Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/111

Rh to leave the grain for the family, but a sum similar to that paid the year before, when the grain had been left, had to be paid over again! And thus came the grain-imposts into existence. This practice seems as infamous as the robbing of the people by the Turkish village tyrants. As is the case with grain, so with everything else of which the Desái had once a superfluity. The superfluity could not often recur; but the imposition of Rs. 500 to Rs. 600 was made first annual, then, I suppose, eternal.

After a good deal of clamouring on the part of the more intelligent of the townsmen, the Dewán of Baroda seems to have deputed a Náyeb Subhá to investigate the nature of the discontent which had become general throughout the three towns above referred to. This Náyeb Subhá, the Gujarát Mitra informs us, made himself and family the guests of the Desái, and it was at the Desái's place and in his presence, where he could smile or frown at will, that the Subhá held his court of inquiry. If this be so, nothing could be more reprehensible even in the Guicowár territory. But getting over all these cruel hindrances, the writer in the Gujarát Mitra has been able to record the following disclosures made in the