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.