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IN FAMI NE LAND 
 
 OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIENCES IN INDIA 
 DURING THE GREAT DROUGHT OF 1899-1900 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. J. E. SCOTT, Ph.D., S.T.D. 
 
 CHAIRAIAN M. E. MISSION RELIEF COMMITTEE 
 RAJPUTANA 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEV^ YORK AND LONDON 
 
 HARPER &- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1904 
 
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 \* 
 
 ^\^-^ 
 
 U8RARV nf CONGRESS 
 Two Cepies Received 
 
 FEB 15 1904 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 ^a --^ . ' £ > p f .- 
 CLASS ^ X;io. No. 
 
 7 t ^ t 2- 
 ' COPY S 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by J. E. Scott. 
 
 Alt rights reserved. 
 
 Published Februan,', 1904. 
 
2)eOfcateO 
 
 TO 
 
 LORD CURZON OF KEDLESTON 
 
 VICEROY AND GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA 
 
 UNDER WHOSE ENERGETIC AND BENEVOLENT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 THE HORRORS OF THE GREAT FAMINE WERE 
 
 MITIGATED AND RELIEVED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Preface , . ix 
 
 I. Great Famines in India i 
 
 II. The Causes of Famine lo 
 
 III. Prevention of Famine 23 
 
 IV. The Great Famine 28 
 
 V. The Famine Codes 42 
 
 VI. Famine Relief 54 
 
 VII. Rajputana 67 
 
 VIII. Trekking 77 
 
 IX. The Bhils 84 
 
 X. Through Famine Land 95 
 
 XI. Cholera 103 
 
 XII. The Place of Death 113 
 
 XIII. Receiving and Giving 123 
 
 XIV. SujAT Road 131 
 
 XV. BiKANiR 141 
 
 XVI. Ajmir-Mairwara 150 
 
 XVII. Tilaunia 165 
 
 XVIII. Phalera . 176 
 
 XIX. Forms of Relief 185 
 
 XX. Conclusion 196 
 
 Index - 199 
 
 Glossary 206 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MORTALITY 
 
 MAP OF INDIA AND CEYLON. SHADED PART SHOWS 
 
 FAMINE AREA 
 
 DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD IN FAMINE TIME . . . 
 
 WAITING FOR FOOD 
 
 THE DEAD PIT DAILY COMPANY 
 
 POOR-HOUSE AT AHMEDABAD 
 
 RELIEF WORKS BREAKING STONE 
 
 CONVALESCENTS IN THE POOR-HOUSE 
 
 THE CORN SHIP " QUITO " IN BOMBAY .... 
 HEARING AND ATTENDING TO PETITIONS OF THE 
 
 POOR 
 
 STARVING VILLAGERS, RAJPUTANA 
 
 FAMINE-STRICKEN 
 
 ON THE WAY 
 
 BHIL BOWMEN, RAJPUTANA 
 
 AT LAST 
 
 THE TREE UNDER WHICH THE REV. C. S. THOMPSON, 
 
 C.M.S., DIED 
 
 OUR GUESTS 
 
 THE HORRORS OF FAMINE. PARTLY EATEN BY 
 
 JACKALS WHILE ALIVE 
 
 STARVED 
 
 CREMATION OP FAMINE BODIES, AHMEDABAD . . 
 
 vii 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Facing p. 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 i6 
 
 36 
 44 
 SO 
 58 
 62 
 
 64 
 68 
 74 
 78 
 84 
 86 
 
 88 
 96 
 
 100 
 104 
 106 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 SORTING THE PATIENTS — GODHRA Facing p. Io8 ' 
 
 THE STAFF THAT STUCK — CHRISTIAN NURSES IN 
 
 FRONT " 1 10'' 
 
 THE VALLEY AND SHADOW OF DEATH. .... " II4'' 
 
 GRAIN STORED AT GODHRA READY FOR VILLAGES . " 126 
 
 "little KOKO" " 128 
 
 AGED BY HUNGER " I38' 
 
 FAMINE CHILDREN EVERY-DAY SPECIMENS ... " 146 ' 
 
 RESCUED CHILDREN, AJMIR " 152 
 
 GROUP OF ORPHANS, AJMIR AFTER TWO MONTHS. " 156 
 
 GROUP OP ORPHANS, AJMIR AFTER THREE MONTHS " 160 
 
 GROUP OF ORPHANS, AJMIR AFTER FOUR MONTHS " 162 
 
 THE KITCHEN AT TILAUNIA " 1 66 
 
 " CHRISTIAN HERALD " CORN READY FOR DISTRI- 
 BUTION '-' 170 
 
 WAITING TO PURCHASE CHEAP GRAIN ..... " 186 ' 
 FRUIT BEARING BISHOP WARNE BAPTIZING OR- 
 PHANS AT BARODA " 192 ' 
 
 ORPHAN BOYS BAPTIZED BY BISHOP WARNE AT 
 
 NADIAD " 196 " 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This book is not the outgrowth of the dreamy medi- 
 tations of a recluse. It is not the result of a morbid 
 imagination. It is not a book of fiction. It is not 
 written to gloat over unprecedented human miseries, 
 nor from a desire to be sensational, nor to hold up 
 horrors to a benevolent and sympathetic public. 
 
 It is rather written from the stand-point of the most 
 tangible of all facts, the social and physical life of a 
 people, to record some of the natural, economic, and 
 political conditions under which they exist, and to pre- 
 serve certain details of recent events of universal human 
 interest while fresh in the memory and while contem- 
 porary corroborating testimony is readily available. 
 
 It is written, too, by one who has spent the most of 
 his life in India, and who, in the late famine, took a 
 humble part in trying to save life and relieve distress. 
 Others did more, but none could have had a deeper 
 appreciation of existing need nor a greater desire to 
 relieve it. It is essential to a clear understanding of 
 the calamity to know something of the history of famines 
 in India, of the conditions under which they arise, of the 
 causes which produce them, and of the efforts put forth 
 by the government and by private benevolence to save 
 and relieve the stricken people. Hence, these subjects 
 have been included. 
 
 It is said that " one half the world does not know how 
 the other half lives"; but recent events have shown 
 
PREFACE 
 
 that one half the world has been interested in keeping 
 many millions of the other half alive. As chairman of 
 one Famine Relief Committee and member of several 
 others I was jointly responsible for the distribution of 
 several hundreds of thousands of dollars, mostly contrib- 
 uted by the people of America, These kind donors 
 doubtless have a desire, as they certainly have a right, 
 to know what became of their contributions. I have, 
 therefore, endeavored to give an account of famine re- 
 lief in at least part of the afflicted provinces, that they 
 may know, from one present, something of what became 
 of their money, grain, clothing, and medicines so gener- 
 ously contributed. The famine, thank God! has gone, 
 but thousands of waifs, mostly children under twelve 
 years of age, are left as a legacy, to be fed, clothed, and 
 trained. Many are aiding in this noble work. It may 
 be seen from these pages from what a death, and at what 
 personal risks, these waifs have been rescued. Many 
 of them will grow into useful men and women. In 
 this great famine millions have perished in spite of all 
 that the most active measures and the most tender care 
 could do. It is impossible that famine be ever entirely 
 banished from India, but its horrors may be greatly 
 mitigated and the distress of the people relieved. 
 
 In the preparation of this volume I am indebted to 
 many for their valuable assistance ; in fact, I have sought 
 to give the facts, scenes, and incidents connected with 
 the famine in the language of eye-witnesses, actively 
 engaged in famine relief, and who wrote down at the 
 time their vivid impressions. Numerous extracts from 
 current literature, from letters written to friends and to 
 the press, and from official documents, reports, and 
 statistics have been quoted. I am especially indebted 
 to the pages of the Christian Herald, of New York, 
 and the Guardian and the Indian Witness, of India, for 
 
PREFACE 
 
 current incidents. It has been the aim to give credit 
 for these in the body of the work. The photographs 
 were taken, as a rule, by famine rehef officers and other 
 helpers, as. they went about their work among the peo- 
 ple. Some few of them, perhaps, have been published 
 before, but all help to illustrate and interpret the fam- 
 ine. I have sought to give the latest available statis- 
 tics and the most reliable data from official sources. 
 The full results of the late census were not yet published, 
 and I had to make use of advanced sheets of the late 
 Famine Commission's Report at the time this book was 
 concluded. However, it is hoped that I have stated 
 nothing which may be vitiated or disproved by their 
 fuller facts and conclusions. For all imperfections the 
 author can only ask the indulgence of the reader. 
 
 J. E. Scott. 
 
 AjMERE, N. W, P., India, 
 August 12, 1903 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 GREAT FAMINES IN INDIA 
 
 " Famine is India's specialty. Elsewhere famines are inconse- 
 quential incidents; in India they are devastating cataclysms. 
 In the one case they annihilate hundreds, in the other mill- 
 ions." — More Tramps Abroad. 
 
 From time immemorial there have been great, wide- 
 spread, devastating famines in India. The historic 
 faculty being deficient in this slow, plodding people, they 
 have failed to record their sufferings, so that we have 
 no complete record of these awful periodic calamities. 
 But there are hints. On good authority we learn that 
 five hundred years before Christ, in the reign of Jai 
 Chand, there were great pestilence and famine in India. 
 Whole provinces were depopulated in the reign of 
 Musaood I., in 1022, a.d. Delhi and the Punjab were 
 visited by famine in 1291, 1342, 1344-45, 1412-13, 1738, 
 1781-83, 1785, 1824-25, 1860-61, 1868-69, 1897, and 
 1900. In the Madras Presidency there were famines 
 in 1811, 1824, 1833, 1854, 1877, 1888, and 1890. 
 
 Great famines ravaged the Northwest Provinces in 
 1770, 1783, 1803, 1819, 1837, 1861, and 1877. In 1344- 
 45 the famine was almost universal throughout India, 
 and so severe that the Emperor Muhammad was not able 
 
 X 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 to get supplies for his own family. There was a great 
 famine in India m 1491. In 152 1 and in 1540-43 there 
 were famines in Smd. One of the great famines of 
 history was in 163 1 . It prevailed over almost the whole 
 of Asia, and was especially severe in Hindustan. " It 
 began," says the historian, "from a failure of the 
 periodical rains of 1629, and was raised to a frightful 
 pitch by a recurrence of the same misfortune in 1630. 
 Thousands of people emigrated, and many perished be- 
 fore they reached more favored provinces; vast num- 
 bers died at home ; whole districts were depopulated, and 
 some had not recovered at the end of forty years. The 
 famine was accompanied by a total want of forage and 
 by the death of all the cattle, and the miseries of the 
 people were completed by a pestilence such as is usually 
 the consequence of the other calamities." 
 
 Famine often waited upon war. "After the con- 
 quest of Lodi," says Mr. Mills, ^ "the war in the Deccan 
 was little else than a series of ravages. The princes were 
 able to make little resistance. A dreadful famine, from 
 several years of excessive drought, which prevailed 
 throughout India and a great part of Asia, added its 
 horrid evils to the calamities which overwhelmed the 
 inhabitants of the Deccan." There was another great 
 famine during the reign of Aurangzeb. " The third year 
 of his reign" (1665), says the author quoted above, ^ 
 "was visited with a great famine, a calamity which 
 ravages India with more dreadful severity than almost 
 any other part of the globe. It was occasioned by the 
 recurrence of an extraordinary drought, which in India 
 almost suspends vegetation, and throughout the prin- 
 cipal parts of the country leaves both men and cattle 
 destitute of food." 
 
 * History of India, vol. ii., p. 263. " Ibid., p. 278. 
 
 2 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 In 1770 Bengal was devastated by the most awful 
 famine which, according to Colonel Baird Smith, had 
 ever visited India/ It is stated that one-third of all 
 Bengal, one of the most fruitful presidencies in India, 
 lay "waste and silent" for twenty years. A brief 
 account of it is given below: 
 
 "The crops of December, 1768, and August, 1769, 
 were both scanty, and prices became very high; and 
 throughout the month of October, 1769, hardly a drop 
 of rain fell. The usual refreshing showers of January 
 to May also failed in 1770, in which year, until late in 
 May, scarcely any rain fell. The famine was felt in all 
 the northern part of Bengal as early as November, 
 1769, but by the 4th of January, 1770, the daily deaths 
 from starvation in Patna were up to fifty; and before 
 the end of May, one hundred and fifty. The tanks were 
 dried up, and the springs had ceased to reach the surface, 
 and before the end of April, 1770, famine had spread 
 desolation. In Murshidabad, at length, the dead were 
 left uninterred ; dogs, jackals, and vultures were the sole 
 scavengers. Three millions of people were supposed 
 to have perished. It is also said that within the first 
 nine months of 1770, one-third of the entire population 
 of lower Bengal perished for want of food." 
 
 In writing of the famine of 1770, Macaulay states: 
 
 "In the summer of 1770 the rains failed; the earth 
 was parched up, the tanks were empty ; the rivers shrank 
 within their beds, and a famine, such as is known only 
 in countries where every household depends for support 
 on its own little patch of cultivation, filled the whole 
 
 * Vide Romesh Dutt's Famines in India, p. i, 
 3 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 valley of the Ganges with misery and death. Tender 
 and delicate women, whose veils had never been lifted 
 before the public gaze, came forth from the inner cham- 
 bers in which Eastern jealousy had kept watch over 
 their beauty, threw themselves on the earth before the 
 passer-by, and with loud wailings implored a handful of 
 rice for their children. The Hoogly every day rolled 
 down thousands of corpses close to the porticos and 
 gardens of the English conquerors. The very streets 
 of Calcutta were blocked up by the dying and the dead. 
 The lean and feeble survivors had not energy enough 
 to carry the bodies of their kindred to the funeral pile 
 or the holy river, or even to scare away the jackals and 
 vultures that fed on human remains in the face of day." 
 
 Still another account is given in England's Work for 
 India, thus: 
 
 "All through the hot season the people went on 
 dying. The husbandmen sold their cattle; they sold 
 their implements of agriculture; they devoured their 
 seed grain; they sold their sons and daughters, till at 
 length no buyer of children could be found; they ate 
 the leaves of the trees and the grass of the field, and in 
 June it was reported that the living were feeding on the 
 dead. Two years after the dearth, Warren Hastings 
 made a journey through Bengal, and he states the loss 
 to have been at least one-third of the inhabitants, or, 
 probably, about ten millions of people. Nineteen years 
 later Lord Cornwallis reported that one-third of Bengal 
 was a jungle inhabited only by wild beasts." 
 
 There was also a terrible famine in Bengal in 1866, 
 when, it is estimated, one million people perished. 
 Rajputana, always a dry and sandy coimtry, without 
 
 4 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 rivers or canals, has frequently suffered from terrible 
 famines. In 1 812-13 Marwar was ravaged by locusts, 
 and the annual rains failed, and immense numbers 
 perished on the field, or migrated, only to meet a like 
 fate. In 1833 not a drop of rain fell in Ajmir. Again 
 in 1847-48 there was a famine. In 1868-70 there was 
 another great famine, which was especially severe in 
 Rajputana. Of this it is said: "Rajputana, with its 
 area of desert and its scanty water supply, was most 
 affected. It is usual in time of scarcity for the popula- 
 tion of the more arid district to migrate to the more fer- 
 tile states, but on this occasion all were alike parched 
 by the drought, which was the most calamitous on 
 record. Thousands of the famine-stricken poured into 
 British territory in search of food, greatly aggravating 
 the burden already felt there. The famine of 1868, in 
 Rajputana, in severity surpassed that of 181 3, which 
 was the most calamitous of which they had record. It 
 was more severely felt in Marwar, the northern portion 
 of which was deserted." There was no railway, and 
 there were very few roads in Rajputana in those days, 
 and consequently no grain could be brought in from 
 outside. Marwar famine relief at that time was not 
 what it is now. It is estimated that a million people 
 perished, or migrated, from Rajputana alone, during 
 that year of awful suffering. The recent famines, follow- 
 ing each other in 1890-92, 1896-97, and 1 899-1900, still 
 leave upon the saddened land the marks of their devas- 
 tation. Concerning the famine in Ajmir-Merwara the 
 Report of the Indian Famine Commission, 1898, states: 
 
 "In 1890-92 severe distress was experienced in the 
 British districts of Ajmir-Merwara, covering an area 
 of 2710 square miles, and containing a population of 
 ^43,000. The adjoining native states were similarly 
 
 S 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 affected in a greater or less degree. In the first period, 
 dating from the deficient monsoon rains of 1890, and 
 the consequent failure of the rain crops of 1890 and the 
 rahi of 1891, distress was chiefly confined to the Todgarh 
 subdivision of Merwara, and to the southern portion of 
 Ajmir, and nothing more than moderate scarcity pre- 
 vailed. But with a still more pronounced failure of the 
 monsoon of 1891, and of the kharif and rabi crops of 
 1891-92, distress became severe and general, and was not 
 alleviated until the bounteous autumn rains of 1892 
 restored agriculture to its normal course. The average 
 annual rainfall of the tract is small, being a little under 
 twenty-one inches. In 1890 only twelve inches fell 
 in Ajmir, and thirteen and one-half inches in Marwar. 
 In 1 891 the Ajmir rainfall was only eight and one-half 
 inches, and that of Marwar ten and one-half inches. In 
 neither year did a sufficiently heavy fall of rain occur 
 at any date to fill the irrigation tanks, on which much of 
 the cultivation depends. The estimates of the four 
 harvests dependent on the rains of these two years place 
 the yield in the two districts at about one-quarter of 
 the average. Grass, fodder, and water also failed. Many 
 of the cattle were driven off to more favored districts in 
 Meywar, and many died. The losses on this account fell 
 even heavier on the agriculturists than the loss of crops, 
 and when the monsoon rains of 1 892 came, great difficulty 
 was experienced in placing the normal area under the 
 plough. In its intensity and duration the drought of 
 1890-92 was as great as any of the great droughts which 
 have visited this tract of country in the past, among 
 which the drought of 1812-13, the drought of 1847-48, 
 and the drought of 1868-70, are the most memorable." 
 
 In the famine of 1896-97 the Bikanir, Bharatpur, and 
 Dholpur states in Rajputana were the most affected, but 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 all the states experienced short harvests, and in many- 
 places, there being no relief works, there was much 
 distress. The famine of 1 899-1 900 in Rajputana, as else- 
 v/here, was the worst in the mem->ry of man. It is 
 stated that there lives in the Jodhpur State an ascetic, 
 one hundred and eight years of age, who remembers the 
 great famine of 181 2, and is of the opinion that the 
 destruction of cattle in the recent famine far exceeded 
 anything he has ever experienced. In the states west 
 of the Arr.vali mountains, Jodhpur and Bikanir, the 
 famine was e::pecially severe, but it may be said that all 
 of Rajasthan was smitten by this awful drought and the 
 people were suffering for want of water, crops, and fodder. 
 
 In India nearly every year finds some place of greater 
 or less extent in distress. It may not amount t actual 
 famine, but for some reasons there have been scant 
 harvests. Sometimes locusts, at others hail, and oc- 
 casionally too much rain, destroy the crops. 
 
 The following table, compiled by the Famine Com- 
 mission, shows the frequency of drought, the area and 
 population affected, and the maximum relieved on any 
 one day, from 1884 to 1896. 
 
 Province affected 
 
 Punjab 
 
 Lower Bengal 
 
 Madras 
 
 Central Provinces 
 
 Behar. 
 
 Orissa (Tributary States). . . . 
 
 Madras (Ganjam) 
 
 Kumaun and Garhwal 
 
 Kamaun Division and Dehra 
 
 Dun 
 
 Madras 
 
 Bombay (Deccan) 
 
 Bengal and Behar 
 
 Upper Burma 
 
 Ajmir-Merwara 
 
 884 
 
 884-8S 
 
 8S4-85 
 
 886-87 
 
 88S-89 
 
 880 
 
 888-89 
 
 890 
 
 )I-92 
 )I-92 
 )i-g2 
 
 
 970 
 
 3,000 
 
 1,000 
 2,500 
 
 22,700 
 9,484 
 5,710 
 
 10,000 
 2,710 
 
 100,000 
 1,100,000 
 
 1,467,000 
 
 3,880,000 
 
 800,000 
 
 543,000 
 
 rt o u 
 S OJ u 
 
 S 3 o 
 
 4,620 
 20,800 
 
 42,000 
 
 900 
 
 21,000 
 
 92,583 
 S,7oo 
 77,800 
 30,000 
 33.913 
 
 £ S 5 
 !5 S 2 
 
 4,000 
 
 2,700 
 
 104,000 
 
 6,961 
 2,580 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Concerning these famines the Report of the Indian 
 Famine Commission, 1898, states : 
 
 "Of the famines here described, the gravest were the 
 Ganjam famine of 1889 and the Madras famine of 1890- 
 92. On these occasions the loss of crops appears to 
 have been almost as great as that which occurred in 
 the same tracts in the late famine. In the scarcity 
 which visited Behar in 1891-92, the crop failure in a 
 portion of North Behar approached, in its complete- 
 ness, the crop failures of 1873-74 and of 1896-97. 
 In none of these cases was relief required on anything 
 like the scale found necessary in 1896-97. The ex- 
 planation must be sought in the unprecedented rise in 
 prices which distinguished the late famine, and in the 
 general paralysis of industry which so wide-spread a 
 calamity occasioned. The experiences of the interven- 
 ing years between 1880 and 1896 point to the conclusion 
 that scarcities occurring over limited areas while the rest 
 of the Indian continent is prosperous can be success- 
 fully dealt with by a very moderate expenditure of 
 money and without disturbing the ordinary administra- 
 tion." 
 
 During the past century there have been two bad 
 seasons to every seven good ones in India. The great 
 famines have occurred at intervals of about twelve 
 years. There have been seven great famines in the 
 nineteenth century, affecting at least two hundred mill- 
 ions of people. The mean annual rainfall for the whole 
 of India is forty-one inches, and during the past twenty- 
 five years it has ten times fallen below that. During 
 the reign of Queen Victoria, Empress of India, there 
 were at least eight famines in India; concerning the 
 niortality attending all but the last, by far the most; 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 destructive of all, Mr. Robert Scott, of the Christian, 
 London, has gathered from official sources that "in the 
 famine of 1837-38, 8,000,000 people were affected, and 
 800,000 died. In 1860-61, 13,000,000 were affected, and 
 upward of 1,000,000 perished. In 1863 a quarter of 
 the population died in some of the districts. The total 
 deaths were enormous ; nearly the whole of the laboring 
 population were swept away. In 1866 nearly 1,000,000 
 perished. In 1868-69 1,250,000 persons, according to 
 the government estimate, died of hunger. In 1876-78 
 the mortality exceeded 5,250,000. In 1896-97, in June, 
 of the latter year, there were no fewer than 4,500,000 
 persons in receipt of relief, and Lord George Hamilton 
 stated at the Mansion House that at that date upward 
 of ten million pounds sterling, had been disbursed in 
 relief; but at a later date, when the sum total was 
 arrived at, it was stated in the columns of the Times to 
 amount to the almost incredible sum of ninety million 
 pounds sterling." 
 
 It is difficult to give in exact terms the extent and 
 ravages of the late famine, but not less than 400,000 
 miles of territory and 60,000,000 of people were affected, 
 and the sufferings and mortality were beyond the power 
 of the human tongue to describe. 
 
 Says Mr. Dutt:^ "Within the last forty years, within 
 the memory of the present writer, there have been ten 
 famines in India, and at a moderate computation the 
 loss of lives from starvation and from diseases brought 
 on by these famines may be estimated at fifteen mill- 
 ions within these forty years. It is a melancholy phe- 
 nomenon, which is not presented in the present day by 
 any other country on earth enjoying a civilized admin- 
 istration." 
 
 ^JF amines in India, p. 16. 
 
II 
 
 THE CAUSES OF FAMINE 
 
 "Who hath gathered the wind in His fists? Who hath bound 
 the waters in His garment?" — Proverbs, xxx., 4. 
 
 The primary cause of famine in India is the failure 
 of the monsoon. It is entirely beyond the control of 
 man. The monsoon is the periodical wind blowing off 
 the sea and carrying with it over the great plain the 
 water-jfilled clouds, which drop their fruitful showers as 
 they fly. When this wind fails, or is deflected, at the 
 proper season, the rains fail, the crops fail; and when 
 the crops fail, untold misery and death and ruin are the 
 result. 
 
 The monsoon, then, is India's salvation. The word 
 is of Malay origin, and means " seasons," and is thus ap- 
 plied because, in tropical countries, the regular motion 
 of the trade-winds is arrested by these periodical gales, 
 which blow from one direction for one half of the year 
 and from the opposite during the other half, the south- 
 west monsoon prevailing north of the equator from 
 April to October, and the southeast monsoon south of 
 the equator during the same period, while from Octo- 
 ber to April the northwest monsoon blows south of the 
 equator and the northeast monsoon north of the equa- 
 tor, the only modification being that the time of the 
 occurrence of the southwest and northwest monsoons 
 is affected by the distance from the equator. If we 
 would seek for the cause of the monsoons we must in- 
 
 J9 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 quire of the sun during his apparent annual progress 
 from one tropic to the other. He heats up India from 
 April to June, until the rarefied atmosphere arises in 
 haste and rushes out to sea, while the moisture-laden 
 air rushes in to take its place, and so "watereth the 
 earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may- 
 give seed to the sower and bread to the eater." I can- 
 not make it clearer than by quoting from Brocklesby's 
 Meteorology (pp. 80, 81.): 
 
 "These stated rains originate in the change of the 
 periodical winds, by which the union of vast volumes 
 of air, differing in temperature, is rapidly effected. 
 Early in the month of June the soil of the peninsula 
 becomes intensely heated by the vertical rays of the 
 sun, and powerful currents of rarefied air then ascend 
 from the earth. To supply the deficiency thus created, 
 the warm and humid atmosphere of the equatorial seas 
 flows in, constituting the southwest monsoon ; this wind 
 now mingles with the cool, dry air, which the northeast 
 monsoon, for the six previous months, has been con- 
 stantly bringing to the peninsula from the polar and 
 temperate climes, and thus produces a combination 
 favorable to the precipitation of rain upon a most ex- 
 tensive scale. 
 
 "The southwest monsoon does not, however, bring 
 rain to the whole of India. Parallel to the western 
 coast runs a chain of high mountains, termed the ghauts ; 
 here the monsoon is arrested in its course, and most 
 of the moisture with which it is charged is precipitated 
 ere it arrives at the central table-land of Mysore. On 
 the eastern, or Coromandal coast, its influence is not felt, 
 and the seasons are here reversed. From March till 
 June the winds are hot and moist, blowing mostly from 
 the south, over the Bay of Bengal ; from June to October 
 
 If 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the heat is very great, but about the middle of the latter 
 month the cool, northeast monsoon commences, bring- 
 ing the periodical rains, which terminate by the middle 
 of December, the monsoon continuing to blow until the 
 beginning of March." 
 
 As we have seen, the famines in India, as a rule, have 
 been the result of a failure of the rains following the 
 failure of the monsoon, which is regulated by the sun. 
 All this is beyond men's control. Here we enter the 
 sphere of Divine Providence. But famine is such a 
 cruel thing and affects so many millions of God's helpless 
 creatures, many of them innocent, that it is difficult to 
 reconcile it with the fatherhood of God. 
 
 As one has put it : " The recurrence of famine is a 
 severe test of one's belief in the doctrine of Divine 
 Providence, as it is generally presented. The problem 
 is not easy of solution. Epidemics of disease are doubt- 
 less the result of violation of sanitary law. War is the 
 outcome of human imperfection and limitation. And 
 so we may go through the list of physical evils which 
 afflict humanity, and account for them without disturb- 
 ing the belief that the administration of the affairs of 
 the world and the direction of the forces of nature are 
 in the hands of Almighty God. But we cannot affirm 
 that unpropitious seasons are the result of man's mis- 
 conduct; we can only say that the disastrous results of 
 bad seasons are aggravated by the indolence or neglect 
 or stupidity or shiftlessness of men. Perhaps it is true, 
 as some have affirmed, that Providence has supplied 
 India with abundance of all things required for the 
 needs of all her inhabitants, and if men would use the 
 intelligence God has given them in husbanding and 
 utilizing this abundance India would have a famine in- 
 surance which would suffice for even such famines as 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 that which now prevails. There is no doubt that, in the 
 year 1899, the aggregate rainfall of India was quite 
 sufficient for the whole land. The trouble is, it was not 
 well distributed. Chirapunji had about six hundred 
 and fifty inches, the largest amount ever recorded, 
 while on the opposite side of the peninsula the de- 
 ficiency of rain was just as remarkable. Perhaps it is 
 God's plan that men should assist in distributing what 
 He gives, be it water or food, or any other good thing 
 He has provided for men. If we take this view of the 
 case, the difficulty in regard to Providential control dis- 
 appears. Yet we, in the impatience of our own limita- 
 tions, cannot help asking why some of the floods of rain 
 which devastated Assam could not have been sent to 
 the other side of the peninsula. Did the machinery 
 break down? Or is the disaster a necessary condition 
 of the limitations which inhere in all things finite." 
 
