reservation of a right in his successor to resume them for the public good, if he should think fit.[13] Hindoo sovereigns, or their priests for them, often tried to bar this right by invoking curses on the head of that successor who should exercise it.[14] It is a proverb among the people of these territories, and, I believe, among the people of India generally, that the lands which pay no rent to Government have no ‘barkat’, blessing from above—­that the man who holds them is not blessed in their returns like the man who pays rent to Government and thereby contributes his aid to the protection of the community.  The fact is that every family that holds rent-free lands must, in a few generations, become miserable from the minute subdivision of the property, and the litigation in our civil courts which it entails upon the holders.[15] It is certainly the general opinion of the people of India that no land should be held without paying rent to Government, or providing for people employed in the service of Government, for the benefit of the people in its defensive, religious, judicial, educational, and other establishments.  Nine-tenths of the land in these Nerbudda territories are held in lease immediately under Government by the heads of villages, whose leases have been renewable every five years; but they are now to have a settlement for twenty.[l6] The other tenth is held by these heads of villages intermediately under some chief, who holds several portions of land immediately under Government at a quit-rent, or for service performed, or to be performed, for Government, and lets them out to farmers.  These are, for the most part, situated in the more hilly and less cultivated parts.

Notes: 

1.  November, 1835.

2.  This observation does not hold good in densely populated tracts, which are now numerous.

3.  These ‘estates of villages’ are known by the Persian name of ‘mauza’.  The topographical division of the country into ‘mauzas’, which may be also translated by the terms ‘townlands’ or ‘townships’, has developed spontaneously.  Some ‘mauzas’ are uninhabited, and are cultivated by the residents of neighbouring villages.

4.  In some parts of Central and Southern India, the ‘Garpagri’, who charms away hail-storms from the crops, and ‘Bhumka’, who charms away tigers from the people and their cattle, are added to the number of village servants, [W.  H .S.] ’In many parts of Berar and Malwa every village has its “bhumka”, whose office it is to charm the tigers; and its “garpagri”, whose duty it is to keep off the hail-storms.  They are part of the village servants, and paid by the village community, After a severe hail-storm took place in the district of Narsinghpur, of which I had the civil charge in 1823, the office of “garpagri” was restored to several villages in which it had ceased for several generations.  They are all Brahmans, and take advantage of such calamities to impress the people with an opinion of their usefulness.  The “bhumkas” are all Gonds, or people of the woods, who worship their own Lares and Penates’ (Ramaseeana, Introduction, p. 13. note).