1847.] 



Laccadi'ce Islands. 



11 



market for their principal surplus produce at fair and unclianging 

 prices. Communication being open during three or four months of the 

 year only, were their whole surplus raw produce on their own hands, 

 they might find difficulty in watching the market, and the same 

 cause would render it easy to cheat and oppress them. In practice 

 at least they are quite unaffected by the salt monopoly, and the tobac- 

 co monopoly only reaches them indirectly by enabling the smugglers 

 of Bengal tobacco to demand higher prices than a mere remuneration. 



In the islands subject to Cannanore all surplus produce of cocoa- 

 nuts as well as of coir is monopolized by the rulers for the former, 

 the islanders are paid 4 Rupees per 1,000, probably 50 per cent, 

 below the market value, for the latter only llj Rupees per candy 

 are allowed. A good deal of land also, I understand, is cultivated 

 on account of the Beeby by her Kavilgar probably mainly by means 

 of pressed labour. Intercourse between the islands is a good deal 

 discouraged as our islanders smuggle for the Beeby's subjects. The 

 population of the Beeby's island is stated to be about 3,000. 



Rights to the Soil, The proprietary right in the soil seems never 

 Grants, Nazzers, &c. , , , . p , . 



to have been a question or much importance on 



these islands. Unable at first to pay any assessment, the monopoly 



of the surplus produce became originally the fund from which a 



revenue was derived, and soon proved more productive than any 



equitable assessment. As increased production only could augment 



this fund, every facility for the occupation of waste land seems to 



have been afforded. Nazzers were never demanded and no traces of 



grants exist, or were ever heard of. No enclosures or land marks exist 



throughout the islands except in the tot of Ameendevy, nor does it 



appear that there ever was any system for the occupation of waste 



land. Each ryot planted as he was able, and claimed no other right 



than that of replanting where his tree had formerly stood. The 



properties in trees are consequently detached, and intermixed in the 



most extraordinary manner; often single trees at great distances from 



each other and known only to the proprietor. The custom prevails 



of marking the trees with certain house marks, as we do sheep in 



large droves belonging to diff'erent owners. In Ameendevy where 



the whole soil has been long fully occupied, immemorial enjoyment 



has given certain persons a prescriptive right to plots of ground, but 



on the other islands no proprietary right in certain parts of the soil 



as against each other is contended for, though strenuously and most 