 The machinery did not break down. God is back of 
 His laws. Famine is the result of law. Law is eternal ; 
 and He who is working out eternal principles, who 
 permitted sin, and death, and pestilence, and plague, 
 and storm, and flood to enter and remain in the world, 
 will in the end bring to the greatest number the greatest 
 good by permitting a famine to occur. Man needs such 
 examples of the Power above, of his own helplessness, 
 and such calamities arouse the benevolence and charity 
 and unselfishness, and call out the ingenuity and pru- 
 dence and skill and effort of man in endeavors to mitigate 
 and overcome the evil. A theory has been adduced 
 that famines are caused by a deficiency of sun-spots, or 
 that, at least, the recurring famines always fall upon 
 years either immediately succeeding, or in close proxim- 
 ity to, the time of minimum sun-spots. This may be 
 fanciful, but Dr. W. W. Hunter pointed out, about the 
 year 1877, from data gathered in the Madras Presidency, 
 
 13 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 that the years 1811, 1824, 1833, 1854, 1866, and 1877 
 were famine years, and that the minimum sun-spot 
 occurred in 1810, 1823, 1832, 1856, 1867, and 1878. 
 From the fact that from the year 1813 to 1876 the 
 average rainfall in Madras was 48.51 inches, and that 
 during the famine years the fall was far below this, and 
 from the association of the rainfall and the sun-spots 
 between these years, it may be concluded that "the. 
 minimum period in the cycle of sun-spots has been a 
 period of regularly recurring and strongly marked 
 drought in south India." 
 
 But famine cannot all be blamed upon the monsoon 
 or upon the sun. There are conditions in India which 
 are favorable to famine. India is a poor country. It is 
 inhabited by a race of agriculturists, who are dependent 
 upon their crops, which in good years are barely" suf- 
 ficient to feed them. It has been estimated by Sir 
 Arthur Colton that two acres of rice -land will feed 
 seven people for a year. A family of five can live on 
 less than six pounds of grain per diem. The fact is, 
 very many live on very much less than a pound a day. 
 In India the farmers — i.e., the masses of the people — 
 have no surplus. They live from hand to mouth, with 
 but very little in their hand. So that the conclusion has 
 been reached that "food at three times its ordinary price, 
 at a season when some months must elapse without re- 
 lief, means famine in the greatest majority of cases, 
 while in some cases famine comes long before that rate 
 is reached. When the rate rises to four times the 
 ordinary standard, it is probably accompanied by 
 famine of a very severe description." Millions of 
 people are living just on the border-land of famine. 
 Sir William Hunter has estimated their number at 
 forty millions, and, indeed, it has been confidently 
 
 14 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 stated that "at least over a hundred milHons of 
 the population of India scarcely ever know, from 
 year's end to year's end, what it is to have a satis- 
 fying meal, and that it is the rule, and not the ex- 
 ception, for them to retire to rest, night after night, 
 hungry and faint for want of sufficient and suitable 
 food." Commissioner Booth Tucker, who was a magis- 
 trate in India for a number of years, after dividing the 
 lower stratum of society into twenty-five millions of 
 poverty-stricken, laboring classes, earning less than five 
 rupees a month for the support of their families, and 
 twenty-five millions destitute and unemployed poor, 
 who earn nothing at all, and who are dependent for 
 their livelihood on the charity of others, says of them:* 
 
 "Besides the 25,000,000 who constitute the actual 
 destitute and criminal population, we estimate that, at 
 a very low computation, there are 25,000,000 who are 
 on the border-land, who are scarcely ever in a position 
 to properly obtain for themselves and for their families 
 the barest necessities of existence. I do not say that 
 they are wholly submerged, but they pass a sort of 
 amphibious existence, being part of the time under 
 water and part of the time on land, some part of their 
 life being spent in the most abject poverty, and some 
 part of it in absolute starvation — positively for the 
 time submerged, and liable at any moment to be last- 
 ingly engulfed. These are the classes whose income 
 never rises above five rupees ($1.66) a month, while 
 more frequently it is under four rupees," 
 
 Bishop J. M. Thobum, who has spent more than 
 forty years travelling over all parts of India, says:^ 
 
 * Darkest India, p. 43. * India and Malaysia, p. 35. 
 
 IS 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 "In most parts of the country, at least outside the 
 large cities and towns, a man will work faithfully for 
 wages not exceeding five or six cents a day, and on this 
 pitiful sum he probably has to support a wife and from 
 two to six children. To his credit, let it be said, he 
 always does it without grumbling. The people of India, 
 indeed, are among the most patient creatures to be 
 found in the world. Dr. Hunter, who is recognized as 
 one of the best-informed authorities on Indian sub- 
 jects, affirms that there are more than forty millions of 
 people in India who habitually live on insufficient food. 
 I should be inclined to put the number much higher; 
 but, leaving it at forty millions, it is a startling and, 
 indeed, awful statement to make, and one which makes 
 us think seriously about the present condition of our 
 race. So far as my own observation has extended in 
 India, I have been led to believe that not more than 
 half of the people ever eat to repletion, but that, on 
 the other hand, they provide two meals each day as 
 well as they are able, and content themselves with such 
 food as they can procure, whether it be absolutely 
 sufficient or not. 
 
 "They spend very little in clothing, and literally live 
 from hand to mouth the whole year round, so that their 
 life is one long struggle against absolute want." 
 
 One of the saddest things in India at any time is the 
 poverty and helplessness of the cultivating classes. 
 They never seem to be able to save anything, nor do 
 they seem to make much effort to do so. Many cen- 
 turies of oppression and wrong have taken hope and 
 courage out of them. Frugality and thrift are to them 
 almost unknown. They seem to have no power to plan 
 for the future. If nature is propitious they get a living, 
 which is the end at which they aim, and if the monsoon 
 
 i6 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 fails they inevitably fail with it. They live on less 
 than three cents a day, and if they can get together two 
 cents in the worst of times they will never go on relief 
 works. They are quiet, uncomplaining, local, and domes- 
 tic in their habits, and as long as they have a home 
 they will never leave it. It is only when the thatch 
 roof is fed to the cattle, or burned for fuel, and the 
 cattle and their owners in extremities, that they gather 
 up what little is left and go in search of food. And even 
 then they do not always get it. 
 
 Many of them die on the road. They travel in the 
 wrong direction, and never come to a land of plenty. 
 If they arrive at relief works, they are too weak to 
 work. There is, therefore, no bulwark against a bad 
 year. The farmer has no "staying power." A rainless 
 summer gives him " cleanness of teeth." 
 
 The general conclusion as to the condition of the 
 people of India, arrived at by the Famine Commission 
 of 1898,^ was that while of late years the condition of 
 the land-holding and cultivating classes and of skilled 
 artisans, except weavers, has improved, yet "beyond 
 these classes there always has existed, and there still 
 does exist, a lower section of the community living a 
 hand-to-mouth existence, with a low standard of com- 
 fort, and abnormally sensitive to the effects of inferior 
 harvests and calamities of season. This section is very 
 large, and includes the great class of day-laborers and 
 the least skilled of the artisans. So far as we have been 
 able to form a general opinion upon a difficult question, 
 from the evidence we have heard and the statistics 
 placed before us, the wages of these people have not 
 risen in the last twenty years in due proportion to the 
 rise in prices of their necessaries of life. The experience 
 
 ^Famine Report, p. 363. 
 17 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 of the recent famine fails to suggest that this section 
 of the community has shown any larger command of 
 resources or any increased power of resistance. Far 
 from contracting, it seems to be gradually widening, 
 particularly in the more congested districts. Its sensi- 
 tiveness or liability to succumb, is possibly becoming 
 more accentuated, instead of diminishing, as larger and 
 more powerful forces supervene and make their effects 
 felt where formerly the result was determined by purely 
 local conditions. 
 
 We may take this opportunity of remarking that the 
 evidence given before us by many witnesses proved that 
 in times of scarcity and famine in India, the rise in price 
 of food is not accompanied by a rise in the wages of 
 labor; on the contrary, owing to competition for the 
 little employment available, when agricultural employ- 
 ment falls off the rate of wages offered and accepted is 
 frequently below the ordinary or customary rate. Such 
 wages, in times of famine prices, are not subsistence 
 wages for a laborer with dependants to support. This 
 explains and justifies the practice which able-bodied 
 laborers often adopt of taking what private employment 
 they can get at their homes or elsewhere, and sending 
 their wives and children to the relief works. The fact 
 also indicates that a practical difficulty in the way of the 
 working of a principle was that remuneration on relief 
 works should be always fixed so as not to attract labor 
 for which there is existing employment elsewhere. But 
 if the wage for such employment is not a living wage 
 for the ordinary laborer with a family, the wage the 
 family can earn on relief works must necessarily be 
 higher. 
 
 The fact is, the average cultivator is in debt. He can- 
 not lay by enough in the good years to tide him over 
 the bad ones and pay his landlord (the government) 
 
 i8 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 his revenue. Hence he must borrow. And the money- 
 lender is at hand. He lets the cultivator have money, 
 at an exorbitant interest, with which to pay the revenue, 
 and takes a mortgage on the land as security, with this 
 lamentable result, that the ryot becomes poorer and 
 poorer and is inextricably entangled in the net of the 
 avaricious and unmerciful biuiya or money-lender. In 
 famine times he goes to the wall. Here, then, we find 
 a serious condition of things. Government demands, 
 in most places, a fixed revenue from the cultivators. 
 The cultivators, being unable to pay, borrow of the 
 money-lenders, and find themselves hopelessly involved. 
 Under these conditions it does not require a very un- 
 friendly monsoon or a great deficiency of sun-spots to 
 ruin them and enrich the Eastern confidence man — the 
 bunya. 
 
 The late Dr. Carey, founder of the Agricultural Society 
 of Bengal, says:^ 
 
 "An independent husbandman, free from debt and 
 looking forward with delight to the whole of his little 
 crop as his own, is almost a phenomenon in the country. 
 Most of them, through the wretched system which now 
 prevails among them, are in debt perhaps for the seed 
 they sow, are supplied with food by their creditors dur- 
 ing all the labors of the field, and look forward to the 
 end of the harvest for the payment of a debt, to which 
 at least forty per cent, is added, and which, through the 
 way in which it is exacted, is often increased to fifty 
 per cent. 
 
 "We have known many instances in which the crops 
 of two succeeding years have been pledged before a 
 single clod of earth has been turned up, and this not in 
 
 ^ Debt and the Right Use of Money, p. 4. 
 19 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the case of a solitary farmer, but of the greater part of 
 the district." 
 
 Even the Indian government has felt the power of 
 the money-lender, for at one time it was officially stated 
 that "His Lordship in Council entertains no doubt of 
 the fact that the laboring classes of the native community 
 suffer enormous injustice from, want of protection by 
 law from the extortionate practices of money-lenders. 
 He believes that our civil courts have become hateful 
 to the mass of our Indian subjects from being made the 
 instruments of the almost incredible rapacity of usurious 
 capitalists. Nothing can be more calculated to give 
 rise to wide-spread discontent and disaffection to the 
 British government than the practical working of the 
 present law\" 
 
 As one has said:^ " Shylock flourishes in India as 
 perhaps in no other country under the sun. His name 
 is legion. He is ubiquitous. He has the usual abnor- 
 mal appetite of his fraternity for rupees. But, strange 
 to say, he fattens upon poverty and grows rich upon 
 the destitute. Whereas in other regions he usually 
 concentrates his attention upon the rich and well-to-do 
 classes, here he especially marks out for his prey those 
 who, if not absolutely destitute, live upon the bor- 
 der-land of that desolate desert, and make up by their 
 numbers for what they may lack in quality. He gives 
 loans for the smallest amount, from a rupee and up- 
 ward, charging at the rate of half an anna per month 
 interest for each rupee, which amount to nearly thirty - 
 eight per cent, per annum. 
 
 " As for payment, he is willing to wait. Every three 
 
 ^ Darkest India, p. 24. 
 20 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 years a fresh bond is drawn tip, including principal 
 and interest. Finally, when the amount has been 
 sufficiently run up, whatever land, house, buffalo, or 
 other petty possessions belong to the debtor are sold, 
 usually far below their real value. I remember one 
 case which came before me when I was in government 
 service, where the facts were practically undisputed, in 
 which a cultivator was sued for 900 rupees, principal 
 and interest, the original debt being only ten rupees' 
 worth of grain, borrowed a few years previously. Ul- 
 timately it was compromised for about 100 rupees. This 
 is by no means an exceptional case." 
 
 Of course, the Indian ryot is often improvident and 
 extravagant. He is not very prudent and far-seeing. 
 He lives his simple life, getting what little enjoyment 
 he has out of present environments. Social customs 
 and religion require him to spend a good deal of money 
 on the marriage of his daughter and at the funeral of 
 his father. Says an Indian writer:^ 
 
 "We heard the other day of the sum of 15,000 rupees 
 having been set aside by the parents to be expended 
 on the marriage festival of their son. Even the poorer 
 classes in India are given to such reckless expenditure, 
 and we know of several families who have been ruined 
 forever by a hopeless contraction of debts from those 
 veritable Shy locks, the sow cars, or money-lenders. 
 
 "And yet, strange to say, these are the very people 
 who are so fond of money, and do even the most menial 
 service to add something to their purse." 
 
 Funerals are almost as expensive. In some places 
 
 * Debt and the Right Use of Money, p. 6. 
 21 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the average cost of the funeral ceremony for an old 
 member of a Hindu family is 500 rupees. Men have 
 been known to give their land and then sell themselves 
 to the money-lender in order to get money for marriage 
 expenses. In many places the Hindus murdered their 
 infant daughters in order to avoid these ruinous charges. 
 Besides this, there are countless other religious and social 
 ceremonies which must be observed. The Hi»du attends 
 religious festivals and travels many miles to visit shrines. 
 He gives to his priests and makes offerings to his gods. 
 As a rule, nature is kind to him. It has provided him 
 with a wonderful soil, which ordinarily produces, with a 
 minimum of toil, two and three crops a year. But he 
 is a slovenly and unscientific cultivator, and his land is 
 deteriorating. In the light of all these facts it is plain 
 that the people of India are in a state of unpreparedness 
 for famine. It is plain, too, that not only nature, but 
 man also, has much to do with bringing about famines 
 in India. Nature initiates, and man is in no condition 
 to withstand or endure their ravages. In summarizing 
 the human part, among the things which make for 
 famine in India are lack of thrift, a fixed and som^etimes 
 excessive land revenue, the extortion of bunyas and 
 money-lenders, over-population in some places, and 
 failure to develop the industrial resources of the country. 
 
Ill 
 
 PREVENTION OF FAMINE 
 
 "Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, 
 Which we ascribe to Heaven." — Shakespeare. 
 
 It is easy to theorize as to the best way of preventing 
 the recurrence of famines. While it is doubtful if they 
 can ever be entirely prevented, for certainly the natural 
 lav/s will continue in operation and the meteorological 
 changes recur, yet there are many things which can be 
 done to lessen their severity and to ameliorate the 
 condition of the people. They can be taught more 
 thrifty and frugal habits; excessive population can be 
 avoided by encouraging emigration to other less populat- 
 ed parts ; ^ revenue can be remitted, reduced, or suspended ; 
 a legal interest can be fixed, thus preventing exorbitant 
 usury; alienation of landed property may be, except 
 under certain conditions, disallowed; industries can be 
 encouraged ; and, above all, railways and canals may be 
 greatly extended. The usefulness of the former has 
 been proved in famine times by the rapid transporta- 
 tion of food into the affected parts. The Famine Com- 
 mission of 1898 thus pointed out the utility of railways '? 
 
 " It is clear that the very marked tendency to equaliza- 
 tion of prices throughout India is due to the great ex- 
 
 * The average density of population is 184 to the square mile, the 
 same as France, but in some parts there are 934 to the square mile. 
 "^Indian Famine Commission, 1898, p. 359. 
 
 23 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 tension of railways and to the opening up of large tracts 
 of country formerly provided with inadequate means of 
 communication. On almost all the railways in India 
 the sanctioned rates for grain freight vary from one- 
 third to one-tenth pie per maund per mile, though on 
 two lines the permissible maximum is .44 pie per maiind 
 per mile. Within these limits, the actual charges are 
 at the discretion of the railway administration, and 
 generally vary according to distance. We have ascer- 
 tained that during the famine special rates for grain 
 freight were sanctioned on all lines, the percentage of 
 reduction varying considerbly on different lines and on 
 different lengths of the same line. The maximum per- 
 centage of reduction appears to have been sixty per 
 cent. From the information before us as to the rates 
 actually charged during the late famine, we infer that 
 in future famines the rate for the carriage of grain by 
 rail may be estimated at about one and one-quarter 
 annas per maund per one hundred miles for distances 
 not exceeding five hundred miles, at one anna per 
 maimd for distances exceeding one thousand miles, and 
 at about one and one-eighth annas for distances be- 
 tween five hundred and one thousand miles. In 
 1880, according to the Famine Commissioners, the 
 charge for transport between the most distant parts 
 of India connected by rail, was about one anna per seer ; 
 and grain could be bought costing twenty-four seers per 
 rupee in northern India, and sold, with fair profit, in 
 southern India at eight seers the rupee. At the pres- 
 ent time, grain would be carried one thousand miles 
 for a little over ten annas per maund of forty seers; 
 and wheat, selling in the Punjab at twelve seers 
 the rupee, could, if on the line of rail, be placed 
 one thousand miles off and sold at ten seers the ru- 
 pee/; 
 
 24 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 We know the usefulness of canals/ The Greek Megas- 
 thenes, 300 years b.c, found about Patna "the whole 
 country under irrigation." The great Akbar, in 1568, 
 commanded his son to build a canal, so that " this jungle, 
 in which subsistence is obtained with thirst, be con- 
 verted into a place of comfort free from evil " ; and the 
 canal exists to-day, as a monument to the great em- 
 peror's statesmanship and engineering skill. The total 
 amount expended by the British government on canals 
 for irrigation and navigation in India up to the year 
 1897 was ;^37,ooo,ooo. About fifty years ago the late 
 General Sir Arthur Cotton and his coadjutors executed 
 magnificent canals in connection with the great rivers 
 of the Madras Presidency — the Godavari, the Kistna, 
 and the Cauvery, which give an ever-increasing revenue 
 as well as prosperity to the people. Concerning the 
 magnificent Ganges Canal it has been stated:^ 
 
 "In 1837-38 there was a terrible famine in north 
 India. The peasants, for years afterwards, employed 
 it as an era by which to calculate their ages. This led 
 government to commence, in 1842, the Ganges Canal, 
 which in its earliest form was opened in 1854. Ini866a 
 continuation of the main line to Allahabad, known as the 
 Lower Ganges Canal, was recommended. The Upper 
 Canal takes away about half the water of the Ganges, 
 near Hardwar, and distributes over the upper part of the 
 country between the two rivers. It rejoins the Ganges 
 at Cawnpore. The Lower Ganges Canal is a southward 
 extension of the Ganges Canal, with which it has direct 
 communication. The head-works draw their supply 
 from the river near Raj ghat, and the canal waters the 
 
 ^ There are now about twenty-five thousand miles of railways and 
 fifteen thousand miles of navigable canals in India. 
 ^ Tour Round India, p. 34. 
 
 25 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 lower part of the Doab. The two canals have looo 
 miles of main channels and 4400 miles of distributaries. 
 The annual value of the crops irrigated by them is 
 estimated at four crores of rupees. When Ihe country 
 beyond their range has been like a desert, the portions 
 watered have borne luxuriant crops. They are the 
 greatest irrigation works in the world."* 
 
 It is doubtful, however, whether any one enterprise 
 will avail completely, but all can be conjointly used 
 to the bettering of the condition of the vast population. 
 To show how opinions differ on the subject of prevention 
 of famine, it may be stated that only recently it has 
 been pointed out that:^ 
 
 " Desirable as it is that irrigation should be extended 
 wherever practicable and remunerative, such extension 
 would never solve the famine problem. The real remedy 
 lies in the introduction of foreign capital, the develop- 
 ment of the material resources of the country, and the 
 removal of the surplus population from the overcrowded 
 occupation of agriculture. The viceroy has shown a 
 practical sympathy with new industries in India, but 
 conditions will never be wholly and completely favorable 
 as long as any attempt is made to control business 
 affairs, at any stage, on official lines." 
 
 The author of a recent book on Famines and Land 
 Assessment in India^ seeks to show that "the resource- 
 less condition and the chronic poverty of the cultiva- 
 
 * The acreage irrigated by government irrigation works on the 
 31st of March, 1900, was 13,430,841, for the whole of India. 
 
 ^Famine Facts and Fallacies, by J. D. Rees. CLE. 
 
 ^ Famines and Land Assessment, by Romesh Dutt, CLE., vol. 
 xiv., pp. 16, 17. 
 
 26 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 tors" are due to over-assessment of the soil on the part 
 of the government. He says: "The land is fertile, the 
 people are peaceful and loyal, and generations of British 
 administrators have been trained in the duties of Indian 
 administration. And yet famines have not disappeared. 
 The immediate cause of famines in almost every instance 
 is the failure of rains, and this cause will continue to 
 operate until we have a more extensive system of 
 irrigation than has yet been provided. But the in- 
 tensity and frequency of recent famines are greatly due 
 to the resourceless condition and the chronic poverty of 
 the cultivators, caused by the over-assessment of the 
 soil on which they depend for their living." 
 
 He goes on to say that " We have no wars within the 
 natural frontiers of India now, but peace has not 
 brought with it a reduction in the public expenditure 
 or in the public debt. India," he says, "maintains the 
 most expensive foreign government on earth, and one- 
 third or one-half of the net revenues of India is sent out 
 of India every year, instead of being spent in the coun- 
 try to fructify her industry and trades. Land revenue 
 is the most important item of the Indian revenues, and 
 so it happens that the taxation falls heavily on the 
 cultivators of the soil, and reduces them to a state of 
 chronic poverty. They can save nothing in years of 
 good harvest, and consequently every year of drought 
 is a year of famine." He therefore maintains, and 
 endeavors to prove by elaborate arguments, that the 
 -intensity and disastrous effect of famines "can be to a 
 great extent mitigated by moderating the land-tax, 
 by the construction of irrigation works, and by the 
 reduction of public debt and the expenditure of India." 
 
IV 
 
 THE GREAT FAMINE 
 "And the famine was sore in the land." — Genesis, xliii., i. 
 
 There is no doubt that the famine through which 
 India passed in 1 899-1 900 is the most severe on record, 
 or, perhaps, the greatest drought in the world. The 
 official report of the famine of 1896-97 states that^ 
 "the famine affected an area of about two hundred 
 and twenty-five thousand square miles in British India, 
 and a population of sixty -two millions. The area, 
 which was severely affected, and to which relief opera- 
 tions were chiefly confined, may be put roughly at 
 one hundred and twenty -five thousand square miles, 
 with a population of thirty-four millions. In the direct 
 relief of distress, apart from loans and advances to land- 
 holders and cultivators and remissions of land revenue, 
 727 lakhs of rupees (Rs. 7,270,000) were expended by 
 the state. Relief was thus given to 821,000,000 of 
 persons, at an average cost of 1.42 annas a day for each 
 person relieved. This is equivalent to an average of 
 2,220,000 persons relieved day by day for the space of 
 one year, at the rate of Rs. 32.7 per head per annum. 
 It was the opinion of the Famine Commission, judging 
 by the experience of the past, that the largest population 
 likely to be severely affected by any future famine in 
 British India might be put at about thirty millions, 
 
 ^Famine Commission, 1898, p. 196. 
 28 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 that the average number of persons in such a famine 
 likely to require relief continuously for one year might 
 be put at from two to two and a half millions, and that 
 the average cost of such relief would be about Rs. 50 a 
 head a year." 
 
 India covers 1,574,450 square miles, and has a popu- 
 lation of 290,000,000. The famine area of 1899-1900 
 covered more than four hundred thousand square 
 miles, and affected quite sixty millions of people, or 
 more than one-fifth of the entire population. It has 
 cost the government the enormous sum of ten crores of 
 rupees, besides advances made to landholders and cul- 
 tivators, and there must be added to that the amount 
 contributed by private charity.^ As will be seen from 
 a study of the accompanying map, it embraced all the 
 central and western parts of India, from Hyderabad 
 to Lahore and from Jabalpur to Kathiawar. Begin- 
 ning in the Deccan, all the fair southland was more 
 or less smitten. It commenced with the failure of the 
 monsoon in 1899. In March, 1900, when the worst 
 had not been reached, a visitor wrote : 
 
 " The barren lands of the Deccan, none too rich at best 
 of times, are fast being turned into tracts of dismal, sun- 
 cracked, desert -chirred earth, whose friable edges are 
 caught by the wind and sent flying in clouds of pungent 
 dust. No water in the wells; no water in the rivers. 
 This is the report that comes in from the districts, and 
 you can easily test it for yourself. . . . The central hor- 
 ror of this famine lies in the fact that the misery and 
 torment of a water famine have to be endured, together 
 with a famine of food for people and fodder for beasts." 
 
 * Report of Viceroy to Legislative Coiincil, October, 1900. 
 
 29 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 The same writer^ goes on to say: 
 
 " During the last few days I have met scores of fam- 
 ily parties on tramp to the works, the mother carrying 
 the latest born in a basket on her head and the last but 
 one in her arms or on her back, and the father and 
 elder children dividing the burden of family goods, 
 which generally consist of a few pots, a bundle in a 
 blanket, and perhaps the hand-mill for grinding. A 
 woman came marching into a camp in Khandesh the 
 other day with two babies in the basket on her head, 
 one in each arm, and another couple clutching at her 
 sari. It is sad to see these groups of refugees pacing 
 the burning dust, with lips and throats too parched for 
 speech, their garments often in shreds and their eyes 
 hollow with hunger. The Indian in these parts never 
 seems to be sorry for himself or to look for sympathy 
 from others." 
 
 Coming farther north, the whole of the Central 
 Provinces were overwhelmed by it. When the famine 
 was at its worst, in August, nearly two and a half millions 
 of people were on relief works, or about a fourth of the 
 population. All that part of the Central Provinces in 
 the northern part of the Deccan, between the Ner- 
 budda and the Godavari, was dried up. Much of these 
 provinces is composed of jungle -covered hills, where 
 dwell many of the aboriginal tribes that were pressed 
 back by the incursions of the Aryan immigrants. But 
 where their ancient enemies, the Hindus, could not 
 come, a more implacable foe, the famine, had found them 
 out, and the people were living on the roots, seeds, bark, 
 and leaves of trees. The Gonds, Kurus, and Bhils are 
 
 * Mr. Vangham Nash, in The Great Famine, pp. 12, 14. 
 30 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 a hardy people, but it was not much food they could 
 get out of the young leaves of the pipal-tree or the roasted 
 kernel of mango stones. Jabalpur, Bilaspur, Raipur, 
 and Hurda languished under the awful drought. In 
 every village there was "cleanness of teeth." In May, 
 out of a population of ten and three-quarter millions in 
 the districts affected, close upon a million and three- 
 quarters were on government relief. Later on the 
 numbers had advanced to two millions and a half. In 
 Raipur, the great rice -growing district, six hundred 
 thousand, or forty per cent, of the people, were on relief; 
 and at Bilaspur, the neighboring division, a quarter of a 
 million. 
 
 Cholera, of course, added its horrors to the rest. 
 Even when there was food for the people, they could not 
 be restrained from using contaminated water. A visitor 
 to the famine camp at Tamerni, in May, saw "inside the 
 two hospital sheds of wattle and mud a score or so of 
 patients, with their women folk about them. Mothers 
 were hanging over their children, brushing away the 
 flies and moistening their lips, and in one corner of the 
 shed stood a woman whose husband lay sick unto death, 
 fanning him with her crimson sari. It was hot jnside — 
 anything from a hundred and five to one hundred and 
 ten degrees — the sun came streaming in through the 
 cracks in the roof of the matting, and the people were 
 inconveniently crowded . ' ' 
 
 The Bombay Presidency, and all along the coast from 
 Baluchistan to Mysore, came under the awful drought. 
 
 Rev. E. Fairbank, of Wadala, after visiting the relief 
 camp near his station early in the year, wrote to the 
 Christian Herald: 
 
 "Three years ago at the end of the famine there 
 was less wretchedness and starvation than I saw here 
 
 31 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 to-day at the beginning of the famine. The misery 
 is terrible. But still worse is the fearful emaciation, 
 Living skeletons are on every side. The village kul- 
 karani tells me that the children die soon after they 
 reach the camp, being too far gone to recover. They 
 might have lived had help reached them earlier. Last 
 night a man died here who had travelled a long dis- 
 tance without proper nourishment, and had eaten abso- 
 lutely nothing during the last three days of his journey. 
 "This famine is undoubtedly more severe in these 
 parts than that of '76 or that of '96. One of the worst 
 features is the lack of water. Rivers, usually flowing 
 full at this time, are dry beds of sand. Wells that have 
 never before failed in the memory of any one living 
 have not a drop of water in them. The well that waters 
 our garden, and has never failed since my father came 
 here almost forty -five years ago, is dry this year." 
 
