The council of Venice was not more arbitrary than the Patel board of Kotah; even the ministers saw the sword suspended over their heads, while they were hated as much as feared by all but the individual who recognized their utility. It would be imagined that with a council so vigilant the regent would feel perfectly secure. Not so: he had spies over them. In short, to use the phrase of one of his ministers—a man of acute perception and powerful understanding, when talking of the vigour of his mental vision—when his physical organs had failed, _pani pina, aur mut tolna_, which we will not translate. =The Bohra.=—The Patel, now the virtual master of the peasantry, was aware that fine and confiscation would follow the discovery of direct oppression of the ryots; but there were [534] many indirect modes by which he could attain his object, and he took the most secure, the medium of their necessities. Hitherto, the impoverished husbandman had his wants supplied by the Bohra, the sanctioned usurer of each village; now, the privileged Patel usurped his functions, and bound him by a double chain to his purposes. But we must explain the functions of the Bohra, in order to show the extent of subordination in which the ryot was placed. The Bohra of Rajputana is the Métayer of the ancient system of France. He furnishes the cultivator with whatever he requires for his pursuits, whether cattle, implements, or seed; and supports him and his family throughout the season until the crop is ready for the sickle, when a settlement of accounts takes place. This is done in two ways: either by a cash payment, with stipulated interest according to the risk previously agreed upon; or, more commonly, by a specified share of the crop, in which the Bohra takes the risk of bad seasons with the husbandman. The utility of such a person under an oppressive government, where the ryot can store up nothing for the future, may readily be conceived; he is, in fact, indispensable. Mutual honesty is required; for extortion on the part of the Bohra would lose him his clients, and dishonesty on that of the peasant would deprive him of his only resource against the sequestration of his patrimony. Accordingly, this monied middleman enjoyed great consideration, being regarded as the patron of the husbandman. Every peasant had his particular Bohra, and not unfrequently from the adjacent village in preference to his own.