262 THE INTERRUPTION OF INDUSTRY 



populated country like the Doab could, by one year's 

 drought, be reduced to its present state of waste and 

 desolation. Flourishing villages, which last year 

 contained from 300 to 400 cultivators, are now 

 occupied by half a dozen starving beggars, and I have 

 travelled for twenty miles in the pergunnahs adjoining 

 the Jumnah, where there are no wells, without seeing 

 a vestige of cultivation.' The accounts of distress as 

 given by Mr. Rose are fully corroborated from other 

 sources. So long as the rich zemindars had the 

 means, they fed their poor neighbours, and even went 

 to the length of selling jewels and ornaments in order 

 to raise money for the purchase of food. When their 

 resources were exhausted and the baniyas proved 

 inexorable, the poorer classes resorted to the jungle, 

 in the hope of securing a meal from some of the wild 

 trees. The small thorny berry of the Singarbar was 

 in great request, as was also the bark of the wild fig- 

 tree. The people dried and pounded what they 

 gathered, and, with a little addition of meal, had the 

 means of making a sort of chupati (bread) that was 

 just palatable. Women were ready to sell their chil- 

 dren for 2 or 3 seers of wheat, whilst their husbands 

 and brothers waylaid and plundered travellers. Gold 

 and silver were parted with at half their ordinary 

 value, and brass and copper were esteemed worth 

 their weight in grain. Artisans disposed of their tools 

 at a quarter their cost price. 



Newspapers at this period come to our assistance 

 as contemporary records of famine, and in the English- 

 man of March 24, there is the following graphic 

 account: 'You ask me to tell you all about the famine 

 in Cawnpore ; but, indeed, no account nor description 

 of mine could convey to you any adequate idea of the 

 misery of the poor in this place and throughout its 

 vicinity. At the beginning of the cold season the 

 station literally swarmed with starving wretches, and 

 now where are they ? I believe I am within bounds 