 Rev. E. S. Hume, of Byculla, Bombay, also wrote: 
 "The present famine is affecting the higher castes and 
 the well-to-do classes far more than the former famine 
 did. There are places not far from Bombay, where 
 whole companies of women, who not long ago were in 
 comfortable circumstances, will gather, stark naked, 
 around a stranger to beg for food and clothing. I saw 
 distress in 1897, during the famine, but nothing to com- 
 pare with that which is covering the land this year." 
 
 Rev. H. G. Bissell, of Ahmadnagar, tells this pathetic 
 story : 
 
 "There is not a village in this whole district with- 
 out its scores of empty houses witnessing to the whole- 
 sale desertion by sufferers from the famine. Hus- 
 bands and fathers, in despair of caring for their wives 
 and children, are abandoning them to fate and wander- 
 
 32 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 ing about irresponsibly in search of food. Not a month 
 ago two children — little girls between four and five 
 years of age — were found seated together near a cactus 
 hedge. Each was supplied with a heap of the red, 
 thorn-covered cactus fruit. The poor waifs were ques- 
 tioned, but were evidently so reduced by hunger that 
 they seemed not to comprehend where they were, who 
 had left them, or what they wanted. 
 
 "What mothers, delicate women, and children are 
 suffering this season in the relief camps is past finding 
 out. The government can plan for and relieve them 
 only in a general way, and is doing so extensively, but 
 private charity alone can meet exceptional cases. The 
 struggle against want and hunger and cold and death 
 is a desperate one this year." 
 
 In Gujarat, between the bays of Cutch and Cambay, 
 and especially in Kathiawar, the famine was unusually 
 severe. Gujarat, as a rule, has been exempt from 
 famine, and hence the people were not prepared for what 
 occurred. A lady writing from Ahmedabad, in Febru- 
 ary, 1900, says: 
 
 "According to the prognostications of the news- 
 papers, the famine is month by month increasing in 
 severity. It is calculated, however, that it has not 
 yet reached its worst point. Rain cannot be expected 
 until June, therefore distress will grow greater daily. 
 As the resources of the people fail, the number of the 
 starving must necessarily increase. The government 
 have a terrible problem to solve— the famine is the 
 worst they have ever had to grapple with. In the 
 famine of 1897 and 1898, they received 150 lakhs of 
 rupees ($5,000,000) from Great Britain and the colonies, 
 the contributions of the charitable, but this year, 
 3 33 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 through the sad war in South Africa, they have not 
 been able to receive such help. Yet in the 1897 famine, 
 on New Year's Day only 1,000,000 persons were in 
 receipt of relief; this year at the same date 2,750,000 
 were on the hands of the government, and since that 
 time the number has nearly doubled. The prospects 
 are gloomy and terrible indeed. 
 
 "The high-caste people are selling their wives' silver 
 ornaments, and starving themselves in a weary struggle 
 to try and keep some of their bullocks alive ; for what 
 can they do next monsoon, if they have no animals to 
 plough with? And yet how fruitless and weary this 
 struggle is is too plainly seen by the skeletons of the 
 poor dead cattle to be seen on every hand in the villages. 
 A few low-caste people who have managed to get a little 
 capital have been able to do a good trade in skins and 
 bones, but they are only a few, and it is a ghastly 
 thought, reminding us of the vultures we constantly see 
 in the fields holding their carnival of death. Sad sights 
 and sounds are all around us. Yesterday a poor, 
 desolate woman with five children came here, having 
 walked fifty miles to beg us to take her children. She 
 was formerly a woman in respectable circumstances. 
 Daily, people come asking us to buy their little ones 
 for a pound or two of grain. A young woman died 
 of starvation outside our house a few days ago. 
 
 "What has increased the sufferings of the poor is 
 that for the last ten days the most terrible cold snap 
 has set in. We Europeans, in our good houses and with 
 sufficiency of clothing and food and bedding, do not 
 know how to keep ourselves warm — what must be the 
 sufferings of these starving masses ? What pitiful stories 
 we hear! In one village where our people needed a 
 house, one poor starving family, to secure the eightpence 
 a month rent, turned out to live on the road." 
 
 34 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Of the Panch Mahals, or five districts, in the eastern 
 part of Gujarat, a jungle where the Bhils and Kalis have 
 reclaimed some land and live by farming, hunting, and 
 sometimes by stealing, it could be said early in May, 
 1900: 
 
 " Nearly adjoining the poorhouse at Godhra is a 
 camp of 14,000 toiling sufferers. In spite of all that 
 can be done for them, their condition is pitiable to a 
 degree scarcely capable of realization. Men, women, and 
 children are living out in the open, dried-up bed of a 
 large lake, with nothing but a bamboo mat between them 
 and the fierce sun, day after day. The little ones cry 
 for water, but as they open their little mouths they 
 are filled with the blinding hot dust which has been 
 stirred up by 30,000 restless feet. 
 
 "As the remainder of the water gradually evaporated 
 in the fierce heat, the people were surprised to see the 
 fish so close they could be caught by hand. For two 
 or three whole nights the famishing crowds seized, 
 cooked, and devoured the fish as fast as they could. 
 It is supposed that many of them ate fish which had 
 turned fetid, but whatever the cause, a fearful form of 
 Asiatic cholera broke out so suddenly that about two 
 hundred perished the first day. Then the panic seized 
 the multitude, and they fied in all directions, throwing 
 down their tools and abandoning their dead and dying. 
 The air became laden with the stench of putrefying 
 bodies. While riding over to the burning ground be- 
 hind my bungalow, to see that the bodies were being 
 properly disposed of, I found that the bearers of the 
 dead had themselves been stricken down in front of the 
 pyre. The civil surgeon and I administered some medi- 
 cine, and did all we could, but they collapsed. A young 
 woman was carrying bricks for the Mission Orphanage 
 
 35 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 yesterday. She suddenly sank down on the ground, 
 and, in spite of all that we could do, died within four 
 hours. Her husband heard the news at four in the 
 afternoon, and three hours afterward he also was dead. 
 Their child followed. The people suddenly fall in the 
 midst of conversation, and rapidly sink. In spite of all 
 that the authorities can do the fearful disease has been 
 spread abroad, and none of us can yet say what the 
 end will be. 
 
 " The smell of burning bodies kept me awake a greater 
 part of last night, and, even as I write, one of my workers 
 calls out that a man is dying under the hedge of the 
 compound. From early morning until dusk, parties 
 of men under the collector and other officers are out 
 gathering up the bodies of the dead. Whichever way 
 we turn we discover these ghastly corpses, twisted and 
 bloated, in almost every position which agony can 
 produce. Cart-load after cart-load arrives at the poor- 
 house under a police guard, and we set ourselves to sort 
 out the living from the dead, because the stretcher- 
 bearers are fleeing, and so the people are being brought 
 in as best can be managed. During the last few days 
 a thousand bodies have been picked up. 
 
 "Dr. Nightingale sets off in the morning with some 
 food and medicine on the heads of coolies, and thus 
 renders first aid. Some of the poor creatures die with 
 the medicine in their mouths." 
 
 The Rev. Dennis Clancy, who visited the famine 
 country in May, wrote: "It is at its worst in Rajputana 
 and Gujarat, and the people who have suffered most 
 from it are the Bhils, a hill tribe in the northern part 
 of Gujarat. Forty per cent, of the people have already 
 died from famine, and, as it is so difficult to get relief 
 to them, owing to their distance from the railroads and 
 
 36 
 
THE DEAD PIT DAILY COMPANY 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the roughness of the country, it is thought that at least 
 forty per cent, more will die before the famine ends. 
 The English government has been doing its utmost to 
 relieve these people, as well as all other famine sufferers. 
 As early as last cold weather, government sent 200 
 camels loaded with grain into this country, and since 
 then the political officers have been employing many 
 more, as the need increased. By means of this camel 
 transport they have been supplying a large number of 
 relief works under their care, and also some of the 
 kitchens of the local missionaries. In order to keep the 
 Bhils from plundering these trains, it is necessary for 
 Sepoy escorts to accompany all convoys and stocks of 
 grain. The missionaries here, as in other famine dis- 
 tricts, are doing much to relieve the suffering. A mis- 
 sionary of the Church Missionary Society, the Rev. C. S. 
 Thompson, did heroic work there, until he was stricken 
 down with cholera and died after a few hours' suffer- 
 ing, attended only by his native servant, who died a 
 few hours after his master. He was about one hundred 
 miles from the railroad, doing relief work, and died tm- 
 der a tree. The tidings of his death did not reach his 
 mission until about a week after he died. Then there 
 were a large number who volunteered to take his place." 
 Mr. Hume wrote to Dr. Klopsch as follows: "Rev. 
 W. Mulligan, of Ranch Mahal, writes: 'Already our 
 home has received twenty little waifs, and this morning 
 the police asked us if we could not take a dozen more. 
 I would have liked to accept them, but we have now 
 as many as we can feed. The other day a Bhil woman 
 was trying to sell her niece. The best offer she could 
 get was five quarts of grain. She refused it and brought 
 the girl to us.' Mrs. Fuller, of the Alliance Mission, re- 
 ports that she has already taken charge of sixty orphan 
 children. Rev. E. Fairbank, of Wadala, writes: 'Our 
 
 37 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 helpers are continually beset by people begging for a 
 mouthful of grain. People come to us by the score, 
 pitifully entreating us to help them. One poor fellow 
 was so weak that in bending forward to make the cus- 
 tomary salaam he could not recover himself, and fell 
 on his face and was unable to rise.' Rev. J. B. Bawa, 
 of Roha, reports the increase around him of the num- 
 ber of starving people, especially of helpless women." 
 
 In the Central India Agency, composed of sixty-four 
 native states, which are more or less subject to the 
 authority of Great Britain, lying between Rajputana 
 and the Central Provinces, and which must be dis- 
 tinguished from them, the ravages of famine were un- 
 speakable. In May, 1900, there were about two him- 
 dred thousand people on government relief works. 
 
 The whole of Rajputana,^ with its twenty feudatory 
 states and its 12,000,000 inhabitants, was affected, 
 and, like many other places, it was jiist righting itself 
 from the severe famine of 1897 when this awful storm 
 struck it. 
 
 Miss Marks, of Ajmir, wrote to the Christian Herald 
 in March : ' ' Three years ago the Christian Herald's ap- 
 peal to its readers for help resulted in the missionaries 
 in India being able to succor thousands of famished 
 people. We little thought then that like appeals would 
 soon be needed; but famine, as gaunt and terrible as 
 before, is now here, menacing millions of people. The 
 centre of the trouble has now changed to Rajputana, 
 though other districts are affected to a deplorable extent. 
 We are daily witnesses of distress and suffering that are 
 absolutely indescribable. Three weeks ago a company 
 
 * If in this book the author has more to say about the famine in 
 Rajputana than in other provinces, it is only because he had larger 
 personal experience there, it falling to his lot to administer famine 
 relief in that needy ileld. 
 
 38 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 numbering 2000 passed through Kishangarh — a town 
 near us — having sought help in another district. They 
 had been disappointed, for they found famine every- 
 where, and they were returning in despair to their own 
 villages. They said that hundreds had died of exhaus- 
 tion and starvation by the road-side. It is awful to see 
 the emaciated creatures and hear their cries. Even 
 at this early stage of the calamity we cannot stir out 
 without seeing children, and grown people too, who are 
 mere skeletons." 
 
 There was scarcity in the whole of the Punjab, and 
 severe famine over the southern part, and it was special- 
 ly felt in the district of Hissar, of which we read: "The 
 people of Hissar, in numbers that fluctuate from a 
 hundred thousand to a hundred and sixty thousand, 
 according to the work to be got elsewhere, are digging 
 tanks and living in famine camps. Numbers of villages 
 are absolutely deserted, and for more than six months 
 past the worst famine within human memory has had 
 its grip on Hissar. The scarcity of food is worst in this 
 southern corner of the Punjab, but the fodder famine 
 throughout the whole province has reached a point of 
 such intensity that the Lieutenant-Governor has just 
 declared that, in spite of all the efforts of the local gov- 
 ernment and the government of India, it is impossible 
 to secure supplies for keeping life even in the indispen- 
 sable plough cattle." 
 
 To sum up : All the western part of India, the 
 Deccan, including the Nizam's dominions, the Central 
 Provinces, the Central India Agency, the Bombay Pres- 
 idency, including Gujarat (comprising Kathiawar, Cutch, 
 and Borada), Sind, and Rajputana and the Punjab, 
 especially the southern part, were hit by this awful 
 famine. Mr. John Elliott, in his careful forecast of the 
 monsoon of 1900, wrote, before the famine was at its 
 
 39 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 worst, that " the drought of 1897 extended over a larger 
 area and was more severe than has occurred during the 
 previous 200 years. So far as can be judged from the 
 data collected by the Famine Commission, the drought 
 of 1897 and the subsequent famine of 1 899-1 900, are 
 unique in their extent of area, and probably also in their 
 intensity. No such complete failure of the rains, after 
 the first month of the monsoon, is on record." 
 
 On the 19th of January, 1900, the Viceroy of India 
 held a special meeting of his council in Calcutta to 
 consider the situation. At this time it was known from 
 official estimates that in British territory about twenty- 
 two million people were affected, and in the native 
 states about twenty-seven millions more, or in all more 
 than forty -nine millions of people were either starving 
 or in great distress, while in many places cattle were 
 being annihilated. The Viceroy, Lord Curzon, said the 
 famine area had expanded, surpassing . the worst fears, 
 and they were now facing a cattle, water, and food 
 scarcity of a terrible character. About three million 
 five hundred thousand persons were already receiving 
 relief. While in 1897 the world shared India's sorrow 
 and contributed hundreds of thousands of pounds tow- 
 ards the relief fund, India now would have to struggle 
 alone, for the thoughts of every Englishman in the 
 world were centred on South Africa. 
 
 The outside world can have but a faint idea of the 
 disastrous effect of the condition of things so coldly 
 described in the official statement given, but the follow- 
 ing extract, from the letter of a Bombay official, dated 
 from Ahmedabad, affords some slight indication of it. 
 He says: " I came here on tour, and find there is every 
 evidence of famine, but the wholesale mortality of cattle 
 is the most striking feature at present. I am afraid this 
 will be the worst famine the Bombay Presidency, and 
 
 40 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 India generally, has had for very many years past, the 
 area is so extensive and the failure of grass and crops 
 so absolute, in addition to which the water supply is 
 failing. In this usually fertile province of Gujarat, 
 Rajputana, and Kathiawar they have had no such 
 visitation within the century, and in the Deccan, alas! 
 this is the second acute famine in three years. I went 
 to the poor-house here, which has only been started a 
 short time, for people who are picked up about the city 
 precincts too weak to work and exhausted from want of 
 food. There are already 220 in the house, little better 
 than living skeletons. Some die every day in the poor- 
 house. It is only the beginning of what will get worse, 
 more acute, every month for at least six months to 
 come. There is not the slightest doubt that were the 
 British government not here now, whole provinces 
 would get depopulated; and with all the resources at 
 our command the government is scarcely able to stand 
 the drain on its resources." It should be remembered 
 that India had not yet recovered from the great famine 
 of 1897, and that in parts of the famine-stricken area 
 the plague also was epidemic and tending to spread, 
 and that the war in Africa was demanding the nation's 
 most liberal resources, and it was a time to husband and 
 not expend her reserves. 
 
THE FAMINE CODES 
 "And they said, Thou hast saved our lives." — Genesis, xlvii., 25. 
 
 A PROVISIONAL code for the guidance of officers in the 
 time of famine was promulgated by the Indian govern- 
 ment in 1883. Local governments were permitted to 
 frame their own codes, and so there appeared separate 
 codes for the different provinces. In 1889 the govern- 
 ment sought to scrutinize these various codes, and hence 
 the opinions of local governments on the working of the 
 existing codes were taken. Revised codes were called 
 for in 1893, and these form the basis of the present 
 general famine code. 
 
 The main method of relief depended upon by the 
 government in famine times is a system of relief works. 
 The classification of relief - workers as (i) professional 
 laborers; (2) laborers, but not professional; (3) able- 
 bodied, but not laborers; and (4) weakly workers, was 
 adhered to, and it was determined that as the system 
 advocated in the provisional code of forming relief -work- 
 ers into gangs had proved successful, workers, after 
 having been duly classified, should be formed into 
 gangs, and a task prescribed for each gang, on the 
 performance of which, in whole or in part, each member 
 of the gang should be entitled to the wage prescribed 
 for his class, in whole or in part, in proportion to the 
 amount of the task performed by the whole gang. The 
 
 42 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 tendency of these orders was to abolish the original 
 plan of, so far as possible, employing all the able-bodied 
 on piece-work, and allowing them to earn thereby some- 
 thing above the full ration wage by doing a full task. 
 The use of the term ' ' piece-work ' ' in the codes was 
 forbidden in future on the ground that piece-work, or 
 payment by results, in famine operations, as distinguish- 
 ed from piece-work in the ordinary sense of the term, 
 must be limited by the estimated and not the actual 
 capacity of those employed. The sufficiency of the 
 minimum ration, which had been questioned, was re- 
 affirmed, but at the same time the method of calculating 
 the wage from the ration, known as the "grain- 
 equivalent" method, was introduced, and this practically 
 allowed some increase in the scale of wages. Permis- 
 sion was also given to local governments, under certain 
 conditions, to relieve the non-working children and de- 
 pendants of relief - workers by means of allowances to 
 the working members of the family, though for many 
 reasons the government of India preferred that, when- 
 ever practicable, such persons should be separately 
 relieved by the distribution of grain or of food cooked in 
 kitchens. 
 
 The code first provides for regular reports of the 
 seasons, crops, etc., in ordinary times, and the early 
 apprisal of the approach of scarcity or famine in any 
 part of the land, and indicates the preliminary action 
 to be taken where there is distress, or likely to be 
 distress. Perhaps in no country in the world are there 
 such complete and elaborate reports made of crops, 
 prices, rainfall, health of cattle, and all other circum- 
 stances affecting agricultural prospects. The code has 
 most elaborate rules and regulations for the conduct 
 of relief measures and the duties of superior revenue 
 and engineer officers during famine. 
 
 43 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 The matter has been thus stated by the code:^ 
 
 "The general scheme is to make the administrative 
 area, called the district, the unit of famine relief ad- 
 ministration, the district officer, subject to the general 
 control of the commissioner of the division, being the 
 agent of government for carrying out the measures of 
 relief that may be determined on. The district officer 
 is responsible for exercising general supervision over all 
 works and arrangements for giving relief within his 
 district and for their efficiency, and officers of all de- 
 partments employed on famine duty within the limits 
 of his district are subject to his orders on all points 
 except those of a strictly professional nature. In ad- 
 dition to the staff ordinarily at his disposal for the 
 current administration of his district, including, as it 
 does, officers of such departments as the revenue, 
 the police, and the medical departments, it is main- 
 ly through the agency of the officers of the public 
 works department, and of the establishments of lo- 
 cal bodies constituted by law within the district, 
 that the district officer carries out the measures of 
 relief." 
 
 In the code the various forms of relief are clearly 
 indicated and the rules for their operation stated. The 
 following are the leading relief measures:^ 
 
 (i) Circle organization, or the system by which affected 
 districts are divided into circles of convenient size for 
 relief administration; (2) Gratuitous relief, at the homes 
 of the people, to the physically infirm who have no 
 m.eans of support; (3) Relief works for those who are 
 able to earn their support, and who are given wages 
 
 ^Report, p. 46. ^Famine Commission, 1898, p. 49. 
 
 44 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 graduated according to their respective strength and 
 physical requirements. The code defines rations that 
 are to be given to certain classes — as the full ration, for 
 the able-bodied , the minimum ration, for weakly laborers 
 and adult dependants; the penal ration, for those re- 
 fusing to work; the proportional ration, for children of 
 various ages and requirements. All the codes provide 
 that the money wage may be deduced from the rations 
 in either of two methods. Either the amount of money 
 which at the current rates is sufficient to purchase the 
 component items of the ration may be given, or the 
 money value of the "grain-equivalent" of the ration. 
 By ' ' grain-equivalent ' ' is meant the amount of grain 
 of which the value is, in ordinary times, equivalent 
 to the total value of the various items of the ration, 
 and this is computed in all the codes to be one and 
 three-quarters times the weight of the grain item 
 itself. 
 
 These rations and the wage scale have been pre- 
 scribed by the government of India, and are generally 
 adopted in all the codes. But some divergencies oc- 
 cur, as, for example, in the case of children who are 
 remunerated "according to age and requirements," and 
 in the adjustment of the wage as current prices fluc- 
 tuate. 
 
 (4) Poor-houses, or "institutions for the reception 
 and relief of persons unfit to work, who either have no 
 homes or cannot conveniently be sent to their houses, 
 and of persons in need of relief who are fit to work and 
 wilfully refuse to labor." 
 
 (5) Kitchens where cooked food is supplied at certain 
 centres, often at relief works, to non-working children 
 and adult dependants of relief-workers. 
 
 (6) Relief to certain classes, as to (a) parda women; 
 (b) artisans; (c) weavers. 
 
 45 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 (7) Orphanages where orphan children can be gath- 
 • ered temporarily. 
 
 (8) Protection of cattle when the pasture is about 
 to fail. 
 
 It should be remembered that the provincial codes 
 often differ in some particulars, but, in general, the 
 above is a fair outline of the forms of relief provided 
 in India during a famine. What a striking illus- 
 tration of an over-ruling Providence directed by wis- 
 dom and intelligence and reaching out in its various 
 forms to the remotest places and down to the poor- 
 est and most needy subject ! It may have seemed 
 at times like a great machine, but it was started, 
 guided, and controlled by a thinking mind, which 
 acted benevolently and ever for the good of the 
 people. 
 
 It is difficult to state accurately the amount that 
 was allowed by government to those that are em- 
 ployed on famine relief works ; but it may be said 
 that, in general, all those who come to the relief 
 works are classified and are paid in kind, or given 
 its equivalent, as follows: 
 
 Class 
 
 Wage, in ounces 
 
 Percentage of full 
 wage 
 
 
 42- 
 
 38. 
 32- 
 
 28. 
 
 
 CB) Laborers, but not professional 
 
 90s 
 
 76.2 
 
 (D) Weakly, but fit for light employment 
 
 66.6 
 
 In the Provisional Code issued by the government of 
 India in 1883, the full and minimum rations pre- 
 scribed for workers, and the penal ration for laborers 
 sent to a poor-house for refusing to work, are given, as 
 follows : 
 
 46 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Description of ration 
 
 For a 
 man 
 
 For a 
 woman 
 
 For children 
 
 Full 
 
 Flour, of the common grain used in the 
 
 lb. oz. 
 
 I 8 
 o 4 
 o i 
 
 O I 
 O I 
 
 lb. oz. 
 
 I 4 
 4 
 i 
 i 
 
 
 i. i. and i. 
 
 according 
 to age and 
 require- 
 ments 
 
 
 Pulse 
 
 Salt 
 
 Chee, or oil 
 
 Condiments and vegetables 
 
 
 
 
 Minimum 
 
 Flour, of the common grain used in the 
 
 country, or cleaned rice 
 
 Pulse. . . '. 
 
 Salt , 
 
 I o 
 
 O 2 
 
 o i 
 
 o i 
 o i 
 
 14 
 2 
 i 
 i 
 i 
 
 J,i, and}, 
 according 
 to age and 
 require- 
 
 
 Condiments and vegetables 
 
 
 Penal 
 
 
 o 14 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 12 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 Not stated 
 
 
 Pulse 
 
 Salt 
 
 
 The original Famine Commissioners gave their opinion 
 as to the amount of food required for workers and non- 
 workers as follows: 
 
 "The conclusion we draw from a careful examination 
 of the evidence of authorities in all parts of India is, 
 that an average ration of about one and one-half pounds 
 per diem of the meal or flour of the common, coarser 
 grain of the country suffices for an ordinary working 
 adult male. In the rice-eating countries an equal weight 
 of rice may be accepted in lieu of flour, and in any case 
 the ration should include a suitable proportion of pulse. 
 A man doing light work would require about one and 
 one-quarter pounds; and the ration which consists of 
 one pound of flour with a little pulse has been found 
 sufficient to support life in numerous relief -houses, where 
 no work is exacted, all over the country. On these 
 bases the diet scale should be built up, it being under- 
 stood that a female requires a little less than a male, a 
 child below twelve years of age about half the allow- 
 ance of an adult male, and a non-working child below 
 
 47 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 six or seven about half as much as a working child. On 
 relief works, however, where a money wage is given, the 
 rate of pay should be such as to leave a slight margin 
 above the actual cost of the flour, so as to allow for the 
 purchase of salt, pepper, and other condiments, and 
 firewood, and to avoid the risk of the wage being in- 
 sufficient to purchase the full ration of food. Whenever 
 it is necessary to supply people with a kind of food to 
 which they are unaccustomed, the result should be 
 carefully watched, and endeavor should be made to 
 counteract, by some adjustment of the dietary, the un- 
 favorable results which will probably arise from the 
 change." 
 
 The government resolution of 1893^ "directed that 
 the wage of each class might be expressed in terms of 
 the grain equivalent, which was defined as ' the amount 
 of grain of which the value is in ordinary times equivalent 
 to the total value of the various items of the ration,' 
 the grain selected as a basis for calculation being in 
 every case the ' staple or staples in ordinary consumption 
 in the affected tracts, and not the more expensive classes 
 of grain, which, though occasionally consumed in times 
 of plenty, are abandoned for cheaper grains as soon 
 as pressure sets in.' It was added that, 'after a careful 
 review of the statistics indicating the relations existing 
 at various times in each province between the price 
 of the staple grain and the prices of other items of the 
 ration, the Governor-General in Council is satisfied that 
 the cost of the other items in the minimum adult male 
 ration will seldom, if ever, be found to be more than 
 three-quarters of the grain item.' Under the method 
 of grain equivalents, therefore, the grain equivalent of a 
 
 * Report, 1898, p. 260, 
 48 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 given ration would be equal to one and three-quarter 
 times the weight of the grain item. It was recognized 
 that under this method there would generally be a 
 margin in favor of the worker, which would increase 
 as scarcity intensifies and the price of grain rises, and 
 decrease as prices fall ; but his Excellency the Governor- 
 General in Council did 'not regard this result as a 
 serious disadvantage.' It was, however, provided that 
 in cases when the assumption of the one-and-three- 
 quarter ration would lead to a material diminution in the 
 margin, or to an extravagant expansion of it, the wage 
 might be calculated, from time to time, in terms of the 
 money value of all the component items of the ration 
 at current prices." 
 
 The Famine Commission of 1898, in their recommend- 
 ed alms, modified the previous classification of those 
 relieved and the wage scale, as follows: "They would 
 divide all the relieved into, first, workers, and, secondly, 
 gratuitously relieved — the workers to include (i) diggers, 
 (2) carriers, (3) working children between eight and 
 twelve years of age, and the non- workers, (4) adult 
 dependants, and (5) non - working children. They 
 further recommended that "the new Class I. should be 
 entitled to the full wage for an adult man, while the 
 wage for Class II. will be seventy -five per cent, of this. 
 Working children, or Class III., should be paid about 
 half the wage for Class II. Adult dependants, or Class 
 IV., should receive the minimum wage, and non-working 
 children about half of this allowance." 
 
 The provisional wage proposed for all classes, except 
 for workers of special quahfications, in terms of the 
 chattaks (a measure equal to one-sixteenth of the Indian 
 seer, or one-six-hundred-and-fortieth of the maund of 
 eighty-two and two-seventh pounds) — i.e., the equivalent 
 of nearly 2.051 ounces, is given as follows: 
 4 49 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Chattaks 
 
 Class I. Diggers 20 
 
 " II. Carriers 15 
 
 " III. Working children 8 
 
 ,, jY j Adult dependants ( 
 I Minimtim wage. > 
 " V. Non-working children. 
 
 (i.) Over 8 years 7 
 
 (ii.) Under 8 years 5 
 
 "As regards nursing mothers, we would allow them 
 the wage of their class, which will usually be fifteen 
 chattaks, along with the non-working child's allowance 
 of five chattaks. In other words, a nursing mother 
 will receive the full wage of twenty chattaks for herself 
 and child." 
 
 I have given the code scales thus somewhat at length, 
 that it may be seen how systematically the whole scheme 
 of feeding and relieving the famine-stricken people of 
 India has been worked out by government. Of course, 
 in practice, it has been found that it is necessary at 
 times to deviate from the code scale, and it is to the 
 credit of famine relief-officers that they have done so 
 when necessary.^ 
 
 It would seem from reading the dry details of the 
 code that there is much red-tape and inflexibility about 
 these rules, and, as the Commissioners themselves 
 admit, ^ "in the effort to safeguard the public funds 
 and to prevent relief works from attracting persons not 
 actually in want, the wage rate has, at times and places 
 in the recent famine, been allowed to drop below the 
 point at which the worker's subsistence is assured" ; but 
 
 ^ The late Famine Commission (1901) recommends a less liberal 
 scale of wages and daily payments by results, they being of the 
 opinion that in some places the relief was so liberal that it became 
 demoralizing. 
 
