"The Bombay Government were guided entirely by the Commander-in-Chief in all that related to the date of his Excellency's departure, he having fixed the day himself, and in all their arrangements for the embarkation; and by Colonel Pottinger in all that referred to the disembarkation: and they were instructed by the Supreme Government to build their reliance chiefly on the Bengal Commissariat; probably to save the expense and delays of sending stores from Bombay by sea, and transporting them through Sind, when the same could be done in less time, and more economically, from the friendly, fertile districts of the Punjaub." p. 3, vol. 1.

All this we conceive to be the result of a most unhappy measure, which perpetually cripples the movements of this Government, and we fear will one day be attended with such disastrous consequences as will necessitate modification. In the hurry with which the last charter was carried through Parliament, and with shame do we admit it, in reference to a Government over some thirty millions of souls, the probable population of this Presidency and its natural dependencies, the unlimited authority of the Supreme Government over the subordinate Presidencies, in all matters of expenditure, political arrangement, or civil administration, and the deference to the former prescribed by Legislative enactment, preclude any decisive or effectual step being taken, on occasions such as this, in anticipation of the emergencies of the service: and whether in reference to Burmah, to Afghanistan, or to China, the troops and officers could best tell how lamentably the necessary details of every sort for the nourishment and comfort of our brave men, and their patient attendants, as well as the requisite provisions for the sick and invalids, fall short of what a more unreserved confidence would ensure. In times of peace, at least, we might gather up, with all the helps of that industry and talent which our officers are ready to display, the best local information of every sort, to be used in times of necessity, or in the furtherance of civil improvement, as it may be required: but the first, and chief, desideratum is, to restore to the minor Presidencies, as before the Charter, the entire conduct of their own duties, and to leave them, solely, responsible to the authorities at home.

What is observed of the unwieldy nature of our field equipments at pages 46 to 48 is sensible enough, were it as easily reducible to practice :

"The disembarkation of an army, on a hostile Coast must be considered as an operation that levels all distinctions, every thing except the soldier and his arms being an incumbrance; so that the officer can only land, as the private lands, with his equipment, in his hands or on his back, and his Mess-provisions attended to by the General Commissariat. This must no doubt have been the routine of the peninsular expeditions; and in such cases an army of fifty

* The name given to this species of Polynemus in China, is Shekpan.

7

thousand men would have been moved with greater facility than a division of six thousand men can stir in India.

The difference of climate must make no trifling addition to the baggage of an army within the tropics; but, without reference to that essential difference, the quantity of unnecessary tents and furniture which appear in the train of an Indian camp, forms the most serious impediment to its movements.

The remedy for this would, of course, be a General Order, dispensing with the muster of tents when on field service; prohibiting more than one small tent for every two or four officers, as the case may be more or less emergent, and a slight increase to be granted by Government to the mess-allowance of regiments on field service, to secure a mess-establishment on a sufficient footing, to be able to afford loans of necessaries to officers who may be detached, and save the incumbrance and expense of each individual being burthened with a camp ease, liquor baskets, &c, and additional servants of his own. The hospital stores, too, are quadruple what is necessary, and the fact that regiments carry large slipper baths of copper and block tin, will at once show our disregard to that species of efficiency which depends on light baggage. The commissariat train surpasses all estimate, and would far exceed the belief of such officers as had never witnessed the operations of an Indian army." pp. 46. 48. Vol. 1.

But in European continental warfare, our troops had some sort of provision and shelter to look to, in the general distribution of the regiments of the army: whereas in India, they march in compact masses, over a country often denuded, as that traversed on this occasion, of every sort of necessity. The expense of our ordnance which by our author's account, is so disproportionate to that most important arm, the Infantry, is most absurdly assimilated to that species of "household management observable in certain families, where the servants are denied wholesome food; but the liversies are gorgeous, and the plate, *magnifique*, and the picture-gallery and statues worth a hundred thousand pounds"! Yet he had told us a few lines before.—

"As respects the ordnance, there can be no question, but that our artillery would decide the fate of any action we should now be involved in." p. 48.

The practice of disparaging the value of one or other arm of the service to which we do not belong, ought to find no place in men of enlarged under necessity.

The account of the transit of the Bombay column over the pontoon bridge at page 69, in connection with that instanced by Captain Havelock at Bukkur, by the Bengal Division, gives occasion to a comment in which every well wisher to this country will fully concur.

