loan of money, or if you offer to
pay him the rent by half-yearly or quarterly instalments, you taking
all the risk of collecting in turn from each ryot individually, he is
often only too glad to accept your offer, and giving you a lease of
the village for whatever term may be agreed on, you step in as
virtually the landlord, and the ryots have to pay their rents to you.

In many cases by careful management, by remeasuring lands, settling
doubtful boundaries, and generally working up the estate, you can much
increase the rental, and actually make a profit on your bargain with
the landlord. This department of indigo work is called Zemindaree.
Having, then, got the village in lease, you summon in all your tenants;
shew them their rent accounts, arrange with them for the punctual
payment of them, and get them to agree to cultivate a certain
percentage of their land in indigo for you.

This percentage varies very considerably. In some places it is one
acre in five, in some one in twenty. It all depends on local
circumstances. You select the land, you give the seed, but the ryot
has to prepare the field for sowing, he has to plough, weed, and reap
the crop, and deliver it at the factory. For the indigo he gets so
much per acre, the price being as near as possible the average price
of an acre of ordinary produce: taking the average out-turn and prices
of, say, ten years. It used formerly to be much less, but the ryot
nowadays gets nearly double for his indigo what he got some ten or
fifteen years ago, and this, although prices have not risen for the
manufactured article, and the prices of labour, stores, machinery,
live stock, etc., have more than doubled. In some parts the ryot gets
paid so much per bundle of plants delivered at the vats, but generally
in Behar, at least in north Behar, he is paid so much per acre or
_Beegah_. I use the word acre as being more easily understood by
people at home than Beegah. The Beegah varies in different districts,
but is generally about two-thirds of an acre.

When his rent account, then, comes to be made out, the ryot gets
credit for the price of his indigo grown and delivered; and this very
often suffices, not only to clear his entire rent, but to leave a
margin in hard cash for him to take home. Before the beginning of the
indigo season, however, he comes into the factory and takes a cash
advance on account of the indigo to be grown. This is often a great
help to him, enabling him t