THE TOUR 345 



nearly depopulated, and the poor died in thousands. 

 So extreme was the distress, that all the distinctions 

 of caste were disregarded. The Governor-General was 

 then marching up the country. Wherever his camp 

 halted, cooked food in abundance was laid in great 

 trays on the ground. I have been told by those who 

 beheld it that as soon as the trays were laid whole 

 crowds of starving poor, Hindoos and Mahomedans, 

 Brahmins and men of the lowest castes, rushed forward 

 almost like famished animals to devour it. 



Many years passed by, the famine had become a 

 memory, when there again arose fears of a scarcity. 

 In the district where I then was, diligent search was 

 made for concealed grain-pits. In one village several 

 such pits, and very large ones, were discovered ; they 

 were full of grain, but the grain, alas ! was all decayed 

 and putrid. It was then ascertained that the pits had 

 been filled with grain by their then owner just previous 

 to the great famine. When the famine occurred the 

 price of grain rose and rose, but the owner would not 

 sell, waiting till the price should rise still higher. In 

 the end he overreached himself; the crisis of the famine 

 passed, and prices fell, and the owner, disappointed of 

 the profit he had hoped to make, in his anger let the 

 pits remain unopened, as they were. 



The discovery of the pits made some sensation 

 among the natives. The decay of the grain was re- 

 garded as a judgment, for through the avarice of this 

 one man, the owner, many hundreds of his fellow-men 

 no doubt had perished. 



India, from time immemorial, has been always sub- 



