INDIAN FAMINES.

In the course of my travels through some of the faminedistricts of India I made notes of a few particulars which came under my observation? These notes I here give just as they were written down at the time.

The area of the scarcity and famine is immense, stretching, as it does, from the neighbourhood of Poona, not far from Bombay, to Tinnevelly, near the extreme south of the Madras Presidency. But it must not be supposed that the drought has been equally severe everywhere. Although in many places, where the usual rainfall is thirty-five or fortyfive inches, only fifteen or twenty have fallen, yet other parts of the country have been more favoured. Moreover, all the belts of land reached by the grand system of irrigation, which stretches between the Godāvarī, Kistna, and Kāverī rivers-fertilizing the soil wherever it penetrates, and forcing even haters of the English rule to admit that no other Raj has conferred such benefits on India-present a marvellous contrast to the vast tracts of arid waste which meet the eye of the traveller as he journeys by the Great Indian Peninsula, Madras, and South Indian Railways.

A sad feature in the spectacle is the condition of the cattle. As I travelled from one place to another, often diverging from the neighbourhood of the railway to less frequented outlying districts, I saw hundreds of lean, halffamished kine endeavouring to eke out a doomed existence on what could only in mockery be called herbage. When it is remembered that the cow is a principal source of

sustenance to Hindus of nearly all castes, and that no such animal as a cart-horse is to be found in India-all agricultural labour depending on the ox-some idea may be formed of the terrible calamity involved in a mortality among cattle. Even the cows and oxen that survive will be almost useless. Utterly enfeebled and emaciated, they will have little power left either to yield milk or to drag a plough through soil caked and indurated by months of unmitigated sunshine.

But the saddest feature of all is the condition of the human inhabitants of this great peninsula. I will simply recount what I know and testify of what I have seen with my own eyes in the Madras Presidency. Only a fortnight ago, I saw many thousands of poor famine-driven creatures from the villages round Madras collected on the shore and on the pier. They were crowding round the sacks of ricegrain, with which the sands for at least a mile were thickly covered and almost concealed from view, the grain-bags being often piled up in mounds to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. Yet no onslaught was made on the grain. A few men scattered about, armed with canes, were guarding the sacks for the merchants who owned them, and were sufficient to prevent any attempts at depredation though here and there I detected surreptitious efforts, not so much to make incisions, as to enlarge any happy defects apparent in the material which enclosed the coveted food. What generally happened was this:-Very few of the grain-bags were so well made as to make any leakage impossible, and sprinklings of rice were thus scattered about everywhere. The knowledge of this circumstance was the cause of the vast concourse of miserable, half-starved, emaciated creatures who had walked many miles to the spot. Men and women, old and young, even cripples, mothers with infants on their hips, and naked children-all more or less pitiable in their leanness and in their hard-set aspect of misery — were earnestly engaged in gleaning up every grain that escaped from the sacks on the pier and on the shore. Many were

provided with coarse sieves, by means of which a few ricegrains were, with infinite pains, separated from bushels of sand. On the pier every crevice was searched, and every discoloured grain eagerly scraped up, mixed as it was with dirt, ejected betel-juice, and filth of all kinds. This is a brief and imperfect description of what I saw with my own

eyes.

And now it will be asked, what measures are being taken to meet and mitigate the impending calamity? My answer is that, so far as I have observed, the Governments of Madras and Bombay are fully alive to their duty. They are organizing relief as speedily as possible. Before I left Madras, I saw thirty ships laden with grain at anchor in the roads. Large surf-boats were continually plying between the ships and the shore; heavily laden trucks were passing and repassing on the pier; and dozens of huge cranes, worked by countless coolies, were refilling the trucks as they returned empty. Thirty-five thousand human beings were daily being fed at Madras with cooked food or supplied with raw rice, but of these about two-thirds were taken in hand by benevolent rich natives. Kuddapah, Bellary, Kurnool, and other towns were also feeding a large number; some as many as 2,000 every day. As I left Madras the rail was blocked with trucks laden with grain. Indeed, all the districts near the railway are tolerably certain of being adequately relieved. But how is it to be conveyed to distant corners of the famine-stricken land? And, worse still, how is the water-famine' likely to ensue two or three months hence to be met? There is a large tank near here which usually contains fifteen feet of water, and is now nearly dry. Possibly partial showers of rain may yet fall in particular districts. At Trichinopoly, where I have recently been staying with the Collector Mr. Sewell, more than three inches of rain fell on Sunday and Monday last. This downpour will, I trust, check the cholera already gaining ground there. Here at Madura scarcely any rain fell, while the adjoining district was being drenched.

It is evident, indeed, that the most severe trial has yet to come, and a hard task lies before the Collectors and DeputyCollectors everywhere. They must not intervene with aid before the proper time, and they must by no means intervene too late. They have to inquire when and where and how relief is to be given, and they ought to provide work for all who are relieved. Many Collectors are at work from morning to night in their offices deciding these difficult questions.

Surely, then, I may be allowed to close this imperfect account of the distressing scenes through which I have lately passed by adding a tribute to the energy and devotion of our fellow-countrymen-the rulers of this land—who are everywhere exerting themselves to the utmost in the present crisis.

Numbers who had a right to furlough, or were looking forward to a holiday at Delhi, are remaining cheerfully at their posts.

Indeed, my second visit to India has impressed me more than ever with the desire shown by the Queen's officers in this country to govern India righteously and to make our rule a blessing to the people. Evidences of the benefits we have conferred, and are still daily conferring, meet one at every turn.

But I crave permission to add a word or two of warning. In our anxiety to conciliate the natives, let us beware of alienating our own officers. Let the Central Governments balance the scales evenly between the two. Our hold of India depends mainly on the personal influence of the representatives of those Governments in the several districts, and the personal influence of these representatives depends mainly on the degree of support they receive from the central seats of authority. Every Commissioner and Collector is a little Viceroy in his own territory. He has vast responsibilities laid upon him, and he ought to be trusted by his superiors. It is right that the British public should be made aware that while the Queen is being proclaimed Empress at Delhi, and the loyalty of her Indian subjects is being evoked by the holding of Darbārs and

the distribution of rewards to deserving natives in every Collectorate, much irritation of feeling is apparent among her European subjects. Over and over again I have heard able officers exclaim, 'I dare not act on my own responsibility in this emergency. Cholera may break out; symptoms of serious riots may show themselves; people may be dying of famine; instant action is needed, but I dare not trust to my own life-long knowledge and experience of India-I must telegraph for instructions.' There can be no doubt that the energy of the most successful administrator will be paralyzed if he is made to feel that a single blunder or an act of indiscretion will be visited by a formal reprimand, which is sure to find its way into every native newspaper and become the talk of all the bazaars throughout his district. I much fear that the benefits which have accrued to India from the trust reposed by the old East India Company in its officers are in danger of being sacrificed to the present mania for the centralization of authority.