Vll 



unproductive of beneficial results from a different 

 point of view. I had hoped, for famine was then 

 stalking abroad in this country, that the great 

 want of India, a comprehensive system of canals 

 and works of irrigation and drainage, to save rich 

 provinces from devastation and their populations 

 from frequent decimation, would long have been 

 taken into serious consideration; that the orders 

 regarding the redemption and permanent settle- 

 ment of the land revenue would have been re-con- 

 sidered ; and that some amelioration would have 

 been made in the laws which are now yearly 

 impoverishing India, by suffering an appreciable 

 portion of the population her most precious wealth 

 to be transported to foreign lands. 



But my hopes were not realized. A terrible 

 famine visited Orissa, a rich and populous Province, 

 and parts of Lower Bengal, last year. When at 

 its height, when the people were dying of starvation 

 at the rate, it is said, of four thousand a week, in 

 the year 1866, the authorities, who held in their 

 keeping the land revenues of Bengal, adopted a 

 course very similar to that adopted by the cotton 

 spinners of Manchester in 1862. At the time the 



