MAHWAH OR MADHU'CA. 



305 



billy countries, which are peculiarly fubject to long and 

 fevere droughts during the hot months. 



Yet, notwithstanding its utility, and the immenfe 

 quantity of ground that feems fo well adapted to the 

 growth of it, both here, and in the neighbouring pro- 

 vinces of Catak, Pacheet, Rotas, &c. (the greateft part 

 cf which, indeed, feems fit for no other ufeful produc- 

 tion,) I have myfelf never obferved, nor can I find 

 any of my acquaintance who ever have remarked, one 

 fingle tree in its infant Rate. We can fee, every where, 

 full grown trees in great abundance; but never meeting 

 with any young plants, both I, and all whom I have 

 fpoken to on the fubject, are at fome lofs to conceive 

 how they mould have come here. Neither can the 

 country people themfelves, of whom I have enquired, 

 give any rational account of this: although it appears 

 pretty evident that numbers of them mult have been 

 cultivated fome time or other, every village havino- 

 many of them growing about it. 



This is a circumftance .which fufficiently marks the 

 true character of the lower order of natives in their molt 

 fupine indolence and (loth; owing chiefly, perhaps, to 

 the ignorant and ftupid rapacity of their Rajahs, Zimeen- 

 dars, and other landholders, and their total inattention 

 to the welfare of thofe dejected wretches, from whom 

 they derive their confequence and power. Of their bafe 

 indifference to the interests of thofe whom they thus 

 affect to hold beneath their regard, many ftrikino- in, 

 fiances occurred to me in the courfe of my enquiries 

 upon this very fubject ; and it was not long ago that, 

 afking fome queftions concerning the Mdhwah of a 

 Zimeendar in this neighbourhood, he anfwered, that 

 M it was the food of the poor people, and how mould 

 " he know any thing about it! 1 ' 



It 