"After a march of ten miles we reached our ground, at a paltry group of hovels containing a population of probably two hundred souls and dignified with the name of Julālkot. To reach it, we crossed another of the canals of the Indus, about thirty yards wide, on a pontoon bridge, which had been prepared by the Engineer corps. It was firmly fixed; and our Regiments of Cavalry and Infantry, and heavy guns and tumbrils, each dragged by six horses passed unimpeded. The skill, and science, and energy, shown in such constructions prepare a deeply interesting lesson for the world to learn, ere it gets another thousand years older, and ere it approaches the millennium; viz. that if a tithe of the labour, the thought, and the expense, that are incurred by man for the destruction of his fellow men, were devoted to the advancement of his best interests and the promotion of his happiness, the plant would not require to be ripened by blood, nor would its fruit be sorrow; but we sow the wind, and must reap the whirlwind: a better age may come, and may bring a better temper, with a better generation." pp. 69. 70. Vol. 1.

A somewhat more imposing spectacle must have presented itself in the passage of the Bengal Column, over the bridge of boats thrown across the Indus, thus graphically described by Captain Havelock.

8

“Here a spectacle awaited the troops, which the young and enthusiastic might deem fully to repay them for all the fatigues of their precedent marches. A noble river of little less than one thousand yards in breadth is the Indus at Goth-Amil; but here, where its stream is impeded by the rocky island of Bukkur, it expands into a wide bay, to embrace and pass the obstacle, the petuosity. On either bank are here seen two large groves of date trees, clothing for a certain distance the hills of limestone rock, which stretch out like two huge arms, the one towards Cutch Gundava, the other into the territories of Meer Roostum. These wood crowned heights, though not lofty, present a striking contrast to the level plain around them, green only with corn and tamarisk bushes. The town of Roree is wholly built of sun burnt bricks; but raised on limestone crags in the bend of the little gulf, it lays claim to a wild kind of beauty: whilst on the same bank, a magnificent pile of rocks of the same formation, surmounted by the painted and glittering spires of a Zyárat gáh, and insulated, when the river is swollen, arrests the admiration of the spectator. Thence, his gaze is at length withdrawn to the fort of Bukkur, and the view into the expanded reach of the Indus below it. The sandy inlet on which this stronghold is built, would be washed away by the river, but from this low basis suddenly arises, a singular superstructure of bare limestone, in which little masses of agate flint are thickly and deeply imbedded. The isle is in length 800 yards, and in breadth varies from 150 to 100. The whole area is covered by the *enceinte* and buildings of the fortress, which into two channels, the northern of which does not exceed ninety yards, while the southern branch spreads with a whirling course towards the town of Roree to the width of four hundred and fifty. The smaller arm had already been securely bridged by nineteen boats lashed together, and the Engineers were labouring incessantly in connecting seventy five more to restrain and subdue the waters of the main stream.”

Would that our Government saw their own interests, and that of the country, by turning all the talent of this professional body, throughout India — not to mere military roads, those — make shift expedients, — or to works in which the services of a few non commissioned officers, or even natives, would do equally well; but to great and durable structures, to solid and useful undertakings, worthy of our national ingenuity and liberality: — to substantial improvements, calculated to instruct the Hindūs in the resources of art and the advantages of a judicious expenditure of capital. Such are the fruits of the varied talent of that body in our own country, in France, and the continental states, which call forth the admiration of every thinking mind.

There is, as may be well imagined, a large store of incidents and topics, on which our author has furnished many striking remarks. Leaving those of a lighter kind, however, to the criticism of other periodicals, we will at present restrict our comments to those points which present to our minds matter most worthy of recommendation, as objects of enquiry or graver notice.

The ephemeral character of Eastern cities, forces some salutary considerations on the sensibilities of every passer by, which we, in Europe, do not find ourselves accustomed to entertain, in consequence of the very different habits of society, and the objects, for which we are brought together. The Doctor's reflections on Diu, Deman, and Goa, show concisely what has contributed to raise, and what to deteriorate the value of colonial cities.

