_20th September 1894._
Big trees are standing in the flood water, their trunks wholly submerged,
their branches and foliage bending over the waters. Boats are tied up
under shady groves of mango and bo tree, and people bathe screened behind
them. Here and there cottages stand out in the current, their inner
quadrangles under water.
As my boat rustles its way through standing crops it now and then comes
across what was a pool and is still to be distinguished by its clusters of
water-lilies, and diver-birds pursuing fish.
The water has penetrated every possible place. I have never before seen
such a complete defeat of the land. A little more and the water will be
right inside the cottages, and their occupants will have to put up
_machans_ to live on. The cows will die if they have to remain
standing like this in water up to their knees. All the snakes have been
flooded out of their holes, and they, with sundry other homeless reptiles
and insects, will have to chum with man and take refuge on the thatch of
his roof.
The vegetation rotting in the water, refuse of all kinds floating about,
naked children with shrivelled limbs and enlarged spleens splashing
everywhere, the long-suffering patient housewives exposed in their wet
clothes to wind and rain, wading through their daily tasks with tucked-up
skirts, and over all a thick pall of mosquitoes hovering in the noxious
atmosphere--the sight is hardly pleasing!
Colds and fevers and rheumatism in every home, the malaria-stricken
infants constantly crying,--nothing can save them. How is it possible for
men to live in such unlovely, unhealthy, squalid, neglected surroundings?
The fact is we are so used to bear everything, hands down,--the ravages of
Nature, the oppression of rulers, the pressure of our _shastras_ to
which we have not a word to say, while they keep eternally grinding us
down.