THE ABORIGINAL TRIBES 135 



ing, botli in well-being and in character. Wliere they still 

 continue to work as farm-servants they receive better wages, 

 and save sometMng out of them; and, either from such 

 savings or from their large earnings on the railway works, 

 many have found the means to settle down as small farmers 

 on their own account. Even as borrowers their credit is 

 much improved. A great deal of capital is now seeking the 

 profitable investment offered by agriculture ; and loans are 

 given on easier terms even to these stiQ somewhat unreliable 

 settlers. " The high price obtainable for oil-seeds of late 

 years has perhaps done more towards this than anything 

 else. It takes a mere handful of seed to sow an acre of 

 tillee (sesamum); it flourishes with the rudest tillage on 

 half-cleared land, for which no rent is usually paid for the 

 first three years ; and it is cut and sold by the beginning of 

 November. I know two ' unencumbered ' Korkus who in 

 1867 cleared thirty acres of light land, and sowed it with 

 tillee. They borrowed 80 rupees (£8) to buy bullocks and 

 implements, and two manees (1920 lb.) of jowa/ree (mUlet) 

 to eat. The interest on the money-debt was 20 rupees, and 

 as usual, double the quantity of grain had to be paid back 

 at harvest. They had no other expenses, no rent being 

 charged, and they themselves doing aU the labour. The 

 produce was 75 maunds (6150 lb.) of oil-seed, which sold 

 for 215 rupees (£21 10s.), from which they repaid the 80 

 rupees' worth of grain and 100 rupees in cash, leaving them 

 gainers of 35 rupees (£3 10s.), after paying ofE the whole 

 of their debt. Thus they got a stocked farm, free from 

 debt, in a single season, by their own manual labour alone, 

 which would afterwards yield them at least £10 apiece per 

 annum, or much more than they could live on in comfort. 

 The money-lender at the same time cleared 40 per cent, on 

 his money in eight months." ^ Such a farm as this may 

 appear rather a miserable little affair to the Enghsh reader ; 

 but such are the units of which the vast extent of Indian 

 tillage is made up ; and to obtain possession of such a holding, 

 with its slender stock, is an object of ambition to millions of 

 laboiirers for a bare subsistence. 



^ Extract from a Report, by the writer, on the Settlement of the 

 Nimdr district. 



