File:Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants (1851) (14761139576).jpg

Identifier: pictorialhistoci00sear (find matches)
Title: Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants
Year: 1851 (1850s)
Authors: Sears, Robert, 1810-1892
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, R. Sears
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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appy simplicity which distinguished them in former days. It is not exactly known by what tenure lands were held in India, or whowere the actual proprietors of the soil. The kings were ostensibly the own-ers of all lands within their dominions, except that belonging to the priests,and certainly derived a revenue from them ; but it is supposed that in manyinstances other persons became the proprietors, by paying a fixed sum annu-ally to the government, and receiving the rents for themselves of the farmersor ryots ; but whether the latter ever were the owners of the fields they cul-tivated, seems a matter of uncertainty. They enjoyed, however, most ofthe advantages of land-owners; for they were left in possession of threefourths of the produce of their labor, and their farms descended to theirchildren, being equally divided among the sons, who were bound to main-tain their sisters as long as they remained unmarried. The husbandmen never lived in isolated farms, but associated together in
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1-3 m Pi CD-«! 1-3 52: EARLY HISTORY. 365 a village, which was sometimes surrounded by a wall, and defended by alittle citadel; sometimes enclosed by a fence for the protection of the cattleat night. The headman was looked up to as the father of the village, whoregulated all its affairs, and administered justice in the manner of the ancientpatriarchs, holding his simple court under a tree. Village-lands were parcelled out in a peculiar manner, being first dividedinto different qualities, some parts being more fertile than others, and notadapted for the same kind of produce ; therefore every farmer took a faLshare of the inferior with the good, and thus no one had greater advantagesthan another. The principal objects of cultivation were cotton, sugar,spices, corn, rice, and various other sorts of grain ; the first of these produc-tions supplying the material for the chief manufactures of the Indians, whichwere calicoes and muslins, famous in ancient as well as modern times forthe beau

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