 ^Report, 1898, p. 196. 
 
 50 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 it should be remembered that government has for years 
 made a profound study of Indian famines, and these 
 rules have been tested by experience and found to be, 
 in most respects, the best possible under the circum- 
 stances. In carrying out the details there may be 
 hardships inflicted, and it is difficult to utterly abolish 
 indifference, inefficiency, and dishonesty among sub- 
 ordinates ; but, as a whole, it is a wonderful scheme for 
 the rescue and relief of the starving men, women, and 
 children of India. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that during the late 
 famine, in pursuance of the recommendation of the 
 Commission of 1898, the relief was more liberal than 
 had been given hitherto, and became more so as the 
 famine increased in severity. The Viceroy, in his state- 
 ment to the Legislative Council, says: "The preceding 
 famine had bequeathed experiences and lessons of the 
 utmost value, which were carefully gathered up by the 
 Commission of 1898, and which have profoundly affected 
 the policy of the present famine. The stress laid by 
 the Commission on the necessity for starting relief before 
 the people had run down; their advocacy of more ex- 
 tensive gratuitous relief, especially in the form of kitchen 
 relief; their recommendations concerning the special 
 treatment of aboriginal and forest tribes ; their approval 
 of small or village relief works — these and other injunc- 
 tions will be found to have influenced our measures and 
 shaped our course throughout the famine. The Com- 
 mission's recommendations were generally in the. direc- 
 tion of greater flexibility in relief methods and greater 
 liberality of relief. ... In the present famine we have 
 broken new ground, and, acting on the lessons of its 
 predecessor, have accepted a higher standard of moral 
 and financial obligation than has ever before been rec- 
 ognized in this or any country. There is no parallel 
 
 51 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 in the history of India, or in that of any country in the 
 world, to the total of over six million persons who, in 
 British India and the native states, have for weeks 
 on end been dependent upon the charity of government." 
 The Report of the Famine Commission of 1901, just 
 issued, while confirming in the main the measures rec- 
 ommended by its predecessors, puts great stress upon 
 the importance of preparedness for famine. This can 
 be insured by (a) an efficient system of intelligence; 
 (6) effective programmes of relief works ; (c) reserves of 
 establishment; (d) reserves of tools and plant. It places 
 special emphasis upon "test works" as a means of as- 
 certaining the condition of the people, and lays down 
 the following practical rules for the guidance of the 
 administration — viz., (a) put heart into the people; 
 (b) proceed from the beginning on a comprehensive 
 plan and publish it; (c) make liberal preparation in 
 advance of pressure; (d) once the preparations have 
 been made, wait on events; (e) bring from the outset 
 influential non-official interests into touch with, and 
 support of, the official organization ; (/) appoint a Famine 
 Commissioner where the head of the local administration 
 cannot be his own famine commissioner ; (g) create from 
 the outset a thoroughly efficient accounts and audit 
 establishment. 
 
 In the opinion of the Commission, the wage allowed 
 and the gratuitous relief given in the late famine were 
 in many instances too liberal, but this "was due not 
 so much to defects in the system of relief as to defects 
 in the administration of it." The Report states that 
 "while confirming the principles enunciated by the 
 Commission of 1880, the Commission of 1898 departed 
 from them in recommending a more liberal wage and a 
 freer extension of gratuitous relief. Moreover, their 
 repeated warnings against any measures of relief in- 
 
 52 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 volving an element of risk were, in effect, an invitation 
 to recede from the strictness, or, as we prefer to call 
 it, the prudent boldness of the former policy." Coming 
 to the subject of the wage, in discussing its amount, 
 the Commission condemn strongly the " minimum wage " 
 {i.e., a fixed daily wage which is given regardless of work 
 done), and recommend a system of "payment by 
 results," with a maximum limit to daily earnings, and 
 with relief to dependants. Concerning "gratuitous re- 
 lief" they say, "there is no branch of famine relief 
 administration in which it is more difficult to hit the 
 happy mean." They divide this form of relief into — 
 (a) relief of dependants on works; (6) poor-houses; 
 (c) village relief by doles ; and {d) kitchens, with a pref- 
 erence for the dole system. 
 
VI 
 
 FAMINE RELIEF 
 
 "I was eyes to the blind, 
 Feet was I to the lame; 
 I was father to the poor; 
 
 The cause which I knew not, 
 I searched out." 
 
 It will remain to the everlasting credit of the British 
 government, and stand as an example of man's humanity 
 to man, that when India's "bitter cry" arose, imperial 
 and private funds were available, and famine relief in 
 every part of the affected area was commenced. The 
 expenditure upon famine relief on the part of the im- 
 perial government was enormous. The Viceroy, Lord 
 Curzon, gave before the Legislative Council the fol- 
 lowing statement: 
 
 "The direct expenditure on famine relief in British 
 India and Berar, from the commencement of relief 
 operations to the end of August, had been 864 lakhs of 
 rupees. It is estimated that the further expenditure 
 will be about one hundred and fifty lakhs, to 31st of 
 March, making in round numbers about ten crores of 
 rupees (over ;^6,5oo,ooo). In loans and advances to 
 landholders and cultivators we have expended 238 lakhs 
 of rupees ; we have made advances for plough cattle and 
 agricultural operations this autumn, free of interest, on 
 very easy terms, in the expectation that not more than 
 
 54 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 one-half can be recovered. In the matter of land rev- 
 enue the latest estimate is, that of 392 lakhs of rupees 
 in Central Provinces and Bombay, 164 lakhs of rupees 
 will be uncollected during the year. In the distressed 
 districts of the Punjab, suspensions aggregating 41 lakhs 
 of rupees are anticipated. With these figures I compare 
 those for the famine of 1896-97, calling attention to the 
 fact that in 1896-97 the area of population in British 
 India affected by famine was considerably larger than 
 in the present year. The total direct expenditure on 
 famine relief was 727 lakhs of rupees, 130 lakhs were 
 advanced in loans, and land revenue to an amount of 
 about two crores was suspended. In this comparison a 
 further outlay in connection with the relief of native 
 states is omitted for the reason that in 1896-97 the 
 calls in that respect were insignificant. The present 
 famine loans to native states in Rajputana amounted 
 to sixty-nine lakhs of rupees, native states in Bombay 
 seventy-eight lakhs of rupees. Besides guaranteeing 
 the repayment of loans to the amount of 105 lakhs 
 borrowed in the market for other states, government 
 had also to come to the assistance of Hyderabad, whose 
 extensive dominions suffered from severe drought. In 
 all, actual loans to native rulers in connection with 
 the present famine amounted, in the aggregate, to 
 over three and a half crores, exclusive of guaranteed 
 loans. Without this assistance, it may be safely said 
 that the states would have been wholly unequal to 
 the task of relieving their subjects and in some 
 cases of carrying on the ordinary administration of ter- 
 ritories." 
 
 Learning from the experience of the past, and from 
 the facts gathered by the Famine Commission, which 
 had but a short time before completed and published 
 
 55 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 its report of the famine of 1897, relief works, kitchens, 
 poor-houses, orphanages, and famine camps, with com- 
 mittees — imperial, provincial, and local — and officers 
 of many grades and degrees of rank and efficiency to 
 superintend them, were put in operation. In all, it 
 was officially stated, 637 English and native servants 
 of the crown were sent on famine duty in British and 
 native territory by the imperial government. The 
 one great object was to save life and mitigate distress. 
 Many laid down their lives in their heroic efforts to save 
 life. The work of benevolence commenced in earnest 
 with the failure of the rains in 1899, and went forward, 
 increasing in extent during the cold season, and on 
 through the raging heat of 1900, rescuing, relieving, and 
 feeding — ever in the midst of starvation and death — 
 sometimes almost overwhelmed by epidemics of disease 
 — fever, small-pox, dysentery, diarrhoea, and cholera — 
 until the fruitful showers came again and a harvest gave 
 food to the hungry. 
 
 It was a great work. But when it was over the highest 
 authority in the land could say no more than that 
 "No endeavors which are in the power of the most 
 philanthropic and generous of governments to put 
 forward will avail to prevent an increase of mortality 
 during severe famine. No relief system in the world 
 will counteract the effects of reduced food supply, the 
 cessation of wages, high prices, the break-up of homes 
 of millions of people, or prevent famine being attended 
 by pestilence." 
 
 Through it all the government kept official reports of 
 the numbers availing themselves of the relief afforded, 
 which were also tests of the severity of the famine and 
 a proof of the enormous work done to relieve the people. 
 In March, the Viceroy wired the Secretary of State for 
 India as follows: 
 
 S6 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 "Number of persons in receipt of relief: Bombay, 
 1,249,000; Punjab, 211,000; Central Provinces, 1,513,- 
 000; Berar, 355,000; Ajmir-Merwara, 112,000; Rajpu- 
 tana States, 457,000; Central India States, 129,000; 
 Bombay Native States, 468,000; Baroda, 60,000; North- 
 western Provinces, 3000; Punjab Native States, 19,000; 
 Central Provinces Feudatory States, 46,000; Hyderabad, 
 246,000; Madras, 11,000. Total, 4,879,000." 
 
 As an illustration of how the numbers increased as 
 the famine grew worse, and also of its area, I include 
 on the following two pages several weekly reports, fur- 
 nished during the months of May and August, 1900. 
 The third report, which gives almost the maximum 
 numbers^ on relief works, was taken after the monsoon 
 burst, but before any harvest was gathered. 
 
 Besides this relief, received and administered officially 
 through government channels, there was large private 
 help, much of which passed through the hands of the 
 Central Relief Committee, but many lakhs thus con- 
 tributed were administered by special committees form- 
 ed by benevolent societies. Concerning this the Viceroy 
 said: 
 
 "In 1896-97 the total collections amounted to 
 170 lakhs, of which 10 remained at the beginning of 
 the recent famine. In the present year the Central 
 Relief Committee alone received close upon 140 
 lakhs, not far short of ;^i,ooo,ooo sterling. Analyzing 
 the subscriptions, we find that India contributed about 
 the same amount as in 1896-97 — about 32 lakhs. . . . 
 Collections abroad amounted to 108 lakhs, as against 
 137 in 1896-97. The United Kingdom's contribution 
 
 ^ The maximum was reached in the second week in August, and 
 amounted to more than six million three hundred thousand. 
 
 57 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 o 
 
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 M 
 
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 +^ 
 
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 00 
 
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 N 
 
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 vo ■^ Tj-o f^ r* u^ o 
 
 
 + 
 
 Ooo N o* ro O* r^ 0> 
 
 TT ao O -^00 •-'00 
 
 H" -^O W \0 o o o> 
 
 N r* -«t ■»+ ii-> 
 
 O w Tj- lo r^ 
 
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 - 00 Ov o 
 n Tt IT) M 
 
 o Tf M CO tr>\o -^ <N 
 ro r-oo -^o M w o 
 
 0> r^O woo 0> r-oo 
 
 O o r- <N <N 
 co~ o" o" t- 
 
 ) N HI O O (^ Oi 
 '^ tN GO in M lO M ' 
 
 
 X 
 
 
 
 
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 S 
 
 en 
 
 -M 
 
 o 
 
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 S 
 
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 r 
 
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 =5 o « • 3 S u-Pv 
 
 58 
 
 O ro a moo Tf 
 
 ^O ^ M 00 CO fO 
 
 * O moo On ► 
 
 00 00 O t^ O •* 
 
 W « 00 -^ <N Tj* 
 
 CH 00^vO_ 0_ M_ M^ 
 
 2^ 
 
 c« £ >> oj o 3 
 
 2^S 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 THE NUMBER OF PERSONS IN RECEIPT OF RELIEF DURING THE 
 FIRST WEEK IN AUGUST, 1900, IN EACH PROVINCE 
 
 Name of Province 
 
 British Provinces 
 
 Madras 
 
 Bombay and Sind 
 
 Bengal 
 
 N. W. P. and Oudh 
 
 Punjab 
 
 Central Provinces 
 
 Berar 
 
 Ajmir-Merwara 
 
 Total British Provinces 
 
 Native States 
 
 Rajputana States 
 
 Central India States 
 
 Mysore 
 
 Hyderabad 
 
 Baroda 
 
 Bombay Native States 
 
 Punjab Native States 
 
 Central Provinces Feudatory States 
 Kashmir (Jammu) 
 
 Total Native States 
 
 Grand Total 
 
 Relief works 
 
 Gratuitous 
 relief 
 
 5,231 
 
 1,076,444 
 
 14.293 
 
 126,083 
 
 374,434 
 
 256,654 
 
 61,014 
 
 3,100 
 
 507,540 
 
 7,7^9 
 
 1,493 
 
 43,148 
 
 1,895,151 
 
 167,819 
 
 30,003 
 
 8,331 
 
 1,583,984 
 
 22,012 
 
 1,493 
 
 169,231 
 
 2,269,585 
 
 424,473 
 
 91,017 
 
 2,655,973 
 
 201,200 
 
 71,908 
 
 288 
 
 355,142 
 
 87,375 
 
 335,424 
 
 22,724 
 
 12,064 
 
 503 
 
 114,422 
 
 44,827 
 
 104,978 
 34,843 
 67,700 
 19,419 
 39,191 
 
 4,570,126 
 
 315 622 
 
 116,735 
 
 288 
 
 460,120 
 
 122,218 
 
 403,124 
 
 42,143 
 
 51,255 
 
 503 
 
 1,086,628 
 
 425,380 
 
 1,512,008 
 
 6,082,134 
 
 reached 88-J lakhs, and compares indifferently with 132 
 lakhs in 1896-97, but the circumstances of the year 
 must be remembered. The liberal donation of Ger- 
 many, at the instigation of the Emperor, has been 
 publicly acknowledged ; and, finally, the United States, 
 both directly and by means of privately contributed 
 gifts of money and grain, has once more shown its 
 vivid sympathy with England's mission and India's 
 need." 
 
 A notable instance of such benevolence was the 
 Christian Herald fund, raised through the efforts of 
 its proprietor. Dr. Louis Klopsch, in America. Be- 
 sides the money raised and sent forward, the steam- 
 ship Quito was loaded with 200,000 bags of com, 
 valued at $100,000, and despatched to India, arriving 
 
 59 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 on the 28th of June. Concerning this great work, the 
 editor of the Christian Herald makes the following 
 statement : ^ 
 
 "Our readers are already familiar with the story of 
 the inception of the famine fund — how, late in the fall 
 of 1899, yielding to the entreaty of kind-hearted Bishop 
 Thoburn, the Christian Herald reopened its columns on 
 behalf of stricken India, although it had but lately 
 closed its campaign of benevolence for the famine suf- 
 ferers of 1897. The response to its appeal was im- 
 mediate and spontaneous. From all quarters of the 
 Union, and even from other lands, letters poured in, 
 vibrating with sympathy for the afflicted ones. Gifts, 
 sanctified with prayers, came in a shower. With an 
 efficient organization already in the field, the actual 
 work of relief was promptly begim. The rest is his- 
 tory — for the relief stations were opened, the starving 
 multitudes fed and sheltered, the naked clad, the sick 
 tended and succored, and the dying consoled. It is 
 proved by statistics that, as a result of this great Christ- 
 like work of mercy, hundreds of thousands of perishing 
 men, women, and children were snatched from the brink 
 of the grave. 
 
 "As to the material resources employed in this greatest 
 of benevolent campaigns, the official statement is most 
 instructive. The net grand total of the relief fund, 
 from all sources, was $641,071.97. This sum represented 
 258,508 separate remittances, and these in turn rep- 
 resented a much larger number of individuals, as some- 
 times twenty, or even thirty, contributors were included 
 in one letter. Receipts were sent to all contributors, 
 involving a vast correspondence and the necessary 
 
 *Thc Christian Herald, May i, 1901. 
 60 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 stationery and postage, each acknowledgment costing 
 a little over two cents. Many of the letters called for 
 the most careful consideration. On the whole, it is 
 probable that no such immense volume of correspond- 
 ence was ever before conducted so economically. The 
 average single contribution — exclusive of the $40,000 
 granted by the United States government for the charter 
 of the steamship Quito — was about two dollars and 
 thirty -five cents. Our own Christian Herald readers 
 are to be congratulated on the fact that they contributed 
 fully one -half of the entire fund, even including the 
 government's gift. 
 
 * ' Another matter exceedingly gratifying to every one 
 who helped the fund is that the value of the Quito's 
 cargo of American corn, on reaching India, was at least 
 double its value here; therefore, the corn transaction, 
 in its purely commercial aspect, was a fortunate one, 
 since India reaped the benefit by receiving in value 
 nearly one hundred thousand dollars more than can 
 be indicated in the official report." 
 
 Besides the Christian Herald fund there were a number 
 of others, as that administered by the Americo-Indian 
 Famine Relief Committee, Bombay, of which the Hon. 
 W. T. Fee, American consul, was chairman, and the 
 Sialkote Mission fund, and funds raised by the religious 
 press, as the Christian, London; the Guardian, and the 
 Indian Witness, of India. ^ In this way many lakhs 
 of rupees were gathered and carefully expended in 
 relieving the hunger and distress of the people. Up to 
 October, 1900, the sum of 150 lakhs had been con- 
 tributed to the India famine fund alone. 
 
 * Among those who helped largely should be mentioned Rev. Colin 
 S. Valentine, LL.D., F.R.C.S.E., Principal. Agra Medical Mission, 
 ■who gathered and distributed much money and medicines, 
 
 61 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 But in spite of all that could be done, many perished. 
 Lord Curzon said, on October 19th, before the Leg- 
 islative Council at Simla: "What the actual mortal- 
 ity may have been it is impossible to tell with com- 
 plete accuracy. At a later date the forthcoming census 
 will throw useful light upon the problem." 
 
 On the 2 1 St of March, 1901, that census was taken, 
 and although the full returns are not yet published, yet 
 it is known that in all the famine-stricken provinces, and 
 especially in the native states, there has been an almost 
 startling decrease, as the following table will show: 
 
 Ajtnir-Merwara 66,000 
 
 Berar 144,000 
 
 Central Provinces States 177,000 
 
 Hyderabad 362,000 
 
 Baroda 464,000 
 
 Bombay Proper 627,000 
 
 Central Provinces 938,000 
 
 Bombay States 1,167,000 
 
 Central India States 1,816,000 
 
 Rajputana 2,175,000 
 
 In India the normal increase in population is one- 
 half per cent, per annum, and this proportion is within 
 the mark in ordinary times, so that during the past 
 ten years not only has the normal increase of a million 
 been overcome, but a decrease of nearly eight millions 
 has taken place. The inference is that the greater part 
 of this decrease is the result of the awful famines with 
 which she has been afflicted during the last decade. 
 
 While in many places the deaths from actual starva- 
 tion were few, on account of the excellent relief arrange- 
 ments, yet in some places the mortality was indescribable. 
 As has been shown above, the death rate in the native 
 states was very high, or, as the Viceroy describes it, 
 "shocking." In the Central Provinces, in the later 
 
 6a 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 months of the famine, the death rate ran very high, in 
 one district as high as 15.21 per mille. In Gujarat the 
 following figures are given: "In Broach, the monthly- 
 death rate rose from 2.96 per mille, in October, 1899, 
 to 24.83 in May, 1900. In the Panch Mahals the death 
 rate for the same month of May was 46.60 per mille; 
 in Kaira 21.07; ^^ Ahmedabad, 24.00. These rates 
 include deaths from cholera, a most virulent wave 
 of which swept over Gujarat in April, although it is 
 impossible to distinguish accurately between the mortal- 
 ity for which cholera was directly responsible and that 
 which was due to other diseases — to debility, to pri- 
 vations and to the temporary disorganization of the 
 camp." 
 
 But loss of human life was not the only one resulting 
 from the famine. It almost annihilated the working 
 capital of the masses of the people — the agricultural 
 classes — in the territory affected. "It is difficult," says 
 the Viceroy, in summing up the material losses to the 
 empire — "it is difficult to express in figures, with any 
 close degree of accuracy, the loss occasioned by so 
 wide-spread and severe a visitation, but it may rough- 
 ly be put in this way: The annual agricultural pro- 
 duction of India and Burma averages in value between 
 three hundred and four hundred crores of rupees. On 
 a very cautious estimate the production in 1 899-1 900 
 must have been at least one-quarter, if not one-third, 
 below the average. At normal prices the loss was at 
 least seventy-five crores, or fifty million pounds sterling. 
 In this estimate India is treated as a whole, but in 
 reality the loss fell on a portion only of the continent, 
 and ranged from almost total failure of crop in Guja- 
 rat, Berar, Chhatisgarh, and Hissar, and in many of 
 the Rajputana states, to twenty and thirty per cent, 
 in districts of the Northwest Provinces and Madras, 
 
 63 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 which were not reckoned as falling within the famine 
 tract. If to this be added the loss of some millions of 
 cattle, some conception may be formed of the destruction 
 of property which a great drought occasions. There 
 have been many great droughts in India, but there has 
 been no other of which such figures could be predi- 
 cated as these." 
 
 Says a recent writer:^ "A greater danger than the 
 mutiny of 1857 not only threatens but has actually 
 overtaken India, in the impoverishment of the people 
 and the frequency and intensity of recent famines. And 
 the highest type of courage and of statesmanship, such 
 as was evinced by a Canning and a. Lawrence in the past, 
 will be needed once more to save the empire, to moderate 
 rents and taxes, to reduce debts and expenditure, to deal 
 with India as England deals with her colonies in financial 
 matters, and to associate the people of India in the 
 control of their finances and the administration of their 
 own concerns." 
 
 But while it is true that the people of India are poor 
 and famines are frequent, and that the wisest statesman- 
 ship is required in dealing with the great social, economic, 
 and financial problems involved, yet such writers as 
 the above should remember that the people of India 
 were poor under native rule, and that famines were 
 quite as frequent and more fatal to life, and that no 
 change of administration or acts of Parliament or 
 measures passed by the Legislative Council can modify 
 or intensify the southwest monsoon. 
 
 In the Report of the Famine Commission of 1901 the 
 subject of mortality is dealt with at length, and it is 
 estimated that about one million and a quarter perished 
 in British districts as the result of starvation and con- 
 
 * Romesh Dutt, Famines in India, p. 20. 
 64 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 comitant diseases, and that about one -fifth of this 
 mortality was caused by cholera, and that immigrants 
 from native states accounted for about a quarter of a 
 million deaths. This, of course, gives a very inadequate 
 account of the mortality during the late famine, as the 
 inquiries of the Commission were confined to British 
 territory, and the famine was largely a native state 
 famine. It is very difficult to tabulate, at such a time, 
 mortuary statistics, for, in the awful stress of famine, 
 thousands die far away from the sight of officials and 
 statisticians, and make no sign. A correct government 
 census report in the year after the famine should tell 
 the sad story more correctly than anything else, and, as 
 we have seen elsewhere, it leaves a large number in the 
 famine territory on the dark side. The Commission 
 admit a great mortality, and in endeavoring to account 
 for it, say : " In dealing with the death rate of the recent 
 famine, special allowance must be made for three facts : 
 first, the extreme and unusual rigor of the winter of 
 1 899-1 900, in some provinces; secondly, the shortness 
 of the water supply, which led to its pollution; and, 
 thirdly, the virulent epidemic of malarial fever in the 
 autumn of 1900, which affected the rich as well as the 
 poor." 
 
 In dealing with the subject of the cost of the famine, 
 the late Commission state that an unprecedented amount 
 was spent on relief, and that the relief afforded was in 
 many places too liberal. The enormous sum of ten 
 crores of rupees was spent on famine relief alone, and, 
 according to the estimate of the Commission, when the 
 accounts are fully made up, and allowance is made for 
 remission and advances of revenue, as well as for losses 
 of revenue in other departments, it will be found that 
 the late famine will have cost the state not less than 
 fifteen crores of rupees, or ten million pounds sterling, 
 s 6s 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 or fifty million dollars. In the preceding famine the 
 expenditure was less, and the mortality also was less, 
 which may be accounted for by the fact, stated else- 
 where, that the late famine struck a people already ex- 
 hausted by a previous very severe famine and predis- 
 posed to demoralization. 
 
VII 
 
 RAJPUTANA 
 
 "All her people sigh; they seek bread; they have given their 
 pleasant things for meat." — Lamentations, i., ii, 
 
 Rajputana is bounded on the west by Sind, on 
 the north and east by the Punjab and the Northwest 
 Provinces, on the northwest by Bahawalpur, and on the 
 southeast and south by GwaHor and other native states. 
 It has an area of 130,000 square miles, and is intersected 
 by the Aravali mountains, which chain runs northeast 
 and southwest. The most of the territory Hes north- 
 west of these mountains, and is composed mostly of sandy, 
 barren plains, which, in the extreme west, spread out 
 into a great desert. In all this great northwest territory 
 there is only one river, the Loni, which takes its rise in 
 the Pushkar Valley, near Ajmir, and, flowing southwest, 
 terminates in the Run of Cutch. Notwithstanding the 
 barren nature of the country, there are some well-built 
 and moderately prosperous towns, as Bikanir and 
 Jodhpur. The country southeast of the Aravali moun- 
 tains is more fertile. While there are hilly ranges and 
 much rock, yet there are fertile valleys and table-lands, 
 and there are the four rivers — Chambal, Banas, Sahar- 
 mati, and Mahi. But Rajputana is a poorly watered 
 country. In the western part the average rainfall is 
 only about fourteen inches during the whole year, and 
 at Bikanir the fall often does not exceed nine inches. 
 At Jaipur it is twenty -four inches. Rajputana is a very 
 
 67 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 hot country, as there is so Httle moisture and there are 
 such plains of sand absorbing and reflecting the burning 
 rays of the sun during the day. But the difference be- 
 tween the day and the night is very marked. 
 
 In the northwestern part of Rajputana only one crop 
 is raised annually, but in the other parts they gather 
 two crops. The principal crops grown are millets, 
 wheat, barley, maize, opium, oil seeds, also sugar-cane 
 and cotton. In the more barren parts camels, cattle, 
 and sheep are raised. Bikanir is famous for its camels 
 and cattle. Salt and opium are articles of commerce. 
 The main body of the people cultivate the soil, but the 
 Marwari business-men — bankers and money-lenders — 
 are famous throughout India. The population of this 
 apparently barren and sandy country was, in 1891, 
 12,300,150; but the census taken in March, 1901, 
 shows that there has been a decrease in the population 
 during the last decade of 2,175,000, which must be 
 largely accounted for by the awful and prolonged 
 famine through which it has passed. 
 
 Towards the centre of Rajputana lies the British 
 district of Ajmir-Merwara, the capital of which is Ajmir, 
 a city of about fifty thousand inhabitants. The rest 
 of Rajputana is divided into twenty feudatory states, of 
 which Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, and Bikanir are the 
 largest. The leading classes in Rajputana are Rajputs 
 (480,000, in 1881); Brahmins (901,000); Mahajans, or 
 bankers (634,000); Chamars (567,000); Minnas (428,- 
 000); Gujars (403,000); Jats (426,000); and Ahirs, or 
 cow-herds (131,000). 
 
 The political status allowed to these native states, in 
 keeping with the policy of the imperial government 
 throughout the empire in its dealing with native pro- 
 tected states, is that of semi-independence. As has 
 been said: "Under Lord Canning the existence of 
 
 68 
 
^ ..-^ 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 native states was guaranteed, and the right of adoption 
 was conceded. Even great crimes on the part of princes 
 do not now lead to the annexation of their territories." 
 At a pubUc dinner in Calcutta, Lord Lansdowne said: 
 
 " I regard it as a matter of first-rate importance that 
 the states in subordinate alliance with her Majesty 
 should be governed in such manner that we need have 
 no scruple in preserving for them the measure of in- 
 dependence which they at present enjoy. Not only 
 would it be an act of injustice to deprive them of the 
 privileges of self-government to which they are entitled, 
 but it would, I am convinced, be a distinct misfortune 
 to the empire if these interesting remnants of indig- 
 enous rule were to be entirely effaced. They may not 
 all of them be governed entirely in accordance with our 
 ideas of good government, but it is a question whether, 
 in spite of this, they do not, from their point of view, 
 prefer to remain under their own rulers, even if they are 
 denied some of the administrative luxuries which we 
 provide for the people of British India. Be this as it 
 may, the territory directly under the government of 
 India is already so large, and our tendency to govern it 
 in accordance with uniform principles and according 
 to stereotyped methods of administration is so strong, 
 that from our point of view I should regard with un- 
 feigned regret any events which might force us to assume 
 responsibility of any part of the large areas at present 
 governed by Indian chiefs and rulers. It is instructive, 
 both for the natives of this country and for Europeans, 
 that the two kinds of government should be in force 
 side by side, and in the full view of public opinion." 
 
