Book I. Sect. 3. Persian 66 was dotted over with small mounds, which indicate Chap. iv. the course of cannauts, once the source of riches and fertility, now all choked up and dry, for there is neither man nor cultivation to require their aid1." The district of Nishapore was another celebrated seat of Persian cultivation. "It was added," says Mr. Frazer, (speaking of the information he received concerning this place ;) "that in the different departments of Nishapore they reckon 14000 distinct villages, all inhabited, and irrigated by 12000 cannauts and 18 small rivers from the mountains. This magnificent detail is no doubt greatly exaggerated, being but a reiteration of the traditional account of this place in its days of high prosperity: no such vast population or cultivation now exists; most of the villages are ruinous; the cannauts, the remains of which, covering the plain, may serve almost to attest the truth of the above statement, are now choked up and dry?" Now the principal revenue of the monarchs of Persia is derived from the produce of the earth, of which they are the supreme owners. It could not escape even their eyes, blinded as they are by greediness and habits of rapine, that the cost of thus wresting cultivated spots from the desert, and maintaining them in fruitfulness, would never be incurred, unless the undertakers felt really secure that their property in them would be subsequently respected. By the laws of Persia, therefore, he who brings water to the surface, where it never was before, is 1 Frazer, p. 118. 2 Frazer, p. 405. Book I. Chap. iv. Persian guaranteed by the sovereign in the hereditary possession of the land fertilized by him, and while a reserved rent of one-fifth of the produce is paid to the Shah, the possessor disposes of it as he pleases, Ryots. and is effectually its proprietor, subject to a rent charge. If he chooses to let out the water, at money rents, to other persons who have lands, which already pay the royal rent in produce, then the rent of the water is his own: the crown profits only by additional fertility thus bestowed upon spots, in the produce of which it shares. Among the Persians of property, most usually those in office, making cannauts is a favorite speculation; the villagers, too, often join and construct them, and these are the best proofs that this guarantee of the sovereign is faithfully observed. Making proper allowances, however, for the more steady respect for subordinate interests, which the outlay for artificial irrigation makes necessary on the part of the Persian sovereigns, their management of the territory they own is very similar to what we have seen prevails in India. The ryots inhabiting villages cultivate the soil in common, or in allotments determined among themselves; their interest in the land is hereditary. "The original customary law concerning property," says Mr. Frazer, "clearly provided with much consideration for the security of the ryot. The rights of the villager were guarded at least as carefully as these of his lord: his title to cultivate his portion of land descends to him from the original commencement of the village to which he belongs, and can neither be disputed or refused him, Chap. iv. Book I. nor can he forfeit it, nor can the lord of the village eject any ryot, while he conducts himself well and pays his portion of the rent1." Sect. 3. Persian Ryots. The rent at present exacted from the ryot is one-fifth part of the produce; it has varied and been differently assessed at the discretion of different Princes, more particularly Nushirvan and Timour. The Persians now state that by ancient custom only one-tenth was due: that the other tenth was agreed to be paid on a promise that the saaduraut or irregular taxes should cease; but that though the additional tenth has been exacted, the taxes remain at least as oppressive as before". Above these hereditary cultivators is a subordinate proprietor, often called by Frazer the lord of the village, who is entitled to one-tenth of the crop. In this man the Indian Zemindar is immediately recognized but though the word Zemindar was originally Persian, it does not appear to be in familiar use in Persia at present. The right of hereditary succession to this intermediate interest cannot have been fully recognized for any very long period. Chardin states that in his time the practice of taking leases for 99 years from the crown was only beginning to establish itself. Bernier distinctly denies that such a thing as private property in land was known in Persia. The interests of this class of men have naturally gathered strength and permanence in Persia, even more rapidly than in India, from the necessity of advances for the purposes of Chap. iv. Sect. 3. Persian irrigation, which were usually made by them. Their Book I. right to the tenth of the produce seems to be now so completely severed from the duties of collection, that the jealousy of the Persian monarchs forbids Ryots. them sometimes even to reside in their villages, to prevent, it is said, their tyrannizing over the ryots3, more probably to get rid of their interference in resisting the exactions of the government officers, which it is found they can do more effectually than the ryots themselves1. There are persons in Persia who boast, perhaps with truth, that these estates, as they call them, have been in the hands of their family for a long succession of years. Did there exist a real body of landed proprietors in Persia, as secure in the possession of their heritage as these men are in their limited interests, the despotism of the Shah would at once be shackled. But men entitled to collect one-tenth of the produce from tenants hereditary like themselves, while the great sovereign proprietor is collecting a fifth at the same time, are little likely to acquire an influence in the country, sufficient to protect either the subordinate ryots or themselves; and accordingly the chief weight of what is probably one of the worst governments in the world, rests upon the necks of the cultivators. "There is no class of men (says Frazer) 3 Frazer, p. 208. 4 Frazer, p. 390. The Ketkhoda (head man of the village) observed that those ryots who account with their landlords, are better off than those who account directly to government, from the officers of which the poorer classes suffer great extortions. Sect. 3. Persian 66 66 Book I. "whose situation presents a more melancholy picChap. iv. "ture of oppression and tyranny than the farmers "and cultivators of the ground in Persia. They live continually under a system of extortion and injustice, from which they have no means of escape, and which is the more distressing, because "it is indefinite both in form and extent, for no "man can tell when, how, or to what amount de"mands upon him may without warning be made. "It is upon the farmers and peasantry that the "whole extortion practised in the country finally alights. The king wrings from his ministers and governors; they must procure the sums required "from the heads of districts, who in their turn "demand it from the zabuts or ketkhodahs of vil 66 66 66 66 lages, and these must at last squeeze it from the ryots; each of these intermediate agents must also "have their profits, so that the sum received by "the king bears small proportion to that which is 66 66 paid by the ryots. Every tax, every present, every fine, from whomsoever received or demanded "in the first instance, ultimately falls on them, "and such is the character of their rulers, that the only measure of these demands is the power to "extort on the one hand, and the ability to give "or retain on the other1." 66 1 Frazer, p. 173. |