Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/113

Rh per bag of grain. All these taxes are alleged to be the Desái's own, over and above the Guicowár's. The Guicowár Sirkár has its house tax; the Desái has a corollary to it, named the choolá tax, or tax on cooking-fire, of Rs. 2-8 a house. Then comes the Márwári, who has to pay the jájam or carpet tax; also the ghee tax. That is, these Shylocks of the village had to present to the Desái so much carpet and so much ghee a year. But when the Desái had too much of carpet and ghee, he asks for their equivalent in money. "We paid some years," depose the epigrammatic Márwári. "We don't do so now: "our will." That is sturdy common sense, and once in a way we sympathise with the obscene miser. The Dheds had to pay hide tax, that is a substitute in coin for the hides of animals they skin from time to time. They now plead inability. The fishermen, too, are not left out of the list, poor miserable creatures, barely able to eke out a "bellyful" of seeds, fish, or anything that comes handy! They, too, are utterly unable to oblige the Desái.