MEANS OF COMMUNICATION 269 



Oudh into the Doab. So miserable, however, are the 

 means of intercommunication in many of these dis- 

 tricts of supply that, while in one bazaar famine prices 

 of 4 rupees per maund might be ruling, in another not 

 thirty miles off the price would be but about R. 1/8 

 for the same quantity ; yet no flow from the full to 

 the exhausted market could take place, because 

 roads were not in existence, and means of carriage 

 unknown.'* 



Such was the paucity of metalled roads that the 

 traffic was concentrated upon the Grand Trunk Road, 

 and Baird Smith estimated that about 1,000,000 maunds 

 passed to Aligarh along this road, the greater share 

 being concentrated in the months of January, February, 

 and March. This great accumulation of traffic wore 

 the road out, and between Cawnpore, Fategarh, and 

 Aligarh it was totally disorganized. Baird Smith 

 declares that when he saw it in spring ' it was worse 

 than an ordinary earthen road.' During this famine 

 the Ganges was little used for transport, owing to 

 the low level of the water ; but, in spite of the many 

 defects in the means of transport, grain was brought 

 into the famine area in sufficient quantities greatly to 

 reduce the mortality. Baird Smith calculated ' that 

 the entire imports of grain into the famine tract from 

 every source had not fallen under about 3,000,000 

 maunds between September and February inclusive, 

 or at the average rate of 500,000 a month, being- 

 enough for the sustenance of nearly a sixth part of 

 the entire population of the bad districts.' 



In the thirty-five years that succeeded the means of 

 communication were gradually perfected. By the end 

 of the nineteenth century the province was covered 

 by a network of railways, over which the grain was 

 quickly moved by private traders in response to even 



* ' Report on the Commercial Condition of the North-Western 

 Provinces of India,' Colonel R. Baird Smith, 1861. (The first part 

 of his famine report.) 



