152 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA The flight of peasants from the land to more attractive occupations, which was considered in the last section, undoubtedly continued, and was probably intensified, during the reign of Aurangzeb; and when peasants decreased, the assignees’ Income was necessarily reduced. We may indeed reasonably infer that the process, once started, was apt to be cumulative, because an assignee, with a short and uncertain tenure, would ordinarily try to make good some part of his loss by increased pressure on the peasants who remained at work, and increased pressure would in turn strengthen the motives which tempted peasants to abscond. A progressive decline in the Income yielded by Assignments would of itself explain their unpopularity, but in addition there was the risk that the assignee might not be able to obtain possession even of what remained. So far as the Deccan is concerned, this risk arose pri- marily from the activities of the Mardthas. The story of Aurangzeb’s attempt to maintain his position in the South can be read elsewhere, and it must suffice to recall the fact that the Marithas steadily extended both their settled dominions and their claim to share in the yield of a much larger area. A passage in Khwiafi Khan (ii. 484 ff.) shows that within ten years of Aurangzeb’s death this claim, which in form amounted to one-fourth (chauth) of the revenue, had in practice risen to nearly one-half; while in villages which had been restored after depopulation, the gross produce was divided equally between the Marithas, the assignees, and the peasants. Thus an assignee could not hope to realise anything like the share of half the produce, which had formerly represented his Income; and it must always have been doubtful if he would be allowed to realise anything at all in the areas where the Marathas maintained their separate staff of revenue-collectors. It is easy then to understand that a cash-order, even on an almost empty treasury, would have been preferred to an Assignment in the region dominated by the Marithas. As regards Northern India, our information is very incom- plete, for the chronicles tell us little of what was happening in the North after the year 1682, when Aurangzeb trans- ferred his Court to the Deccan. All that can be said is that