and that she had given cause for provocation and aggression, then 

 he proceeds unobserved by the assembly to his house and 

 brings one of his children, and in the presence of the witnesses, 

 kills his child at the door of the woman who had first killed her 

 child at his ; by this mode of procedure he considers that he 

 has saved himself much trouble and expense, which would 

 otherwise have devolved on him. The circumstance is soon 

 brought to the notice of the tribunal, which proclaims that the 

 offence committed is sufficiently avenged. But should this 

 voluntary retribution of revenge not be executed by the con- 

 victed person, the tribunal is prorogued to a limited time — 

 fifteen days generally. Before the expiration of that period 

 one of the children of the convicted. person must be killed; at 

 the same time he is to bear all expenses for providing food, 

 &c., for the assembly during three days. Such is their inhuman 

 barbarity in avenging outrage, which proves the innate cruelty 

 and the unrestrained barbarity of their manners and morals." 



5. There cannot be the slightest doubt that famines and 

 FamineBandepideinic8 epidemics woro far more_ frequent and des- 

 very destructive in for- tructivo iu formor ccuturies than at present, 

 mer times. Alliisious to terrible famines occur in ancient 



Hindu writings. The Ramayana mentions a severe and pro- 

 longed drought which occurred in Northern India. According 

 to the Orissa legends severe famines occurred between the 

 years 1107 and 1143 A.D. The memory of a terrible 12 

 years' famine^ " Dvadasavarsha Panjam " lives in tradition in 

 Southern India. Duff in his history of the Mahrattas 

 states that "in 1396 the dreadful famine distinguished from all 

 'others by the name Durga Devee commenced in Maharashtra. 

 It lasted, according to Hindu legends, for 12 years. At the 

 end of that time the periodical rains returned ; but whole 

 districts were entirely depopulated and a very scanty revenue 

 was obtained from the territory between the Goddvari and the 

 Kistna for upwards of 30 years afterwards. The hill forts and 



^ The story is as follows: There was a terrible 12 years' famine in the land, the 

 " nine " planets who rule the destinies of men having decreed that the human race should 

 be destroyed. At the close of the r2fh year, the " planets " went on a tour of inspection 

 to see if the work of destruction was complete. ■ All was desolation, but there was one 

 green spot at a distance. They repaired to the place to see what it was. There, a ryot, 

 who was a groat astrologer, had, by his art, foreseen that a great famine was coming and 

 had taken pl-ocautions against it. In years of abundance he saved the grain (ragi; and 

 built up the walls of his house with this grain mixed with mud and planted prickly-pear 

 round hie gardens and fields. When the drought came the man fed his goats with ' 

 prickly-pear, which flourishes even during times of drought, and boiled the grain scraped 

 from the walls of his house with the milk yielded by the goats and ate the boiled ragi 

 and thus lived ; for there was not a. drop of water to be had anywhere. When the man 

 saw the " planets," ho knew who they were and offered to feed them too. They accepted 

 his hospitality and after a fiill meal lay down to sleep in crooked and inauspicious posi- 

 tions. When they were fast asleep the rj'ot put them all in auspicious positions ana thus 

 the faiaiuc came to a.o eod and the world began once more to prosper, • 