“It is as nests of the wretched slave trade, for which alone the Portuguese settlements of the Mozambique exist, that they ought to be dispossessed by fair means if possible; if not, by foul: we can never prevent the importation of African slaves at Diu, Deman, and Goa, from Africa, except by amount to. Diu is a regular fortification, and holds a conspicuous place in the early history of European settlements in India; but is now a wretched place with a paltry establishment; and the few survivors of its former popu-

9

JUDGMENT

OF

THE

COUNCIL

OF

STATE

APPEALS

9

lation miserably poor. Several lofty Church towers are seen, as at Goa, Basseen, and Deman, above the ramparts; and would seem to indicate that the ‘milk white hind’ in her rambles on this coast, could not have been contented with “a voluntary system” share of the rich man’s purse, or the poor man’s labour! A Portuguese naval officer at Goa once said to me, when admiring the Cathedral architecture of the churches there, “If our ancestors had built forts and trained battalions, as your early governments did, instead of wasting their resources on churches and on monks, we might perhaps, have been what you are. Perhaps they might, but what is written, is written!” pp. 14, 15. vol. I.

And then comes a passing remark on the fate of Somnáth Pattan and Chandrátáti. The writer of this article having had the privilege of inspecting the state archives of the Portuguese possessions in Asia, was much struck with the good sense of the illustrious Albuquerque, who in one of his letters to his sovereign, inculcates the paramount importance of attending to commerce and peace, rather than a wild, speculative, invasion of the rights and feelings of the people of India, by conquest and mere proselytism. Conquest, for the sake of empire, was never blest in the issue, nor has religion, imposed on the consciences of men by sword or compulsion, ever fulfilled the intentions of its bigot propounders. It was this great man’s lot to be born in an age of Crusading discovery which set no limits to the acquisition of empire and wealth, “by fair means” “or by foul:” and the only hold the Portuguese had on such conquests, was the construction of forts, of which many examples display the ruinous folly of mere military occupation — and Diu among the rest: but as if to quiet their consciences for the many villainies which tarnished their feats of arms, they had churches more than enough for their people, and quite durable enough for all the proselytes with which the conscription of their monks and priests might fill the ranks of such a corrupt and temporizing religion. Their grand churches, and magnificent edifices, are now a mass of ruins — their monks and nuns disbanded by a Royal decree from the Court of Portugal in 1835, and their forts of Rewadunda, Basseen, and Diu, and Ormus, dilapidated, over grown with trees and weeds, untenanted, and almost unknown. A minute plan of the most formidable of these, Diu, was presented to the writer of this article by the late Viceroy of Goa, Don Manuel, who observed that “there was a time when great store was set by this fortified post; but now, you English have left us in a corner, and we only steal a few of those advantages *par hazard*, or your blunders in Civil Government, which the vast dependencies of British India might otherwise contribute to your treasury.”

What we would infer, and we believe our Author had the same in view, is this: that the fruit of conquest forced upon an enlightened nation is not a sordid application of its resources to tyrannical purposes, but to alleviate the burthens of the mind as well as the body, and shew with what benefits superior knowledge and a better civil administration are necessarily accompanied by nature, as an entrepôt of trade, or intercourse, — the mere appendages of a fortress, or sumptuous buildings, or multitudes of soldieriery, are as nothing compared with a populous community actuated by honest intentions: and the subjects of a Government seeking, by every means the improvement of its proper resources and the extension of civilization to those around them who were unacquainted with it. Such is our first concern; whatever may have been the course of the bigots of Portugal, or the reckless career of the Mahomedan princes in their endeavours to bring the natives of Hindústhan under the severer yoke of their Prophet. The riches of the Hin dú cities attracted the locust flights of the followers of Islám, and the disolute character of their rulers could constitute no rallying point to the endless diversities of sect and prejudice into which their superstitious inhabi-

10

ants were parcelled out—Distracted by private fends, and opposed to each other by imaginary jealousies, they fell an easy prey to the one element of Moslem aggrandizement, — fanaticism. But the path to every Mahomedan throne as Mr. Elphinstone once observed to the author of this article, was immemorially through blood, and was therefore most unsuited to lead to such internal amelioration as should give permanency to the cities they founded, as in the more improved condition of European communities. Natural causes doubtless have had much to do with the decline of great cities, and that near Tatta had probably undergone some such change subsequent to the great inroads of the Northern tribes who brought in the prevailing system of Brahminical worship.

"As we advanced, a very extensive ruin was seen in front; which, upon our reaching it, we found to be the relic of an ancient fortified city. The crumbling walls were fallen in rude heaps, and the towers and bastions were shapeless mounds. The ruins were chiefly of that species of large flat brick, eighteen inches square, and three inches thick, which is brought from Babylon.

