when the Vijayanagar Government introduced, more than five hundred years ago, a system of administration under which the local Jain chiefs, though owing allegiance to an overlord, became more independent in their relations with the people of the country. Under the Bednūr kings, and still more under the Mysore rule, the power of the chiefs was also swept away, but the old organisation was not reverted to.
The Bants are now the chief land-owning and cultivating class in South Canara, and are, with the exception of the Billavas or toddy-drawers, the most numerous caste in the district. " At the present day, the Bants of Canara are largely the independent and influential landed gentry, some would say, perhaps, the substantial yeomanry. They still retain their manly independence of character, their strong and well developed physique, and they still cany their heads with the same haughty toss as their forefathers did in the stirring fighting days when, as an old proverb had it, 'The slain rested in the yard of the slayer,' and when every warrior constantly carried his sword and shield. Both men and women of the Bant community are among the comeliest of Asiatic races, the men having high foreheads and well-turned aquiline noses."
In a note on the agricultural economy of South Canara, Rao Sahib T. Raghaviah writes *[1] that "the ryot (cultivator) of South Canara loves to make his land look attractive, and every field is lined with the lovely areca, and the stately palm. The slopes adjoining the rich fields are studded with plantations of jack, mango, cashew, plantain and other fruit and shade trees, and the ryot would not even omit to daub his trees with the
- ↑ * Indian Review, VII, 1906.
