1839.] Report on the District of Azimgurh. J '27 



not terminate its operations in the Pergunnah till the end of the next 

 season. It thus happened that this was the first part of the district 

 prepared for settlement, and in addition to the other causes which 

 urged a speedy termination of the settlement, it became necessary 

 at once to enter on the revision and completion of the operations here, 

 or to remain unoccupied. The settlement was completed and reported 

 in the middle of 1835. Two years' experience since then has con- 

 vinced me that some of the assessments are higher than they ought to 

 have been. Some of the errors were those of my predecessors, which 

 I left uncorrected ; some my own, into which I was betrayed either 

 by erroneous surveys, or by the partial assumption and application 

 of averages. I think, however, that these cases are few. During the 

 two years above alluded to, a Jurama of nearly three lacs has been 

 collected, with a real balance of only one or two hundred rupees at 

 the close of the year. Even this has been realized soon after ; and in 

 addition, large sums have been collected in each year, the balance of 

 former years. In one instance, a small village was sold for its arrear 

 and fetched a good price, and in another a farming arrangement was 

 made for the share of a defaulter. Both these cases were peculiar, 

 and with exception to them, the whole has been collected by the or- 

 dinary methods. Imprisonment of the person, and distress of personal 

 property, have been very rarely resorted to. It is probable that so long- 

 as the present high prices of Sugar are maintained, and the demand 

 for Indigo and Opium remain what they are now, little difficulty 

 will be experienced in collecting the revenue during ordinary seasons. 

 Any failure, however, of these sources of profit, or adverse seasons, will 

 probably throw some of the villages, for a time at least, on the hands 

 of Government. It was for some time a question in my own mind, 

 whether I should propose a reduction of the Jumma on a few estates. 

 The remission of 2 or 3,000 rupees on ten or eleven villages would 

 have been all that was required. But after consulting with the most 

 intelligent natives in the district, it seemed best to avoid shaking the 

 confidence of the people in their settlement, or to check the efforts 

 they were rapidly making to improve their estates by extending the 

 cultivation, or increasing the means of irrigation. If the opinion had 

 once prevailed, that default and reluctance to pay might produce a 

 reduction of assessment, these industrious habits would have been 

 checked, and many estates have been injured at a small advantage to 

 a few. The operation too of this principle would have probably been 

 felt in other Pergunnahs where no such inequality existed. 



131st. The confusion in this Pergunnah was not confined to the 

 assessment. The demarcation of boundaries was also attended here 



