Our own penal code punished with death the poor man who stole a

little food to save his children from starvation, while it left to

exult in the caresses of his own order, the wealthy libertine who

robbed a father and mother of their only daughter, and consigned her

to a life of infamy and misery. The poor victim of man's brutal

passions and base falsehood suffered inevitable and exquisite

punishment, while the laws and usages of society left the man himself

untouched. He had nothing to apprehend if the father of his victim

happened to be of the lower order, or a minister of the Church of

Christ; because his own order would justify his refusing to meet the

one in single combat, and the other dared not invite him to it, and

the law left no remedy.[26]

Take the two parties in England into which society is politically

divided. There is hardly any species of falsehood uttered by the

members of the party out of power against the members of the party in

power that is not tolerated and even applauded by one party; men

state deliberately what they know to be utterly devoid of truth

regarding the conduct of their opponent; they basely ascribe to them

motives by which they know they were never actuated, merely to

deceive the public, and to promote the interests of their party,

without the slightest fear of incurring odium by so doing in the

minds of any but their political opponents. If a foreigner were to

judge of the people of England from the tone of their newspapers, he

would say that there was assuredly neither honour, honesty, nor truth

to be found among the classes which furnished the nation with its

ministers and legislators; for a set of miscreants more atrocious

than the Whig and Tory ministers and legislators of England were

represented to be in these papers never disgraced the society of any

nation upon earth.

Happily, all foreigners who read these journals know that in what the

members of one party say of those of the other, or are reported to

say, there is often but little truth; and that there is still less of

truth in what the editors and correspondents of the ultra journals of

one party write about the characters, conduct, and sentiments of the

members of the other.

There is one species of untruth to which we English people are

particularly prone in India, and, I am assured, everywhere else. It

is this. Young 'miss in her teens', as soon as she finds her female

attendants in the wrong, no matter in what way, exclaims, 'It is so

like the natives'; and the idea of the same error, vice, or crime,

becomes so habitually associated in her mind with every native she

afterwards sees, that she can no more separate them than she can the

idea of ghosts and hobgoblins from darkness and solitude. The young

cadet or civilian, as soon as he finds his valet, butler, or groom in

the wrong, exclaims, 'It is so like blacky--so like the niggers; they

are all alike!' And what could you expect from him? He has been

constantly accustomed to the same vicious association of ideas in his

native land--if he has been brought up in a family of Tories, he has

constantly heard those he most reverenced exclaim, when they have

found, or fancied they found, a Whig in the wrong, 'It is so like the

Whigs--they are all alike--there is no trusting any of them.' If a

Protestant, 'It is so like the Catholics; there is no trusting them

in any condition of life.' The members of Whig and Catholic families

may say the same, perhaps, of Tories and Protestants. An untravelled

Englishman will sometimes say the same of a Frenchman; and the idea

of everything that is bad in man will be associated in his mind with

the image of a Frenchman. If he hears of an act of dishonour by a

person of that nation, 'It is so like a Frenchman--they are all

alike; there is no honour in them.' A Tory goes to America,

predisposed to find in all who live under republican governments

every species of vice and crime; and no sooner sees a man or woman

misbehave than he exclaims, 'It is so like the Americans--they are

all alike; but what could you expect from republicans?' At home, when

he considers himself in relation to the members of the parties

opposed to him in religion or politics, they are associated in his

mind with everything that is vicious; abroad, when he considers the

people of other countries in relation to his own, if they happen to

be Christians, he will find them associated in his mind with

everything that is good, or everything that is bad, in proportion as

their institutions happen to conform to those which his party

advocates. A Tory will abuse America and Americans, and praise the

Austrians. A Whig will, _perhaps_, abuse the Austrians and others who

live under paternal or despotic governments, and praise the

Americans, who live under institutions still more free than his own.

This has properly been considered by Locke as a species of madness

to which all mankind are more or less subject, and from which hardly

any individual can entirely free himself. 'There is', he says,

'scarce a man so free from it, but that if he should always, on all

occasions, argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, would not

be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation. I do not here

mean when he is under the power of an unruly passion, but in the

steady, calm course of his life. That which thus captivates their

reason, and leads men of sincerity blindfold from common sense will,

when examined, be found to be what we are speaking of. Some

independent ideas, of no alliance to one another, are, by education,

custom, and the constant din of their party, so coupled in their

minds, that they always appear there together, and they can no more

separate them in their thoughts than if they were but one idea, and

they operate as if they really were so.' (Book II, Chap. 33.)

Perjury had long since ceased to be considered disgraceful, or even

discreditable, among the patrician order in Rome before the soldiers

ventured to break their oaths of allegiance. Military service had,

from the ignorance and selfishness of this order, been rendered

extremely odious to free-born Romans; and they frequently mutinied

and murdered their generals, though they would not desert, because

they had sworn not to do so. To break his oath by deserting the

standards of Rome was to incur the hatred and contempt of the great

mass of the people--the soldier dared not hazard this. But patricians

of senatorial and consular rank did not hesitate to violate their

oaths whenever it promised any advantage to the patrician order

collectively or individually, because it excited neither contempt nor

indignation in that order. 'They have been false to their generals,'

said Fabius, 'but they have never deceived the gods. I know they

_can_ conquer, and they shall swear to do so.' They swore, and

conquered.

Instead of adopting measures to make the duties of a soldier less

odious, the patricians tumed their hatred of these duties to account,

and at a high price sold an absolution from their oath. While the

members of the patrician order bought and sold oaths among themselves

merely to deceive the lower orders, they were still respected among

the plebeians; but when they began to sell dispensations to the

members of this lower order, the latter also, by degrees, ceased to

feel any veneration for the oath, and it was no longer deemed

disgraceful to desert duties which the higher order made no effort to

render less odious.

'That they who draw the breath of life in a court, and pass all their

days in an atmosphere of lies, should have any very sacred regard for

truth, is hardly to be expected. They experience such falsehood in

all who surround them, that deception, at least suppression of the

truth, almost seems necessary for self-defence; and, accordingly, if

their speech be not framed upon the theory of the French cardinal,

that language was given to man for the better concealment of his

thoughts, they at least seem to regard in what they say, not its

resemblance to the tact in question, but rather its subserviency to

the purpose in view.' (Brougham's _George IV._) 'Yet, let it never be

forgotten, that princes are nurtured in falsehood by the atmosphere

of lies which envelops their palace; steeled against natural

sympathies by the selfish natures of all that surround them; hardened

in cruelty, partly indeed by the fears incident to their position,

but partly too by the unfeeling creatures, the factions, the

unnatural productions of a court whom alone they deal with; trained

for tyrants by the prostration which they find in all the minds which

they come in contact with; encouraged to domineer by the unresisting

medium through which all their steps to power and its abuse are

made.' (Brougham's _Carnot_.)

But Lord Brougham is too harsh. Johnson has observed truly enough,

'Honesty is not necessarily greater where elegance is less'; nor does

a sense of supreme or despotic power necessarily imply the exercise

or abuse of it. Princes have, happily, the same yearning as the

peasant after the respect and affection of the circle around them,

and the people under them; and they must generally seek it by the

same means.

I have mentioned the village communities of India as that class of

the population among whom truth prevails most; but I believe there is

no class of men in the world more strictly honourable in their

dealings than the mercantile classes of India. Under native

governments a merchant's books were appealed to as 'holy writ', and

the confidence in them has certainly not diminished under our rule.

There have been instances of their being seized by the magistrate,

and subjected to the inspection of the officers of his court. No

officer of a native government ventured to seize them; the merchant

was required to produce them as proof of particular entries, and,

while the officers of government did no more, there was no danger of

false accounts.

An instance of deliberate fraud or falsehood among native merchants

of respectable station in society is extremely rare. Among the many

hundreds of bills I have had to take from them for private

remittances, I have never had one dishonoured, or the payment upon

one delayed beyond the day specified; nor do I recollect ever hearing

of one who had. They are so careful not to speculate beyond their

means, that an instance of failure is extremely rare among them. No

one ever in India hears of families reduced to ruin or distress by

the failure of merchants or bankers; though here, as in all other

countries advanced in the arts, a vast number of families subsist

upon the interest of money employed by them.[27]

There is no class of men more interested in the stability of our rule

in India than this of the respectable merchants; nor is there any

upon whom the welfare of our Government and that of the people more

depend. Frugal, first upon principle, that they may not in their

expenditure encroach upon their capitals, they become so by habit;

and when they advance in life they lay out their accumulated wealth

in the formation of those works which shall secure for them, from

generation to generation, the blessings of the people of the towns in

which they have resided, and those of the country around. It would

not be too much to say that one-half of the great works which

embellish and enrich the face of India, in tanks, groves, wells,

temples, &c., have been formed by this class of the people solely

with the view of securing the blessings of mankind by contributing to

their happiness in solid and permanent works.[28] 'The man who has

left behind him great works in temples, bridges, reservoirs, and

caravanserais for the public good, does not die,' says Shaikh

Sâdî,[29] the greatest of Eastern poets, whose works are more read

and loved than those of any other uninspired man that has ever

written, not excepting our own beloved Shakspeare.[30] He is as much

loved and admired by Hindoos as by Muhammadans; and from boyhood to

old age he continues the idol of the imaginations of both. The boy of

ten, and the old man of seventy, alike delight to read and quote him

for the music of his verses, and the beauty of his sentiments,

precepts, and imagery.[31]

It was to the class last mentioned, whose incomes are derived from

the profits of stock invested in manufactures and commerce, that

Europe chiefly owed its rise and progress after the downfall of the

Roman Empire, and the long night of darkness and desolation which

followed it. It was through the means of mercantile industry, and the

municipal institutions to which it gave rise, that the enlightened

sovereigns of Europe were enabled to curb the licence of the feudal

aristocracy, and to give to life, property, and character that

security without which society could not possibly advance; and it was

through the same means that the people were afterwards enabled to put

those limits to the authority of the sovereign, and to secure to

themselves that share in the government without which society could

not possibly be free or well constituted. Upon the same foundation

may we hope to raise a superstructure of municipal corporations and

institutions in India, such as will give security and dignity to the

society; and the sooner we begin upon the work the better.[32]

Notes:

1. Johnson says: 'Mountaineers are thievish because they are poor;

and, having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow rich only by

robbery. They regularly plunder their neighbours, for their

neighbours are commonly their enemies; and, having lost that

reverence for property by which the order of civil life is preserved,

soon consider all as enemies whom they do not reckon as friends, and

think themselves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to

protect.' [W. H. S.] The quotation is from _A Journey to the Western

Islands of Scotland_.

The observations in the text apply largely to the settled Hindoo

villages, as well as to the forest tribes.

2. _Ficus religiosa_ is the Linnaean name for the 'pîpal'. Other

botanists call it _Urostigma religiosum_. In the original edition the

botanical name is erroneously given as _Ficus indicus_. The _Ficus

indica_ (_F. Bengalensis_, or _Urostigma B._) is the banyan. A story

is current that the traders of a certain town begged the magistrate

to remove a pîpal-tree which he had planted in the market-place,

because, so long as it remained, business could not be conducted.

They knew 'the value of a lie'.

