1839] 



0)1 the Stai'isfics of Dukhun. 



429 



on of acres : the ramifications of ancient usages amongst a people are in 

 general too deeply fixed to be eradicated by legislative enactments. A 

 plant maybe cut off by (he surface, but there is always a latent dispo- 

 sition to reproduction from the mitouched roots. Whatever maj^ be our 

 success, a revenue survey was imperatively called for under the indefi- 

 nite Hindoo land denominations, to enable a collector to regulate his 

 assessments with a shadow of equity. 



AVith respect to the denominations under which land is assessed in 

 the comparatively limited space of my inquiries, their variety and 

 absurdity demonstrate a wanton hharreness that could scarcely have 

 been looked for in a people repute lly siinple and uniform in their opini- 

 ons and economy. The assessment on a beegah isdefiniie as it depended 

 on positive measurement, and I have remarked that it obtains at, and in 

 the neighbourhood of the established seats of Moosulman authority, as 

 at Ahmednuggur, Purunda, Sholapoor, ]\rohol, Barlonee, Wamoree, 

 Tacklee, &c. The Chahoor and Rookeh, as at Alkootee, Kheir, Wan- 

 gee, Taimbournee, Kurkumb, Angur, Mahreh, Kurmalleh, Kurjut and 

 Meerujgaon, being multiples of the beegah, are intelligible. Even the 

 Doree or rope, used at Hungavvarreh andNeembee, as ii implies measure- 

 ment and superficial extent, is admissible. The old Hindoo terms, 

 Kui:dhee and Mun, at Ranjungaon, Jamgaon, Parnair, &c. &c. as they 

 are founded on positive properties, furnish suflliciently precise ideas. 

 But the Tukeh, with its constituents of Sujgunnees and Piceh, (copper 

 coin,) at Dytna and Ankolner, the seer of weight and its Nowtanks or | 

 Seer, as at Koorul and Wangee, and the Pyhnee and its Annas^ at Ser- 

 rolee, Bruhmunwarreh and Muhr, are not reducible by any operation 

 of the mind to an appreciable portion of land, whose produce shall 

 admit of the government share on it being equitably assessed. The as- 

 sessment by the hatchet, rude as it is, still involves the idea of as much 

 copse-wood land as one hatchet can clear, and one man can sow and 

 reap in the year. To add to the confusion, similar denominations of 

 land are not made up of common and uniform constituents. The Tukkeh 

 at Kothoul is raised from the Rookeh, each of wdiich is supposed to con- 

 tain 10 beegahs, or 71 acres. At Ankolner the Tukkeh is composed of 

 Sujgunnees, Piceh aud Rookeh ; the Rookeh being equal only to 21 bee- 

 gahs, or 1| acres. At Lakungaon there are 10 Tukkeh to one Pyhnee, 

 and as the Pyhnee is said to contain 30 beegahs, the Tukkeh here con- 

 tains only 3 beegahs instead of 4S0, as at Teliegaon ; or 210, as at 

 Ashtee. 



H Oao-sixteenth of a rupee. 



