PLAGUE IN INDIA. 329 



But they are not springing up in the bhick soil valleys of the Dec- 

 can, nor in the Punjab, except in cases of feud between one part of 

 a village and another; and it will appear from what I am about to 

 read, from the pen of Mr, Alan Cadell, that there are reasons why the 

 large villages should remain large: 



Tbe crowding of the poinilation into large villages is to a certain extent dis- 

 advantageous, but the power which the large cultivating communities have 

 ac(iuired from their numbers and their wealth is of great service to them in 

 resisting the encroachments of the landloi'ds ; and tbe people must feel that 

 they would lose in unity and defensive power if they were scattered over several 

 hamlets instead of being collected together in the old ancestral village. The 

 fact, too, that nearly all the best laud is held by occupancy tenants, whose fields 

 are situated all over two and even three estates, makes it still more unlikely 

 that any large number of tenants will leave their present dwellings, for to do 

 so would, while bringing them nearer some fields, take them away farther than 

 before from others, and to effect changes of hereditary fields is always ditlicult 

 and generallj' impossii)le. 



l'LA<iI'E IN THE CITIES. 



The circumstances of Bombay are so special, if not unique, that it 

 would take a whole hour to discuss them. Therefore I shall not 

 begin upon them, however inviting the theme. Poona, infected from 

 Bombay, has had severe plague every season for nine years, and more 

 of it per head of population than Bombay itself; the sanitary prob- 

 lem is complex there also, and can not even be stated in a sentence 

 or two. Karachi and Calcutta I did not' visit. I Avill come to Benares, 

 as a good sample of the northwestern cities. 



BENARES. 



The mahallas or wards into which Benares is divided fall into 

 two classes — the pakka, or masonry mahals, and the kaccha, or mud 

 mahals. The separation of the two is sharper, I believe, than in 

 any other Indian city, and will be readily understood from the 

 situation of the masonry mahals. They are that famous range of 

 houses, temples, and terraces which crowns the high bank of the 

 (Tanges for a space of nearly 2 miles. Some 50,000 or GO.OOO of the 

 ])oi)ulation are housed there, and twice as many more in the kaccha 

 or mud-built suburbs which extend back from the riverside (juarter 

 over a radius of 2 or 8 miles. These kaccha mahals, however, 

 are not all equally mean in construction; for exam[)le, the road, 

 J) uiiles long, which runs from near the cantouuient to the railway 

 bridge over the (langes is lined on both sides all the way with 

 houses or shops of brick raised on plinths. The ])akka mahals along 

 tlie rivei- are l)uilt of stouo which liad been brought some 20 

 miles down the Ganges, from the exteusive (juarries near jNIirzapur. 

 SM 1905 25 



