INDIAN FAMINES. 89 



The importance of the monsoons in India is too 

 well known to need any detailed description. It is 

 to them that the ebb and flow of the rainy seasons 

 are due; and when these rains fail, droughts, with 

 consequences which are fearful to contemplate, ensue. 

 In fact it may be said that the history of the great 

 famines of the east, where millions of unhappy per- 

 sons have sometimes perished, is synonymous with 

 " Drought." "All the great Indian famines of which 

 we have record have been caused by drought repeated 

 over a series of years'' * that of 1876 to 1878 being 

 probably the most serious of those that India has 

 suffered from during the period of British rule. It 

 began by the failure of the monsoon of 1875. Her 

 Majesty's Indian Government nobly exerted themselves 

 on this occasion to minimize the distress as far as 

 possible, and " the total expenditure of the government on 

 this occasion may be estimated at > 8, 000,000 sterling, 

 not including the loss of revenue " f it has, however, 

 " been estimated on substantial grounds that the mor- 

 tality in the provinces subject to British rule during 

 the famine and drought of 1877 and '78 amounted to 

 five and a half millions " in excess of the usual average 

 death rate, while the " number of births was lessened 

 by two millions. " " The total reduction of the popu- 

 lation would thus amount to about seven millions." 

 Coincident with this famine in India another fearful 

 famine desolated North China it was very severe in 

 1877 and '78 when owing to the mismanagement and 

 apathy on the part of the Chinese government " nine 



* Encycl. Brit, gth edit., Vol. xii, p. 766. 



f Ibid., vol. xii, p. 767. 



Report of the Indian Famine Commissioners. 



