1 APPENDIX — TRANSIT DUTIES. 213
2 of management. On some small estates, with compara-
3 tively few followers, it works well, but it is not at all
4 adapted to extended territory and great governments.*
5 The chief sources of oppression on the people, under
6 Sikh rule, emanate, 1st, from the exaction of the Siwaee-
7 Juma, or extraordinary imposts, levied in cash on every-
8 village under the general head of the Huq-Huhoohnuzur-
9 bhet, and branching out into a variety of names. 2nd,
10 The inhuman practice of Kar-hegar, or the impress of
11 labour of the inhabitants without recompense ; and 3rd,
12 the violence to which they are exposed from licentious
13 armed dependents, quartered in the forts and towers
14 which cover the country, and prey on the villages.
15 Every major and minor chief exercises the privilege
16 by prescription of taxing trade, yet the duties, though
17 levied at every ten to twenty miles, are light. A prac-
18 tice called hoonda-hara prevails in the mercantile com-
19 munity. A trader gives over charge of his caravan of
20 goods to a nanukpootrah, who engages to convey it for a
21 stipulated sum from Jughadree to Umritsur, the empo-
22 rium of the Sikh states, paying all the duties. The
23 nanukpoolraJis, from the sanctity which attaches to their
24 persons as the descendants of Nanur, the founder of
25 the Sikh faith, enjoy certain exemptions, and are less
26 subject to molestation from custom house importunity
27 than others. Beema, or insurance, may be had at a cheap
28 rate from the Nouhureeah merchants to all parts of India.
29 Should any grievous or vexatious tax be imposed on
30 • RcNJEET Singh, when urged by his oflBcers to abandon the farming
31 system, and introduce the Run and Butaee, always replies, " that he
32 cannot give his time and attention to the weighing and housing of grain."