INDIGO 
 
 W. M. REID 
 
REESE LI 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received '.... t-^rfc? Z^/^ i8#d 
 
 (T 7 
 
 Accessions No. <*&-?/<} Shelf No... 
 
THE 
 
 CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE 
 
 OF 
 
 INDIGO. 
 
THE 
 
 CULTURE AND MANUFACTURE 
 
 OF 
 
 r> i a o; 
 
 WITH 
 
 A DESCRIPTION OF A PLANTER'S LIFE AND 
 RESOURCES. 
 
 BY W. M. 
 
 CALCUTTA : 
 
 THACKEE, SPINK AND CO. 
 LONDON: W. THACKER AND CO., 87, NEWGATE STREET. 
 
 1887. 
 
CALCUTTA : 
 PRINTED BY THACKER, SPINK AND CO. 
 
COJMTE 
 
 Page. 
 
 INTRODUCTION ... ... i 
 
 CHAP. I. NEW ARRIVAL, DARING TO THE FACTORY ... 3 
 
 ,, II. OUT-FACTORY-ASSISTANTS' BUNGALOW ... 8 
 
 ,, III. GENERAL LIFE, AMUSEMENTS ... 12 
 
 ,, IV. THE MANAGER 21 
 
 ,, V. THE AMLAHS 34 
 
 ,, VI. CONSTRUCTION AND TESTING OF DRILL ... 42 
 ,, VII. CULTIVATION, MANURING, MEASURING, AND 
 
 IRRIGATION 49 
 
 ,, VIII. WEEDING, CUTTING, CARTING, MANUFACTUR- 
 ING 56 
 
 IX. INDIGO IN BENGAL 74 
 
 X. INDIGO IN THE NORTH- WESTERN PROVINCES 81 
 
 ,, XI. TENURES IN THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES 90 
 
 ,, XII. INDIGO IN SHAHABAD 103 
 
 ,, XIII. INDIGO IN THE AZAMGARH DISTRICT ... 118 
 
 ,, XIV. INTERLOPERS AND INTERLOPING 122 
 
 ,, XV. THE EARLY BEGINNINGS OF INDIGO 130 
 
 ,, XVI. MACAUL AY'S MINUTE ON INDIGO PLANTING ... 134 
 
 APPENDIX I. THE Putwari I4I 
 
 ,, II. THE BEHAR LIGHT HORSE 153 
 
 ,, III. INDIGO MANUFACTURED IN BENGAL FROM 
 
 1795 T0 1832 AND PRICES CURRENT FROM 
 
 l8l5 TO 1829 163165 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 PLATE I. ASSISTANT'S BUNGALOW GROUND-PLAN 
 OF DITTO INTERIOR OF COOKROOM 
 
 IN INDIA ... ...facing 8 
 
 ,, II. PLANTING HORSE 5 
 
 ,, III. ASSISTANT'S BAMBOO CART AND NAG ... 6 
 
 ,, IV.-(Tumnee) DIGGING LANDS FOR INDIGO... ,, 49 
 
 ,, V. PLOUGHING INDIGO LANDS ,, 51 
 
 ,, VI. SPREADING AND DIGGING IN (Seetee) 
 
 MANURE ,, 53 
 
 ,, VII. CLEANING WEEDS AND BREAKING UP 
 
 CLODS ,, 52 
 
 ,, VIII. ROLLING LANDS, BREAKING CLODS ... ,, 52 
 
 J5 IX. MEASURING INDIGO FIELDS ,, 54 
 
 X. TIRHUT RAISING WATER FOR IRRIGA- 
 TION 55 
 
 ,, XI. MANUFACTURE ,, 57 
 
 ,, XII. INDIGO VATS ,, 56 
 
 XIII. PUMPING UP INDIGO ,, 57 
 
 XIV. INDIGO ON THE TABLE AFTER BEING 
 
 BOILED ,, 58 
 
 XV. INDIGO PRESS INDIGO CAKE-CUTTING 
 
 MACHINE ,, 59 
 
 XVI. CAKE HOUSE 63 
 
 ,, X.VII.(Ckeetanee) SOWING IN LOWER BENGAL ,, 74 
 ,, XVIII. LOWER BENGAL PLANTER'S BOAT 
 
 (Bhowlea) ,, 75 
 
 ,, XIX. PIG STICKING frontispiece. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 T is proposed, in the following Sketches of Indigo- 
 life in Tirhoot and Lower Bengal, to give those 
 at Home and others who have never witnessed 
 the manufacture of indigo, or seen an indigo factory 
 in this country, an idea of how the finished, market- 
 able article is produced, together with phases and 
 incidents of an Indigo Planter's life, such as may 
 be interesting, instructive, and, it may be, amusing 
 to friends at Home, and serve as a record of 
 what an Indigo Planter's usual life now-a-days is. 
 This book does not profess to deal with the scienti- 
 fic production of indigo, nor the various theories and 
 processes of late years put forward for the increase 
 of produce from the plant, or the production of 
 higher -class colour by chemical means. The old 
 simple, unadulterated, original process of manufac- 
 ture is generally adhered to. Planters also, espe- 
 cially " old hands," have a rooted objection to any 
 t( doctoring " stuff ; they thoroughly and firmly be- 
 lieve in the real old original " true " blue, with no 
 admixtures, soda crystals, spirits of ammonia, or 
 any other potent chemicals. 
 
 K,, In. A 
 
2 Introductory. 
 
 This work deals simply with general work and 
 details of an ordinary present-day Indigo Assistant's 
 life, together with a few practical hints which are 
 offered en passant for what they are worth ; and it is 
 hoped that this brochure will partly serve to fill a 
 blank long felt, of a record of an Indigo Planter's 
 life, to send Home to friends, or place on the table 
 in India. 
 
 In the illustrations the author has endeavoured 
 to give the scenery and natives as they actually exist 
 at this day in the mofussil or more remote districts 
 of India. Native life, habits, and implements are 
 of the very homeliest, and primitive to a degree ; 
 therefore, the reader must not be surprised at some 
 of the modes of agriculture depicted in the sketches. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 NEW ARRIVAL, BAKING INTO THE FACTORY, ETC. 
 will suppose the young to - be Indigo Planter 
 
 already arrived in Calcutta, and his call made 
 on the agents. He has put up at the Great 
 Eastern Hotel for a day or two, eaten his introduc- 
 tory tiffin with the " house," and received his order 
 to proceed up to join his " concern " somewhere, 
 say, Tirhoot. This will probably be about the 1st of 
 November, when the cold weather has well set in, 
 and the climate is simply lovely. Dates differ as to 
 the commencement of the indigo-season in Lower 
 Bengal and Tirhoot ; in the former, the " season " 
 commences from the 1st of October, yearly ; in the 
 latter, from the ist of November. The Indigo Assist- 
 ant's engagement is yearly, as a general rule, and 
 commences from one or other of these dates, depend- 
 ing on what district he is in. He will go by rail as 
 far as, say, Mozufferpore, from the Howrah Station 
 at Calcutta ; ddks, that is to say, relays of riding or 
 driving horses or ponies, will be sent out beforehand 
 for him, that he may ride or drive from the railway 
 station to his destination, and a bullock - cart is 
 generally engaged for his luggage. One horse, or 
 
4 New A rrival^ Ddking into the Factory \ etc. 
 
 relay, is stationed at about every five miles. Gene- 
 rally, on the occasion of a new hand joining, he is 
 met by the Manager of the concern he is about to 
 join, at the station, or by a senior assistant, who will 
 probably have the pleasure, subsequently, of what 
 is technically called " putting him through." 
 
 The horses or ponies sent out on dak for a new 
 arrival are not necessarily always the very best which 
 the " concern " affords. The ordinary Indigo Planter 
 of commerce is the very soul of generosity, but when 
 it comes to letting out his best horses on dak for 
 a friend, it is found that he even has a sneaking 
 fondness for the general fitness of things, and pre- 
 fers to suit the animal to the emergencies of the 
 journey to be performed. The roads are excellent 
 roads, as roads ; but when a planter or the depart- 
 ment on that particular lay for the time being, goes 
 and repairs a road with two feet and a half of loose 
 earth and large clods just before a long season of 
 heavy rains, the effect in and about the months of 
 October and November may be imagined, but can- 
 not adequately be described. Whether riding or 
 driving daks are sent for our young friend, he will 
 have to be most particularly careful to keep his 
 "heye" open about mounting and riding some of 
 the former. They have been out once or twice on 
 dak before, notwithstanding he has not, and they 
 
New Arrival, Dak ing into the Factory, etc. 5 
 
 know a trick or two, and he must not be surprised 
 at somewhat violent and exciting starts full speed 
 reckoning as the very lowest order of velocity, gra- 
 duating from that upwards, to the sensation of 
 being shot out of a rocket with an amount of 
 " backing and filling," which would satisfy even a 
 Yankee skipper trying to get up the river Hooghly 
 without the aid of steam. 
 
 A favourite way of starting the old dak gharry 
 horses which, in times now long gone by, used to 
 transport the traveller all over India, was to have no 
 nonsense at all about it. When the animal sat 
 down, and obstinately " refused " to go, the mild 
 Hindu attendants with characteristic Oriental in- 
 difference to suffering, quietly, but promptly, collect- 
 ed straw, sticks, and dry grass, and lit a fire under 
 the wretched animal. Under these circumstances the 
 difficulty about starting did not admit of any further 
 argument, and was at once got rid of. If in a mail 
 cart * one horse in the shafts, and occasionally an 
 auxiliary one rigged stun-sail-boom-fashion ' instead 
 of a dak gharry, one had to hold on pretty tight when 
 the horse did start, which he generally did at one bound, 
 and without giving the least previous notice, even by 
 so much as a cock of the ear. Although some of the 
 factory hacks are difficult to manage both in harness 
 and saddle, it will hardly be found necessary, except 
 
6 New Arrival, Dating into the Factory, etc. 
 
 in extreme cases, to proceed to such lengths as this 
 last to induce them to " proceed." Another favour- 
 ite " dodge " was to tie a thong or rope tightly round 
 the pastern of an unwilling starter, and apply vigorous 
 tugs and wrenches to this particularly tender part, 
 until the poor animal had no choice but between 
 immediate starting and a prospective raw leg for a 
 month from the friction of the rope. 
 
 Besides the ordinary saddle-nag, the bamboo-cart 
 is most generally used for travelling ; the sketch 
 furnishes the details of one of these vehicles. They 
 can be made from part of an old indigo-chest and 
 four pieces of bamboo, and some of them are so 
 made for very rough-and-particularly-tumble work, 
 inasmuch as the wheels holding out, they cannot 
 break. But some are made quite elegant little con- 
 veyances, with very little of the bamboo at all about 
 them except the shafts. The real bond fide bamboo- 
 cart, with plain bamboo shafts and pincer springs, is 
 simply unbreakable, capsize or no capsize, so long as 
 the wheels are good and the two or three screw 
 fastenings required are tightly braced up. They 
 rank with the bullock-hackery, which has, since the 
 British occupancy of India, been unanimously pro- 
 nounced, by both amateurs and professionals, military 
 and civil, mercantile, agricultural, and marine (many 
 a gallant sea-captain in Cook or Brown & Co.'s 
 
New Arrival, Ddking into the Factory, etc. 7 
 
 jauntiest hired buggy who has tried it), to be abso- 
 lutely invulnerable. The more elegant so-called bam- 
 boo - carts are generally rather gingerbread affairs, 
 which require constant repairs. They are apparently 
 made up of putty and paint at some of the larger 
 up-country stations, and come to pieces during the 
 rains, or before they have been in use a twelve-month* 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 THE FACTORY-ASSISTANT'S BUNGALOW, ETC, 
 
 Jwill suppose our young friend to have at last, after 
 the usual journey in trap or saddle, arrived 
 at the " Sudder " or head factory, the residence 
 of the Manager of the " concern." He will pro- 
 bably be entertained here for a few days prior to 
 being despatched to his out-factory, where he will 
 take up his residence, I will hope, for some years, 
 gradually qualifying himself to become some day a 
 manager himself. 
 
 The Assistant's bungalow, or house, will probably 
 be much like the illustration given. His cook-room 
 will always be at some little distance from the house ; 
 it has been found well that this, in an Eastern clime, 
 should be so There are weird legends extant, of 
 matutinal coffee strained through the garment which 
 covers the foot Have not puddings been boiled in 
 banians and pocket-hanky-thingumajigs lent by the 
 bearer from not amongst the clean things ? Is not 
 hare (hair) soup served up regularly until the bobar- 
 chee's (cook's) ambrosial locks are perforce seized and 
 shorn by the stern order of the sahib , who with all 
 his love of game soup and pie, to say nothing of 
 curry holds, in this case, with the fastidious man in 
 
Thacker, Spink, & Co., Calcutta. 
 
The Factory- Assistant's Bungalow, etc. 9 
 
 the backwoods restaurant, who preferred his flies 
 and molasses in separate plates, and likes his " hair," 
 if it must come to table, placed in a prominent place, 
 say, on a separate dish of the largest size, and sent 
 thereon, with best compliments, back to the chef in 
 the cook-room. 
 
 The bungalow will probably contain a dining- 
 room, bedroom, dressing and bath rooms, with a 
 pantry and " godown " (or store-closet), with back 
 and front verandahs, as shown in the plan given. 
 Nothing, in this particular instance, is sacrificed to 
 art. This amount of accommodation is all that is 
 really needed for a bachelor ; it doesn't matter one 
 bit if one doorway isn't exactly opposite another ; 
 in fact, it is rather an advantage than otherwise, 
 as an Aryan brother who has a complaint of a 
 peculiarly noxious or distressing character, such 
 as wanting to borrow money on personal security 
 or anything of that sort, simply reconnoitres until he 
 finds a place in the garden or compound, from 
 which angle if under a convenient tree, so much the 
 better he can distinctly see through the house 
 so that, move which way the Assistant will, the, 
 " grievancer's " eye is upon him. In vain the unfor- 
 tunate aspirant for indigo honours tries to evade 
 the steadfast eyes of the watcher smoke as he 
 may, read as he may, intently as he may dive his 
 
io The Factory-Assistant's Bungalow ', etc. 
 
 nose into the page or newspaper his eye will slowly, 
 gradually, but surely, be dragged, line by line, letter 
 by letter, up the page to the top of the column and 
 over the edge, and his eye will inevitably meet the 
 eye of the " watcher " fixed patiently upon him. 
 Animal magnetism ! It's no use ; he KNOWS you 
 MUST look at him ; he never stirs, he never speaks ; 
 he sits there, mute, asking for nothing, seeking 
 nothing. Oh, no ! Wishing for nothing. Only, you 
 will have to, and MUST, eventually, LOOK AT HIM ; 
 and herein lies his triumph ! And, the instant his 
 eye catches yours, there flashes out upon his face, as 
 from a lighthouse on the coast, suddenly such an 
 expression of abject misery and woe, want and 
 injured innocence, as no words -but mute appeals 
 can do justice to, dying away again as suddenly 
 the instant your eye is removed from him. In this 
 case the human eye and animal magnetism has 
 great and unconquerable effects, and it has even 
 been known to attract a boot-jack, half a brick, or 
 similar heavy bodies with great velocity to within 
 an ace of the " watcher's " head, accompanied with 
 much low and violent rumbling, as of bad language 
 and ill-temper of a furiously aggressive but sup- 
 pressed kind. Therefore, the more irregularly one's 
 doors are " let in," so much more is the " silent 
 watcher " checked off. 
 
7 'he Factory -Assistant's Bungalow, etc. 1 1 
 
 At the most, the company our Assistant is likely to 
 see will be, occasionally say, once or twice a month 
 a neighbouring assistant whose cultivation adjoins 
 his own, who may drop in for tiffin (or the mid- day 
 meal), and perhaps a visit once a week or so from 
 his Manager just to see how he is getting on, and 
 with whom he most likely returns to the Sudder 
 factory for the night as a pleasant change to the 
 monotony and dulness of the out-factory. If his 
 Manager is a family man, he may hear a few tunes 
 on the piano, and a few of the Old Country songs 
 which will remind him of those at Home ; and he 
 will return to his lonely bungalow the next morning 
 the better for the pleasant evening, one of the few 
 he is likely to pass until the cold season comes 
 round again, then he can, perhaps, get away to the 
 races, or to the Behar Volunteer Cavalry parades, 
 or to Calcutta for a few days, where his numerous 
 wants will inevitably lead him to China Bazar, there 
 to be assailed, by native brokers, hawkers, and middle- 
 men clinging to his gharry with cries of * tin-box,' 
 'orginette,' 'meershum pipe,' ' portmantoo,' 'esleepin- 
 suit,' ' ready med close,' ' photogripes taken,' etc. 
 
T 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GENERAL LIFE, AMUSEMENTS, ETC. 
 
 HE general life of an Indigo Assistant is much 
 as follows, and varies but little throughout the 
 hot and rainy months ; but during the colder 
 months, viz., November, December, January, and 
 February, more festivity prevails, races, hunting, 
 and hockey meets are held at different stations ; 
 the Behar Mounted Rifles hold cold-weather parades 
 frequently, and the Assistant's life is, thus, much 
 enlivened. 
 
 As a rule, the Assistant, in ordinary work, rises at 
 5-30 A. M. ; he then takes chota hazree (or little break- 
 fast), consisting of a cup of tea, a slice of toast, and 
 a couple of eggs, and his horse is brought round 
 meanwhile ready saddled. He starts out immedi- 
 ately after swallowing his tea to inspect his lands, 
 the ride extending sometimes to eight, nine, or ten 
 miles, not at a gallop by any means, but at a steady 
 inspecting pace. He notes all the work going on 
 in the different parts of his charge ; perhaps meets 
 his Manager, also out on his round ; gives and 
 receives the news ; issues his orders ; and returns 
 about ii A.M. He has a good bath, and, quite 
 
General Life, Amusements, etc. 13 
 
 refreshed, looks over his letters, perhaps, or writes 
 one or two, then comes tiffin, or the mofussil 
 mid - day meal, which is, in fact, the principal 
 meal of the day. If he gets a newspaper, after 
 tiffin, he sits and cons it over a comfortable smoke, 
 and, perhaps, in the hot weather lies down for a 
 couple of hours under the punkah. At 3 p. m. or so 
 he rises, and then most of the writing business of the 
 day is got through. The factory " writer " comes with 
 the books and accounts, and they are examined ; the 
 items written out, opposite the vernacular, in English 
 by the Assistant, and the amounts totalled and balan- 
 ces checked, and the books initialed or signed. After 
 this follows a confab, long or short, with the gomashta 
 jemadar or headman of the factory, who takes his 
 orders from the Assistant, and some pointed censure 
 also sometimes, about the work present and to come. 
 By this time evening is closing in, and the Assistant 
 may walk or ride out again to see some work close 
 at hand, or may look up the factory cattle, and see 
 how they are being fed and generally cared for, or 
 he may take a stroll round the stables and garden, 
 and then in to dinner. 
 
 This somewhat monotonous life to some is fre- 
 quently enlivened by a run with the " bobbery pack." 
 The " bobbery pack " proper is usually a joint-stock 
 affair the property jointly of two or three assistants 
 
14 General Life, Amusements, etc. 
 
 of a somewhat sporting character and consists of 
 dogs of every breed, colour, and shade possible, from 
 the squab little bow-legged, half-bred, cur doggie to 
 the no less half-bred, lanky, big -jointed cross be- 
 tween a Rampore and a pariah dog, or a greyhound 
 and a kangaroo dog ; these last, by the way, being 
 the finest dogs for India. Notice being sent round, 
 each member contributes his chiens de chasse, boule- 
 dogue, settare, kangarow, or griound, as the case may 
 be, and then, hurrah ! for le sport. 
 
 Mr. Jackal's haunts are pretty well known, and 
 towards the evening is the best time to find him, just 
 as he is issuing forth for his nightly rambles. The 
 mehters, or dogmen, follow in various stages of entan- 
 glement with their charges. When, at last, the scent 
 of wily "jack "is hit upon by some cur doggie of 
 more than ordinary nasal intelligence, and after much 
 slipping of collars bodily over dogs' heads, and there- 
 by half strangling some of the most eager, and a 
 variety of contrivances in the way of leashes loosened, 
 away streams the crowd, yelping, yahouping, yelling, 
 and barking, each one at the top of his throat, some 
 before, some behind, all howling their level best ; 
 the griounds and kangarows leaping like bony race- 
 horses gone mad amongst a flock of sheep ; the smaller 
 dogs rolling and tumbling over in their eagerness, 
 but scrambling up, and going in again barking 
 
General Life, Amusements, etc. 
 
 vociferously all the time, though, even when on 
 broad of their backs; each one determined, if poasU 
 ble, not to be quite the very last " in at the kill." 
 last Master Jackal gains a patch of pretty tall indigo, 
 and there remains perdu for a time. The noble pack 
 are at fault, but do their best ; the little terriers as 
 they come up and big dogs each jumping up as high 
 as they can from the ground peering about for a 
 glimpse of the " game." Some of the little terriers 
 actually bouncing about like indiarubber balls, glan- 
 cing wistfully here and there, till, at last, Mr. J. haviag 
 got his wind again, slinks slyly out and makes for 
 some favoured haunt, replying to the yell with which 
 his appearance is greeted by a whisk of his tail only, 
 and a single defiant glance backwards over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 But he has miscalculated his enemies. With 
 mighty sweeps of his hind legs like a race-horse at 
 his best, or the revolutions of a fly-wheel of a steam 
 engine at full pressure and with gleaming eyes and 
 cruel fangs, an enormous half-bred kangaroo dog, the 
 king of the pack, flashes down upon him. In vain 
 Mr. Jackal dodges and runs his hardest, his enemy 
 closely pursues him, and is backed by the two best 
 greyhound pups in the pack, each almost a match 
 already, single-handed, for a Jackal, and fine promis- 
 ing young dogs. It is all up with Master Jackal 
 
1 6 General Life, Amusements, etc. 
 
 now. The Assistants check their steeds, and pause 
 to witness the end, which is fast approaching and 
 which will round off Master Jackal's days, poor fel- 
 low, right in that little bare patch of cultivated soil 
 glistening now a short way ahead of his labouring- 
 feet. Ha ! the big dog has him down ; a sideward 
 turn and one savage despairing snap of the teeth, 
 but never a cry, are all the Jackal's defence, and in a 
 white puff of dust, shot high into the sultry air, dogs 
 and jackal roll over together, and present a confused 
 mass of lugging and tearing legs and teeth, hot chok- 
 ing throats and fierce flaming eyes, till the body of 
 yet another "jack" lies bleeding and lifeless, torn 
 and mangled past recognition, on the bosom of its 
 mother earth. 
 
 This amusement may be varied by an occasional 
 shooting excursion, or a race or hockey meet, or even 
 by worrying a cat in the reservoir ; but the latter 
 amusement for a dull afternoon will probably strike 
 the reader as being quite too refined and intellectual 
 to suggest itself to every one ; yet there are some 
 manly natures whose innate sporting instincts will 
 lead them to the pursuit of " game " under any diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 The Assistant will find that, with a. little trouble, 
 and very little expense, he can make his factory- 
 home quite a snug little place. With everything 
 
General Life, Amusement 's ) etc. 17 
 
 coming from Home now at such cheap rates, a few 
 really artistic, first-class oleographs or chromolitho- 
 graphic landscapes, animals, and horses' and dogs' 
 heads, etc., after Landseer ; photographs of celebrated 
 pictures and people, or what not, may easily be got 
 for a moderate price for his rooms. Flowers may be 
 had in any quantity, as almost every factory has a 
 garden. Cage-birds in India are plentiful, and of many 
 beautiful varieties ; some can be taught to speak, 
 whistle, or sing to perfection. A good aquarium 
 is also a source of endless study and delight to those 
 scientifically inclined or those who have a taste for 
 natural history, as there are an immense variety of 
 extraordinary specimens of fish, aquatic animals, 
 insects and plants, etc., to be got from the Indian 
 rivers, streams, ponds, tanks, and ditches. Altoge- 
 ther there are very many worse countries than India 
 to live in, though certainly for some months in the 
 hot weather it is very trying. But let the Assistant 
 devise some means of indoor employment, improve- 
 ment, and amusement. He can study the reading 
 and writing of the language if inclined, and will find 
 such study invaluable to him as a planter in afterlife, 
 or he may sketch in water or oil colours and adorn his 
 domicile with the results. The Assistant may carpenter 
 a bit in the way of fretwork brackets, or turnery, all 
 of which will help to pass the dull times away and 
 
 R., In. B 
 
1 8 General L ife, A m use men ts, etc. 
 
 serve to adorn the bungalow. The flower garden will 
 also require a good deal of care, and will furnish 
 employment for every spare minute. Then there is 
 always work of some sort to do, and should our 
 Assistant still find the time of an evening hang heav- 
 ily upon his hands, he should get some instrument, 
 never mind of what sort, from a hundred-guinea 
 violin or piano down to a penny tin whistle, and 
 practise it until he can play. He need never fear 
 the sound jarring on the native nerves, or offending 
 native ears : these are the only ones likely to hear 
 him. The native of -India is positively fond of dis- 
 cordant sounds ; and he will probably, on slipping out 
 into his verandah in the darkness of the stilly night, 
 after performing every direst kind of excruciating 
 discord on his instrument for the time being violin for 
 preference, if any find, as one assistant did, his chow- 
 kidar behind the door, wrapped in profoundest ex- 
 tacies at the dulcet sounds he had been producing ; 
 and he will be greeted with a respectful but confiden- 
 tially whispered : " Wah / wah ! Huzoor ! ap hhoob 
 bajanewallah hai" which being interpreted is Pushtoo- 
 Sanskrit for : " Well and neatly executed, oh ! pre- 
 server of the poor ; Paganini Sahib himself, were he 
 here, might have been willing, or even anxious, to quote 
 the ever-verdant Artemus, to die after having heard 
 such a masterly medley of sweet sounds as thou, oh \ 
 
General Life, Amusements^ etc. 19 
 
 distributor of unbounded charity to unworthy reci- 
 pients, hast produced ! " Seriously speaking, it is 
 often a great thing for one of the gentlemen present 
 at a gathering to be able to play even a few dances 
 to amuse the company. It enlivens the evening and 
 pleases many, besides giving the ladies and those who 
 are " dancing " gentlemen an opportunity for a dance, 
 to which the former, as a rule, never object. Even to 
 be able to play the Highland Fling well on a penny 
 whistle is an accomplishment, and a good accomplish- 
 ment too at a " meet ; " and to be able to knock out a 
 couple of jigs and a hornpipe t>r so on an old fiddle, 
 will often serve to enliven a dull evening in the rains 
 and set the flow of conversation going again. The 
 very squeak of a fiddle resembles Mr. Punch's well- 
 known call note of " R-r-r-r-r-r-rooooooo titoooit " 
 in its suggestion of fun. And in that dire calamity 
 which doth sometimes befall the male portion of the 
 human race, viz. t the absence of ladies and the piano, 
 much may be got out of gentlemen amateur perform- 
 ances. Even a periodical Christy Minstrel gather- 
 ing would not be impossible, did the district number 
 amongst its Assistants a " banjo," " fiddle,"" tambou- 
 rine " and the indispensable " bones ; " the corner- 
 joking-and-singing-and-conundrum " Massa Jonsons" 
 being also forthcoming. What dreadful and unchid- 
 den jokes might not one make on one's Manager, 
 
2O General Life, Amusements, etc. 
 
 disguised as " Massa Benson ;" what cunning allusions 
 to paucity of salary, or cutting references to the 
 scantiness of one neighbour's crop might not one 
 make under cover of Massa Jonson's " mechanical 
 wit " and darkened countenance ! 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MANAGER. 
 
 THE Manager is appointed by the proprietor or 
 joint proprietors of the concern i.e., the head 
 factory with all its outworks under a general 
 power-of-attorney of the fullest nature, to superin- 
 tend and have a care over all and every interest 
 in the said concern. In proportion as his power 
 is full, so is his responsibility heavy. The efficient 
 management of a large, or indeed of any, indigo 
 concern, far from being a sinecure, is attended with 
 many difficulties, and demands the exercise of an 
 amount of judgment and sagacity not perhaps 
 required in any other profession in India. The 
 Manager has virtually to be a "jack of all trades," 
 whilst the comparative mastery which he has 
 attained over most of them is to be admired. His 
 duties are multiform, and his labour unceasing. 
 The routine of his work is everlasting. To him 
 the treadmill is indeed a daily round, but it is the 
 mental as well as the physical one ; a well-balanced 
 mind is equally necessary with a robust frame and 
 sturdy limbs : mens sand in corpore sano is an indis- 
 pensable requisite in the good Manager. We have 
 
22 The Manager, 
 
 said that his duties are many, and we will now 
 proceed to describe some of them for the incipient 
 assistant, the manager of the future. 
 
 The Manager's chief work is in his katchary or office, 
 and his chief duty the regulation of all matters 
 intimately connected with the cultivation and manu- 
 facture of indigo. His other business, though arduous, 
 and often more vexatious than his business proper, 
 necessarily holds a secondary place, being created 
 by, and therefore tributary to, it. In most head 
 factories the account-books of all the factories are 
 examined and passed every month by the Mana- 
 ger, who approves, or otherwise, as he deems fit. 
 The Assistant, although enjoying a certain amount 
 of discretionary power, is not master of his own 
 expenditure, being responsible to the Manager by 
 whom he is appointed ; whilst the Manager is 
 directly responsible, not only for his own, but also 
 for the acts of his subordinates of every grade. 
 Thus, a vast deal of trouble is cast upon the should- 
 ers of the Manager of the concern. By factory- 
 accounts I would be understood to mean all such 
 as pertain to the actual working and carrying on 
 of the factory itself in all its branches. The rami- 
 fications are numerous. We have the establish- 
 ment, European and native ; all accounts connected 
 with the cultivation of the ziraths> or fields, in which 
 
The Manager. 23 
 
 indigo is directly and entirely sown by the factory, 
 sua propria those which have to do with ryot hi 
 or such lands as are cultivated by tenants under 
 advance from the factory. Then, there are the 
 accounts which deal with charges for repairing 
 old and constructing new buildings or works : 
 the large item of cattle demands a close and 
 unflagging scrutiny ; whilst such items as go- 
 down stores and general charges, under which 
 categories come all stores purchased during the 
 year for consumption or use, and all and sundry 
 the thousand and one incidents ever cropping up in 
 a factory ; mahai or manufacturing charges and 
 machinery charges, which accounts embrace all 
 the multitudinous items accompanying and result- 
 ing from the manufacture of the plant into dye; 
 and the working, regulating, and keeping in order 
 of the machinery. These, and a few others, I would 
 designate the accounts proper of a concern, all of which 
 come under the inspection, demand the attention, 
 and require the sanction, of the Manager. Thus, it 
 may be seen that, even were the Manager's labours 
 confined within the limits we have detailed, his office 
 work would not be easy, nor his kalchary a " Castle 
 of Indolence." 
 
 But he is not allowed to rest here. No sooner has 
 he escaped from the Liliputians than he is attacked 
 
24 The Manager. 
 
 in force, and captured by the Brobdingnagians. They 
 seize him in the form of putwarts, or village ac- 
 counts. He feels weary and inclined to resist ; but 
 they are too strong and too pressing, and he must 
 plod on. These accounts arise in this way. To 
 acquire land in which to carry on his industry the 
 planter has to or rather has hitherto had to, for 
 this is all being changed now enter into treaty 
 with the surrounding zemindars, or landholders, for 
 leases of their villages. These villages being appor- 
 tioned out to ryots, or tenants, the zemindar is un- 
 able to treat for any special portion or division of 
 a village, and, in consequence, the planter is forced 
 to take the whole, with all its advantages or 
 drawbacks. The advantages he anticipates are 
 the obtaining of lands in which to cultivate indigo ; 
 the drawbacks are the patwari and his accounts. 
 These are sent him for his sins. We will deal after- 
 wards with the question of zemindari and the feature 
 in it called tikhadari, or leasing. Meanwhile, back to 
 the Manager, and \tispatwarfs accounts : these consist 
 of siahas (vouchers), jamma bundies (rent-roll), and 
 jamma kharchas (debit and credit account). The 
 siahas accompany all moneys paid in by the patwari 
 as village-collections ; they may come daily or weekly,, 
 according to the varying customs prevailing ; indeed 
 there is scarcely any regulating rule, each Manager 
 
The Manager. 25 
 
 having his own pet system. Over these troublesome 
 little papers, which he must sign and confirm, the 
 manager spends a weary time, testing, inquiring, 
 doubting, believing, and sometimes, whispering soft 
 nothings into the patwarfs ear. These papers are 
 checked by a book called the kistibundi (instalment- 
 book) and the daily cash register. 1\\zjamma bundles 
 and jamma kharchas, alas ! come together ; but " the 
 wind is tempered to the shorn lamb," and they only 
 come up for searching inquiry once a year. These 
 give the total rental of the village, showing the khast 
 or holding of each tenant with its rental ; the amount 
 received in cash and that still to be collected ; the 
 impracticable lands from which no rent accrues ; the 
 tenants, real and imaginary, who have disappeared 
 from the village during the year, carrying the whole 
 year's rent with them (the patwari invariably sets 
 them down as delinquents to the full) ; the cesses for 
 which the village is liable fisheries, tanneries, etc. 
 The patwari) foul bird, has preyed the year out upon 
 the pecuniary vitals of the tenants, but now he dons 
 his brightest plumage, and it is indeed difficult to 
 detect his obscene nature ; but duty is duty, and the 
 Manager has a high and enduring sense of it. So, 
 into foepatwarfs papers not only his own, but those 
 of the out-divisions as well the Manager goes, con- 
 senting and dissenting, cutting and clipping, doubting 
 
 ^ ,. 
 
