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
