THE REIGN OF AKBAR (1556-1605) 107 
practice, and arguing from his recommendations back to 
the position he was trying to improve, we reach the state of 
things depicted in the following summary! 
1. The auditors had been careless and had neglected orders; 
they had guessed, instead of relying on actual figures; and had 
shown excessive balances. Consequently, the cunning had 
prospered, while the honest had suffered; and collectors who 
could have settled a small balance were frightened by the size 
of the inflated demand. 
2. The rule that the accounts should be based on a list of the 
receipts given to peasants had been ignored, and unsupported 
statements of collections had been corruptly accepted. 
3. The demands made on the collectors had been basedon 
standard figures, or hastily compiled data, and not on the facts. 
4. Excess collections had not been properly treated (the 
details of this clause are obscure). 
5. The auditors had not allowed for the inevitable fluctuations 
of agriculture, in consequence of which some villages are im- 
proving while others are deteriorating; they had held collectors 
responsible for all deterioration, but had not credited them with 
improvement. The proper course was to look at the result as 
a whole. 
6. A quarter of the collector's pay had been kept in deposit 
against possible arrears, and this had been withheld indiscrimin- 
ately, when it should have been withheld only in cases of culpable 
negligence. 
7. The collectors had not been allowed the staff they required, 
or their pay for time spent on duty after the issue of an order 
Hf removal, or for the time of their attendance at audit. 
8, The collectors had been harried by futile correspondence. 
I have omitted from this summary a few clauses which 
refer to various matters affecting the local administration, 
but those which I have summarised appear to me to furnish 
definite proof that the methods of audit which the Com- 
missioner found in operation had been such as to make an 
honest collector’s position intolerable; and it must be re- 
membered that some of the cases he investigated had been 
dragging on for years. The essence of the report is that 
collectors had been held liable for far more than was really 
due from them; and, with an obstinate and vindictive 
Minister like Todar Mal, dealing with the staff employed 
by his bitter enemy, there is no difficulty in believing that 
! This summary is based on the text given in Akbarnama, iii. 87 4ff., 
and differs in some paragraphs from Mr. Beveridge’s version.