A RELIEF CAMP.

IN

my previous notes on some of the famine districts, I expressed a doubt as to whether any organization for the relief of the sufferers, however complete, would be able to reach every corner of the immense area over which the drought and dearth extend. Now that I have travelled in various directions over a great part of the country from Bombay to Cape Comorin, and noted with my own eyes what is being done to spread a network of this organization over every separate district, so as to embrace the most remote places, I am bound to admit that my fears were unfounded. Indeed, it would be difficult to use exaggerated language in speaking of the zeal, ability, and devotion displayed by Indian civilians and other executive officials in the present emergency.

I have recently been staying with the energetic Collector of Salem (Mr. Longley), and early one morning I visited with him one of the Relief Camps now being constructed in the large district over the welfare of which he presides. The spot chosen for this Camp is an elevated piece of ground beautifully situated near a spring of excellent water, close under some chalk hills (supposed by the natives to be formed of the bones of the mythical bird Jaṭayus, killed by Ravaṇa when carrying off Sita), and not far from the base of the Shervaroy Hills-the sanatarium of this part of India. On this ground nearly twenty long huts or sheds-each capable of accommodating forty persons-had already been constructed with bamboo

poles, course cocoa-nut matting, and palmyra leaves. I was told that as only three months of the famine have passed, and at least four months have still to be provided for, it will be necessary to erect 100 similar huts in this one Camp, with accommodation for 4,000 or 5,000 people.

In fact, these Relief Camps may be described as temporary workhouses with wards for the old, feeble, and infirm, where the famine-driven inhabitants of outlying districts will take refuge, and where they will be comfortably housed, fed, and, if strong enough, made to work, till better times arrive.

In Mr. Longley's camp the two classes of workers and non-workers into which every camp-community will be divided were plainly distinguishable from each other. The former were engaged in making new huts, breaking stones for a road, clearing the environs of the Camp, and keeping the whole place clean; while the non-workers were sitting on the ground in three rows, exposed, by their own choice, to the heat of a tropical sun for the sake of the warmth which insufficient food made necessary to them. It was piteous to see the emaciated old men and shrivelled old women, many of them blind or crippled, whose existence is being prolonged for a few months by the minimum of nourishment they are now receiving at the hands of a paternal Government; but still more sad to look upon the unclothed skeletons of young men, boys, and little children with drawn features, shoulder bones standing out, legs like thin sticks, and ribs enclosing the feeble organs of their shrunk bodies, like bony cages, every bar of which was visible.

Yet I was told that the great difficulty in Indian famines is not so much the effective distribution of relief as the effective application of any proper method of detecting the vast number of undeserving applicants who ought not to be relieved at all. We were informed that about 300 applicants for food, without work, ought to have been present on the day of our visit, but that more than half

had run off during the night, either because they disliked the confinement to which they had been subjected, or because they had heard of the intended visit of the Collector and other Sahibs, and were filled with vague suspicions and fears of being questioned too closely. Yet no one is admitted to the Camp without a ticket, which is supposed to be given to deserving objects only. Those who were seated on the ground in our presence had empty earthenware bowls before them, in each of which about a pound. of good boiled rice was placed while we looked on. This, with another meal administered in the evening, is held to be sufficient to keep the body and soul of a non-worker together. The workers are, of course, better fed. It was curious to observe the cleverness with which some of the recipients of the dole of boiled rice quietly pressed down the eagerly accepted ration with their hands, hoping thereby to be served with a little more than the due allowance. Each recipient then made a hole with his hands in the centre of his mess, and waited patiently till the half-pint of pepper-water (mulliga tanir), to which every one was entitled, had been poured into the cavity. Finally, by means of the spoons, with which every man was naturally provided, and in a manner which those only can understand who have seen a low-caste native seated on his hams with head bent back, mouth expanded to its utmost limits, and all four fingers and thumb converted into a convenient scoop for introducing into the aperture as much rice as a human being is capable of swallowing at once, every grain was disposed of before our eyes-in most cases with the utmost avidity and apparent satisfaction.

It is intended, I understand, that caste prejudices shall be, as far as possible, respected. Those of the same caste will be grouped together in separate companies, and cooks of sufficiently high caste will be provided. But no genuine Brahman is ever likely to enter a Relief Camp. He will rather starve than submit to the chances of pollution, which to him would be worse than death. Starving

Brahmans, who in some parts of the country may be even more plentiful than starving Sudras, will have to be cared for by their own richer caste-fellows. I am sorry to have to add to this brief narrative that pestilence is following closely in the track of famine. At Madras three Europeans have recently succumbed to attacks of cholera, and the number of fatal cases among the natives is increasing every day. In some country towns and villages I have visited I have been cautioned to beware of a bad type of the disease prevalent all around. Of course, I could go into further details, but what I have written will, at least, give an idea of how the seven ог eight millions of pounds sterling1 which the present famine is likely to cost will be spent.

1 The actual cost turned out to be thirteen millions.

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS AND NOTES AFTER

TRAVELS IN NORTHERN INDIA.

BOMBAY, MARCH 6, 1876.

THE Serapis' is now lying at anchor before our eyes in Bombay Harbour, reminding us that the Prince of Wales is on his road to this port, and that England will soon be preparing to welcome his return home. The interest excited by his tour has now culminated, and special correspondents are either bound homewards or addressing themselves to an effective winding up of their communications by a telling description of the closing scene. Even after the Prince's return his doings in India are certain to continue a fashionable theme of conversation during the London season of 1876, and the Session will assuredly be marked by a constant recurrence to Indian topics. Every Parliamentary orator will drag in, relevantly or irrelevantly, allusions to the expedition and its results for the benefit of his constituents. Newspapers, reviews, and periodicals will contain trenchant articles, bristling with point, epigram, and criticism, if they do not cut the knot of our Indian difficulties.

Meanwhile, I will endeavour to record, in plain language, a few particulars relative to our Indian possessions, which have impressed themselves on me most forcibly in the course of my tour in the Prince's track.