MY SHIKAREE FRIENDS. III. 



PURDASEE, THE DOM. 



MY first acquaintance with Purdasee was under 

 circumstances of so terrible a character that 

 I can never forget them. It was during the dreadful 

 famine of 1877-78, when upwards of five million 

 persons died from starvation and disease en- 

 gendered from a scarcity of food in South India. 

 Out of a population of five and a quarter 

 millions, Mysore lost a million and a quarter, while 

 the Bellary district suffered even more severely. 

 In Madras mountains of grain in bags were stacked 

 all along the sea-shore, brought in by ships from 

 Calcutta, Burmah, Gopalpore and elsewhere, but 

 transport into the interior to the districts most 

 affected by the famine was utterly inadequate. 

 The Madras Railway in those days terminated 

 at Bangalore on the south-west and at Bellary 

 on the north-west, while the whole of the large 

 stretch of country between these two towns was 

 entirely without railways. Cattle had suffered 

 even more severely than human beings during 

 these two seasons of drought, so that even 

 transport in bullock - carts was sadly crippled. 



