826 Memoir of Sylhety Kachar, ^ adjacent Distritcts. [No. 104. 



the smaller Taluks by the holders themselves, assisted by their families, 

 but the larger proprietors leased their lands to Packhastyuts, retained 

 some portion to be cultivated by their slaves, and assigned another 

 to their hereditary Ryots, a class of people whose position was analo- 

 gous to the Khudkhast Ryot on the one hand, and to that of agri- 

 cultural slaves on the other ; for while they had a right to cultivate 

 at fixed rates, and could not be removed, they were at the same time 

 not only answerable for the rent, but not at liberty to throw up their 

 lands, or quit the property. 



I have been thus prolix in describing the Kachar tenures, because 

 I think that an interest attaches to them on account of their antiquity, 

 and because to them I think the existing tenures in Assjam and 

 Sylhet may with truth be traced. I conclude that the land in the 

 latter district while it formed a part of Kamrup, were held by Raj 

 corporations precisely similar to those of Kachar ; as the Mahomedan 

 conquerors advanced, they altered the old state of things by admit- 

 ting the members of the Raj to engage individually for the revenue ; 

 or still more frequently by making grants to Musalman chiefs and 

 colonists, who soon found it their interest to compound with the ancient 

 proprietors, and accept a portion only of the Raj land, in preference to 

 having the whole thrown on their hands denuded of cultivators, who 

 rather than remain on their hereditary estates in the reduced condition 

 of Ryots, would emigrate to the eastward. The portions given up by 

 the old occupants would consist of shares of each Taluk, not of a 

 parcel under continuous boundaries; and hence probably arose the 

 strange intermixture of the lands composing the estates of the leading 

 proprietors in Sylhet, which are commonly found in numerous small 

 parcels, at great distances from each other. Acquisitions made subse- 

 quently by purchase or inheritance, with the practice of allowing all 

 lands belonging to one proprietor to be recorded in the Revenue 

 Offices under one number, without reference to their locality, would 

 of course in time swell the number of these isolations. 



It had always been the custom to regulate all revenue demands on the 

 land where the separate holdings were so very small, by a measurement 

 made with more or less accuracy ; and accordingly at the formation of 

 the perpetual settlement in Sylhet a departure from the general rule by 

 which such measurements were at the time prohibited, was sanctioned in 