 There are three things which caused the famine in 
 Rajputana to be particularly severe — viz., first, the 
 
 69 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 character of the country itself, being so sandy — a "dry 
 and thirsty land, where no water is" — and for the most 
 part producing but one crop a year ; and, secondly, a 
 succession of bad seasons had followed each other from 
 1897, in which year the people suffered terribly; and, 
 thirdly, indifference and lack of enterprise, in some places, 
 on the part of the native rulers. In most places in Rajpu- 
 tana very great jealousy of foreign enterprise exists. 
 There is but little encouragement given to the develop- 
 ment of industries, either on the part of outsiders, who 
 would bring in capital and establish various forms of 
 industry, or on the part of indigenous native capitalists. 
 I myself tried in at least four of the larger states to 
 start some industrial work, but was politely told that 
 the rules would not admit of it. In one instance I 
 was informed that "the novelty and permanent char- 
 acter of the proposed institution" (an industrial school 
 where som^e famine waifs could be taught weaving) * ' have 
 deterred the Durbar from sanctioning the application"; 
 and, after thanking the committee for their benevolent 
 aid during the famine, the reply to my application 
 concluded by saying: "As for the future, the Durbar is 
 not prepared to intrust the m.aintenance of the famine 
 waifs to any foreign committee, and hence the establish- 
 ment of a permanent institution of this nature in the 
 country seems unnecessary." And this, too, where the 
 people were then dying off by the hundreds through 
 starvation and disease, and when our committee had 
 kept thousands more alive for months with the Christian 
 Herald corn and blankets, 200 bags of grain and many 
 blankets having been distributed to the hungry and 
 naked at the very place where the committee desired 
 to continue their benevolent work. This is given here 
 merely to show how difficult it is at such times for 
 native rulers to grasp the situation and in every way 
 
 7Q 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 possible save their people. The Viceroy himself address- 
 ed the native chiefs upon the matter of caring for their 
 subjects, and it is a matter of history that Lord George 
 Hamilton, the Secretary for India, speaking in the House 
 of Commons, said that the Viceroy was sending British 
 officers into the states governed by native rulers, to aid 
 them in inaugurating relief measures. In former fam- 
 ines these rulers had done next to nothing to save their 
 people from dying of starvation; but now, stirred up 
 by the example of the British government, they were 
 desirous of relieving the suffering, but needed help in 
 organizing. The officers who have had experience are, 
 therefore, placed at their service, and are giving valuable 
 aid. The condition of the people in these native states 
 is appalling. The news has reached them of the relief 
 that is being afforded in British India, and large numbers 
 of emaciated creatures are being met on all the roads 
 leading thither. They leave behind them a ghastly 
 trail of the corpses of those who have perished by the 
 way, many of the people not having started imtil 
 starvation had impaired their strength. 
 
 Rev. E. S. Hume, Convener of the Interdenominational 
 Famine Committee, stated, while the famine was raging: 
 
 "Distress is greatest in the native states, where, on 
 account of their independence, British control is least, 
 and where native rulers are more indifferent to human 
 life. There are 688 native states, and more than five 
 hundred of these are in the famine district, and about 
 half of them are in the Bombay Presidency." 
 
 A "Political Recluse," in his Letters to an Indian 
 Rajah,^ thus speaks of some of the obstacles to reform 
 
 ^ Letters to an Indian Rajah, p. 49. 
 71 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 in the native states: "The fact is, the princes are, after 
 all, individuals, and are not only subject to the unwhole- 
 some influences of their early training, but in the absence 
 of any system are helplessly in the hands of their sur- 
 roundings. Now these surroundings consist of vest- 
 ed interests of all kinds, in whose eyes the one merit on 
 which the existence of the state rests is indiscriminate 
 charity to idlers of all sorts, and indulgence to the privi- 
 leged and official classes ; and the one sin is strictness in 
 the expenditure of the taxes or justice to the toiling ryot. 
 In such a situation zeal for reform and love of economy 
 cannot be expected to flourish, nor can any reforms, if 
 introduced by a strong-willed ruler, be trusted to be safely 
 carried out for the time or continued by a successor." 
 
 There is no doubt that an Indian rajah's greatest foes 
 are " those of his own household." Those who surround 
 him daily, low servants and attendants, male and female, 
 vile flatterers and panegyrists, humor his caprices and 
 encourage him in indolence and vice. Prevailing polyg- 
 amy leads to constant feuds and intrigues, while ignorant 
 officials furnish the rajah with opinions, if not with 
 brains, and help to bring about and perpetuate bad 
 government. " It is a matter of history," says the late 
 principal of Rajkumar College, Rajkot, "that connected 
 with nearly every Durbar are persons, generally the 
 most influential, who hope to increase their own influ- 
 ence in proportion as their chief's capacity is diminished," 
 
 The main defect in feudatory state administration 
 in famine time is apathy. This apathy, or indifference, 
 was observable in many places, but it was scandalous 
 in at least two places — viz., in Indore, or Holkar's 
 Dominions, in Central India, and in Bundi, a native 
 state in the southeastern part of Rajputana. In the 
 first case it seems to have been largely the fault of the 
 maharajah, who was apparently indifferent to the suf- 
 
 72 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 ferings of his people. A report of the matter states: 
 "The council unanimously adopted all the suggestions 
 made by the British Resident, particularly in respect 
 of relief measures in Indore territory, in Malwa and 
 Bhopawn, where the distress was very acute in January, 
 1900; but the maharajah turned a deaf ear to his 
 councillors and equally to the Resident. On February 
 5th the minister reported to the latter that the council 
 could do nothing, as his Highness absoltitely refused to 
 sanction expenditure, and had peremptorily ordered the 
 stoppage of all famine relief, together with the immediate 
 refund of advances in cash already miade, and had 
 further declined to permit any suspension of revenue. 
 This was at the very time that hundreds of the maha- 
 rajah 's subjects were declared by his own officials to be 
 starving, the deaths in Rampur and Bhanpura exceed- 
 ing thirty a day. The state was not in an impoverished 
 condition, for there were several crores of rupees in the 
 treasury, but the council could not touch an anna with- 
 out orders from the maharajah. It looked as if extreme 
 measures would have to be taken, but at length his 
 Highness yielded reluctantly to the pressure put upon 
 him. But the mischief had been done, and many hun- 
 dreds of persons perished before relief could reach them." 
 In the case of Bundi, both rajah and council seem to 
 have been criminally negligent, for, in January, tqoo, 
 the agent to the Governor-General in Rajputana reported 
 to government that when he found that nothing was 
 being done to save the people, he wrote to the rajah, 
 urging upon him the necessity of adopting "more com- 
 prehensive and liberal measures than those hitherto 
 contemplated for the relief of his distressed subjects." 
 But after waiting three months, with death in the 
 mean time playing havoc among the people, the agent 
 wrote again that "The Bundi Durbar are slack and 
 
 73 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 apathetic, and still quite fail to realize their respon- 
 sibility, they regard the mortality as inevitable, the 
 result of a natural visitation which they are unable 
 to encounter." What was the result? The people 
 starved to death by the hundreds. The census showed 
 that in the ten years, 1891 to 1901, the population of 
 Bundi had decreased forty -two per cent. — in other 
 words, that nearly half the population had disappeared. 
 Making all due allowance for emigration, it is difficult 
 to resist the conclusion that famine mainly accounted 
 for the decrease of 124,400 in this period, and that the 
 culpable neglect of duty on the part of the chief and his 
 Durbar had much to say to the mortality which un- 
 questionably occurred. 
 
 Concerning the conduct of famine relief in native 
 states, the Viceroy has publicly stated : 
 
 " In a few native states the duty, of succoring their 
 subjects had been so neglected by the Durbars as to 
 need strong interference, and in others the good inten- 
 tions of the rulers were frustrated by the dishonesty 
 and peculation of subordinate officials, who could not 
 resist turning even the starvation of their fellow-creatures 
 to their own profit. In the majority of cases the chiefs 
 have shown the most laudable disposition to adopt 
 our methods of relief, so far as the resources and agency 
 at their command have permitted. In some of the 
 Rajputana states, especially Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikanir. 
 and Kishangarh, arrangements, admirably planned and 
 carried out by the rulers themselves, aroused the ad- 
 miration of persons familiar with the famine system of 
 British provinces." 
 
 The late famine was largely a famin'fe of the native 
 states. Of the sixty millions seriously affected, fully 
 
 74 
 
FAMINE-STRICKEN 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 thirty-five millions were the subjects of feudatory states. 
 Compared with the great famine from which many of 
 the places were not yet recovered, the tendency was for 
 the centre of gravity to shift more to the west. Roughly 
 speaking, it may be said that all the native states with- 
 in the territory embraced by the Sutlej, Jumna, and 
 Nerbudda rivers endured this awful visitation. It made 
 the suffering all the worse, for the standard of relief in 
 native states was far below that given in British 
 territory, and it was the policy of the imperial govern- 
 ment to allow the various feudatory states to initiate 
 and conduct their own famine relief. Concerning the 
 difference in the standard of relief adopted in the re- 
 spective areas, it has been stated: "In Bikanir and 
 Jodhpur the numbers relieved in any month never 
 exceeded six per cent, of the nominal population, while 
 in the British districts of Ajmir - Merwara twenty-five 
 per cent, of the population were for months on relief. 
 Even in the states under the Bombay government, in 
 which, for various reasons, the initiative and supervision 
 of the political officers were more in evidence than in 
 central India and Rajputana, the scale of relief was very 
 different from that in Gujarat. In Kathiawar the 
 numbers on relief never exceeded thirteen per cent, of 
 the population. In Palanpur they reached, but did not 
 exceed, fifteen per cent, in one month alone. In the 
 same month (July, 1900) one -third of the aggregate 
 population of the four distressed districts of Gujarat 
 was on relief. The two great states of Baroda and 
 Hyderabad flank the Bombay territory on the north and 
 east. In Hyderabad and Baroda the numbers on relief 
 never rose to five per cent, of the nominal population; 
 and yet both states were visited by drought and famine 
 not less severely than the adjoining districts of the 
 Bombay Presidency. Meanwhile, the difference in the 
 
 75 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 standards of relief was further testified by the eagerness 
 with which thousands of fugitives streamed across the 
 border from native states into British territory, where 
 they passed themselves off as British subjects, in hope 
 of enjoying the superior wages and comforts of our 
 relief works, our poor-houses, and our hospitals," 
 
VIII 
 
 TREKKING 
 'He wandereth abroad for bread." — Job, xv., 23. 
 
 The physical conditions in Rajputana are such that 
 when famine begins it does its work quickly, and the 
 poor people must either have relief brought to them 
 without delay or they must leave their villages and 
 trek away in search of it, or remain at home and die. 
 It more often occurs that hunger drives them out and 
 away, never to return. The great, sandy plains of 
 Marwar and Bikanir furnish but scanty food in the best 
 of years, but in famine time there is literally nothing 
 left but sand. In Rajputana nature is either very kind 
 or exceedingly rough. In ordinary years the soil, which 
 seems to be nothing but sand, produces, with but very 
 little labor, enough for the frugal Rajput Marwari to 
 live upon. Cattle and sheep and goats abound. There 
 are no rivers or canals, but wells are sunk and give 
 enough water for ordinary purposes. In the hilly parts 
 artificial dams are made, which store surplus water from 
 the rains and which fertilize the valleys below. Nine 
 inches of rain at Bikanir produces the annual crop 
 upon which the people subsist. But in famine times all 
 is changed. The rain never fell in parts of Rajputana 
 for three years. The wells soon became dry. Green 
 fields became barren plains of drifting, blinding sand, 
 reflecting the torrid rays of the pitiless sun. Day after 
 day the condition of the poor villager became worse. 
 
 77 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 His little store soon became exhausted. Remote from 
 city and railway, and often out of the sphere of famine 
 relief, when the worst came, he must shift for him- 
 self. Patient and stolid fatalist that he is, a believer in 
 Maya, and Karam, and Awagawan, in delusion, fate, 
 and transmigration — his gnawing hunger and the awful 
 sufferings of his family insist upon his being practical 
 and looking about for food.^ 
 
 As has already been pointed out, he believes that his 
 only hope is in migrating; and so he gathers all to- 
 gether, his family and his cattle, and starts off in search 
 of food and water. A number of villagers have united, 
 and they move slowly onward, each night sleeping 
 under the open sky, in the field or at the road - side, 
 wherever they happen to be when night overtakes them. 
 They plod on through the broiling sun, each day be- 
 coming weaker and fewer in number, with little hope 
 of finding food for man or beast. The vulture and the 
 hide and bone dealer follow and make much profit. 
 
 On the Brindaban road I met a more fortunate com- 
 pany, which had travelled all the way from Bikanir 
 state thus far on their journey in quest of food and 
 work. There were several hundreds of them. They 
 had brought all they possessed in the world along with 
 them, and had been travelling for several months. They 
 only had a few cattle with them, and the men and women 
 were carrying their earthly goods — a few bundles of 
 clothing, some pots and vessels, rude stone grinding- 
 mills, and boxes, bags, ropes, strings, and other mis- 
 cellaneous small articles which they had saved from 
 
 * The Report of the late Famine Commission (1901) says that " In 
 certain states the faikire of the water-supply left no alternative but 
 emigration," and in some cases the inadequacy of native relief and 
 the liberality of British help proved a strong incentive to leave home 
 and run the risk of dying on the way. 
 
 78 
 
.-e- ^% 
 
 ^.M«*- 
 
 
 .€>"' 
 
 fc* T *' 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the wreck. Little children were either running along 
 by the mother's side or were being carried on tired 
 shoulders. They were a sad, forlorn, silent company 
 of wanderers. They were in search of food. They had 
 left houses and lands, homes and associations, to go out 
 into a land that they knew not of. I asked them where 
 they came from and they said " Bikanir." And whither 
 going? " In search of food and work." And where did 
 they expect to find it? "Where God shows." And 
 they were moving on and on. Some of these lived to 
 get back to their wrecked homes, for the state, ill 
 affording to lose its subjects when none too thickly 
 populated at best, sent for them and other wanderers, 
 and carried them back in a special train. But, alas, for 
 those who wandered away into central India and into 
 Gujarat! 
 
 The villager's knowledge of geography is limited. His 
 attachment to his own vine and fig-tree is strong. It 
 is only when the vine and fig-tree wither and he can get 
 neither cash, kind, nor credit, when his cattle are lowing 
 for food and his little ones crying for bread, that he 
 thinks of leaving the old home to go out into a place 
 that he knows not of, in obedience to a vague rumor that 
 he will find something to take away the awful gnawing 
 of hunger. But, as a rule, he is disappointed. Wrote 
 a missionary from Gujarat: 
 
 "More than a score have died in front of my house, 
 and perhaps hundreds have died on the road- sides in 
 the town. They came there from the native states, 
 and by the time they get there are too far gone to work, 
 and lie down to die. One old woman, with her four 
 sons, three grandchildren, and two daughters-in-law, 
 came from a long distance, hoping to get relief in some 
 way, and failing to find work, and worn and weakened 
 
 79 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 by the journey, became hopeless, and one after another 
 died, till all her sons and their wives and two of the 
 children had died, and the poor old woman was sent 
 back with one grandchild to her country. 
 
 " This is only one of many instances of the sights that 
 came to the notice of our missionaries. The living, 
 dying, and the dead skeletons are multiplying on all 
 sides now, and only God will ever fully comprehend 
 what the suffering of the next months will be." 
 
 In like manner, Rev. C. B. Newton, of the Presbyterian 
 Mission at Jalandhar City, north India, wrote: "Hun- 
 dreds of people have been coming into our northern 
 province from central India and Rajputana for two 
 months past. They report an absolute failure of the 
 crops there and the most utter destitution. There are 
 many women and children among them, all looking 
 terribly hungry. These gaunt refugees fill our streets, 
 and their piteous cries can be heard night and day. 
 Our difficulties are increased by the rise in the price 
 of food. The rates are now as high as they were in 
 1897, when the famine was most severe." And so Dr. 
 Klopsch witnessed during his tour in Gujarat. He says : 
 "After early lunch and family prayers at the house of 
 Rev. T. M. Hudson, we left Baroda, travelling eastward, 
 witnessing a succession of scenes of siiffering, desolation, 
 and misery. The rivers were dried up, and along their 
 sun - baked, kiln - dried beds, countless thousands of 
 ragged, haggard, foot-sore beggars wandered aimlessly. 
 They were bound they knew not whither. How many 
 of them reached anywhere alive, God only knows. They 
 were literally walking skeletons. They frequently died 
 in their tracks. Thirty left a village for the relief works. 
 Ten died while there. Ten died on the road, homeward 
 bound. Ten are awaiting death in the village to which 
 
 80 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 they returned. These wanderers sink by the way-side 
 from absolute exhaustion. Then, if near a village, they 
 are picked up and carted to the hospital. They arrive 
 unconscious, but their sunken eyes, heaving chests, and 
 hollow stomachs tell their own terrible story of incon- 
 ceivable torture. Two girls were thus picked up. They 
 retained consciousness, but speech had become painful. 
 They were offered food. 'Sahib,' said the elder girl, 
 ' we have not eaten for four days. If we take food now 
 we shall die. Let us rest until evening and then feed 
 us.' She died that day. The tissues and glands of 
 her stomach were completely withered away. Truly, 
 the present India famine is the most appalling tragedy 
 the world has ever witnessed." 
 
 Mr. Karmarkher, of Ahmadnagar, thus wrote of the 
 condition of the farmers : 
 
 " For months they have been away from home. Their 
 cattle were all sold off for a song at the beginning of 
 the famine. Their farming implements and rude equip- 
 ments were all disposed of when they first left home. 
 Their household goods, their ornaments, cooking utensils, 
 even their personal clothing, have all, one after the other, 
 been exchanged for food. The very houses they lived 
 in have been molested by straggling robbers, who have 
 torn away parts of the roof, or dragged off doors and 
 other wood-work, and in many cases left the house quite 
 uninhabitable. At the relief camps these farmers and 
 laborers have earned a bare pittance, and managed to 
 keep soul and body together. Some have lost their 
 children in these camps, others have lost husbands, 
 fathers, brothers, wives, or sisters, and are reduced 
 sadly in strength by extreme exposure, unrelenting 
 toil, and insufficient food. Few have little hope left 
 for anything. Now, what will these people in this 
 6 8i 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 condition, returning to their former places and work, 
 do? 
 
 " To begin with, what will they live on? What have 
 the farmers left to prepare the soil with ? No cattle ; not 
 even the members of the family number the same as 
 when they left. What will they sow the ground with? 
 There is no seed; certainly no money to purchase it 
 with ; money-lenders will not heed their cries ; they have 
 nothing to pawn ; they are stripped to the skin, and will 
 be helpless as their own six months' old babes. Further- 
 more, from ploughing and sowing to the time of reap- 
 ing three months must pass. They have nothing with 
 which to pay day-laborers ; if they have to wait for rain, 
 their wells are dry, and would be of little use. It will 
 be a situation little short of despair. If the ploughing 
 and sowing and harvest are interrupted, the famine goes 
 on unmolested, and only increasing ; a country like this, 
 with these months of famine followed by a delayed 
 harvest, will be a doomed land. As one remarked, there 
 would be little left to do except for each one to dig his 
 own grave or to touch the torch to his funeral pile." 
 
 The late Famine Commission state that " all who died 
 in British districts were not British subjects. Very 
 many were immigrants from native states who came 
 across the border in a deplorable condition." They 
 estimate that about a quarter of a million of these died 
 on British soil. "We have come," they say, "to the 
 general conclusion that immigration was undoubtedly 
 very extensive, that it hampered the British administra- 
 tion, and that it greatly affected the mortality." For 
 the future, they " strongly recommend that the following 
 ends should be carefully kept in view and enforced by 
 British officers on frontier districts — namely, (a) the 
 identification of immigrants; (6) their collection into 
 
 82 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 gangs or bodies ; and (c) the transfer of these bodies to 
 the care of the states to which they belong." This 
 policy may be just enough, but God pity the immigrants 
 thus sent back to that condition of things from which 
 they have fled in utter dispair ! 
 
THE BHILS 
 
 "The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; 
 The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep; 
 The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread — 
 Have faded away, like the grass that we tread." 
 
 If you are in Ajmir, and pay a visit to that beautiful 
 building, the Mayo College, established for the education 
 of the young nobles of Rajputana, and enter the .spacious 
 hall from the front, you will see before you the crest of 
 the institution, upon which is inscribed the appropriate 
 motto, "Let there be light." Upon this crest also is 
 the figure of a man of rough, sturdy appearance, with 
 dishevelled hair and scanty, coarse garments, and hold- 
 ing in his hand and upon his arm the symbols of his clan 
 — the bow and shield. He is a Bhil — the aborigine of 
 Rajputana. Although rude in appearance, and ruder 
 still in habits of life, yet he is held in great esteem, as 
 belonging to an ancient family, and at the coronation 
 of the highest Rajput chiefs, in those states where he 
 has his home, the ceremony is not complete until the 
 head of the Bhil clan has impressed upon the forehead 
 the sacred mark of kingship, and until this has been done 
 the Bhils refuse to pay homage to him as their king.^ 
 These Bhils are found especially at Khandesh, in the 
 Bombay Presidency, and in Gujarat, and in the hill 
 
 * Colonel Todd's Annals, vol. ii., p. 1368. 
 84 
 

 
 
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 country of Rajputana. "The Bhils," writes the Rev. 
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 "live a hand-to-mouth existence in their own hilly 
 country in Rajputana, Gujarat, and central India. The 
 population is sparse, and their villages, or pals, are 
 spread over large areas. No house is nearer than an 
 arrow's shoot from its neighbor. They all carry bows 
 and arrows, as an Englishman carries his walking-stick, 
 and they are fond of fighting. They set no value on 
 human life, and scorn the pain of an arrow wound ; but 
 it is strange how they will run away from the sight of a 
 surgeon's lancet. For their mutual protection and 
 safety they keep their houses far enough apart to enjoy 
 an artillery duel of arrows between them." 
 
 For the first time in many years famine came upon 
 this hardy, brave, and primitive people. There were 
 more than three hundred thousand of them, but nearly 
 half have been carried off by famine. One reason for 
 this great mortality lies in the fact that most of them 
 live in jungles and in the mountains, in inaccessible 
 places, remote from cities and railways, making it dif- 
 ficult to reach them with relief. They are poorer also 
 than others living in more favored parts, and con- 
 sequently have less to fall back upon of what may be 
 called "staying power." We have already seen some- 
 thing of the suffering and mortality in the Bombay 
 Presidency and in Gujarat. 
 
 In 1 88 1, Charles Steward Thompson was appointed 
 by the Church Missionary Society to work among the 
 Bhils in Kherwara, in Rajputana. He continued his 
 indefatigable labors there till last year, when, all alone 
 under a tree, far away from his own countrymen, in 
 the midst of his work among the famine-stricken, he 
 was struck down by cholera, and died before any one 
 could reach him. Concerning the death of this good 
 
 85 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 man, the Rev. Arthur Outram, his colleague in the work, 
 wrote, on May 20th, the day after his death: "Mr. 
 Thompson has, indeed, given himself for the people 
 he loved, and has died in harness, surrounded by faithful 
 Bhil followers. He loved them and they loved him, 
 and he has been true to them to the death, and they 
 to him; for by this time I fear that Bhagwana, his 
 faithful bearer and cook, must have passed away; for 
 when I reached him, a little after midnight, he was almost 
 past medical aid. He nursed Thompson up to the very 
 end, and was seized himself the very hour Thompson 
 died. Last evening (Saturday, May 19th)," continues 
 Mr. Outram, " I received an urgent message by runners, 
 saying Thompson was very ill, and was starting from 
 Baulia on a charpoy (string cot). I had food, and rode 
 off with medicines, etc., at ten o'clock, accompanied 
 by two sawars, and reached Kanbai (Kalbay) at 1.15 
 A.M. There I foimd the sad procession, and learned 
 that poor Thompson had left Baulia at 3 a.m. the 
 previous morning, in an endeavor to push through to 
 Kherwara, or until I met him. But at Jhejudi, half- 
 way between Baulia and Bilaria, he told the bearers to 
 stop under a big tree, and there he peacefully passed 
 away at noon, too weak to give any particular messages, 
 simply sending loving salaams to us all. Bhagwana was 
 then seized ; so the bearers brought the body and Bhag- 
 wana right through to Kanbai, seventeen miles, and 
 there I met the party. I at once had a grave dug on 
 a hill opposite the Kanbai School, thinking that he 
 would have liked, as it were, to be in sight of his own 
 work, and we laid his body to rest." 
 
 About the same time, Mr. Outram wrote to the Bom- 
 bay Guardian, giving an account of Mr. Thompson's 
 death, and acknowledging the receipt of money which 
 had been forwarded for his famine work, and which 
 
 86 
 
■■■'/ 
 
 
 ^^^i^iifeS'.^, *fei^; 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 had arrived too late to reach him. In this he said: 
 "The v/ork he has left now devolves upon me, in addition 
 to my own. So now I have 5500 children, feeding twice 
 daily, in fifteen centres in Gujarat (which was Mr. 
 Thompson's work), and seven centres on the Udaipur 
 side (of which I have had charge), the whole nearly 
 contained in the area covered by an equilateral triangle 
 with sixty-mile sides. I regret to say that cholera is 
 raging throughout the coimtry, greatly increasing our 
 difficulties. In one of the centres alone eighty children 
 died last week." 
 
 A gathering of missionaries of the Punjab Church 
 Missionary Society met at Amritsar on the 30th of May, 
 1900, to consider "how best they could lend a hand to 
 their overtaxed brethren, a thousand miles to the south, 
 as they wrestled in unequal conflict with famine and 
 disease." The object was to support and supplement 
 existing work rather than to inaugurate any fresh work 
 of their own. Mr. Thompson having died, the first 
 question to be settled was, who is to carry on the relief 
 work in the centres under his charge ? Later on, death 
 claimed its tribute alike from the Scottish United Pres- 
 byterian Mission in Rajputana and the Irish Presby- 
 terian Mission in Gujarat. Was there any way in which 
 the Punjab could go to the rescue there also? "We 
 have," states the report of the committee, " merely acted 
 as auxiliaries, not as an independent force. Any work, 
 therefore, that our volunteers have effected implies a 
 previous wealth of effort on the part of those who were 
 on the spot from the beginning, and who, in some cases, 
 began their struggle with the famine as early as last 
 February. In like manner, as regards actual funds, 
 even the workers who went from us have received the 
 main portion of their financial support from those under 
 whose immediate guidance they are working, leaving 
 
 87 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 US free to supplement this, or other relief work, as we 
 saw opportunity. 
 
 To begin, now, with the C. M. S. Bhil Mission, lying 
 almost entirely in native states. Until Mr. Thompson's 
 death, he was working alone on the Gujarat side, and 
 Mr, and Mrs. Outram alone in the Rajputana portion. 
 Mr. Thompson's death was the signal for reinforcements. 
 The first volunteers to arrive were from the Northwest 
 Provinces — the Rev. Foss Westcott, of the S. P. G,, to 
 assist Mr. and Mrs. Outram, the Rev. E. P. Herbert and 
 Mr. J. C. Harrison for the Gujarat work, which was the 
 heavier of the two on this side. They had six different 
 stations, and were feeding 6000 people daily, and their 
 appeal for further reinforcements gave the Punjab the 
 opportunity for taking its share in the up-hill battle. 
 Altogether, a complete eleven of Punjabis spent some 
 time at work, either in the C. M. S. Bhil Mission itself 
 or with its next-door neighbor, the Rev. T. S. Stevenson, 
 of the Irish Presbyterian Mission, at Parantij. Others 
 also offered, but attained not into the first eleven. The 
 first to start were Dr. and Mrs. Browne and the Rev. 
 E. Rhodes, who reached the famine region about the 
 middle of July. Leaving Mrs. Browne to give a helping 
 hand at Parantij, the two men pushed on to Baulia and 
 Bilaria, distant some twenty and forty miles, respective- 
 ly, from the rail-head. They found Messrs. Herbert 
 and Harrison bending under the strain of the work, and 
 were speedily in the thick of it themselves. It is not 
 necessary to repeat here the accounts of the revolting 
 and heart-rending scenes they were continually called 
 upon to witness. Suffice it to say that the labor of 
 disposing of the dead proved almost equally heavy with 
 that of feeding the living, while, over and above all 
 other discomforts, an Egyptian plague of flies constantly 
 threatened the health of the workers by bringing poUu- 
 
THE TREE UNDER WHICH THE REV. C. S. THOMPSON, C.M.S., DIED 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 tion to their food from the foul and diseased masses of 
 the people lying everyivhere around them. Water also 
 was so scarce that at times, after all the dirty work of 
 the day, the most that could be done, by way of a wash, 
 was to dip the corner of a handkerchief in the drinking 
 water and just moisten face and hands with it. Dr. 
 Rhodes crossed over for a time to the Rajputana side 
 to help Mr. Outram, but by the early part of September 
 he was back again at Baulia, only now with an entirely 
 fresh set of colleagues. It may literally be said that a 
 whole country-side would have been entirely bereft of 
 inhabitants but for the labors of the C. M. S. famine 
 workers. On the Rajputana side, indeed, the British 
 Resident at Kherwara was at work as well as the mis- 
 sionaries, but on the Gujarat side the only other work 
 attempted in our district was the feeding of fifty per- 
 sons a day at Ghoradar by the Rao of Vijenagar. The 
 Hindus of the neighboring country were supremely in- 
 different to the sufferings of the Bhils; in fact, they 
 thought it would be quite the best thing to allow such 
 a nation of thieves to be depopulated to the furthest 
 degree possible. And here came in the practical utility 
 of mission work in preparing for a crisis like this. For 
 not only did Mr. Thompson's village schools provide 
 at once buildings for the storage and distribution of 
 grain — natural centres of relief at distances of every ten 
 miles, or thereabouts — but they also had created, among 
 the teachers and older scholars, a workable subordinate 
 staff, trained to some degree of discipline and some 
 sense of responsibility and integrity. 
 
