'Six Months in Persia. In two volumes. Vol. II' [‎261] (276/340)

Land-revenue System,
261
in one village; and Chatrut, on the slope
above the Zarand valley, has 700.
I sought in vain for any satisfactory traces of
the village community as exemplified in India.
It is certain that the population of a Persian
village, if it be of any size, cannot be merely
casual; indeed, the village has perhaps greater
permanence in Persia than elsewhere, because in
the general aridity of the country, village sites
are marked out by nature, and a water-supply
which supports a village now has probablyserved
the same purpose for a thousand years. It
follows that the arbabs must be related to each
other, and in certain villages of Sayyids I have
found their mutual relationship referred to a
common ancestor; but even here the principle
of joint and several responsibility for the land-
revenue was unknown, while in villaofes of the
7 O
ordinary type no tradition of a common an
cestry was discoverable. So far as I have seen,
each arbab seems to be responsible only for the
revenue demand on his own piece of land, or
that which corresponds to his own share in the
village. One method of division is to take the
six dungas into which everything, from a village
to the world, is supposed to be divisible, and
allow sixteen habbas to each dunga, thus mak-