=Basāi, Slavery.=—Slavery is to be found in successive stages of society of Europe, but we have no parallel in Rajwara (at least in name) to the agricultural serfs and _villains_ of Europe; nor is there any intermediate term denoting a species of slavery between the _Gola_[3.4.9] of the Hindu chief’s household and the free Rajput but the singular one of _basai_, which must be explained, since it cannot be translated. This class approximates closely to the _tributarii_ and _coloni_, perhaps to the _servi_, of the Salic Franks, “who were cultivators of the earth, and subject to residence upon their master’s estate, though not destitute of property or civil rights.”[3.4.10] Precisely the condition of the cultivator in Haraoti who now tills for a taskmaster the fields he formerly owned, degraded to the name of _hali_,[3.4.11] a ploughman. “When small proprietors,” says Hallam, “lost their lands by mere rapine, we may believe their liberty was hardly less endangered.” The _hali_ of Haraoti knows the bitter truth of this inference, which applies to the subject immediately before us, [178] the _basai_. The portion of liberty the latter has parted with, was not originally lost through compulsion on the part of the protector, but from external violence, which made this desperate remedy necessary. Very different from the _hali_ of Kotah, who is servile though without the title—a serf in condition but without the patrimony; compelled to labour for subsistence on the land he once owned; chained to it by the double tie of debt and strict police; and if flight were practicable, the impossibility of bettering his condition from the anarchy around would render it unavailing. This is not the practice under the patriarchal native government, which, with all its faults, retains the old links of society, with its redeeming sympathies; but springs from a _maire du palais_, who pursued an unfeeling and mistaken policy towards this class of society till of late years. Mistaken ambition was the origin of the evil; he saw his error, and remedied it in time to prevent further mischief to the State. This octogenarian ruler, Zalim Singh of Kotah, is too much of a philosopher and politician to let passion overcome his interests and reputation; and we owe to the greatest despot a State ever had the only regular charter which at present exists in Rajasthan, investing a corporate body with the election of their own magistrates and the making of their own laws, subject only to confirmation; with all the privileges which marked in the outset the foundation of the free cities of Europe, and that of boroughs in England.