THE REIGN OF AKBAR (1556-1605) 117 
distinction between Reservation and Assignment, though 
precise at any given moment, was not permanent. The 
chronicles contain numerous instances of an area being 
transferred from one category to the other, and there are 
some indications that the Ministry aimed, as it naturally 
would, at keeping in its own hands the most productive, 
and most easily managed, land. Thus one of Akbar’s old 
~ollectors tells how he represented that the district he was 
managing was not fit to be reserved, and accordingly it was 
assigned; and the same authority speaks of a pargana as 
having gone to ruin, because a proposal had been made to 
assign it, and the collector had consequently neglected it.! 
Such sidelights on the actual position are unfortunately 
too rare to serve as a basis for any general conclusions. A 
few tracts can be identified as regularly Reserved, but data 
are wanting to show the areas in which peasants could hope 
for some measure of stability of management, and all that 
can be said is that instability was probably more usual. 
6. THE FINAL POSITION 
The materials used in this section are contained mainly 
in a portion? of the Ain headed “Account of the Twelve 
Provinces,” which is purely descriptive, and may almost 
be called the Gazetteer of Akbar’s Empire. Each province 
is taken in its turn; notices, varying somewhat widely in 
value, are given of the topography, agriculture, revenue- 
system, industries, and standard of life; then follow descrip- 
tions of particular towns and localities; then certain statistics 
relating to the province; and finally its history. The 
scheme of the various notices furnishes definite evidence of 
uniformity of design; but the execution is much less uniform, 
and it looks as if each province had been dealt with by some 
official with special knowledge of it, working on a pre- 
scribed plan, but not held strictly to the plan in all its 
details. The account is not found in all manuscripts; and 
it appears to have been maintained, or completed, after 
} Bayazid, f. 149, 154. Hawkins (Early Travels, 114) speaks of assigned 
land being taken by the King, ‘‘if it be rich ground and likely to yield 
' Ain, i. 386 ff. The information given in the Account can be checked 
n some cases from the schedules of assessment-rates beginning on p. 348.