The whole ruin covered a headland, which had all the appearance of having been a promontory projecting into a great bay of the Indus. A wide plain, under the level of the inundation, extended on each side of the coral bank which rose almost perpendicularly from it, to the height of about one hundred feet.

The extent of the ruins was about fifteen hundred yards in length from north to south; breadth at the south end, from west face to first inner wall, two hundred and twelve yards; thence, to what seems the citadel wall, three hundred and thirty; depth of citadel, seventy; general area, a parallelogram of about one thousand five hundred yards, by five hundred and forty, exclusive of the citadel, which projects from the east face at the southern end, and is one hundred and twenty yards by seventy.

Such an area allowing one hundred square yards for each house, would be equal to a population of forty thousand inhabitants. The eastern and western faces of the fortifications are nearly entire, and follow the irregularities of the bank, with round towers and curtains rising from the edge of the precipice, which is a steep and difficult rocky scarp: three sides must thus have been washed by the river, and the southern, or land side, being most exposed, was doubly fortified, there being a second wall at about one hundred yards distant from the first, as if the southern end of the work had been a second citadel for the protection of the city. The northern end was by far more perfect than the rest: four lofty towers, about thirty feet high, and fifty feet in diameter, united by curtains of substantial masonry, showed a front of about one hundred and fifty yards which a very little outlay might restore to its original strength; but the river now rolls some ten miles distant, and this shapeless ruin can never more be considered a site of the least importance.

Doctor Kirk, who had served in the Indian Navy on the Red Sea duties, assured me that the rocks below the ruins at the south east angle, and in what may be termed the bottom of the ancient bay, are precisely similar to the coral rocks of the African coast. Their peculiarity of appearance may be imagined, from my first thinking that some stalactitic fragments, standing erect near a Mahomedan tomb in the hollow of the rock, had been white washed.

Our road lay under the south west angle of the ruins descending the steep bank to the level plain below. A lofty round tower still lifts its stately head and massive ruins, over the pass it had been built to command. No ivy, nor any herbage covered it. In this country of scanty rain, the extent of the inundation marks, as in Egypt, the extent of vegetation; and thus these shapeless piles and mounds of bricks and mud, remain unaltered, in slow decay, and have neither shrub nor grass to relieve the dingy hue of their mouldering ruins." pp. 76, 80, vol. 1.

The true master secret of the mysterious convulsions which have overthrown cities, as that also, we believe, which has consigned empires and prin-

11

capalities to destruction and oblivion, is "the wickedness of them that dwell therein", whatever may be the consequences of the great and important changes in the physical constitution of our Globe: not that we should be disposed for an instant, as scientific observers, to undervalue or question their slow but mighty operation, but would aver, that these are really, in fact, subordinate to the changes which are induced by our own proper enactment—paradoxical and startling, as such an assertion might at first appear. It is beyond the reach of calculation to determine what may not result from the ordinary processes of art, dependent on human ingenuity and industry, concentrating the mental and physical powers of the many to the accomplishment of some one common object. And the multitude of hands which have been imbrued in the life-blood of their fellow creatures, might have planted out the hills and the valleys with vines and corn, or studded their slopes with forests, till the very heavens should join in the common la bour, and send down a richer supply of rain: —or they might have arrested the overflowings of a river, directed it into new channels which would have fertilized the desert, or borne afar off the accumulation of the most dangerous sand banks, which the successive storms have been suffered to throw up; at those outlets, where a well protected and active commerce might have contributed to bear the produce of its banks to other regions: receiving in exchange, what might have been most desirable from other countries.

Such is the Indus, such the Euphrates, the Nile, the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, besides some other rivers of less extent and note. The countries they severally traverse have experienced revolutions, of which we may now form some faint conceptions, though we have at this day no record of those cities of old, cities probably of renown, as of opulence and strength, teeming with a hopeful population, which once flourished upon their banks. These have been swept away, as by a miracle, their very names obliterated, their vestiges coming only occasionally to light by the laborious research of the Antiquarian and the Geologist, whose conclusions serve rather to perplex their friends whether such a locality was to be considered the site of some emporium of a fabulous age, or another: — or perhaps, whether the overbearing floods of the river have not deserted their more ancient channel, and formed to themselves a new pathway to the ocean.