 But it would have gone hardly, indeed, with our C. M. S. 
 workers in the inaccessible isolation of Bhil-land had 
 not the lines of communication been kept open with the 
 utmost self-denial and kindliness by their warm-hearted 
 Irish Presbyterian brethren at Ahmedabad and Parantij. 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 At the former place Dr. and Mrs. Taylor, and at the 
 latter the Rev. J. S. Stevenson, have vied with one 
 another in their attentions to all who came and went, 
 and Mrs. Taylor found time, in the midst of her own 
 overwhelming labors, to turn her house into a temporary 
 hospital for disabled workers from the front. This 
 naturally leads us to speak of the Irish Presbyterian 
 Mission as a whole, and of what we have been able 
 to offer in return for their kindness. No mission has 
 been smitten by the famine so severely as this one. No 
 fewer than four missionaries, three men and a woman, 
 have been called to lay down their lives in this labor of 
 love after services ranging from three to thirty-two years. 
 It was after the death of one of these. Dr. R. B. Mc- 
 Whinney, of south Rampur, in Panch Mahals, that his 
 colleague, Mr. William Mulligan, of Jhalod, wrote to the 
 Punjab committee, asking whether they could send re- 
 inforcements to supply his place and continue his min- 
 istry to over seven hundred widows and orphans who 
 had been dependent upon him. A party of four was 
 made up without delay, and proceeded to Jhalod. The 
 very first thing they had to do was to minister to Mr. 
 Mulligan himself in his own fatal illness. 
 
 On the 14th of August, 1900, Mr. William Mulligan, 
 the first missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Jimgle 
 Tribe's Mission, in the Panch Mahals, died of typhoid 
 fever, supervening on cholera, while in the midst of his 
 work. He was an indefatigable worker. It was he who 
 related the pathetic story of the Bhil " Dudo" in the 
 Bombay Guardian, as follows: "I met Dudo Punja 
 sitting in the shade of the single post which remained of 
 what, six months ago, had been his snug little cottage. 
 Twenty-one years of age, he ought to have been in full 
 vigor, but he was dying: the swollen legs, the sallow, 
 bloodless skin, his listless, hopeless, and lifeless manner, 
 
 90 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the heavy breathing, and glaring eye, told of hunger 
 and cold endured. Beside him squatted two little 
 children, who fled as I approached; but Dudo did not 
 rise, because he could not. The children were nephews, 
 whose parents were at the relief works. My questions 
 were answered by whispers, and I got off my pony and 
 stooped down to catch what he said. 
 
 "'Are you hungry?' 
 
 "'Yes, very hungry, and my throat is dry and sore.' 
 
 "'I will send you food presently.' 
 
 "'Do, send it quickly.' 
 
 "I knew I should be late in getting home, so had 
 some biscuits in my pocket for lunch; these I shared 
 with Dudo and his nephews, and rode on to arrange for 
 food for him and many others as well. After visiting 
 another village, I galloped up to one of our district 
 boarding schools, or children's kitchens, as the food was 
 being prepared for the morning meal. 
 
 '"Do you know Dudo Punja?' I said to the teacher. 
 
 "'Yes, very well.' 
 
 "'He's dying on the other side of the river yonder.' 
 
 " ' Yes, sir, I will send.' So he said, but I saw it in his 
 eyes that he would not trust so urgent a message to 
 another. . . . 
 
 "Yesterday I saw him again, and asked, 'What of 
 Dudo?' 
 
 "'I was too late; he was dead before I reached him; 
 but I arranged to get him buried.' 
 
 " Dudo's last words to me, and possibly to any one, 
 were, ' Send food quickly.' Thadra's report was, ' I was 
 too late.' One knows by the woodman's marks on the 
 trees which are doomed, and we, through grim experience, 
 have come to recognize the marks of the dread 'cutter 
 down.' For many around us it is already too late. 
 They may live a few days longer if well nursed, but 
 
 91 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 death is stamped on their faces ; they number hundreds. 
 The looks of many others suggest Dudo's last words, 
 'Send food quickly.' They number thousands." 
 
 Mr. Blair has written of Mr. Mulligan's life and death, 
 as follows: 
 
 "The people around Jhalod are principally Bhils, and 
 dependent altogether on the produce of their fields, so, 
 when no crop came, there was nothing for these poor 
 people but to die of starvation. 
 
 "Mr. Mulligan, recognizing the immensity of the 
 danger, threw his whole strength into the work of com- 
 bating the terrible evil. He labored with almost super- 
 human effort. Night and day he was busy in his efforts 
 to save those perishing with hunger. From the scenes 
 described by him, in the pages of the Bombay Guardian, 
 its readers will know something of the amount of work 
 performed by Mr. Mulligan, and of the terrible strain 
 all this must have entailed upon him. For some months 
 he was in charge of the government poor - house in 
 Jhalod. He rescued hundreds of famine waifs, and fed 
 thousands of people who but for him would in all prob- 
 ability have died. 
 
 "On July 15th he received a message to the effect 
 that Mr. McWhinney was seriously ill in south Rampur. 
 He immediately set off on that weary ride of twenty 
 miles to Rampur, arriving only in time to find that Mr. 
 McWhinney had gone home. When the remains of our 
 brother had been committed to their last resting-place 
 in that far-away grave in Rampur, Mr. Mulligan returned 
 to Jhalod. Shortly after he was attacked with cholera. 
 This was followed by an attack of typhoid fever, which 
 ended fatally, and our brother fell asleep in Jesus on 
 Tuesday night, the 14th of August, about eight o'clock. 
 He died, another victim to overwork. With him duty 
 
 92 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 was paramount. He counted not his life dear unto him- 
 self in order that he might finish his course with joy." 
 
 It would be difficult to exaggerate the hardships of the 
 workers among such classes of people and in such remote 
 places. The Viceroy, Lord Curzon, in his great speech 
 on the famine, delivered on the 19th of October, 1900, 
 thus refers to the noble work done by famine relief 
 officers and missionaries: 
 
 " In a famine campaign, which has lasted so long and 
 has provided so many opportunities for chivalry and 
 self-sacrifice, it would not be difficult, but it might be 
 invidious, to select any names for special mention. 
 Numerous cases of devotion, amounting to loftiest hero- 
 ism, have been brought under my notice. I have heard 
 of Englishmen dying at their posts without a murmur. 
 I have seen cases where the entire organization of a 
 vast area and the lives of thousands of beings rested 
 upon the shoulders of a single individual, laboring on 
 in silence and solitude while his bodily strength was 
 fast ebbing away. I have known of natives who, in- 
 spired by this example, have thrown themselves with 
 equal ardor into the struggle, and have unmurmuringly 
 laid down their lives for their countrymen. Particularly 
 must I mention the noble efforts of the missionary 
 agencies of the various Christian denominations. If 
 there ever was an occasion in which their local knowledge 
 and influence were likely to be of value, and in which 
 it was open to them to vindicate the highest standards 
 of their beneficent calling, it was here; and strenuously 
 and faithfully have they performed their task." 
 
 In the previous January this generous-hearted Viceroy 
 had said, before his council in Calcutta, that "to relieve 
 
 93 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the Indian poor from starvation and to save their lives, 
 British officers freely sacrificed their own. When I was 
 at Jabalpur, and again at Nagpur, I saw the modest 
 tombstones of English officers who had perished in the 
 last famine of 1896-97. These men did not die on the 
 battle-field. No decoration shone upon their breasts, 
 no fanfare proclaimed their departure. They simply 
 and silently laid down their lives, broken to pieces in 
 the service of the poor and the suffering among the 
 Indian people ; and not in this world, but in another, will 
 they have their reward. Only last week there was 
 admitted to a Calcutta hospital an English officer, 
 shattered in health and paralyzed in his limbs, who had 
 done nothing but wear himself out in famine work in the 
 Central Provinces." 
 
X 
 
 THROUGH FAMINE LAND 
 
 "It has gnawed like a wolf at my heart, mother, 
 A wolf that is fierce for blood; 
 All the livelong day, and the night beside, 
 Gnawing for lack of food." 
 
 Bhartpur, Jaipur, Phalera, Kuchawan, Merta, Bi- 
 kanir, Jodhpur, Biawar, Ajmir, Kishangarh, and many 
 other places, and all between and around and beyond 
 twenty states, and 12,000,000 people, helpless under 
 this merciless, pitiless, cruel calamity. Strong men, 
 sturdy descendants of Rajput warriors, grown feeble 
 under the clutch of the unseen tyrant, their cattle dead 
 and their children wasted away, sold their ploughs and 
 hoes and brass drinking-pots, to buy a morsel of bread. 
 Gaunt mothers, carrying, not on hip,^ but over shoulder, 
 emaciated babies, plead, in the name of Heaven, for a 
 few grains of corn. Oh, the mortality of the innocents! 
 Children abandoned at the road-side, and the mother, 
 half eaten of jackals, lying dead in the field. And that 
 embodiment of avarice and greed, the bunya, sits in his 
 shop door and rubs his greasy hands, and, immoved 
 by the pitiful wailing around him, raises the price of 
 grain, which, from more fortunate provinces, has sought 
 through him a market. 
 
 Sitting in front of the house, in the dusk of the evening, 
 
 ' It is customary for an Indian mother to cany her child astride 
 of her hip. 
 
 95 
 
.TN FAMINE LAND 
 
 I heard the cry of a child — a child in distress. I waited, 
 and listened. It was a child's voice pleading for food. 
 I answered the voice, and bade it draw near ; and, out 
 of the semi-darkness, to my feet came a waif, emaciated, 
 hungry, and naked. When the boy had become calm, 
 I said, "Who are you?" 
 
 "AThakur." 
 
 "What is your name?" 
 
 "Rustam." 
 
 "Well, Rustam, what do you want?" 
 
 " I am starving." 
 
 " Why do your parents not help you?" 
 
 "They are dead." 
 
 "When did they die?" 
 
 "They starved to death at Abu Road."^ , 
 
 "And have you no one?" 
 
 "Only God." 
 
 "And will you stay with me?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 And so, out of the precious fund, the child was saved. 
 
 At many railway-stations I found miserable creatures 
 soliciting alms from the passengers on the train. I did 
 not observe many respond. I tried to give something 
 to the children, but adults nearly always attempted to 
 snatch it away from them. At one station, when about 
 fifty beggars were pleading for help, I distributed five 
 rupees to mothers with babies and to feeble old women, 
 and, for the most part, ignored the men ; but the train 
 had no sooner started than the men fought with the 
 women to get the money away from them, and the last 
 I saw was two men shaking a poor woman with a baby 
 clinging to her shoulder, and another man throwing 
 an aged woman down, to get the money. Alas! how 
 brutalizing is poverty. 
 
 I left Phalera at 1.15 in the morning, and, travelling 
 
 96 
 

IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 via Sambhar Lake Branch to Kuchaman Road, pro- 
 ceeded thence 176 miles over the Jodhpur-Bikanir Rail- 
 way, arriving at Bikanir at five o'clock in the evening. 
 If sand had the commercial value of salt what endless 
 riches could be gathered between Phalera and Bikanir. 
 After leaving Merta Road, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. the 
 train passes over one great sea of sand blown up in 
 waves upon the vast barren plain, and burning under the 
 fierce rays of the sim, while the air is full of fine particles, 
 which penetrate everywhere. But, alas! this season 
 there is no food, and out of this weary waste grows no 
 green thing. There are, here and there, dry water- 
 courses, but for three years there has been no running 
 water in them. There are fields, but they are of sand; 
 wells, but they have gone dry; villages, but without 
 inhabitant; cattle, but in great bone-heaps at the side 
 of the railway. I said to an official at Merta Road, 
 ' ' This famine will continue for two years. " " For ten, ' ' 
 he replied. "Cattle dead, inhabitants wandered away, 
 no grain for seed— the effect will be felt for ten years, 
 and then it will be time for another." I am told that 
 the famine of 1868 made a difference of more than a 
 million in the population of Rajputana alone. 
 
 I was awakened at daylight, long before I reached 
 Merta Road, by the pathetic cry of poor, emaciated 
 creatures who had crawled out of their villages to the 
 railway-stations, begging for food ; and from there on to 
 Bikanir, all day long, it was the same sad, bitter cry for 
 bread — men who were proud of their manly Rajput 
 forms feebly crawling to one's feet for food; women, 
 not old in years, but prematurely old with starvation 
 and sorrow; mothers not able to stand, with little 
 skeleton babies ; children long since bereft of playfulness 
 and laughter ; and on every face depicted a hopelessness, 
 sadness, and gloom indicative of abandonment to the 
 7 97 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 insatiable demands of a cruel necessity. To many of 
 these, relief works are no relief. They are too far away ; 
 they are loath to leave their homes ; but, especially, they 
 are too weak and feeble to work. The very old and 
 very young, and the infirm and sick cannot earn any- 
 thing on relief works. What will they do then? Die. 
 
 There is another thing which will hasten this on. 
 Cholera has broken out. Starvation is slow, and the 
 helpless victims gradually waste away and die. But 
 cholera does its work quickly. Seizing upon the famine- 
 stricken, the acute agony is speedil}^ followed by in- 
 evitable collapse, and almost certain death. At Nagaur, 
 between Merta Road and Bikanir, as many as one 
 hundred and fifty died in a day. The water they 
 brought two miles for me to drink was of the color of 
 beer and of an evil odor. Hunger and thirst drive the 
 people to use imwholesome food and poisoned water, 
 and, as a result, disease outruns starvation. 
 
 At night a dinner was given to 125 hungry Christians. 
 The food was a kind of mush made of rice and dal.'^ The 
 whole, with six annas for water and eight annas for 
 wood and the hire of the large iron caldron for cooking 
 the mess, cost ten rupees, and all had enough to eat. 
 The people seemed very grateful for the food, and joined 
 heartily in the singing and prayers which preceded, 
 and ended with repeated shouts of "Victory to Jesus!" 
 
 The Rev. George Henderson, superintendent of the 
 Seaman's Rest, Calcutta, made a tour in Rajputana, 
 and wrote his experiences as follows : 
 
 "Hearing that the famine in Rajputana was very 
 severe, I decided to go and take a look at some of the 
 
 * A kind of pulse, a common food of India. In many parts of 
 India the millions live all the year round on dal bhat and chapaties, or 
 pulse, rice, and unleavened, usually barley, cakes. 
 
 98 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 worst districts, and being advised by a friend that I 
 must go off the hne of railway and away from the big 
 towns in order to see it at its worst, I decided to take 
 several bicycle trips into the country, in different direc- 
 tions, to see the condition of the land, the people, and 
 what was being done for their relief. Words almost 
 fail to describe the distress among the poor people, and 
 the very sight of the land is something long to be re- 
 membered. Nothing describes it so well as to compare 
 it to Gustave Dore's illustration of Dante's ' Inferno.' 
 The land is bare and black, without a single green leaf 
 of any kind, and the skeletons of cattle lying about the 
 corners of the field. Several villages I visited were 
 altogether deserted, except for two or three old people, 
 who were waiting there to die. 
 
 "Miles of land are going out of cultivation for want 
 of rain and cattle to cultivate, and the only things left 
 standing are the babul trees, and all the leaves have 
 been taken off and the bark peeled off for the cat- 
 tle, until now they look like the remains of an 
 American forest after it has been swept by fire. The 
 few cattle remaining are being used to bring out loads 
 of hides, which is the only thing I saw being exported 
 from the famine districts. Rajputana, where I saw it, 
 is truly the 'land of the shadow of death,' and the 
 effect of going along a road and meeting people starving 
 and dying for want of food is very depressing. It 
 relieves your feelings to give them something to eat, 
 but it helps very little, and it is impossible to carry 
 food even to relieve temporarily the dying people you 
 meet. There is only one cry going up from the people, 
 and that is, ' Hungry and dying ' ; and, as you look at 
 them you wonder how they have managed to keep in 
 life so long. They have, indeed, become such skeletons 
 that they are horrible to behold. Most of the people 
 LofC. 99 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 you meet in the road hold up two fingers, to signify that 
 there is only God and you. 
 
 " I distributed the food I was carrying with me, as it 
 relieved my feelings, but it did them very little good, 
 for many of them with their last grains of flour have 
 scraped the bark off the babul trees and make cakes of 
 the bark and flour, which partly appeases the pangs 
 of hunger, but is soon fatal to them, as it brings on the 
 famine diarrhoea, which can only be overcome by 
 nourishment and careful nursing. A few miles out from 
 Nasirabad seven people had died and the police were 
 bringing in the bodies ; and I had gone but a little farther 
 when I spied some vultures at a feast a few yards from 
 the road. I dismounted and walked to the spot, driving 
 away the vultures and hoping that it would be a goat 
 or buffalo, but found that it was a human being of full- 
 grown size, and a very disgusting sight. Farther on I 
 came to a man and woman trying to reach the relief 
 works about a mile from them, and they were in the 
 last stage of starvation, but the man was trying to 
 encourage the woman, who had great difficulty in mov- 
 ing slowly. A few miles farther on was a woman dead 
 by the road-side, and many sights of that kind could be 
 seen. After leaving Nasirabad, and from that on to 
 eight miles beyond the town of Bundi, I did not see a 
 single growing crop except in the bottom of two rivers, 
 where they were growing some onions and melons, and 
 they had dug a well in the river-bed to get water to 
 irrigate their crops. The government have now taken 
 things in hand and are making great provisions for the 
 starving, about which I shall write you in my next." 
 
 Miss Lillian Marks, of Ajmir, wrote in April, 1900: 
 
 "Thus far God has provided funds to continue this 
 
 100 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 work, and we are asking Him with tears and sighs to 
 open the hearts of His people still further, that they 
 may take compassion on the starving people and on 
 us who witness their misery but cannot relieve it with- 
 out funds. 
 
 "One of my friends, Mr. Inglis, of the Presbyterian 
 Mission, has just returned from a journey of loo miles 
 around this place. He says: 'I expected to see suf- 
 fering, but it never entered my thought that I should 
 ever witness the sights that have shocked me on this 
 journey. I saw a boy dragging a skeleton of a man by 
 the feet, that it might be burned instead of devoured 
 by vultures or wild animals. I have seen dogs fighting 
 over the body of a child by the way-side. I counted 
 in one evening's journey forty dead bodies on the road, 
 and the next day thirty- two, and the following day 
 twenty-five. These had evidently tried to reach a relief 
 camp, but had waited too long before setting out, and 
 had died by the way. While sitting at tea with Dr. 
 Huntly we clearly heard some one crying. We went 
 out, and there were two little children standing, wailing. 
 Their mother had left them there and had gone away. 
 We gave them some food, and let them rest until we could 
 decide what was the best way of providing for them. 
 Having talked the matter over, we went out to them, 
 and there, to our astonishment, were ten children. Other 
 mothers, hearing what the first one had done, and seeing 
 that her children had been fed, had brought their 
 children, and had then run away. Only one returned, 
 her maternal love compelling her to bid her offspring 
 farewell. She begged us to keep them, and, though her 
 heart was breaking at the parting, she was thankful 
 that they, at least, would be fed. We gave her some 
 food, too, which she devoured greedily, almost like an 
 animal. Yet a very short time ago this woman was 
 
 lOI 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 well off, and was a respectable, well-behaved woman. 
 Now she was almost naked, and ravenously hungry.' 
 
 " I could readily credit such a narrative" [Miss Marks 
 continues], " even if it had not been told me by a friend 
 whose word I can rely on. Heart-rending cases have 
 come under my own observation, which were worse than 
 I have ever heard of in any former famine. Families 
 setting out to seek food, and, being separated, too feeble 
 to seek any child who might linger by the way. Terrible 
 partings, when the father is the only one strong enough 
 to undertake the journey; or, perhaps, taking one or 
 two of his boys with him, the mother and the young 
 girls left behind to starve. The aged, the crippled, and 
 the blind die, of course. What can be done? There is 
 no food for any one but those who can travel. Last 
 night I found a boy about four years of age by the way- 
 side. He looked so sad, and his little sunken cheeks and 
 bright eyes told the now all too familiar story. ' Mera 
 koi nahin hai' (I have not any one), he wailed, as he 
 looked tearfully in my face. I asked him where was 
 his mother. ' Dead,' he answered. His father? ' Gone 
 a long way off."' 
 
XI 
 
 CHOLERA 
 "There is a Reaper, whose name is Death." — Longfellow. 
 
 It is said that cobras always go in pairs. Certainly 
 calamities never come singly. One evil follows another. 
 Following in the wake of gaunt famine comes that 
 awful Oriental epidemic, cholera. At such a time con- 
 ditions and environments induce it. The system is ripe 
 for it; and it claims its victims by the thousands. Re- 
 lieving the famine- stricken is no easy task at any time, 
 but when cholera appears the burden is intolerable. 
 Relief camps are broken up, and thousands, forgetting 
 their hunger, seek in flight immunity from a greater evil, 
 only to fall victims at the way-side and spread the in- 
 fection throughout the surrounding villages. Universal 
 fear, a horrible feeling of helplessness and despair end- 
 ing in apathy and indifference, seems to seize upon the 
 miserable people. Officials double their diligence, and 
 missionaries work and pray as never before. These are 
 the days of heroism and self - f orgetfulness and faith- 
 fulness to duty and unselfish service to helpless hu- 
 manity. In South Africa men exposed themselves to 
 Boer bullets and unflinchingly faced a hidden foe, en- 
 during hardships which made the world wonder. Let 
 us generously award them the Victoria Cross. But in 
 India, without the "pomp of glorious war," or the hope 
 of earthly promotion or reward, move, quietly and 
 calmly, bands of noble men and women, seeking to 
 
 103 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 overcome a foe so wide-spread that fifty million people 
 feel his power, and so intrenched that there is but 
 little hope of speedy conquest. We knew the cholera 
 was coming to Rajputana. 
 
 The Rev. J. E. Robinson, editor of the Indian Witness, 
 visited Godhra early in May, 1900, and wrote of what 
 he saw as follows: 
 
 " At Godhra, I found Rev. R. C. Ward in charge of the 
 poor-house, with about seven hundred and fifty persons 
 in all stages of emaciation and weakness. These are the 
 old and infirm and children, unable to do even light 
 work, which the government requires shall be done by 
 all who are physically equal to it. It is impossible to 
 exaggerate the condition and appearance of those who 
 find their way into the poor-houses. Numbers. die on 
 the way. Their strength is unequal to the journey. 
 Straggling in from distant villages to the larger stations, 
 where relief is provided by the government, large num- 
 bers reach the poor-houses in the extreme of debility, 
 incapable of assimilating food, and utterly devoid of 
 strength to resist the attack of the first disease that lays 
 hold on them. Poor wrecks are constantly added to the 
 inmates by the police and the dhooli bearers, who pick 
 them up on the road-sides and under trees and carry 
 them to the poor-house. The impression made upon one 
 by these living skeletons is harrowing. Nothing goes 
 to one's heart so painfully as the sight of the little 
 children, whose wasted bodies seem beyond all possi- 
 bility of recuperation, no matter how carefully attended 
 to. Mr. Ward gives hours daily to the work in the poor- 
 house, seeking to infuse a kind, considerate spirit into the 
 subordinates, and to render the unspeakably hard lot 
 of the inmates as easy as possible. All that can be done 
 in the face of difficulty and disadvantage to alleviate 
 
 194 
 
«, 
 
 w 
 
 *~^ 
 
 H 
 
 ri 
 
 > 
 
 
 ?ci 
 
 
 <: 
 
 !U 
 
 H 
 
 "' 
 
 D 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 their sufferings and preserve their Hves is done. But 
 the best efforts prove futile in numberless instances. 
 At the time of my visit the terrible epidemic of cholera 
 which broke out in the relief-works camp had added 
 to the horrors of the situation at Godhra. Fourteen 
 thousand starving people were employed in enlarging 
 and deepening a tank at Godhra when cholera appeared 
 among them. The camp was broken up. The un- 
 happy creatures fled in every direction, hundreds of 
 them, alas! to fall victims to this dread scourge before 
 they had gone very far. The officials were not prepared 
 to cope with such an emergency at the moment, and 
 hundreds of corpses remained exposed for some days. 
 A corps of dhooli bearers was organized to carry the 
 offensive bodies to the places of burning, but in many 
 instance the bearers themselves were taken with cholera, 
 and lay down in the open beside the corpses they had 
 been carrying, or near the burning-pit, soon to suc- 
 cumb to the disease. Then a large number of carts was 
 gathered, and the work of removal was facilitated. The 
 bodies, mostly nude, were thrown in and carried off to 
 the burning-pit, their arms and legs dangling over the 
 ends of the carts, presenting a horrible spectacle. Fifteen 
 hundred corpses were picked up and disposed of within 
 a few days. In the cholera wards attached to the poor- 
 house I saw several scores of people in all stages of 
 cholera — men, women, and children — a large number 
 of whom were dying daily. Five corpses lay among 
 the sick and dying, waiting to be carried out to burn- 
 ing. The genius of a Raphael or a Dore and the pen 
 of a Dante would be needed to do justice to the fear- 
 ful spectacle. It will never fade from memory. 
 
 " A sad occurrence took place two days before my visit 
 to Godhra. A public-works overseer had pitched his 
 camp, constructed of bamboo mats, under a large ban- 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 yan-tree, adjoining the mission compound. His wife and 
 three children were with him. The wife was seized with 
 cholera on Monday morning. The missionary's wife 
 nursed her tenderly and did everything she could for her, 
 but all in vain. Mrs. Cooper died in the evening. The 
 missionary's wife's kind hands prepared the body for 
 burial, and, coffined in quick-lime, it was borne to the 
 cemetery, followed by the bereaved husband, the collec- 
 tor of the district, and the missionary. Next day the 
 husband and three motherless children proceeded to 
 Baroda to relatives. Passing through Baroda, on Wed- 
 nesday evening, I learned that Mr. Cooper had just died. 
 Oh, the tragedies of Indian life! 
 
 "To Mr. Ward's knowledge, five persons have died of 
 cholera under the banyan - tree beneath which Mr. 
 Cooper pitched his camp, Mrs. Cooper being the fifth. 
 The missionary did a wise thing in burning up the whole 
 camp paraphernalia that remained. 
 
 " Being down to the railway-station, it was sad to see 
 the surviving remnant of the fourteen thousand, who 
 a few days previously had been engaged in the relief 
 works, trying to make themselves comfortable in the 
 open, with the blazing sun pouring its fierce rays upon 
 them. God only knows what has become of hundreds 
 of others who have wandered off, members of families 
 separated, never to meet again, many to die in their 
 tracks and to spread the fatal disease to far-distant 
 villages." 
 
 On May 28th Dr. Louis Klopsch had completed his 
 tour of the famine districts in the Bombay Presidency, 
 including the native states of Gujarat and Baroda. His 
 investigation of the conditions in those sections was 
 most thorough. Everywhere he was confronted with 
 the most shocking and revolting scenes. He found the 
 
 106 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 famine camps stampeded by cholera and small-pox fu- 
 gitives, who had come from distant points of infection. 
 Many were dying in the fields and ditches and along 
 the road-side. 
 
 At Godhra, as has been related by Mr. J. E. Robinson, 
 there were 3000 deaths from cholera in four days. 
 Dr. Klopsch saw while there sixteen bodies incinerated, 
 this method of disposing of the dead being general 
 throughout the famine district. But in many places 
 the cholera came on so suddenly and unexpectedly that 
 there were no facilities for disposing of the dead in this 
 manner. In fact, in some places the authorities were 
 helpless, as all were in such a fright that no one would 
 serve either to gather the stricken into hospitals or to 
 dispose of the bodies of the dead. 
 
