THE HIGHER NARBADA. 315 



with commodious bungalows embowered in magnificent clumps 

 of bamboo ; remarkable for the delicacy and abundance of its 

 fruits and other garden products, including the pineapple, 

 which* will not grow anywhere else in Central India ; and 

 withal, from its land-locked 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 Kocks and other sights about the place. Everything 

 has run up to the famine prices induced by the rapid " pro- 

 gress" 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 im- 

 portunity 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 



