detail in Chapter VIII. An unfavourable season in 1831-32' culminating in a destructive hurricane in May of the latter year, was followed by the disastrous famine of 1833; the three years 1835-38 were far from prosperous, the scarcity in the last of them almost amounting to famine; in 1839 a cyclone did great damage all along the coast and far inland; while the season of 1840-41 was almost equally calamitous. Moreover a great decline in the weaving trade had taken place owing to the abolition of the Government factories. The value of piece-goods exported decreased from 14 lakhs in 1825 to less than 2 lakhs in 1842. Numbers of people were thus thrown out of work.
The impoverishment of the district and the decline in its revenue at length, in 1843, led Government to send Sir Henry Montgomery, Bart., an able member of the Civil Service, to make enquiries. His report, dated March 18, 1844, dealt fully with the evils of the existing system. He attributed them chiefly to the inefficient management of the zamindars and proprietors, and the consequent rack-renting and impoverishment of the villages. He also lamented the want of adequate means of irrigation — especially the neglect of the Gódávari water — and the disrepair of the existing works; and his report led to the enquiries which ultimately resulted in the construction of the great anicut at Dowlaishweram and the transformation of the delta of the Gódávari consequent thereon.
The most important part of his report, however, was that devoted to a consideration of the revenue policy which should be adopted in the constantly increasing area which, as has been seen, was coming under the direct administration of Government.
The first villages which came (in 1813-14) into Government hands were rented out to the principal inhabitants jointly, on the system approved by the Board of Revenue in 1794. In 1817 that plan was relinquished, and for a number of years the Government land was administered under the ásará system of sharing the crops or the visabadi system of annual or periodical rents. In both cases the settlement was made with the ryots directly and without the intervention of a middleman; and the Collector was only authorized to rent the villages in the event of the inhabitants refusing to come to reasonable terms.
The ásará or sharing system was simply the conversion into money of the Government share, ascertained by estimate or by actual measurement of the grain, of the actual crop