 At Dohad, some fifty miles east of Godhra, he found 
 a similar frightful condition of affairs, there having been 
 2500 deaths from cholera. The air of the place was 
 stifling and strongly impregnated with the frightful odor 
 of hundreds of decaying bodies which lay about un- 
 buried. The water was also impregnated with the 
 poison from the carcasses, and everywhere the stench 
 was indescribable and sickening. In the hospitals the 
 death rate, as reported by the physicians, was ninety per 
 cent. No language can adequately describe the terrible 
 condition of affairs in this section of India. Of this 
 dreadful condition of things Dr. Klopsch wrote: 
 
 " One-half of India to-day is a great charnel-house, in 
 which countless thousands have already perished of 
 cholera, plague, dysentery, and starvation, and as many 
 more are doomed to a like fate. How to describe it, 
 so as to bring it within the grasp of the human mind, I 
 know not. Twenty thousand cases of cholera weekly, 
 with a seventy - five per cent, mortality, representing 
 
 107 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 15,000 deaths every seven days; plague on every hand; 
 dysentery mowing down its victims right and left, and 
 starvation staring millions boldly and defiantly in the 
 face, reaping a harvest unprecedented — this tells the 
 horrible story about as accurately as a brief prose 
 summary of Milton's Paradise Lost would convey a 
 sense of its poetic sublimity. The skeleton may be 
 there, but the soul is wanting." 
 
 It is painful even to write the history of those awful 
 days. Conditions were ripe for such an epidemic. Often 
 unwholesome food, impure water, unsanitary conditions, 
 emaciated bodies, and exposure led to these sudden out- 
 breaks. On the nth of May, Mr. J. H. McNeill, of the 
 Jungle Tribes Mission, Dohad, Panch Mahals, wrote to 
 a friend: 
 
 "The one little ewe lamb of whom I wrote you some 
 time ago has now multiplied to twenty-six. Three of 
 these were brought from the side of their mother, lying 
 just beyond our hedge. Seven have lost their parents 
 by the cholera epidemic, which has been raging here for 
 the past ten days and claiming its victims at the rate 
 of forty per day. The epidemic broke out on the tank 
 where 8000 people were at work. All who were able 
 fled to their villages, taking the disease with them. 
 Those not able to flee dropped where they were on the 
 road, behind a tree or in a hole. Many made for our 
 house, but had not strength enough to bring them 
 the length, so perished before help could reach them. 
 We kept our boys running with hot milk to them, and 
 helping to succor those who had a little life left in them. 
 The stench from dead and dying is awful. I could not 
 tell you how many dead bodies were carried away from 
 about our house, but on Saturday morning the 
 
 108 
 

 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 mamlatdar called to see me about nine o'clock, and 
 told me that they had already collected 200 dead 
 bodies that morning; that same day we had ten re- 
 moved from about our house. 
 
 " Last Sunday evening my wife and I went to see how 
 a well, about one hundred yards from our house, was 
 holding out. On looking in we were horrified to see 
 two dead bodies lying — one on the last step down, the 
 other in the bottom of the well, where there was not 
 enough water to cover it. The people around were 
 using the water, and never thinking of having the bodies 
 removed. Needless to say, I had them removed and 
 the well cleaned out. 
 
 * ' We are besieged with people coming for medicine for 
 some friend who has cholera. Those attacked die in 
 four to six hours if not under treatment. Many drop 
 down when speaking to their fellows or going along 
 with their load. Oh, it is all so sad! It will be a relief 
 to breathe fresh air again. Nowhere can we turn outside 
 our compound without coming across dead bodies. It 
 is sickening to see the bodies of little children being 
 devoured by dogs. Had it not been for your timely 
 help these twenty-six little ones might have shared the 
 same fate. Could the generous donors see them now, 
 washed, clothed, and fed, they would feel well repaid 
 for all they have done to help poor, distracted India in 
 her time of need. Surely God means good to the poor 
 Bhils from all this. We hope to get a little breathing- 
 space when the rains come and our people get settled 
 down again. Last week we gave 475 meals per day to 
 children under twelve years of age." 
 
 Many pages might be filled with such pathetic stories 
 and in recording the heroism of the famine workers. 
 It is distressing enough to fight famine, but much more 
 
 109 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 terrible to face both famine and cholera, for one feels 
 so utterly helpless in the presence of such an insidious 
 and deadly foe. Cholera comes suddenly, does its work 
 quickly, and is no respecter of persons. 
 
 We in Rajputana knew cholera was at Khandwa, 
 then had crept up to Indore and Nimach, and that the 
 same causes would bring it to Nasirabad and Ajmir. 
 Our famine waifs, gathered with so much diligence and 
 difficulty and tended with so much consideration and 
 care, would not be immune. And so the storm broke. 
 Mr. Plomer wrote: "The anxious part of the famine 
 has dawned upon us. Cholera, whose ravages have 
 been heard of at Ujjain and Nimach, has appeared 
 among us. Miss Marks has had a few cases; we have 
 had four. Two have succumbed, one had to be sent 
 away to the municipal camp, and one, who took ill last 
 evening, has so far recovered as to be able to undertake 
 his journey to a village near Phalera. I have been 
 advised by the Civil Surgeon to put the boys, out for a 
 time. All this will entail very great expense." And 
 then from Miss Marks, on the 29th of April: "We were 
 indeed glad to welcome Dr. Emma Scott this morning. 
 She has all she can do. There have been nineteen 
 deaths from cholera this week, and everything is in 
 great confusion. To-day I move the women into camp, 
 and on Monday the girls all go. We succeeded with 
 great difficulty in getting a place, about two miles out, 
 where there is a well. The matron of the Woman's 
 Home died very suddenly last night. She was sick 
 only a short time. As I write, a woman comes from 
 one side to say a woman has just died, and a girl comes 
 from the boarding-house to say a girl has died. You 
 can imagine what all this means, especially this hot 
 weather. Pray for us. 11 a.m. — two more new cholera 
 cases," 
 
 no 
 

 ;--'^ 
 
 v^jA 
 
 
 •*^t 
 
 I r^. 
 
 A 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 From the 29th of April to the 26th of May, these elect 
 ladies, Miss Marks, Miss Tryon, and Miss Scott, M.D., 
 with their assistants, by turns remained with more 
 than two hundred women and girls in the cholera camp, 
 enduring the heat, patiently waiting upon the sick, 
 caring for the dying, cheering the living, and guarding 
 with their lives those whom Providence had put in their 
 charge. On the nth of May, Miss Scott drove me out 
 to the camp. I found several tents pitched under some 
 mango-trees, and rows of booths made of sirki, or reed- 
 grass, in which the missionaries and their proteges were 
 living. The cook-room was under a tree. The dining- 
 hall was the garden-path. Food was being prepared 
 when I arrived. Cholera had abated, and the children 
 seemed happy in their improvised home. Bu.t none can 
 know the anxiety and care and planning and arranging 
 and weary hours of toil required in meeting an emergency 
 like this until they have had the experience. And yet 
 there were compensations. How it brought out the 
 noble, unselfish natures of some. How it led to self- 
 sacrifice and true devotion. I was told that the matron 
 who died ignored her own illness in the night because 
 she did not wish to disturb those who needed rest, and 
 that her last words were an exhortation to those over 
 whom she had charge; that "heathen" servants volun- 
 tarily devoted themselves to the care of the sick and 
 were indispensable in the hour of the greatest need; 
 that the most menial services were rendered by the 
 most cultured and refined. And all came forth from 
 this furnace of affliction refined, purified, and ennobled. 
 On Sunday morning. May 27th, we all met for the first 
 time in the beautiful stone church, just completed, and, 
 crowding it to the doors, gave thanks to our Heavenly 
 Father for His deliverance from famine and cholera. 
 Here were assembled nearly four hundred men, women, 
 
 III 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 and children, nearly all of whom, six months ago, were 
 wandering, starving and naked, in the villages, but now, 
 fed, clothed, and sheltered, were surrounded with Chris- 
 tian influences and under Christian training. And the 
 faithful worker can look through his tears and feel that 
 he is compensated. 
 
XII 
 
 THE PLACE OF DEATH 
 
 "Ak ra jopra, Pok ra bar, 
 Bajra ra roti, Mot'h ra dal, 
 Dekho ho, Raja, Teri Marwar." 
 
 "Huts of the ak, barriers of thorns, 
 Bread of maize, lentils of the vetch, 
 Behold, rajah, your Marwar." 
 
 — Rajputana Folk Song. 
 
 "The black camel Death kneeleth once at each door. 
 And a mortal must mount, to return never more." 
 
 — Oriental Proverb. 
 
 It sometimes occurs that sailors in distress at sea 
 famish from thirst although surrounded with water; 
 and in Rajputana a Hke state of things has existed, for 
 grain poured into the country from the Northwest 
 Provinces and elsewhere in such quantities that the 
 railway companies and the hunyas have realized large 
 profits, and wheat is on sale at ten seers to the rupee ; 
 but as the poor peasant has no money, he must starve 
 to death with food at his door. At many of the railway- 
 stations I saw thousands of fat pigeons gorging them- 
 selves with grain from the loaded wagons on the siding, 
 while apathetic native officials stood by and saw the pre- 
 cious food devoured in the sight of scores of miserable, 
 famine-stricken villagers crying aloud for food. So tame 
 had the pigeons become that I had no difficulty in catch- 
 ing one, but I was immediately warned by a policeman 
 8 113 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 that there was no "order" to molest them. These 
 pigeons would have furnished food enough to have kept 
 a whole village from starving to death; but the high- 
 caste Hindu would rather starve to death than kill and 
 eat one of these birds. 
 
 Seventy-five years ago Lieutenant-Colonel Todd, in 
 travelling through the Marwar territory, noticed the 
 peculiar way in which the villages were constructed. 
 He says: "The villages are of a construction totally 
 distinct from anything we have seen, and more ap- 
 proaching the wigwam of the Western World. Every 
 commune is surrounded with a circumvallation of thorns, 
 and the stacks of boosa, or chaff, which are placed at 
 intervals, give it the appearance of a respectable forti- 
 fication. These boosa stacks are erected to provide 
 provender for the cattle in scanty, rainy seasons, when 
 the parched earth denies grass or full crops of maize. 
 They are erected to the height of twenty or thirty feet, 
 coated with a cement of cow-dung, and w4th a sprinkling 
 of thorns to prevent the fowls of the air from reposing 
 in them. In this manner, with a little fresh coating, 
 they will exist ten years, being only resorted to in 
 emergencies, when the kine may be said to devour the 
 village walls." There were no railways in those days, 
 and it is interesting to read of the primitive methods 
 of these denizens of the desert, kept up even in the 
 present day. 
 
 At a station between Merta Road and Jodhpur I saw 
 thousands of maunds of grain piled up in bags on the 
 sand at the side of the line, and men were selling it to 
 those who could pay the exorbitant price demanded. 
 Off at one side a miserable company of famine-stricken 
 people were looking with longing eyes towards the grain 
 bags, but with little hope of ever getting any of their 
 contents, A few pice distributed among them led to 
 
 114 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 an unexpected demonstration. About fifty half -starved 
 people rushed together and clamored for more. Their 
 cries were pitiful. I turned to a bunya and asked him 
 to weigh out some grain for them. But before he would 
 allow a grain of it to go to the starving people I must 
 meet his cash demands. And, after the bargain was 
 closed, it was difficult to distribute the grain equitably 
 among the noisy and clamoring crowd about me. There 
 was no time for ceremony. The crowd jostled one 
 another and fairly overpowered the man with the grain 
 basket, and each snatched away the portion intended 
 for another, and the train left, amid a scene of great 
 confusion, the bunya fighting to save his basket and his 
 person and the people to get the last available grain. 
 Alas! man, "made a little lower than the angels," has 
 fallen to the level of the brutes. 
 
 It was with much interest that I looked about the 
 town of Jodhpur, the capital of the Jodhpur state. 
 Even an enlightened rajah and a famous prime-minister 
 could not ward off a famine. There were the usual 
 gaunt, hungry men and women and emaciated children 
 with pitiful voices crying for food. 
 
 Jodhpur, or, as it is sometimes called, Marwar, or 
 "place of death," is the largest of the Rajputana states; 
 its greatest length is about three hundred miles, and 
 its greatest width one hundred and thirty miles. It 
 contains an area of 37,000 square miles. The popula- 
 tion of the state is about three millions — eighty -six 
 per cent. Hindus, ten per cent. Jains, with four per 
 cent, of Mohammedans. The Rajput caste predom- 
 inates. 
 
 The aspect of the country, viewed from the short line 
 of sixty-four miles from Marwar Junction to the capital, 
 is that of a sandy plain, from which rise here and there 
 picturesque conical hills. Some of these are crowned 
 
 IIS 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 with temples, and on the summit of one, the Nadolai 
 Hill, has been placed a colossal stone elephant. 
 
 The city of Jodhpur was founded by the Maharajah 
 Jodha, in 1550, and has been the seat of the capital ever 
 since. Jodhpur is one of the most picturesque towns in 
 India, standing on the edge of a rocky ridge of sand- 
 stone, 400 feet above the plain, with a splendid citadel 
 dominating it, perched on an isolated rock 800 feet high. 
 The place covers nearly half the area of the citadel, 
 which is, roughly, five hundred yards by two hundred. 
 The Dewan, or Hall of One Thousand Pillars, is a large 
 and handsome building, and the view from the upper 
 fort is very extensive. 
 
 The main streets of the city are lined with fine houses, 
 palaces of the maharajah, and the town residences of the 
 nobles and Thakurs, many of whom are very wealthy. 
 A strong wall, six miles in circumference, with seven 
 gates, encircles the city. But it was all, indeed, a 
 "place of death." 
 
 Marwar is rightly named — it is a "place of death." 
 Perhaps no native state has suffered more than Jodhpur. 
 The territory is mainly a sandy plain, which shades off 
 into the great Rajputana desert — a sort of "No Man's 
 Land." There had been a succession of bad seasons, 
 when no rain fell, no crops were raised, and the farmers 
 were not only out of food but out of work. Perhaps in 
 the whole history of famines there has been no such 
 record of mortality among cattle as in Marwar. Fully 
 ninety per cent, of all the cattle perished. Many of the 
 people perished with their cattle, for the farmers stay 
 by their patient beasts till the last. The farmer without 
 cattle is ruined. The hunya early commenced his ex- 
 tortion in Marwar. He made the farmers follow^ him 
 about like dogs. They were his bond slaves, and ever 
 at his mercy. Thousands of the Jodhpur people tried 
 
 116 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 to escape by migrating. But it was out of the frying- 
 pan into the fire. Bones and hides were available in 
 those days all along the pilgrim way. The via dolorosa 
 was strewn with them. The state was impoverished. 
 A large loan had to be made by the imperial govern- 
 ment in order to enable the state to open relief works. 
 The energetic prime-minister, Sir Pertab Singh, backed 
 by the council and advised by the British Resident, did 
 much to alleviate the suffering. But it was beyond the 
 power of man to do more than touch the fringe of it. 
 At such a time as this the railway shows its usefulness. 
 The Rajputana-Malwa and the Jodhpur-Bikanir rail- 
 ways brought from the Northwest Provinces thousands 
 of tons of grain. It was this which served the relief 
 works and made them possible. But there was a 
 fodder famine as well. A regiment of Imperial Service 
 Cavalry was sent as far as Muttra to escape the fodder 
 famine. 
 
 Added to these calamities was the inevitable cholera 
 epidemic. At and around Pali, where many thousands 
 were on relief works, cholera broke out and carried off 
 many hundreds. It was difficult at first to find any 
 one willing to remove and burn the bodies, and such was 
 the fear of the disease that the people left the relief 
 works and carried the infection far and wide. The 
 opinion of one making a special study of the famine and 
 its results, uttered at the beginning of May, that "there 
 can no longer be any doubt that a calamity of the most 
 appalling kind is beginning to break over India, and 
 that hundreds of thousands of poor wretches who have 
 been reduced by want and by the hardships and un- 
 natural conditions of life in the famine camps will go 
 down before the blast," was being verified. Truly, the 
 condition of the Marwari was wretched. Possessing 
 neither cash nor credit, food nor fodder, water nor work, 
 
 117 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 harried by hunger and cut down by cholera, he could 
 only turn his pleading face to the passer-by and point 
 with his bony finger heavenward. 
 
 Leaving Jodhpur at ii p.m., I reached Marwar Junc- 
 tion in the early morning, and there, unexpectedly 
 meeting the Rev. W. W. Ashe, M.D., who had come 
 from Aligarh to assist in famine work, we proceeded 
 together to visit the relief camp near at hand. We 
 found a large enclosure, in which the poor people herded 
 at night, and a food depot from which grain was given 
 out. Piles of material for making string cots, and bam- 
 boos for making roofs and booths, and wood to cook 
 with, were piled up near the rail way -lines. But when I 
 asked for grain to feed about a hundred people who 
 gathered about, only a mere handful of maize could be 
 found. I sent to a village near by for some pice, and, 
 remembering my experience in distributing the com, I 
 had the people seated in a long row and two men com- 
 menced to give out pice, one from either end, while the 
 relief camp employes stood, sticks in hands, to keep 
 order. But when, desiring to hasten the distribution, I 
 took the pice myself, and, telling the men with sticks 
 to stand back, commenced to dispense my own charity, 
 the whole miserable crowd sprang upon me like a pack 
 of hungry wolves, and I saw one of the difficulties of 
 doing such work in an orderly manner without the use 
 of means to suppress the unspeakable impatience of 
 the people. 
 
 On the way back from the station, on the outskirts of 
 the village. Dr. Ashe found the skeleton of a child, and 
 brought away part of the bones of the head in his 
 handkerchief, to preserve as a memento. 
 
 At Sujat Road, where we took breakfast, Mr. S. O. 
 Smith, District Traffic Inspector on the Rajputana- 
 Malwa railway, told me pitiful tales of the condition of 
 
 ii8 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the people up and down the Hne, and of his efforts to 
 help save some of them. As a result of the short talk 
 a committee was formed, funds were furnished, and a 
 most successful kitchen was started. Thus, within a 
 short distance of each other, two valuable agents were 
 found who gave splendid help all through the famine. 
 
 At Biawar we were kindly entertained in the home 
 of the Rev. J. Anderson Brown, M.A., of the United 
 Presbyterian Mission. Mr. Brown, being secretary and 
 treasurer of the Mission Famine Relief Committee, was 
 able to give me much useful information. They had 
 rescued about thirteen hundred children, who are dis- 
 tributed among the orphanages. It was an interesting 
 but pathetic sight to see some of the poor waifs who 
 had recently been rescued from starvation. Dr. R. G. 
 Robson, who is associated with Mr. Brown, showed 
 us his excellent arrangements for segregating his fever, 
 ophthalmia, and dysentery cases. Disease is sure to 
 follow in the wake of famine, and many rescued from the 
 latter will succumb to the former. But what a blessed 
 thing it is to be able to save some of these poor wrecks of 
 humanity. More to be valued and greater to be praised 
 than the life-saving stations established along stormy 
 coasts are these havens where many a poor submerged 
 one has been rescued from starvation, disease, and death. 
 
 I spent Sunday and Monday, April 8th and 9th, in 
 Ajmir, inspecting the famine orphanages and other 
 work, holding our Famine Relief Committee, planning 
 that a more systematic effort should be made to save 
 the children. A sum of money was voted to each 
 preacher in charge of rescue work, and an allowance 
 per mensem to each circuit to help any particularly 
 needy Christians, to be reported monthly to the secre- 
 tary, who was directed to keep a descriptive record of 
 each person rescued, for future reference. Relief, in the 
 
 119 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 form of payment for work, would be continued, as far as 
 practicable, and industrial work, such as weaving, shoe- 
 making, etc., was to be carried on at Bikanir, Phalera, 
 and Ajmir, in connection with the training-schools and 
 orphanages at those places. 
 
 New dormitories for girls and women were just com- 
 pleted, and a much-needed school-house commenced by- 
 Miss Marks, who, with Miss Try on, was indefatigable 
 in helping the famine-stricken, of whom hundreds have 
 been rescued and are being fed. One large dormitory 
 and school-house for the boys' orphanage was com- 
 pleted by Mr. Plomer, and another dormitory was being 
 built, and a new church for both orphanages. 
 
 A visit, on Monday afternoon, with Rev. George Hen- 
 derson, of the Seaman's Mission, Calcutta, and Mr. 
 Plomer, to the government poor-house, was interesting 
 and instructive. A mile out of town, on the other side 
 of a hill, on a level place, was a large square, walled in 
 with grass, internally divided into other smaller squares 
 for the various classes of paupers — men, women, children, 
 sick, etc. In a smaller square was the kitchen, where 
 they were cooking mush, made of cracked wheat and 
 dot, in a large caldron, and under a thatch at one side 
 making large chapaties, or unleavened cakes, of wheat 
 flour. They told us that there were 484 inmates that 
 are destitute and are unfit for relief works. Such were 
 received and fed until either able to work, in which 
 case they earn something at the relief camp or dis- 
 appear in several natural ways. 
 
 On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I gave dinners 
 to the poor Christians at Sali and Naraina respectively, 
 two towns near the railway between Kishangarh and 
 Phalera. At the first of these places I found some one 
 hundred and fifty miserable creatures assembled, and the 
 dinner cooking in a large pot. Four or five Christian 
 
 120 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 men, under the direction of the preacher in charge, 
 soon seated the people in two long rows on either side 
 of a quiet street; a short service of song and prayer 
 and a homily was conducted ; then large leaves, pinned 
 together, were distributed for plates; the waiters came 
 with large dishes full of the delicious mixture of rice 
 and dal; about a pound was given to each, and then, 
 for the space of the next twenty minutes, not a sound 
 was heard save the sound which actually sounded 
 musical — the sound of one hundred and fifty starving 
 Christians eating. 
 
 At Naraina, the next evening, there was a much 
 larger crowd, for not only did the 200 Christians also 
 come, but nearly all the poor of the town. These latter 
 had to be turned away, as well as several Christians 
 who had seated themselves separately from the others, 
 hoping thus to save their caste by not coming in contact 
 with those of lower degrees. When all were seated, 
 there was the usual service, the distribution of leaves, 
 the dishing-out and the serving of food, the silent eating, 
 and a concluding spontaneous expression of gratitude. 
 It cost fifteen rupees to give these two dinners, or 
 about three dollars. 
 
 I stopped two days in Jaipur to visit the great famine 
 relief camp there. I walked about half a mile from 
 the railway-station to the ofhce of the superintendent, 
 and was accompanied to the works and the camp by 
 the assistant, whose business it is to enroll and feed the 
 people. First of all, he showed me the daily register, 
 from which he permitted me to take the following 
 figures for the 12th of April — viz., On the works: men, 
 2773; women, 2370; children, 1888; total, 7031. In 
 hospital, 450; children receiving gratuitous aid, 1102. 
 Total in relief camp, 8583. When I got to the works, 
 about 8 A.M., I found more than seven thousand people, 
 
 121 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 like a colony of ants, busy removing a sand-bank, by 
 filling baskets and carrying them on their heads across 
 a narrow valley, which was to be levelled. The official 
 told me they worked six hours a day, and each would get 
 from a pound to a pound and a half of flour in the evening, 
 which they prepared for the day's food. They were not 
 given fuel, but saved grass roots and other combustibles 
 dug from the hill in the course of the day's work. Some 
 distance away were 400 huts, half under and half above 
 ground, covered with thatch, each designed for twenty, 
 in which the poor people lodge. There were a hospital 
 and a storehouse, and a place for orphans, of whom 
 there were 114, and, on the outskirts, places for the 
 disposal of the dead. Carts from the transport corps 
 were constantly bringing in the needy from the villages 
 and carrying out the sick to the hospital, and the dead 
 to the dead-house. About a hundred new-comers sat, 
 or stood, at the road-side, pleading to be taken on. 
 Some of them had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, 
 and would get nothing till evening. But perhaps no 
 native state in Rajputana looks after its poor better 
 than Jaipur. The maharajah has given fifteen lakhs of 
 rupees, to remain at the disposal of the imperial govern- 
 ment, for famine relief. Roads, wells, tanks, and other 
 improvements were being made, at the expense of the 
 state, to afford aid to the sufferers. Private subscrip- 
 tions were opened and wealthy citizens have given 
 liberally. But, in spite of it all, the heavens were brass 
 and the sandy plains bore no fruit. 
 
XIII 
 
 RECEIVING AND GIVING 
 
 "Bis dat qui cito dat." 
 
 "He who has his food to himself has his sin to himself." 
 Rigveda, x., 117, 6. 
 
 Early in the year a famine committee was formed 
 at Ajmir, which thoroughly organized the work of rehef 
 in Rajputana, and carefully administered the funds 
 which came into its hands from various sources, and 
 employed agents to rescue the perishing and gather 
 starving waifs into central stations and rescue camps, 
 where they could be fed and clothed and distributed. 
 This relief was rendered possible through the munificent 
 contributions of a multitude of Christian givers through- 
 out the world, under the direction of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Missionary Society, the Americo-Indian Famine 
 Relief Committee, the American Sialkot Mission Com- 
 mittee, the Christian Herald, New York; the Christian, 
 London; the Indian Witness, Calcutta; the Guardian, 
 Bombay; the Indian Sunday-School Journal, Calcutta, 
 and other societies, committees, and periodicals; also 
 through the private donations of friends, sent direct to 
 the chairman or other members of the famine com- 
 mittee. As a specimen of these latter, and to show how 
 far-reaching was the sympathy for the people in their 
 distress, I quote the following letter, which contained 
 seventy-five rupees: 
 
 123 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 "Anglo-Chinese College, Foochow, China, July 12, 1900. 
 
 " Dear Dr. Scott, — Some of the students of our college have 
 been reading of the intense suffering caused by the famine 
 in India, and have subscribed a small sum as a token of their 
 sympathy. I trust that in the providence of God the little 
 gift may be the means of saving some one from starving. I 
 should prefer it to be used among the Christians, and that they 
 be told that it represents the Christian love of their brothers in 
 China. May God richly bless you in your work. We have 
 had a good year in our work. A revival in the college resulted 
 in over seventy conversions. 
 
 "Yours in the Master's service, 
 
 "James Simester, 
 
 "Acting President." 
 
 From all sources more than two lakhs of rupees 
 ($67,000) have passed through the hands of the com- 
 mittee for the relief of the starving poor of Rajputana. 
 
 One of the most touching results of the famine was 
 the self-denying love and sympathy aroused in the hearts 
 of many who could not afford to help much, but sent 
 a little they got together by careful saving and per- 
 sonal effort. Such money is very precious. Take, for 
 instance, the Aligarh orphans, themselves just out of 
 famine, doing without their Christmas-dinner that they 
 might have something with which to help the starving 
 Christians of Rajputana; or the equally sincere self- 
 denial of the inmates of the Lucknow Widows' Home; 
 or the five-rupee money-order from a child ; or children 
 giving up their birthday money; or collections taken in 
 native communities when they were needing funds to 
 support their own current work. 
 
 The children of America very zealously helped to 
 raise money for the Christian Herald fund. Some of 
 their little offerings are reported below: 
 
 Mrs. H. L. B., Raleigh, Illinois, $i. From Hal, aged six 
 years; he had saved it to buy a tool-chest. — A Friend, 
 
 124 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 $io. From a young girl who went without car-fare to 
 save money to buy a camera. Reading in a copy of 
 the Christian Herald that fell into her hands of the 
 deserted, helpless children of India, she said: "Oh, I 
 can't be so wicked and selfish as to spend this on a 
 camera. I hear the cry of those poor little babies all 
 night. This money will almost care for one orphan 
 for a whole year." — Mrs. G. Parker, Minnesota, $i. " My 
 little five-year-old son, Warren, has been saving up his 
 money for over a year to buy a black-board. May the 
 Lord bless his little gift." — Evelyn Dennison. "I send 
 four cents ; all I have." — Mrs. Ingle, 25 cents. " My little 
 boy sends all his money for India's children." — Claire 
 Woodsun, Maine, 25 cents. " I had it to buy candy with." 
 — Little Aggie Boray, $5 . "I gave up my birthday-party 
 to make some poor little orphans happy on my birth- 
 day." — George and Hazel Reynolds, $2.25. "Hazel 
 sold her three chickens to make hers." — May Hughes, 
 $1. "My sister Janie and I have made it for the wee 
 India orphans." 
 
 Mr. Thomas A. Bailey, assistant secretary of the 
 Americo-Indian Famine Relief Committee, received the 
 following touching letter from Taubuland, South Africa : 
 
 "I am sending you an order for £2 towards the 
 famine fund. You will be interested in hearing that 
 fifteen shillings of this amount is from our household — 
 that is, our Kaffir servants. Last evening (Sabbath) 
 I read to them of the famine and need, and they were 
 much interested. Faithful old John was our first 'boy' 
 at Lutubenl, where we lived for a year. He and his 
 wife have been with us practically since we came up here ; 
 we believe they have both received the Lord Jesus into 
 their hearts, and now they are very keen to get others 
 saved. We do thank God for them. John came to me 
 
 125 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 to-day and said he and his wife wished to give some 
 money to help the poor famine sufferers. He has two 
 pounds that I am keeping, saved from his wages, and 
 he said they did not quite know how much — would one 
 pound do? I said ten shillings was enough, I thought, 
 and thanked him. But he said ' No.' He thanked me 
 for telling them of the poor Indians. Then Mbete, a 
 young boy who professes to love the Lord, and is, we 
 hope, real and sincere — he wished to know how much I 
 wanted, but I said ' No ; I don't want to make it heavy 
 for you. You choose yourself.' He then said ten shil- 
 lings, but I said five shillings would be a nice little help. 
 So he was satisfied." 
 
