208 THE AGRARIAN SYSTEM OF MOSLEM INDIA 
stand out in history, the desolation of the River Country 
under Muhammad Tughlaq, and the general .economic 
collapse after the middle of the seventeenth century. In 
both cases the administration strained the existing system 
to the breaking-point, and the system in fact broke down; 
but during the longer periods when the system worked, its 
worst incidents were the repression of individual energy, 
and the concentration on a barren struggle to divide, rather 
than a concerted effort to increase, the annual produce of 
the country. This was the damnosa haereditas, the legacy of 
loss, which Moslem administrations left to their successors 
and which is still so far from final liquidation.