1 POPULATION, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS. 83
2 and months, being all the while fed and paid by
3 the parties, caressed and threatened by their
4 chiefi, their relatives and friends, infli>enced by
5 party spirit, governed by fear, and little veri-
6 fying the saying common amongst them of
7 " Punch men Purmfisur." Five diflferent modes
8 of accommodation were in general adoption
9 amongst these Punchayts : — Ist. An equal di-
10 vision of the land in dispute. 2nd. The Pun-
11 chayt selected the oldest and most respectable
12 member of their committee to define the limit,
13 the others consenting to abide by his award.
14 3rd. A moiety of the line of demarcation was
15 drawn by the arbiters of the one party, and the
16 remaining portion by those of the other. 4th.
17 The Punchayt referred the final adjustment to
18 an old inhabitant of a neighbouring village,
19 upon whose local knowledge and experience
20 they placed more reliance than on their own
21 limited information. 5th. It sometimes oc-
22 curred to the Punchayt to leave the division in
23 the hands of one of the disputants, whose pro-
24 bity and reputation were established in the
25 vicinity. Village boundary disputes, attended
26 with aggravating circumstances, between the
27 chiefs and cultivators of contiguous and rival
28 states, are of daily occurrence, and the right and
29 title to the smallest strip of land is contested
30 with an obstinacy quite disproportionate to its