390 A JOURNEY FROM MADRAS THROUGH 
CHAPTER 
VI. 
July 25, ike. 
Servants 
wages. 
F reqaent 
scarcity: 
are so poor, that they cannot stock a farm of one plough ; and for 
this purpose two, or even three, are sometimes obliged to unite 
/ 
their capitals. A man who keeps three or four ploughs is a wealthy 
person. Some first -rate farmers possess as far as ten ; yet the most 
favourable situation, of a proper mixture of watered land and dry- 
field, does not make his farm more than eighty-two acres and a half. 
A farm of this kind, fully stocked, constantly requires ten ploughmen, 
two other men, and ten women servants, besides some additional 
hands at seed-time and harvest. A man’s wages here are 6 Fanams , 
or about 4 s. a month; a woman’s 5 Fanams, or 3s. 4 cl. The labour- 
ing servants, or Batigai'u, live in their own houses. The old women 
of their families live at home, cook, spin, take care of the children, 
and do all domestic labour; the men, and their young wives, hire 
themselves out to the wealthy farmers, on the same conditions of 
service as at Sermgapatam. Pregnancy occasions scarcely any in- 
terruption in the labour of the women, who are very hardy. 
Although almost every year the scarcity of rain, and the partial 
nature of that which comes, occasions in some part of the country 
above the Ghats a greater or less scarcity of grain ; yet in the time 
of peace, famine seldom comes to such a height, that many die of 
absolute want. From those parts of the country that have been 
most favoured with rain, the superfluous corn is transported to the 
parts where the crop has failed ; and although it is high priced, the 
poor are able to get as much as prevents them from immediately 
dying; although the scantiness of their aliment, no doubt, fre- 
quently induces disorders that terminate in death. It is said, that 
one fourth of the grain which, in times of plenty, the people usually 
consume, is sufficient to keep them alive, and enable them to work 
for their subsistence. It is when war is joined to scarcity, and in- 
terrupts the transportation of grain, that famine produces all its 
horrors. These were never so severely felt here, as during the in- 
vasion of Lord Cornwallis ; when, the country being attacked on 
all sides, and penetrated in every direction by hostile armies, or 
