cities as wealthy, if not as large— when I
reckoned up the fleets of richly-laden, ships
which day by day cast anchor in their noble
ports; the piles of rare and costly merchandise
with which their many wharves flowed
over,—  I felt incredulous of the reputed state
of that most gorgeous whole. If the people,
I thought, be not rich and thriving here,
where then can prosperity be found?  If
wealth and happiness flow not from all these
things, what else can make a nation great?
But I had not then seen more than the outer
shell of that Eastern world—the mere crust of
our Indian empire.

I had occasion to journey on business affairs
through the Northern provinces of Lower
Bengal, and made that visit a means of
judging for myself as to the real condition of the
people. I had for companion a most intelligent
man, one of the uncovenanted servants
of the Company, and a first-rate linguist; so
that I possessed no common advantage. The
country we passed through appeared to be as
fertile as it was beautiful. Few, very few
miles of waste land, were visible. Every field
seemed to be made to do its duty to the uttermost
blade of rice, or cane of sugar; and I
felt convinced that here, at any rate, prosperity
smiled upon the labouring population. As
we journeyed along in our slothful palanquins,
side by side, or lounged out the oppressive
heat of the noonday in the verandah of some
friendly road-side bungalow, my companion
enlightened me as to the nature and condition
of the various agricultural classes of that part
of Hindostan.

The Indian peasantry are termed ryots;
and between them and the zemindars, the
great landed proprietors or renters, who are
directly accountable to the government for
the land-tax, are a variety of middlemen, or
sub-farmers of this portion of the revenue.
They are known as talukdhars, durputnidars,
mostagars &c., all of whom derive a luxurious
living from the oppression of the class
immediately below them; and thus by the time the
pressure of the tax has reached the unfortunate
ryot, it has attained a weight which
effectually crushes beneath it the last feeble
efforts of his hopeless, heart-breaking struggles.
In 1793 Lord Cornwallis completed
what is known as the "permanent settlement,"
extending over upwards of one hundred
thousand square miles of country. By
this enactment the ownership of the land was
vested in the zemindars or native chiefs, who
were in future to pay to government a fixed
tax on the land, and be empowered in their
turn to levy upon the ryots. But whilst the
rate of taxation was thus fixed upon the
zemindari, and most stringent and summary
powers given to them to proceed against their
renters, nothing was said as to the amount they
might levy upon the ignorant and friendless
ryots, who were thus given up, bound hand
and foot, to the tender mercies of a sordid
race of men. Under such a system, it is ot
wonderful that the Indian labourer finds
himself, at the end of a year, not quite so well
off as he was at the commencement. We read
that when Alexander invaded India, Porus.
pressed by the emergency, raised a heavy
war-tax of one-fourth of the produce of the land:
Britain, in a time of profound peace, exacts
from her Indian subjects a tax of one-half their
produce, and which to the poor ryot, with the
addition of extra levies at the zemindar's will,
too often amounts to seventy or eighty per
cent, of the fruits of his toil!

Always oppressed, ever in poverty, the
ryot is compelled to seek the aid of the
mahajun or native money-lender. This will
frequently be the talukdhar or sub-renter,
who exacts from the needy borrower whatever
interest he thinks the unfortunate may be
able to pay him, often at the rate of one
per cent, per week.  The accounts of these loans
are kept by the mahajuns, who, aware of the
deep ignorance of their clients, falsify their
books, without fear of detection. In this way,
no matter how favourable the season, how
large the crop, the grasping mahajun is sure
to make it appear that the whole is due to
him; for he takes it at his own value. So
far from Mr. Burke having overstated the
case of the oppression of the ryots, on the
trial of Warren Hastings, when he said that
the tax-gatherer took from them eighteen
shillings in every pound, he was really within
the mark. At the conclusion of each crop-time,
the grower of rice or cotton is made to
appear a debtor to his superior, who thereupon—
provided the ryot appears able to toil
on for another season—advances more seed
for sowing, and a little more rice to keep
the labourer and his family from absolute
starvation. But, should there be any
doubt as to the health and strength of the
tenant-labourer, he is mercilessly turned from
his land and his mud hut, and left to die on
the highway.

In addition to the multiplied taxation
and usurious interest to which the Indian
peasantry are subjected, they are liable to
abwabs; irregular exactions, made upon them
by every grade of middleman, up to the
zemindari, and amounting, not unfrequently,
to as much as the land-tax. These extortions
date back to the time of the Hindu
dynasty, when, however, they were comparatively
light. They existed also during the
Mahommedan rule. It remained for the
paternal government of Englishmen to permit
this evil to spread like a foul infection through
the land, eating into the very body and sinews
of native industry. It is true, the enactments
of 1793 declare these abwabs to be illegal,
and punishable by fines; but no one seems to
heed the injunction, nor is it likely that many
persons are aware of its existence. Every
feast, festival, or ceremony which takes place
in the land, is made an excuse for the levy of
an abwab for the great man: the milkman has
to contribute milk, the oil-maker furnishes