o get his seeds for his other lands,
perhaps ploughs, or to buy a cart, or clothes for the family, or to
replace a bullock that may have died; or to help to give a marriage
portion to a son or daughter that he wants to get married.

You will thus see that we have cultivation to look after in all the
villages round about the factory which we can get in lease. The ryot,
in return for his cash advance, agrees to cultivate so much indigo at
a certain price, for which he gets credit in his rent. Such, shortly,
is our indigo system. In some villages the ryot will estimate for us
without our having the lease at all, and without taking advances.
He grows the indigo as he would grow any other crop, as a pure
speculation. If he has a good crop, he can get the price in hard cash
from the factory, and a great deal is grown in this way in both
Purneah and Bhaugulpore. This is called _Kooskee_, as against the
system of advances, which is called _Tuccaree_.

The planter, then, has to be constantly over his villages, looking out
for good lands, giving up bad fields, and taking in new ones. He must
watch what crops grow best in certain places. He must see that he does
not take lands where water may lodge, and, on the other hand, avoid
those that do not retain their moisture. He must attend also to the
state of the other crops generally all over his cultivation, as the
punctual payment of rents depends largely on the state of the crops.
He must have his eyes open to everything going on, be able to tell the
probable rent-roll of every village for miles around, know whether the
ryots are lazy and discontented, or are industrious and hard-working.
Up in the early morning, before the hot blazing sun has climbed on
high, he is off on his trusty nag, through his Zeraats, with his
greyhounds and terriers panting behind him. As he nears a village, the
farm-servant in charge of that particular bit of cultivation, comes
out with a low salaam, to report progress, or complain that so-and-so
is not working up his field as he ought to do.

Over all the lands he goes, seeing where re-ploughing is necessary,
ordering harrowing here, weeding there, or rolling somewhere else. He
sees where the ditches need deepening, where the roads want levelling
or widening, where a new bridge will be necessary, where lands must be
thrown up and new ones taken in. He knows nearly all his ryots, and
has a kind word for every one he passes; asks after their crops, their