415 



Hospitality to travellers prevails throughout Guzerat; a per- 

 son of any consideration passing through the province, is pre- 

 sented at the entrance of a village, with fruit, milk, butter, fire- 

 wood, and earthen-pots for cookery ; the women and children 

 offer him wreaths of flowers. Small bowers are constructed on 

 convenient spots, at a distance from a well or lake, where a person 

 is maintained by the nearest villages, to take care of the water-jars, 

 and supply all travellers gratis. There are particular villages, where 

 the inhabitants compel all travellers to accept of one day's pro- 

 visions; whether they be many or few, rich or poor, European or 

 native, they must not refuse the offered bounty. 



Thus contented and happy do the peasantry live in that garden 

 of India, when war keeps at a distance, and their pundits and 

 collectors do not treat them with severity ; even to that they habi- 

 tually submit, for they have no idea of liberty, as it is felt and 

 enjoyed by Britons. As well may you talk of colour to the blind, 

 or the harmony of sound to the deaf, as liberty, patriotism, and 

 the nobler virtues, to the inhabitants of Asia, under the political 

 and religious systems to which they have hitherto been accus- 

 tomed/ 



The mode of apropriating the land, and collecting the revenues 

 in Guzerat, is in many respects similar to that of the ancient Ger- 

 mans, on their emerging from Gothic barbarism, when the pro- 

 perty of land was invested in the tribe or nation, and a portion of 

 corn was allotted lo every individual, by the magistrate; and cor- 

 responded to the number of his family, the degrees of his merit, 

 and the importance of his services. Yet he derived no source of 