3. The red cotton, or silk-cotton, tree, when in spring covered with

its huge magnolia-shaped scarlet blossoms, is one of the most

magnificent objects in nature. Its botanical name is _Salmalia

malabarica_ (_Bombax malabaricum; B. heptaphyllum_). This is the tree

referred to in the text. The white silk-cotton tree (_Eriodendron

anfractuosum; Bombax 'pentandrum; Ceiba pentandra; Gossampinus

Rumphii_) has a more southern habitat. (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd

ed., s.v. 'Salmalia' and 'Eriodendron'.)

4. The pîpal is usually regarded as sacred only to Vishnu, the

Preserver. The _Ficus indica_, or banyan, is sacred to Siva, the

Destroyer, and the _Butea frondosa_ (Hind. 'dhâk', 'palâs', or

'chhyûl ') to Brahmâ, the Creator, or [Greek text].

5. The sacred trees and plants of India are numerous. 'Balfour

(Cyclop., 3rd ed., s.v. 'Sacred') enumerates eighty, and the list is

by no mean complete. The same author's article, 'Tree', may also be

consulted. The minor 'deities' alluded to by the author are the real

gods of popular rural Hinduism. The observations of Mr. William

Crooke, probably the best authority on the subject of Indian popular

religion, though made with reference to a particular locality, are

generally applicable. 'Hinduism certainly shows no signs of weakness,

and is practically untouched by Christian and Muhammadan proselytism.

The gods of the Vedas are as dead as Jupiter, and the Krishna worship

only succeeds from its marvellous adaptability to the sensuous and

romantic side of the native mind. But it would be too much to say

that the creed exercises any real effect on life or morals. With the

majority of its devotees it is probably more sympathetic than

practical, and ranks with the periodical ablutions in the Ganges and

Jumna, and the traditional worship of the local gods and ghosts,

which really impress the rustic. He is enclosed on all sides by a

ring of precepts, which attribute luck or ill-luck to certain things

or actions. These and the bonds of caste, with its obligations for

the performance of marriage, death, and other ceremonies, make up the

religions life of the peasant. Nearly every village and hamlet has

its local ghost, usually the shrine of a childless man, or one whose

funeral rites remained for some reason unperformed. In the expressive

popular phrase, he is 'deprived of water' (_aud_). The pious make

oblations to his cenotaph twice a year, and propitiate his ghost with

offerings of water to allay his thirst in the lower world. The

primaeval serpent-worship is perpetuated in the reverence paid to

traditional village-snakes. Of the local ghosts some are beneficent.

Sometimes they are only mischievous, like Robin Goodfellow, and will

milk the cows, and sour the milk, or pull your hair, if you wander

about at night in certain well-known uncanny places. A more dangerous

demon is heard in the crackling of the dry leaves of the date-tree in

the night wind; and some trees are haunted by a vampire, who will

drag you up and devour you, if you venture near them in the

darkness.' (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. vii. _Supplement_, p.

4.) See also the same author's work _Popular Religion and Folklore of

Northern India_, 2nd ed., 2 vols. Constable, 1896.

6. Compare the story of Râmkishan in Chapter 25. Books on

anthropology cite many instances of deaths caused by superstitious

fears.

7. Arrian, _Indica_, chap. 12: 'The sixth class consists of those

called "superintendents". They spy out what goes on in country and

town, and report everything to the king where the people have a king,

and to the magistrates where the people are self-governed, and it is

against use and wont for them to give a false report;--but indeed no

Indian is accused of lying.' (McCrindle, _Ancient India, as described

by Megasthenes and Arrian_, Trübner, 1877, p. 211). Arrian uses the

word [Greek text 1]; in the Fragments of Megasthenes quoted by

Diodorus and Strabo, the word is [Greek text 2]. The people referred

to seem to be the well-known 'news-writers' employed by Oriental

sovereigns (_ante_, chapter 33, note 7); a simple explanation missed

by McCrindle (op. cit. p. 43, note). The remark about the

truthfulness of the Indians appears to be Arrian's addition. It is

not in the Fragment of Megasthenes from which Arrian copies, and the

falsity of the remark is proved by the statement (ibid., p. 71) that

'a person convicted of bearing false witness suffers mutilation of

his extremities'. But in Fragment XXVII from Strabo (op. cit., p. 70)

Megasthenes says, 'Truth and virtue they hold alike in esteem'; and

in Fragment XXXIII (ibid., p. 85) he asserts that 'the ablest and

moat trustworthy men' are appointed [Greek text 2].

8. Up to the year 1827 'grand larceny', that is to say, stealing to a

value exceeding twelve pence, was punishable with death. The Act 7

George IV, cap. 28, abolished the distinction of grand and petty

larceny. In 1837, the first year of Queen Victoria's reign, the

punishment of death was abolished in the case of between thirty and

forty offences. Other statutes have further mitigated the ferocity of

the old law.

9. The year was 1652, not 1648 (Tavernier, _Travels_, transl. Ball,

vol. i, p. 260, note). The passages describing the criminal procedure

of Amîr Jumla are not very long, and deserve quotation, as giving an

accurate account of the administration of penal justice by an able

native ruler. 'On the 14th [September] we went to the tent of the

Nawâb to take leave of him, and to hear what he had to say regarding

the goods which we had shown him. But we were told that he was

engaged examining a number of criminals, who had been brought to him

for immediate punishment. It is the custom in this country not to

keep a man in prison; but immediately the accused is taken he is

examined and sentence is pronounced on him, which is then executed

without any delay. If the person whom they have seized is found

innocent, he is released at once; and whatever the nature of the case

may be, it is promptly concluded. . . . On the 15th, at seven o'clock

in the morning, we went to the Nawâb, and immediately we were

announced he asked us to enter his tent, where he was seated with two

of his secretaries by him. . . . The Nawâb had the intervals between

his toes full of letters, and he also had many between the fingers of

his left hand. He drew them sometimes from his feet, sometimes from

his hand, and sent his replies through his two secretaries, writing

some also himself. . . . While we were with the Nawâb he was informed

that four prisoners, who were then at the door of the tent, had

arrived. He remained more than half an hour without replying, writing

continually and making his secretaries write, but at length he

suddenly ordered the criminals to be brought in; and after having

questioned them, and made them confess with their own mouths the

crime of which they were accused, he remained nearly an hour without

saying anything, continuing to write and to make his secretaries

write, . . . Among these four prisoners who were brought into his

presence there was one who had entered a house and slain a mother and

her three infants. He was condemned forthwith to have his feet and

hands cut off, and to be thrown into a field near the high road to

end his days. Another had stolen on the high road, and the Nawâb

ordered him to have his stomach slit open and to be flung in a drain,

I could not ascertain what the others had done, but both their heads

were cut off. While all this passed the dinner was served, for the

Nawâb generally eats at ten o'clock, and he made us dine with him.'

(Ibid., pp. 290-3.) Such swift procedure and sharp punishments would

still be highly approved of by the great mass of Indian opinion in

the villages.

10. Misprinted 'much less' in original edition.

11. The new Act, V of 1840, prescribes the following declaration: 'I

solemnly affirm, in the presence of Almighty God, that what I shall

state shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

truth',--and declares that a false statement made on this shall be

punished as perjury. [W. H. S.] The law now in force is to the same

effect. This form of declaration is absolutely worthless as a check

on perjury, and never hinders any witness from lying to his heart's

content. The use of the Korân and Ganges water in the courts has been

given up.

12. The tendency of modern India is to rely too much on formal law

and the exercise of the powers of the central government. The

contemplation of the vast administrative machinery working with its

irresistible force and unfailing regularity in obedience to the will

of rulers, whose motives are not understood, undoubtedly has a

paralysing influence on the life of the nations of India, which, if

not counteracted, would work deep mischief. Something in the way of

counteraction has been done, though not always with knowledge. The

difficulties inherent in the problem of reconciling foreign rule with

self-government in an Asiatic country are enormous.

13. But panegyrics on the self-government of Indian villages must

always be read with the qualification that the standard of such

government was low, and that hundreds of acts and omissions were

tolerated, which are intolerable to a modern European Government.

Hence comes the difficulty of enforcing numerous reforms loudly

called for by European opinion. The vast Indian population hates

reform and innovation for many reasons, and, above all, because they

involve expense, which to the Indian mind appears wholly

unwarrantable.

14. The same phenomenon is observable in rural Ireland, where, as in

India, an unhappy history has generated profound distrust and dislike

of official authority. The Irish peasant has always been ready to

give his neighbour 'the loan of an oath', and a refusal to give it

would be thought unneighbourly. An Irish Land Commission and an

Indian Settlement Officer must alike expect to receive startling

information about the value of land.

15. _Ante_, chapter 49, text at [16].

16. Hume, in speaking of Scotland in the fifteenth century, says,

'Arms more than laws prevailed; and courage, preferably to equity and

justice, was the virtue most valued and respected. The nobility, in

whom the whole power resided, were so connected by hereditary

alliances, or so divided by inveterate enmities, that it was

impossible, without employing an armed force, either to punish the

most flagrant guilt, or to give security to the most entire

innocence. Rapine and violence, when employed against a hostile

tribe, instead of making a person odious among his own clan, rather

recommended him to their esteem and approbation; and, by rendering

him useful to the chieftain, entitled him to the preference above his

fellows.' [W. H. S.]

17. Gibbon, chap. 5. The remark refers to Septimius Severus.

18. The Ballot Act became law in 1872.

19. All that the author says is true, and yet it does not alter the

fact that Indian society is and always has been permeated and

paralysed by almost universal distrust. Such universal distrust does

not prevail in England. This difference between the two societies is

fundamental, and its reality is fully recognized by natives of India.

20. Compare the author's account of the fraudulent practices of the

Company's sepoys when on leave in Oudh. (_Journey through the Kingdom

of Oude_, vol. i, pp. 286-304.)

21. The editor has failed to find these quotations in the Wellington

Dispatches.

22. This is the first story in the first chapter of the _Gulistân_.

The _Mishkât-ul-Masâbih_ (Matthews, vol. ii, p. 427) teaches the same

doctrine as Sâdî: 'That person is not a liar who makes peace between

two people, and speaks good words to do away their quarrel although

they should be lies; and that person who carries good words from one

to another is not a tale-bearer.'

23. Gibbon, chapter 27. In the year A.D. 390 Botheric, the general of

Theodosius was murdered by a mob at Thessalonica. Acting on the

advice of Rufinus, the emperor avenged his officer's death by an

indiscriminate massacre of the inhabitants, in which numbers

variously estimated at from 7,000 to 15,000 perished. The emperor

quickly felt remorse for the atrocity of which he had been guilty,

and submitted to do public penance under the direction of Ambrose.

24. The sum total of truth in India would not, I fear, be appreciably

increased if every European had the temper of an angel.

25. The editor has never known a reputation for corruption in any way

lower the social position of an official of Indian birth.

26. The argument in the anthor's mind seems to be that the unveracity

practised and condoned by certain classes of the natives of India on

certain occasions is, at least, not more reprehensible than the vices

practised and condoned by certain classes of Europeans on certain

occasions.

