a a 



38 



sition that others might still be in the stomach, the bird was sus- 

 pended by the legs, and presently a second made its appearance, as 

 large and as lively as the first The bird was afterwards opened, 

 when the stomach was found to contain several dead snakes, with 

 a half-digested mass of lizards, scorpions, scolopcndrse, centipedes, 

 and beetles." 



The little district belonging to the Meah Gaum Rajah afforded 

 neither novelty nor interest; but on entering the Jamboseer pur- 

 gunna, which had then been several years in the company's posses- 

 sion, we observed a visible alteration in the agriculture, population, 

 and cheerfulness of the villages: for fertile, beautiful, and abun- 

 dant, as are so many parts of the Brodera pergunna, yet numerous 

 villages are depopulated, and the surrounding country a desert, 

 from the oppressive government of Futty Sihng, and the cruel 

 irruptions of the Bheels and Gracias. In one considerable tract 

 near the confines of the Brodera district we witnessed a mournful 

 scene, occasioned by a different scourge: a flight of locusts had 

 some lime before alighted in that part of the country, and left 

 behind them an awful and striking contrast to the general beauty 

 of this earthly paradise. The sad description of Hosea was literally 

 realized. ** That which the palmer-worm hath left, hath the locust 

 eaten; and that which the locust hath left, hath the canker-worm 

 eaten; and that which the canker- worm hath left, hath the cater- 

 pillar eaten. They have laid waste the vine, and barked the fig- 

 tree; they have made it clean bare, and the branches thereof are 

 madfe white: the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the 

 apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered. Howl, O 

 ye husbandmen! for the wheat and for the barley; because the 



