1900.] INDIAN FAMINE LECTURE 309 



in India."] I congratulate you exceedingly. How much 

 you must treasure it ! Thank you very much for letting me 

 see it, and also that from the Chancellor [of the University, 

 the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour]. 



My people have been much pleased to receive the copies 

 you kindly let me give them, and Dr. Lipscomb has asked 

 me to thank you for him. But I do not know that any one 

 has been more interested than Mr. T. P. Newman. He, as 

 one of the " Friends," has been working in their society to 

 help, and I find they collected .27,000. [The Friends' 

 Foreign Mission Association collected this sum to use in 

 relief of the famine of 1900]. 



October 29, 1900. 



I have, with much pleasure, written to Messrs. West, 

 Newman & Co., to send you (to University, Edinburgh) one 

 hundred copies of each of the two pamphlets. Please write 

 when some more (or Manuals) would be at all acceptable. 



I am placing your Famine pamphlet carefully, so I have 

 some still on hand, but I will not fail to ask you if more could 

 go out well, via my presentation. I have been studying it 

 to the best of my power. I am not able to condense such 

 a mass of information fully, but this is what I think 1 have 

 learnt. These famines originate meteorologically, the crops 

 consequently failing for want of moisture. The only places 

 (three districts if I remember rightly) exempt from them, 

 are so, consequent on climatic circumstances or irriga- 

 tion. The chief preventive measure, being irrigation, is not 

 always easy of application, as, for instance, the possibility 

 of a canal raising the height of the water-table too much. 

 I follow to some degree the difficulty of bringing relief 

 arrangements to bear on special bodies of men, as the 

 weavers, for instance. It is also very interesting to read of 

 the method of dealing with the "Wild Tribes," their power 

 of finding \vild food, and of bringing in wild forest pro- 

 ducts adapted for sale. Some information as to details of 

 kinds of food and preparation, also of the sums of money 

 represented by Indian names, must surely remain adherent 

 to one's mind, but one special thing is the splendidly 

 arranged work of our Government, which is a comfort to 

 think of. I inflict the above on you, that you may see I 

 have really been trying to benefit by your grand work, and 

 I do congratulate you on the result of your heavy labour. 



November 8, 1900. 

 I should be very thankful if you would tell me where 



