114 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
failure. Areas of failure were to be noted during Measure- 
ment, and deducted from the total area of the plot before 
the Demand on it was calculated; while injuries to crops 
detected after the assessment had been made were to be 
reported, with details of the area affected, to the authority 
to whom the assessment statement had been transmitted. 
These provisions obviously constitute an essential part of 
the system, for, considering the high pitch of the assessment, 
crop-failure must have been a very serious matter. For 
the rest, the procedure was simple. The crop on each 
field was first noted: the entries for each peasant were then 
brought together; and the total Demand on him fer the 
season was calculated by applying the sanctioned assess- 
ment-rates. These totals gave, when added up, the Demand 
on the village, and an assessment statement for it was then 
sent, we are told, ‘to Court”—presumably at this period 
to the Revenue Ministry, though, after the change in 
organisation already noticed, the sanctioning authority 
would probably be the provincial Diwan. 
The rules then pass from assessment to collection. 
Peasants were to be encouraged to bring their revenue in 
cash to the treasury as each instalment fell due, but col- 
lecting agents were also sent to the villages, and the headmen 
and village-accountants also took part in the process. 
There are no orders regulating the disposal of grain collected 
as revenue, and it may be inferred that the practice was too 
rare to require general rules. The remaining provisions 
deal with treasury procedure and miscellaneous matters, 
including numerous periodical returns: all that need be 
noticed here is that the coliector acted as the local agent 
of the Sadr in connection with the demarcation of Grants, 
and that the formal prohibition of a long list of miscellaneous 
exactions—from the jiziya, or personal tax, imposed by 
Islamic law but not claimed by Akbar, down to the cus- 
tomary present (saldmi) from a headman coming to pay his 
respects—suggests the possibility of a substantial illicit 
income being within the reach of the collector. 
When we scrutinise the detailed provisions imposing so 
manv specific duties on the collector and his clerk. the