Sir J.Malcolm relates that he was very anxious to get the village of Bassi in Indore State repopulated when it had lain waste for thirty-six years.

He had arranged with the Bhil headman of a neighbouring village to bring it under cultivation on a favourable lease.

The plan had other advantages, and Holkar's minister was most anxious to put it into execution, but said that this could not be done until every possible effort had been made to discover whether any descendant of the former _patel_ or of any _watandar_ or hereditary cultivator of Bassi was still in existence; for if such were found, he said, "even we Marathas, bad as we are, cannot do anything which interferes with their rights." None such being found at the time, the village was settled as proposed by Malcolm; but some time afterwards, a boy was discovered who was descended from the old _patel's_ family, and he was invited to resume the office of headman of the village of his forefathers, which even the Bhil, who had been nominated to it, was forward to resign to the rightful inheritor.

[57] Similarly the Maratha princes, Sindhia, Holkar and others, are recorded to have set more store by the headship of the insignificant Deccan villages, which were the hereditary offices of their families, than by the great principalities which they had carved out for themselves with the sword.

The former defined and justified their position in the world as the living link and representative of the continuous family comprising all their ancestors and all their descendants; the latter was at first regarded merely as a transient, secular possession, and a source of wealth and profit.