For ourselves, we consider that Geologists have hitherto too much overlooked the fact— for fact it certainly is, as closer observation will undeniably attest, that the entire crust of this globe has ever been subjected to constant transformations, being slowly and imperceptibly upheaved in some, as it has subsided in other places; and that this undulatory, or local movement, has been amongst the most striking and influential of those remote physical disturbances which have contributed to add to the peculiar and proper destructive causes of great cities.

It appears to us indeed a point of no ordinary interest and value, in connection with Physical Geography, to ascertain how far this great geological phenomenon may, or may not, be confirmed by modern observation. Either in the great mountain masses of the Andes, and the Himalayas, or the low level tracts of the desert, and run of Catch, which similarly to that chain of inland seas, or lakes, stretching from the Euxine to Korea, is perceptibly elevated by volcanic agency, within the recollection of modern historians; as the valley of the Jordan, and Bahr Lout, or Dead sea, have been remarkably depressed at an earlier epoch. If, in short, as we conclude, without advertising to the anomalous character of the North American lakes, such causes have been, and are even now, in constant operation, a satisfactory solution may thus be afforded to some curious enquiries in Geology which would seem to require as great a lapse of ages to work out, as the veriest folly of the Brahmin sages, or the still wilder imagination of the Burman priesthood. In the past could declare to have preceded the present age of the world. In the pa-

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tient investigation of such disturbing causes we are to anticipate a complete explanation of those remarkable appearances of inland seas, with the raised beaches and cliffs, now far removed from the ocean, and the notable succession of raised beaches throughout the coasts of Northern Europe—which present to view water worn rocks, and shingle deposits, at an elevation to which the sea could never have attained by any other known process of nature.

These alternations of subsidence or elevation, every where discoverable,* must more or less affect the course of all the great rivers of Asia which flow through so many varieties of soil, and are thus constantly propelling fresh earthy elements, in a state of minute decomposition, towards the deltas formed at their junction with the ocean. Such, in a secondary degree, are the great effective causes which have led to the destruction of the city of Ujain, and that at the mouth of the Hooghly river, in the Soondurbunds; and such, in a like degree, the physical cause, which by upheaving the remarkable tract, now styled the Run, has made a vast inland salt desert, or marsh, where was once a most extensive inlet of the sea, comparatively commodious for the inhabitants of Sindh and Gujerat:—and which assuredly gave to the neighbourhood of Tatta so much commercial importance.

But to advert to another subject equally replete with momentous interest. The miseries consequent on War, require to be seen to be understood. No pen, no tongue, can describe, what are the results of passion unrestrained and undisguised by necessity, where higher influences are wanting. And those who have witnessed the savage ferocity with which the natives of India have been seen to wreak their vengeance on the corpses of the enemy, slain in battle, the unfortunate Brahûs, and Murrîs, as in other lands the Arabs, may justly estimate the spirit which actuates fallen creatures in such contests. The Hill tribes ask no quarter, and are scarce to be taught to appreciate it. They meet death, they often seek it, as indeed may be said of all the Asiatics, with an indifference or courage which the natives of the north are utter strangers to. Our Women have courage, and patient endurance, to an amount, of which trials alone can enable us to form a correct opinion:—but the Asiatic is either all apathy, or all daring; while his companion, or rather his poor slave Woman, sees no alternative in her lot, but in simple compliance with her lord's mandates. In this habitual disregard of death, war becomes more sanguinary, or less protracted, as this, or that feeling, preponderates, either of opposition, or submission. With the rude tribes on the frontiers of India, of the border countries of Central Asia more especially, any immediate expectation of conformity to the discipline of regular Government is preposterous; and it becomes a question how far engagements sought to be entered into with the heads of such lawless bodies can be considered binding or compulsory. Their chiefs are avowedly acknowledged for the advancement of the individual end of each member of the tribe: plunder, excess, and murder; and beyond that, have neither reciprocal tie nor claim on their fellows. They have no lands to care for, no flocks to tend, no homes, nor property, nor objects of regard, which are not transportable. They are bound by no common covenant but of mutual safety, to refrain from any acts of cruelty or violence. To proceed with such men, as with the responsible heads of a well organized society, is futile, and betrays either impatience or ignorance. Yet, we believe, much of the bloodshed which has ensued in the progress of the last campaign, and the sufferings of our followers, have to be attributed to some such injudicious

* The islands in the Persian Gulf, Larak, Kishm, and Ormus, were pointed out by the reviewer to Mr. Lyall and Babbage as good illustrations; The island of Bombay, and the entire Malabar coast, feigned to have been won from the ocean, by the arrow flight of a Hindú deity, Parashram, is an example of a like interesting character; and Aden, the common type of the submarine volcanOGT Girt shores of Arabia.