 S^fORNJA. 
 
26 T/te Manager. 
 
 and badgering, until he arrives at a final settlement 
 with his worst enemy \hepatwari. All this time the 
 Manager is enveloped in a dense cloud of falsehood 
 and chicanery, which he disperses, sometimes with 
 advantage to himself, but, too often, with profit to the 
 peculating patwari. These village-accounts are like 
 the stars, eternal ; but unlike them, gloomy and 
 dark offering little light to the Manager, except such 
 as his own skill and science may evolve. But the 
 intricacies of this fell branch of a Manager's work 
 the Assistant must find out for himself ; I offer 
 merely a descriptive outline, which the space at my 
 command forbids me to enlarge. 
 
 The Manager has also to do the ordering and guid- 
 ing of his Assistants as to all outdoor work ; and al- 
 though, as a rule, injunction and obedience are, in this 
 case, so to say, synonymous terms, yet it is worrying. 
 Generally, the Manager prefers the morning, before 
 going out, for writing his subdivisional letters and 
 orders, English and vernacular. These are not few. 
 All insubordination, all mismanagement or misbehav- 
 iour of native subordinates, all truculencies of ten- 
 ants, all matters referring to law or to land, and every- 
 thing dependent upon changes in the weather, are re- 
 ferred to him for orders. He is the alpha and omega 
 of the factory-system the sun, round which all the 
 lesser bodies move. 
 
The Manager. 27 
 
 Correspondence with agents and Home proprietors 
 is a task which few managers like, although perform- 
 ed with fair regularity. The Calcutta letters and the 
 weekly letter Home are betes noirs, but the Manager 
 looks upon them as part of his duty, and they are 
 written. In correspondence with the agents, the 
 Manager reports on the progress of the "concern," 
 arranges for his seed, and orders all stores required dur- 
 ing the current season. He keeps the Home proprietor 
 en courant with the state of affairs generally, and of 
 lawsuits and mamlahs (negotiations) particularly ; to 
 the agents he yearly sends his estimate for the coming 
 year's outlay, which they either approve on receipt 
 or forward Home for orders. Once approved, the 
 wherewithal for the ensuing year is steadily supplied 
 by the agents, to whom monthly abstracts of expen- 
 diture are forwarded. 
 
 Another branch, still, of the Manager's office work, 
 is the conduct of suits at law ; some managers have 
 more to do in this way than others. Some factories 
 are comparatively free of these pests, whilst in others 
 the Manager's time and mind are both much exercised 
 by them. The immunity or otherwise from such 
 suits seems mainly to depend upon locality, and 
 whether the zemindars and ryots have acquired 
 a taste for litigation or not. Be this as it may, 
 no manager is quite exempt. The factory mokadama 
 
28 The Manager. 
 
 (lawsuit) throbs along in three great arteries civil, 
 criminal, and revenue. In the Civil Courts, the Mana- 
 ger prosecutes thebond-bound zemindar, the swindling 
 carter under a five years' agreement, the defaulting 
 servant, and the peculating patwari ; or, occasionally, 
 the tables are turned upon him by all four parties. For 
 the immediate supervision of such cases he employs 
 an ingenuous gentleman called a p&*/(ftative pleader), 
 who takes fees. Criminally, he also wages war upon the 
 perjured bond-bound zemindar, the similarly perjured 
 carter under a five years' agreement, the defaulting 
 servant, and the peculating patwari, when he can "run 
 in" these latter. Two other new patients present them- 
 selves for legal treatment the trespasser and the 
 thief. At this tribunal the interests of the Manager 
 are usually protected by that spotless specimen, the 
 muktar (pleader, minor). In the Revenue Depart- 
 ment, presided over by the civil and small cause 
 judge, all suits relating to renewal of leases from 
 zemindars, realising of outstanding balances from 
 ryots, boundary disputes, rights of occupancy, en- 
 hancement, distraint, etc., ad infinitum, drag their 
 weary length along " with ever lengthening chain ; " 
 for, is not a suit before a munsiff (judge of small 
 causes), the first cousin of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce ? 
 These suits are also in the tender care of the vakil. 
 Sometimes a case of either of the two first descriptions 
 
The Manager. 29 
 
 goes up to the High Court, but this is not an every- 
 day occurrence, and a manager may have one or 
 two during his whole term of management. The 
 revenue-cases go to the Commissioner or Board of 
 Revenue, and the fiat of the latter is final. 
 
 I will close my description of the office functions 
 of the Manager with a cursory glance at that section 
 of his work which is called in the planters' " shop " 
 language "doing mamlaks" (i.e., negotiations) for 
 leases of land and villages. Here the Manager 
 comes into direct contact with the zemindar, the 
 latter generally waiting upon the former at his fac- 
 tory. Indeed, it is in most cases the impecuniosity 
 of the zemindar which leads him to seek the Mana- 
 ger, whom, in his heart, he considers only a shade 
 better than the mahajun (usurer). But his needs are 
 urgent, and the mahajun presses hard upon his flank. 
 The factory is his last resort. The usurer's rates of 
 interest are iniquitous ; the Manager's demands are 
 fair, if his terms are hard. Early and late the zemin- 
 dar betakes himself to the factory, and the Manager 
 receives him in his katchary. Then ensues a time 
 of hard swearing over " cooked " papers on the one 
 part, and protestations and much unbelief on the 
 other : 
 
 " My village is the fairest field for indigo in Behar. 
 Where can you find such lands and such rates ? " 
 
30 The Manager. 
 
 " True, my friend, your village is good and your 
 lands are fair ; but you may well ask where such 
 rates can be found they are extortionate." 
 
 " You misunderstand ; I want to imply that, for 
 the quality of the soil, the rates are low, too low. 
 I shall be ruined if I conclude with you on your hard 
 terms. I shall go back to the mahajun?' 
 
 As you please, my friend ; I do not particularly 
 want your village. I but deemed I did you a favour. 
 Good-bye ! " Mutual grasping of hands ; exit zemin- 
 dar. 
 
 This kind of mummery goes on for some time ; 
 the zemindar is proud and greedy, and the Manager, 
 who is dying for the village, would not show anxiety 
 for worlds. "He will come again," he says to him- 
 self ; and he is right : here he comes. His demands 
 are considerably less this time, and the Manager, in 
 a deprecating sort of way, agrees to consider his 
 proposals. The rent-roll of the village he has seen 
 ad nauseam. He has it all by heart that heart 
 which he has set upon the village. 
 
 The zemindar proceeds : " 'Thejamma bundi of the 
 village is so much ; profits, deducting all expenses, 
 so much ; you will advance me so much money at 
 eight per cent ; in so many years at this interest, the 
 rent-roll of the village will liquidate your money, 
 principal and interest ; and, at the end of the term, 
 
The Manager. 31 
 
 you will pay me cash so much the balance of rent 
 after liquidation and return me my village, paying 
 me 10 annas rent for your ziratJis for ensuing year. 
 There, sahib ! see what a friend of yours I am ; and, 
 ah me ! see how long I am out of my own ! My loved 
 ones at home will die ; it is their homestead, and 
 they curse me for alienating it." 
 
 The Manager shakes his head and looks unspeakable 
 things. What would his proprietors say ; what would 
 other managers say, if they heard he had done such 
 a mamlah ? 
 
 " No, no, no ! " the zemindar gasps. He did think 
 his present proposal was glittering enough. Well, 
 he would throw himself upon the mercy of the 
 mulak malik (lord of earth). What would he 
 have ? 
 
 Then the Manager, and his looks are stern and 
 high : " I acknowledged your jamma bundi that 
 we have settled. I will advance you rupees at 
 
 12 per cent, absurdly low, but out of courtesy to you. 
 In years my principal and interest are liquidated 
 
 from the income of your village, with a balance due to 
 me of rupees, which you will pay on demand. 
 
 Your village will not then be relinquished, but will 
 continue in my possession for years more on a 
 
 simple lease. You understand ? These are my terms, 
 to which our long friendship constrains me." 
 
32 The Manager. 
 
 Alas, alas ! what can he do, the slouth-hound 
 behind, this dark ford before ! He slowly, reluctantly 
 passes the ford and is safe. He closes with the 
 Manager's terms. 
 
 This is what is called in Behar the sudozvah 
 putowah mamlah, which, though we have placed 
 first, managers like worst ; where they see their 
 money gradually ebbing away, until the village is 
 handed back to the zemindar, who promptly asks for 
 more. 
 
 But the methods of managers in treaty with the 
 zemindar are many and variform. There is the khusk 
 tikha (simple lease), by which the village is farmed for 
 a term, the Manager paying the zemindar the stipu- 
 lated rental in instalments ; the zarpeshgi lease, where 
 the money advanced constitutes the principal, and 
 the annual rent of the village, the interest. Under 
 this form of mamlah the village is never relinquished 
 until the principal is paid up in full, and it obtains 
 much favour with the Managers of Behar. There 
 is the mukarrari, which is a simple lease in perpe- 
 tuity. On lands leased in this latter way, vats and all 
 factory-buildings are erected. We need hardly say 
 that large villages or areas are seldom obtainable in 
 this way. There are many other changes rung on the 
 everlasting mamlah; but those mentioned are the chief 
 phases in which it confronts the Manager. 
 
The Manager. 33 
 
 The Manager of a concern has also a good deal 
 of riding about. He is regular in his morning visits 
 to the zillah (out-cultivation), ordering, countermand- 
 ing, and inspecting work generally. Indeed, there 
 is no Assistant busier than he. But, especially in 
 large concerns, the zillah work is often looked after 
 by a personal Assistant employed for that purpose. 
 For a description of zillah work, vide Chapter III, 
 page 12 ; the Manager's and Assistant's work in this 
 department being essentially the same. Outworks 
 are now and again looked up, and, in this way, a 
 pleasant relaxation from the toils of katchary ob- 
 tained. To be stern, yet conciliating, firm, yet plea- 
 sant ; to know when to hold and when to yield ; to 
 be courteous and honourable never departing from 
 his word once pledged ; to have an intimate know- 
 ledge of his profession, and a good deal of savoir 
 faire, together with a good knowledge of business : 
 in fine, to know how to " become all things to all 
 men, so that he may win" something these are 
 some of the attributes essential to the making of a 
 good indigo manager. 
 
 R., In. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE AMLAHS. 
 
 THE amlahs, or native staff of a factory, vary in 
 number and responsibility almost as much as 
 they do in integrity and capability. At a large 
 head factory the amlahs are many, but as the tyro will 
 not come much in contact with some of these during the 
 years of his probation, I will pass them over, merely 
 noticing those amlahs who are indispensable to the 
 outwork, and common to head factory and outwork 
 alike. 
 
 First in the list comes the jemadar, a sort of native 
 personal assistant to the Assistant, equivalent to the 
 English bailiff or Scottish grieve. On this functionary 
 devolves the arranging, ordering, and inspecting of 
 all out-door work ; he is the deus ex machind of the 
 zillah. The cultivation of lands is pre-eminently his 
 province, whilst the choosing of new, and realising 
 of old and worn out lands falls within his jurisdiction, 
 subject to the approval of the Assistant. In a well- 
 ordered outwork, the duties of jemadar should not 
 be to hire any extension of power in collateral direc- 
 tions, this being an inducement to dishonest trans- 
 actions, which the worthy jemadar can rarely, if ever, 
 
The Amlahs. 35 
 
 withstand ; and, indeed, the young Assistant will, as a 
 rule, find it difficult to curb the jemadar, even when 
 confined to his own proper walk. When first put in 
 charge of an outwork, the Assistant will necessarily 
 be very much under the tutorship (we had almost 
 said at the mercy) of his leading amlahs. But the 
 latter term is perhaps too sweeping, because, if the 
 Assistant is active and anxious to penetrate all the 
 intricacies of his work, he will never consider it a 
 task of supererogation to personally test and satisfy 
 himself upon all the matters connected with, and 
 reported upon by, the jemadar. His own common 
 sense will teach him that such constant investigation 
 must be so regulated, that the jemadar may never 
 dream that there is any suspicion connected there- 
 with. Not infrequently the jemadar of long service, 
 regarding the young Assistant as his pupil, and, being 
 a native, the sequence is, that he puts on a certain 
 amount of swagger which, though the newcomer from 
 England may not recognise as such, his subordinates 
 in the factory are fully alive to, and they behave 
 to \hQjemadar in proportion to the amount of " side " 
 he can put on. The behaviour of the jemadar 
 even to the softly attuned tones of his voice when 
 speaking is obsequious to the extreme to the Mana- 
 ger. To that grave and great of all the factories, he 
 does not speak above a whisper, while to the Assistant 
 
36 The Amlahs. 
 
 his behaviour is, in many cases, aggravating^ insolent, 
 in such a way as to render it difficult to the young 
 hand to curb this tendency to " cheek." In some fac- 
 tories in Behar, where there is not always an Assist- 
 ant in charge, the jemadar who acts in that capacity 
 loses his head, and the next Assistant finds he has 
 a most difficult task. Generally the remedy is drastic, 
 and the jemadar gets turned out. If the Manager 
 objects to this, and does not even substitute some 
 punital equivalent for the " sack," the Assistant who 
 still remains does so as a nonentity, and is not 
 worth the salary he gets. But I am glad to certify 
 that the Manager seldom or never lends a deaf ear 
 to the Assistant's grievance, nor is he slow to afford 
 redress. 
 
 The lalla, or munshi as he styles himself aping 
 the title of the real munshi, who resides at the head- 
 factory, and who works some of the legal and other 
 wheels of the concern is the most important servant 
 the Assistant has. He looks after the accounts of 
 the outwork. 
 
 He is sometimes hand-and-glove with \hzjemadar ; 
 the nazri lalla forming the corner-stone of a confe- 
 deracy rich in loot to the worthy partners. When 
 the parties are not on terms of amicable commerce, 
 there is a certain amount of friction which the Assist- 
 ant must overlook or watch silently ; then the acute 
 
The Amlahs. 37 
 
 youngster is initiated into various tricks and secrets 
 of the gentle Hindu which, in the innocence of his 
 heart, he never dreamt of before. He must, how- 
 ever, be deaf to mutual recriminations, keeping both 
 ears and eyes wide open, always remembering that, 
 of all the members of the conspiring clique, the 
 munshi by caste a kaisth or writer is the least to 
 be trusted and most to be guarded against. Having 
 once come to the righteous conclusion that there are 
 none good amongst them, not even one, the Assist- 
 ant will proceed to deliberate upon their respective 
 degrees in the guild of villainy, and whatever rank 
 the other may hold, the lalla will \^Q, facile princeps, the 
 grand master. His are all the " tips " for dexterous 
 fudging of accounts ; grievances of every kind pour 
 in, but never pass the threshold of the munshts 
 office until the petitioner has paid his footing. Indeed 
 I know of factories where the munshi himself was 
 inaccessible, until the peon at the door had received 
 his footing. 
 
 In fine, the munshi, or native accountant of an 
 outwork, is a power for evil, and it is only by con- 
 stant, though secret, surveillance that the Assistant 
 will be in any way able to check those extortionary 
 instincts which are the very marrow of his bones. 
 As a rule his house and family are far away ; and the 
 Assistant would do well to remember that the golden 
 
38 The Amlahs. 
 
 rule of the munshi is to make the largest possible 
 " pile " in the least possible time. 
 
 Next in position comes the hazri nawis, or lalla, 
 who is in charge of the home ziraths and the ordi- 
 nary humdrum work within the factory precincts 
 such as repairs, including carpenters', blacksmiths', 
 masons' and their coolie helpers and other general 
 work common enough for an indigo factory. This 
 amlah arranges, counts, and keeps a register of all 
 coolies, ploughs, factory ploughmen, carters, chaff- 
 cutters, carpenters, blacksmiths, masons, etc., all 
 people in receipt of daily wage or monthly pay. 
 This daily register must be scrupulously tested by 
 the Assistant in person. I have always found it 
 best to accompany the hazri nawis in his morn- 
 ing and afternoon rounds, counting and dotting 
 down in a pocket-book the attendance of all grades 
 with him twice a day. The object of a second 
 hazri in the afternoon is to see that all those 
 counted in the morning are again present in the 
 afternoon an hour's respite being given to the 
 work-people from twelve to one, for their mid-day 
 meal. The hazri nawis 's pickings are considerably 
 less than those of either jemadar or munshi, and 
 are pretty much confined to " dasturi" an infini- 
 tismal blackmail levied by him upon coolies, which 
 they give voluntarily, or, at any rate, in consideration 
 
The Amlahs. 39 
 
 of their being allowed to work when they like, and 
 exempted when home-work is to be done ; and a 
 small sum monthly from factory carters, ploughmen, 
 etc., on receipt of their pay. These petty pecula- 
 tions it would perhaps be as well that the Assistant 
 did not notice, unless expressly brought before him : 
 they are recognised institutions of the country of 
 his exile indeed, dasturi explains itself, being an 
 adaption of the word dastur, custom to meet the 
 exigencies of such anomalous partnership as exists 
 between the lalla and his coolies. The Godown 
 factory stores are often in charge of the hazri nawis, 
 to whom is given a weighman, who is generally a 
 bunnia by caste. 
 
 The smaller fry who make up the scant contingent 
 of amlahs at an outwork, zilladars and tokdars may 
 be disposed of with a short notice. The zilladar is 
 a kind Q{ jemadar's mate, who has under him the 
 supervision of a portion of the sillah and three or 
 four tokdars, I am free to confess I never much liked 
 zilladars : they seem to be de trap, especially at an 
 outwork, and are an arrangement by which thzjema- 
 dar baulks his zillahs. From them he often takes his 
 reports at second-hand, and bravely serves them up 
 to the Assistant as the result of his own inspection. 
 Nor are they in favour either with tokdars or ryots, 
 from both of whom, too, they extort their quota 
 
40 The Amlahs. 
 
 which takes the various forms of salami, or loot. 
 Of a truth these middle-men are not worth their keep. t 
 
 The tokdars are in charge of sections of the zillah, 
 which may range in extent from 30 or 40 to 1 50 or 
 200 bighas ; such sections are called toks, literally 
 divisions, and are cultivated, sown, and the plant cut 
 by hired labour on the ticca (jobwork) system, the 
 tokdars receiving advances, at fixed rates, from the 
 factory. These men are directly under the jamadar, 
 and are in receipt of small pay, so that they find it 
 necessary to eke out their existence by petty extor- 
 tions of all kinds. A favourite dodge with the tokdar 
 is to measure his work with a large luggi measuring 
 rod ; thus making the work done by the hired labourer 
 come out considerably less than, by the proper fac- 
 tory luggi, it actually is. He sometimes contrives it 
 so that his " mate " turns up late of a morning with 
 the weeding or other coolies, when the wretches are 
 made to work double-tides, but are informed in the 
 evening that they shall expiate their fault of the 
 morning by receiving half wage. The factory-rates 
 being generally pretty liberal, the tokdar, in the above 
 and many other ways, succeeds in at least doubling 
 his pay in any month. 
 
 The youngster would do well to remember that 
 all natives are most correct and acute judges of 
 character. Indeed, it is not too much to say that 
 
The Amlahs. 41 
 
 whilst he is still groping in darkness as to the dis- 
 position of his several amlahs^ they have within a 
 very few days taken his measure pretty correctly ; 
 and even as their estimate is, so will their behaviour 
 and general demeanour be. He must learn that any 
 display of preference is a fatal weakness, which the 
 favoured one will lose no time in working upon to 
 his own advantage, whilst the less fortunate ones will 
 go about their work in a sulking, slovenly way, the 
 result of the ascendency asserted over them by the 
 favourite. 
 
 The amlahs are a necessary evil a veritable thorn 
 in the flesh to the hardworking, conscientious Assist- 
 ant ; but such as they are, he cannot get on without 
 them. He will find, as he becomes more initiated 
 into their tortuous ways and more conversant with 
 the manner of their lying, that even they might have 
 been worse, and he congratulates himself that his 
 amlahs are not as those of other men. The abyss 
 must be deep indeed where there is not still a deeper 
 depth, and the Assistant finds that the amlahs, if not 
 exactly angels of light, are human beings after all. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION AND TESTING OF DRILLS. 
 
 THE indigo-drill is a curious mechanism, and, from 
 its appearance, might arrogate a high antiquity, 
 although, in reality, quite as recent in Behar as 
 indigo itself, of which it is the offspring. Moreover, 
 it lays claim to first cousinship with agricultural im- 
 plements for the same purpose, and, some of them* 
 of exquisite mechanism, in Europe. In Gleanings of 
 Science, No. 5, for May 1829, there is a description, 
 with a drawing, of the drill plough of Tirhoot 
 used in the cultivation of Indigo, the advantages of 
 which are thus stated. "The land intended to be 
 sown having been previously rendered fine by repeated 
 ploughings and harrowings, with the common native 
 plough and bango, and all clods, weeds, etc., removedj 
 the trough filled with well-dried seed to about the 
 level of the iron axle, and everything being adjust- 
 ed, the bullocks are urged on. The shares cut the 
 furrow, the wheels of the machine turn those of the 
 trough, the slanting holes bored in the wheels of the 
 trough, during their passage through the seed, take 
 up each one or more seeds (seldom more than one), 
 and, in the downward part of their revolution, unload 
 
Construction and Testing of Drills. 43 
 
 themselves with precision into the hoppers, which 
 lead them into the hollow of the ploughshares, which 
 last deposit the seed in the furrow and inclose the 
 seed in an instant." 
 
 Let me attempt a description of the indigo-drill, 
 as seen in most factories. Of late years several pa- 
 tent drills have been invented and tried, but none of 
 them seem to have established a reputation equal to 
 that of the original. The construction of the imple- 
 ment is as follows : On 2 inches to 2j inches diameter 
 wheels, 3 inches thick, invariably made of shisham 
 wood, and roughly tyred with common hoop-iron, is 
 erected a trough, 4 feet by I foot, inside measure- 
 ment, of the same material as the wheels, but gener- 
 ally, now-a-days, lined with 16 inches to 18 inches 
 B. W. gauge galvanised iron ; the average depth of 
 this trough being 6 inches, 2>., from beneath axle 
 (i inch square bar) passing through centre of trough, 
 and up to level of which seed must only be filled. The 
 side walls of the trough are 2 feet long by 2 inches 
 thick, also made of shisham. It is requisite that all 
 the above-named parts be made of shisham (the oak 
 of India). We have next to describe the front-board 
 or platform in which are inserted the nipples for sow- 
 ing the seed, and also, in front of these, the shares, by 
 which the earth is opened to receive the same. This 
 is also 4 feet long, inside measurement, by 9 inches to 
 
44 Construction and Testing of Drills. 
 
 10 inches broad, by 3 inches thick, again of shisham 
 wood, and to it the trough is attached. This platform 
 is bored at distances of 6 inches apart in a double 
 line to receive the tubes and shares, the former of 
 which, beginning flush with the platform, extend 9 
 inches down inside the shares, which are generally 
 16 inches in length, including a 2-inch point or tip. 
 A simple board, I inch thick, is fixed in on end 
 between the nipples and shares to prevent the seed 
 from being thrown outside. Thus, in a drill of 4 
 feet length, inside, there are eight tubes and eight 
 shares. The tubes are made of B. W. gauge galva- 
 nised iron ; are round and gradually tapering towards 
 the bottom, being generally ^ inches round at top. 
 The shares are merely flat bar iron, I inch by 
 y^ inch, upon which, at bottom, pieces of l /i inch sheet- 
 iron, gently graduating outwards, both to receive the 
 tube end and also to make a furrow, are welded on. 
 These share sides are usually 4^ inches to 5 inches 
 broad, and 2 inches wide at outer rim. Inside the 
 trough, and upon the axle, with which they revolve, 
 are placed, at equal distances with tubes and shares, 
 small round wheels, 7 inches in diameter, which 
 are slightly perforated round the disc with small 
 round holes, which, with every revolution, raise the 
 seed in the trough and eject it into the tubes in 
 the front board or platform. The average number 
 
Construction and Testing of Drills, 45 
 
 of holes in a /-foot diameter seed-wheel would 
 be 16. 
 
 It now only remains to describe the shaft. This 
 is a thin piece of wood 9 feet long by 2 inches thick, 
 sloping, when the drill rests upon the ground, from 
 4 feet from ground at point to 9 inches where it joins 
 the platform ; here it is dovetailed in, and secured on 
 either side by strong stanchions of wood or iron, the 
 former for preference The object of giving the oblique 
 direction from point of shaft to platform of drill is 
 in order that the drill may adapt itself to bullocks, who 
 pull by means of a yoke. Bullocks being of all sizes, 
 slots are made in the outer end of the shaft, so that 
 thus the drill is heightened or lowered to suit the size 
 of animal employed ; it being of the last importance 
 that the shares should be kept at an uniform depth so 
 as not to endanger the germination of the seed. 
 
 Now that I have described the construction of 
 this primitive implement, I will proceed to see how 
 it is to be tested for sowing the indigo. I would 
 here note that I have described what is known as 
 the eight-shared drill. There are, however, many 
 sizes, ranging from the four-shared to the twenty- 
 shared, pulled by either single or double pairs of 
 cattle. I have merely selected the above as what I 
 consider the most useful size ; and I may add that 
 all factory-made drills are of similar build. 
 
46 Construction and Testing of Drills. 
 
 Seed is sown so many seers to the bigha (roughly, 
 y acre) by the little seed holes in the discs before 
 mentioned. Now, the drill being of wood, wood 
 being perishable, the Indian climate variable and 
 severe upon this article, and the doctrine of abso- 
 lute certainty in the sowings being a first principle 
 with the planter, it will be seen that these little 
 seed holes, tested religiously and laboriously this 
 year, must not be trusted the next. It, therefore, 
 becomes a necessity that the drills should be tested. 
 This process, excruciatingly dear to the heart of every 
 Assistant, comes into requisition about the middle 
 of February of each year. There are two different 
 systems now in use the old and the new the first 
 rapidly becoming shouldered out by the last. By 
 the old system we will suppose you wanted to sow 
 at the rate of twelve seers per bigha : a small 
 component portion of a bigJta was measured off in 
 a square, lined off; then, having filled your drill 
 trough and yoked your cattle, round they went 
 until the ground apportioned off was drilled. I must 
 mention that the seed, before entering the drill, had 
 been weighed ; all the test seed went into the ground. 
 The cattle being unyoked, the balance of seed in the 
 trough was re-weighed, the difference between first 
 and second weighments being what remained in the 
 plot. This difference gives the ground-work of the 
 
Construction and Testing of Drills. 47 
 
 simple calculation in proportion if so much land 
 takes so much seed, how much will so much land 
 take ? And round went the drill, and the little seed 
 lobes were manipulated with red-hot iron and shellac 
 until the required proportion had been attained. 
 
 This circuitous and vexatious means to 
 is now fast fading into a reminiscence. The 
 method deserves more attention as being more 
 tific and, at the same time, more correct. The mini 
 of revolutions of wheels of the different diameters 
 in a bigha being obtained, and the small seed wheels 
 being properly adjusted to throw equally and, at the 
 same time, a certain amount per bigha ; the calcula- 
 tion is again made as to how much seed should be 
 thrown in fifty revolutions to obtain the desired 
 average per bigha ; all becomes plain sailing then. 
 The drills are all collected in the factory compound, 
 and the testing begins. A level plank is placed 
 under the drill to be tested, which has all its shares 
 put in as if ready for sowing ; small bags of indigo 
 cloth are then attached to each tube, one spoke of 
 the wheel is marked with chalk to certify each revolu- 
 tion, and round goes the wheel by hand, the revolv- 
 ing agent being a small stick inserted between the 
 spokes and firmly grasped in both hands. On the 
 completion of the fifty revolutions, the little bags are 
 opened out, and the contents of each bag measured 
 
48 Construction and Testing of Drills. 
 
 in vessels made for the purpose the best measure 
 is a medicine glass and the little seed holes are 
 again pierced or rilled up until the required average 
 is attained. 
 
 In conclusion, I would remark that the presence 
 of the Assistant is quite necessary to obtain honest 
 testing. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 CULTIVATION, MANURING, MEASURING, AND 
 IRRIGATION. 
 
 THE system of cultivation, sowing, cutting, and 
 manufacturing the indigo plant, being precisely 
 the same in both the Sudder and out-factories, 
 except that the Sudder, being larger factories, now-a- 
 days generally use steam-power for beating and pump- 
 ing purposes, one description will do for both. 
 
 The first process in cultivation which our Assis- 
 tant will have to give his attention to is the tumnee 
 or digging, which begins immediately after the manu- 
 facturing for the preceding year ends. This digging 
 is simply the backbone of the sowings, and if badly 
 and carelessly done, there is little hope for the 
 future crops. It is done by many men in a line (as 
 in the illustration given), each armed with a kodal, 
 or native spade, and the whole lot presided over 
 and watched, not only by native peons and burkun- 
 dazes (or stick men), but also, very frequently, by 
 the Assistant himself. The stick men carry large 
 bamboo staves poking out a long way from the 
 shoulder behind them ; they also curve their moust- 
 
 achois most Bombastes Furioso-usly, but are very 
 E,, In. D 
 
5O Cultivation, Manuring, Measuring, etc. 
 
 harmless individuals after all, and not by any means 
 so fierce as they appear. 
 
 On this work of digging deep down and well 
 depends, in a great measure, the future health and 
 growth of the indigo plant, and it cannot be too 
 carefully supervised. A gang of badmashee coolies 
 from badmash, a rogue or rascal will so scamp 
 the work if not thoroughly well looked after, that, 
 though the land will look, on the surface, to be well 
 and properly dug, it will in reality be hardly dug 
 up at all ; and if the Assistant will dismount and 
 scrape away the top-soil, he will find that the men 
 have hardly dug four inches in depth, whereas they 
 should have dug to the full depth of the kodal, (or 
 digging implement used). If an assistant gets his 
 tumnee well done, the rest of his cultivation is com- 
 paratively easy, but if an assistant's tumnee is scamp- 
 ed over in the first instance, it will be a never- 
 ending and constant source of worry and anxiety 
 to him, and his future cultivation will never look 
 thoroughly well done ; and, as to manuring it after- 
 wards, if necessary, it is only throwing half the 
 manure and labour away to attempt it. 
 
 I may here mention that, in the English or Irish 
 acceptation of the term, a spade is an implement un- 
 known to the native of India ; he cannot with his 
 bare feet use it, for though the sole of his foot is 
 
Cultivation, Manuring,. Measuring, etc. 151 
 
 tough enough, it would hurt it too much, and, then, 
 his muscular power is, as a rule, not sufficient to en- 
 able him to use it with anything like as much effect 
 as a European could. It is difficult to imagine to 
 what use a native could or would put a spade if sup- 
 plied to him ; probably he would utilize it in some 
 way of his own undreamt of by its owner or giver, 
 as some coolies did when supplied by an energetic 
 railway contractor with wheelbarrows to accelerate 
 the throwing up of some earthwork. They proceed- 
 ed to carry them loaded with earth on their heads 
 instead of the light baskets they had been using, 
 thus considerably retarding instead of forwarding 
 the work in hand. The only use a native could 
 make of an English spade would be, perhaps, to 
 denude it of its wooden handle, using the same for 
 fuel, and bake chapattees, or unleavened cakes, on the 
 flat of it, as the Australians used to fry bacon in the 
 first rush to the diggings. 
 
 The tumnee or digging ended, the ploughing next 
 begins, which partly stirs up and breaks the clods. 
 The ploughs are mostly of native construction, and 
 made of wood, with an iron ploughshare let in, though 
 sometimes iron ploughs of an English pattern, adapt- 
 ed to bullock-draught, are used. The ploughs gener- 
 ally go in a string of five, six, or more, following one 
 another at short distances, and each a little to the 
 
52 Cultivation, Manuring, Measuring, etc. 
 
 left of the preceding one set ploughing, say, from 
 north to south, and another set working at right angles 
 across their furrow from east to west. 
 