27. Since the author wrote the above remarks, the conditions of

Indian trade have been revolutionized by the development of roads,

railways, motors, telegraph, postal facilities, and exports. The

Indian merchant has been drawn into the vortex of European and

American commerce. He is, in consequence, not quite so cautions as he

used to be, and is more liable to severe loss or failure, though he

is still, as a rule, far more inclined to caution than are his

Western rivals. The Indian private banker undoubtedly is honest in

ordinary banking transactions and anxious to maintain his commercial

credit, but he will often stoop to the most discreditable devices in

the purchase of a coveted estate, the foreclosure of a mortgage, and

the like. His books, nowadays, are certainly not 'appealed to as holy

writ', and many merchants keep a duplicate set for income-tax

purposes. The happy people of 1836 had never heard of income tax.

Private remittances are now made usually through the post office or

the joint-stock banks, which did not exist in the author's days. In

recent times failures of banks and merchants have been frequent.

28. These observations, which are perfectly true, form a corrective

to the fashionable abuse of the Indian capitalist, whose virtues and

merits are seldom noticed.

29. The editor has not succeeded in tracing this quotation, but

several passages to a similar effect occur in the _Gulistân_.

30. I ought to except Confucius, the great Chinese moralist. [W. H.

S.]

31. For a brief notice of Sâdî (Sa'dî) see _ante_, chapter 12, note

6. The _Gulistân_ is everywhere used as a text-book in schools where

Persian is taught. The author's extant correspondence shows that he

was fascinated by the charms of Persian poetry, even during the first

year of his residence in India.

32. The work was 'begun upon' many years ago, and 'a superstructure

of municipal corporations and institutions' now exists in every part

of India. But 'the same foundation' does not exist. The stout

burghers of the mediaeval English and German towns have no Indian

equivalents. The superstructure of the municipal institutions is all

that Acts of the Legislature can make it; the difficulty is to find

or make a solid foundation. Still, it was right and necessary to

establish municipal institutions in India, and, notwithstanding all

weaknesses and defects, they are of considerable value, and are

slowly developing.

CHAPTER 58

Declining Fertility of the Soil--Popular Notion of the Cause.

On the 18th[1] we came on ten miles to Sâhar, over a plain of poor

soil, carelessly cultivated, and without either manure or irrigation.

Major Godby left us at Govardhan to return to Agra. He would have

gone on with us to Delhi; but having the command of his regiment, and

being a zealous officer, he did not like to leave it so long during

the exercising season. We felt much the loss of his society. He is a

man of great observation and practical good sense; has an infinite

fund of good humour, and a cheerfulness of temperament that never

seems to flag--a more agreeable companion I have never met. The

villages in these parts are literally crowded with peafowl. I counted

no less than forty-six feeding close by among the houses of one

hamlet on the road, all wild, or rather _unappropriated_, for they

seemed on the best possible terms with the inhabitants. At Sâhar our

water was drawn from wells eighty feet deep, and this is said to be

the ordinary depth from which water is drawn; consequently irrigation

is too expensive to be common. It is confined almost exclusively to

small patches of garden cultivation in the vicinity of villages.

On the 14th we came on sixteen miles to Kosî, for the most part over

a poor soil badly cultivated, and almost exclusively devoted to

autumn crops, of which cotton is the principal. I lost the road in

the morning before daylight,[2] and the trooper, who usually rode

with me, had not come up. I got an old landholder from one of the

villages to walk on with me a mile, and put me in the right road. I

asked him what had been the state of the country under the former

government of the Jâts and Marâthâs, and was told that the greater

part was a wild jungle. 'I remember,' said the old man, 'when you

could not have got out of the road hereabouts without a good deal of

risk. I could not have ventured a hundred yards from the village

without the chance of having my clothes stripped off my back. Now the

whole face of the country is under cultivation, and the roads are

safe; formerly the governments kept no faith with their landholders

and cultivators, exacting ten rupees where they had bargained for

five, whenever they found the crops good; but, in spite of all this

"zulm"' (oppression), said the old man, 'there was then more "barkat"

(blessings from above) than now. The lands yielded more returns to

the cultivator, and he could maintain his little family better upon

five acres than he can now upon ten.'

'To what, my old friend, do you attribute this very unfavourable

change in the productive powers of your soil?'

'A man cannot, sir, venture to tell the truth at all times, and in

all places,' said he.

'You may tell it now with safety, my good old friend; I am a mere

traveller ("musafir") going to the hills in search of health, from

the valley of the Nerbudda, where the people have been suffering much

from blight, and are much perplexed in their endeavour to find a

cause.'

'Here, sir, we all attribute these evils to the dreadful System of

_perjury_, which the practices of your judicial courts have brought

among the people. You are perpetually putting the Ganges water into

the hands of the Hindoos, and the Korân into those of Muhammadans;

and all kinds of lies are every day told upon them. God Almighty can

stand this no longer; and the lands have ceased to be blessed with

that fertility which they had before this sad practice began. This,

sir, is almost the only fault we have, any of us, to find with your

government; men, by this System of perjury, are able to cheat each

other out of their rights, and bring down sterility upon the land, by

which the innocent are made to suffer for the guilty.'

On reaching our tents, I asked a respectable farmer, who came to pay

his respects to the Commissioner of the division, Mr. Fraser, what he

thought of the matter, telling him what I had heard from my old

friend on the road. 'The diminished fertility is,' said he, 'owing no

doubt to the want of those salutary fallows which the fields got

under former governments, when invasions and civil wars were things

of common occurrence, and kept at least two-thirds of the land waste;

but there is, on the other hand, no doubt that you have encouraged

perjury a good deal in your courts of justice; and this perjury must

have some effect in depriving the land of the blessing of God.[3]

Every man now, who has a cause in your civil courts, seems to think

it necessary either to swear falsely himself, or to get others to do

it for him. The European gentlemen, no doubt, do all they can to

secure every man his right, but, surrounded as they are by perjured

witnesses, and corrupt native officers, they commonly labour in the

dark.'

Much of truth is to be found among the village communities of India,

where they have been carefully maintained, if people will go among

them to seek it. Here, as almost everywhere else, truth is the result

of self-government, whether arising from choice, under municipal

institutions, or necessity, under despotism and anarchy; self-

government produces self-esteem and pride of character.

Close to our tents we found the people at work, irrigating their

fields from several wells, whose waters were all brackish. The crops

watered from these wells were admirable--likely to yield at least

fifteen returns of the seed. Wherever we go, we find the signs of a

great government passed away--signs that must tend to keep alive the

recollections, and exalt the ideas of it in the minds of the people.

Beyond the boundary of our military and civil stations we find as yet

few indications of our reign or character, to link us with the

affections of the people. There is hardly anything to indicate our

existence as a people or a government in this country; and it is

melancholy to think that in the wide extent of country over which I

have travelled there should be so few signs of that superiority in

science and arts which we boast of, and really do possess, and ought

to make conducive to the welfare and happiness of the people in every

part of our dominions. The people and the face of the country are

just what they might have been had they been governed by police

officers and tax-gatherers from the Sandwich Islands, capable of

securing life, property, and character, and levying honestly the

means of maintaining the establishments requisite for the purpose.[4]

Some time after the journey here described, in the early part of

November, after a heavy fall of rain, I was driving alone in my buggy

from Garhmuktesar on the Ganges to Meerut. The roads were very bad,

the stage a double one, and my horse became tired, and unable to go

on.[5] I got out at a small village to give him a little rest and

food; and sat down, under the shade of one old tree, upon the trunk

of another that the storm had blown down, while my groom, the only

servant I had with me, rubbed down and baited my horse. I called for

some parched gram from the same shop which supplied my horse, and got

a draught of good water, drawn from the well by an old woman in a

brass jug lent to me for the purpose by the shopkeeper.[6]

While I sat contentedly and happily stripping my parched gram of its

shell, and eating it grain by grain, the farmer, or head landholder

of the village, a sturdy old Râjpût, came up and sat himself, without

any ceremony, down by my side, to have a little conversation. To one

of the dignitaries of the land, in whose presence the aristocracy are

alone entitled to chairs, this easy familiarity on the part of a poor

farmer seems at first somewhat strange and unaccountable; he is

afraid that the man intends to offer him some indignity, or, what is

still worse, mistakes him for something less than the dignitary. The

following dialogue took place.

'You are a Râjpût, and a "zamîndâr"?' (landholder).

'Yes; I am the head landholder of this village.'

'Can you tell me how that village in the distance is elevated above

the ground? Is it from the debris of old villages, or from a rock

underneath?'

'It is from the debris of old villages. That is the original seat of

all the Râjpûts around; we all trace our descent from the founders of

that village who built and peopled it many centuries ago.'

'And you have gone on subdividing your inheritances here, as

elsewhere, no doubt, till you have hardly any of you anything to

eat?'

'True, we have hardy any of us enough to eat; but that is the fault

of the Government, that does not leave us enough, that takes from us

as much when the season is bad as when it is good.'[7]

'But your assessment has not been increased, has it?' 'No, we have

concluded a settlement for twenty years upon the same footing as

formerly.'

'And if the sky were to shower down upon you pearls and diamonds,

instead of water, the Government would never demand more from you

than the rate fixed upon?'

'No.'

'Then why should you expect remissions in the bad seasons?'

'It cannot be disputed that the "barkat" (blessing from above) is

less under you than it used to be formerly, and that the lands yield

less to our labour.'

'True, my old friend, but do you know the reason why?'

'No.'

'Then I will tell you. Forty or fifty years ago, in what you call the

times of the "barkat" (blessing from above), the cavalry of Sikh

freebooters from the Panjâb used to sweep over this fine plain, in

which stands the said village from which you are all descended; and

to massacre the whole population of some villages, and a certain

portion of that of every other village; and the lands of those killed

used to be waste for want of cultivators. Is not this all true?'

'Yes, quite true.'

'And the fine groves which had been planted over the plain by your

ancestors, as they separated from the great parent stock, and formed

independent villages and hamlets for themselves, were all swept away

and destroyed by the same hordes of freebooters, from whom your poor

imbecile emperors, cooped up in yonder large city of Delhi, were

utterly unable to defend you?'

'Quite true,' said the old man with a sigh. 'I remember when all this

fine plain was as thickly studded with fine groves of mango-trees as

Rohilkhand, or any other part of India.'

'You know that the land requires rest from labour, as well as men and

bullocks, and that, if you go on sowing wheat and other exhausting

crops, it will go on yielding less and less returns, and at last not

be worth the tilling?'

'Quite well.'

'Then why do you not give the land rest by leaving it longer fallow,

or by a more frequent alternation of crops relieve it?'

'Because we have now increased so much that we should not get enough

to eat were we to leave it to fallow; and unless we tilled it with

exhausting crops we should not get the means of paying our rents to

the Government.'

'The Sikh hordes in former days prevented this; they killed off a

certain portion of your families, and gave the land the rest which

you now refuse it. When you had exhausted one part, you found another

recovered by a long fallow, so that you had better returns; but now

that we neither kill you, nor suffer you to be killed by others, you

have brought all the cultivable lands into tillage; and under the old

System of cropping to exhaustion, it is not surprising that they

yield you less returns.'[8]

By this time we had a crowd of people seated around us upon the

ground, as I went on munching my parched gram, and talking to the old

patriarch.

