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50 the highest bidder. He was not allowed to plead the default or incapacity of a shareholder, though he could always protect his own interests by paying up the defaulter's portion, and recovering his payments by means of a civil action. The provisions of the Sale Law were stringent, but they were an improvement on the ancient mode of compelling payment by the confinement of the defaulter or by his corporal punishment. And a sure and certain spread of cultivation was the natural consequence of the cessation of Muhammadan oppression and Maráthá raids. The operations of nature in that region were always effected on a gigantic scale. If the drought was of long continuance or the inundations widespreading and calamitous, as was often the case in Central and Eastern Bengal, the silt deposited by the overflowing waters elevated and fertilised the soil. The reed and the bulrush made way for the rice crop. The jungle retreated before the axe and the plough. The swamp became firm land. And around new villages and hamlets there sprang up fruit trees, bamboos, and a rich and artificial vegetation almost as dense as the primeval forest which it had displaced. In all this there was an increase to the profits of the Zamíndár.

The documents which he was expected to give to Ryots, new or old, were known as pattás, and the Ryot was bound to hand in exchange for the same what was termed a kabúliyat or acceptance. These two terms have very often, in judicial decisions, formal