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oversight of existing circumstances. If our power predominates, all of them, to a man, know that their game is up, and their proper bounds prescribed to them. Can it be wondered at that they should resist to the death, or take all the measures for our annoyance which an untutored mountaineer could devise? We may call the promises of their chiefs deceitful,— their conduct treacherous, * or their allegiance constrained:—it will surely never be overruled by any thing but high example, and a decided tone in all our dealings— both of unbending courage and uncompromising good faith. And in all the annals of our history,—of our Indian history too, there have been those who have upheld this character, but as we have already premised, it is to the European character we are to look for that high standard of example which a superior education and genuine Christian principles have conferred on him. In judgment, in temper, in mercy without arrogance, and in bravery without ostentation, the Briton will strike a blow at that inveteracy of habit, which no political, no military course of procedure will avail to amend. After what has been said on this subject, the reader may be better prepared to enter into the author's touching description of one of those pitiable exhibitions, which followed upon the capture of a number of these wild children of nature in the act of carrying off some of our camels.—

"Every day was now destined to have its catastrophe: ten Beloochees had been summarily executed on this ground by Colonel Sandwith of the 1st Regiment of Native Cavalry, under written orders from Sir John Keane, as his Excellency passed with the Bengal Column. The first order was a verbal one; but Colonel Sandwith, not liking it, required a written one, and received it on half a sheet of note-paper. He has had the wisdom to preserve it. The poor wretches had their elbows secured, and were made to sit on the ground; when each had a bullet sent through his brain from a carbine. Lieutenant Lock, the officer who superintended the execution, spoke very feelingly of what he had been no willing agent in. Some of them, he said, sat quietly down and submitted to their fate; some resisted, and, to keep them quiet, the executioner party fastened their heads together by their long luxuriant hair, which served to secure them for their destruction. Two young lads seemed horrified to bewilderment by their fears, and implored for mercy, seizing the feet and knees of the superintending officer, but they were made to sit down. Ere the fatal volley exploded, they were endeavouring to embrace, leaning their heads against each other, weeping bitterly their last farewell.

"This was sad work, and did no good; we were robbed, and our camels stolen at every stage. The next morning, the 20th, Captain Davidson, Commissary General, had one of his camels led off from the spot where his tent had stood: it had been struck, his baggage packed, and cattle loaded; and whilst his servants waited for the advance of the Column to take their place in the line, one of the camels was abstracted with as much apparent ease, and as perfect impunity as if such a beast, so loaded, could have been put in the thief's pocket and carried off at speed. A hue and cry was made, — day was breaking — but the camel was gone." Page 228. Vol. 2.

That summary punishment to the wanton taking away of life, or limb, or eventual liberty, is to be tolerated by any European Government in the nineteenth century, we can never bring ourselves to believe; it must be allowed notwithstanding that the circumstances which gave rise to these revolting proceedings, must have been pressing and peculiar, and now that the difficulties of the campaign are surmounted, we may be disposed to look, rather to what, in this campaign, has been accomplished by amicable negotiation — to throw the mantle of charity over those extreme measures which every friend of humanity must deplore, than to dwell on the final sentence of that retributive

* We refer to Mehráb Khan and Haji Khan Khakur's conduct.

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law, which in the estimation of the authorities was the best and only antidote to far greater evils.

With one other article we dismiss our brief notice of this work—the Satara affair.

"The Satara affair has attracted attention at home, and Captain Cogan of the Indian Navy has been making himself conspicuous in the matter. Sir John Hobhouse's version of the strange expressions attributed to him has not reached India; but what he ought to have said to a person like Captain Cogan, should have been, 'Your rank and place as a Bombay marine officer were not such as are likely to have attracted the notice of the Rajah of Satara; nor are the opportunities you have had of distinguishing yourself such as to justify the belief that your reputation as a person qualified to advise, should have travelled to Satara; nor have you ever held any public position that should have drawn a native chief to have applied to you for countenance and support.

In India you had a certain duty to discharge, for which you received a certain salary; and when the India Board want advice respecting Bunder-boats and flotillas, and require information respecting the south Prong, or Butcher's Island, no one will doubt your qualification to speak on those subjects; but in all that relates to, the Satara affairs you can know nothing but through the medium of others."

