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56 by the comforting reflection that there could be no capricious eviction of those who paid.

In many districts of Bengal the occupancy Ryot has always played an important part in the spread of cultivation and the improvement of agriculture. He may be known by various denominations. He is the jotdár or the Gánthidár or the Khúd-Kásht Ryot. This last term signifies a tenant whose homestead and holding are in one and the same village. In many instances his family has lived in the same place for generations. He has erected two, three, and four houses, neatly built of bamboos and wattles, well thatched, with a verandah on more than one side, and the whole raised on a firm foundation of well-beaten clay. The space between the houses ensures privacy. The courtyard and the dwellings are scrupulously clean. They are shaded by fine trees, and the garden adjoining the house is dense with foliage and heavy with fruit. Many of this class, if not rich, are independent and comfortable, and in spite of the antagonism between Zamíndár and Ryot, which has been the normal state of parts of the country for some two or three generations, many more of this useful class have maintained their position than is often supposed. It is the result of a community of interest on the part of the cultivating castes, of a passionate attachment to the native village and the ancestral homestead, and of the popular and well-founded belief that the Zamíndár had at