They all laughed at the old man at the conclusion of my last speech,

and he confessed I was right.

'This is all true, sir, but still your Government is not considerate;

it goes on taking kingdom after kingdom, and adding to its dominions

without diminishing the burden upon us, its old subjects. Here you

have had armies away taking Afghanistan, but we shall not have one

rupee the less to pay.'[9]

'True, my friend, nor would you demand a rupee less from those honest

cultivators around us, if we were to leave you all your lands

untaxed. You complain of the Government--they complain of you.' (Here

the circle around us laughed at the old man again.) 'Nor would you

subdivide the lands the less for having it rent-free; on the

contrary, it would be every generation subdivided the more, inasmuch

as there would be more of local ties, and a greater disinclination of

families to separate and seek service abroad.'

'True, sir, very true--that is, no doubt, a very great evil.'

'And you know it is not an evil produced by us, but one arising out

of your own laws of inheritance. You have heard, no doubt, that with

us the eldest son gets the whole of the land, and the younger sons

all go out in search of service, with such share as they can get of

the other property of their father?'

'Yes, sir; but when shall we get service?--you have none to give us.

I would serve to-morrow if you would take me as a soldier,' said he,

stroking his white whiskers.

The crowd laughed heartily; and some wag observed that I should

perhaps think him too old.

'Well,' said the old man, smiling, 'the gentleman himself is not very

young, and yet I dare say he is a good servant of his Government.'

This was paying me off for making the people laugh at his expense.

'True, my old friend,' said I, 'but I began to serve when I was

young, and have been long learning.'

'Very well,' said the old man, 'but I should be glad to serve the

rest of my life upon a less salary than you got when you began to

learn.'

'Well, my friend, you complain of our Government; but you must

acknowledge that we do all we can to protect you, though it is true

that we are often acting in the dark.'

'Often, sir? you are always acting in the dark; you, hardly any of

you, know anything of what your revenue and police officers are

doing; there is no justice or redress to be got without paying for

it, and it is not often that those who pay can get it.'

'True, my old friend, that is bad all over the world. You cannot

presume to ask anything even from the Deity Himself, without paying

the priest who officiates in His temples; and if you should, you

would none of you hope to get from your Deity what you asked for.'

Here the crowd laughed again, and one of them said that 'there was

this certainly to be said for our Government, that the European

gentlemen themselves never took bribes, whatever those under them

might do'.

'You must not be too sure of that, neither. Did not the Lâl Bîbî, the

Red Lady, get a bribe for soliciting the judge, her husband, to let

go Amîr Singh, who had been confined in jail?'

'How did this take place?'

'About three years ago Amîr Singh was sentenced to imprisonment, and

his friends spent a great deal of money in bribes to the native

officers of the court, but all in vain. At last they were recommended

to give a handsome present to the Red Lady. They did so, and Amîr

Singh was released.'

'But did they give the present into the lady's own hand?'

'No, they gave it to one of her women.'

'And how do you know that she ever gave it to her mistress, or that

her mistress ever heard of the transaction?'

'She might certainly have been acting without her mistress'

knowledge; but the popular belief is that the Lâl Bîbî got the

present.'

I then told the story of the affair at Jubbulpore, when Mrs. Smith's

name had been used for a similar purpose, and the people around us

were all highly amused; and the old man's opinion of the transaction

with the Red Lady evidently underwent a change.[10]

We became good friends, and the old man begged me to have my tents,

which he supposed were coming up, pitched among them, that he might

have an opportunity of showing that he was not a bad subject, though

he grumbled against the Government.

The next day at Meerut I got a visit from the chief native judge,

whose son, a talented youth, is in my office. Among other things, I

asked him whether it might not be possible to improve the character

of the police by increasing the salaries of the officers, and

mentioned my conversation with the landholder.

'Never, sir,' said the old gentleman; 'the man that now gets twenty-

five rupees a month is contented with making perhaps fifty or

seventy-five more; and the people subject to his authority pay him

accordingly. Give him a hundred, sir, and he will put a shawl over

his shoulders, and the poor people will be obliged to pay him at a

rate that will make up his income to four hundred. You will only

alter his style of living, and make him a greater burthen to the

people. He will always take as long as he thinks he can with

impunity.'

'But do you not think that when people see a man adequately paid by

the Government they will the more readily complain of any attempt at

unauthorized exactions?'

'Not a bit, sir, as long as they see the same difficulties in the way

of prosecuting him to conviction. In the administration of civil

justice' (the old gentleman is a civil judge), 'you may occasionally

see your way, and understand what is doing; but in revenue and police

you never have seen it in India, and never will, I think. The

officers you employ will all add to their incomes by unauthorized

means; and the lower these incomes, the less their pretensions, and

the less the populace have to pay.'[11]

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. The old Anglo-Indian rose much earlier than his successor of the

present day commonly does.

3. For other popular explanations of the alleged decrease in

fertility of the soil, see _ante_, Chapter 27, where three

explanations are offered, namely, the eating of beef, the prevalence

of adultery, and the impiety of surveys.

4. The inapplicability of these observations of the author to the

present time is a good measure of the material progress of India

since his day. The Ganges Canal, the bridges over the Indus, Ganges,

and other great rivers, and numberless engineering works throughout

the empire, are permanent witnesses to the scientific superiority of

the ruling race. Buildings which can claim any high degree of

architectural excellence are, unfortunately, still rare, but the

public edifices of Bombay will not suffer by comparison with those of

most capital cities, and for some years past, considerable attention

has been paid to architecture as an art. A great architectural

experiment is in progress at the new official capital of Delhi

(1914).

5. The road is now an excellent one.

6. Parched gram, or chick-pea, is commonly used by Indian travellers

as a convenient and readily portable form of food. The 'brass jug'

lent to the author could be purified by fire after his use of it.

7. Growls of this kind must not be interpreted too literally. Any

village landholder, if encouraged, would grumble in the same strain.

8. This is the permanent difficulty of Indian revenue administration,

which no Government measures can seriously diminish.

9. The mission to Kabul, under Captain Alexander Burnes, was not

dispatched till September, 1837, and troops did not assemble before

the conclusion of the treaty with the Sikhs in June, 1838. The army

crossed the Indus in January, 1839. The conversation in the text is

stated to have taken place 'some time after the journey herein

described', and must, apparently, be dated in November, 1839. The

author was in the North-Western Provinces in that year.

10. Some of Mrs. Smith's suitors entered into a combination to

defraud a suitor in his court of a large sum of money, which he was

to pay to Mrs. Smith as she walked in the garden. A dancing girl from

the town of Jubbulpore was made to represent Mrs. Smith, and a suit

of Mrs. Smith's clothes was borrowed for her from the washerman. The

butler took the suitor to the garden, and introduced him to the

supposed Mrs. Smith, who received him very graciously, and

condescended to accept his offer of five thousand rupees in gold

mohurs. The plot was afterwards discovered, and the old butler,

washerman, and all, were sentenced to work in a rope on the roads.

[W. H. S.]

Penal labour on the roads has been discontinued long since. Similar

plots probably have often escaped detection. The whole conversation

is a valuable illustration of Indian habits and modes of thought.

11. The subject of the police administration is more fully discussed

_post_, in Chapter 69.

CHAPTER 59

Concentration of Capital and its Effects.

Kosî[1] stands on the borders of Fîrôzpur, the estate of the late

Shams-ud-dîn, who was hanged at Delhi on the 3rd of October, 1835,

for the murder of William Fraser, the representative of the Governor-

General in the Delhi city and territories.[2] The Mewâtîs of Fîrôzpur

are notorious thieves and robbers. During the Nawâb's time they dared

not plunder within his territory, but had a free licence to plunder

wherever they pleased beyond it.[3] They will now be able to plunder

at home, since our tribunals have been introduced to worry

prosecutors and their witnesses to death by the distance they have to

go, and the tediousness of our process; and thereby to secure

impunity to offenders, by making it the interest of those who have

been robbed, not only to bear with the first loss without complaint,

but largely to bribe police officers to conceal the crimes from their

master, the magistrate, when they happen to come to their knowledge.

Here it was that Jeswant Râo Holkâr gave a grand ball on the 14th of

October, 1804, while he was with his cavalry covering the siege of

Delhi by his regular brigade. In the midst of the festivity he had a

European soldier of the King's 76th Regiment, who had been taken

prisoner, strangled behind the curtain, and his head stuck upon a

spear and placed in the midst of the assembly, where the 'nâch'

(nautch) girls were made to dance round it. Lord Lake reached the

place the next morning in pursuit of this monster; and the gallant

regiment, who here heard the story, had soon an opportunity of

revenging the foul murder of their comrade in the battle of Dîg, one

of the most gallant passages of arms we have ever had in India.[4]

Near Kosî there is a factory in ruins belonging to the late firm of

Mercer & Company. Here the cotton of the district used to be

collected and screwed under the superintendence of European agents,

preparatory to its embarkation for Calcutta on the river Jumna. On

the failure of the firm, the establishment was broken up, and the

work, which was then done by one great European merchant, is now done

by a score or two of native merchants. There is, perhaps, nothing

which India wants more than the concentration of capital; and the

failure of a I [5] the great commercial houses in Calcutta, in the

year 1833, was, unquestionably, a great calamity. They none of them

brought a particle of capital into the country, nor does India want a

particle from any country; but they _concentrated_ it; and had they

employed the whole, as they certainly did a good deal of it, in

judiciously improving and extending the industry of the natives, they

might have been the source of incalculable good to India, its people,

and government.[6]

To this concentration of capital in great commercial and

manufacturing establishments, which forms the grand characteristic of

European in contradistinction to Asiatic societies in the present

day, must we look for those changes which we consider desirable in

the social and religions institutions of the people. Where land is

liable to eternal subdivision by the law and the religion of both the

Muhammadan and Hindoo population; where every great work that

improves its productive powers, and facilitates the distribution of

its produce among the people, in canals, roads, bridges, &c., is made

by Government; where capital is nowhere concentrated in great

commercial or manufacturing establishments, there can be no upper

classes in society but those of office; and of all societies, perhaps

that is the worst in which the higher classes are so exclusively

composed. In India, public office has been, and must continue to be,

the only road to distinction, until we have a _law of primogeniture_,

and a _concentration of capital_. In India no man has ever thought

himself respectable, or been thought so by others, unless he is armed

with his little 'hukûmat'; his 'little brief authority' under

Government, that gives him the command of some public establishment

paid out of the revenues of the State.[7] In Europe and America,

where capital has been concentrated in great commercial and

manufacturing establishments, and free institutions prevail almost as

the natural consequence, industry is everything; and those who direct

and command it are, happily, looked up to as the source of the

wealth, the strength, the virtue, and the happiness of the nation.

The concentration of capital in such establishments may, indeed, be

considered, not only as the natural consequence, but as the

prevailing cause of the free institutions by which the mass of the

people in European countries are blessed.[8] The mass of the people

were as much brutalized and oppressed by the landed aristocracy as

they could have been by any official aristocracy before towns and

higher classes were created by the concentration of capital.

