328 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



condition forbidding exports, a most absurdly cheap sort 

 of place to live in. All this is now changed. The steam- 

 horse has torn his way through the parks, and levelled 

 the bamboo clumps that were the glory of the place. 

 Hideous embankments, and monstrous hotels, and other 

 truly British buildings, stare one in the face at every 

 turn. Crowds of rail-borne " picturesquers " assail the 

 Marble Eocks and other sights about the place. Every- 

 thing has run up to the famine prices induced by the 

 rapid " progress " of the last ten years. And progress it 

 is, in every proper sense of the word. The Narbada 

 valley is now a part of the great bustling world outside, 

 instead of being a mere isolated oasis in a desert of 

 jungle, thinking and caring only about its own petty 

 wants and concerns. The agriculturist, the merchant, 

 and all who " paddle their own canoe " on the great 

 ocean of life, are all the better for it. Their gains have 

 grown in more than proportion to their outgoings. 

 Only such wretches as sail in " foreign bottoms " have 

 to regret the change ; their fixed incomes have not 

 grown with the growth of their expenses. The poor 

 clerk, who could barely in the old times keep body and 

 soul together on his pittance of ten rupees a month, 

 gets no more now that his expenses are doubled. 

 Government schools have flooded his market with 

 competitors, who prevent his wages from rising by their 

 importunity for office ; and the Government, not having 

 yet discovered the way to raise its own income, when 

 appealed to for more, buttons up its pockets, and points 

 to the crowds ready and willing to serve for less. The 

 poor clerk has his remedy; he can pick and steal enough 

 to make up the deficiency ; and he does so. But the 

 subaltern of infantry, or the young civilian, being 

 incommoded with the troublesome commodity called 



