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So7ne account of' the Famine in Guzerat, in the years 1812 and 

 1813. By Captain James Rivett Carnac, Political Resi- 

 dent at the Court of Guicawar. In a Letter to William 

 Erskine, Esquire. 



i- o meet your wishes, by a description of the calamities which 

 visited this province, I send you the few following observations. 

 At the same time, I am conscious of my own inability to per- 

 form this task with the interest and accuracy which it deserves, 

 and indeed am firmly persuaded that no adequate representation 

 can be made of the manifold miseries I have had the mortifica- 

 tion to witness. When we attempt to give an idea of the effects 

 of a famine, it must immediately occur, that such visitations of 

 Providence do not vary materially in their progress and conse- 

 quences, and that the statements which in all ages have been 

 produced by similar calamities, leave little of novelty in a ge- 

 neral point of view : I shall therefore confide more in the rela- 

 tion of positive facts for the gratification of your curiosity, than 

 of any observations which my own feelings may occasionally 

 prompt, in the course of this letter, on the horrid scenes created 

 by the misfortunes of our fellow creatures. 



It is interesting to mark the harbinger of those calamities 

 which fell upon Guzerat : — the superstitions of the natives at- 

 tributed them to the sins of this quarter of India ; while we 

 cannot but lament that the danger, which, in its origin was at 

 the remotest extremity, should at last have fixed its influence in 

 the western division of the peninsula. It has often been re- 

 marked, that the appearance of locusts is a prognostic of other 

 evils. Flights of these destructive insects first appeared from 

 the eastward, in the Bengal provinces, about the beginning of 

 the year 1810, and taking their course in a northerly direction, 

 passed through parts of the country designated by the southern 

 people Hindostan ; and, in the revolution of fifteen months, ar- 

 rived at the province of Marwar, skirting the large western de- 

 sert of India. In the year 1811, the annual fall of rain failed 

 in Marwar ; and when every vestige of vegetation had disap- 

 peared, the locusts made way into the north-west district of 



