CHAP. IX.

AGRICULTURE.

IIL

BOOK THE nature of the soil and climate make agricul ture a simple art. A light plough, which he daily carries on his shoulder to the field, is sufficient, with the help of two small oxen, to enable the husbandman to make a shallow furrow in the sur

face, in which to deposit the grain. Sowing is often performed by a sort of drill (it is scarcely entitled to the addition of plough), which sheds the seed through five or six hollow canes; and a board, on which a man stands, serves for a harrow. A hoe, a mattock, and a few other articles, complete the implements of husbandry. Reaping is performed with the sickle: the grain is trodden out by cattle, brought home in carts, and kept in large dry pits under ground. The fields, though the bounds of each are carefully marked, are generally uninclosed; and nothing interrupts their continuity, except occasional varieties in the crops.

But although the Indian agriculture has such a character of simplicity, there are some peculiarities in it which call forth certain sorts of skill and industry not required elsewhere, and there are some descriptions of cultivation to which the former character does not at all apply.

IX.

The summer harvest is sufficiently watered by CHAP. the rains, but a great part of the winter crop requires artificial irrigation. This is afforded by rivers, brooks, and ponds; but chiefly by wells. In the best parts of the country there is a well in every field, from which water is conveyed in channels, and received in little beds, divided by low ridges of earth. It is raised by oxen in a large bucket, or rather bag, of pliant leather, which has often an ingenious contrivance, by which it empties itself when drawn up.

In some soils it is necessary, every three or four years, to eradicate the weeds by deep ploughing, which is done with a heavy plough, drawn by buffaloes, at a season when the ground is saturated with moisture. Manure is little used for general cultivation, but it is required in quantities for sugar cane, and many other sorts of produce. Many sorts also require to be carefully fenced; and are sometimes surrounded by mud walls, but usually by high and impenetrable hedges of cactus, euphorbium, aloe, and other strong prickly plants, as well as by other thorny bushes and creepers.

One great labour is to scare away the flocks of birds, which devour a great part of the harvest in spite of all precautions. Scarecrows have some effect, but the chief dependence is on a man, who stands on a high wooden stage overlooking the field, shouting, and throwing stones from a sling, which is so contrived as to make a loud crack at every discharge.

BOOK

III.

The Indians understand rotation of crops, though their almost inexhaustible soil renders it often unnecessary. They class the soils with great minuteness, and are well informed about the produce for which each is best, and the mode of cultivation which it requires. They have the injudicious practice of mixing different kinds of grain in one field, sometimes to come up together, and sometimes in succession.

Some of the facts mentioned affect armies and travellers. At particular seasons, the whole face of the country is as open and passable as the road, except near villages and streams, where the high inclosures form narrow lanes, and are great obstructions to bodies of passengers. Large watercourses, or ducts, by which water is drawn from rivers or ponds, also form serious obstacles.

These remarks are always liable to exceptions from varieties in different parts of India; and in the rice countries, as Bengal and the coast of Coromandel, they are almost inapplicable. There, the rice must be completely flooded, often requires to be transplanted at a certain stage, and is a particularly laborious and disagreeable sort of cultivation.

CHAP. X.

COMMERCE.

CHAP.

X.

THOUGH many articles of luxury are mentioned in Menu, it does not appear that any of them were the produce of foreign countries. Their abun- External dance, however, proves that there was an open trade between the different parts of India.

There is one passage in the Code* in which interest on money lent on risk is said to be fixed by "men well acquainted with sea voyages, or journeys by land." As the word used in the original for sea is not applicable to any inland waters, the fact may be considered as established, that the Hindús navigated the ocean as early as the age of the Code, but it is probable that their enterprise was confined to a coasting trade. An intercourse with the Mediterranean no doubt took place at a still earlier period; but it is uncertain whether it was carried on by land, or partly by sea; and, in either case, whether the natives of India took a share in it beyond their own limits. It seems not improbable that it was in the hands of the Arabs, and that part crossed the narrow sea from the coast on the west of Sind to Muscat, and then passed through Arabia to Egypt and Syria; while another branch might go by land, or along the coast, to Babylon * Chap. VIII. § 156, 157.

commerce.

and Persia.*

Our first clear accounts of the seas west of India give no signs of trade carried on by Indians in that direction. Nearchus, who commanded Alexander's fleet (in 326 в. c.), did not meet a single ship in coasting from the Indus to the Euphrates; and expressly says that fishing boats were the only vessels he saw, and those only in particular places, and in small numbers. Even in the Indus, though there were boats, they were few and small; for, by Arrian's account, Alexander was obliged to build most of his fleet himself, including all the larger vessels, and to man them with sailors from the Mediterranean.† The same

author, in enumerating the Indian classes, says of the fourth class (that of tradesman and artizans), "of this class also are the ship-builders and the sailors, as many as navigate the rivers :" from which we may infer that, as far as his knowledge went, there were no Indians employed on the sea.

The next accounts that throw light on the western trade of India are furnished by a writer of the second century before Christ§, whose knowledge only extended to the intercourse between Egypt and the south of Arabia, but who mentions cinnamon and cassia as among the articles imported,

* Vincent's Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, vol. ii. pp. 357-370.

† See Expeditio Alexandri, book vi. pp. 235, 236., ed. 1704, and Indica, chap. xviii. p. 332. of the same edition.

Indica, chap. xii. p. $25.

§ Agatharchides, preserved in Diodorus and Photius. See Vincent's Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, vol. ii. p. 25.