chain of officers. Everywhere wise amins and
honest surveyors were deputed to measure the
land, to prepare the record of well marked out
holdings (raqba), and to distinguish arable land
from rocky soils and water-courses. Where a
village had lost its headman (muqaddam), he took
care to appoint a new headman from the persons
whose character gave the best promise of their
readiness to promote cultivation and take
sympathetic care of the peasantry. The poorer ryots were granted loans (taqavvi) from the public
treasury, for the purchase of cattle, seeds and
other needful materials of agriculture, and the
advance was recovered at harvest by instalments.
In one year he granted loans of forty to fifty
thousand rupees to the ryots of Khandesh and
Berar for making embankments to impound
water for irrigating low-lying lands.
To prevent partiality or corruption "this honest and God-fearing diwan often dragged the measuring chain with his own hands" and checked the survey work of his subordinates. By personal inquiry in the fields and villages he won the confidence of the peasantry; he allotted the holdings with care and attention to detail, so that the ryots prospered at the same time that the revenue increased. He had the wisdom to modify his system according to differences of