 After the land has been well turned over and the 
 size of the clods somewhat reduced, a roller is passed 
 over the ground to further pulverize the earth. These 
 rollers are either large blocks of wood carved or cut 
 with a thread like a screw, or smooth cylinders of 
 stone, and are drawn by a pair or two of bullocks or 
 buffaloes, usually the oldest and most worn-out ani- 
 mals in the factory, which not being smart and active 
 enough for ploughing, are put to this slow and ardu- 
 ous work, in which dead weight tells more than 
 strength' and activity. After rolling down the clods, 
 the ground is again ploughed up, perhaps three or 
 four times, according to the dryness, stubbornness, or 
 clayiness of the soil. The smaller clods which remain 
 are then finally broken by hand by gangs of, from 
 50 to 100 women and children, boys and girls, in one 
 long row, who keep up a perpetual din, beating time 
 on the clods with thick short sticks amidst clouds of 
 dust. until there is not a lump left bigger than an or- 
 dinary walnut. In February the sowings commence, 
 and seed drills are busily at work. After the drill 
 follows an instrument, drawn by bullocks, like a long 
 bamboo ladder, which smooths the earth over the 
 seeds, and then the lands are left. In from four to five 
 
Cultivation, Manuring, Measuring, etc. 53 
 
 days the seeds germinate, generally on or about the 
 third day, and the two first leaves of the plant peep 
 forth. 
 
 As the lands become exhausted year, by year, a por- 
 tion of them is taken up and trench-manured with 
 seet, which is the refuse plant after the indigo is 
 extracted. This refuse is carted out and thrown in 
 large heaps in regular lines and intervals over the 
 land, and dug-in in lines or trenches and well covered 
 over by the kodal or native spade. All the refuse in- 
 digo plant of a factory which is taken out of the vats 
 after steeping, is, however, not used in this way, owing 
 to a large proportion of it at least half at each factory 
 being set aside, to be dried as fuel, and then stacked 
 near the boiler for future use in manufacturing the 
 coming season's indigo. It is, in fact, a valuable com- 
 modity both as manure and fuel, and is guarded 
 from theft, as far as possible, by the planters, though 
 a good deal of it is " sneaked " by the poorer classes 
 of natives employed about the factory during the cold 
 months to warm themselves with at night; for blankets 
 and warm covering are scarce with them, and fuel also. 
 
 This system of manuring is quite unknown in 
 Lower Bengal, where the alluvial deposit from the 
 yearly overflow of the Ganges takes its place and 
 renders it unnecessary, for it would in all probability 
 be washed away. But further up-country where these 
 
54 Cultivation , Manuring, Measuring, etc. 
 
 great yearly inundations do not occur, it is both 
 necessary and imperative to supply the exhausted 
 lands with some equivalent in the shape of manure, 
 and for this sect is the best and cheapest. 
 
 After the young plant appears, the measuring of 
 the crop is commenced, and this is performed with 
 the assistance of a wheel, exactly one cottah in circum- 
 ference, twenty of which cottahs go to a bigha in length. 
 Two wheels are used, one working the length of the 
 field, the other the breadth. The wheel is furnished 
 with a piece of iron protruding from the edge, which 
 at each revolution strikes against a small brass bell or 
 gong attached to the framework and notes off the 
 number of revolutions. 
 
 An average of the quantity of plant apparent is 
 then taken, and noted in the margin of the measur- 
 ing-book. A full crop is put down as a sixteen-anna 
 crop, that is, sixteen annas in the rupee, or full mea- 
 sure ; a three-quarter crop as twelve annas ; a half 
 crop as eight annas, and a bad show of plants as four 
 annas, i.e., a quarter crop. This latter will, in all pro- 
 bability, have to be broken up and re-sown as soon as 
 possible. Many planters when engaged in the mea- 
 suring have their tiffin sent out to them, and enjoy it 
 sitting in the shade under a tree : it saves all the 
 trouble of going home and returning in the middle 
 of the day, often a good distance, and, as the days are 
 

 o w 
 
 H 
 
Cultivation, Manuring, Measuring, etc. 55 
 
 short, the time can ill be spared. By taking a gun 
 many a good shot has been had at unexpected stray 
 heads of game, such as a chance hare, leopard, civet 
 cat, floriken, wisp of teal or plover, deer, wolf, fox, or 
 what not. They do shoot foxes in India, generally 
 for the fur, which is very handsome in the cold wea- 
 ther. It is often the case that when without a gun 
 many good opportunities are lost as the American 
 farmer said when he saw for the first time a couple of 
 young " dudes " perambulating the principal avenue 
 of the city. " Gosh ! " exclaimed the rugged cultiva- 
 tor of the only free soil in the world, " what things a 
 man DOES see when he harrit got his gun along with 
 un." It is always advisable to have the " iron " 
 handy, and a couple of cartridges in one's pocket. 
 
 Often in very dry weather irrigation becomes neces- 
 sary, or much of the plant would die for want of 
 moisture. There are several modes of raising water 
 in vogue with the natives and planters, viz., the slung 
 basket, worked by two men at a time ; the lever and 
 bucket, balanced with a lump of mud at the end of 
 the pole, as shown in illustration ; the pair of bul- 
 locks and inclined plane ; the China pumps, the Per- 
 sian wheel, and the various steam pumps ; but the 
 three latter sorts are too expensive for most native 
 cultivators. Irrigating indigo is unknown in Lower 
 Bengal, and is only practised in the Upper Provinces. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WEEDING, CUTTING, CARTING, MANUFACTURING. 
 
 AFTER the plant has well shown itself it will 
 : . f^ 
 
 require to be well weeded, and this must be 
 
 carefully done, or much of the young plant will 
 be trodden under foot and destroyed. The weeding 
 instrument is of the shape given in the illustration, 
 and is used by the natives in a squatting position. It 
 is driven down to the root of the weed, and a sharp 
 push is given forward which cuts the weed off below 
 the surface, about two inches deep. Care must be 
 taken in doing this, or much of the young plants' 
 roots may also be injured. The weeds should also be 
 collected upon the edge of the field if possible, and 
 not left in heaps on the field, as each heap will 
 cover and kill a certain number of young and healthy 
 plants, and, say, at ten heaps to an acre, each heap 
 destroying a hundred plants, the loss must be con- 
 siderable. 
 
 The plant is ripe and fit to cut from about the end 
 of June, earlier or later, according to the weather. It 
 is carted as soon as possible after cutting to the vats 
 and packed in the steepers as per illustration. After 
 steeping in water for some twelve or thirteen hours, 
 

Weeding, Cutting, Carting, Manufacturing. 57 
 
 according to the time required for fermentation, the 
 liquor is drawn off into the beating vat, and beaten 
 or thrown up into the air as much as possible with 
 wooden paddles or staves, by ten or twelve men in 
 two rows of six each, beating towards each other in- 
 wards. The sides of the beating vats are curved 
 inward at the top to prevent the liquor splashing 
 out. Steam machinery beating or paddle - wheels 
 are now used in very many factories for doing this. 
 The beating occupies about from two to two and a 
 half hours or a little longer, according to the 
 weather being fine, warm, and sunshiny, or cold, dull, 
 and wet. 
 
 After beating, during which the liquor changes 
 from bright to dark green, then to purple, and then to 
 dark purple-blue, when the indigo grain is formed, 
 the grain is allowed to settle. The beaters run 
 round inside the beating vat several times to give the 
 liquor a rotatory movement, and then jump quickly 
 out, leaving the indigo in the vat to settle to the 
 bottom. When this is accomplished, in two or three 
 hours, the bad or refuse water is run off, as shown in 
 the sketch, and only the indigo remains at the 
 bottom of the vat. This is then washed down by 
 two men, and lifted out of the vat by buckets and 
 drained into the reservoir under the boiler pump. 
 With this pump, the indigo is then pumped up into the 
 
58 Weeding, Cutting, Carting, Manufacturing. 
 
 boiler (see sketch) and heated to boiling point /* it is 
 then run out of the boiler on to the " table " to settle 
 (see sketch), and all that runs out with the water 
 through the table sheet is at once pumped back into 
 the sheet again (see same sketch) until it runs off 
 perfectly clear, leaving the indigo on the sheet with 
 a small quantity of water in it, which must be re- 
 moved by pressure. The sheet is now doubled 
 carefully over the indigo, and weights put on to press 
 it ; much of the water is thus got rid of, and when 
 no more will run, it is uncovered and lifted in buck- 
 ets or square wooden vessels into the screw presses 
 (see illustration). Here it is put into square boxes 
 or presses, well and neatly lined with pressing cloth, 
 the boxes themselves having holes bored in them 
 
 * Copper boilers were mostly used in the old Bengal indigo factories, 
 as they are much superior 1 for indigo boiling purposes to iron boilers ; 
 they are thinner than the iron-plate ones, and transmit the slightest 
 heat readily, which is a great point, as indigo is less likely to burn and 
 get blackened, and can be gradually raised to boiling point without 
 overdoing it. Copper, also, does not corrode with damp nor flake oft 
 under the action of fire. They are more expensive than iron boilers, 
 much more so, but the money is well laid out on them : they last for 
 many years, a less quantity of fuel is required than with a thick iron 
 boiler, and the heat can be regulated with a thin copper boiler which 
 cannot be done with a thick iron plate boiler, inasmuch as the latter 
 sometimes gets nearly red-hot and almost fires the indigo when the 
 firing has been careless and excessive. Every instant indigo is over 
 boiled, it loses quality in colour to a proportionate extent. 
 
Thacker, Spink, & Co., Calcutta,. 
 
Weeding, Cutting, Carting, Manufacturing. 59 
 
 in regular rows to allow of the water to drain away, 
 and separating into four pieces each, with a top and 
 bottom, also pierced with holes. 
 
 These boxes or presses are firmly clamped and 
 screwed togethe rwith iron screw ties and nuts, and 
 after being filled with the soft indigo, the cloth is 
 carefully and neatly folded down, the top fitted on, 
 and a gentle pressure just a turn or two of the 
 screw is applied. As the indigo hardens and be- 
 comes of a firmer consistency, a much more powerful 
 pressure is put on until the indigo assumes the solidity 
 and consistency of hard bar soap, in fact, it looks, when 
 cut into cakes, like deep-blue bar soap, and is of 
 about the same density. The indigo is now cut into 
 cakes of about 3^ inches square, more or less, accord- 
 ing to the thickness of the slab, the thickness of the 
 cake varies. If much water was in the indigo 
 when it " went to press," the cakes will be much 
 thinner than if the indigo was firm and thick and 
 nearly free from water. When it is properly drained 
 free from water, before being put into the screw press, 
 it should allow of being taken up in large masses in 
 the hand without dropping ; when it is very bad, and 
 will not settle and drain off properly under weights, 
 it can only be taken up in a large wooden or copper 
 spoon used for the purpose, many sizes larger than 
 the largest soup-ladle. If, when the indigo is " sloppy," 
 
60 Weeding, Cutting, Carting, Manufacturing. 
 
 it be partially pressed, and the press-box re-opened 
 and more sloppy indigo put in and mixed up with it, and 
 the whole re-pressed, each cake will be of a pretty good 
 size, but each cake will also infallibly be in several 
 pieces on drying. \The half-pressed indigo will not mix 
 with the freshly put in indigo, however much it may be 
 stirred about, and the only effect of much stirring it 
 about will be that the future cakes will in proportion 
 be the more in pieces when they are dried. If the 
 indigo is watery and is half pressed, and the press 
 then re-opened and fresh indigo filled in, in order to 
 make large and square cakes, and the fresh indigo is 
 not stirred up, then each future cake will inevitably 
 dry in two distinct parts, an upper and a lower one, 
 differing in proportion in exact accordance with the 
 quality of each sort of indigo the first pressed, and 
 the afterwards added portion in the press box. 
 
 It has been found better never to re-open a press 
 when once filled, but to press it steadily down, and 
 if the cakes are a little thinner than usual, it cannot 
 be helped they will at least dry whole, or most part 
 of them will, and they will be hard and firm, and dry 
 " square " and with but slight symptoms of " abdo- 
 minal contraction." 
 
 The reason for the mat or fecula not settling as 
 sometimes happens giving great trouble, too, when 
 run out on the table is generally held to be bad, 
 
Weeding, Cutting, Carting, Manufacturing. 61 
 
 stale, or half-putrid water, used for steeping the 
 plant, as the indigo which will not settle on the table 
 is invariably of a most offensive odour, and almost 
 always acts in this way when bad water has unavoid- 
 ably to be used. 
 
 The cure, and the only cure, for it, I believe, 
 known, is to press the indigo with gunny-cloth, 
 instead of the usual canvas-like pressing cloth gene- 
 rally used. I have tried this, and found it answer 
 perfectly ; the coarse texture of the gunny-cloth 
 (seed-bags, opened out and well washed, will do) 
 allows the water to escape freely, while completely 
 retaining the indigo grain and the method has only 
 to be tried by those in difficulty with bad, unsettling 
 mdlj to be appreciated. The only piece of pressing 
 cloth necessary in the operation is a small square 
 piece at each corner, laid neatly inside the gunny- 
 cloth ; the top ends and sides are then neatly folded 
 over in the press-box, the cover placed, and a gentle 
 pressure put on, when the water (perhaps slightly 
 discoloured) flows freely off, gradually causing the 
 indigo to 'consolidate and admit of firmer pressure 
 being put on till the indigo slab is as hard as may 
 be. I have pressed indigo in this way with common 
 seed-bags (free from rents and holes) which would 
 not settle on the table, and was slushy as pea-soup, 
 and made cakes of it equal to the rest firm, 
 
62 Weeding, Cutting, Carting, Manufacturing. 
 
 consistent, and which dried almost perfectly square, 
 with only the slightest symptoms of concavity in the 
 side. The water I was using at the time was taken 
 from a stagnant branch of a stream or shallow inlet 
 in the rains connected with the Ganges, and which, at 
 the time of using, had been stagnant for months, 
 and used by the natives of the village on its banks 
 for all kinds of bathing and washing purposes, and 
 the indigo made with it had a most horrible smell ; 
 but on the Ganges rising and fresh water coming 
 in, these symptoms in the manufacture disappeared 
 entirely and the produce increased, while the indigo 
 made from the clean water settled beautifully, and 
 the usual pressing cloth was again employed. 
 
 In attempting to press sloppy nidi with the usual 
 indigo pressing cloth, the water is so intimately, 
 agglomerated with the indigo itself that it will not 
 run out the close texture of the wet cloth prevents 
 its doing so; whereas the gunny-cloth fibre retains 
 the indigo matter, but allows the watery particles 
 to flow off freely. In using the ordinary cloth, it 
 simply bursts under the extra pressure employed 
 in endeavouring to force the water out, and fresh 
 cloth has to be put in at every refilling of the presses ; 
 besides which, when the cloth bursts, the indigo is 
 shot or squirted all over the press-house, escaping 
 under such pressure through the rents in the cloth, 
 
Packing and Despatching. 63 
 
 and much loss of indigo is thus sustained, to say 
 nothing of the expenditure of good cloth burst and 
 spoilt. 
 
 The cakes are cut in machines specially made for 
 the purpose. The slabs of indigo are put in some 
 machines upright, in some flat, and cut by hand with 
 a brass wire. Each cake is then carefully stamped 
 with the name of the factory and the number of 
 the boiling, to check off afterwards the quality 
 and date of the colour. They are then taken into 
 the godown or drying house, and placed on mat 
 or bamboo trellis-work on shelves in tiers, one above 
 another ; each day's manufacture having its ticket 
 attached to the tier on which its cakes lay, so that 
 by reading the number and remarks on the wooden 
 ticket any specimen or cake of any date can in 
 a moment be at once got down. When the cakes 
 are thoroughly dry they are carefully taken down 
 and cleaned with soft brushes or, now-a-days, by a 
 machine which has been invented for the purpose by 
 Messrs. Begg & Co., of Calcutta, and they are then 
 packed. 
 
 PACKING AND DESPATCHING. 
 
 The packing is done with the utmost care and 
 precision, in order to avoid broken cakes and pieces. 
 After all the cakes have been taken down from the 
 shelves and brushed and cleaned, they are packed 
 
64 Packing and Despatching. 
 
 according to the boiling and colour list sent up by 
 the Calcutta agents ; each cake is carefully fitted in 
 close to its neighbour in rows in the box or chest, 
 so as to avoid shaking and consequent damage to 
 the dry cakes. Native masons are generally, if not 
 always, employed for this process, as they are more 
 accustomed to handling that kind of work in build- 
 ing and bricklaying. 
 
 A large average of pieces in the packing is to be 
 most strenuously avoided, as it is a very " bad mark " 
 on a factory, and argues carelessness and want of 
 supervision. 
 
 After packing, the chests are carefully weighed 
 and the contents noted ; they are then closed, screwed 
 down, and re-trimmed all over, and marked ; they 
 are then again re-weighed and a close calculation 
 made of actual contents, and are despatched by boat 
 or cart to the railway station, and thence by rail to 
 Calcutta. 
 
 The wood should be mango at least a year old ; 
 and the boxes should be kept for one year, as the 
 effect of using unseasoned boxes is to cause a differ- 
 ence in the weighment at factory, at Calcutta, and, 
 again, at London. 
 
 The tare of the boxes should be always carefully 
 ascertained by the Manager or his European Assistant 
 
Manufacture. 65 
 
 'First, Previous to commencing operations for the 
 season, have the factory and all apparatus thereunto 
 belonging, put into efficient working order, that the 
 brick and mortar repairs, in particular, may have suffi- 
 cient time to dry before use. 
 
 Second, The plant being ready for cutting, which 
 may most safely be known by the flowers making 
 their appearance on the plant, have the reservoirs, 
 steepers, beaters, and everything in the manufactur- 
 ing house well scrubbed, washed, and cleaned ; try 
 the pumps ; fit all the pins ; dust out and arrange 
 the drying house for receiving the cakes, by having 
 the open mats placed smoothly on the machans, and 
 have others placed underneath, to receive the pieces 
 that may be broken off the cakes in turning them or 
 may fall between. Look to your boats or hackeries 
 (as may be) for bringing in the plant, and that your 
 coolies and others are ready to work when called upon 
 to do so ; not forgetting that all your challies (bamboo 
 frames for keeping down the plant under beams) and 
 wood-work for the vats, are properly placed and fitted 
 for use. 
 
 Third. Everything being ready, appoint a day to 
 begin working and apprize your gomasta of the same, 
 that he may have also the coolies, hackeries, boats, &c., 
 in readiness. 
 
 Fourth. The day having arrived, and everything 
 
 11., In. B 
 
66 Manufacture. 
 
 being in readiness ; begin to fill your reservoir at 
 day-light, that the water may have time to settle 
 before being required for use ; and this it will be 
 well to attend to during the whole of the manufac- 
 turing season ; it certainly being best to use clear 
 settled water when you can get it ; bearing in mind, 
 that as often as you perceive the bottom of the 
 reservoir dirty and covered with mud and sand, it will 
 be necessary to clean it. During the day, as the plant 
 comes in, measure and stack it up in the shade that 
 you may be able to load your steeper all at once in the 
 afternoon, so as to have all done, in this way, before 
 dark, taking care in filling the vats, that the water 
 will run freely out of the steepers into the beaters 
 when the pins are taken out, by forming a channel 
 with the plant at the bottom next to the wall. Much 
 has been said by experimentalists about placing the 
 plant in the steepers in particular ways, which, after 
 all, is not of material consequence, and is ill repaid 
 by the loss of time in attending to it. I repeat, stow 
 the vats so as to let the impregnated water run off 
 freely, keep the plant horizontally square as you fill up, 
 that the chatties may set square down upon it, and the 
 beams pin down into the same number hole in the 
 stanchions. Thus, if the first beam sets down to the 
 fourth hole from the top, the rest are to be pinned 
 down to the same number ; this will give the advantage 
 
Manufacture. 67 
 
 of having the whole equally covered with water 
 and thereby aid the fermentation, which is enough. 
 However, you should always have about six inches 
 clear from the top of the steeper, to allow room for 
 the rising of the water undergoing fermentation, other- 
 wise during that process it will run over and waste. 
 
 Fifth. The night being moderately fair, the plant 
 good and not inundated before, in nine or ten hours 
 it will generally be ready to draw off. Now, see 
 that your people are ready, and have the beaters 
 thoroughly washed out before use. Those who aim 
 at making extraordinarily fine blue, steep a much 
 less time, and generally lose a considerable portion 
 of their produce, and not unfrequently make their 
 indigo of too light a colour for general use. As 
 the fermentation goes on, air bubbles rise upon the 
 surface of the water, until at length the vat has the 
 appearance of a broccoli head ; now watch care- 
 fully the ebullition of the vat, and the moment it 
 begins to subside and sink down in the steeper, let 
 off the liquid, and you will generally be safe. If it 
 runs out a bright straw-colour, tinged with green, the 
 indigo will be fine ; if a strong madeira colour, good ; 
 if of a very pale straw-green, violet, and dirty-red, 
 bad (coppery.) The first indicates good steeping ; the 
 second, a little too long; the third, not enough . 
 and the last, overdone, This will be your guidance, 
 
68 Manufacture. 
 
 attending, of course, to the state of the weather, to 
 steep longer or shorter, according to the quality of 
 indigo you wish to make. 
 
 Sixth. As soon as the steeper is drawn off into 
 the beater, send in the coolies. At first beat slowly, 
 either with bamboo paddles, wooden fowras, or the 
 hands, the latter way is the best, but more tedious, 
 and increase as the froth disappears ; but at no time 
 beat violently for fear of breaking the grain, and 
 carefully watch until the whole of the froth dis- 
 appears, and the vat assumes a dark-blue colour 
 bordering on black. Then, with the dipper, take up a 
 little of the matter from the bottom of the beater, 
 and run it into a white plate. If the grain readily 
 settles at the bottom, having a clear smooth edge 
 along the water, it has been beaten enough ; if rough, 
 and if it does not settle at once, beat more until it does. 
 Then order the people to throw the contents of six 
 earthen calsies of chunam water into the vat, to pre- 
 vent putrefaction afterwards in the indigo ; and let 
 them walk a dozen times round the vat and come out. 
 
 Seventh In two or three hours after the beating 
 is over, according to the state of the weather, the 
 indigo will have settled to the bottom of the vat ; 
 then take out the uppermost pin, and go on gradually 
 down, until the whole of the refuse water is drawn 
 out, when the bottom of the vat will appear covered 
 
Manufacture. 69 . 
 
 with the fecula. During the time of running off the 
 water have the drain leading to the reservoir where 
 the pump is placed, thoroughly cleaned, after which 
 let the Indigo run into it through the proper strainers. 
 Eighth. The fecula being in the reservoir, have 
 it pumped into the boiler through the strainers at 
 the mouth of the pump and at the head of the boiler. 
 Then light the fire underneath, and keep stirring the 
 boiler to prevent indigo from settling and sticking to 
 the bottom. When it comes to the boil, continue it 
 gently so for three hours, stirring occasionally the 
 whole time, during which period get the table well 
 cleaned and washed down, spread the table cloth 
 wet it with clean water, and cover it over with a 
 spare cloth, by placing a few bamboos across the top 
 of the table, and throwing the spare cloth over all. 
 The boiling being over, and all ready to pour ofT the 
 contents on the table, turn the cock, or take out the 
 pin at the bottom of the boiler, as may be, and let the 
 indigo run on the table. As soon as this is done, 
 a part of the fecula will find its way through the table- 
 cloth to the bottom of the table, and, from thence, 
 to the drain at the end of the table. Take this up 
 in chatties, or if a pump is fixed to the end of the 
 table, pump it up into the table through a strainer, 
 until the water appears of a dark-red tint, free from 
 colouring matter, and then let it run off through the 
 
/O Manufacture. 
 
 saving vat, if one is in the factory, or otherwise away 
 altogether. 
 
 Ninth. In five or six hours, if the table has a wide 
 spread, which it should always have at the bottom, 
 the water will have run off, leaving the indigo cover- 
 ing the bottom of the cloth. Then scrape up the 
 whole of it to the corner of the table, place a weight 
 upon the top of it, and leave it a few hours to 
 thoroughly cool and drain itself; during which time 
 have the presses in readiness and the cloths spread 
 inside of them and wetted ; after which, take up the 
 indigo, and fill the press boxes. Lay on the cover of 
 the box first, and, after a while, drop the beam upon 
 it. Soon after, commence screwing gradually, until, in 
 about five hours, you have got the indigo down from 
 S}4 inches to about 3 inches, and no water oozes 
 through the holes at the sides of the boxes ; then take 
 off the pressure very evenly and gently, by moving both 
 the screw-nuts above the beam at once and equally, 
 and open the sides of the press boxes for cutting the 
 mass into cakes. This part of the operation requires 
 great care and attention, from the apathy of the natives, 
 who too frequently neglect turning the screws, and 
 then, to make up for lost time,turn away as fast as they 
 can. By doing this the cakes are sure to be cracked 
 and spoiled. Take care of this, go on slowly and 
 carefully, and all will be well ; otherwise, assuredly not. 
 
Manufacture. 
 
 Tenth. The indigo being pressed into 
 mass, mark it with the end of the cutting knife, 
 a 3-inch flat rule, or as may be, wider or narrower 
 according to the designed size of the cakes ; in 
 the middle of which stamp the factory mark. Then 
 divide it, either with the knife, or by a brass wire, 
 (whichever your cake-cutter is most expert at,) in 
 squares, and let them be taken to the drying-house, 
 and placed on the mackans ; each day's manufacture 
 being placed separately, with a ticket to distinguish 
 the same. The best plan to prevent mistakes, or 
 
 roguery amongst the native servants, is to stamp the 
 
 
 cakes with the number of the day they were made, 
 
 beginning with No. 1 the first day, and continuing on 
 the numbers to the end of the season. 
 
 Eleventh. The indigo being on the stages, keep 
 boys to turn them until dry, the cake-cutter and 
 rung-mistrie also should be in attendance, and take 
 especial care that no draught of wind runs through 
 the drying-house, otherwise much breakage may be 
 apprehended. 
 
 Twelveth. The indigo being considered all but 
 dry, have the whole placed in the sweating room ; 
 and with the cakes build up a consolidated wall 
 distinguish each day's work by placing a few shreds 
 of sunn between them ; the whole of the indigo being 
 disposed of in this way, and the solid wall formed, 
 
72 Manufacture. 
 
 cover it over with blankets and dry bhoosah (bran), and 
 shut the door, securing the outsides, so as to prevent 
 the possibility of any wind entering into it. In about 
 15 days the indigo will be ready to go again to the 
 machans, and should be removed thereto, keeping 
 each day's work separately as before. Proceed now 
 cautiously, and gradually remove the outside cover- 
 ings of the door, and then the bhoosah, &c., from off 
 the heap of cakes, a little by little each day, for four 
 or five days ; it being a grand point not to expose 
 the indigo too soon to the effects of the external air, 
 
 as sudden exposure would crack and break the cakes 
 
 
 to pieces. 
 
 N. B. The above process is advantageous, since it 
 gives a brilliancy to the colour of the indigo, and 
 the now-so-much-prized white skin to the cakes. 
 
 All factories do not have sweating houses. 
 
 Lastly. The indigo being thoroughly dry and fit 
 for packing, and your chests (generally made at 
 the factory of mangoe-wood tarred) ready, clean the 
 cakes, but do not polish them ; then begin pack- 
 ing ; placing equal quantities of indigo in each box. 
 Should you not have sufficient of one day's work to 
 fill up with, note the quantity of each day's cakes so 
 many of No. 5 and so many of No. 27 (as may be) 
 in chest No. and be sure to let the muster cake 
 truly show the mean quality of the indigo in the chest 
 
Manufacture. 73 
 
 it represents. Stow the chests as lightly as possible, 
 keep each layer of the cakes horizontally even with 
 their marks upwards ; nail the covers of the box close 
 down to the indigo, that in moving the chests about 
 afterwards, it may not be broken by having play 
 inside ; with the chests send the muster box, and, 
 thus, the whole process ends. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 INDIGO IN BENGAL. 
 
 N the Lower Bengal indigo factories, whose lands 
 are yearly flooded over by the rise of the river 
 Ganges, the system of sowings is entirely differ- 
 ent to the Tirhoot mode. No drills whatever are 
 used in Lower Bengal, either for October or February 
 sowings ; the seed in all factories is sown broadcast, 
 either in wet or dry sowings. The wet sowings are 
 done as follow : On the subsidence of the overflow 
 of the river Ganges, about the ist of October, men 
 are sent out along the banks of the rivers, and parti- 
 cularly to the churs or islands formed in the river's 
 course, and wherever a likely deposit of thick, soft 
 mud has formed (alluvial deposit), the seed is there 
 scattered broadcast by the sowers, each of whom is 
 provided with a long bamboo to help him through 
 the mud which is often waist and occasionally 
 neck-deep and a bag, or, more frequently, a cane- 
 work basket of indigo seed, to scatter. These bas- 
 kets are replenished from time to time by the amun 
 or head-factory servant, in attendance in a small 
 boat called a panchorey or dinghy (see illustration) ; 
 this servant is responsible for the sowings being 
 
Indigo in Bengal. 75 
 
 properly done, and must also see that no seed is 
 wilfully wasted or destroyed by being thrown into 
 the water, or on to deposit which is only sand un- 
 mixed or with but little mud, which, of course, will 
 never give a crop. 
 
 If the deposits of the year from the overflow of 
 the Ganges are found to be very deep, the sowers 
 will sometimes employ a raft of three plantain-tree 
 stems fastened together, which they will pole over 
 the mud and slushy places, carrying the seed basket 
 with them. These seed baskets are woven of jungle 
 cane, stripped smooth and wound round and round in 
 a spiral form, and tightened together by strips of 
 cane ; they are then quite water-tight, and will float 
 like a wooden bowl, even when holding a considerable 
 quantity of indigo or other seed, and they are very 
 durable and useful, being handy for all manner of 
 purposes. 
 
 The Assistant will, during these cheetanee sowings 
 (from the Bengali word cheet, signifying to scatter), 
 go about mostly in his bkowlea, or house-boat, an 
 illustration of one of which is given. These boats 
 are manned by four or six rowers and a steersman 
 or manjee ; they also have one or more large square 
 lug-sails, and some are fitted up, schooner fashion, 
 with jibs and fore and aft sails ; but as keels are most 
 dangerous to have on a boat, more especially a 
 
76 Indigo in Bengal. 
 
 sailing boat, on the Ganges, on account of the swift 
 stream and rapid eddies, these fore-and-aft rigged 
 vessels are dangerous to life, and a mistake. By a 
 kind provision of Providence, also, and the eternal 
 fitness of things, keels are unnecessary on the Ganges, 
 for the downward current of the river will carry the 
 planter, or any other traveller by water, down stream 
 at a good rate, while for progressing up stream the 
 southern breeze blows, with hardly an exception, 
 every day during that portion of the year in which 
 the Ganges is navigable by large boats ; so that as 
 the stream runs from north-west to south-east, and 
 the wind blows steadily from nearly south-east to 
 north-west in the opposite direction up stream, there 
 is no need for sailing in a wind such as makes 
 a fore-and-aft rig necessary, and the square lug is 
 found to be the best and most powerful sail, easily 
 dropped in a squall, and soon up again. Besides, 
 the mud banks and islands in the Ganges would 
 make travelling in a keeled boat most dangerous, as, 
 if the keel struck on a mud bank with the stream 
 running one way, and the wind blowing in the direct 
 opposite, a capsize would be unavoidable ; whereas, 
 with a flat-bottomed boat with a good beam, no 
 danger is to be apprehended, as, the sail being 
 promptly lowered, she is easily " slewed " off (see 
 illustration). 
 
Indigo in Bengal, 77 
 
 When the indigo seed is thrown on the alluvial 
 deposit, it sinks from two to three inches by its own 
 weight, and, in the course of a week or so, the plant 
 springs forth. Cheetanee sowings are easily and cheap- 
 ly done, so far as the sowing of the seed itself only is 
 concerned, but they are most expensive to weed, as 
 with the indigo plant spring up countless varieties of 
 jungle plants, weeds, and creepers, and specially a 
 sort of jungle called j'how, something like a small kind 
 of fir or pine, which is very hard to eradicate from the 
 ground ; in fact, it is next door to impossible to get 
 quite rid of it, relay after relay springs up as one lot is 
 cut and piled into heaps, in never-ending succession 
 the plants appear, and they are a source of infinite 
 trouble and expense to the planter to get rid of. 
 When the hot, dry months come round in April and 
 May, these churs or alluvial deposits crack in every 
 direction, and are most dangerous to ride or hunt 
 over, as, a horse getting his foot into one of them will 
 fall to a certainty, or throw his rider, perhaps severely. 
 The best pace to go over them, if they must be tra- 
 versed, is a quick-march step, a sharp walk, like a cat 
 on hot tiles and the feelings of the cat in that pre- 
 dicament and the rider across a very " cracky " chur 
 must be much alike, so far as we may compare human 
 feelings of uncertainty and alarm with those of the 
 lower animals. 
 
