The sovereign proprietor of the soil lets it out by the year,
in farms or villages, to men who depend entirely upon the year's
return for the means of payment. He, in his turn, lets the lands in
detail to those who till them, and who depend for their subsistence,
and for the means of paying their rents, upon the returns of the
single harvest. There is no manufacture anywhere to be seen, save of
brass pots and rude cooking utensils; no trade or commerce, save in
the transport of the rude produce of the land to the great camp at
Gwalior, upon the backs of bullocks, for want of roads fit for
wheeled carriages. No one resides in the villages, save those whose
labour is indispensably necessary to the rudest tillage, and those
who collect the dues of government, and are paid upon the lowest
possible scale. Such is the state of the Gwalior territories in every
part of India where I have seen them.[21] The miseries and misrule of
the Oudh, Hyderabad, and other Muhammadan governments, are heard of
everywhere, because there are, under these governments, a middle and
higher class upon the land to suffer and proclaim them; but those of
the Gwalior state are never heard of, because no such classes are
ever allowed to grow up upon the land.
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