Id 



through Mysore, Malabar and Canara in 1800," it appears, 

 however, that in certain parts of North Canara, according to a 

 valuation of Krishna Raj^a, the king of Vijianagar, while the 

 tax on rice lands was |th of the gross produce, that on cocoanut 

 plantations was quite half the gross produce. 



7. The following extracts from the records of the Madura 

 Jesuit Mission give the particulars con- . 

 rev?n;;':^[strltion nected with the land revenue administration 

 under the Vijianagar of the Madura couutry uudor the rule of 

 Bo/ereigns. ^-^^ viceroys of the Vijianagar kings in the 



17th century : '^ The King or Grand Nayakar of Madura has 

 but a few domains which depend immediately on him, that is. 

 to say, which form his property (for, in this country, the great 

 are sole proprietors, and the people are only tenants or farm- 

 ers) ; all the other lands are the domains of a multitude of 

 pettv princes, or tributary lords ; these latter have each in his 

 own domains the full administration of the police and of justice, 

 if justice there is at all; they levy contributions which com- 

 prise at least the half of the produce of the lands ; of thi?r they 

 make three parts, the first of which is reserved as tribute to* 

 the Grand Nayakar; the second is employed in supporting 

 troops, which the lord is bound to furnish him with in case of 

 war ; yie third belongs to the lord. The Grand Nayakars of 

 Madura, like those of Tanjore and Gingee, are themselves 

 tributarie^of Vijianagar, to whom fliey pay, or ought to pay, 

 each one an annual tribute of from 6 to 10 millions of francs. 

 But they are not punctual in this payment ; often they delay, 

 and even sometimes refuse insolently ; then Vijianagar arrives 

 or sends one of his generals at the head of a hundred thousand 

 men to enforce payment of all arrears, with interest, and in such 

 cases, which are frequent, it is the poor people who are to 

 expiate the fault of their princes ; the whole country is devas- 

 tated and the population is either pillaged or massacred." The 

 revenue administration of the Mahratta chief, Ekoji, a half- 

 brother of Sivaji, in Tanjore, appears from a letter of a Jesuit 

 missionary in 1683 to have been, if possible, even more oppres- 

 sive. The missionary states : " Tanjore is in the possession of 

 Ekoji with the exception of a few provinces which have .been 

 seized by the Marava. Here is a short sketch of the adminis- 

 tration of this country. Ekoji appropriates four-fifths of the 

 produce. This is not all. Instead of accepting these four- 

 fifths in kind, he insists that they should be paid in money ; 

 and as he takes care to fix the price himself much beyond that 

 which the proprietor can realize, the result is that the sale of 

 the entire produce does not suffice to pay the entire contri- 