The same observations are applicable to China. There the land all

belongs to the sovereign, as in India; and, as in India, it is liable

to the same eternal subdivision among the sons of those who hold it

under him. Capital is nowhere more concentrated in China than in

India; and all the great works that add to the fertility of the soil,

and facilitate the distribution of the land labour of the country are

formed by the sovereign out of the public revenue. The revenue is, in

consequence, one of office;[9] and no man considers himself

respectable,[10] unless invested with some office under Government,

that is, under the Emperor. Subdivision of labour, concentration of

capital, and machinery render an Englishman everywhere dependent upon

the co-operation of multitudes; while the Chinaman, who as yet knows

little of either, is everywhere independent, and able to work his way

among strangers. But this very dependence of the Englishman upon the

concentration of capital is the greatest source of his strength and

pledge of his security, since it supports those members of the higher

orders who can best understand and assert the rights and interests of

the whole.[11]

If we had any great establishment of this sort in which Christians

could find employment and the means of religious and secular

instruction, thousands of converts would soon flock to them; and they

would become vast sources of future improvement in industry, social

comfort, municipal institutions, and religion. What chiefly prevents

the spread of Christianity in India is the dread of exclusion from

caste and all its privileges; and the utter hopelessness of their

ever finding any respectable circle of society of the adopted

religion, which converts, or would-be converts, to Christianity now

everywhere feel. Form such circles for them, make the members of

these circles happy in the exertion of honest and independent

industry, let those who rise to eminence in them feel that they are

considered as respectable and as important in the social system as

the servants of Government, and converts will flock around you from

all parts, and from all classes of the Hindoo community. I have,

since I have been in India, had, I may say, at least a score of

Hindoo grass-cutters turn Musalmâns, merely because the grooms and

the other grass-cutters of my establishment happened to be of that

religion, and they could neither eat, drink, nor smoke with them.

Thousands of Hindoos all over India become every year Musalmâns from

the same motive;[12] and we do not get the same number of converts to

Christianity, merely because we cannot offer them the same

advantages. I am persuaded that a dozen such establishments as that

of Mr. Thomas Ashton of Hyde, as described by a physician at

Manchester, and noticed in Mr. Baines's admirable work on the _Cotton

Manufactures of Great Britain_ (page 447), would do more in the way

of conversion among the people of India than has ever yet been done

by all the religious establishments, or ever will be done by them,

without such aid.[13]

I have said that the great commercial houses of Calcutta, which in

their ruin involved that of so many useful establishments scattered

over India, like that of Kosî, brought no capital into the

country.[14] They borrowed from one part of the civil and military

servants of Government at a high interest that portion of their

salary which they saved; and lent it at a higher interest to others

of the same establishment, who for a time required or wished to spend

more than they received; or they employed it at a higher rate of

profit for great commercial and manufacturing establishments

scattered over India, or spread over the ocean. Their great error was

in mistaking nominal for real profits. Calculating their dividend on

the nominal profits, and never supposing that there could be any such

things as losses in commercial speculation, or bad debts from

misfortunes and bad faith, they squandered them in lavish hospitality

and ostentatious display, or allowed their retiring members to take

them to England and to every other part of the world where their

creditors might not find them, till they discovered that all the real

capital left at their command was hardly sufficient to pay back with

the stipulated interest one-tenth of what they had borrowed. The

members of those houses who remained in India up to the time of the

general wreck were of course reduced to ruin, and obliged to bear the

burthen of the odium and indignation which the ruin of so many

thousands of confiding constituents brought down upon them. Since

that time the savings of civil and military servants have been

invested either in Government securities at a small interest, or in

banks, which make their profit in the ordinary way, by discounting

bills of exchange, and circulating their own notes for the purpose,

or by lending out their money at a high interest of 10 or 12 per

cent. to other members of the same services.[15]

On the 16th of January we went on to Horal, ten miles over a plain,

with villages numerous and large, and in every one some fine large

building of olden times--sarâi, palace, temple, or tomb, but all

going to decay.[16] The population much more dense than in any of the

native states I have seen; villages larger and more numerous; trade

in the transit of cotton, salt, sugar, and grain, much brisker. A

great number of hares were here brought to us for sale at threepence

apiece, a rate at which they sell at this season in almost all parts

of Upper India, where they are very numerous, and very easily caught

in nets.

Notes:

1. Kosî is twenty-five miles north-west of Mathurâ.

2. The story of the murder of Mr. Fraser is fully detailed _post_ in

Chapter 64. After the execution of Shams-ud-dîn, the estate of the

criminal was taken possession of by Government, and the town of

Fîrôzpur is now the head-quarters of a sub-collectorship of the

Gurgâon district in the Panjâb. The Delhi territories were placed

under the government of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjâb in

1858.

3. The Mewâtî depredations had gone on for centuries. The Sultân

Balban (Ghiâs-ud-dîn, alias Ulugh Khan), who reigned from A.D. 1265-

87, temporarily suppressed them by punishments of awful cruelty,

flaying the criminals alive, and so forth. The Mewâtîs now supply men

to a few robber gangs, but are incapable of mischief on a large

scale.

4. Delhi was most nobly defended against Holkâr by a very small force

under Lieutenant-Colonel Burn, who 'repelled an assault, and defended

a city ten miles in circumference, and which had ever before been

given up at the first appearance of an enemy at its gates'.

The battle of Dîg was fought on November 13, 1804, by the division

under the command of General Fraser on the one side, and Holkâr's

infantry and artillery on the other. 'The 76th led the way, with its

wonted alacrity and determination,' and forced its way into the

village in advance of its supports. The fight resulted in the total

defeat of the Marâthâs, who lost nearly two thousand men, and eighty-

seven pieces of cannon. The English loss also was heavy, amounting to

upwards of six hundred and forty killed and wounded, including the

brave commander, who was mortally wounded, and survived the victory

only a few days.

On the night of November 17, General Lake in person routed Holkâr and

his cavalry, killing about three thousand men. The English loss on

this occasion amounted to only two men killed, and about twenty

wounded.

The fort of Dîg, with a hundred guns and a considerable quantity of

ammunition and military stores, was captured on December 24 of the

same year. (Thornton, _History of British India_, pp. 316-19, 2nd

ed., 1859.)

5. Transcription note. This clause is not intelligible to the

transcriber. The character '1' or 'I' appears in the text. Some words

appear to be missing.

6. The author was grievously mistaken in supposing that India did not

require 'a particle' of foreign capital. The railways, and the great

tea, coffee, indigo, and other industries, built up and developed

during the nineteenth century, and still growing, owe their existence

to the hundreds of millions sterling of English capital poured into

the country, and could not possibly have been financed from Indian

resources. The author seems not to have expected the construction of

railways in India, although when he wrote a beginning of the railway

system in England had been made.

7. This sentiment is still potent, and explains the eagerness often

shown by wealthy landholders of high social rank to obtain official

appointments, which to the European mind seem unworthy of their

acceptance.

8. Few readers are likely to accept this proposition.

9. This clause is not intelligible to the editor. The word 'revenue'

probably is a misprint for 'aristocracy'.

10. The original edition prints, 'No man considers himself less

respectable', which is nonsense.

11. This sentiment reads oddly in these days of social democracy and

continual conflict between capital and labour.

12. The steady progress of Islam in Lower and Eastern Bengal, first

made apparent by the census of 1872, has been confirmed by the

enumerations of 1901 and 1911. The feeling that the religion of the

Prophet gives its adherent a better position in both this world and

the next than Hinduism can offer to a low-caste man is the most

powerful motive for conversion. See Dr. James Wise's valuable

treatise, 'The Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal' (_J.A.S.B._, Part III

(1894), pp. 28-63), and the Census Reports from 1872 to 1911.

13. The author's whimsical notion that a development of commercial

and manufacturing organization in India would cause converts to flock

from all parts, and from all classes of the Hindoo community, has not

been verified by experience. Much capital is now concentrated in the

great cities, and the number of cotton, jute, and other factories is

considerable, but Christian converts are not among the goods

produced.

14. The modern commercial houses bring a large proportion of their

capital from Europe.

15. The three Presidency Banks, the Bank of Bengal, the Bank of

Madras, and the Bank of Bombay, in which the Indian Government is

interested, are the leading Indian banks. The Bank of Bengal was

opened in 1806. No bank in India is allowed to issue notes. The paper

money in use is issued by the Paper Currency Department of the

Government of India, and the notes are known as 'currency notes'. The

issue of these notes began in 1862-3. (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd

ed., s.v. 'Bank and Paper Currency'). Much Indian capital is now

invested in joint-stock companies of every kind.

16. More correctly, Hodal.

CHAPTER 60

Transit Duties in India--Mode of Collecting them.

At Horal[1] resides a Collector of Customs with two or three

uncovenanted European assistants as patrol officers.[2] The rule now

is to tax only the staple articles of produce from the west on their

transit down into the valley of the Jumna and Ganges, and to have

only one line on which these articles shall be liable to duties.[3]

They are free to pass everywhere else without search or molestation.

This has, no doubt, relieved the people of these provinces from an

infinite deal of loss and annoyance inflicted upon them by the former

System of levying the Customs duties, and that without much

diminishing the net receipts of Government from this branch of its

revenues. But the time may come when Government will be constrained

to raise a greater proportion of its collective revenues than it has

hitherto done from indirect taxation, and when this time comes, the

rule which confines the impost to a single line must of course be

abandoned.[4] Under the former system, one great man, with a very

high salary, was put in to preside over a host of native agents with

very small salaries, and without any responsible intermediate agent

whatever to aid him, and to watch over them. The great man was

selected without any reference to his knowledge of, or fitness for,

the duties entrusted to him, merely because he happened to be of a

certain standing in a certain exclusive service, which entitled him

to a certain scale of salary, or because he had been found unfit for

judicial or other duties requiring more intellect and energy of

character. The consequence was that for every one rupee that went

into the public treasury, ten were taken by these harpies from the

merchants, or other people over whom they had, or could pretend to

have, a right of search.[5]

Some irresponsible native officer who happened to have the confidence

of the great man (no matter in what capacity he served him) sold for

his own profit, and for that of those whose goodwill he might think

it worth while to conciliate, the offices of all the subordinate

agents immediately employed in the collection of the duties. A man

who was to receive an avowed salary of seven rupees a month would

give him three or four thousand for his post, because it would give

him charge of a detached post, in which he could soon repay himself

with a handsome profit. A poor 'peon', who was to serve under others,

and could never hope for an independent charge, would give five

hundred rupees for an office which yielded him avowedly only four

rupees a month. All arrogated the right of search, and the state of

Indian society and the climate were admirably suited to their

purpose. A person of any respectability would feel himself

dishonoured were the females of his family to be _seen_, much less

_touched_, while passing along the road in their palanquin or covered

carnage; and to save himself from such dishonour he was everywhere

obliged to pay these custom-house officers. Many articles that pass

in transit through India would suffer much damage from being opened

along the road at any season, and be liable to be spoiled altogether

during that of the rains; and these harpies could always make the

merchants open them, unless they paid liberally for their

forbearance. Articles were rated to the duty according to their

value; and articles of the same weight were often, of course, of very

different values. These officers could always pretend that packages

liable to injury from exposure contained within them, among the

articles set forth in the invoice, others of greater value in

proportion to their weight. Men who carried pearls, jewels, and other

articles very valuable compared with their bulk, always depended for

their security from robbers and thieves on their concealment; and

there was nothing which they dreaded so much as the insolence and

rapacity of these custom-house officers, who made them pay large

bribes, or exposed their goods. Gangs of thieves had members in

disguise at such stations, who were soon able to discover through the

insolence of the officers, and the fears and entreaties of the

merchants, whether they had anything worth taking or not.

