312 SEVENTH REPORT—1837. 
Under such complex definitions and involved contradictions, 
my limits will not permit me to give further explanations, 
but which my lengthened tables afford. 
The principal assessment necessarily falls on the land, and 
it is raised on the various land denominations above noticed ; 
the land in the first instance being separated into the two great 
classes of Bhaghaeet, or garden-land; and Zerhaeet, or field- 
land. Both these terms are evidently of Moosulman intro- 
duction, Bhaghaeet being a word of Persian origin, meaning 
“wardens,” ‘orchards ;” and Zerhaeet, of Arabic derivation, 
meaning a “ sown field,”’ “ sown land.”’ 
There are marked traces of the Jand assessment having once 
been systematic in the Sostee or permanent rate, which was 
uniform and unchangeable for all lands of the same denomi- 
nation. This rate is found in most villages, it is distinctly 
stated in the accounts, and separated from subsequent and in- 
creased assessments, and its existence is a proof that assess- 
ments formerly were not on the superficial extent, but on the 
productive power of the soil; since, as lands were not all equally 
fertile, more of the unfertile land must have been held than 
of the fertile, to enable the cultivator to pay a fixed sum in 
quantity of grain for a piece of land under a common denomi- 
nation. The Sostee Dur, or permanent assessment, was the 
pride of the Meerasdar, but unhappily not his safeguard. 
The various governments which have passed away do not 
appear ever to have raised the permanent rate, but they rendered 
the advantages derivable under it abortive from gradually 
adding extra cesses ; their excuses in the first instance being 
unlooked-for contingencies. The cesses were originally mostly 
in kind, and temporary ; but the exigencies of government, or 
the facility with which they were raised, made them perennial, 
and their pressure upon the cultivator has been enhanced, par- 
ticularly under our government, by the cesses in kind being 
commuted into money payments. ‘The Moosulmans, on intro- 
ducing measurements, must necessarily have subverted the 
Sostee, or uniform rate, since the same rate could not have 
been equitable for beegahs of land of different qualities. We 
find, in consequence, that when the lands are classed in bee- 
gahs otherwise than as constituents of Hindoo land denomi- 
nations, that there the assessments are on the quality of the 
soil, and vary accordingly. 
Gardens being dependent on the local advantages of a suit- 
able supply of water and some depth of soil, usually met with 
in hollows or on the banks of rivers, it might be expected that 
considerable uniformity would prevail in the quality of garden- 