The British public are deceived with this cant about native princes and their sovereign rights; the greatest good to the greatest number requires an end of their absurd pretensions, which cannot be conceded without the ruin of the country. When their territories lie beyond our frontier, the less we trouble our heads with their internal policy the better: we cannot interfere but to control; and that must end in extension of frontier, petty jealousies, mistrusts, frauds, application for foreign aid contrary to treaty; and war and subjugation are the steps traced by a dire necessity which there is no avoiding.

But when petty independencies claim sovereign rights, or have that royalty claimed for them by such mistaken advocates as Captain Cogan; when their territories and kingdoms of a few square miles are dotealed into British territories, and lie intermingled like the black and white squares of a chess-board, it requires no prophet to foresee that the thousand caprices of a thousand deserts must make sad havoc of the happiness of their miserable dependents, and that they cannot destroy the peace and prosperity of their black squares without some serious injury resulting to our white ones.

The Kurnool magazine of five hundred pieces of artillery, found buried and concealed within three hundred miles of Satara, was an overt act, which proved the hostility that was meditated there; and showed that certain enemies of England had succeeded in convincing at least one chief, and he an inferior in income, and fancied hereditary claims, to the Rajah of Satara, that the time was come when "Goa, the gate of India," might receive an army from foreign Europe to dispute our supremacy, and for all the enemies of England to rally round: consequently, there is no such wild impossibility in the supposition that the Rajah of Satara entertained the same belief, and acted on the same reasoning.

The chief of Satara enjoys a royal revenue of fifteen lahks of rupees, grand total, or about 150,000 £, per annum, for all the state purposes of his civil and military administration: a mighty potentate truly. Mr. Elphinstone and Sir Lionel Smith found him a close prisoner, and made him all that he is: but it was a mistake, originating in erroneous though high-minded views towards the petty states in the Dekkan; and a false step of the same order, and through the same generous motives, which placed an income of 120,000 £, at the disposal of the Ex-Peishwa, which could only be employed in the most mischievous intriguing that disappointed ambition, and fallen greatness, and the ranklings of hatred and bigotry could accomplish.

To that Brahmin wealth at Benares, and to Brahminical machinations, disseminated through every quarter and into every remote nook of India, so directed and so operating, may most probably be traced, without reference to Russian emissaries, the whole of that agitation, and unsettledness, and looking

15

for a change, which seems to have been excited throughout the country, no one knew how, who did not take the trouble to recollect that there was the fallen head of a falling priesthood at Benares, possessing every qualification of personal character, with purse, position, and party at his command, and disposed to use all to disturb the native mind, and to agitate the worst hopes and passions of all that are "in distress, in debt, or discontent," throughout the empire." Vol 2.

This affair our author has disposed of in a clever, but thorough Indo-political style. The proofs of the Rajah's conspiracy with our enemies, as well as to raise up enemies to us, were of so palpable a nature, that his very friends—the late and present Governors being judges, could see no resource but in his deposition. The judgment and soldier-like decision evinced by the latter at the conclusion of this perplexing affair, undoubtedly nipped in the bud one of the most formidable conspiracies which has ever threatened the stability of the British power in India. The removal of the unworthy tool of a faction became imperative, and the justice of the measure was unequivocally proclaimed by the general content which followed an immediate change of measures. Notwithstanding, there will always be those among our countrymen who with more generosity than judgment, step out to bespeak commiseration for what they affect, or believe, to be the wrongs of innocent men. They advocate their cause on principle, not for the men's sake but for justice and charity's sake, and because they conclude the more powerful party must have had some other and milder alternative, had they seen fit to prefer it. In our opinion the Rajah of Satara should have been better schooled, and some more active part taken in the management of his little principality than can be hoped for from the most designing, grasping, and well educated of all the natives, Maratha Brahmans.

We would sum up our judgment of the foregoing particulars with a caution to the arbiters; to come to their task with as a great a store of facts, and worldly wisdom, as of philanthropy and ingenuity. And it is an injunction that cannot be too often impressed on the Christian, that charity large and ample, that discretion well timed and effectual, that deference noble and unconstrained to all authority, coming as he knows it to do from a Higher source should characterize his every step, deed and sentiment: that he should, for the better judgment of disputed points, or in any subject of moment, change places for a while with those whose conduct he arraigns at the tribunal of public opinion; nor is it to be doubted, but that much animadversion would thus be spared which may inflict a wound where it was rather intended to have administered useful counsel, or pointed out a resource in time to come, to those entrusted with the affairs of Government.