A party of thieves from Datiyâ, in 1882, followed Lord William

Bentinck's camp to the bank of the river Jumna near Mathurâ, where

they found a poor merchant humbly entreating an insolent custom-house

officer not to insist upon his showing the contents of the little box

he carried in his carriage, lest it might attract the attention of

thieves, who were always to be found among the followers of such a

camp, and offering to give him anything reasonable for his

forbearance. Nothing he could be got to offer would satisfy the

rapacity of the man; the box was taken out and opened. It contained

jewels which the poor man hoped to sell to advantage among the

European ladies and gentlemen of the Governor-General's suite. He

replaced his box in his carriage; but in half an hour it was

travelling post-haste to Datiyâ, by relays of thieves who had been

posted along the road for such occasions. They quarrelled about the

division; swords were drawn, and wounds inflicted. One of the gang

ran off to the magistrate at Sâgar, with whom he had before been

acquainted;[6] and he sent him back with a small party, and a letter

to the Datiyâ Râjâ requesting that he would get the box of jewels for

the poor merchant. The party took the precaution of searching the

house of the thieves before they delivered the letter to their friend

the minister, and by this means recovered about half the jewels,

which amounted in all to about seven thousand rupees. The merchant

was agreeably surprised when he got back so much of his property

through the magistrate of Mathurâ, and confirmed the statement of the

thief regarding the dispute with the custom-house officer which

enabled them to discover the value of the box.

Should Government by and by extend the System that obtains in this

single line to the Customs all over India they may greatly augment

their revenue without any injury, and with but little necessary loss

and inconvenience to merchants. The object of all just taxation is to

make the subjects contribute to the public burthen in proportion to

their means, and with as little loss and inconvenience to themselves

as possible. The people who reside west of this line enjoy all their

salt, cotton, and other articles which are taxed on crossing the line

without the payment of any duties, while those to the east of it are

obliged to pay. It is, therefore, not a just line. The advantages

are, first, that it interposes a body of most efficient officers

between the mass of harpies and the heads of the department, who now

virtually superintend the whole System, whereas they used formerly to

do so merely ostensibly. They are at once the _tapis_ of Prince

Husain and the telescope of Prince Alî; they enable the heads of

departments to be everywhere and see everything, whereas before they

were nowhere and saw nothing.[7] Secondly, it makes the great staple

articles of general consumption alone liable to the payment of

duties, and thereby does away in a great measure with the odious

right of search.

At Kosî our friend, Charles Fraser, left us to proceed through

Mathurâ to Agra. He is a very worthy man and excellent public

officer, one of those whom one always meets again with pleasure, and

of whose society one never tires. Mr. Wilmot, the Collector of

Customs, and Mr. Wright, one of the patrol officers, came to dine

with us. The wind blew so hard all day that the cook and khânsâmân

(butler) were long in despair of being able to give us any dinner at

all. At last we managed to get a tent, closed at every crevice to

keep out the dust, for a cook-room; and they were thus able to

preserve their master's credit, which, no doubt, according to their

notions, depended altogether on the quality of his dinner.

Notes:

1. The place is a small town in the Gurgâon District, Panjâb.

2. The term 'uncovenanted' may require explanation for readers not

familiar with the details of Indian administration. The Civil Service

of India, commonly called Indian Civil Service, which supplies most

of the higher administrative and judicial officers, used to be known

as the Covenanted service, because its members sign a covenant with

the Secretary of State. All the other departmental services--Public

Works, Postal and the rest--were grouped together as uncovenanted. In

accordance with the Report of the Public Service Commission (1886-7)

the terms 'covenanted' and 'uncovenanted' have been disused.

3. The text refers to what was known as the 'customs hedge'. Before

the establishment of the British supremacy each of the innumerable

native jurisdictions levied transit duties on many kinds of goods at

each of its frontiers, to the infinite vexation of traders. Such

duties were gradually abolished in British territory, and few, if

any, are now enforced by native states. Salt cannot be manufactured

in British India without a licence, and the Salt (formerly called

Inland Customs) Department is charged with the duty of preventing the

manufacture or sale of illicit salt. In its later developments the

Customs hedge was used for the collection of the salt duty only. Sir

John Strachey took a leading part in its abolition. To secure the

levy of the duty on salt, he writes, 'there grew up gradually a

monstrous system, to which it would be almost impossible to find a

parallel in any tolerably civilized country. A Customs line was

established which stretched across the whole of India, which in 1869

extended from the Indus to the Mahânadî in Madras, a distance of

2,300 miles; and it was guarded by nearly 12,000 men and petty

officers, at an annual cost of £162,000. It would have stretched from

London to Constantinople. . . . It consisted principally of an

immense impenetrable hedge of thorny trees and bushes . . . A similar

line, 280 miles in length, was maintained in the north-eastern part

of the Bombay Presidency from Dohud to the Runn of Cutch.' In 1878

the salt duties were revised, and the necessary arrangements with the

native states were made. With effect from the 1st April, 1879, the

whole Customs line was abolished, with the exception of a small

portion on the Indus. (Sir J. Strachey, _The Finances and Public

Works of India_, 1869-81, London, 1882, pp. 219, 220, 225.) Great

mines of rock salt are worked near the Indus.

4. Most people who know India intimately are of opinion that indirect

taxation is more suitable to the circumstances of the country than

direct taxation. For municipal purposes, indirect taxation, under the

name of octroi, is levied by most considerable towns, and

notwithstanding its inconveniences, is far less unpopular and far

more productive than any form of direct taxation. The people have

been accustomed to indirect taxation of divers kinds from the most

remote times, and hate income tax or any other direct impost, however

reasonable it may be in theory. Since 1895 the general customs duty

is 5 per cent. _ad valorem_ on commodities imported into British

India by sea. (See _I.G._, 1907, vol. iv, chapter 8). The above

remarks on the suitability of indirect taxation for India are not

intended as a defence of the barbarous device of the 'Customs hedge',

which was indefensible.

5. That unsound System prevailed in all departments during the early

years of the nineteenth century. 'In Bengal, the monopoly of salt in

one form or other dates at least from the establishment of the Board

of Trade there in 1765. The strict monopoly of salt commenced in

1780, under a System of agencies. The System introduced in 1780

continued in force with occasional modifications till 1862, when the

several salt agencies were gradually abolished, leaving the Supply of

salt, whether by importations or excise manufacture, to private

enterprise. Since then, for Bengal Proper, the supply of the

condiment has been obtained chiefly by importation, but in part by

private manufacture under a System of excise.' (Balfour,

_Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., s.v. Salt.) At present the Salt Department is

controlled by a single Commissioner with the Government of India, The

fee payable for a licence to manufacture salt is fifty rupees. It is

inaccurate to describe the limitation imposed on the manufacture of

salt as a monopoly. Any one can sell salt, but it can be made only

under licence.

6. The author.

7. The same observations, _mutatis mutandis_, are applicable to the

magistracy of the country; and the remedy for all the great existing

evils must be sought in the same means, the interposition of a body

of efficient officers between the magistrate and the 'thânadârs', or

present head police officers of small divisions. [W. H. S.] Much has

been done to carry out this advice. The 'most efficient officers' of

the inland Customs department alluded to in the text were the

European or Eurasian 'uncovenanted' Collectors of Customs and their

assistants. The allusion to Prince Husain and Prince Alî refers to

the well-known tale in the _Arabian Nights_, 'The story of Prince

Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu'. It is omitted, I believe, from Lane's

version.

CHAPTER 61

Peasantry of India attached to no existing Government--Want of Trees

in Upper India [1]--Cause and Consequence--Wells and Groves.

What strikes one most after crossing the Chambal is, I think, the

improved size and bearing of the men; they are much stouter, and more

bold and manly, without being at all less respectful. They are

certainly a noble peasantry, full of courage, spirit, and

intelligence; and heartily do I wish that we could adopt any system

that would give our Government a deep root in their affections, or

link their interests inseparably with its prosperity; for, with all

its defects, life, property, and character are certainly more secure,

and all their advantages more freely enjoyed under our Government

than under any other they have ever heard of, or that exists at

present in any other part of the country. The eternal subdivision of

the landed property reduces them too much to one common level, and

prevents the formation of that middle class which is the basis of all

that is great and good in European societies--the great vivifying

spirit which animates all that is good above it in the community.[2]

It is a singular fact that the peasantry, and, I may say, the landed

interest of the country generally, have never been the friends of any

existing government, have never considered their interests and that

of their government the same; and, consequently, have never felt any

desire for its success or its duration.[3]

The towns and villages all stand upon high mounds formed of the

debris of former towns and villages, that have been accumulating,

most of them, for thousands of years. They are for the most part mere

collections of wretched hovels built of frail materials, and destined

only for a brief period.

Man wants but little here below,

Nor wants that little long.[4]

And certainly there is no climate in the world where man wants less

than in this of India generally, and Upper India particularly. The

peasant lives in the open air; and a house to him is merely a thing

to eat and sleep in, and to give him shelter in the storm, which

comes upon him but seldom, and never in a pitiless shape. The society

of his friends he enjoys in the open air, and he never furnishes his

house for their reception or for display. The peasantry of India, in

consequence of living and talking so much in the open air, have all

stentorian voices, which they find it exceedingly difficult to

modulate to our taste when they come into our rooms.

Another thing in this part of India strikes a traveller from other

parts--the want of groves of fruit-trees around the villages and

along the roads. In every other part of India he can at every stage

have his tents pitched in a grove of mango-trees, that defend his

followers from the direct rays of the sun in the daytime, and from

the cold dews at night; but in the district above Agra, he may go for

ten marches without getting the shelter of a grove in one.[5] The

Sikhs, the Marâthâs, the Jâts, and the Pathâns destroyed them all

during the disorders attending the decline of the Muhammadan empire;

and they have never been renewed, because no man could feel secure

that they would be suffered to stand ten years. A Hindoo believes

that his soul in the next world is benefited by the blessings and

grateful feelings of those of his fellow creatures who unmolested eat

the fruit and enjoy the shade of the trees he has planted during his

sojourn in this world; and, unless he can feel assured that the

traveller and the public in general will be permitted to do so, he

can have no hope of any permanent benefit from his good work. It

might as well be cut down as pass into the hands of another person

who had no feeling of interest in the eternal repose of the soul of

the planter. That person would himself have no advantage in the next

world from giving the fruit and the shade of the trees to the public,

since the prayers of those who enjoyed them would be offered for the

soul of the planter, and not for his--he, therefore, takes all their

advantage to himself in this world, and the planter and the public

are defrauded. Our Government thought they had done enough to

encourage the renewal of these groves, when by a regulation they gave

to the present lessees of villages the privilege of planting them

themselves, or permitting others to plant them; but where they held

their leases for a term of only five years, of course they would be

unwilling to plant them. They might lose their lease when the term

expired, or forfeit it before; and the successor would have the land

on which the trees stood, and would be able to exclude the public, if

not the proprietor, from the enjoyment of any of their advantages.