78 Indigo in Bengal. 
 
 The indigo plant springs up in this new soil with 
 great vigour and freshness at first, but as the fiery 
 heat of April and May tell upon the plant, it remains 
 stunted, and withers up to a mere little stick, as wiry 
 and thin as a piece of a knitting-needle, and with two 
 or three shabby little leaves on the top as an apology 
 for verdure. But they are very hardy, however, and 
 when the rains commence, about July, these little 
 plants shoot forth at the first heavy shower, and, as 
 the rainwater penetrates to their tap-roots through 
 the cracks in the top soil, the plants spring up with 
 renewed vigour, and soon throw out a fine show of 
 handsome leaf. 
 
 Cultivated sowings, performed much after the 
 Tirhoot style, are also sown in Lower Bengal,in October, 
 besides the cheetanee sowings. The ploughs used are 
 the same, but the seed is thrown broadcast, and no 
 drills for sowing are used ; neither are rollers used to 
 break the clods, nor hand-labour, but the clods are 
 pulverized by dragging a couple of large bamboo 
 frames resembling ladders, and called in Bengali 
 mooies over the land until the clods are sufficiently 
 reduced in size. If this operation is delayed until 
 the freshly ploughed-up clods dry and harden in the 
 sun, it is impossible to obtain a satisfactory result. 
 After every ploughing, the mooies should, therefore, be 
 promptly applied. When the seed is sown, the mooie 
 
Indigo in Bengal. 79 
 
 is applied for the last time, and the land left for the 
 plant to spring, as in Tirhoot. 
 
 The process of weeding, cutting, carting, and manu- 
 facturing the indigo plant are almost precisely the 
 same in both Tirhoot and Lower Bengal, except that, 
 in the latter part, boats are very largely used instead 
 of carts to transport the indigo plant to the vats 
 of the factory, on account of so much waterway 
 being available owing to the many streams of Lower 
 Bengal, and also to the fact that the main portion of 
 many factories' sowings are close by the river-banks, 
 either of the Ganges or its tributaries. 
 
 When the manufacturing season is drawing near, 
 a very sharp look-out has to be kept on the rising 
 of the Ganges, as, often, a great deal of plant sown 
 alongside the river is swamped and lost in a sudden 
 and unexpected rise of the water ; therefore it is 
 advisable, in manufacturing to get all plant in danger 
 of inundation near the rivers cut away first, in order 
 to be on the safe side. The boats generally take the 
 plant right up to, or close under, the vats by a canal 
 made for the purpose, if no natural waterway exists ; 
 so that it is undisturbed and unsoiled from the time of 
 its being cut and placed in the boat till it is placed 
 in the steeping vat which is a great advantage, as 
 in carting plant along muddy roads for long distan- 
 ces much of it is unavoidably soiled and rendered 
 
So Indigo in Bengal. 
 
 almost unfit for manufacture with the finer and 
 cleaner plant ; the cart-wheels, scrubbing against 
 it, tear away the plant and plaster with mud what 
 is left at the sides. The Assistant will find travel- 
 ling about in his bhowlea not at all unpleasant, as 
 these boats are comfortably fitted up (like the sketch 
 given) and contain every accommodation ; in fact, they 
 are very pleasant, except for the heat during the 
 middle of the day. But as this is the time when 
 everyone stops work for a while, the boat can be 
 anchored, or tied up to some convenient tree, or in 
 some shady nook, or by the side of a village on the 
 bank, and the three or four most sultry hours of the 
 day passed in comparative comfort. There is always 
 a breeze on the water, and the boat will be pretty 
 quiet, as the men will, generally, at this time, be on 
 shore cooking their food for the mid-day meal. In 
 fact, the Assistant must learn to look upon his boat 
 as his moving home for the time being, and will, of 
 course, take stores, tea, sugar, etc., and his cook and 
 khitmatgar about with him. During the sowings the 
 bhowlea is to the Lower Bengal Assistant what the 
 bamboo-cart is to his confrere of Tirhoot. Although 
 the sowings in Lower Bengal would, in many instances, 
 horrify a Behar planter, yet for quality and colour the 
 Lower Bengal indigo will always be better than the 
 up-country made indigo in the North-West Provinces., 
 
CHAPTER X, 
 
 INDIGO IN THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES. 
 
 THE subject of indigo in the North- West Pro- 
 vinces has not, it seems, been sufficiently under- 
 stood. The network of factories in the North- 
 West are mainly native, in some few instances 
 managed by Europeans absolutely European proprie- 
 torship is scarce. Under the native system, where a 
 European manager is entertained, the practice is gen- 
 erally as follows : We premise that from 300 maunds 
 of plant, I maund of dye is extracted. In the month 
 of January advances are made by the purchasers of 
 the plant, seed, or gdd (unpressed indigo) to the 
 zemindars or ryots ^ but more generally to the former, 
 for security's sake. The intending purchaser ascer- 
 tains the growing capabilities of the land which he 
 intends to sow with indigo, and the number of ploughs 
 the contractor can command. Assured on this point, 
 he enters into a calculation by which he satisfies 
 himself that 10 katcha, bighas of land are the maxi- 
 mum which one contractor can manage to cultivate 
 properly with the aid of a single pair of oxen. The 
 produce from this will average from fifteen to twenty 
 
 maunds of plant and one maund of seed per bigha. 
 R,, In. F 
 
82 Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 
 
 The katcha bigha is an unknown quantity in Lower 
 Bengal, a little more than % of a Shahabad bigha of 
 5*4 haths, 2^2 katcha bighas go to one pucca bigha 
 of 5^ haths, or, roughly, ^th of an acre. 
 
 An agreement is formally drawn up, in presence 
 of witnesses, by the gomashta (or head servant) of the 
 factory, and to this document the usually illiterate 
 contractor affixes his mark, or he may simply touch 
 the pen with which the contract has been drawn up. 
 In a few instances, he is able to sign his name. The 
 deed sets forth the extent of land to be cultivated ; 
 the quantity of plant, gad, or seed to be delivered 
 by the contractor ; and the rate to be adhered to, 
 which, for the plant, is, generally, from Rs. 4 to Rs. 6 
 per hundred maunds, and for gad, Rs. 12 per maund. 
 
 One hundred maunds of plants will, as a rule, 
 yield the planter 2^/ 2 maunds of gad. It is 
 stipulated that it be delivered in such a consis- 
 tency that 3^ seers, or about 6 ft>, can be taken 
 up with the hand. It is also customary to pay 
 the contractor in advance the full value of the 
 plant or gad, which he has guaranteed to deliver, 
 though another system is also in force. In the lat- 
 ter instance the terms are as follow : one half in 
 advance, a quarter after the first irrigation has been 
 completed, and the remaining portion after the first 
 weeding. Indigo fields are generally irrigated before 
 
Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 83 
 
 the setting in of the rains, and they are weeded twice 
 before the plant arrives at maturity. 
 
 If the contract be concluded with the zemindar 
 instead of with the ryot, as is generally the case, 
 a higher rate of about Rs. 22 per 100 maunds is 
 paid by the purchaser to the contractor. If the 
 contract be made with a ryot, he brings forward the 
 zemindar of his village as his security. The same 
 strict supervision is exercised over the zemindar as 
 over the ryot, and the same forms are gone through in 
 both cases. Having received his advance in January, 
 and paid a time-honoured one per cent to \hegomashta, 
 the contractor does what he pleases with the money ; 
 but he must sow between April and June. 
 
 Each factory has a number of peons called sepahis. 
 These servants look after the welfare of their master, 
 keep the contractor to his engagement, see that the 
 ryots irrigate the indigo fields and otherwise exer- 
 cise a strict supervision over zemindar and ryot 
 alike. Without such unflinching surveillance, the 
 engagement would run but a poor chance of being 
 properly fulfilled, and the purchaser would be the 
 inevitable loser. In the event of idleness on the 
 part of the contractor, he is brought up to the factory 
 and admonished, or he may receive warning through 
 the peons. These men do not get dasturi, or hush- 
 money ; but it is feared that they too often batten in 
 
84 Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 
 
 other ways upon the poor contractor when they visit 
 his indigo fields. 
 
 When a ryot, who has contracted with the pur- 
 chaser, does not come up to time with his rent to the 
 zemindar or proprietor of the soil, the standing crop 
 of indigo is liable to be attached for rent. Where 
 this happens, the purchaser always pays the rent due 
 and realises it from the ryot afterwards. The 
 zemindar seldom gives annoyance in a matter of this 
 kind he is amply satisfied with having obtained his 
 rent. The payment of rent by the purchaser is never 
 one of the conditions of the agreement, nor is such 
 an occurrence by any means frequent. 
 
 The indigo harvest commences in August, when 
 a portion of the plant is reserved for seed, which 
 ripens in November. The factory-accounts are made 
 up in October. A ryot contracting to supply in- 
 digo is supposed to realise a profit of one rupee per 
 katcha bigha. He has, however, other sources of 
 income. He has paid his year's rent for his indigo 
 fields, and he makes the best use of the land after 
 the indigo is cut ; whilst, in the event of the khuntis 
 ( second cuttings ) not being left to produce both 
 fecula and seed the following year, the cultivators 
 prepare the land for a rabi or cold weather crop 
 which comes to maturity in January. The khuntis 
 are, in their turn, dug up, and melons sown, at the 
 
Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 85 
 
 roots of which, before the vegetable is quite ripe, 
 indigo seed is again cast. Thus the cultivator obtains 
 three crops from the indigo field during the year. 
 
 That the indigo cultivation is the least remunera- 
 tive of the various kinds of agricultural specula- 
 tion is certain. The reason why, it is followed, is, 
 that the large advance in January is a temptation 
 not to be resisted : it is so much ready-money in 
 the ryot's grasp ; he is a rich man for the hour, and he 
 is happy. Moreover, he has debts to meet, and a 
 demand for rent which will shortly be made. In 
 some parts prosperous ryots even cultivate indigo 
 without advances. 
 
 How indigo has flourished under the liberal 
 Government of the North-West Provinces will be 
 seen by the following figures : 
 
 1849-50. 1858-59. 1880-81. 1881-82. 
 
 Doab 
 
 Benares 
 
 Bengal 
 
 Behar 
 
 In this table " Benares " includes Gorruckpore, Patna, Shahabad, 
 Ghazeepore, Azimghur, Benares, Tounpore and Allahabad. 
 "Doab" includes all places above Allahabad, the distinction 
 being made on account of the difference in the quality of Indigo 
 produced. 
 
 More striking difference. 
 
 1843-44. 1857-58. 1877-78. 1888 89. 
 
 Doab 6,400 9,360 44,285 64,000 
 
 Benares 16,400 10,000 17,556 18,600 
 
 Bengal 97,000 50,330 16,502 17,200 
 
 Behar 23,400 18,822 34,857 58,748 
 
 
 16,202 
 
 45,434 
 
 57,042 
 
 cannot 
 
 14,896 
 
 14,484 
 
 15,710 
 
 find. 
 
 49,225 
 
 17,425 
 
 i8,957 
 
 
 26,420 
 
 58,062 
 
 58,569 
 
86 Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 
 
 Indigo cultivation may be divided into two great 
 heads : niz and assamiwar. The former cultivation 
 may be likened, in some respect, to a Home farm 
 managed by the proprietor of an estate in England. 
 It is prosecuted on lands of which the party or "con- 
 cern " has acquired the tenant-right, or the right of 
 actual occupancy, by an establishment of ploughs, 
 oxen and servants maintained at the planter's own 
 expense. Occasionally ploughs and oxen are hired 
 for the purpose when the establishment kept up at 
 the factory may not be sufficient. 
 
 The ryoti cultivation, on the other hand, as the 
 very name implies, is carried on by the tenants on 
 their own lands under contract or advances made by 
 the planters as will be explained hereafter. But 
 ryoti itself is divided into cultivation of two kinds : 
 one carried on in villages or estates in which the 
 planter has temporarily acquired the rights of the 
 talukdar or zemindar the other, in villages be- 
 longing to outside parties. These two systems are 
 familiarly known as ilaka or be-ilaka ryoti culti- 
 vation ; the latter also frequently called khuki indigo. 
 These same divisions have been in existence for over 
 twenty years, and they hold good at the present day, 
 except, perhaps, that the be-ilaka or .khaski indigo 
 has largely increased as compared with Ilaka y 
 assamiwar, and ziratk. Kkaski has also largely 
 
Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 87 
 
 extended in some of the Behar districts. In 1860 
 the amount paid for ryoti indigo in Tirhoot was 
 Rs. 6-8 per bigha for good and Rs. 3 for bad or in- 
 different crops. At the same time, in Bengal Proper, 
 according to the statements of some of the planters 
 of that time, the rate for indigo was from 8 to 4 
 bundles per rupee, a bundle generally averaging 
 somewhat over two maunds in weight. We read 
 in the Indigo Commisson Report, 1860, that Babu 
 P. K. Tagore, in answer to the question, " How many 
 bundles did you take for one rupee ? " replied : 
 " Generally 8 ; but I reduced it to 6, which amount 
 was not remunerative to the ryot" In the Jessore 
 and Hooghly Districts, 8 bundles are frequently 
 mentioned in the Report as being received for 
 I rupee, whilst in Jessore, Babu C. P. Chaudhri, in his 
 evidence before the Commission, stated that he 
 received 10 bundles in the Nuddea District. The 
 ryot was always charged for seed. In paragraph 
 148 of the same Report, the witness states that 
 the produce in bundles from a bigha was 12 to 
 24, and the average 16 bundles. The price of 
 indigo during the time when Babu C. P. Chaudhri 
 carried on his business, averaged Rs. 250 per factory 
 maund. The advances generally made were Rs. 2 
 per bigha. Looking back at the prices paid for 
 indigo in these days, it will be seen that the assami 
 
88 Indigo in the North-Western Provinces. 
 
 has now fallen on much better times, when he 
 receives his advance of Rs. 18, 20, or 22 for his 
 khaski indigo. It might be noticed that in Behar 
 the khaski assami generally receives his seed free 
 and suffers little or no vexatious supervision from 
 the planter. 
 
 The only time he is required to be present, is 
 when the European Manager or Assistant measures 
 his fields. This is generally done twice once to 
 settle the advance, and, again, after the crop is up, to 
 certify that the proper amount of land has been sown 
 and to see what the crop is like. In some parts 
 the former Bengal bundle-system has been improved 
 upon by the introduction of the maund-system- 
 rates varying from 7 maunds (equal to about 3^ 
 bundles) to four maunds (equal to about 2 bundles) 
 to the rupee being paid in different parts of Behar. 
 The average rate is, however, about 5 maunds to 
 the rupee, an amount which admits of a very hand- 
 some profit to the assami. 
 
 The question of indigo-cum-opium has frequently 
 attracted attention occasional alarm being caused 
 by the opium agents clashing with managers and 
 tenants alike. There is absolutely no reason for any 
 such friction, as opium and indigo are grown at 
 different seasons, and there is nothing to hinder the 
 assami growing his opium from October, and his 
 
Indigo in the North- Western Provinces. 89 
 
 indigo from March, making a paying speculation out 
 of both. Sugarcane, tobacco, and potatoes are now 
 the chief rivals of opium, and the first named crop 
 has, of late years, made serious inroads on the opium 
 cultivation of Shahabad. Were the Sone canals as re- 
 liable for cane irrigation as they ought to be, the 
 opium cultivation in that district would be consider- 
 ably more reduced than it is. The price paid for 
 opium has risen, but not so high as the times would 
 warrant, and the profits made from the monopoly 
 by Government keep suggesting, still fairer and more 
 reasonable treatment of the cultivators. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 TENURES IN THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES. 
 
 THE crush of indigo factories, both European and 
 Native, in Behar, has induced me to attempt, in 
 this chapter, a descriptive outline of the nature 
 of the various forms of tenures prevailing in the 
 North-West Provinces. In doing so, I would ask 
 the Assistant entering indigo to bear in mind that my 
 account will have special reference to the district of 
 Gorakpur,* which I emphatically believe to be the 
 direction in which the industry of the " blue dye," 
 forced out of Behar, will, in the near future, compul- 
 sorily seek its legitimate development. 
 I propose, therefore, to notice briefly 
 
 1. The administration of the Rent Laws. 
 
 2. Jurisdiction of Revenue Courts. 
 
 3. Nature of tenures, and rights of tenants. 
 
 4. Kinds of soil, and average rates of each. 
 
 5. Settlement. 
 
 6. Liabilities of tenants. 
 
 7. Rights of Proprietors and Ticcadars in tenant 
 
 leaseholdings. 
 
 8. Sir land. 
 
 9. Mokarr aries. 
 
 * Gorackpore and Shahabad, in North-West Provinces in South 
 Behare are in commercial circles reckoned as Benares District (indigo). 
 
Tenures in the North-West Provinces. 91 
 
 I. Administration of the Rent Laws. All suits 
 between landlord and tenant of whatever nature, in 
 so far as they relate to land, must be filed before, 
 and disposed of by, the Collector, or Assistant Col- 
 lector. Appeal from either of which courts lies to the 
 Commissioner of the Division, and, ultimately, to the 
 Board of Revenue for the North- West Provinces, whose 
 finding is final. We are sorry to have to record that 
 such suits are of too frequent occurrence, and that 
 their name is legion. We have suits for arrears of 
 rent, enhancement, ejectment, distress, determination 
 of rent, and nature of tenure, assistance to eject, and 
 many others filed by the zemindar, or his locum tenens 
 pro tern.) against the tenant ; for excess of rent col- 
 lected, or for fixing the proper rental of his holding, 
 compensation, wrongful dispossession, abatement of 
 rent, etc., the mere enumeration of which our limited 
 space forbids. 
 
 2, Jurisdiction of Revenue 'Courts. These courts 
 have a very extended jurisdiction, and in all suits 
 under the Rent Act, tried and decided by the Col- 
 lector of the District, or by the Assistant Collector, 
 their judgment is final, except in cases where the 
 value of the matter at issue exceeds Rs. 100, when 
 appeal lies to the District Judge, or where the 
 amount of the suit exceeds Rs. 5,000, in which case 
 the appeal lies to the High Court. In all other 
 
92 Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 cases, appeal from the order of the Collector of a 
 District, or an Assistant Collector of the first class, 
 lies to the Commissioner of a Division, whilst, in that 
 from an Assistant Collector of the second class, the 
 decision of the Collector is final. 
 
 3. Nature of tenures and rights of tenants. In 
 the North-West Provinces the words " tenant " and 
 " tenure " have a wide and many-sided significance. 
 It might casually be presumed to mean, respectively, 
 the ryot, or - cultivator, and the holding of lands for 
 which he pays rent ; but this assumption would be 
 wrong, and would in no way embrace all the construc- 
 tions put upon the term by the Rent Act (XII 
 of 1881). By the provisions of this Act, the word 
 " tenant, " not only includes the cultivators who in- 
 habit the villages and cultivate the lands pertaining 
 to them, but the kadars, ' sub-lessees, ' and katkana- 
 dars: ' sub-sub-lessees ' come also within the meaning 
 of the term. With these latter, however, we have 
 little to do in this chapter. 
 
 Tenancy divides itself into four great heads, viz. : 
 
 (a) Occupancy tenants. 
 
 (b) Non-occupancy tenants. 
 
 (c) Tenants at fixed rates. 
 
 (d) Ex-proprietary tenants. 
 
 In order to render clear the several natures of the 
 above holdings or tenures, we must briefly refer to the 
 
Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 93 
 
 system prevailing in the North-West Provinces the 
 so-called htmberwari system. By this system and 
 here the North-West Provinces have enormously the 
 advantage of Bengal every field (cultivated, grass- 
 land, or otherwise) in the village or mouza, even 
 including cattle tracks and the village site, are num- 
 bered at the settlement, and the names of the then 
 tenants of each number recorded in the khesarah, 
 whilst the number is again clearly inscribed on each 
 plot in the naksha or map of the mauza. Thus, each 
 tenant can, by reference to the patwari (or village- 
 accountant), obtain from him a signed record of the 
 numbers of the fields in his possession. The number- 
 ing of each field secures the tenant against the 
 shifting about or exchange of lands, and the confu- 
 sion consequent upon this which obtains, with such 
 miserable results, in Bengal. 
 
 A. Occupancy tenants. Every tenant who has 
 held unbroken possession of the same lands under 
 cultivation for twelve years, has obtained a right of 
 occupancy in that land. The occupation, or culti- 
 vation of the father, or what person soever the 
 tenant may legally have inherited from, gives the 
 tenant in actual possession at the time the right of 
 occupancy. But a right of occupancy cannot arise 
 from a gift of land to the tenant by the landholder. 
 The right must, in all cases, be acquired in strict 
 
94 Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 accordance with the provisions of the Rent Act. Nor 
 is the occupancy right transferable, although the 
 actual cultivating occupation of the land for a time 
 as proprietor, and afterwards continuously as a 
 tenant for twelve years, confers such right. No right 
 of occupancy can accrue in sir land (vide notice 
 page 95), in land held in lieu of wages, in land 
 occupied under a written lease, or in waste land held 
 for grazing purposes. The phrase " actual cultivating 
 occupation " has been held by the Board of Revenue 
 to mean that, actual, and not vicarious, which oc- 
 cupation creates, by the lapse of a term of twelve 
 years, a just title to occupancy rights. But it has 
 been held that such rights can be acquired in the 
 following instances. When a tenant occupies or 
 cultivates alluvial land, which may or may not be 
 capable of continuous cultivation, for twelve years ; 
 when lands in which occupancy rights have already 
 accrued have been submerged, and again exposed 
 after a lapse of years, the failure to pay rents during 
 the period of submersion does not debar if the newly 
 formed land be identical in site ; when lands are 
 held under a written lease, but the lease not having 
 been registered is invalid, and cannot bar the tenant 
 from acquiring occupancy rights, even although he 
 may have used the lease as valid. This last excep- 
 tion to the stringent provisions of the Act is worthy 
 
Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 9$ 
 
 of the careful notice of the planter. When a tikadar^ 
 or lessee of a village, claims a right of occupancy in 
 lands included in his lease, and can show that he has 
 actually cultivated them himself continuously for 
 twelve years. 
 
 B. Non-occupancy tenants are tenants who have 
 not occupied and cultivated the same fields for the 
 required period of twelve years and who can be 
 deprived of their tenures at the will of the land- 
 owner, on being served by the latter with a written 
 notice of ejectment under the provisions of the Act. 
 This notice is compulsory, and it is under no circum- 
 stances left to the option of the landowner. Such 
 tenants are also called tenants-at-will. Their rights 
 are few, and their chances of retention, after legal 
 process by the landowner, scant A non-occupancy 
 tenant may dispute his liability to be ejected, by 
 application to the Collector or Assistant Collector, 
 such application being made within thirty days after 
 service of notice. Tenants of this description, having 
 no fixed status, may be finally dealt with in this 
 paragraph, and further remarks will not be found 
 regarding their liabilities in touching upon that 
 subject. 
 
 C. Tenants at fixed rates. This class is only 
 found in permanently settled districts, and the term 
 " at fixed rates " signifies any tenant who has held 
 
g6 Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 land * either personally or by heritage from his pre- 
 decessors ' in interest, from the time of the Perma- 
 nent Settlement, at the same rates of rent. The right 
 of such tenant is transferable, and may descend by 
 succession ; but his rent cannot be enhanced, except 
 on the ground of increase of holding by alluvial 
 deposits or otherwise. 
 
 2}.. Ex-proprietary tenants are a class with whom 
 the indigo planter can have little to do ; and we can- 
 not do better than quote the Act, section 7 : " Every 
 person who may hereafter lose or part with his 
 proprietary rights, in any mahal, shall have a right of 
 occupancy in the land held by him or sir in such 
 mahal at the date of such loss or parting at a rent 
 which shall be four annas in the rupee less than the 
 prevailing rate payable by tenants-at-will for land 
 at similar quality, and with similar advantages." 
 " Persons having such rights of occupancy shall be 
 called ex-proprietary tenants, and shall have all the 
 rights of occupancy tenants." The rate of rent of 
 this class of tenants is fixed by order of the Settle- 
 ment Officer, or by an order under the Act, and the 
 tenant may apply for abatement of his rent, either 
 on account of diminution of the area of his holding 
 from diluvion or other causes, or on account of the 
 decrease in productive power of the land from any 
 circumstance over which he has no control. 
 
Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 97 
 
 In the present chapter we have but touched upon 
 the more salient points connected with the nature of 
 tenures and the rights of tenants, whilst our space 
 naturally renders our remarks crude and incomplete. 
 To the young Assistant who would dive more deep- 
 ly into the sea of the Rent Law, we would recom- 
 mend a little book published by the Government 
 Press, Allahabad, " The North-West Provinces, Rent 
 Law Manual," by Mr. L. W. Teyen of Fatehgarh. 
 
 4. Kinds of soil, and average rates of each. Under 
 this heading we would ask our readers to bear in 
 mind that in this portion we refer chiefly, indeed 
 entirely, to the district of Gorakhpur. The bhdt land 
 is pre-eminently suitable for the cultivation of indigo, 
 and the few factories we know are built in, and culti- 
 vate, lands of this description exclusively. A few 
 ventures have been made in bangar, but with ruinous 
 results. The peculiarity of bhdt land is its retention 
 of moisture, which obviates the necessity, to planter and 
 ryot alike, of irrigation. Indeed, it is only in years 
 when the rains have entirely failed, that we have seen 
 the tenant of the bhdt soil resort to irrigation, either 
 before or after the sowing of his crop. Thus, the 
 nature of the soil gives him the advantage over his, 
 comparatively, less favoured brother of the bangar, 
 I am not agricultural chemist enough to give the 
 
 analytical reasons for this difference in the moisture - 
 R., In. G 
 
98 Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 retaining properties of the two soils. Bhdt land is 
 generally subdivided into five minor classes of soil 
 kat-bkdt (bastard bhdt}, dhoos (sand), soombha (rich 
 loam), bal-soombha (sandy loam), and matiar (clay). 
 Of these the soombha and matiar are in most favour 
 with tenants, as affording the qualities of soil which 
 best adapt themselves to the producing of rabi (cold 
 weather) and bhadai (rainy weather) crops, respective- 
 ly. Planters, on the other hand, do not much affect 
 kat-bhdt or matiar a small proportion of the latter 
 kind being, however, desirable, as being the most 
 moisture-preserving soil in dry seasons. Soombha, 
 bal-soombha, and dhoos are the classes of land after 
 which the heart of the planter yearns, and in which 
 the indigo plant loves to take deep root and flourish 
 mightily. The rates of bhdt land vary a good deal 
 from various causes, which I am not called upon 
 here to explain, but I think I shall not be far out 
 in stating an average all round rate at Rs. 2-8 to 
 Rs. 2-12 per bigha. Time was when this rate 
 would have been considered enormous, even within 
 own recollection ; but the rates of land have been 
 and are, steadily on the increase, as a hungry popu- 
 lation, forced out of Behar, pours in. 
 
 Bangar is a soil which, of itself non-retentive of 
 moisture, invariably demands irrigation for the success 
 of its crops, although after the rains the tenants are 
 
Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 99 
 
 sometimes able to sow without previous irrigation. 
 Why bangar lands should not be able to keep their 
 moisture, even in years when bhdt lands from exces- 
 sive rains are regularly saturated, is a matter hardly 
 within the province of this chapter. It must suffice 
 that the fact is indisputable. There appears to be no 
 doubt that bangar is the richer, stronger soil of the 
 two, yielding, perhaps, on an average, 15 per cent, 
 more produce than the bhdt. The rates are pretty 
 much the same in both soils. In the district of 
 Gorakhpur, bangar soil is of three kinds safed, or 
 white ; lal, or red ; and karaili, or black bangar. 
 These three qualities seem equally productive, the 
 first-named kind being predominant in Gorakhpur. 
 
 5. Settlements. In the North- West Provinces the 
 settlement is permanent or terminable after a period 
 of thirty years. The Gorakhpur District is at pre- 
 sent under settlement, which will probably be finally 
 concluded within the next four years. Contrary to 
 form erusage, the merits and capabilities of the soil 
 will be the standard of assessment, and this would 
 seem a sounder and more practical plan than that of 
 assessing according to the prevailing average rates of 
 rent paid by the greater number of tenants in each 
 zemindarL 
 
 6. Liabilities of tenants. All classes of tenants 
 are liable to be sued for arrears of rent, which rent 
 
IOO Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 still remaining due, he becomes further liable for 
 interest at 10 per cent, per annum. If, however, the 
 arrears still continue unpaid by the 3Oth of June 
 following the date of decree, the tenant shall be ejected 
 on application made by the landowner. Notice is 
 issued, and, failing payment within 1 5 days from receipt 
 of notice, the tenant will be ejected. 
 
 All tenures, of whatsoever class, are also liable to 
 be enhanced, under conditions peculiar to each, for 
 the nature and process of which enhancement we 
 would refer the reader to the Act. 
 
 The produce of all land is liable to be distrained 
 for arrears, being hypothecated for rent due in respect 
 of such land. It is also optional for the landowner 
 to substitute recovery of rent by distress and sale of 
 the produce for the more tedious process of a regu- 
 lar suit. Standing crops of every kind, and crops 
 which have been reaped and gathered into the kha- 
 lian (threshing-floor), are liable to be distrained pro- 
 vided only that they are the produce of the identical 
 lands for which arrears of rent have accrued. 
 
 The tenant is also liable to have a suit filed against 
 him, for the determination of his rent and the 
 nature of his tenure. 
 
 7. Rights of Proprietors and Tikadars in tenant- 
 less holdings. The proprietor or tikadar has a full 
 right to dispose of any land from which the tenant has 
 
Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 101 
 
 been ejected, either by appropriation or by re-arrange- 
 ment with a fresh tenant. When the landowner or 
 sub-lessee thus appropriates for his own cultivation 
 such vacant holding, he becomes liable for the rent 
 fixed, and the land thus acquired is denominated sir. 
 
 8. Sir lands. The ziraths of an indigo concern 
 come under the classification of sir ; and the proprie- 
 tor of the concern becomes the tenant of the land 
 so held, with all the liabilities, but none of the rights 
 of the ordinary tenant, within the meaning of the 
 Rent Act. The right of occupancy would not seem 
 to accrue in sir or zirath land, for a tikadar or 
 lessee of a village must prove that he has himself 
 actually cultivated the land in which he claims the 
 right continuously for twelve years. In the case of 
 Hardeo Baksh v. Kallee, Mr. Reid, the Senior 
 Member of the Board, observed : " It is simply pre- 
 posterous to decree right of occupancy to four men 
 in 323 bighas of land which they are shown to have 
 held as lessees. The cultivation or occupation, which 
 is the basis of acquisition of a right of occupancy, 
 is the cultivation or occupation of a cultivator, not of 
 a lessee. 
 
 9. Miikarraries. This term is applied to lands or 
 villages which are leased for ever at a fixed rate of 
 rent, which cannot be altered by the landowner ex- 
 cept at the settlement, and then only when the lessee 
 
IO2 Tenures in the North- West Provinces. 
 
 refuses to pay any enhanced rate at which the lands 
 or villages may be assessed by the Settlement Officer. 
 Mukarraries are simple leases in perpetuity, at a fix- 
 ed annual rental. No class of tenant can lease his 
 holding in this way. Indeed mukarraries> although 
 common prior to the passing into law of the Rent 
 Act now in force, were irregular and illegal, having 
 only the sanction of the crass ignorance, as to the law 
 of the landowner. The practice seems to have been 
 borrowed from the districts of Saran and Champaran, 
 in Behar, which border on the Gorakhpur District to 
 the east and south. 
 
 I have now glanced at the principal features of 
 tenures in the North-West Provinces, and would close 
 this chapter by again referring the Assistant to the 
 excellent manual previously mentioned for a more 
 extended knowledge of this important question. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 INDIGO IN SHAHABAD. 
 
 THE system of indigo cultivation adopted by 
 European factories in the districts of Behar, 
 south of the Ganges, is closely allied to that 
 pursued by the almost universally native concerns 
 in Benares and the North- West Provinces generally. 
 The soil is of a similar kind, and red bangar, which, 
 unlike the bhdt soils of North Behar (the great seat of 
 the indigo industry in India), is non-retentive of 
 moisture. Consequently the sowings in Shahabad 
 and contiguous districts are chiefly carried on dur- 
 ing the rainy season July, August, and September. 
 
