106 Report on the District of Azimgurh. [Feb. 



of the Government is excessive, the proprietors are compelled to throw 

 their profits as cultivators into the common fund, and of course those 

 who do not cultivate could not share the profits, whilst amongst 

 the cultivators the profits would be made to correspond with the culti- 

 vation. Accordingly we find that since the cession, and especially 

 lately, when the cultivated area, and consequent assets of the village, 

 have increased without a correspondent increase of demand, many 

 changes have taken place, and villages which formerly paid Beegah 

 dam (i. e. by a rate on the Seer,) now pay Khoo taitee (i. e. according 

 to ancestral shares.) 



64th. In the large Rajpoot communities where the whole of the lands 

 are Seer, though the ancestral rights are well known, yet the custom 

 of paying according to the Seer prevails from another cause, viz. 

 from the constant transfer of land or of shares (generally by mortgage, 

 but sometimes by sale) which takes place amongst the several proprie- 

 tors. The natural multiplication of some branches of the family 

 of course reduces their shares to so small a fraction that some are 

 obliged to seek other modes of subsistence, and leave their shares 

 in the hands of the wealthier members of the family. In other cases, 

 want or temporary distress induces the mortgage of part of the 

 share. The mortgage generally conveys the land with its portion 

 of the revenue. Instances where the land is mortgaged free of reve- 

 nue are rare, and the periods of such mortgages are short, nor are they 

 often made, except to regular money dealers, the security of course 

 being bad, as it is liable to be endangered by default of the mortgager. 

 Wherever transfers of this sort are paid amongst the members of 

 the brotherhood, the effect is to lodge large portions of the village in the 

 hands of the wealthier proprietors ; and as the mortgages are often not 

 reduced for a long series of years, or perhaps not at all, and are at 

 length lost sight of, the ancestral shares cease to regulate the profits of 

 the proprietors. 



65 th. I would here remark a curious distinction in these mortgages, 

 which will often be found to afford the clue to disputes amongst 

 the proprietors. Mortgages are either of specific fields, or of shares ; the 

 former are called Khet khut, the latter Khoont khut. A man 

 in distress will mortgage away all his fields one after the other, and at 

 last he makes over his share also ; but this transfer, perhaps, carries no 

 land with it. Khet khut does not impair the proprietary right of the 

 mortgager, nor does it create any such right in the mortgagee ; but the 

 execution of Khoont khut at once terminates the connection of 

 the mortgager with the village, and substitutes the mortgagee in 

 his place. The Khoont khut probably conveys only a nominal right, 



