Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/258

 250 RAE of an impost which did not affect himself. His old tribute was sanctioned and defined by the permission to levy for his own use two rupees per annum from each village in his pargana, and he could hardly have incurred much danger by exceeding this moderate limit. In one case I noticed a curious order providing for the senior but less important Kumhráwán house by the grant of one anna on the cultivated bigha throughout the four par- ganas which had been assigned in the usual form to the Pukhra Ansári Amethia. The power of disposing of the waste lands was nover interfered with, and in many cases* the deed of the local chieftain was sanctioned by a sanad from Lucknow. He was not however permitted to assign whole villages as before, and his position is forcibly illustrated by the permission occasionally given him to purchase the right of engaging for the Govern- ment demand as proprietor in particular villages in which he already col- lected the revenue as head of the pargana. In these pargana grants he is usually described as the zamindar, but I have seen the word taluqdar applied as early as 1760 A.D. to Díwán Bakhsh, who collected the revenue of the Mauránwán pargana, holding three villages as his private property, and receiving one rupee at cach harvest from each of the rest. This compromise seems to have been very usual, and except in the case of an obstinato rebel like Balbhaddar Singh, to have been attended by tolor- able success down to near the end of the eighteenth century. At that time the heavy demands of the English and the extravagance of the Nawabs had brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy, and every nerve was stretched to realize as much revenue as could possibly be extorted from the people. The pargana tenure was found clumsy and un- profitable, and separate engagements were taken froin the village pro- prictors . This proceeding, which reduced the chieftain to the level of one of his own subordinate zamindars, met with the most strenuous opposition, and it was found impossible to continue governing ou this principle. Sometimes by favour, but more often by force, the chieftains repossessed themselves of single villages, and adding one or two each year to their engagements, for the first time began to hold small estates exactly corres- ponding to the taluqas of to-day. A report from the tahsildar of Dalmau, dated 1809 A.D., gives a lively picture of the difficulties noder which the revonue was collected. Din Sáh, the zamindar of Gaura, had covered fifteon acres with a fort which he defended with two guns and a hundred matchlockmen. At his call Shiu Parshád Singh brought three hundred stout villagers from Shankar- pur. Dalpat Sáh of Chandania , and Fatch Singh of Samarpha, could between them raise a thousand men, and at the prospect of a fight the Kanhpuria zamindars trooped in from the Náin jungles; so that a levy of two thousand men could be raised at a moment's notice. By royal. command the fort at Gaura was burnt, but the arniy had hardly turned ts back when another rose from the smoking ruins, and the baffled official represents that the diabolical ingenuity of a wandering Englishman sug- bare scen estances in Gords where the Lucknow sanad has been confirmed in royal style by the Bisen ráj.