 The earlier (rainy weather) sowings are called 
 assarhi, and are cut in September-October of the 
 same season. The later sowings have no special 
 designation at sowing time, though in the following 
 season, when the plant, having been pruned, is cut, 
 it is then called khunti. Perhaps nauda would be 
 a more appropriate name (one which has been applied 
 to assarhi as well), and, in the following pages, nauda 
 will mean the plant which is sown in August-Septem- 
 ber, and cut in the following season during July- 
 August. Assarhi signifies plant sown in Assarh, the 
 
IO4 Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 Indian name for the month which corresponds to the 
 last fifteen days of June and the first half of July. 
 The assarhi crop is a particularly precarious one 
 and it is only in years of light and favourable rain- 
 fall that it yields a good return. Even then, the 
 quantity and quality of the produce is vastly inferior 
 to that of the nauda. Assarhi is never exclusive- 
 ly sown in all concerns in Shahabad and other dis- 
 tricts for the above reason. 
 
 The stumps of the assarhi, after being cut in 
 September-October, are left in the ground, and in 
 favourable years, generally give another cutting along 
 with the nauda (both at this stage being called 
 indiscriminately khunti] in the following year ; but, 
 frequently, in the heats of spring, the plant dies 
 away, thus presenting another serious objection to 
 assarhi. 
 
 The nauda, after germinating and becoming suffi- 
 ciently advanced to allow of the process, is weeded 
 carefully, and in December, January, and February, it 
 is again cleaned and pruned. Sometimes a second 
 cleaning and pruning in April-May is necessary, but 
 not always. 
 
 Nauda may be looked upon as the backbone of 
 the Shahabad indigo system, strengthened and bol- 
 stered up by assarhi as described above, and jamana 
 or assamiwar indigo. Under this latter system, the 
 
Indigo in Shahabad. 105 
 
 ryot or tenant takes money advances from the fac- 
 tory on the understanding that he will sow so much 
 indigo in opium lands, after the opium season is 
 over. He is paid, according to agreement, either by 
 the bigha or by weight ; the rates in some places, 
 in my time, used to be six factory maunds, weighed 
 on a steel-yard, to the rupee. At other factories, 
 various rates per bigha prevailed, ranging from ten 
 to twenty rupees. The crop under consideration 
 was sown towards the end of March and all through 
 April, after the land had been relieved of the pre- 
 vious opium crop , irrigation being effected generally 
 by means of a mote or moth. The following descrip- 
 tion of the apparatus is about the best I have seen, 
 and I give it here in full : 
 
 " The moth consists of a leathern bucket made 
 out of single cow's hide, varying in capacity from 
 1% to 3^ cubic feet; the edges of the leather 
 of the bucket or bag are turned over an iron ring 
 from \y to 2 feet in circumference, and three iron 
 stays welded to the ring at equidistant points at one 
 extremity, and also welded to one another, provided 
 the necessary attachment for the rope. 
 
 "This rope, generally made of buffalo's hide, 
 I inch in diameter, is passed over a rude wooden 
 pulley supported by a forked rest, firmly fixed at 
 the lower end, and inclining over the well's mouth 
 
106 Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 at the upper end. The rope is fastened to the yoke 
 of the pair of bullocks, which supply the motive power. 
 The bullocks descend an inclined plane varying in 
 length with the depth of the well, and thus bring the 
 bucket to the surface, where it is emptied by a man 
 specially stationed for the purpose. In the field under 
 irrigation, a third man is employed in admitting the 
 water to the crops, or in sprinkling it over the ground 
 with a wooden scoop, shaped something like a spade 
 (called a hatha), from the spots where it collects. 
 
 " The average capacity of a moth is nearly 2j 
 cubic feet, the quantity of water raised per hour 
 varies from 75 to 250 cubic feet, and, as the 
 working day is often not less than twelve hours, the 
 daily outturn varies from 900 to 3,000 cubic feet. 
 
 The value of the leather bucket varies from 3^. to 
 6s., the rope costs &s., and the ironwork, is. 6d. 
 The bucket lasts during the season of irrigation (about 
 four months), and the rope two years. 
 
 " The cost of irrigation for one season, as estimated 
 by Mr. H. C. Levinge, the Superintending Engineer 
 
 of the Sone Circle, is as follows : 
 
 * d. 
 
 One-tenth of the cost of a pair of bullocks ... o 7 3 
 
 Four months' feed of bullocks ... ...140 
 
 Four months' wages for the labourers ... 2 o o 
 
 Cost of moth ... ... ... o ii o 
 
 Total ,423 
 
Indigo in Shahabad. 107 
 
 The average area irrigated is eight acres to one moth ; 
 so that moth - irrigation costs about IDS. per acre 
 for the year." 
 
 CHARGES FOR IRRIGATION BY SONE CIRCLE OF CANALS. 
 Annual leases. 
 
 Rs. A. P. 
 Rice ... ...300 per acre 
 
 Bhudai ... ...280 ,, 
 
 Rabbi ... ...280 
 
 Sugarcane ... ... 500 ,, 
 
 Hot-weather crops for irrigation between ist April and 2$th June. 
 All crops ... Rs. 4 o o per acre. 
 
 Five-year leases. 
 
 All crops ... Rs. 2 o o per acre. 
 
 If water is taken for sugarcane in hot months the total charge is as 
 follows : 
 
 Under 5-year leases, per acre 
 
 During hot months ... 
 
 Total 600 
 
 This is simply that the hot-weather rate is charged over and above 
 this for 5 -year leases. 
 
 The Government is not altogether favourable to 
 the Indigo-cum-opium system, in Shahabad at least, 
 and there are several factories there that have lost, of 
 late years, a good portion of their assamiwar culti- 
 vation owing to the ryots getting the idea that it 
 would please the Government officials if they refused 
 to take advances. A native Deputy Magistrate (Un- 
 covenanted Civil Service) told the author during the 
 time Sir Ashley Eden was inquiring into the indigo 
 systems of Behar, that the Lieutenant-Governor did 
 
io8 Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 not want any more planters in the country ; following 
 up the above inscrutable remark by dismissing a case 
 of ours which was before him. Not many months 
 after we had another case before this wiseacre. This 
 time he fined one jemadar ten rupees for assaulting a 
 carter oracularly vouchsafing the remark that, as the 
 Sahib had notcometo court in person, the suit as against 
 the luckless jemadar must necessarily be true. I have 
 not infrequently experienced similar displays of like 
 behaviour from the small fry of magisterial magnates. 
 This same gentleman, in yet another case where 
 a villager was sued for deliberately upsetting his 
 bullock-load of indigo plant on the roadside, delivered 
 himself of a curiously " mixed " decision, sentencing 
 the man to 15 days' imprisonment. This finding 
 was afterwards quashed by the High Court of Cal- 
 cutta, when they remarked that the Magistrate had 
 acted under no section of the Penal Code, but had 
 with more ingenuity than circumspection, appro- 
 priated one from the Civil Code instead. Our Deputy 
 had made a mess of the case, and got duly drawn 
 over the coals for it, though, in the other cases, 
 where the miscarriage of justice was greater, he was 
 not so much as admonished. The same gentleman, 
 when had up at Arrah as witness in some Registra- 
 tion Frauds, was found by the Judge to be unable 
 to decipher his own English decisions. These are 
 
Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 109 
 
 only a very few of the shortcomings of native magis- 
 trates whom Lord Ripon had contemplated making the 
 future arbiters of the English men and women in India ! 
 Yet another description of indigo has sprung into 
 existence since the opening of the Sone canals, 
 which is called falguni from the fact of its being 
 sown in the month of Falgun (February-March) 
 In this kind of cultivation, niz or private lands,. 
 i. e., lands in the actual rented possession of the fac- 
 tory itself as tenant and cultivator, are irrigated by 
 canal water and sown at the end of February and 
 on into March. This system has been found very 
 remunerative in the few European concerns in the 
 North-West Provinces, though the sowings are, 
 owing to the cold, somewhat later than in Shahabad, 
 which has a considerably warmer climate than the 
 North-West. The following schedule will enable the 
 reader to see at a glance the different kinds of crops, 
 their duration, &c : 
 
 
 
 
 POSSIBLE NUMBER OF 
 
 
 
 
 CUTTINGS. 
 
 Crop. 
 
 When 
 sown. 
 
 When 
 reaped. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 First 
 
 Second 
 
 Third 
 
 
 
 
 year. 
 
 year. 
 
 year. 
 
 Jamooali 
 Assarhi 
 
 March-April 
 June-July 
 
 July-August 
 Sept. -Oct. 
 
 One 
 One 
 
 None 
 Two 
 
 None 
 One 
 
 Nauda 
 
 Aug. -Sept. 
 
 July-August 
 
 None 
 
 Two 
 
 One 
 
HO Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 The reader will perhaps pardon a slight digres- 
 sion here, whilst we briefly describe the famous Sone 
 canals. 
 
 The magnificent scheme of Colonel Dickens, by 
 which Shahabad should be irrigated by a widely 
 ramified system of canals, which canals should also 
 be navigable, was presented to the Government of 
 India in 1855, but, obstacle after obstacle presenting 
 itself, the final sanction was not obtained until 1871. 
 Preliminary operations had, however, been in hand 
 since 1869, in which year the construction of the 
 Dehri-on-Son Anicut was commenced. The main 
 western canal having Dehri as its starting point, 
 though partly dug out to Chunar in the North- West 
 Provinces, remains still a long and expensive monu- 
 ment of Government folly and wastefulness. It has not 
 been completed beyond Bedadee, two miles west of 
 Sasseram, on the Grand Trunk Road. Except Bhabua 
 and the Rohtas Pergunnah in Sasseram Subdivision, 
 the other divisions of Shahabad have, by the con- 
 struction of the Sone canal, acquired a complete 
 immunity from famine. 
 
 Briefly stated, the following facts are available re- 
 garding the Sone canal in Shahabad. The main 
 western canal has to carry 4,511 cubic feet of water 
 per second to irrigate 1,200,000 acres, only 600,000 
 of which require irrigation at one and the same time. 
 
Indigo in Shahabad. in 
 
 The Arrah canal (which is navigable), with its 
 branches the Beeheea and Doomraon canals, com- 
 mands an area of 441,500 acres under kharif and 
 rabbi crops. 
 
 The requirements of water are taken at one cubic 
 foot per second for each 133 acres. The duty of the 
 water for irrigating purposes is arrived at in this way. 
 The irrigable square mile is considered to contain 
 250 acres, 140 being deducted for roads, tanks, vil- 
 lage sites, &c., and the remaining 250 as not requir- 
 ing simultaneous irrigation. As one acre of rice re- 
 quires 27 cubic feet of water per hour or '0075 cubic 
 feet per second, a square mile of 250 acres requires 
 1 88 cubic feet per second, fhe canal itself has four 
 principal distributaries, exclusive of the Beeheea 
 and Doomraon canals. The Beeheea canal has seven 
 distributaries, and the Doomraon canal twelve. 
 
 The Buxar and Chansa canals command an area 
 of 309,500 acres under kharif 'and rabbi crops. 
 
 Bhabua, already referred to as likely to suffer in 
 time of scarcity, has, including the thannahs of 
 Ramgurh and Chand, an area of 1,037 square miles, 
 containing 1,307 villages, and a population, according 
 to the census of 1872, of 294,252, giving a popula- 
 tion of 284 to the square mile. There are several 
 rivers or large nuddies that flow through the Bha- 
 bua Subdivision which might be used for irrigation 
 
112 Indigo in ShaJiabad. 
 
 purposes. The Suri and the Kara have in other dry- 
 years been bunded up by the Chenpore and Khelas- 
 pore Zemindaries. 
 
 The first mahai or manufacture, called morhun in 
 Tirhut, commences in Shahabad sometime in July, and 
 consisting of the nauda-khuntis and jamooali, yields 
 the best produce and colour. The second mahai con- 
 tinues till the end of October, and consists of durzies 
 (local name for second cuttings of khunti) and 
 assarhi plant. Towards the end of the mahai, pro- 
 duce is very inferior, whilst the indigo made is black 
 and hard. Manufacture in Shahabad is, unlike Tir- 
 hut, mainly carried on without the aid of machinery. 
 The necessary apparatus consist of from 6 to 1 5 pairs 
 of vats of 800 to 1,200 cubic feet per vat, a boiling- 
 house and press and cake-houses to contain the boil- 
 ers and the implements necessary for pressing and 
 preparing the cubes of indigo, a reservoir, the cubic 
 capacity of which is at least sufficient to hold water 
 enough to fill a quarter of the factory vats before com- 
 plete displenishment. The reservoir is kept filled by 
 moths, (a description of which appliance has been 
 given), the water being taken from either natural or 
 artificial tanks, a lake, a river or wells. A bungalow, 
 offices, stables, and out-houses complete the tout 
 ensemble. These are generally located in a strip 
 of land taken under perpetual lease or mukarrari 
 
Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 This holding is usually limited to a few 
 
 some old factories have acquired large estatel 
 
 ous ways, partly by buying, partly by perpetual leases,. 
 
 by acquired occupancy rights, gozasla khastkari, in 
 
 fine, by all, and every means rendered legitimate by 
 
 local use or legal acceptation. 
 
 As regards the lands on which the planter grows 
 his indigo. These may have been acquired in any 
 of the above-mentioned ways ; but, if new lands have 
 to be catered for, the procedure resorted to is multi- 
 form, and the offspring of circumstance or opportu- 
 nity. In the factory which I managed for a number 
 of years, the following system of acquiring lands 
 was preferred : 
 
 The factory jemadar or bailiff would go round the 
 village under negotiation, noting carefully those lands 
 which he thought would be suitable for our purpose. 
 I would then, after selection and approval, send him 
 to the holder of the lands with a detailed appli- 
 cation for the area which was required. Should the 
 landholder agree, the fields were forthwith measured, 
 and a lease written out, giving us possession from 
 May of one year to August-September (full moon) of 
 the next inclusive, or 15 months and some odd days. 
 This seemingly unequal term was in order to admit of 
 our cutting our plant in July-August. For, had the 
 
 lease been drawn out on the same terms as usual, 
 R., In. H 
 
H4 Indigo in Shahabad. 
 
 we should have had absolutely no return for our 
 money. 
 
 The rent was all paid in advance, and I had no- 
 thing more to do than cultivate and sow the lands in 
 their proper seasons. I should mention here that 
 there was always a conditionary clause in every lease, 
 enabling us to extend our possession of the lands 
 for another year at half-rates. But this term was 
 entirely optional. In this way, if the khuntis were 
 strong and healthy-looking, we could hold on to 
 them for second cuttings, with the further prospect of 
 a third year's crop. 
 
 This land arrangement was an arduous task, and 
 it was made still more so by the fact that it had to be 
 repeated every year. In seasons when grain was 
 plenty, land was always scarce, and one had to take 
 what one could get ; but when famine pinched and 
 hunger pressed, the pick and choice of the best lands 
 in the countryside was ours. 
 
 The concern where I spent some five years of his 
 sojourn in Shahabad in comparative comfort con- 
 sisted of four factories. My first billet was at Masai, 
 afterwards Chainpur became his head - quarters. 
 During my incumbency of these factories, my sole 
 amusement was shooting ; and, as all the places lay 
 at the foot of the Kaimur hills, I had plenty of it. 
 
Indigo in Meerut. 115 
 
 INDIGO IN MEERUT. 
 
 THE relations between cultivator and factory in 
 these parts is somewhat different to that which ob- 
 tains in Behar. Here we have indigo either by the 
 advance system, badni or by khaskreed, that is, pur- 
 chase in the open market of indigo plant, grown by 
 the cultivators as a speculation. In Tirhoot and 
 Behar generally the assamiwar or ryothi system to 
 some extent prevails, but the khaski system now 
 more generally obtains. The cultivators living in 
 the villages within what is called the factory dehdt 
 take advances to sow indigo for the factory at a cer- 
 tain price. This price may be anything from twelve 
 rupees to four annas per maund, and is a matter of 
 mutual agreement. The seed is generally given to 
 the cultivator. This is not the case in the North- 
 West Provinces, there the cultivator generally grows 
 his own seed. In Sarun the khaski system has be- 
 come very popular, and the cultivators look forward 
 to their indigo advances more eagerly than they do 
 for the opium advances. The advances given are, in 
 some instances, heavy, and the conditions on which 
 the money is given are not, in most cases, half as 
 harassing as those inserted in the badni agreements 
 of the North- West Provinces. By the term factory 
 dehdt is meant the circle of villages within which a 
 particular factory claims the monopoly of growing 
 
Ii6 Indigo in Meerut. 
 
 indigo as a vested right from usage. We might give 
 as a parallel instance the right of shooting or hunt- 
 ing. A man who shoots on preserves is called a 
 poacher, one who builds a factory and grows indigo 
 in another factory dehdt is called an interloper. This 
 right is not so much exercised in the North-West 
 Provinces, where, consequently, free trade in indigo 
 prevails. 
 
 That interesting work, " Garden and Field Crops," 
 published by the Agricultural Department, North- 
 Western Provinces, says : " The advance or badni 
 system was probably brought about by the assamis 
 requiring some guarantee that the indigo grown by 
 them would be purchased by the factory according 
 to the badni system. In March and April when the 
 crop is sown, the factory binds itself to purchase plant 
 at rates then agreed on ; the rates are fixed consider- 
 ably lower than they are in free competition ; but as 
 long as sixteen or eighteen rupees per 100 maunds 
 of plant is paid, the system is not more objectionable 
 than that followed by Government in furthering the 
 opium cultivation. Unfortunately one of the prin- 
 cipal objects of the factory in making advances is 
 often not so much to arrange for a crop in the pre- 
 sent as to gain a power over the cultivator as will 
 enable it to compel him to grow indigo on its own 
 terms for the future. The power once acquired may 
 
Indigo in Meerut. 117 
 
 be used to compel him to grow plant at the factory's 
 will, and to sell at a price much lower than it would 
 otherwise command." 
 
 The following memo, of the cost of an acre of 
 indigo in Meerut is also from " Field and Garden 
 Crops " : 
 
 Rs. As. 
 
 Ploughing, clod breaking, sowings, &c., &c., say, I 8 
 
 Price of seed, say, ... ... ... I 8 
 
 Weeding (this is often not done at all) ... 3 o 
 
 Reaping ... ... ... ... I 9 
 
 Rent on kharif ... ... ... 2 8 
 
 Watering ... ... ... ... 4 15 
 
 Total ... 15 
 
 As a return for this expenditure in a year like the present, the 
 following may be taken as pretty near the mark : 
 
 75 maunds plant @ Rs. 14 Rs. 9 8 
 2 ,, seed @ ,, 6 per maund ,, 12 o 
 
 Total 21 8 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 INDIGO IN THE AZAMGARH DISTRICT. 
 
 THE manufacture of indigo for export dates from 
 the early years of British rule in the district. 
 The Company's commercial resident was allow- 
 ed to trade on his own account, as well as for his mas- 
 ters, and Mr. Crommelin, commercial resident at 
 Azamgarh and Mau, in company with two gentlemen, 
 named Stewart and Scott, started the first indigo 
 concern in Azamgarh. Its establishment was opposed 
 by the magistrate of the district under the rule which 
 forbade the Europeans to occupy land, and engage 
 in indigo manufacture in the ceded provinces with- 
 out permission from the Governor-General in Council. 
 Mr. Crommelin eventually got leave to hold the 
 factories, and was exonerated from blame in connec- 
 tion with them ; but so aggrieved did he feel by the 
 action of the magistrate, that he filed an action in 
 the Supreme Court for damages. What the result 
 of the action was, the records that are within reach 
 do not show. His indigo concern seems to have 
 been conducted through European and Eurasian 
 assistants, and at first, not without disputes with the 
 natives, which the latter were careful to bring to the 
 
Indigo in the Azamgarh District. 119 
 
 notice of the magistrate. The prohibitory rule under 
 which Mr. Crommelin had been opposed, did not 
 apply to persons born in India, and soon after the 
 establishment of his concern, others were set agoing 
 in various places. In 1808, Mr. D. O. Ferguson, act- 
 ing on behalf of a Major Stevenson, erected a factory 
 at Nizamabad, and another, now fallen completely to 
 ruin, was established at Imilia, which, though pro- 
 fessedly the property of a native, was, in 1811, man- 
 aged by a European named O'Dell. As time went 
 on, more factories were erected at various places. 
 In 1812, Mr. Ferguson's factories passed into the 
 hands of Mr. J. Sturmes. This gentleman carried on 
 the concern vigorously, and added to it another 
 branch factory. He also engaged with sugar and 
 cloth trades, and, by mortgage, purchase, and farm, 
 held possession of a number of landed estates. After 
 his death in 1821, his indigo concern and estates were 
 managed for a number of years by his executors. 
 In 1829, the indigo concern and part of the estates were 
 sold the former being purchased by Mr. H. E. Hun- 
 ter. Meanwhile Mr. Crommelin's factory had changed 
 hands ; some being held by persons resident in the 
 district, others by persons resident in Calcutta or 
 elsewhere, who managed them through agents. For 
 several years after 1829, Mr. Hunter, who, in addition 
 to the Nizamabad concern, had taken over some of the 
 
I2O Indigo in tJie Azamgarh District. 
 
 factories erected by Mr. Crommelin and others, and 
 Mr. J. H. Stonehouse who held the Dobrighat concern, 
 were the chief independent Europeans in the district. 
 They traded largely in sugar and other native pro- 
 duce in addition to indigo, and Mr. Hunter was also 
 in possession of a good deal of landed property 
 He died at Nizamabad in 1845, and his large indigo 
 concern was broken up. Mr. Stonehouse also had 
 been unfortunate in business, and had to relinquish 
 most of his factories, but he continued to reside in 
 the district, holding a small factory, which he built at 
 Rajapatti in Pergunnah Nizamabad, till 1857. At the 
 time of the mutinies there were at least nine con- 
 cerns, whose headquarters were in the district. The 
 chief of them was the Dobrighat concern held by 
 Mr. E. F. Venables. Previous to the mutinies, and 
 for some years after them, the production of indigo 
 remained chiefly in European and Eurasian hands. 
 The only native who seems to have held factories 
 before the mutinies was Basu Darzi, who, having 
 been originally Mr. Hunter's tailor, and afterwards 
 his chief manager, had acquired a good deal of 
 money, and on Mr. Hunter's death, purchased six of 
 the factories. About 12 or 15 years ago natives 
 began to take an interest in the trade, and the com- 
 paratively high prices of 1862 and the following 
 years brought about among them a rage for factory 
 
Indigo in the Azamgarh District. 121 
 
 building. Numbers of new native factories sprung 
 up. Of 415 factories now standing in the district, 
 323 have been built during the last 14 years. At 
 the present time only 29 factories with 1 1 5 pairs of 
 vats are the property of, or held by, Europeans and 
 Eurasians. The rest (386 factories with 607 pairs of 
 vats) are the property of, or held by, natives. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 INTERLOPERS AND INTERLOPING, 
 is not very many decades since the above words 
 were unknown in India, or if known at all, they 
 had no application to Indigo. At the opening 
 of the present century, indigo the Devil's Dye of 
 the credulous of those days was still in its infancy, 
 and the pioneer of its progress had to be imported 
 from the West Indies. Doubtless even then the few 
 and scattered servants of " John Company " may have 
 looked askance at the intruder, who, the protecting 
 segis of letters patent notwithstanding, had the pluck 
 and hardihood to entertain and prosecute the five years' 
 scheme a tentative one of the magnates of Lead- 
 enhall. Jealous enough of adventurers of all sorts 
 refusing permission to settle in India unless in rare 
 exceptions except under pledge and bond not to 
 adhere to the strict letter of which was disaster 
 deporting from India at a moment's notice, and 
 all property and goods confiscated by the Company, 
 the Hon'ble Company was not always sufficiently 
 alive to its position to welcome and foster an element 
 in its population which came adorned with the 
 triple armour of English pluck, capital, and intrepidity. 
 
Interlopers and Interloping. 123. 
 
 The first principle of the old established factory, the 
 foundationstone upon which the " man in possession " 
 builds his exclusively protective claim, is nothing 
 more nor less than that of vis major, the proprietor 
 of an indigo concern, having nestled down comfort- 
 ably in any tract of country, satisfied himself that 
 he has thereby acquired an inalienable lien upon 
 the whole tract to the exclusion of all others. Argu- 
 ment carries no conviction with him the interloper 
 is his Men du diable beyond the pale of mercy, 
 beneath all consideration, to be hounded out and 
 ruthlessly " smashed " wherever encountered. Such 
 arguments as these find favour with the pseudo- 
 monopolist : " I am first in the field. I have, at 
 great cost, and with much diplomatic difficulty, 
 established friendly relations with the zemindars, 
 conciliated the trading community or mahajuns, who, 
 seeing in my arrival on the scene a saviour of the 
 needy landholder, their immemorial victim, opposed 
 me with the myriad wiles known to their usurious 
 cult, but who quickly came to see that my object 
 was, not ultimate possession, but terminable tenure. 
 I have been a blessing to the peasantry, to whom my 
 coffers were always open ! I have rendered to the 
 Government of the country an inestimable service in 
 the better farming of the soil on my own part ; and 
 in the beneficial effect of my example upon the 
 
124 Interlopers and Interloping. 
 
 ryots who are in immediate contact with me. To 
 the extent of my leases, I have secured to the revenue 
 of the country the invariable payment of its demands; 
 to the tenant I have been a fostering father, and have 
 rescued him from a tyranny not to be endured. I have, 
 in short, nurtured the growth of numerous blessings in 
 the tract in which I have settled, and some considera- 
 tion should be shown me for these and other reasons." 
 
 The arguments of the interloper are in many res- 
 pects similar to those of his opponent. The in- 
 terloper pledges himself to do as much for the tract 
 of land he cultivates and its population, as may have 
 been accomplished by the earliest settler. 
 
 Some of the prominent causes which have led up 
 to this new source of friction amongst the members 
 of the Indigo body corporate, are as follow : 
 
 I. Crowding out, the result of oversupply. Of late 
 years the numbers of boys sent out from Home to 
 " try their luck in indigo " have increased beyond all 
 reasonable limits. The Home market is glutted, and 
 it behoves parents of a certain social status to seek 
 employment for their sons abroad. They turn their 
 eyes upon our great Indian empire and find that 
 even in that vast country the well-born young man 
 must choose his career absolutely either in indigo, 
 tea, or an office in one of the Presidency-towns. 
 This young person may or may not have been 
 
Interlopers and Interloping. 125 
 
 plucked for either the Army or the Indian Civil Ser- 
 vice. Thus, with a mind which had been buoyed up 
 with a false hope, until the time of the fatal exami- 
 nation all his thoughts are still of India. His family 
 knows, or may be related to, some one who has been 
 engaged in planting. Influence is made, and the re- 
 jection of the examination, or the neophite of the 
 public schools, is shipped finally for India. The 
 strong purposeful boy soon forges ahead, and wins 
 the vacant management ; but others less fortunate 
 swelter and stew on 12 to 15 a month all the days 
 of their natural manhood ; and when they become 
 old, they die or disappear. So, the fittest survive 
 not always ; it is, also, too often, the survival of the 
 luckiest. The hapless ones despair, die, disappear, 
 run into debt, or become interlopers. And how is the 
 metamorphosis achieved ? Thus : 
 
 2. The liberal-minded and educated native zemin- 
 dar is rapidly on the increase. Such men, shrewd 
 and appreciative of commercial gain, as are all na- 
 tives of the country, have begun to see the enormous 
 profits accruing to the proprietors of indigo factories, 
 who are their tikadars or lessees, and the matter 
 suggests itself in so practical a form, that they 
 are slow to project operations on their own behalf 
 Leases fall in and are not renewed, even under the 
 most alluring conditions ; the zemindar has " struck 
 
126 Interlopers and Interloping. 
 
 oil," and will build him a factory. The old preju- 
 dicial influences, inculcated by caste restrictions, or 
 ghostly fear, have disappeared ; the zemindar is 
 wealthy and will be his own banker, to whom 
 no interest accrues ; the ziraths of our capitalist 
 over-way, stretch tenantless around him ; and he has 
 but to cast about him for the malcontent Assistant 
 who is able, and but too willing, to help him. 
 
 3. The small outside capitalist or would-be planter 
 a recalcitrant and aggressive person, who has clear- 
 ed his lakh or so in various contracts, " wise and other- 
 wise," and who sees in indigo a hopeful venture in 
 which to invest his " pile." Under the eyes of the 
 very protectors who had, in many instances, furnished 
 him with the means to fortune ready made, this 
 unruly reprobate would " rear his crest " and interlope. 
 What indigo man but calls to mind the flatulent 
 fortitude of such men as the quasi -truculent conspi- 
 rators the hitherto automatic dumb waiters on their 
 masters, the planters, whose mighty minds would 
 henceforward be devoted to the construction of pre- 
 datory vats. The outside capitalist and his tribe buy 
 shares in old established concerns, and, failing in 
 ambition to outshine the sun, are feign to twinkle 
 lowly little stars afar off, and to comfort themselves 
 with the thought that were but the great orb away 
 each twinkling star would be a sun. 
 
Interlopers and Interloping. 127 
 
 4. It often happens that successful young Assist- 
 ants club together and, with no immediate prospect 
 of promotion where they are, amalgamate their slender 
 savings and hie them forth to build. With unas- 
 suming modesty they refrain from the rude shock 
 of unequal contest with their seniors, and betake 
 themselves to tracts where indigo is comparatively 
 unknown, or where only one or two pioneers have 
 preceded them. Here land is cheap and a perpe- 
 tual lease easily obtained. True, tlie soil is chur- 
 lish, and yields but niggard crops even to the frugal 
 ryot. What then ? It shall be improved, they think, 
 with better treatment and a liberal application 
 oi'seet or indigo refuse. It is a wide unclaimed 
 country this, to which they have got. Have they 
 not been obedient sons of mother Association, cheer- 
 fully refraining from any act which could render 
 them arraignable as interlopers ? The nearest work- 
 ing factory is good 26 miles away : surely no inter- 
 ference is to be expected or warranted here They 
 will take a modest little perpetual lease on this high 
 spot in the chief village on this opportune little river 
 which never dries up they are told, and does not 
 call for any Saran canal schemes to ensure a supply 
 of water for mahai. Perhaps it may be a little 
 feverish ; but then, they are pioneers, and endurance 
 is the first article of the pioneer's faith. They will 
 
128 Interlopers and Interloping. 
 
 do very well, little by little, and, thank Heaven ! 
 there is heaps of room to extend. What a lovely 
 country it is, to be sure, save an occasional official on 
 tour, the place seems really terra incognita to the 
 white man. 
 
 Slowly, however, the little cloud, not nearly so large 
 as a man's hand, appears just about the horizon, and 
 it spreads out towards the young enterprise and be- 
 comes threatening. What is this little cloud which 
 threatens to envelope, to overwhelm the new empire ? 
 Whence the strange flutter in the dovecots of the spe- 
 culators? Good 26 miles away is the factory of 
 Mr. Green. He has heard of the " interlopers," and 
 if money can do it, he will oust them. The simple 
 zemindar, who had willingly granted a lease who 
 had known no European save our young friends to 
 whom the small advance had been salvation, who 
 had been proud of the confidence placed in him by 
 the sahibs, and the high position of friend and patron, 
 the zemindar, has been worked upon by still more 
 glittering offers, and unstable as water, he sells to 
 Mr. Green. Right and title, the power to give or 
 hold, option to grant or smash the quite conditional 
 lease which the adventurers had taken, in all good 
 faith, from the zemindar, all are vested in Mr. Green. 
 But he will be merciful. He too had struggled, 
 " Topic, topie ek " will be amply vindicated in their 
 
Interlopers and Interlopings. 129 
 
 future easy dealings with Mr. Green. Ah too trust- 
 ing ones, Behold your ultimatum ! Move on, or be 
 expelled ! Choose, and quickly ! 
 
 Rebellion is in the hearts of the interlopers. Heaven 
 help them ! what may they do ? The Calcutta House 
 who had so frankly taken them up and volunteered 
 to tide them over difficulties by a mere mortgage of 
 block and crop the Agents themselves submit to 
 Mr. Green and withdraw. Mr. Green is inexorable. 
 They curse him and move on. They do not despair, 
 for they advance still further into the jungles ; and, 
 late in the season, they build two vats, drop money 
 and a partner, and toss rudderless on a sea of trouble 
 across which it is doubtful whether they will ever 
 pass. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the question of interlop- 
 ing is at the present moment a most urgent one. 
 Indeed, rules have been framed by the Indigo Planters' 
 Association which are designed to discourage interlop- 
 ing as between Europeans themselves. The folly of 
 attempted intrusion, where space for development is 
 insufficient for the man already in possession, is too 
 self-evident to call for further notice here. But 
 reasonable men have never been able to see why 
 jealousy should intervene to debar men from build- 
 ing and pushing a business in tracts or dehats where 
 there is room enough for all. 
 
