PREVALENCE OF FAMINE. 
69 
I thought it was the last effort of departing life. 
I called to a servant, who had accompanied me, to 
bring a basket of provisions, which I opened before the 
child. The unhappy father turned his eye upon me 
with a look of horror, threw out his arms like a ma- 
niac, seized the infant, dragged it from the polluted 
food, and fell back dead. The mother was too far 
gone to notice the action. I desired the servant to lift 
her up. She breathed, though her respirations were 
scarcely audible ; but she was insensible to everything 
around her. She died in my servant’s arms. It was 
altogether the saddest scene I ever witnessed. The 
child survived its parents, and was claimed by some 
of its relatives, who were fortunate enough to escape 
the destruction to which so many fell victims during 
this season of scarcity. 
Nothing can exceed the sufferings endured by large 
masses of the population in Hindostan when the pe- 
riodical rains fail to scatter over the land that fertility 
of which they are the fruitful and annual source. It 
sometimes happens that those accustomed supplies are 
withheld, or only partially distributed ; and then fa- 
mine, either partial or general, according to the cir- 
cumstances, invariably ensues among the poorer na- 
tives, who are too indolent and withal too improvident 
to lay up a store against such a melancholy but by no 
means unusual contingency. When the visitation 
does come upon them, it is but too frequently ac- 
companied with horrors to which the greatest priva- 
tions of the poor in more civilized countries would be 
comparative though negative blessings. And yet 
these horrors are witnessed by the wealthy among 