Our Government has, in effect, during the thirty-five years that it

has held the dominion of the North-Western Provinces,[6] prohibited

the planting of mango groves, while the old ones are every year

disappearing. On the resumption of rent-free lands, even the ground

on which the finest of these groves stand has been recklessly

resumed, and the proprietors told me that they may keep the trees

they have, but cannot be allowed to renew them, as the lands are

become the property of Government. The lands of groves that have been

the pride of families for a century and a half have been thus

resumed. Government is not aware of the irreparable mischief they do

the country they govern by such measures.[7]

On my way back from Meerut, after the conversation already related

with the farmer of a small village (_ante_, chapter 58, text at [7]),

my tents were one day pitched, in the month of December, amidst some

very fine garden cultivation in the district of Alîgarh;[8] and in

the evening I walked out as usual to have some talk with the

peasantry. I came to a neighbouring well at which four pair of

bullocks were employed watering the surrounding fields of wheat for

the market, and vegetables for the families of the cultivators. Four

men were employed at the well, and two more in guiding the water into

the little embanked squares into which they divide their fields.

I soon discovered that the most intelligent of the four was a Jât;

and I had a good deal of conversation with him as he stood landing

the leather buckets, as the two pair of bullocks on his side of the

well drew them to the top, a distance of forty cubits from the

surface of the water beneath.

'Who built this well?' I began.

'It was built by one of my ancestors, six generations ago.'

'How much longer will it last?'

'Ten generations more, I hope; for it is now just as good as when

first made. It is of 'pakkâ' bricks without mortar cement.'[9]

'How many waterings do you give?'

'If there should be no rain, we shall require to give the land six

waterings, as the water is sweet; had it been brackish four would do.

Brackish water is better for wheat than sweet water; but it is not so

good for vegetables or sugar-cane.'

'How many "bîghâs" are watered from this well?'

'We water twenty "bîghâs", or one hundred and five "jarîbs", from

this well.'[10]

'And you pay the Government how much?'

'One hundred rupees, at the rate of five rupees the bîghâ. But only

the five immediately around the well are mine, the rest belong to

others.'

'But the well belongs to you; and I suppose you get from the

proprietors of the other fifteen something for your water?'

'Nothing. There is more water for my five bîghâs, and I give them

what they require gratis; they acknowledge that it is a gift from me,

and that is all I want.'

'And what does the land beyond the range of your water of the same

quality pay?'

'It pays at the rate of two rupees the bîghâ, and it is with

difficulty that they can be made to pay that. Water, sir, is a great

thing, and with that and manure we get good crops from the land.'[11]

'How many returns of the seed?'

'From these twenty bîghâs with six waterings, and cross ploughing,

and good manure, we contrive to get twenty returns; that is, if God

is pleased with us and blesses our efforts.'

'And you maintain your family comfortably out of the return from your

five?'

'If they were mine I could; but we had two or three bad seasons seven

years ago, and I was obliged to borrow eighty rupees from our banker

at 24 per cent., for the subsistence of my family. I have hardly been

able to pay him the interest with all I can earn by my labour, and I

now serve him upon two rupees a month.'

'But that is not enough to maintain you and your family?'

'No; but he only requires my services for half the day, and during

the other half I work with others to get enough for them.'

'And when do you expect to pay off your debt?'

'God only knows; if I exert myself, and keep a good "nîyat" (pure

mind or intentions), he will enable me or my children to do so some

day or other. In the meantime he has my five bîghâs of land in

mortgage, and I serve him in the cultivation.'

'But under those misfortunes, you could surely venture to demand

something from the proprietors of the other fifteen bîghâs for the

water of your well?'

'Never, sir; it would be said all over the country that such an one

sold God's water for his neighbours' fields, and I should be ashamed

to show my face. Though poor, and obliged to work hard, and serve

others, I have still too much pride for that.'

'How many bullocks are required for the tillage of these twenty

bîghâs watered from your well?'

'These eight bullocks do all the work; they are dear now. This was

purchased the other day on the death of the old one, for twenty-six

rupees. They cost about fifty rupees a pair--the late famine has made

them dear.'[12]

'What did the well cost in making?'

'I have heard that it cost about one hundred and twenty rupees; it

would cost about that sum to make one of this kind in the present

day, not more.'

'How long have the families of your caste been settled in these

parts?'

'About six or seven generations; the country had before been occupied

by a peasantry of the Kalâr caste. Our ancestors came, built up mud

fortifications, dug wells, and brought the country under cultivation;

it had been reduced to a waste; for a long time we were obliged to

follow the plough with our swords by our sides, and our friends

around us with their matchlocks in their hand, and their matches

lighted.'

'Did the water in your well fail during the late seasons of drought?'

'No, sir, the water of this well never fails.'

'Then how did bad seasons affect you?'

'My bullocks all died one after the other from want of fodder, and I

had not the means to till my lands; subsistence became dear, and to

maintain my family, I was obliged to contract the debt for which my

lands are now mortgaged. I work hard to get them back, and, if I do

not succeed, my children will, I hope, with the blessing of God.'[13]

The next morning I went on to Kâkâ, fifteen miles; and finding tents,

people, and cattle, without a tree to shelter them, I was much

pleased to see in my neighbourhood a plantation of mango and other

fruit-trees. It had, I was told, been planted only three years ago by

Hîrâman and Môtîrâm, and I sent for them, knowing that they would be

pleased to have their good work noticed by any European gentleman.

The trees are now covered with cones of thatch to shelter them from

the frost. The merchants came, evidently much pleased, and I had a

good deal of talk with them.

'Who planted this new grove?'

'We planted it three years ago.'

'What did your well cost you, and how many trees have you?'

'We have about four hundred trees, and the well has cost us two

hundred rupees, and will cost us two hundred more.'

'How long will you require to water them?'

'We shall require to water the mango and other large trees ten or

twelve years; but the orange, pomegranate, and other small trees will

always require watering.'

'What quantity of ground do the trees occupy?'

'They occupy twenty-two "bîghâs" of one hundred and five "jarîbs". We

place them all twelve yards from each other, that is, the large

trees; and the small ones we plant between them.'

'How did you get the land?'

'We were many years trying in vain to get a grant from the Government

through the collector; at last we got him to certify on paper that,

if the landholder would give us land to plant our grove upon, the

Government would have no objection. We induced the landholder, who is

a constituent of ours, to grant us the land; and we made our well,

and planted our trees.'

'You have done a good thing; what reward do you expect?'

'We hope that those who enjoy the shade, the water, and the fruit,

will think kindly of us when they are gone. The names of the great

men who built the castles, palaces, and tombs at Delhi and Agra have

been almost all forgotten, because no one enjoys any advantage from

them; but the names of those who planted the few mango groves we see

are still remembered and blessed by all who eat of their fruit, sit

in their shade, and drink of their water, from whatever part of the

world they come. Even the European gentlemen remember their names

with kindness; indeed, it was at the suggestion of a European

gentleman, who was passing this place many years ago, and talking

with us as you are now, that we commenced this grove. "Look over this

plain," said he, "it has been all denuded of the fine groves with

which it was, no doubt, once studded; though it is tolerably well

cultivated, the traveller finds no shelter in it from the noonday

sun--even the birds seem to have deserted you, because you refuse

them the habitations they find in other parts of India." We told him

that we would have the grove planted, and we have done so; and we

hope God will bless our undertaking.'

'The difficulty of getting land is, I suppose, the reason why more

groves are not planted, now that property is secure?'

'How could men plant without feeling secure of the land they planted

upon, and when Government would not guarantee it? The landholder

could guarantee it only during the five years of lease;[14] and, if

at the end of that time Government should transfer the lease of the

estate to another, the land of the grove would be transferred with

it. We plant not for worldly or immediate profits, but for the

benefit of our souls in the next world--for the prayers of those who

may derive benefit from our works when we are gone. Our landholders

are good men, and will never resume the lands they have given us; and

if the lands be sold at auction by Government, or transferred to

others, we hope the certificate of the collector will protect us from

his grasp.'[15]

'You like your present Government, do you not?'

'We like it much. There has never been a Government that gave so much

security to life and property; all we want is a little more of public

service, and a little more of trade; but we have no cause to

complain; it is our own fault if we are not happy.'

'But I have been told that the people find the returns from the soil

diminishing, and attribute it to the perjury that takes place in our

courts occasionally.'

'That, sir, is no doubt true; there has been a manifest falling off

in the returns; and people everywhere think that you make too much

use of the Korân and the Ganges water in your courts. God does not

like to hear lies told upon one or other, and we are apt to think

that we are all punished for the sins of those who tell them. May we

ask, sir, what office you hold?'

'It is my office to do the work which God assigns to me in this

world.'

'The work of God, sir, is the greatest of all works, and those are

fortunate who are chosen to do it.'

Their respect for me evidently increased when they took me for a

clergyman. I was dressed in black.

'In the first place, it is my duty to tell you that God does not

punish the innocent for the guilty, and that the perjury in courts

has nothing to do with the diminution of returns from the soil. Where

you apply water and manure, and alternate your crops, you always get

good returns, do you not?'

'Very good returns; but we have had several bad seasons that have

carried away the greater part of our population; but a small portion

of our lands can be irrigated for want of wells, and we had no rain

for two or three years, or hardly any in due season; and it was this

deficiency of rain which the people thought a chastisement from

heaven.'

'But the wells were not dried up, were they?'

'No.'

'And the people whose fields they watered had good returns, and high

prices for produce?'

'Yes, they had; but their cattle died for want of food, for there was

no grass any where to be found.'

'Still they were better off than those who had no wells to draw water

from for their fields; and the only way to provide against such evils

in future is to have a well for every field. God has given you the

fields, and he has given you the water; and when it does not come

from the clouds, you must draw it from your wells.'[16]

'True, sir, very true; but the people are very poor, and have not the

means to form the wells they require.'

'And if they borrow the money from you, you charge them with

interest?'

'From one to two per cent. a month according to their character and

circumstances; but interest is very often merely nominal, and we are

in most cases glad to get back the principal alone.'[17]

'And what security have you for the land of your grove in case the

landholder should change his mind, or die and leave sons not so well

disposed.'

'In the first place, we hold his bonds for a debt of nine thousand

rupees which he owes us, and which we have no hopes of his ever

paying. In the next, we have on stamped paper his deed of gift, in

which he declares that he has given us the land, and that he and his

heirs for ever shall be bound to make good the rents, should

Government sell the estate for arrears of revenue. We wanted him to

write this document in the regular form of a deed of sale; but he

said that none of his ancestors had ever yet sold their lands, and

that he would not be the first to disgrace his family, or record

their disgrace on stamped paper--it should, he was resolved, be a

deed of gift.'