 R., In. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE EARLY BEGINNINGS OF INDIGO. 
 T appears that the cultivation of indigo, in the form 
 practised in the West Indies, was commenced in 
 Bengal between the years 1770 and 1780. Mr. 
 Lowis Bonnaurd, who arrived in Bengal in 1772, and 
 who had previously made experiments in Indigo at 
 the Mauritius, is believed to be the person who is 
 entitled to the credit of having introduced the manu- 
 facture of indigo to India. He did not succeed in 
 the Mauritius in consequence of the soil not proving 
 favourable to the growth of the plant. He made his 
 first attempt of indigo manufacture in the French 
 territory, about two miles to the southward of Chan- 
 dernagore, in a garden called Gandalpara, with a 
 single pair of small vats, the remains of which were 
 to be seen a few years ago. The same spot is 
 now occupied by a very excellent but small, factory, 
 recently constructed. In 1775, Mr. Bonnaurd built a 
 small factory at Faldanga, a little village between 
 Chandernagore and Chinsurah. This factory was 
 demolished some years since, and its site converted 
 into a garden by its present proprietor, a native. About 
 the above period, two French medical gentlemen, 
 
The Early Beginnings of Indigo. 131 
 
 Messieurs Ferrier and Michelet, supported by an 
 enterprising English gentleman, erected a factory at 
 Sampooker, near Ghiretty, which is still in existence. 
 After the East India Company became proprietors 
 of a great extent of country, and the West India 
 British subjects had abandoned the cultivation of 
 indigo, the East India Company, acting upon prin- 
 ciples similar to those upon which they had formerly 
 declined the importation of that article, thought it 
 expedient to encourage the cultivation of it in their 
 own territories, for the purpose of promoting the 
 industry of their own subjects, and of insuring, 
 independently of foreigners, a regular supply of an 
 article so essentially necessary to the most important 
 of the British manufactures. With this view, about 
 the year 1779, they entered into a contract with an 
 enterprising individual in Calcutta, upon such terms 
 as induced him to engage in the cultivation of it, 
 and his example was soon followed by others. The 
 Company continued to foster this revived branch of 
 trade at a considerable loss, which, in the course of 
 a few years, amounted to 80,000. 
 
 When the cultivation appeared to be fairly establish- 
 ed, the Company resigned the trade to the gentlemen 
 employed jn their civil service, the free merchants 
 residing in India under their protection. The specu- 
 lators became involved in distress, and the East India 
 
132 The Early Beginnings of Indigo. 
 
 Company thought it necessary and proper again to 
 support the industry, by advancing money on the 
 security of the produce to the amount of nearly a 
 million sterling. This enabled the growing indigo 
 industry to go on successfully, while it tempted many 
 to engage in it, the result of which was a great exten- 
 sion of factories. 
 
 The marked advance of the indigo trade achieved 
 by the exertions of European cultivators, has been 
 justly adduced as a proof of the superior energy of 
 individual industry ; the early fostering care and 
 substantial support of the East India Company should 
 not, however, be forgotten. 
 
 Previous to 1783, several factories were established, 
 and a considerable quantity of indigo produced, and 
 from that period it progressively increased. In 1783 
 the export from Bengal to Great Britain was only 
 about from 1,200 to 1,300 maunds. At the same 
 time, the importation of indigo into England from 
 other countries, was upwards of ten times as much as 
 that quantity. The Court of Directors in the letter, 
 dated 22nd April 1789, to the Bengal Government, 
 say : " We are in hopes, the measure of laying open 
 this (indigo) trade will be attended with the good 
 effects expected to result therefrom, and that hereafter 
 it may become a permanent and advantageous article 
 of commercial remittance, as well to the benefit 
 
The Early Beginnings of Indigo. 133 
 
 of Bengal as of this country. In order to effect 
 every possible improvement in this article, we trans- 
 mit you herewith copy of a letter from William 
 Fowkener, Esq., Secretary with Lords Committee 
 of the Privy Council for Trade, covering a report 
 of some experiments that have been made by a manu- 
 facturer of this country, with some hints necessary to 
 be attended to in the management and preparation 
 -of the same. As it is probable, the information therein 
 contained may be useful to the gentlemen concerned 
 in indigo plantations, we direct that the same be 
 made known in a manner that shall be most likely 
 for rendering them publicly useful." 
 
 In the report above alluded to, Mr. Taylor (of 
 Manchester, February, 1789) observes : " I suppose 
 the East India Indigo [samples sent from Bengal] 
 marked A, to be worth eleven shillings per pound, 
 and equal to any Spanish Flora or Guatimala ; that 
 marked B> is only worth five shillings and sixpence 
 C, eight shillings and sixpence, and D, six shillings 
 and ninepence, per pound ; and adds, that the re- 
 sult of all these experiments confirms him in the 
 opinion, that the East Indies can furnish every kind 
 of indigo wanted in Great Britain." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 MACAULAY'S MINUTE ON INDIGO PLANTING. 
 
 THE following minute by Lord Macaulay, dated 
 1837, may be worth preserving : 
 " To say that the ryots of this country are mere 
 children, and ought to be specially protected, is, I 
 conceive, quite incorrect. They are not intellectually 
 inferior to the peasantry of other countries. 
 
 "I am sorry to find that opinions differ widely on the 
 questions submitted by Government, and that they 
 differ most widely on the most important of those 
 questions. That great evils exist, that great injustice 
 is frequently committed, that many ryots have been 
 brought, partly by the operation of the law, and partly 
 by acts committed in defiance of the law, into a state 
 not very far removed from that of partial slavery, is, I 
 fear, too certain. But I see no reason to believe that 
 any of the measures respecting which the Government 
 has consulted planters would, in any material degree,, 
 alleviate these evils. Some of these measures, indeed, 
 are quite unexceptionable, and would, as far as they 
 go, operate beneficially. I would certainly give to 
 the Sudder Amins jurisdiction in civil cases in which 
 Europeans or Americans might be concerned. The 
 
Macaulay's Minute on Indigo Planting. 135 
 
 only objection to this which has occurred to me is 
 that at present an Englishman has an appeal to the 
 Sudder Supreme Court, in every case in which a native 
 would have an appeal to the Sudder ; natives have an 
 appeal to the Sudder in cases originally tried before 
 the Zillah Judge. All causes in which Europeans 
 are concerned in the Mofussil are now tried before the 
 Zillah Judge. The Englishman, therefore, has a 
 direct appeal to the Supreme Court. If the Govern- 
 ment should give to the Sudder Amins jurisdiction 
 over cases in which Englishmen are parties, our 
 countrymen will be deprived of the right of appeal 
 which they now possess ; and possibly some discontent 
 might by this change be excited among them. But I 
 do not conceive this discontent would be deep or 
 extensive, particularly if the Government would, in 
 the exercise of its undoubted power, appoint a few 
 intelligent Englishmen to the place of Sudder Amins 
 in those districts which contain a considerable number 
 of European inhabitants. 
 
 " The regulation which gave to the indigo planters 
 who had made advances to a ryot a lien on the indigo 
 crop, seems to me highly objectionable in principle- 
 But I do not conceive that, by rescinding it, the Gover- 
 nor-General in Council would give any sensible relief 
 to that class of the population whose interests appear 
 to be peculiarly the object of his solicitude. The 
 
136 Macaulay's Minute on Indigo Planting. 
 
 question appears to be a question between the planter 
 and the zemindar. It is not easy to see how it can 
 be of any consequence to the ryot, which of the two 
 may distrain on his crop. I have no reason to believe 
 that the zemindars exercise their power with more 
 justice or humanity than the planters. The zemindar 
 has great reason to complain of the existing regula- 
 tion. It transfers to others that undoubted right of 
 distress which he formerly possessed. Two other 
 people, by an agreement between themselves to which 
 he is no party, are allowed to deprive him of what 
 was his due, and in return the law gives him a remedy 
 which is certainly less expeditious and simple than 
 that which he anciently had. Exactly the same ex- 
 tent to which this regulation is a benefit to the indigo 
 planter, it must be considered as robbery of the zemin- 
 dar. The misfortune is, that when once Government 
 falls into such an error, there is great difficulty in 
 returning to the right path. In the very act of des- 
 troying old rights, we create new rights, which must be 
 destroyed in their turn if we revert to the old order of 
 things. The zemindar had great reason to complain 
 when his lien was transferred to the planter. The 
 planter, who has invested his capital in the indigo busi- 
 ness on the faith of the regulations of 1823, would 
 have some reason to complain if that lien were now 
 taken from him and given back to the zemindar. 
 
Macaulay's Minute on Indigo PlantL 
 
 On the whole, I should be inclined to recomm 
 no planter should be entitled, except, of cours 
 virtue of a special contract, to which the zeminda 
 should be a party, to distrain for any future advances. 
 
 " With respect to advances already made, I would 
 leave him the remedy which he now possesses. I 
 must again repeat, however, that the question is one 
 in which the ryots appear to be very little interested. 
 The law of pounding is in an exceedingly unsettled 
 state all over India. And this want of certainty, 
 doubtless, leads to oppression and injustice every- 
 where. These evils do not, however, appear to be 
 peculiar to the indigo districts. At a proper time 
 it will be necessary for the Law Commission to take 
 up the whole subject. It is a subject on which it 
 will be impossible to legislate usefully without an 
 extensive inquiry into existing rights and customs. 
 
 " The plan of rendering invalid all contracts for the 
 delivery of indigo which are not registered, seems to 
 me highly objectionable ; it would be either useless, 
 or in the highest degree vexatious. If the present 
 mode of registration should continue, the proceeding 
 would be a mere mockery. An agent employed by 
 the planter would attend, and would register with- 
 out inquiry, all the agreements of the planter with 
 all the ryots. There would be no examination ; 
 nobody would ask whether the peasant had made the 
 
138 Macanlay's Minute on Indigo Planting. 
 
 contract freely, or under the fear of personal violence, 
 whether he had made it with a full knowledge 
 of what he was doing, or under the influence of 
 deception. If, on the other hand, the registration is 
 to be made really efficient, if the registering officer 
 is to exercise over the labourer the same species of 
 guardianship which, in England, the Judges of the 
 Court of Common Pleas exercise in certain cases of 
 contract over married women, if the parties are to 
 appear, if the ryot is to be privately interrogated, 
 assured of protection, encouraged to accuse the capi- 
 talist, the business would be absolutely interminable. 
 In some districts 30,000 contracts would probably 
 require registration in a year ; these contracts, I 
 believe, are generally made at one season of the year. 
 A great number of registrars would be necessary 
 to conduct the examination into all these agree- 
 ments. And the registrar, entrusted with the con- 
 duct of such an examination, must be no common 
 man. He must be not only a man of sense, but 
 what in this country it is hard to find a man of 
 independency and integrity, a man who will dare to 
 stand up for a poor native against a rich English- 
 man ; it would be hard to find such functionaries in 
 sufficient numbers. 
 
 " It would be absolutely necessary to pay them well. 
 The charge would be immense ; and, after all, it may 
 
Macaulay's Minute on Indigo Planting. 139 
 
 be well doubted whether the advantages which the 
 labourer would derive from such a system of guard- 
 ianship would compensate for the journey, the at- 
 tendance, the trouble, and the loss of time. 
 
 " There are contracts which it is very desirable to 
 register ; contracts which are seldom made, which 
 are made for long terms, which are great events in a 
 man's life, which are likely to affect the rights of 
 third parties, and which are of such a nature that 
 they cannot be made without considerable trouble 
 and great formalities. The purchase of an estate is 
 an instance. The security, which registration gives to- 
 all the parties concerned in the transaction, is highly 
 valuable. The trouble of procuring registration is 
 but a trifle in comparison with the trouble which 
 must attend such an event. But to require that all 
 contracts for all terms between all the capitalists and 
 all the working people of great provinces should be 
 registered, and registered with such safeguards as to 
 make it certain that every contract is freely and deli- 
 berately made, would be to dissolve the whole frame 
 of society. The general rule which is followed all 
 over the world is this, that no judicial verification of 
 a contract should take place till it is alleged that the 
 contract has been broken. At present it is probable 
 that not one contract in a thousand is, in any country 
 on earth, the subject of a law-suit. If the immense 
 
140 Macaulay's Minute on Indigo Planting. 
 
 majority of contracts were not performed without 
 legal investigation and decision, the world could not 
 go on for a day. The effect of a system of registra- 
 tion, such as that which I have been considering, 
 would be that every contract without exception 
 would be the subject of legal investigation and deci- 
 sion before it was made." 
 
THE PATWARI. 
 
 THOUGH thepafwarfs pay is apparently small, yet it will be observed 
 that, in the villages of which they are the poorly paid accountants, they 
 and their relations hold the best jotes. Government they ignore, the 
 zemindar they laugh at. In their bastas (bundles of account papers) 
 they keep the wonderful evidence of their frauds which they hide by 
 forgeries and cooked accounts. 
 
 The pativari being by law the man appointed especially to keep 
 ryots' accounts, to give them receipts for rents paid, and to account to 
 the zemindar for rents collected, is the most important of the zemin- 
 dar^s servants. His basta (bundle of accounts) the village record of 
 rates and rights, and he is the backbone of the Ryotwari system. At 
 present, the zemindar who pays the pativari, has no control over him. 
 
 The pativari difficulty might be arranged in the present clay of high 
 English education as a connecting link between the masses and the 
 Government. For \\iQpafivari to become the true friend of the ryot, he 
 must first be entirely separated from the zemindar. I would propose 
 that the pativari commence as a probationer in charge of one village 
 on Rs. 6 a month, rising to Rs. 12 ; after his probationary period expire, 
 he would be promoted to the appointment of pativari on Rs. 20 a 
 month, with charge of, say, 15 villages. The next rise would be that 
 of Assistant Superintendent of pativaris, the charge being a circle of 
 150 villages, and the pay anything from Rs. 30 to 50 per mensem. 
 I would suggest an Assistant Superintendent of pativaris in each 
 subdivision, and over all a Superintendent of pativaris on pay rising 
 from Rs. 60 to 100 in the head-quarters of the district, where he would 
 have the office and records, and be under the direct supervision of the 
 Collector. This would enable work to be carried out systematically, 
 and secure a better class of men, as well as do away with the hereditary 
 monopoly of loot possessed by the present class of pativaris. It would 
 secure the Government a large number of loyal servants, and provide 
 for a still larger class of educated natives who at present have nothing 
 to do. The money to pay this could be raised by a pativari cess 
 to be realized from landlords only. 
 
142 Appendix. 
 
 Though the usual fare of the cultivator in the hands of the fafwart 
 is the spider and fly business, yet when the tenant has the good fortune 
 to be situated where the power for weal or woe has been rescued from 
 patwari and zemindar alike, and is in the hands of the European 
 middleman, the Behar Indigo Planter, the patwarfs accounts which 
 have done for the cultivator assume a certain degree of regularity, and 
 tolerable order is evolved out of chaos. The honest, truth-loving, 
 masterful Englishman has done, by his immediate and continuous 
 contact with the ryot, what empiric and intangible law could never 
 f.o ; he has frightened the pativari into order. This has, however, 
 not been done without worry and head work, for it is only one prepared 
 to martyrize himself in unravelling the sinuosities of the basta (of the 
 pat-war? s accounts) who can hope to do much. 
 
 In different localities the difficulty experienced in mastering the 
 patwar?s accounts differ in degree. There are places where it was 
 quite possible for the manager or assistant of a factory to have his 
 village and land accounts literally at his finger's end, and that without 
 mental strain or bodily exertion. Various reasons may be assigned 
 for this facility, such as provincial and local custom, &c. ; but the 
 most prevalent cause will be found in the system adopted, improved, 
 and handed down by former managers. 
 
 If the patwari of Behar is compared with his brother official of the 
 Eastern districts of the North-West Provinces, the comparison is not 
 favourable to the latter. In Bengal, the patwariskip may, or may 
 not, be hereditary. In the North-West Provinces, the office goes by 
 strict entail failing heirs direct to the nearest of kin. 
 
 In Behar, the pativari is nominally the Government village account- 
 ant, really the servant of the zemindar, by whom he is paid and dis- 
 missed at will ; in the North-West Provinces, he is quite independent 
 of anybody whilst living miles away ; the local administration cannot 
 exercise any efficient control over him. He occupies the best jote or 
 plot of ground in the village or villages of which he is patwari* 
 Owing to the system obtaining in the North-West of numbering each 
 field and all cultivable or non-cultivable land in every village (such 
 numbers being shown upon the nuksha or map, the names of the 
 tenants being also entered opposite the numbers in the khesrah or 
 index) the pativari, who is, per se, not entitled by law to acquire land 
 in his official capacity, finds the names of brothers, wives, cousins 
 come handy to serve his purpose, though that purpose may be in direct 
 
Appendix. 143 
 
 contravention of the statute. He is frequently the village tahsildar 
 (rent-collector) as well. To enable him to fill this office, he keeps a 
 double system of papers one for the Sarkar, and the other, for the joint 
 mystification of landlord and tenant. One he calls the Sarkari jama- 
 band i, in which rates are low and collections recorded as well up ; 
 the other goes by the name of the tahsil-dehi, or gaoni-tahsil, a bloat- 
 ed and ever wonderful record of wrongs. The Bengal pativari resides 
 upon his halka or circle ; in the North-West this gentleman loves to 
 dwell in the bosom of his family, far away from the scene of action. 
 There the oppression is vigorously prosecuted by his lieutenant, the 
 gomashta, whose commission is received upon the sum total of extor- 
 tion an iniquitous percentage. 
 
 In Regulation XII of 1817, the Bengal Government attempted to 
 deal with ihefatwari question, but the attempt has proved unsuccess- 
 ful, chiefly because the patwari is like a regiment with no officers 
 between the colonel and the private. 
 
 In section (3) the Regulation states that every village shall 
 have a separate pativari, but, if necessary, the Board shall authorize 
 one patwari to look over several villages, or that more than one pat- 
 wari shall be appointed to one village. 
 
 DUTIES OF PATWARI. 
 
 (16). The duties of \hepatwari shall be 
 
 First. To keep such registers and accounts relating to the village 
 or villages to which he is appointed, in such manner and form as has 
 heretofore been the custom, or in such other mode as may be hereafter 
 prescribed by the Board of Revenue, together with such further 
 registers and accounts as may be directed by those authorities res- 
 pectively. 
 
 Second. To prepare and deliver to the kanungo of the pargana, 
 at the expiration of every six months, a complete copy of the aforesaid 
 accounts showing distinctly the produce of the kharif &&& rabbi harvest. 
 
 Third. To perform all other duties and services which it has been 
 customary for him to execute. 
 
 (17). The Board of Revenue will determine on the mode in which 
 the accounts rendered by the patwari to the kammgo shall be brought 
 forward by the latter and recorded in the office of the Collectors. 
 
 (18). The patwari is to be paid hereafter in the same mode as he 
 is now paid, whether in money or in grain or in land or in any other 
 
144 Appendix. 
 
 legal manner whatsoever ; but it shall be the duty of the several 
 Collectors to complete an account of the mode in which such payment 
 is made in the different parganas or other local divisions of their 
 districts, and to submit the result of their researches to the Board of 
 Revenue or other authority exercising the powers of that Board, and 
 it shall be competent to the Board of Revenue or other authority 
 aforesaid, with the sanction of the Governor-General in Council, to 
 increase or reduce the amount of remuneration paid to the patrvaris, 
 and to alter or modify the mode of its payment in any case in which 
 sufficient cause for the adoption of such a measure shall exist. 
 
 (19). Whether no patwari has hitherto been appointed, the amount 
 of the remuneration to thepittwari who may be appointed under this 
 regulation and the mode of its payment shall be regulated by the 
 Collector with reference to the usage of the adjoining villages. 
 
 (20). If the remuneration which zpativari has heretofore regularly 
 received, or which may be assigned to him by the Collector or other 
 competent revenue authority be denied to him by the parties who 
 have hitherto paid it or, who may have been directed to pay it by the 
 said authority, he is at liberty to complain against the person so with- 
 holding his dues to the Collector, who will proceed to an immediate 
 investigation of the facts and decide according to the usage of the 
 village, and the Collector is hereby authorized to compel payment of 
 the amount due to the patwari, and to fine the offending party accord- 
 ing to his situation and circumstances in life, provided always that 
 the fine in no instance exceed fifty rupees. 
 
 (21). In all cases in which the decision of the Collector is to be 
 governed by usage, it shall be made an invariable rule to insert in the 
 original proceedings on the case the attested report of the kanungocs 
 of the pargana as to the custom or usage in reference. 
 
 (22). Collectors of land revenue are hereby empowered to summon 
 the patwari of any village or villages within their respective districts 
 whenever there may be occasion for his attendance on any matter 
 connected with the duties of his office and to require him to produce all 
 accounts relating to the lands, produce, rents, collections and charges 
 of the village or villages, the accounts of which may be kept by him 
 and to examine him on oath to the truth of such accounts and on 
 any other matters relating to such accounts or regarding the lands, 
 produce, rents, collections, and charges of the village or villages to 
 which the said patwari may belong. 
 
Appendix. 145 
 
 When a Collector shall require the attendance of a pativari for the 
 purpose above stated, he is to serve such patwari with a written notice 
 under his official seal and signature stating the purpose for which his 
 attendance is required, and the papers (if any) which he is to bring 
 with him. 
 
 (23). If any patwari shall neglect or omit to produce his original 
 accounts on the requisition of a Collector or to give his evidence 
 respecting them, the Collector, is hereby authorized and empowered 
 to cause the said patwari to be apprehended, and to order him to be 
 confined in the dewani jail of the district until he produces his 
 accounts, or shows sufficient cause for not producing them. In such 
 cases, the pativari shall be sent by the Collector with a rubkari to the 
 Judge of the city or zillah, stating the purport of the order passed 
 against him, and the Judge shall, on those grounds, commit the patwari 
 to jail, and detain him until he produces the accounts or until the 
 Collector applies for his release. 
 
 (24). In like manner patwaris shall produce all accounts relating 
 to the lands, produce, collections, and charges of the village or villages, 
 the accounts of which may be kept by them respectively and furnish 
 every information and explanation that may be required regarding 
 them whenever they may be required by any Court of Justice in any 
 suit that may be depending before the Court, and if any patwari shall 
 neglect or omit to attend with his accounts when required for the 
 adjustment of any matter or dispute depending in Court, the Courts 
 are authorized to order such patwari to be committed to close custody 
 until he produces the accounts or shows sufficient cause for not having 
 produced them. 
 
 (25). In any case in which a Collector of land revenue shall have 
 occasion to depute an officer to examine the accounts of any village 
 or villages, he is authorized to require the patwaris to attend such 
 officer, and the Collector is further empowered to grant to such officer 
 a commission to swear the several patwaris whose accounts are to be 
 inspected, inserting in the commission the name of each patwari to be 
 sworn, and if any such patwari shall neglect or refuse to attend such 
 officer with his accounts or to give his evidence respecting them, when 
 duly required to do so by a written notice from the Collector, the 
 Collector is hereby authorized and empowered to proceed against such 
 patwari in the same mode as if he had refused or neglected to 
 attend or to give his evidence before the Collector himself. 
 
 R,, In. K 
 
146 Appendix. 
 
 (26). -(Repealed by Act XII of 1876). 
 
 (27). In like manner any pativari who shall alter, fabricate, falsify, 
 or mutilate the accounts of the village to which he belongs or shall 
 furnish to the kanungo or Collector false, fabricated, or mutilated 
 copies of those accounts, shall be held and considered guilty of forgery, 
 and shall be liable, on conviction, to the penalties which are or may 
 be prescribed for that offence, and any person who shall cause or 
 procure any such forgery, shall be liable to the same penalties as those 
 convicted of having actually committed the offence. 
 
 (33). In cases in which from local or other sufficient causes, it may 
 appear impracticable or inexpedient to cause the appointment in any 
 estate or farm of patwaris in the mode prescribed in this Regulation, as 
 for instance, in certain estates consisting chiefly of hills and forests in 
 the South-Western Frontier, and in very small mahals, the accounts of 
 which are kept by the proprietors themselves, it shall be competent 
 to the Board of Revenue to suspend its operation in such estates or 
 farms. 
 
 Provided, however, that in all such cases the person by whom the 
 village accounts are kept, whether proprietor or farmer or gomasta or 
 other officer, shall furnish the kanungo of the pargana with such 
 accounts and statements as the Collector, with the approval of the 
 Board, may direct, and shall be subject to the provision contained in 
 sections 22, 23, 24, 25, and 27 of this Regulation, and the proprietors or 
 others by whom they may be employed, shall likewise be subject to 
 the provisions contained in sections 26 and 27. 
 
 (34). No court of judicature shall take cognizance of the complaint 
 of a patwari against the landholder or the tenants of a village for 
 refusing to remunerate his labours, nor shall any court of judicature 
 take cognizance of any complaint against a Collector for, or on account 
 of, any decision passed by him in virtue of the powers with which he 
 is vested by this Regulation. 
 
 (35). It shall be the duty of the Collectors to furnish the Board of 
 .Revenue with a periodical report of all judgments passed by them 
 under section 20 of this Regulation, and such judgments shall be 
 liable to reversal or alteration by the Board or Commissioner at any 
 time within six months after passing the same, but not later. 
 
 (36). All sums adjudged by the Collector in favour of a patwari 
 under section 20, and all fines directed to be levied by this Regulation, 
 shall be recoverable by the same processes as arrears of public revenue, 
 
Appendix. 147 
 
 and all such fines, when recovered, shall be carried to the account of 
 Government. 
 
 Extract from " Pioneer? 
 
 " This patient, underpaid, illiterate, tricky, and corrupt personage, 
 is at the bottom of all the returns that form the recreation of Indian 
 officials and the despair of statistician sat home. How fares it with 
 the patwari in the wilds of the Central Provinces ? Mr. Fitzpatrick's 
 report informs us that he is being civilised, educated, and otherwise 
 brushed up in a variety of ways and with highly successful results. If 
 we could see the patwarfs side of the picture, we should probably find 
 that he is having a very bad time of it in the Central Provinces. In 
 the old days, he did pretty much as he liked, and no one asked any 
 questions ; If he was called on for returns, he sat in his house and 
 evolved them ; if he was told to make a survey, he got some one else 
 to do it for him ; but these pleasant days are fast vanishing from the 
 Narbada Valley, as they have vanished from these Provinces. The 
 Land Revenue Settlements are falling in, the energetic Settlement 
 Officer is abroad, and a Commissioner of Settlements, in the person 
 of Mr. Fuller, has proclaimed the new doctrine that the survey and the 
 record of rights must be done by the patwaris and not by a special 
 and imported agency. The patwari, therefore, is made to attend 
 school. He is taught mensuration and the use of the plane-table and 
 chain. If he gets through this ordeal, he is kept hard at work through- 
 out the cold weather, and often up to the rains, surveying his village : 
 and in the rains he is given the inspiriting in-door employment of 
 writing up and tabulating his cold-weather work. If this is not enough, 
 he has arrears of current work in the shape of annual village returns 
 and crop statistics to make up, and he is trotted out whenever the 
 rains break for " field-inspections " and other pacific manoeuvres. It is 
 not surprising if some patwaris find the pace too great, and disappear 
 from the ranks. The survivors form an army of trained and experi- 
 enced land surveyors, who render the Province independent of the 
 extraneous agency of a professional survey department. Compared 
 with the cost of a professional survey, the work is being done by the 
 patwaris and their overseers at an extraordinarily cheap rate, and 
 with sufficient accuracy for all practical purposes. Tne Survey Officer 
 objects to the comparison as unfair, on the ground that the Revenue 
 
148 Appendix. 
 
 Officer gets his patwaris for nothing. True ; but the patwaris must he 
 paid in any case, and from the point of view of the Local Govern- 
 ment, it is more economical to get the work done for nothing by 
 existing agencies than to import a costly survey party from outside. 
 Nor is the further advantage of thus permanently improving the 
 efficiency of the patwari staff to be lost sight of." 
 
 Extract from the judgment of J. Tweedie, Esq., Judge of Shahabad, 
 passed in Rent Appeals, Nos. 510, 511, and 512 of 1886, on the 2St/i 
 of February 1887. In these appeals " neg ;" " dak-beari" 
 " sarakh ; " and " saraf" were asked. " Batta " had been allowed 
 by the first Court, as being an equalizing item as between " Sicca" 1 
 and " Queen's" rupees. There was no cross-appeal on this point. 
 The suits were under The Bengal Tenancy Act, 1885. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 4. These cases and all similar cases, must, in the absence of 
 < consolidation ' made with the ry of s consent, be tried by the Courts 
 with reference to Section 74 of Act VIII of 1885. That section is a 
 modern recast of the old law, and places the difficult question of what 
 are usually called vaguely, ' cesses,' in a clearer position than what 
 it previously occupied. It must be prominently noticed, in the first 
 place, that that section by no means renders illegal all payments over 
 and above the " asl-jttmma." Only " impositions" upon tenants are 
 rendered illegal. An imposition may be taken to mean any payment 
 (in addition to actual rent) which is without a new ' consideration ' to 
 support it ! And moreover, such ' imposition ' must admit of being 
 appropriately called by the name of abwab, mahtut, or other " like 
 appellation." Thus, if two different standards of money-measurement 
 are merely equalized ; here, the new state of things and the old are 
 identical, and there is not even an increment to the " actual rent " ; 
 far less, an "imposition " upon the tenants. Or, if a zemindar supplies, 
 say, a sugar-mill for crushing sugar-cane (as is commonly used in these 
 parts) and charges for its use, when he charges for the use of his land 
 here also we have no " imposition " on the tenants, but we have a new 
 charge on a new " consideration." So, also, if a zemindar engages 
 to keep all the village accounts for the tenants, providing necessary 
 establishment for the work, paper, pens, ink ; and so forth ; here also we 
 have on a fair claim made ^no "imposition" on the tenants in 
 addition to their actual rent ; but a demand for value received ; 
 
Appendix. 149 
 
 a demand based on a " consideration " wholly distinct from, and in 
 addition to, the " consideration" for which the " actual rent " is paid. 
 Other increments will be recoverable under some law as the Road 
 and Public Works Cess. Some extra payments, on the other hand, 
 seem, by their very nature, to be " impositions upon tenants 
 . . . in addition to actual " rent and to be fitly described by the 
 words abwab, mahtut or other like appellation." Thus, when a 
 zamindar tries to shift the burden of dak-beari from himself to a 
 tennnt, and demands payment, he is asking for payment without a 
 *' consideration ;" and is simply making an *' imposition." Or again 
 the same seems to be the case, when, under the name of " Chunda" 
 a zamindar seeks to recover from his tenantry, his own charitable or 
 patriotic subscriptions. So, of other instances which might be given. 
 
 5. When, therefore, any plaintiff seeks to recover any items in 
 excess of the asl-jumma as originally fixed, he is entitled to show 
 and must show, one or more of the following facts, supporting h : s 
 case by appropriate evidence : 
 
 I. That the tenant had acquiesced in a new asl-jumma, in which 
 items previously reckoned separately have been ' consoli- 
 dated ' with the old asl-jumma, so as to form one new jumma. 
 II. That some law in force gives him a right to the items claimed. 
 Ill That the items are supported by a " consideration," distinct 
 from, and additional to, the " consideration " in respect of 
 which the asl-jumma " or actual rent " is paid. 
 
 IV. That an ' extra item' is not really such ; but is merely an 
 equalization of standards, not imposing any increase on 
 the asl-jumma, or " actual rent." 
 
 6. As none of these facts have been established with reference to 
 the extra items which are the main subject of these appeals, they were 
 rightly disallowed by the lower Court. I have only to complete the 
 subject by adding that all stipulations and reservations for the payment 
 of " impositions," which admit of being appropriately called 
 alnvab, mahtut, or the like, are void. But this will not have any 
 bearing or a stipulation to pay a new asl-jumma, nor will it require 
 Courts to raise any question as to the calculations by which the new 
 
 asl-jumma has been reached. 
 
 ******* 
 
 A R R A H ; \ (Signed) J. TWEEDIE, 
 
 The 28M February 1887.} Judge of Shahabad. 
 
1 50 Appendix. 
 
 Certified to be a true Extract. 
 
 Note. Full Bench Ruling Chulban Mahton v. Tilakdhari Singh, 
 Indian Law Report, Calcutta Series, Vol. XI (1885), page 175. Held, 
 that abwabs are not recoverable, when it is not proved that they have 
 been paid or payable before the time of the permanent settlement. 
 Patwaris 1 " n^g" was included in the claim, but the Court made no 
 attempt to distinguish it from the other abwabs. A. P. 
 
 No. 381. 
 FROM 
 
 J. TWEEDIE, ESQ., 
 
 District Jtidge of Shahabad, 
 To 
 
 THE COLLECTOR OF SHAHABAD. 
 
 DATED ARRAH, the i$thjune 1886. 
 SIR, 
 
 I HAVE the honor to ask whether any order was ever promul- 
 gated for this District under sections 18, 19, and 20 of Regulation XII 
 of 1817, relative to the remuneration of pativaris. 
 
