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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 24, p. 396.

396 WON DISTRICT The Mughal land revenue demand in th6 pardanas which formed Wcrn District was, according to the Ain-i-Ahl)ari, 4.8 lakhs. At the time of the Assignment in 1853 it had fallen to Rs. 70,000, or little more than one-seventh of the demand in Akbar's reign. The wars, famines, and maladministration of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth centuries were the principal cause of this enormous decrease in production. The Gonds of Chânda were never thoroughly subdued by the Mughals ; and their depredations, combined with the exactions of the power which was nominally supreme, must have gone far towards exhausting the resources of the District. By the time that all the authority which the Mughal emperors of Delhi ever exercised in Berâr had in fact passed into the hands of their great lieutenant in the Deccan, the Blionslas had established their power in Wűn District, and it may be presumed that they contributed but little to the coffers of the Nizâm. They rendered the District one service by finally extinguishing Gond rule. When Berâr fell into the hands of the revenue farmers, the cultivators fled from their oppression into British territory. Since the Assignment the recovery has been more gradual than in other Districts, for, except in a few favoured tracts, the soil is not such as to attract cultivators who have obtained hold- ings elsewhere. It was this consideration which induced the Adminis- tration to lease land, under rules modified from time to time, not by fields, but by integral villages, and thus to introduce an unaccustomed tenure into the Province. The first regular survey and settlement since the Assignment took place between the years 1873 and 1876, and is still in force except in the Darwhâ tâluh, where the settlement was revised in 1898, the new rates of assessment being brought into force in 1902-3. Under the original settlement the average rate per acre was R. 0-7-6, with a maximum of Rs. 1-8 and a minimum of R. o--1-6. The average assessment per acre in 'wet' lands was Rs. 3. The new assess- ments in the Dârwhâ Mluh work out to a maximum of Rs. 1-12, a minimum of R. 0-3, and an average of R. 0-.15-6 per acre, the whole demand being little more than 15 per cent. in excess of the old revenue. Land irrigated from tanks and streams is assessed at a maximum combined land and water rate of Rs. 8 per acre ; that irrigated from wells sunk before the original settlement is assessed at the maximum rate for 'dry' land in the same neighbourhood ; and that irrigated from wells made later is treated in all respects as 'dry' land. Rice land is assessed at a maximum rate of Rs. 6 per acre. Collections on account of land revenue and revenue from all sources have been as given on the next page, in thousands of rupees. Outside the municipality of YEOTMliL, local affairs are managed