'But, of course, you prevailed upon him to take the price?'

'Yes, we prevailed upon him to take two hundred rupees for the land,

and got his receipt for the same; indeed, it is so mentioned in the

deed of gift; but still the landlord, who is a near relation of the

late chief of Hatrâs, would persist in having the paper made out as a

deed, not of sale, but of gift. God knows whether, after all, our

grove will be secure--we must run the risk now we have begun upon

it.'

Notes:

1. This phrase is misleading. There is no want of trees in Upper

India generally; only certain limited areas are ill wooded. Most of

the districts in the plains of the Ganges and Jumna are well wooded.

2. This is a favourite doctrine of the author, often reiterated. The

absence of a powerful middle class is a characteristic, not of India

only, but of all Oriental despotisms, and the subdivision of landed

property is only one of the causes of the non-existence of such a

class.

3. This is quite true. The rural population want two things, first a

light assessment, secondly the minimum of official interference, They

do not care a straw who the ruler is, and they like best that ruler,

be his name or nationality what it may, who worries them least, and

takes least money from them.

4. Goldsmith, 'The Hermit' (in chapter 8 of _The Vicar of

Wakefield_).

5. Groves are still scarce in the Agra country, but much planting has

been done on the roads.

6. Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, and some other districts, forming half of the

old province of Oudh, ceded by the ruler of Oudh in 1801, were long

known as the Ceded Provinces. The western districts of the North-

Western Provinces, known as the Conquered Provinces, were taken from

the Marâthâs in 1803-5. The Province of Benares became British

territory in 1775. The hill districts of the Kumaun Division were

annexed in 1816, at the close of the war with Nepal. All the regions

named are now included in the Agra Province of the United Provinces

of Agra and Oudh, in which the editor served for twenty-nine years.

7. The author's remarks are not readily intelligible to readers

unversed in the technicalities of Indian revenue administration. The

author writes on the assumption that Government was the proprietor of

the soil. While he was writing, the settlements under Regulation IX

of 1833 were in progress. Those settlements, or revenue contracts,

were ordinarily sanctioned for periods of thirty years, and the

landholders, whom the author calls 'lessees', have gradually changed

into 'proprietors', with full power over their land, subject only to

the State lien for the 'land revenue' (Crown rent, or State share of

the produce), and to the laws of inheritance and succession. The

'resumption of rent-free lands' simply means the subjection of those

lands to the payment of 'land revenue'. It is inaccurate to say that

the lands are become 'the property of Government' by reason of their

being assessed. Even when land generally was regarded as the property

of the State, and the landholders were considered to be only lessees,

no objection would have been made to the planting of groves if

payment of the 'land revenue' had been continued for the planted area

as for cultivated land. Now that landholders have been recognized as

proprietors, there is nothing to prevent them from planting as much

land as they like with trees, although the State has not always been

willing to exempt the whole planted area from assessment. No one ever

objected to the renewal of trees except on the ground that the area

under trees might be excluded from assessment. For many years past

the Government of India has been most anxious to encourage tree-

planting, and has sanctioned liberal rules respecting the exemption

of grove land from assessment to 'land revenue', or 'rent', as the

author calls it. The Government of the United Provinces certainly is

not now liable to reproach for indifference to the value of groves.

Enormous progress in the planting of road avenues has also been made.

The deficiency of trees in the country about Agra is partly due to

nature, much of the ground being cut up by ravines, and unfavourable

for planting.

8. The Alîgarh district lies to the north and east of the Mathurâ

district. The fort of Alîgarh is fifty-five miles north of Agra, and

eighty-four miles south-east of Delhi.

9. 'pakkâ' here means 'burned in a kiln', as distinguished from 'sun-

dried'.

10. The 'bîghâ' is the unit of superficial land measure, varying, but

often taken as five-eighths of an acre. The 'jarîb' is a smaller

measure.

11. The rules now in force require assessing officers to make

allowance for permanent improvements, such as the well described in

the text, so as to give the fair benefit of the improvement to the

maker. In the early settlements this important matter was commonly

neglected.

12. Tolerable bullocks, fit for use at the well and in the plough,

would now cost much more. This conversation appears to have taken

place in the year 1839, The famine alluded to is that of 1837-8.

13. This conversation gives a very vivid and truthful picture of

rural life in Northern India. Most revenue officers have held similar

conversations with rustics, but the author is almost the only writer

on Indian affairs who has perceived that exact notes of casual chats

in the fields would be found interesting and valuable.

14. The early settlements were made for short terms.

15. The certificate would not be of much avail in a civil court.

16. The Alîgarh district is now irrigated by canals.

17. This is the lender's view of his business; the borrowers might

have a different story.

CHAPTER 62

Public Spirit of the Hindoos--Tree Cultivation and Suggestions for

extending it.

I may here be permitted to introduce as something germane to the

matter of the foregoing chapter a recollection of Jubbulpore,

although we are now far past that locality.

My tents are pitched where they have often been before, on the verge

of a very large and beautiful tank in a fine grove of mango-trees,

and close to a handsome temple. There are more handsome temples and

buildings for accommodation on the other side of the tank, but they

are gone sadly out of repair. The bank all round this noble tank is

beautifully ornamented by fine banyan and pîpal trees, between which

and the water's edge intervene numerous clusters of the graceful

bamboo. These works were formed about eighty years ago by a

respectable agricultural capitalist who resided at this place, and

died about twenty years after they were completed. No relation of his

can now be found in the district, and not one in a thousand of those

who drink of the water or eat of the fruit knows to whom he is

indebted. There are round the place some beautiful 'bâolîs', or large

wells with flights of stone steps from the top to the water's edge,

imbedded in clusters of beautiful trees. They were formed about the

same time for the use of the public by men whose grandchildren have

descended to the grade of cultivators of the soil, or belted

attendants upon the present native collectors, without the means of

repairing any of the injury which time is inflicting upon these

magnificent works. Three or four young pîpal-trees have begun to

spread their delicate branches and pale green leaves rustling in the

breeze from the dome of this fine temple; which these infant

Herculeses hold in their deadly grasp and doom to inevitable

destruction. Pigeons deposit the seeds of the pîpal-tree, on which

they chiefly feed, in the crevices of buildings.

No Hindoo dares, and no Christian or Muhammadan will condescend, to

lop off the heads of these young trees, and if they did, it would

only put off the evil and inevitable day; for such are the vital

powers of their roots, when they have once penetrated deeply into a

building, that they will send out their branches again, cut them off

as often as you may, and carry on their internal attack with

undiminished vigour.[1] No wonder that superstition should have

consecrated this tree, delicate and beautiful as it is, to the gods.

The palace, the castle, the temple, and the tomb, all those works

which man is most proud to raise to spread and to perpetuate his

name, crumble to dust beneath her withering grasp. She rises

triumphant over them all in her lofty beauty, bearing high in air

amidst her light green foliage fragments of the wreck she has made,

to show the nothingness of man's greatest efforts.

While sitting at my tent-door looking out upon this beautiful sheet

of water, and upon all the noble works around me, I thought of the

charge, so often made against the people of this fine land, of the

total want of _public spirit_ among them, by those who have spent

their Indian days in the busy courts of law, and still more busy

commercial establishments of our great metropolis.

If by the term public spirit be meant a disposition on the part of

individuals to sacrifice their own enjoyments, or their own means of

enjoyment for the common good, there is perhaps no people in the

world among whom it abounds so much as among the people of India. To

live in the grateful recollections of their countrymen for benefits

conferred upon them in great works of ornament and utility is the

study of every Hindoo of rank and property.[2] Such works tend, in

his opinion, not only to spread and perpetuate his name in this

world, but, through the good wishes and prayers of those who are

benefited by them, to secure the favour of the Deity in the next.

According to their notions, every drop of rain-water or dew that

falls to the ground from the green leaf of a fruit-tree, planted by

them for the common good, proves a refreshing draught for their souls

in the next [world]. When no descendant remains to pour the funeral

libations in their name, the water from the trees they have planted

for the public good is destined to supply its place. Everything

judiciously laid out to promote the happiness of their fellow

creatures will in the next world be repaid to them tenfold by the

Deity.

In marching over the country in the hot season, we every morning find

our tents pitched on the green sward amid beautiful groves of fruit-

trees, with wells of 'pakkâ' (brick or stone) masonry, built at great

expense, and containing the most delicious water; but how few of us

ever dream of asking at whose cost the trees that afford us and our

followers such agreeable shade were planted, or the wells that afford

us such copious streams of fine water in the midst of dry, arid

plains were formed! We go on enjoying all the advantages which arise

from the _noble public spirit_ that animates the people of India to

benevolent exertions, without once calling in question the truth of

the assertion of our metropolitan friends that 'the people of India

have no public spirit'.

Mânmôr, a respectable merchant of Mirzapore, who traded chiefly in

bringing cotton from the valley of the Nerbudda and Southern India

through Jubbulpore to Mirzapore, and in carrying back sugar and

spices in return, learning how much travellers on this great road

suffered from the want of water near the Hiliyâ pass, under the

Vindhya range of hills, commenced a work to remedy the evil in 1822.

Not a drop of wholesome water was to be found within ten miles of the

bottom of the pass, where the laden bullocks were obliged to rest

during the hot months, when the greatest thoroughfare always took

place. Mânmôr commenced a large tank and garden, and had laid out

about twenty thousand rupees in the work, when he died. His son, Lalû

Mânmôr, completed the work soon after his father's death, at a cost

of eighty thousand rupees more, that travellers might enjoy all the

advantages that his good old father had benevolently intended for

them. The tank is very large, always full of fine water even in the

driest part of the dry season, with flights of steps of cut freestone

from the water's edge to the top all round. A fine garden and

shrubbery, with temples and buildings for accommodations, are

attached, with an establishment of people to attend and keep them in

order.[3]

All the country around this magnificent work was a dreary solitude--

there was not a human habitation within many miles on any side. Tens

of thousands who passed this road every year were blessing the name

of the man who had created it where it was so much wanted, when the

new road from the Nerbudda to Mirzapore was made by the British

Government to descend some ten miles to the north of it. As many

miles were saved in the distance by the new cut, and the passage down

made comparatively easy at great cost, travellers forsook the Hiliyâ

road, and poor Mânmôr's work became comparatively useless. I brought

the work to the notice of Lord William Bentinck, who, in passing

Mirzapore some time after, sent for the son, and conferred upon him a

rich dress of honour, of which he has ever since been extremely

proud.[4]

Hundreds of works like this are undertaken every year for the benefit

of the public by benevolent and unostentatious individuals, who look

for their reward, not in the applause of newspapers and public

meetings, but in the grateful prayers and good wishes of those who

are benefited by them; and in the favour of the Deity in the next

world, for benefits conferred upon his creatures in this.[5]

What the people of India want is not public spirit, for no men in the

world have more of it than the Hindoos, but a disposition on the part

of private individuals to combine their efforts and means in

effecting great objects for the public good. With this disposition

they will be, in time, inspired under our rule, when the enemies of

all settled governments may permit us to divert a little of our

intellect and our revenue from the duties of war to those of

peace.[6]