How much is embodied in those words, "Judge not"? The great political and social movements of the present day, to the profitable review of which we have ventured an allusion in the introductory notice of the work before us, are strikingly illustrated by the predominant tendency to scrutinize the motives and character of those set over us: — a disposition which is strongly marked out by the prophetic pen of the inspired writers. The progress of the human mind, in its disregard of the repeated invitations to obedience, is first exemplified in the diversion of its attention from its own proper infirmities and failings to those of its neighbour; until self-sufficiency has further disannulled the authority of reason, and enlarged the bounds of its inquisition. The Master—the Ruler—the sacred Parent—become successively obnoxious to its censures; and Pride, at length, completes the apostacy, by arraigning the character and motives of the Divine Being. What age so appositely distinguished as this, by a spirit, which is as far from humility and charity, as good from evil?—and who that desires to take up his stand in the great day of decision, under this, or that banner will not welcome the friendly hand which may direct him to these words? What Master—what

16

*Campaign in Sindh and Kabul.*

parent — what individual in authority, spiritual, or merely temporal — but trembles for the fatal out break of this tremendous evil. Should not the argument at least, be a sufficient inducement to every Christian—to every thinking mind, to pause ere he oversteps the requirements of mutual charity and forbearance. There is one who takes cognizance of all things, and with Him judgment rests, as to Him all are responsible.

Such is the cursory review we have taken of these volumes. Those who read them for mere entertainment will discover many things that are also well worth remembrance, and be gratified to find so much originality of observation illustrated by so generous a tone of sympathy and good sense, in the peculiar trials and necessities of their fellow-men.

## PROSPECTUS.

### THE GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS OF ASIA

WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDIA.

AND THE COUNTRIES UNDER THE IMMEDIATE INFLUENCE OR PROTECTION OF THE

#### British Government.

EDITED BY MAJOR T. B. JERVIS, E. J. C. ENGINEERS, F. R. S.

ASSISTED BY MANY PERSONS OF GREAT EXPERIENCE, LONG RESIDENT IN THE EAST,
WITH

Maps, Embellishments and Vignettes, — to be printed and published
in the best style, in London, by Messrs. Ostell, and Co.

It were much to be desired, among other indications of general improvement and intercourse, that the progress of a familiar and exact acquaintance with the Geography and Statistics of every country throughout the earth, kept pace with the exhibition of that enterprise which seeks to reclaim it from darkness and barbarism: or make it available to the friendly commercial internationality, which must reciprocally affect its well-being, and our own. Such, as an exemplification, are the new and extended relations of British India with the contiguous countries of Central Asia, the bordering nations of the Malayan Peninsula, and China, and the innumerable islands of the eastern archipelago; with which no doubt a far more productive trade would be carried on, to say nothing of the spread of civilization and religious truth, were the public in possession of more full and correct information of what is available for the British market, or suited to the wants of these countries, as an article of export or manufacture from our own. Such information is justly appreciable as subserving the noblest object of Philanthropy; — the communication of the blessed Gospel to all nations.

War and commercial adventure, have indeed originated a great variety of researches, which contribute to the illustration of one of the fairest and richest portions of the globe; yet who, that desires a mere summary acquaintance with the present condition and resources, the precise locality often of these countries, can be satisfied with the imperfect knowledge which at a very remote date furnished matter for the best and only works now in existence. The more ample and recent details, however, being interspersed through a multitude of works and documents, some comparatively costly and rare, others little known or accessible to a very limited number of readers, are so mixed up likewise with much that is of an extraneous character, or of purely local interest, as to repress the most anxious curiosity. And if such be the case with portions of each country, how is the difficulty enhanced, in obtaining more comprehensive views of Geography? It is, in fact, no very easy matter, with the best information before us, to arrive at any decided estimate either of the state and relative limits of our most settled possessions, or of those which have been recently supperadded, or brought within the commanding influence of our political power. Such knowledge, no doubt, exists to a large amount, and is to be found with the several employés of Government; but they are usually too much occupied to make any further inquiries than may be necessary to present exigencies; and if presented by them to the higher authorities, it is simply in connection with their immediate duties. Nay, all who have occasion to make such researches, are necessitated or prevailed on so to blend them with particulars of transient importance, that the most inde-