S68 Some Account of the Famine in Guzerat, 



the certainty of death being the consequence of refusal. The 

 diversity between the laudable energies of the Mahratta, when 

 under the influence of similar misfortunes, and the apathy of 

 the Marwaree, was strikingly evinced. 



The mortality which ensued among the emigrants, who had 

 sought refuge after the sufferings of a famine in their own coun- 

 try, covered with disease, regardless of every consideration but 

 that promoted by the calls of hunger, almost surpasses my own 

 belief, though an unhappy witness of such horrid events. 



In the vicinity of every large town, you perceived suburbs 

 surrounded by these creatures. Their residence was usually 

 taken up on the main roads under the cover of trees ; men, wo- 

 men, and children promiscuously scattered, some furnished with 

 a scanty covering, others almost reduced to a state of nudity, 

 while, at the same moment, the spectator witnessed, within the 

 range of his own observation, the famished looks of a fellow 

 creature, aggravated by the pain of sickness ; the desponding 

 cries of the multitude, mingled with the thoughtless playfulness 

 of children, and the unavailing struggles of the infant to draw 

 sustenance from the exhausted breasts of its parent. To con- 

 summate this scene of human misery, a lifeless corpse was at 

 intervals brought to notice by the bewailings of a near relative ; 

 its immediate neighbourhood displaying the impatience and wild- 

 ness excited in the fortunate few who had obtained a pittance of 

 grain, and were devouring it with desperate satisfaction. The 

 hourly recurrence of miseries had familiarized the minds of these 

 poor people, as well as of people in general, to every extremity 

 which nature could inflict, — in a short time, these emanations of 

 individual feeling among themselves, which distinguished the 

 first commencement of their suficrings, gradually abated, and 

 the utmost indifference universally predominated. I shall ven. 

 ture to give you a few examples, which came under my own 

 eyes, and which, in spite of the painful sensation which they 

 excite, I bring myself to describe, from the desire of elucidating 

 the depression to which a rational being can be reduced. 



During the progress of these miseries, I have seen a few Mar- 

 :Warees sitting in a cluster, denying a little water to sustain her 

 drooping spirits, to a woman stretched beside them, with a dead 

 Jnfant reposing on her breast. In a few hours this woman had 



