HISTORY AND COUNTRY 9 



Great fairs are held on its banks ; and at Gurmuk- 

 tesar, where is our chief fair, there are in some years 

 several hundred thousand people assembled together. 

 Pilgrims come to it from all parts of India, and when 

 they disperse, having bathed many times in the 

 stream, each man goes away carrying his little 

 wicker - covered bottle filled with sacred Ganges 

 water. And in his last mortal stages every good 

 Hindu hopes that his body will be burnt on the 

 banks of the holy stream. 



In the jungle, when a man is giving his oath to 

 his evidence in some case, it is impressive to see 

 him, with hand outstretched to the river, repeat 

 the formula, " Gunga ji ka kussum" (I swear by 

 the Ganges). That which he holds most sacred 

 is nearer to him than are our gods to us in many 

 cases. 



The villagers in our upland parts are mostly 

 Jats, shrewd, well-to-do men, the farmers of India. 

 They breed horses and ponies to a large extent, 

 they are fond of riding, and are to be found in con- 

 siderable numbers in the ranks of our Army. We 

 have few big landowners or really rich men, but 

 the large number of brick houses in the villages — 

 sure sign of affluence when compared with the usual 

 mud- walled house — attest the prosperity of the 

 inhabitants even more than does the wonderful 

 succession of rich crops, sugar-cane, wheat, grain, 

 barley, and cotton, which follow one another with a 

 regularity greater than that of the seasons them- 

 selves. The monsoon or the winter rains may fail, 

 but there is a constant and never-failing supply of 

 water from the big canals of the Doab which irrigate 

 the land between the Ganges and the Jumna, and 

 draw their supply from those rivers. The more 



