ani merchants, and the
gradual displacement of his more immediate followers through the energy
of these people, was not imperceptible to Yakoob Beg, and he accordingly
adopted measures for preventing his nobles selling their land without
his sanction. The receipts from this _Ushr_ were very considerable, and
it was the main source of his revenue for years. We have some idea of
the approximate value of land in Kashgar. The method of measuring land
for sale, and consequently also for taxation, is peculiar. It is not by
any given size that it is computed, or, indeed, strictly speaking by the
amount of crop it produces; but at a rate in accordance with the amount
of wheat with which it had been planted. The average rate was about a
pound for as much land as was sown with 20 lb. of wheat. The tenant, as
has been said, paid the government dues and handed over three-fourths of
the net produce to the landlord as rent, receiving for his portion only
the one-fourth remaining. Under this system it was only in very
prosperous years that any but very large tenants made sufficient to earn
a competent livelihood. In bad years it is possible that the landlord
had to satisfy himself with a smaller share, if he was not induced to
surrender his claim altogether for the disastrous period. But the
tax-farmers, entrusted with the collection of this rate, were eager to
become rich, no less than to earn a good name with the authorities for
bringing in a list with no defaulters. The unfortunate people were
completely at their mercy, and without any means of ascertaining the
accuracy of the claim, or of opposing extortionate demands on the part
of the tax-collectors. They paid without a murmur, perhaps without a
suspicion of the imposition that was being practised upon them, the sum
demanded of them, if they were able; and as their dues were payable
without delay and on demand before anything else was taken out of the
total sum of the produce, the Athalik Ghazi received his share with
regularity, and his tax-collector pocketed the excess sum for his own
satisfaction. In many cases it is known that the amount claimed by the
official exceeded by threefold the legal demand. Such a system was no
less hurtful to the ruler than it was ruinous to the people. That in one
tax alone a larger sum should be extracted from the people for the
benefit of the officials than was contributed for the necessities of the
state, exhibited a very loose system of supervi