96 



Wartruc and Seme; we forded the latter, and slept in onr palan- 

 quins on the banks of the Wartruc. 



The next morning we rose with the dawn, and commenced 

 our last .day's journey to Ahmed-abad, through a delightful part 

 of Guzerat; but, although approaching the capital, we found it 

 not so well cultivated as many other districts, occasioned by be- 

 ing very much infested by the Coolies and Cotties. The villages 

 are large and populous, and the houses built of bricks in frames 

 of timber. Small scattered hamlets would be unsafe in a district 

 where the peasants are obliged to unite in considerable force to 

 defend themselves against the banditti. The land contiguous to 

 the villages was well cultivated, and planted with fruit trees. The 

 fields in Guzerat, except for very particular crops, do not require 

 much manure; what they use is chiefly the dung of animals, and 

 the refuse of the cow-houses; at Bombay, and on many parts of 

 the Malabar coast, they manure the land with rotten fish, blubber, 

 and other putrid substances, offensive and unwholesome: it has 

 been forbid in Bombay. A very good substitute, and indeed a 

 most excellent manure, is the remains of the cocoa-nut after the 

 oil has been expressed from it; this also constitutes a nutritious 

 food for oxen, but gives the milk of the cows an unpleasant taste. 

 Cow-dung is used for so many purposes by the Hindoos, especially 

 by the religious brahmins, that very little of it goes for manure; 

 their houses and humbler dewals are covered with, and purified bv 

 it: when perfectly dry, it has a neater appearance than we should 

 suppose. In places where wood is scarce, the cow-dung is made 

 up into cakes, and dried for fuel, which the brahmins and Hindoos 

 of rank prefer to any other. 