 2. If any such order exists, please favour me with a copy of it, or a 
 reference by which I may trace it out. 
 
 3. If no such order exists, I think that one is much needed, as a 
 consideration of the Full Bengal Ruling cited below will show : 
 
 Indian Law Report XI, Calcutta, page 175. 
 
 Patwaris 1 " neg" was claimed along with numerous " cesses " and 
 abwabs. All of these were disallowed as being illegal. No distinction 
 was drawn in the judgment between patwaris" 1 " #^" and other 
 "cesses;" nor was the legality of neg discussed with reference to- 
 Regulation XII of 1817 though attention was drawn to the Regu- 
 lation in argument. 
 
 No. 20230. 
 FROM 
 
 A. W. B. POWER, ESQ., 
 
 Collector of Shahabad, 
 To 
 
 THE COMMISSIONER OF REVENUE, PATNA DIVISION, 
 
 BANKIPORE. 
 
 DATED ARRAH, the 26th Nov., 1886. 
 SIR, 
 
 I HAVE the honor to forward herewith a copy of the letter 
 
 addressed to me by the District Judge, alluded to in this office 
 
Appendix. 151 
 
 No. 794G, dated 6th July 1886, and to draw your attention to the Full 
 Bench Ruling cited therein. 
 
 2. In this District the mode of payment of patwaris* wages, which, 
 according to the law, is regulated by custom (Sections 18, 19, and 20, 
 Regulation XII of 1817) varies in different villages, in some ihepatwari 
 collects his entire dues direct from the ryots, in others, the ryots pay 
 the whole or a portion of his salary to the zamindar and he settles 
 with ihepatzvari. In villages where this latter custom prevails, the 
 sums payable by ryots to their zamindar on this account, seem to me 
 to be fully as legal a cess as the Road and Public Works Cess, both 
 during their authority from express Statute law, 
 
 3. Some of the local Civil Courts following the Full Bench Ruling 
 have disallowed patwarfs " neg" without inquiry into village customs, 
 and the result has been in some places a wholesale repudiation of the 
 obligation, I would, therefore, suggest that though the orders contained 
 in Section 18, Regulation XII of 1817, have never been carried out, a 
 beginning be now made first with those villages in which, owing to 
 adverse decrees of the Civil Court complications have arisen, and also 
 in those which are to be visited by a Deputy Magistrate (and Deputy 
 Collector) in connection with the Amended Chowkidari Act. 
 
 4. The result of the Deputy Collector's inquiries in each village 
 should, I think, be recorded in a concise proceeding which, when approv- 
 ed, would be sent in original for countersignature. A certified copy of 
 this proceeding could then be filed with each plaint. 
 
 No. i A. 
 FROM 
 
 H. J. S. COTTON, ESQ., 
 
 Secretary to the Board of Revenue, L* P. t 
 To 
 
 THE SUPERINTENDENT AND REMEMBRANCER 
 
 OF LEGAL AFFAIRS. 
 
 DATED CALCUTTA, the \ythjany., 1887. 
 SIR, 
 
 I AM directed to forward the accompanying copy of a letter from 
 
 the Commissioner of Patna, No. I288R, dated I7th 
 
 LAND REVENUE. December 1886, together with its enclosure, from 
 
 SETTLEMENT AND the Judge of Shahabad on the subject of the remu- 
 
 SURVEYS. neration of patwaris, and to request that you will 
 
 MR REYNOLDS favour the Board with an expression of your opinion 
 
 on the following points : 
 
152 Appendix. 
 
 (a) Whether the provision of Sections 18, 19, and 20 of Regula- 
 tion XII of 1817, authorize the Collector to take such steps as the 
 Commissioner proposes ; (b) and whether if such a proceeding as is 
 suggested were drawn up under the orders of the Collector, it would be 
 accepted by the Civil Court as establishing a valid local custom under 
 which the zamindar could recover from the ryots the whole or the 
 part of the patwarts remuneration. 
 
 2. Upon both these points the Board feel considerable doubt. 
 The difficulty raised by the Commissioner and the Judge appears to be 
 that in some villages the ryots are bound (or are alleged to be bound) 
 by custom to pay to the zamindar the whole or a part of the patwarfs 
 salary. The Court treat this claim as a demand for an illegal cess and 
 refuse to decree the amount. The zamindar is still liable to pay the 
 patwari, but he is unable to make the ryots contribute. The Commis- 
 sioner proposes that a proceeding should be drawn up stating what 
 the custom in each village is, and he considers that if a copy of this 
 proceeding were attached to the plaint in a civil suit brought by the 
 zamindar to recover from the ryots the contribution payable for the 
 pativari, the Courts would recognize this proceeding as evidence of 
 what Section 1 8 of the Regulation calls the mode of payment, and 
 would decree the zamindar's claim. 
 
 3. But the Board are inclined to think that the mode of payment 
 mentioned in Section 1 8, refers only to the distinction between pay- 
 ment in money, in grain or in land, and has nothing to do with the 
 question of the parties liable to pay the amount. The whole tenor 
 of the Regulation seem to imply that the remuneration of pativari is a 
 question for the Collector and not for the Civil Court. Section 34 
 expressly prohibits the Court from taking cognizance of the complaint 
 of a patwari that he has not received his remuneration, and the same 
 principle would equally seem to prohibit a zamindar from suing his 
 ryots in the Civil Court for contribution towards the patwarfs pay. 
 
 4. The Board's records do not show that any orders under Sections 
 18, 19, and 20 of the Regulation have ever been issued in any district for 
 determining the mode of payment of the/a/wa/7>, and the Board can- 
 not think that the present time is opportune for giving effect to a 
 provision which has remained dormant during so many years. 
 
Appendix. 153 
 
 No. 1382, 
 FROM 
 
 T. T. ALLEN, ESQ., 
 
 Superintendent and Remembrancer Of Legal Affairs* 
 To 
 
 THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF REVENUE, 
 
 LOWER PROVINCES. 
 
 DATED CALCUTTA, the 2&k fatty., 1887. 
 SIR, 
 
 IN reply to your No. I A of the I3th instant, I have the honor to 
 say that in my opinion Sections 18, 19, and 20 of Regulation XII of 
 1817, having never been acted upon, must now, after the lapse of (70) 
 seventy years, be deemed obsolete, and no action can be taken under 
 them. The relations of zamindars and ryots have, during this interval 
 utterly changed. Such a proceeding, as it is proposed now for Collec- 
 tor or Deputy Collector, to draw up, would, I expect, be treated as 
 simple nullity by the Civil Court. If the zamindar on the ground of 
 custom claims to recover from his ryots the patwarfs pay, he must 
 prove the custom in the Civil Court. The Deputy Collector's 
 proceeding which embodies merely his opinion would not even be 
 evidence in such a case. 
 
 THE BEHAR LIGHT HORSE. 
 
 THE " first Volunteer Regiment on the Indian Army List, * The 
 Behar Light Horse ' of the present day, was organized as the ' Behar 
 Mounted Rifle Corps' in September 1862 with the consent of Govern- 
 ment." Fifty-three of the planters of Tirhoot having already formed 
 themselves into a corps, they forthwith, on the i6th July 1862, for- 
 warded the following memorial to the Government of Bengal, desiring 
 incorporation, through the Commissioner of Patna : 
 " From certain residents in the districts of Tirhoot and Chuprah, to 
 the Commissioner of Behar, (dated the i6th July 1862). 
 
 SIR, We, the undersigned residents in the districts of Tirhoot 
 and Chuprah, beg to forward, through the Magistrate of Tirhoot, 
 " for submission to the Government of India," our most loyal applica- 
 tion, to be enrolled as members of a Volunteer Corps. 
 
1 54 Appendix. 
 
 During the mutiny of 1857 the want of such a corps within these 
 districts was greatly felt. Had there been such a Volunteer force 
 (as now proposed) available, the local officers might have been spared 
 the disgrace of deserting their station, and the services of the Bengal 
 Yeomanry Cavalry and part of the Naval Police might have been 
 dispensed with. 
 
 Although we have no reason to apprehend a recurrence of a similar 
 emergency, yet still we are desirous of forming ourselves into a corps, 
 whose services hereafter might be found available to the State. 
 
 We have before us extract No. 712 from the Proceedings of the 
 Right Hon'ble the Governor-General in Council, in the Home Depart- 
 ment, under date the i8th March 1861. 
 
 And in accordance with those instructions, under paragraph 1st, 
 we have the honour to submit that the Corps already numbers at present 
 fifty-three men, forming a troop for these Districts, and which is 
 rapidly increasing. 
 
 We have considered the details of the duties that might be required 
 from us, and from our knowledge of the two Districts, the nature of 
 the country, &c., we are of opinion that a Mounted Rifle Corps, 
 armed with a Sword and Terry's Breech-loading Rifle, would be the 
 most serviceable. 
 
 The designation of the Corps should be Soubah Behar Mounted 
 Rifle Corps. 
 
 We beg to submit the Rules and Regulations for the guidance of 
 the Corps, for the approval of the Executive Government, as also the 
 Rules under which it is proposed to conduct the Drill of the Corps. 
 
 In reference to the 3rd paragraph of these instructions, we beg 
 that a suitable Cavalry Drill Instructor may be appointed. We be- 
 lieve the complement of officers to the number of men already enrolled 
 to be 
 
 1 Captain Commandant. 
 
 2 Lieutenants. 
 
 I Cornet, doing duty also as Adjutant. 
 
 We beg also to submit herewith the names of the Commandant 
 and 2nd-in-command for the approval of His Excellency the Governor- 
 General, as per extract No. 71, and the names of the remaining 
 officers for the sanction of the Government of Bengal. 
 
 Lastly, we have respectfully to request that, should His Excellency 
 be pleased to sanction the formation of this corps, instructions may 
 
Appendix. 1 5 5 
 
 be issued in the Military Department for the issue of arms and ammu- 
 nition under the Resolution No. 257 of the 7th of February 1861, page 
 425 of the Government Gazette. 
 
 p. S. Chumparun. h.KQ\hvt troop is being formed in the District 
 of Chumparun, and which already numbers seventeen members. 
 
 Commandant. J. Forlong. 
 
 Lietttenants.C. T. Metcalfe, Tirhoot Troop, and F. Holloway, 
 Chumparun Troop. 
 
 Cornet doing duty also as Adjtitant.. Collingridge. 
 
 RULES. 
 
 1. The Corps to be called the Soubah Behar Mounted Rifle Corps. 
 
 2. It consists of effective members only, and the number is un- 
 limited. 
 
 3. It is armed with the Terry's Breech-loading Rifle. 
 
 4. The Commissioned and Non-commissioned strength of the 
 Corps is for the present as follows : 
 
 1 Commandant. 
 
 2 Lieutenants. 
 
 I Cornet being also Adjutant. 
 
 I Sergeant-Major. 
 3 Sergeants. 
 5 Corporals. 
 
 5. The uniforms and appointments are Light-grey Coat with red 
 piping, and Breeches with Jack Boots ; Helmet with blue Pugree 
 Waist Belt ; Frog ; Cartouche Box ; Cap Pocket ; Revolver Case 
 fitting on to Sword Belt. 
 
 6. The admission and expulsion of Members is managed by a 
 Committee of all the commissioned officers. 
 
 7. Applications for enrolment are to be made to the Adjutant, 
 who will bring them before the Committee of Officers. 
 
 8. No Member to resign the Corps without giving due notice, not 
 until he has made over his arms, &c., to the Commandant. 
 
 9. The Commandant shall have full powers in all matters connect- 
 ed with the discipline, drill, and internal economy of the Corps. 
 
 10. Non-attendance without permission, breaches of discipline, 
 &c., can be punished by small fines not exceeding 8 annas, to be 
 awarded by the Commanding Officer only. 
 
 11. No Member of the Corps to appear on parade unless in uniform. 
 
 12. Non-Commissioned Officers and Privates while on parade or 
 duty are to salute their officers. 
 
156 Appendix. 
 
 13. Damage done to arms, &c., when not on duty, is to be made 
 good by the Member in whose possession they may be. 
 
 14. Drill will commence on the I5th of October of each year and 
 last till the I5th of March. Within these dates members will be 
 liable to be called out after the I5th of March to the I5th of October. 
 
 The Drill Instructor will proceed to certain convenient localities in 
 the Mofussil, where members, residing within a circle of ten miles, 
 will have to attend. 
 
 15. For all ordinary expenses, such as clearing and protecting the 
 Drill and Practice grounds, keeping Arms, Target, Bugles, &c., in 
 repair, each Member to pay a monthly subscription of Rs. 2. 
 
 1 6. A copy of these rules to be furnished to each Member of the 
 Corps. 
 
 (Sd.) JAMES FORLONG." 
 
 To this loyal petition the Government replied in terms of sanction 
 and compliment, under date I7th September 1862 ; the only item in 
 which the Rules forwarded did not obtain the unqualified sanction of 
 the Government was the Terry's Rifle, which, not being in store, the 
 Corps were supplied with Sharpe's Breech-loading Carbine. 
 
 In 1870, the Officer Commanding the Corps brought to the notice of 
 Government that there was a strong feeling amongst members in 
 favour of carrying the Lance instead of the Arms which they had hitherto 
 borne. To this the Secretary to the Government of India replied 
 through the Bengal Government as follows : 
 
 " From Colonel H. K. BURNE, Secretary to the Government of 
 India, Military Department, to the Secretary to the Government 
 of Bengal, General Department, (No. 513, dated Simla, the 
 26th July 1870.) 
 
 SIR, With reference to your letter No. 655, dated Qth March 1870, 
 bringing to notice the wish of the Members of the Behar Mounted 
 Volunteer Rifle Corps to be allowed to carry Lances instead of their 
 present Arms, I am directed to acquaint you, for the information o 
 His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, that the Right Hon'ble the 
 Governor-General in Council does not consider the proposed change 
 would at all conduce to the efficiency of the Corps. His Excellency 
 in Council considers that the Behar Volunteers are much better armed, 
 as at present, with Enfield carbines and swords than they would be 
 with lances and swords, as, if ever they are called upon to act, it will 
 be very possibly as infantry, and not as cavalry, and lances would, 
 
Appendix. 157 
 
 under these circumstances, be useless. Volunteers are much more 
 useful for defence than for any other purpose, and therefore His Ex- 
 cellency the Governor-General in Council, with every desire to meet 
 their wishes, thinks it best that the Behar Mounted Volunteers should 
 retain their present weapons. 
 
 2. I am further directed to inform you that the rank of Major 
 attaches to the post of Commandant, as notified in the letter from 
 this Department, No. 777, dated I5th March 1865, and the necessary 
 corrections will be made in the Army List, and the rank duly inserted 
 in the commission to be sent to Major Collingridge." 
 
 We shall not enter into any inquiry as to the relative fairness from 
 a military standpoint, of the wishes of the " Rifles " and the fiat of 
 the Governor-General in Council ; it is enough to say that the corps 
 had, at that time, acquired sufficient weight to induce Government to 
 confer upon its Commanding Officer the rank of Major. Eight years 
 had gone by since its formation, during which short time the strides 
 made were truly wonderful. Evidently the Planters of Behar were 
 growing in numbers, and, as they grew, so would their ardour to 
 make their body of Volunteers the finest Corps in India intensify. 
 Under the soldier-like command of Major Collingridge, the Behar 
 Mounted" Rifles went on improving and increasing, and, when tha* 
 fine old gentleman laid down his charge on his retirement Home, 
 Major Hudson might well feel proud of the Corps which he had the 
 honour to be elected to command. Nor was the new Commandant 
 an officer at all likely to let the grass grow under his feet. He 
 threw his whole soul into the work of organizing his Corps now a 
 regiment as efficient in drill, arms, and practice, as it is possible for 
 Volunteers to become. Ably assisted by Major Vousden, v.c., as 
 his Adjutant, Major (now Lieutenant-Colonel) Hudson brought his 
 regiment to a rare pitch of excellency, and its number rose from 
 120 to 320 sabres. The admirable work done by Major Vousden, who 
 loved the Regiment as if they were his own Regulars, cannot be over- 
 estimated. 
 
 Great changes have taken place since 1862. In the comparatively 
 short space of 24 years, the arms, accoutrements, and uniform of this 
 splendid body of horse, have undergone a complete revolution. The 
 reader has already seen the regulation uniform, &c., which was worn 
 by the Corps commanded by Captain Forlong in 1862. Through many 
 different and indifferent variations, adaptations, and re-adaptations, 
 
158 Appendix. 
 
 the Regiment has now adopted the following uniform, &c., which, 
 we presume, is permanent for some good time to come. 
 
 The uniform of the present is : 
 
 Blue Blouse, Breeches, and Blucher Boots, white Pugree and Regu- 
 lation Helmet with silver spike and chain, black and brown Belt, 
 Martini-Henry Carbine and light Sword. 
 
 The Governments of India and Bengal have always displayed the 
 keenest interest in the welfare and progress of this Regiment. The 
 Lieutenant-Governor is Honorary Colonel ex-officio^ and has often 
 done them the compliment of coming to inspect them ; nay, it was 
 only the great pressure of work and the urgent necessity for his pre- 
 sence in Upper Burma which prevented the Commander-in-Chief 
 from paying the Behar Light Horse a similar well-merited compli- 
 ment after the Camp of Exercise at Delhi. We do not know that any 
 former Commander-in-Chief has ever expressly conveyed his desire to 
 personally inspect this or any other Volunteer Regiment, and high com- 
 pliment though it would undoubtedly have Leen, the Light Horse of 
 Behar were well worthy of it, nor do they despair of mustering again 
 ere long to acquit themselves like men and soldiers under the eye of 
 one of the finest of England's Generals. When he comes, he will be 
 thrice welcomed to Behar, and to the hearts of the loyal Behar Light 
 Horse. 
 
 The North and South Ganges Troops inclusive, the Regiment, now 
 under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Hudson, consists of 
 troop, and musters 320 strong, and are, as we have before remarked, 
 in a state of high efficiency. 
 
 But what boots it that so much has been done, whilst any remains 
 still unaccomplished ? We have troops of the Light Horse having 
 the'following head-quarters : Mozufferpore, Motihari, Chuprah, Gya, 
 Arrah, and Bankipore, and not at one of these places have we a 
 single fort or anything in the nature of one, which could afford ade- 
 quate, or indeed the slightest, protection in times of trouble. This 
 is surely not as it should be. Have we again lapsed into that false 
 and deadly feeling of security and laissez faire which preceded the 
 mutiny and its horrors ? God forbid. A grain amongst the sands of 
 the seashore a drop in the vast ocean a tiny bit of leaven amidst the 
 lump of India's millions, so tiny that we may hardly hope and must 
 not trust to leaven the whole lump are we to disregard all due pre- 
 caution and to be in jeopardy even to the eleventh hour, because the 
 
Appendix. 159 
 
 sky is clear, and all seems tranquil around us ? As the darkest night 
 precedes the dawn, so also does the deepest calm forbode the storm. 
 We are not pessimists, all we would urge is that we are a small hand- 
 ful of British folk in a foreign land, amongst the teeming populations 
 of which, with friendship there is mixed up hate, with fairness fanati- 
 cism, and with justice intolerance. 
 
 It behoves us in our Mofussil stations, at least in such of them as 
 are non-military ones, to adopt all wise and necessary measures of 
 precaution and defence. Defence, not attack, will always be the role 
 of Volunteers, and, if this be so, then surely should there be places to 
 defend. At the present moment there are absolutely none. Our 
 helpless ones are at the mercy of any overwhelming force which 
 might vanquish our Volunteer soldiers in the open field. This is not 
 as it should be. At a very immaterial constructive cost, forts, such as 
 we propose, could be established at all the abovenamed stations, and 
 security with honour is cheap at whatever cost it may be purchased. We 
 offer the suggestion, and hope to see its fulfilment at no far distant day. 
 We are not sufficiently masters of the technical knowledge of the 
 craft to offer suggestions on our own account which would naturally 
 occur to a soldier on seeing the material of the Regiment and the 
 country which, were their services required, would be the probable 
 scene of their campaigns. 
 
 We would be guilty of remissness did we pass without brief notice 
 the sister Corps of Ghazipur Volunteers, commanded by Lieutenant- 
 Colonel Rivett-Carnac. To this gentleman is due the sincere thanks of 
 the whole British Indian community for his strenuous and indefatig- 
 able efforts to promote the Volunteer movement. 
 
 In October 1884 Mr. Rivett-Carnac submitted, at the request of 
 the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, proposals 
 " for increasing the force of armed Europeans and Eurasians in the 
 several Provinces of India, and for working thereto a reserve of 
 native pensioned soldiers, to be employed as orderlies, &c., under the 
 civil Governments." Mr. Rivett-Carnac, after adverting to the fact 
 that there are 72,000 adult European and Eurasian males, estimated 
 as capable of bearing arms in India and British Burma, goes on to 
 show that, at the close of 1883, " there were then in India and 
 Burma 12,421 Volunteers scattered over the country, divided into 
 49 corps." He then proceeds to show the great progress of the 
 Volunteers in the North-Western Provinces, making reference to the 
 
160 Appendix. 
 
 " excellent example of the Behar Light Horse," and he represents the 
 difficulties to be encountered in arming the Europeans at the last 
 moment, after which he ably submits his proposals, of which we 
 extract his recapitulation in full : 
 
 ''Recapitulation 24. The recommendations herein contained may 
 be recapitulated as follows : that 
 
 (i). It is absolutely necessary to increase the armed European force 
 in the country. 
 
 (2). The best way to do this would be to raise a Militia. 
 (3). Failing this a Register should be prepared by the civil author- 
 ities in every district, showing in detail all Europeans and Eurasians. 
 (4). From this a second Register should be prepared, showing the 
 adult males capable of bearing arms. 
 
 (5). The local civil authorities should encourage all these to join 
 the Volunteers or " Larjdwehr." 
 
 (6). Those who would not join the " Landwehr" should be invited 
 to join a reserve or " Landsturm." 
 
 (7). For the members of this Reserve, arms and ammunition should 
 be supplied, and kept under proper precautions at the head-quarters 
 of the districts. 
 
 (8). The members of the Reserve should be allowed, under certain 
 restrictions, to keep and use their arms, and should be encouraged to 
 join in the Volunteer Rifle matches, &c. 
 
 (9). The general control of the organization should be with the 
 local civil officers, aided by the Volunteer Staff of Adjutants and Ser- 
 geants ; the Adjutant forming a link between the Commissioner and 
 the General Commanding the Pjvision. 
 
 (10). Full information regarding the number of men available, &c., 
 in each district, should be furnished to the Military authorities, who 
 would work with the civil administration in the matter. 
 
 (li). No efforts should be spared to render efficient the poorer 
 classes of Eurasians, who require more drilling than the Europeans. 
 
 (12). For small bodies of European Riflemen in the districts, the 
 regulations regarding drill should be relaxed, and the Boer organization 
 followed ; Volunteer Corps at the large stations remaining as they are, 
 with uniforms, drill, &c., after the manner of the Regular Army. 
 
 (13). The formation of parties of Light Horse or Uhlains should 
 be encouraged in the district, thereby securing the best class of men 
 as Volunteers. 
 
Appendix. 161 
 
 (14.) District "meets" or social gatherings, with races, polo, and 
 rifle-matches, should be encouraged and supported by the Government." 
 
 (15.) The heads of all departments of the Government should be 
 induced to realize that the movement, being meritorious and necessary, 
 should receive their active support. 
 
 (16.) And that certain privileges should be granted to members of 
 existing Volunteer Corps." 
 
 The Behar Light Horse will not be likely soon to forget the recep- 
 tion they received on their visit to Calcutta at the invitation of their 
 Honorary Colonel, Sir Rivers Thompson. On the 27th of December 
 1883, this gallant little Regiment arrived at the Howrah Railway Sta- 
 tion, and, forming line, marched through the streets of Calcutta, to 
 the inspiring notes of the Band of the 6th Warwickshire Regiment, on 
 to their Barracks and Camp of Exercise at Ballygunge. Crowds accom- 
 panied them, a proof, if needed of the high estimation in which merry 
 men of Behar are held by the inhabitants of the festive City of 
 Palaces. They were, indeed, the heroes of the day as they rode along 
 fully equipped and looking every man a soldier. 
 
 The Regiment lay encamped at Ballygunge for over a week, during 
 which time they went through the exercises and drills, in fact the 
 daily routine of the Regular Cavalry soldier. 
 
 The Behar Light Horse took part along with the Calcutta Mounted 
 Rifles, the Calcutta Naval and City Volunteers, and the Regular 
 Troops in the Proceedings on Proclamation day, and also in a sham- 
 fight. Again, on the 4th of January, they, with the other Volunteers 
 and the Troops in garrison, were paraded at theBrigade Parade Ground 
 when they were inspected by His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 That fine cavalry soldier, General Wilkinson, Commanding in Cal- 
 cutta, superintended the operations of the shamfight, and was pleased 
 to compliment the Behar Regiment on their neat and soldier-like 
 appearance, and the intelligent way in which they had performed their 
 part in the day's proceedings. 
 
 It is noteworthy that all the arrangements connected with transport, 
 commissariat mess, tents, &c., were planned by the Members of the 
 Regiment, and were carried out by the Regimental Quarter-master 
 and Officers without a single hitch. This is all the more creditable 
 when we remember that the Regiment had never been massed 
 together before. All were happy, and few were to be found amongst 
 them who could say on his return that he had had a bad time. 
 R., In. L 
 
1 62 Appendix. 
 
 When we consider the sacrifices, not only of convenience and time, 
 but also of " coin of the realm," which most of the members of this 
 corps make, and many of its most efficient members, young Indigo 
 Planters, are not overburdened by the latter. It is a marvel how so 
 many men manage to attend every Troop-drill Muster. When we 
 speak of them, " Attending Parade," outsiders do not know that in 
 this case it means that a man has travelled 20, 30, and even 100 miles 
 across country before he turns up mounted. 
 
 When the South Ganges Troop was being raised, the writer of this 
 book was one of the chief promoters, and rode in from Rohtasghur to 
 Arrah, a distance very little short of 100 miles. This, too, I did on one 
 of the hottest days of a hot May. We celebrated the Queen's Birthday 
 right royally, and the 24th May 1882, I think, saw the formation of 
 the latest addition to the Behar Light Horse, the South Ganges 
 Troop. 
 
 I went in with proxies in my pocket and carried the men I wanted 
 as Captain and Lieutenants, men whom I knew would steer the infant- 
 troop to the present high position it now holds in the Regiment. 
 
 When every honest British heart was wrung by the tidings of the 
 sad stress in which the hero Gordon was placed, Colonel Hudson 
 called on his six troops' leaders for Volunteers for the Soudan, and 
 promptly received answer that a hundred men and horses were ready. 
 But alas ! ere the tender of their services reached the Viceroy, Gor- 
 don had fallen. It must have added, if possible, to the bitter regret 
 for his cruel fate felt by every one of these good men, and true to 
 find they were also " too late " to rescue or share his fate. 
 
 The Viceroy, in conveying the thanks of Government to the Regi- 
 ment, expressed strongly his appreciation of the value of its services, 
 and of its gallant offer of them. There is a muster de rigeur once a 
 month at each Troop Head-quarters for two or three days' drill and 
 practice on the range, and at certain seasons, often in the hottest 
 weather, as then it is that the Planter can spare the time ; the Troops 
 muster twice a month. It is only a strong soldierly instinct and 
 thorough esprit de corps that give such a result ; when also do men per- 
 form such duties for years for honor alone, and with the simple desire 
 that were they called on they may be ready to do credit to their man- 
 hood. 
 
Appendix. 
 ppentn* 
 
 163 
 
 TABLE I. 
 
 An account of Indigo ', manufactured in Bengal and 
 
 its dependant provinces, imported into Calcutta 
 
 annually, from 1795-96 to 1831-32. 
 
 ' Years. 
 
 Factory Mds. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Factory Mds, 
 
 1795-96 
 
 62,500 
 
 1814-15 
 
 102,662 
 
 1796-97 
 
 32,300 
 
 1815-16 
 
 114,481 
 
 1797-98 
 
 54,600 
 
 1816-17 
 
 83,000 
 
 1798-99 
 
 23,800 
 
 1817-18 
 
 72,000 
 
 1799-1800 ...v ... 
 
 35.540 
 
 1818-19 
 
 75,000 
 
 1800-1 
 
 39,900 
 
 1819-20 
 
 106,843 
 
 1801-2 
 
 38,500 
 
 1820-21 
 
 76,?54 
 
 1802-3 
 
 29,800 
 
 1821-22 
 
 92,848 
 
 1803-4 
 
 54,048 
 
 1822-23 
 
 112,606 
 
 1804-5 - ' . 
 
 64,803 
 
 1823-24 
 
 80,315 
 
 1805-6 
 
 85,380 
 
 1824-25 
 
 110,227 
 
 1806-7 
 
 51.244 
 
 1825-26 
 
 1 5 6 >548 
 
 1807-8 
 
 103-950 
 
 1826-27 
 
 79,678 
 
 1808-9 
 
 94,539 
 
 1827-28 
 
 i5!>699 
 
 1809-10 
 
 43,012 
 
 1828-29 
 
 98,009 
 
 1810-11 
 
 73,407 
 
 1829-30 
 
 132,946 
 
 1811-12 .. ... 
 
 69,654 
 
 1830-31 
 
 129,117 
 
 1812-13 
 
 73,883 
 
 1831-32 ... 4. 
 
 121,000 
 
 1813-14 
 
 74. rgc 
 
 
 
 
 / T-, j'-'j 
 
 
 
164 
 
 Appendix. 
 
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 //? February & July. 
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 I 
 
 i 
 
Appendix. 
 Indigo Calcutta Price Current} 
 
 YEARS AND 
 MONTHS. 
 
 Blue. 
 
 Blue 
 and 
 purple. 
 
 Purple. 
 
 Purple 
 and 
 violet. 
 
 Violet. 
 
 Violet 
 and 
 copper. 
 
 
 P. md. 
 
 P. md. 
 
 P. md. 
 
 P. md. 
 
 P. md. 
 
 P. md. 
 
 P. md. 
 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 Sa. Rs. 
 
 f January ... 
 
 200 
 
 185 
 
 175 
 
 150 
 
 135 
 
 120 
 
 no 
 
 1815 < April 
 
 I8 5 
 
 170 
 
 1 60 
 
 145 
 
 125 
 
 120 
 
 IIO 
 
 (July ... 
 
 O 
 
 155 
 
 145 
 
 130 
 
 I2J- 
 
 1 20 
 
 IIO 
 
 (January ... 
 i8i6-{ April ... 
 (July ... 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 160 
 o 
 
 
 
 155 
 140 
 140 
 
 150 
 135 
 135 
 
 140 
 130 
 130 
 
 135 
 125 
 125 
 
 130 
 1 20 
 
 120 
 
 Hanuary ... 
 __., April 
 (July ... 
 
 160 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 
 145 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 140 
 140 
 o 
 
 135 
 135 
 
 
 130 
 130 
 130 
 
 120 
 120 
 120 
 
 ! January ... 
 
 175 
 
 165 
 
 150 
 
 140 
 
 135 
 
 130 
 
 120 
 
 April 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 135 
 
 130 
 
 120 
 
 July ... 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 {January ... 
 April 
 
 1 80 
 
 185 
 
 175 
 170 
 
 170 
 
 1 60 
 
 1 60 
 
 155 
 
 150 
 
 140 
 
 138 
 
 135 
 130 
 
 July ... 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 {January ... 
 April 
 
 1 60 
 
 o 
 
 150 
 
 
 
 145 
 
 
 
 140 
 140 
 
 130 
 130 
 
 120 
 1 2O 
 
 o 
 
 105 
 
 July ... 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 ( January ... 
 1821-] April 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 175 
 175 
 
 170 
 170 
 
 1 60 
 1 60 
 
 150 
 150 
 
 145 
 145 
 
 (July ... 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 J January ... 
 
 270 
 
 260 
 
 245 
 
 215 
 
 195 
 
 190 
 
 210 
 
 o ) April 
 
 
 
 
 
 240 
 
 215 
 
 195 
 
 190 
 
 210 
 
 ) July 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 247 
 
 220 
 
 195 
 
 215 
 
 (October ... 
 
 320 
 
 
 
 
 
 290 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1887. 
 
 SELECTED LIST 
 
 Off 
 
 Illustrated and General Publications 
 
 BY 
 
 THACKEE, SPINK & CO., CALCUTTA. 
 
 W. THACKER & CO., 87, NEWGATE ST., LONDON. 
 
ThacTcer, Spink Sf Co., Calcutta. 
 
 The Tribes on My Frontier : an Indian Naturalist's 
 Foreign Policy. By EHA. With 50 Illustrations by 
 F. C. MACBAE. In Imperial 16mo. Uniform with "Lays 
 of Ind," "Riding," "Hindu Mythology," &c. Third 
 Edition, Es. 5-8 (8s. 6d.) 
 
