436 Famines in India . [October, 
delivered from impending destruction, and many millions of 
lives were saved. 
This brings us to the end of the famines regarding which 
information is obtainable from Mahommedan sources. The 
Hindoos, with their well-known contempt for history, have 
recorded nothing of a similar nature on the subject of 
famines in the peninsula of India, and no light can there- 
fore now be thrown upon the question as to how far that 
part of the Indian Empire was, in early times, subject to 
such visitations. 
With the great famine of 1769-70 we enter upon the 
commencement of a period from which the principal famines 
of India have been chronicled by European historians ; but 
it cannot be said with certainty that a full account of these 
calamities, for the whole of India, began to be recorded 
previously to 1860-61, in which year parts of the North- 
western Provinces and the Punjab suffered severely from 
drought, owing to the failure of the usual rains. For this 
reason there can be little doubt that famines of greater or 
less severity have occurred, within the past hundred years, 
especially in the more remote parts of the Empire, of which 
no particulars now are to he found ; and there are strong 
reasons for believing that this has been the case, as legends 
exist, amongst some of the older native inhabitants, of great 
scarcity in certain years, and of its attendant calamities to 
the people, of which, however, no more reliable information 
can now be obtained. Without attempting to enter into 
detail regarding the famines of the past century — which 
would occupy far more space than could fairly be claimed 
for that purpose — a brief account of some of the most noted 
of these visitations will form an appropriate introduction to 
a consideration of their causes, so far as this has as yet been 
ascertained by scientific research, and of the best means to 
be adopted with a view to relieve the districts affected from 
their attendant consequences. 
Subsequently to that in Northern India, of 1769-70, the 
next severe famine visited the Carnatic, and the Settlement 
of Madras in the years 1781 to 1783, which was, to a great 
extent, brought about by the devastations caused by Hyder 
Ali’s armies. The Settlement of Madras was reduced to 
such straits for food that Government found it necessary to 
take steps for regulating the supplies of grain, and in 
January, 1782, a public subscription was raised for the relief 
of the poor, from which originated the institution for the 
relief of the Native poor, known as the Monegar Choultry. 
In 1783-84 certain parts of Upper India are said to have 
