MEANS OF TRANSPORT 253 



characteristics quite dissimilar to those of a chart of 

 the prices of another district in the same province. I 

 do not propose to go into the history of all these 

 famines in detail, but to select three — viz., 1783-84, 

 1803-04, and 1837-38, as illustrative of the period. 



The distinctive feature of the epoch from 1783 to 

 1853, as of all the ages which preceded it, was the 

 mechanical impossibility of transporting large quan- 

 tities of grain over considerable distances. Reference 

 has been made before to the state of the country at 

 the beginning of the nineteenth centur}'. Metalled 

 roads did not exist, and therefore transport by cart 

 was impossible over long distances. The usual means 

 of transport in those days was the pack-bullock, which 

 could only carry a small load at a prohibitively high 

 cost. Navigation canals did not exist, and transport 

 by water was therefore confined to the rivers. Of all 

 the means for moving grain from one place to another, 

 the rivers were in those days by far the most impor- 

 tant, and there is reference in the old reports to many 

 marts like that of Bilsi in Badaon,* which owed their 

 pre-eminence to their proximity to the great water- 

 ways. But we have seen from the case of Bengal in 

 1770 that even great natural advantages for inland 

 navigation were not in those days capable of bringing 

 enough grain into a famine-stricken province to save 

 the people from starvation. The rivers of the United 

 Provinces are, as waterways, far inferior to those of 

 Bengal. The tract which can be supplied with food 

 from the rivers is comparatively small, and navigation 

 is difficult because the water in the stream is generally 

 either in defect or in excess. 



In addition to the absence of roads and good water 

 communications, a third difficulty was noted by Sir 

 John Strachey, whose official career coincided with 

 the transition from the first to the second epoch. He 



* Vide ' Statistical Report of the District of Badaon,' by H. M. 

 Court, C.S., 1852. 