 This remarkably clever work most graphically and humorously 
 describes the surroundings of a country bungalow. The twenty 
 chapters embrace a year's experiences, and provide endless 
 sources of amusement and suggestion. The numerous able illus- 
 trations add very greatly to the interest of the volume, which 
 will find a place on every table. 
 
 I. A Durbar. 
 II. The Rats, 
 in. The Mosquitos. 
 iv. The Lizards, 
 v. The Ants, 
 vi. The Crows. 
 TIL The Bats. 
 Vlii. Bees, Wasps, et hoc genus 
 
 omne. 
 
 ix. The Spiders. 
 X. The Butterfly : Hunting 
 Him. 
 
 XL The Butterfly : Contem- 
 
 plating Him. 
 xn. The Frogs. 
 XIIL The Bugs. 
 Xiv. The Birds of the Garden, 
 xv. The Birds at the Mango 
 
 Tope. 
 
 xvi. The Birds at the Tank. 
 XVIL The Poultry Yard. 
 XVIIL The White Ants. 
 xix. The Hypodermatikosyringo- 
 
 phoroi. 
 xx. Etcetera. 
 
 " It is a very clever record of a year's observations round the bungalow 
 
 in ' Dustypore.' . . . . It is by no means a mere travesty 
 
 The writer is always amusing, and never dull." Field. 
 
 " The book is cleverly illustrated by Mr. F. C. Macrae. We have only 
 to thank our Anglo-Indian naturalist for the delightful book which he has 
 sent home to his countrymen in Britain. May he live to give us another 
 such." Chambers' Journal. 
 
 " A most charming series of sprightly and entertaining essays on what 
 
 may be termed the fauna of the Indian bungalow We have 
 
 no doubt that this amusing book will find its way into every Anglo-Indian's 
 library." Allen's Indian Mail. 
 
 " This is a delightful book, irresistibly funny in description and illustra- 
 tion, but full of genuine science too There is not a dull or 
 
 uninstructive page in the whole book." Knowledge. 
 
 " It is a pleasantly-written book about the insects and other torments of 
 India which make Anglo-Indian life unpleasant, and which can be read 
 with pleasure even by those beyond the reach of the tormenting things 
 ' Eha ' describes." Graphic. 
 
 " The volume is full of accurate and unfamiliar observation, and the 
 illustrations prove to be by no means without their value." Saturday 
 Review. 
 
W. Thacker fy Co., London. iii 
 
 A Natural History of the Mammalia of India, 
 
 Burmah and Ceylon. By E. A. STERNDALE, F.E.G-.S., 
 F.Z.S., &c., Author of " Seonee," " The Denizens of the 
 Jungle," "The Afghan Knife," &c. With 170 Illustrations 
 by the Author and Others. In Imperial 16mo. Uniform 
 with "Eiding," " Hindu Mythology," and " Indian Ferns." 
 Bs. 10. (12s. 6d.) 
 
 "It is the very model of what a popular natural history should be." 
 Knowledge. 
 
 "An amusing work with good illustrations." Nature. 
 
 " Full of accurate observation, brightly told." Saturday Review. 
 
 " The results of a close and sympathetic observation." Athenceum. 
 
 " It has the brevity which is the soul of wit, and a delicacy of allusion 
 which charms the literary critic." Academy. 
 
 " The notices of each animal are, as a rule, short, though on some of the 
 larger mammals the lion, tiger, pard, boar, &c. ample and interesting 
 details are given, including occasional anecdotes of adventure. The book 
 will, no doubt, be specially useful to the sportsman, and, indeed, has been 
 extended so as to include all territories likely to be reached by the sports- 
 man from India. . . . Those who desire to obtain some general infor- 
 mation, popularly conveyed, on the subject with which the book deals, will, 
 we believe, find it useful." The Times. 
 
 " Has contrived to hit a happy mean between the stiff scientific treatise 
 and the bosh of what may be called anecdotal zoology." The Daily News. 
 
 Handbook to the Ferns of India, Ceylon, and 
 
 the Malay Peninsula. By Colonel E. H. BEDDOME, Author 
 of the " Ferns of British India," " The Ferns of Southern 
 India." Three hundred Illustrations by the Author. 
 Uniform with "Lays of Ind," "Hindu Mythology," 
 "Eiding," "Natural History of the Mammalia of India," 
 &c. Imperial 16mo. Rs. 10. (12s. 6d.) 
 
 " The great amount of care observed in its compilation makes it a most 
 valuable work of reference, especially to non- scientific readers ; for, in pre- 
 paring it, as many of the technicalities as could be safely dispensed with are 
 left aside A magnificent volume of nearly 500 pages, illus- 
 trated with 300 admirable woodcuts." Garden. 
 
 " It is the first special book of portable size and moderate price which 
 has been devoted to Indian Ferns, and is in every way deserving of the ex- 
 tensive circulation it is sure to obtain." Nature. 
 
 " Will prove vastly interesting, not only to the Indian people, but to the 
 botanists of this country." Indian Daily News. 
 
 " This is a good book, being of a useful and trustworthy character. The 
 species are familiarly described, and most of them illustrated by small 
 figures." Gardeners' Chronicle. 
 
 " Those interested in botany will do well to procure a new work on the 
 ' Ferns of British India.' The work will prove a first-class text-book." 
 Free Press. 
 
 a 2 
 
iv ThacTcer, Spink $ Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Lays of Ind. By ALIPH CHEEM. Comic, Satirical, and 
 Descriptive Poems illustrative of Anglo-Indian Life. 
 Seventh Edition. Enlarged. With 70 Illustrations. 
 Cloth elegant, gilt edges. Es. 7 (10s. 6d.) 
 
 " Aliph Cheem presents us in this volume with some highly amusing 
 ballads and songs, which have already in a former edition warmed the 
 hearts and cheered the lonely hours of many an Anglo-Indian, the pictures 
 being chiefly those of Indian life. There is no mistaking the humour, and 
 at times, indeed, the fun is both * fast and furious.' One can readily 
 imagine the merriment created round the camp fire by the recitation of 
 'The Two Thumpers,' which is irresistibly droll. . . . The edition 
 before us is enlarged, and contains illustrations by the author, in addition 
 to which it is beautifully printed and handsomely got up, all which recom- 
 mendations are sure to make the name of Aliph Cheem more popular in 
 India than ever." Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 "The 'Lays' are not only Anglo-Indian in origin, but out-and-out 
 Anglo-Indian in subject and colour. To one who knows something of 
 life at an Indian ' station ' they will be especially amusing. Their 
 exuberant fun at the same time may well attract the attention of the ill- 
 defined individual known as the ' general reader.' " Scotsman. 
 
 " This is a remarkably bright little book. ' Aliph Cheem, supposed to 
 be the nom de plume of an officer in the 18th Hussars, is, after his 
 fashion, an Indian Bon Gaultier. In a few of the poems the jokes, 
 turning on local names and customs, are somewhat esoteric ; but taken 
 throughout, the verses are characterised by high animal spirits, great 
 cleverness, and most excellent fooling." World. 
 
 " To many Anglo-Indians the lively verses of * Aliph Cheem ' must be 
 very well known ; while to those who have not yet become acquainted 
 with them we can only say, read them on the first opportunity. To those 
 not familiar with Indian life they may be specially commended for the 
 picture which they give of many of its lighter incidents and conditions, 
 and of several of its ordinary personages." Bath Chronicle. 
 
 *' Satire of the most amusing and inoffensive kind, humour the most 
 genuine, and pathos the most touching pervade these 'Lays of Ind.' 
 
 . . . From Indian friends we have heard of the popularity these 
 'Lays' have obtained in the land where they were written, and we 
 predict for them a popularity equally great at home." Monthly Homceo- 
 pathic Review. 
 
 " Former editions of this entertaining book having been received with 
 great favour by the publie ad by the press, a new edition has been issued 
 in elegant type and binding. The Author, although assuming a nom de 
 plume, is recognised as a distinguished cavalry officer, possessed of a vivid 
 imagination and a sense of humour amounting sometimes to rollicking and 
 contagious fun." Capital and Labour. 
 
W. ThacTcer & Co., London. 
 
 Hiding : On the Flat and Across Country. A Guide 
 to Practical Horsemanship. By Capt. M. H. HAYES. 
 Illustrated by Sturgess. Second Edition. Revised and 
 Enlarged. Imperial 16mo. Es. 7 (10s. 6d.) 
 
 c< The book is one that no man who has ever sat in a saddle can fail to 
 read with interest." Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. 
 
 " An excellent book on riding." Truth. 
 
 " Mr. Hayes has supplemented his own experience on race-riding by 
 resorting to Tom Cannon, Fordham, and other well-known jockeys for 
 illustration. ' The Guide ' is, on the whole, thoroughly reliable ; and both 
 the illustrations and the printing do credit to the publishers." Field. 
 
 " It has, however, been reserved for Captain Hayes to write what in our 
 opinion will be generally accepted as the most comprehensive, enlightened 
 and ' all round ' work on riding, bringing to bear as he does not only his 
 own great experience, but the advice and practice of many of the best 
 recognised horsemen of the period." Sporting Life. 
 
 "Captain Hayes is not only a master of his subject, but he knows 
 how to aid others in gaining such a mastery as may be obtained by the 
 study of a book." The Standard. 
 
 COMPANION VOLUME TO THE ABOVE. 
 
 Hiding for Ladies, with Hints on the Stable. 
 
 A Lady's Horse Book. By Mrs. POWER O'DONOGHUE. 
 Author of " A Beggar on Horseback," " Ladies on Horse- 
 back," " Unfairly Won," &c. With 91 Illustrations, by 
 A. CHANTREY CORBOULD, and portrait of the Author. 
 Elegantly printed and bound. Imperial 16mo. Es. 10. 
 (12s. 6d.) 
 
 xin. A Lesson in Leaping. 
 
 xiv. Managing Refusers. 
 
 xv. Falling. 
 
 xvi. Hunting Outfit Considered, 
 xvn. Economy in Riding Dress, 
 xviil. Hacks and Hunters. 
 
 XIX. In the Hunting Field. 
 
 xx. Shoeing, xxi. Feeding, 
 xxii. Stabling, xxm. Doctoring 
 xxiv. Breeding. xxv. " Tips." 
 
 i. Ought Children to Ride ? 
 
 H. " For Mothers and Children.' 3 
 
 III. First Hints to a Learner. 
 
 IV. Selecting a Mount. 
 
 v., vi. The Lady's Dress, 
 vii. Bitting, vin. Saddling. 
 
 IX. Sit, Walk, Canter, and Trot. 
 
 x. Reins, Voice, and Whip. 
 XI. Riding on the Road, 
 xii. Paces, Vices, and Faults. 
 
 " Mrs. Power O'Donoghue (more power to her not that she wants it) 
 shows no sign of 'falling off.' Indeed, she shows her readers how to 
 become riders, and to stick on gracefully. She sketches her pupils 'in 
 their habits as they ride, ' and gives them a bit of her mind about bits, and 
 tells them about spurs on the spur of a moment." Punch. 
 
 "Mrs. O'Donoghue is great on the subject of a lady's riding- dress, and 
 
 lays down some useful information which should not be forgotten 
 
 From fiiBt to last she never errs on the side of anything approaching to 
 bad taste, which is more than can be said for some equestriennes." Field. 
 
 " It is characteristic of her book, as of all books of any value, that it has 
 a distinctive character. Sound common sense, and a thoroughly practical 
 way of communicating instruction, are its leading traits." Daily News. 
 
vi ThacJcer, Spirik fy Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Splendidly Illustrated book of Sport. In Demy 4to ; Rs. 25 ; elegantly 
 bound. (2 2s.) 
 
 Large Game Shooting in Thibet, the Hima- 
 layas, and Northern India. By Colonel ALEXANDER A. KIN- 
 LOCH. Containing descriptions of the country and of the 
 various animals to be found ; together with extracts from a 
 journal of several years' standing. With thirty illustrations 
 and map of the district. 
 
 "An attractive volume, full of sporting adventures in the valleys and 
 forest hills extending along the foot of the Himalayas. Its pages are also 
 interesting for the graphic description they give of the beasts of the field, 
 the cunning instinct which they show in guarding their safety, the places 
 which they choose for their lair, and the way in which they show their 
 anger when at bay, Colonel Kinloch writes on all these subjects in a 
 genuine and straightforward style, aiming at giving a complete description 
 of the habits and movements of the game." British Mail. 
 
 " If Carlyle had ever condescended to notice sport and sportsmen he might 
 probably have invented some curious and expressive phrase for the author 
 of this book. It is the work of a genuine shikari . . . The heads have 
 been admirably reproduced by the photograph. The spiral or curved horns, 
 the silky hair, the fierce glance, the massive jaws, the thick neck of deer, 
 antelope, yak or bison, are realistic and superior to anything that we can 
 remember in any bookshelf full of Indian sport." Saturday Review. 
 
 "The splendidly illustrated record of sport. The photo-gravures, es- 
 pecially the heads of the various antelopes, are lifelike ; and the letterpress 
 is very pleasant reading." Graphic. 
 
 Denizens of the Jungles ; a series of Sketches of Wild 
 Animals, illustrating their form and natural attitude. With 
 letterpress description of each plate. By E. A. STERNDALE, 
 F.K.G.S., F.Z.S. Author of "Natural History of the Mam- 
 malia of India," " Seonee," &c. Oblong folio. Es. 10. (16s.) 
 
 i. Denizens of the Jungles. 
 Aborigines Deer Mon- 
 keys. 
 
 II." On the Watch." Tiger, 
 in. "Not so Fast Asleep as he 
 Looks." Panther Mon- 
 keys. 
 IV ._ " Waiting for Father." Black 
 
 Bears of the Plains, 
 v. " Rival Monarchs." Tiger 
 
 and Elephant, 
 vi. "Hors de Combat." Indian 
 
 VIL "A Race for Life." Blue 
 
 Bull and Wild Dogs. 
 Vin. "Meaning Mischief." The 
 
 Gaur Indian Bison. 
 IX. "More than His Match.' 
 Buffalo and Rhinoceros. 
 x. "A Critical Moment. 
 Spotted Deer and Leo- 
 pard. 
 
 XI." Hard Hit." The Sambur. 
 XII. "Mountain Monarchs." 
 Marco Polo's Sheep. 
 
 Wild Boar and Tiger. 
 
 Useful Hints to Young Shikaris on the Gun and 
 
 Rifle. By "THE LITTLE* OLD BEAR." Reprinted from 
 the Asian. Crown 8vo. Rs. 2-8. 
 
W. Thacker fy Co., London. vii 
 
 Third Edition, revised, enlarged, and newly Illustrated. 
 Crown 8vo. Rs. 7. (10s. 6d.) 
 
 Veterinary Notes for Horse -Owners. An everyday 
 Horse Book. By Captain M. HORACE HAYES, M.KC.V.S. 
 OPINIONS OF THE PKESS 
 
 " The work is written in a clear and practical way." Saturday Review. 
 
 " Of the many popular veterinary books which have come under our 
 notice, this is certainly one of the most scientific and reliable. . . . 
 Some notice is accorded to nearly all the diseases which are common to 
 horses in this country, and the writer takes advantage of his Indian experi- 
 ence to touch upon several maladies of horses in that country, where 
 veterinary surgeons are few and far between. The description of symptoms 
 and the directions for the application of remedies are given in perfectly 
 plain terms, which the tyro will find no difficulty in comprehending : and, 
 for the purpose of further smoothing his path, a chapter is given on veterin- 
 ary medicines, their actions, uses, and doses." The Field. 
 
 '* Simplicity is one of the most commendable features in the book. 
 What Captain Hayes has to say he says in plain terms, and the book is a 
 very useful one for everybody who is concerned with horses." Illustrated 
 Sporting and Dramatic News. 
 
 " We heartily welcome the second edition of this exceedingly useful 
 book. The first edition was brought out about two years since, but the 
 work now under notice is fully double the size of its predecessor, and, as a, 
 matter of course, contains more information. Captain Hayes, the author, 
 is not only a practical man in all things connected with the horse, but has 
 also studied his subject from a scientific point of view." The Sporting Life. 
 
 " Captain Hayes, in the new edition of ' Veterinary Notes,' has added 
 considerably to its value by including matter which was omitted in the 
 former editions, and rendered the book, if larger, at any rate more useful 
 to those non-professional people who may be inclined or compelled to treat 
 their own horses when sick or injured. So far as we are able to judge, the 
 book leaves nothing to be desired on the score of lucidity and comprehen- 
 siveness." Veterinary Journal. 
 
 " Captain Hayes has succeeded in disposing of two editions of his manual 
 since it was issued in 1877 a sufficient proof of its usefulness to horse- 
 owners. The present edition is nearly double the size of the first one, and 
 the additional articles are well and clearly written, and much increase the 
 value of the work. We do not think that horse-owners in general are 
 likely to find a more reliable and useful book for guidance in an emergency." 
 The Field. New Edition, Kevised. 
 
 Training and Horse Management in India. By 
 
 Captain M. HORACE HAYES, author of " Veterinary Notes 
 for Horse Owners," " Hiding," &c. Third Edition. Crown 
 8vo. Ks. 5. (8s. 6d.) 
 
 " No better guide could be placed in the hands of either amateur horse- 
 man or veterinary surgeon." The Veterinary Journal. 
 
 " A useful guide in regard to horses anywhere Concise, 
 
 practical, and portable." Saturday Review. 
 
viii Thacker, Spink $ Co., Calcutta, 
 
 Indian Notes about Dogs : their Diseases and Treat- 
 ment. By Major C . Third Edition, Ee vised. Ecap. 
 
 8vo., cloth. Ee. 1-8. 
 
 Indian Racing- Reminiscences. Being Entertaining 
 Narratives and Anecdotes of Men, Horses, and Sport. 
 By Captain M. HOKACE HAYES, Author of " Veterinary 
 Notes," " Training and Horse Management," &c. Illustrated 
 with 22 Portraits and 20 Engravings. Imperial 16mo. 
 Es. 5-12. (8s. 6d.) 
 
 " Captain Hayes has done wisely in publishing these lively sketches of 
 life in India. The book is full of racy anecdote." Bdl's Life. 
 
 "All sportsmen who can appreciate a book on racing, written in a 
 chatty style, and full of anecdote, will like Captain Hayes's latest work." 
 Field. 
 
 " It is a safe prediction that this work is certain to have a wide circle 
 of readers." Broad Arrow. 
 
 " The book is valuable from the fact that many hints on the treatment of 
 horses are inchided, and the accuracy and extent of Captain Hayes's veter- 
 inary skill and knowledge are well known to experts." Illustrated Sporting 
 and Dramatic News. 
 
 " Many a racing anecdote and many a curious character our readers will 
 find in the book, which is very well got up, and embellished with many 
 portraits." Baity' s Magazine. 
 
 Hindu Mythology : Vedic and Puranic. By Eev. 
 W. J. WILKINS, of the London Missionary Society, Cal- 
 cutta. Illustrated by very numerous Engravings from 
 Drawings by Native Artists. Uniform with " Lays of 
 Ind," " Eiding," &c. Es. 7. (10s. 6d.) 
 
 " His aim has been to give a faithful account of the Hindu deities such 
 as an intelligent native would himself give, and he has endeavoured, in 
 order to achieve his purpose, to keep his mind free from prejudice or 
 theological bias. To help to completeness he has included a number of 
 drawings of the principal deities, executed by native artists. The author 
 has attempted a work of no little ambition and has succeeded in his 
 attempt, the volume being one of great interest and usefulness ; and not 
 the less so because he has strictly refrained from diluting his facts with 
 comments of his own. It has numerous illustrations." Home News. 
 
 "Mr. Wilkins has done his work well, with an honest desire to state 
 facts apart from all theological prepossession, and his volume is likely to 
 be a useful book of reference." Guardian. 
 
 " In Mr. Wilkins's book we have an illustrated manual, the study of 
 which will lay a solid foundation for more advanced knowledge, while it 
 will furnish those who may have the desire without having the tune or 
 opportunity to go further into the subject, with a really extensive stock of 
 accurate information." Indian Daily News. 
 
W. Thacker fy Co., London. 
 
 IX 
 
 Modern Hinduism : Being an Account of the Religion 
 and Life of the Hindus in Northern India. By W. J. 
 WILKINS, of the London Missionary Society, Author of 
 "Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Puranic." Demy 8vo. 
 Price Rs. 8. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 I. EARLY LIFE. 
 
 1. Birth and its Ceremonies. 
 
 2. The Hindu Home. 
 
 3. The Guru and Initiation into 
 
 Hinduism. 
 
 II. HINDU SECTS. 
 
 1. General Changes of Hinduism. 
 
 2. General Remarks on the Hindu 
 
 Sects. 
 
 3. Vedantism or Orthodox Hin- 
 
 duism. 
 
 4. Sects existing in the 14th Cent. 
 
 A.D. 
 
 5. The Vishnava Sects. 
 
 6. The Saivite Sects. 
 
 7. The Saktas, &c. 
 
 8. Miscellaneous Sects. 
 
 9. The Modern Deistic Sects. 
 
 III. CASTE. 
 
 1. General Remarks on Caste. 
 
 2. Caste Distinctions as taught in 
 
 the Scriptures. 
 
 3. History of the Growth of the 
 
 Caste system. 
 
 4. Struggles for Supremacy 
 
 amongst the Castes. 
 
 5. Caste as it exists at the present 
 
 time. 
 
 6. Proportion of People included 
 
 in the chief Castes. 
 
 7. Kulinism. 
 
 IV. WORSHIP. 
 
 1. Private Worship. 
 
 2. Temple Worship. 
 
 3. Religious Festivals. 
 
 4. Pilgrimages : Benares. 
 
 5. Ditto. 
 
 6. Ditto. 
 
 7. Ditto. 
 
 8. Worship. 
 
 KjiliGhdt,Ganga 
 
 Saga, Gaya. 
 Puri. 
 
 Bhuvaenshwara. 
 How sustained and 
 
 objects sought by it. 
 9. Religious ideas common to all 
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W. Thacker fy Co., London. xi 
 
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W. Thacker fy Co., London. xiii 
 
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 "... The intention of the author being apparently to bring together in a 
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xiv Thacker, SpinTc $ Co., Calcutta. 
 
 Hints on the Study of English. By F. J. KOWE, 
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 at home." Saturday Review. 
 
 " In the work before us, Messrs. Rowe and Webb have produced what, 
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 language we have yet seen." Englishman. 
 
 " So far as it goes, this is one of the most satisfactory books of the kind 
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 of matter is condensed into a small compass, and at the same time expressed 
 in a simple, easy style. . . . Taking it as a whole, this is a scholarly little 
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 students." Times of India. 
 
 " I wish to say that the book shows wonderful toil and care, and is above 
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W. Thacker fy Co., London. xv 
 
 Landholding- ; and the Relation of Landlord and 
 
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xvi Thacker, Spink fy Co., Calcutta, 
 
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 CONTENTS. Origin and general character of soils Ploughing and 
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W. Thacker $ Co., London. xvii 
 
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xviii Thacker, Spink fy Co., Calcutta. 
 
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W. Thacker fy Co,, London. xix 
 
 The Landmarks of Snake Poison Literature. 
 
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 A Key to the Entrance Course, 1888. Palgrave's 
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 Cherry Blossoms : A Volume of Poetry. By GREECE 
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 Seonee : or, Camp Life on the Satpura Eange. A Tale of 
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 Soundness and Age of Horses. With one hundred 
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xx ThacJcer, Spirik fy Co., Calcutta. 
 
 WORKS IN THE PRESS. 
 
 On Horse Breaking. By Capt. M. H. HAYES. Numerous 
 Illustrations by J. H. OSWALD BROWN. Square. 
 
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 3. Horse Control. 4. Rendering Docile. 5. Giving Good Mouths. 
 
 6. Teaching to Jump. 7. Mount for First Time. 8. Breaking for 
 
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 11. Nervousness and Impatience. 12. Jibbing. 13. Jumping 
 
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 and Driving Newly-Broken Horse. 17. Stable Vices. 
 
 The Points of the Horse. A Familiar Treatise on Equine 
 
 Conformation. By Capt. M. H. HAYES. Illustrated by 
 
 J. H. OSWALD BROWN. Describing the points in which the 
 
 perfection of each class of horses consists; illustrated by very 
 
 numerous reproductions of Photographs of Living Typical 
 
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 Echoes from Old Calcutta : being chiefly Reminiscences 
 
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 H. E. BUSTEED. Second Edition. Illustrated. 
 
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W. Thacker & Co., London. xxi 
 
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W. T hacker fy Co., London. xxvii 
 
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W. Thacker fy Co., London. xxix 
 
 INDEX TO LAW BOOKS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bengal Code, Regulations Field 23 
 
 Bengal Local Self -Government ... ... Collier... ... 22 
 
 Criminal Jurisprudence, Comparative Phillips... ... 25 
 
 Criminal Law do 24 
 
 Criminal Procedure and Penal Codes ("The 
 
 Pocket") ("Pocket") ... 23 
 
 Civil Procedure, Evidence, &c. ("The Pocket") do. ... 23 
 
 Civil Procedure O'Kinealy ... 24 
 
 Contract Act ... .,, ... ... Cunningham and Shephard 23 
 
 Criminal Procedure Agnew and Henderson 24 
 
 Courts and Legislative Authorities Cowell 26 
 
 Chaukidari Manual Toynbee ... 21 
 
 Emigration Act, Inland... ... ... ... 22 
 
 Evidence, Law in British India Field 23 
 
 Examination Manual Currie 25 
 
 Gifts, Trusts and Testamentary, Mahomedan ... Ameer Ali ... 26 
 
 Hindu Law Cowell.. ... 26 
 
 Hindu Widows Mittra 26 
 
 Inheritance, &c., Hindu Siromani . 21 
 
 Inheritance, &c. Jolly ... . 22 
 
 Inheritance, &c. Sarvadhicari . 26 
 
 Intestate and Succession Henderson . 24 
 
 Income Tax Manual Grimley . 22 
 
 Land Tenures, Bengal Phillips . 26 
 
 Legislative Acts "Annual" . 23 
 
 Limitation and Prescription ... Mitter ... . 26 
 
 Limitation Act Alexander . 23 
 
 Limitation ... ... Eivaz ... . 21- 
 
 Municipal Act, Bengal ... Collier ... . 25 
 
 Mahomedan Law Sircar ... . 26 
 
 Minors Trevelyan . 26 
 
 Marriage and Stridhana :. Banerjee . 26 
 
 Mortgage Ghose ... . 25 
 
 Negotiable Instruments... Chalmers . 21 
 
 Penal Code (" The Pocket ") "Pocket" . 23 
 
 Penal Code O'Kinealy . 23 
 
 Kent Act (N.W.P.) Reynolds . 22 
 
 Revenue and Collectorate Law ... ... Phillips... . 21 
 
 Revenue Sale and Certificate ... Grimley . 22 
 
 Stamp Law Donogh... . 24 
 
 Small Cause Court Act, Presidency McEwen . 23 
 
 Specific Relief Collett ... . 24 
 
 Tenancy Act, Bengal Finucane and Rampini 22 
 
 Torts Alexander . 23 
 
 Trusts Agnew ... . 26 
 
 Tagore Law Lectures Various . 26 
 
PAGE 
 
 xxx Thacker, Spirik & Co., Calcutta. 
 
 INDEX TO GENERAL PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 Ali, Critical Exposition of " Jihad " ............... 16 
 
 Aliph Cheem, Lays of Ind v .. ... ... ... ... ... 4 
 
 Anderson, Mandalay to Momien ... ... ... ... . 16 
 
 Barker, Tea Planter's Life in Assam ... ........... 10 
 
 Beddome, Ferns of India, Ceylon, &c ..... . ... ... ... 3 
 
 Bell, Laws of Wealth ... .................. 18 
 
 Beveridge, Trial of Nanda Kumar ... ... ... .. ... 19 
 
 Birch, Management of Children in India ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 Bonavia, Date Palm in India .............. .. 16 
 
 Bose, The Hindoos as they are ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 Boutflower, Statics and Dynamics ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 Busteed, Echoes from old Calcutta ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 C - , Major, Indian Horse Notes ... ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 C - , Major, Indian Notes about Dogs ... ... ... ... 8 
 
 Ceylon Tea Estates ..................... 10 
 
 Cunningham, Indian Eras ... ... ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 Drill in Extended Order (Handbook) ......... . ..... 20 
 
 Duke, Banting in India ... ... ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 Duke, Queries at a Mess Table ... ... ... .. ... 15 
 
 Dutt, Greece Chunder, Cherry Blossoms ...... ... ... 19 
 
 Eha, Tribes on my Frontier ........ ......... 2 
 
 Field, Landholding ..................... 15 
 
 Firminger, Gardening for India ... ... ...... ... 20 
 
 Fletcher, Poppied Sleep ..................... 17 
 
 Forbes, British Burma ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 15 
 
 Gordon's City of Palaces .................. 17 
 
 Gregg, Text-Book of Indian Botany ............ ... 16 
 
 Harris, Bengal Medical Service ............... 17 
 
 Hayes, Riding on the Flat and Across Country ... ... ... 5 
 
 Hayes, Veterinary Notes for Horse Owners ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 Hayes, Indian Racing Reminiscences ... ... ... ... ... 3 
 
 Hayes, Training and Horse Management ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 Hayes, On Tactics^ .................. .'.'.' H 
 
 Hayes, Soundness in Horses ... ... ... ... ... ... 19 
 
 Hayes, Points of the Horse ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 Hayes, On Horse Breaking ... ... ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 Ince, Guide to Kashmir ... ... ...... ... ... 20 
 
 Indian Tea Gardens, &c., A Complete List ... ...... ... 10 
 
 Jackson, Statistics of Hydraulic Works, &c. ... ... ... ... 13 
 
 Keene, Handbook to Agra ... ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 Keene, Handbook to Allahabad ............... 18 
 
 Keene, Handbook to Delhi ................. 18 
 
 Kepling, Departmental Ditties... ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 King-Harman, Reconnoitrer's Guide Book ...... .., ... n 
 
W. ThacTcer <& Co., London. xxxi 
 Index to General Publications continued. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kinloch, Large Game Shooting... ... ... ... ... .. 6 
 
 Kuropatkin, (Go wan) Kashgaria ... ... ... ... .. 16 
 
 Lays of Ind, by Aliph Cheem ... ... ... 4 
 
 Le Messurier, Game, Shore and Water Birds of India 12 
 
 Map of Civil Divisions of India ... ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 McCrindle, Ancient India ... ... ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 Merces, Indian and English Exchange Tables ... .. ... 11 
 
 Mookerjee, Memoir of Onoocool Chunder Mookerjee ... ... 13 
 
 Murray- Aynsley, Hills beyond Simla ... ... ... 18 
 
 Norman, Calcutta to Liverpool... ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 North am, Guide to Masuri, &c... ... ... ... ... ... 18 
 
 O'Connell, Ague 17 
 
 O'Donoghue, Hiding for Ladies ... ... ... ... .. 5 
 
 Phillips, Our Administration of India ... ,.. ... ... ... 10 
 
 Pogson, Agriculture for India ... ... ... ... ... ... 16 
 
 Pollard, Indian Tribute and the Loss by Exchange ... ... 19 
 
 Pollard, Gold and Silver weighed in the Balance ... ... ... 19 
 
 Pool, Queen Victoria ... ... ... ... ... 17 
 
 Protestant Missions ... ... ... ... ... .. ... 17 
 
 Reid, Indigo Culture and Manufacture ... ... 20 
 
 Richards, Landmarks of Snake Poison Literature ... 19 
 
 Rowe, Key to Entrance Course, 1888 19 
 
 Rowe and Webb, Hints on the Study of English 14 
 
 Rowe and Webb, Companion Reader to the Study of English ... 14 
 
 Roxburgh's Flora Indica ... ... ... ... 16 
 
 Sedgwick, Life 18 
 
 Son Gruel 18 
 
 Sterndale, Mammalia of India ... ... ... 3 
 
 Sterndale, Denizens of the Jungles .. ... ... 6 
 
 Sterndale, Seonee ... 19 
 
 Sterndale, Calcutta Collectorate ... 18 
 
 Thaoker's Indian Directory , ... . 32 
 
 Thuillier, Manual of Surveying for India ... ^.. ... ... 13 
 
 Tribes on my Frontier ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 Tsaya (Powell) Myam-Ma 16 
 
 Underwood, Indian-English and Indian character ... 19 
 
 Useful Hints to Young Shikaris 6 
 
 Webb, Indian Lyrics ... ... ... ... 14 
 
 Webb, Key to Entrance Course, 1887 18 
 
 Wheeler, Tales from Indian History ... 12 
 
 Wilkins, Hindu Mythology 8 
 
 Wilkins, Modern Hinduism ... .. ... ... 9 
 
 Wyvern, Culinary Jottings ... ... ... 15 
 
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