 But a very brief account of the various forms of 
 famine relief carried on during the year can -be given 
 in this chapter. It was found better to give the stricken 
 people food rather than money, for starving people have 
 no fuel, and cooked food is better than dry grain. And 
 so kitchens were started at many places, as Tilaunia, 
 Naraina, Phalera, and Sujat Road, where thousands of 
 poor famishing creatures were fed daily. In June, 
 thirty-seven wagons, or 7400 bags, of maize were re- 
 ceived from the Christian Herald corn-ship Quito, and 
 from this the kitchens were supplied, and grain-shops 
 were opened at convenient centres, where the very 
 poor could get a gratuitous daily dole and others could 
 purchase for a nominal price. From these shops were 
 gathered nearly ten thousand rupees, mostly in pice, 
 which were again distributed in the form of food and 
 clothing. During the year nearly three thousand waifs 
 were rescued and gathered into four orphanages and a 
 widows' home, or sent to institutions organized else- 
 where. 
 
 Two training-schools were opened for pastor-teachers 
 
 126 
 
GRAIN STORED AT GODHRA READY FOR VILLAGES 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 at Phalera and Bikanir respectively. Industrial work 
 of various kinds was opened up. Many weavers, es- 
 pecially Christians, were employed in weaving cloth. 
 At Ajmir, Tilaunia, Phalera, and Bikanir a number were 
 thus helped. The Bikanir Christians alone wove about 
 two thousand woollen blankets. When the cold season 
 came on nearly ten thousand blankets and suits of 
 clothing were distributed to the destitute. Every poor 
 Christian in Rajputana received warm clothing. For 
 the use of the schools and orphanages suitable buildings 
 have been erected at Ajmir and Phalera. 
 
 The beautiful new stone church, built at Ajmir by 
 Mr. Plomer, was dedicated in May, 1900, and the com- 
 modious Memorial School-house for the girls' school at 
 Ajmir was opened in March, 1901. 
 
 In reviewing the famine work of the past year it is 
 impossible to describe the anxiety and solicitude of those 
 engaged in it, nor the personal hardships which they 
 endured. I can corroborate all that Miss Marks wrote 
 concerning the condition of things in May : 
 
 "Conditions are growing steadily worse. Horrible 
 stories come to us from eye - witnesses — government 
 officials, missionaries, railway employes, and natives — 
 of bodies by the way-side being devoured by vultures, 
 jackals, and dogs. Heart-rending cases have come un- 
 der my own observation. No pen can exaggerate the 
 suffering. Families separate to seek food, never to meet 
 again. Children are beaten and turned from their 
 homes. Wives are thrust out with two or three children 
 clinging to them. The aged, the crippled, and the blind 
 are left by the road -side to die. Hundreds of orphans, 
 forsaken by their relatives, wander about, begging and 
 picking up anything the}'" can find to eat. The grain 
 market is thronged with these human birds, picking out 
 
 127 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 of the dirt every grain that falls, and even gathering 
 manure to wash from it the undigested grains. 
 
 "Orphans brought to us as the famine increases are 
 more and more emaciated. A child was brought to us 
 who had lain, sick and naked, by the road-side for eight 
 days without a morsel of food. She looked more like 
 an animal than a human being. Care and nourishment 
 have wrought a wondrous change in her. 
 
 "Yesterday a boy, thirteen years of age, was brought 
 to our veranda, just as he was gasping his last. The 
 emaciated body, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes told 
 the sad tale of starvation. A few minutes afterwards 
 two more boys came up, and if you could only have 
 heard the pitiful cry of those two brothers as they gazed 
 upon the face of the dying lad whom they had lost in 
 their wanderings and had not seen for fifteen days! 
 ' Have we found you only to look into your dead face?' 
 they wailed. Mother and father had succumbed to 
 hunger, and these three brothers had for a time tried 
 to keep together, but in their quest for food were 
 separated. 
 
 " Last night I found a little boy, nearly four years of 
 age, sitting at the door of the railway - station. He 
 looked up into my face in such a hopeless way, and I 
 said, 'Have you no father or mother?' 
 
 " ' No ; my mother died of hunger, and my father went 
 off and left me,' was the reply, with the reiteration, 'I 
 haven't got any one.' 
 
 "'Will you come with me?' I asked. You should 
 have seen with what alacrity he jumped up, and the 
 smile that illumined his dirty face. Friends, you would 
 not have had me leave him to perish. 
 
 "This morning a Bible -reader and pastor - teacher 
 brought twenty-seven starving widows and children to 
 us. As they came along they saw a young girl lying 
 
 128 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 dead by the road-side. No doubt as to the cause of 
 death. Starvation written in every feature. And the 
 twenty-seven — naked, covered with vermin, filth, and 
 sores." 
 
 Later Miss Marks wrote: "No pen can exaggerate 
 the suffering. Thousands of homeless, naked, and starv- 
 ing ones wander about from village to village in search 
 of work, water, and food. The aged, the crippled, and 
 the blind are left by the road- side to die. Hundreds 
 of children, forsaken by friends, go about begging and 
 picking up anything they can find to eat. I pray God 
 I may never witness another famine. That awful cry, 
 ' I am dying of hunger,' rings in my ears even when I lie 
 down to rest at~ night. How they do plead for work! 
 Men fall at my feet, crying and clutching my dress, 
 begging me to give them work. We are doing our 
 utmost ; we realize that this is the opportunity to show 
 the heathen what Christianity means." On August 
 23d she again wrote: "We are grateful for all the 
 help received for the poor starving creatures about us. 
 The rains have come in earnest, and we trust that in 
 three months more this famine will be a thing of the 
 past. By that time some of the crops ought to be ready 
 for harvest. The government has given seed, ploughs, 
 and oxen to the poor farmers who escaped death. 
 There is still great suffering, so many are homeless and 
 naked. In their weak, emaciated condition they suc- 
 cumb from exposure to the rain. It is sad to see them, 
 lying or sitting huddled together under a tree to shelter 
 themselves. We continue to take in widows and or- 
 phans, and have no difficulty in finding homes for those 
 we cannot keep permanently. Our kitchens, where, for 
 months, we have fed several hundred people daily, are 
 kept up, and will be so long as there is need for them. 
 9 129 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 We are now distributing as much clothing as possible. 
 We gave a contract to-day for 6000 blankets for the 
 poor. The famine people are weaving the cloth, we 
 furnishing the thread and paying them enough for the 
 weaving to buy their food. Fifty Christian families 
 have been kept from starving by giving them work on 
 our premises and on the new school building. We have 
 rescued three thousand girls and widows, and all have 
 been clothed, doctored, nursed, and fed. Our family 
 now numbers 700; the authorities have limited our 
 number in the city, and, at the same time, do not want 
 the children sent out of their own territory; therefore, 
 we expect to establish a second orphanage at Phalera, a 
 village six hours by rail from Ajmir, and we will have 
 500 girls in the two. The Widows' Home, of about one 
 hundred inmates, will also be in Phalera. These widows 
 must be supported until they learn to care for themselves. 
 We hope that many will become earnest Christians and 
 receive the call from above to preach the glad tidings 
 to their own people. It would take a volume to write 
 all the experiences of the year ; we have passed through 
 deep waters, but the Lord has gone before, and the 
 everlasting arms have upheld." 
 
XIV 
 
 SUJAT ROAD 
 
 "Give me three grains of corn, mother — 
 Only three grains of corn; 
 It will keep the little life I have 
 Till the coming of the morn." 
 
 How I came to help in the work at Sujat Road was 
 this: I had been on a tour of reHef to Bikanir and 
 Jodhpur, and was returning to Ajmir via Marwar 
 Junction, where I met Dr. Ashe, who subsequently took 
 charge of the famine relief work at Phalera, and we 
 both breakfasted together at the next station, Sujat 
 Road. When we entered the refreshment-room I was 
 greeted by Mr. S. O. Smith, the District Traffic Inspector 
 on the Rajputana-Malwa railway, and we at once com- 
 menced to talk about the famine, in which we were all 
 very much interested. He told us that he had been 
 doing what he could to help the poor people, and that 
 their condition was most distressing, but he was greatly 
 hindered for lack of funds. I was glad to be able to 
 assure him aid in this good work, and, giving him loo 
 rupees which I had with me, told him that I would 
 send him more if he would organize the work up and 
 down the line, and open kitchens and grain- shops, and 
 feed the people. This was the beginning of a great work, 
 which continued under Mr. Smith's supervision until 
 the rains came and the famine ended. He not only 
 fed thousands of starving creatures at his kitchens, but 
 he rescued hundreds of children and sent them to our 
 
 131 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 orphanages, and gave grain for seed, and ploughs with 
 which to plough the land, and when the cold weather 
 came on distributed many hundreds of warm blankets, to 
 protect them from the wet and cold. Miss Marks and 
 Miss Try on and Dr. Emma Scott found him exceedingly 
 helpful in seconding all their efforts to "rescue the 
 perishing," and many a poor child they brought in to 
 Ajmir through his aid. 
 
 He directed the native men who were sent out by us 
 to gather up the starving, and gave assistance in send- 
 ing the waifs on the trains. In all this he was not 
 alone, for Mrs. Smith was in deep sympathy with all the 
 work, and prepared, with her own hands, light foods 
 for the little ones and the very weak. Mr. Smith or- 
 ganized his staff, the station-masters and other railway 
 subordinates, into a famine committee, which did m^ost 
 excellent work. He was also a member of our central 
 committee at Ajmir, and often gave valuable help in 
 planning for the work. All up and down the line, from 
 Sujat Road to Abu Road and beyond, he fed the 
 starving people, and made regular reports, showing the 
 systematic way in which the work was done. Some 
 of those reports are before me as I write. He had 
 kitchens at Sujat Road, Rani, Mehsana, Erinpura Road, 
 Banas, Raho, Disa, and other places. Below is a weekly 
 report for Raho, one of the smaller kitchens : 
 
 STATEMENT OF STARVING PEOPLE FED AT RAHO STATION FROM 
 JULY lo TO JULY i6, igoo 
 
 Date 
 
 Weight of grain, 
 
 maunds' and 
 
 seers 
 
 Number of 
 bags 
 
 Number fed 
 
 Children 
 
 Women 
 
 Men 
 
 July lo 
 II 
 
 12 
 
 ". 13 
 
 14 
 
 ■' IS 
 
 " i6 
 
 I — 30 
 1—30 
 I — 30 
 1—30 
 I — 30 
 I — 30 
 1 — 30 
 
 i^ 
 1 54 
 i^ 
 
 i54 
 iMa 
 
 ISO 
 160 
 170 
 200 
 200 
 200 
 200 
 
 ISO 
 160 
 160 
 ISO 
 160 
 ISO 
 160 
 
 70 
 80 
 80 
 75 
 75 
 80 
 80 
 
 1 A maund is equal to eighty pounds. 
 132 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 In writing of the work under Mr. Smith, I cannot give 
 a better account of the rehef carried on by him than 
 that contained in his letters and reports sent me from 
 time to time. On the loth of June he wrote me from 
 Abu Road concerning his kitchen. This kitchen had 
 been recently opened to feed the starving poor in the 
 villages immediately about Mr. Smith's headquarters, 
 and there was no intention that this would in any way 
 overlap the work being done by the state at Marwar 
 Junction. 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — The Jodhpur Durbar have at last woke 
 up to the fact of our feeding their starving at Sujat Road. 
 So they sent in some officials and carted over five hundred 
 men, women, and children away to Marwar Junction and other 
 famine works. This, of course, reHeves our kitchen; but a few, 
 about fifty, remain, and so I am keeping on feeding. I am 
 sorry for the poor people, for numbers, to a certainty, will die 
 if all one hears of the feeding at Marwar Junction is true. 
 
 "This will stop our rescue of children at Suiat Road in a great 
 measure. But still I can do a lot in the district, and will do so. 
 I brought in thirty-one on Saturday, and sent them in with Miss 
 Marks, who came to Sujat. I expect to get some at Raho to- 
 morrow, and hope to make up a good number this week from 
 different stations. Yours sincerelj'^, 
 
 "S. O. Smith." 
 
 Dr. Ashe and I had inspected the relief camp at 
 Marwar Junction and were not favorably impressed 
 with all the arrangements. Certainly these poor people 
 would not be so well fed as at Sujat Road, where they 
 were getting their food free of expense to the state. 
 But the removal of these only made room for a kitchen 
 elsewhere. There was no danger of being left without 
 applications for food. Everywhere there were gaunt 
 creatures, with diaphragms knocking against their spine, 
 and little children with pinched faces and old looks and 
 shrivelled bodies, whose pleading looks kept telling the 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 pathetic story of hunger. On the 20th Mr, Smith 
 wrote me again: 
 
 "My wife writes me to-day that our kitchen work at 
 Sujat Road has entirely stopped. The rajah has at last 
 wakened up to the fact that we were feeding six hundred 
 of their poor and starving, and they have taken every 
 one away to Karthi, and have asked us to stop our 
 kitchen work. 
 
 " I have sent word now to stop the feeding for a time, 
 till we see how matters go. This will stop my rescue 
 of orphans from Sujat Road, in a measure, but I am 
 still collecting them from the district. 
 
 ' ' I sent in nine yesterday. In order to collect orphans, 
 I gave a feed at Raho yesterday, when ninety poor 
 starved wretches sat down to dinner. As the work 
 at Sujat Road is stopped, may I utilize the money and 
 form small kitchens at other stations, under good and 
 reliable supervision? Reply early." 
 
 It was exceedingly necessary that the starving people 
 be rescued and fed as soon as possible, for the suffering 
 was becoming intolerable and the mortality increasing 
 day by day. The proposition to open other kitchens 
 was at once approved. I told him to do so, and several 
 new kitchens were the result. I received almost daily 
 letters as to the progress of the work. On the 21st he 
 wrote from Mehsana: 
 
 "I am going on rescuing children and sending them 
 into Ajmir every week. I sent in eight to Sujat Road 
 on the 19th. Some of them were picked up in a bad 
 state and need a good deal of care to bring them around. 
 If you have received your Christian Herald fund food- 
 stuffs, send me a couple of dozen tins of any of the 
 
 134 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 following milk - foods — viz. : (i) Nestle's milk - food ; 
 (2) Allen Hamburey's food; (3) Mellin's food, or any- 
 other of similar foods.* 
 
 "These bring the little ones around very rapidly, 
 I hope I'll be able to meet you at the next meeting at 
 Ajmir. I have opened kitchens at Disa and Raho, 
 and will endeavor to open another at Rohira or Pind- 
 wara with the consent of the rajah. I have also made 
 a grant of fifty rupees to Mr. Sheffield, loco-foreman, 
 Mehsana, who is doing excellent work, and I shall send 
 him fifty bags of the corn when I get it. It has not 
 arrived yet. 
 
 "Some bags I'll send to Raho, others to Disa. I 
 propose, with the remainder, to make grants for seed 
 grain to impoverished farmers around Sujat Road. 
 
 "About rescue of children, I can't do much in this 
 alone, as I cannot attend to the little ones on the line. 
 If you want this work continued, a couple of good, 
 diligent women should be stationed at Abu Road to col- 
 lect them, and a man to travel about with me, station 
 to station, who could take them direct to Ajmir. This 
 is the only way of doing really good work on this line. 
 
 " I hope to be in at Ajmir on the 3d or 4th, and 
 will settle the matter with the Rev. C. H. Plomer and 
 Miss Marks. 
 
 " Pandita Ramabai^ is doing excellent work on these 
 lines. The feeding of the poor at Abu Road has been 
 stopped by the state, and it is therefore now a splendid 
 field for the rescue of children if properly worked." 
 
 * The Rev. Dennis Osborne, of Poona, was very active in gathering 
 such supplies, and during several visits to England secured large 
 amounts of tinned provisions, which were sent through Messrs. 
 Watson & Co., Bombay. 
 
 ^ I visited Pandita Ramabai's Mukti Mission at Kedgaon, near 
 Poona, and found 1900 women and girls, mostly widows, being 
 cared for. She collected Rs. I., 33,000 for this work last year. 
 
 135 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 The workers requested for rescue work were sent. 
 On the 28th he wrote from Sabarmati: 
 
 "I sent in fifteen children yesterday to Miss Marks, 
 and am keeping up the rescue work quietly, so as not 
 to alarm the state people. I do a little every week in 
 this way. 
 
 ' ' I have received the railway receipt for the two hun- 
 dred bags of grain from Bombay, and have distributed 
 the bags as follows — Mehsana, thirty bags ; Disa, thirty 
 bags ; Raho, forty bags. 
 
 "We are now feeding at Mehsana, 150; Disa, 180; 
 Raho, 200 ; and this week I hope to open another kitchen 
 at Banas. Mr. Ker's work at Abu Road has been all 
 stopped by the agent to the Governor-General, on ac- 
 count of fear of cholera. I want five hundred or one 
 thousand of empty bagging from your grain at Ajmir. 
 May I have them? I will write to Miss Marks. I want 
 to distribute a lot to the clothless poor. Can you give 
 some of the blankets, just a few, for the destitute left 
 at Sujat Road and any deserving cases along the line? 
 
 " I enclose two notes for Disa and Raho, showing how 
 they have begun work on the kitchens. 
 
 "Mehsana is under the personal supervision of Mr. 
 Sheffield , loco-foreman . ' ' 
 
 It is needless to say the bags and blankets were sent. 
 The poor people were as destitute of clothing as they 
 were of food in many places, and the women especially 
 needed covering. Again he wrote : 
 
 "I am to-day opening two more kitchens, one here 
 and the other at Rani. There are about two hundred 
 starving at each station. I also opened a small kitchen 
 at Banas, and will let you know later on how we are 
 
 136 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 doing. I have also written to the state people at 
 Jodhpur, asking them to permit me to reopen the 
 kitchen at Sujat Road, and expect to get a reply by- 
 next week. 
 
 " If they consent I'll start work at once, for the poor 
 people are gathering again there. In this case I shall 
 want some more of the American maize. Will you be 
 able to give me any more, say one hundred or one hun- 
 dred and fifty bags from either Ajmir or Tilaunia or 
 Phalera? I believe the Maharajah Sirohi has stopped 
 all taking away of children from his state and ordered 
 Pandita Ramabai's people away from Abu Road, and 
 also ordered Mr. Ker to stop sending children away. I 
 am, however, doing rescue work quietly at small sta- 
 tions, and will do so till I get an order to stop." 
 
 Often those who came to our kitchens came too late. 
 They were so weak that they were unable to digest the 
 coarse, often insufficiently cooked, food we were prepared 
 to give them. There was a great demand for tinned 
 prepared foods. Messrs. Morgan and Scott, of London, 
 and others were able to help in forwarding large supplies 
 of such foods. Mr. Smith shows the need of it in his 
 letter from Raho: 
 
 "I stopped here this evening to supervise what my 
 sub-committee is doing in the kitchen I started here. 
 To-day they fed 130 children, 125 women, and 70 men. 
 The men and women cannot get work, and there are a 
 great number of children and women in a starved con- 
 dition. Our sudden feeding has, I am afraid, killed a 
 good many children. The station-master tells me, after 
 the first few days there were generally four or five 
 deaths a day, and one or two, even now, die daily. 
 
 "He had to put on four mien to bury the dead. I 
 
 ^37 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 picked out seventeen orphan children, mostly girls, and 
 am sending them off to-night to Sujat Road, where I 
 collect and send them off every week to Miss Marks. I 
 sent in six from Kivrali this morning. The whole 
 batch will be sent on to Miss Marks in a day or two. I 
 enclose an account of our week's work at Raho up to 
 date. No rain, and the outlook is very gloomy. I hope 
 you can give me two hundred or three hundred bags more 
 of the maize, especially if I open again at Sujat Road." 
 
 Every few days saw a miserable little company of 
 rescued children on their way to Ajmir, to the rescue 
 camp, where they would be washed and clothed and 
 carefully attended, and fed and nursed back to health, 
 and then fitted for some useful employment in life. It 
 was hard sometimes for mothers to give up their chil- 
 dren to entire strangers, but it was harder still to see 
 them pine away and die of starvation. Often parents 
 would beseech us to save them. And so the good work 
 went on. Helpers were sent out to rescue children. 
 The heat was awful, and cholera raged in many places. 
 On the ist of August Mr. Smith wrote from his head- 
 quarters at Sujat Road, after many days of toil in the 
 heat, rescuing and feeding the people: 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — I have not written for some time. I 
 have been so ill till just now that I could not. I cannot send 
 you the detailed statement of our kitchens, but the following 
 is the average number fed daily: Disa, 550; Sarotra, 75; Raho, 
 350; Banas, 150; Erinpura Road, 300; Rani, 400. Total, about 
 1800. The rescue of children under my direction is going on 
 quite well. We sent in a large number last week to Ajmir, to 
 Miss Marks. Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "S. O. Smith." 
 
 Here were six kitchens, feeding on an average eigh- 
 teen hundred people every day; and the majority of 
 
 138 
 
AGED BY HUNGER 
 Young girl of fitteen years 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 them were women and children, who were unfit to go on 
 reHef works, even when available, being too weak for 
 work. What a blessing such a kitchen, conducted on 
 benevolent principles, was to these poor people, who 
 had no other hope in the world, and no one about them 
 who "considered the poor"! With this example of 
 kindness before them, it is no wonder that parents were 
 willing to consign their children to our care. On the 
 loth of August he wrote to Miss Marks from Sujat 
 Road: 
 
 " I trust you received the twenty-three children I sent 
 in to-day all right. There were a good many girls. I 
 am trying to pick girls as well as I can. Send KaH Khan 
 to Sujat Road by local on Sunday ; give him fifty rupees 
 in hand, as I shall take him on to Disa." 
 
 On August 1 8th he wrote to me: 
 
 "I have distributed 150 seers of grain to farmers at 
 Raho and Sarotra, with twenty - five ploughs, but, as 
 Mr. Ker, of Abu Road, is doing this also, I'll not do 
 any more in this line. 
 
 "I am now preparing to give out clothing,^ about 
 500 rupees' worth, principally at Raho, Sarotra, Disa, 
 and Banas. I found that what I gave at Erinpura the 
 people used for food. This, I dare say, the poor people 
 could not help, as the state people stopped my kitchen 
 and did not feed the poor wretches themselves. They 
 have come back again, and I have reopened the kitchen, 
 and we fed yesterday and the day before about five 
 
 ^ Special mention should be made of Mrs. I. L. Hauser, of Chicago, 
 who sent out many cases of valuable clothing, ready made, to be 
 distributed among just such poor. Much of it was distributed from 
 Ajmir and Phalera. 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 hundred. Rani kitchen has been entirely stopped, but 
 good work is being done at Raho. At Disa, just before 
 the rain began, we went up to feeding twelve hundred a 
 day; but as the rains have relieved the situation some- 
 what they have again reduced to about five hundred 
 daily. I gave out some clothing there on the 15th." * 
 
 I quote largely from these letters for a number of 
 reasons. They show how a busy man, who has to be 
 out at his work nearly all the time, can get time to save 
 the starving people he finds about him. They also show 
 some of the difficulties he had to contend with in feeding 
 and in rescuing the children. One could hardly think it 
 possible that any one would break up a kitchen in fam- 
 ine time when hundreds were being saved from starva- 
 tion without cost to the people or the state. . Even if 
 there were some irregularities about it, if there was some 
 overlapping, and if starving people were drawn away 
 from the state relief camp, yet surely there were enough 
 left to demand all the resources of the state. 
 
 * Mr. Smith's health gave way during the famine, and he never fully 
 recovered his strength, but finally died in Lahore, in September, 1901. 
 
XV 
 
 BIKANIR 
 
 " And here he nearly died of thirst, plodding through the sand 
 on a camel to the mysterious city of Bikanir, where the wells 
 are four hundred feet deep and lined throughout with camel- 
 bone." — ''Kim " (by Rudyard Kipling). 
 
 Next to Jodhpur, Bikanir, which lies north of it, is 
 the largest native state of Rajputana. It contains 2 2,340 
 square miles of territory, without mountains, forests, or 
 rivers, a great plain of shifting sand-hills, from twenty 
 to one hundred feet high. In some parts there is stone, 
 and near Bikanir city coal has been recently discovered, 
 but "all other ground is sinking sand." 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel James Todd, political agent to the 
 western Rajput states during the first quarter of the 
 last century, wrote in his Annals of Rajisthan, concerning 
 this part of the territory over which he travelled, as 
 follows: "The whole of this principality, with the ex- 
 ception of a few isolated spots, or oases, scattered here 
 and there, consists more or less of sand. From the 
 eastern to the western boundary, in the line of great- 
 est breadth, it is one continuous plain of sand, though 
 the teebas, or sand-hills, commence in the centre of the 
 country, the principal chain running in the direction of 
 Jessulmeer, and shooting forth subordinate branches in 
 every direction ; or it might be more correct to designate 
 this main ridge, originating in the tracts bordering the 
 eastern valley of the Indus, as terminating its elevations 
 
 141 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 about the heart of Bikaneer." In this great plain of 
 sand there are some tracts where the soil is good and 
 the water near the surface. This is true on the north- 
 east quarter, from Bhutnair to the banks of the Garah 
 and over nearly the whole of the ancient Mohilla canton. 
 "But, exclusive of such spots," says Colonel Todd, 
 " which are few and far between, we cannot describe the 
 desert as ' a waste where no salutary plant takes root, no 
 verdure quickens ' ; for, though the poverty of the soil 
 refuses to aid the germination of the more luxuriant 
 grains, Providence has provided a countervailing good, 
 in giving to those it can rear a richness and superior- 
 ity unknown to more favored regions." Wheat, gram, 
 and especially the grain called bajra, are of a superior 
 quality. Cotton is grown in those places favorable for 
 wheat, and Colonel Todd says that "the plant is said to 
 be septennial, even decennial, in these regions" ; that " as 
 soon as the cotton is gathered, the shoots are all cut off 
 and the root alone left. Each succeeding year the plant 
 increases in strength, and at length attains a size un- 
 known where it is more abundantly cultivated." This 
 part of Rajputana is especially noted for its many 
 spontaneous vegetable products. The watermelon 
 grows in great abundance and to a very great size, and 
 it is as excellent in quality as it is abundant in quantity. 
 It is noted beyond the boundaries of Bikanir, even where 
 other fruits are plentiful, and at home it is cut in slices 
 and dried in the sun and stored up for future use, when, 
 perhaps, there are no vegetables, or when there is a 
 famine sore on the land. " In these arid regions," says 
 Colonel Todd, in his valuable Annals, "where they de- 
 pend entirely on the heavens for water, and where they 
 calculate on a famine every seventh year, nothing that 
 can administer to the wants of man is lost. The seeds 
 of the wild grapes are collected, and, mixed with hajra 
 
 142 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 flour, enter much into the food of the poorer classes. 
 They also store up great quantities of the wild ber, khyr, 
 and kharil berries ; and the long pods of the kaijra, as- 
 tringent and bitter as they are, are dried and formed 
 into a flour. Nothing is lost in these regions which can 
 be converted into food." 
 
 The water supply throughout these regions is very 
 scanty. The normal rainfall throughout the state is 
 very much below that of more favored regions, in many 
 places being not more than nine inches, compared with 
 an average of forty-one inches throughout the empire. 
 There are no rivers, and the few lakes to be found con- 
 tain water too brackish either for drinking or irrigation 
 purposes. The people are, therefore, dependent upon 
 their wells. Concerning the water, our Annals state 
 that "this indispensable element is at an immense dis- 
 tance from the surface throughout the Indian desert, 
 which, in this respect, as well as many others, differs 
 very materially from that portion of the great African 
 desert in the same latitudes. Near the capital the 
 wells are more than two hundred cubits, or three hun- 
 dred feet, in depth ; and it is rare that water fit for man 
 is found at a less distance from the surface than sixty 
 in the tracts decidedly termed thul, or desert." 
 
 At Bikanir city I saw wells more than three hundred 
 feet deep, with little engines at the mouth to draw up 
 the water. But in many places even the well-water is 
 so salty and bitter that it is unfit either for drinking or 
 for the field, and the people are compelled to depend 
 upon rain-water. As in famine times most of the wells 
 go dry, or, as they say, become "blind," and as there 
 is no rain-water, the poor people not only starve for 
 want of food, but famish for lack of water. 
 
 The population of Bikanir state is about eight hun- 
 dred thousand, standing fourth as to population of the 
 
 143 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Rajputana states. The territory, from time immemo- 
 rial, was in the possession of the Jits, or Jats, a pastoral 
 people of Scythic origin, until conquered by the Rahtore 
 Rajputs of Jodhpur, five centuries ago. The state was 
 founded by Bika, bom in 1439, sixth son of Jodh Rao, 
 the founder of Jodhpur. Bika entered upon its conquest 
 in 1459 and established his capital at Bikanir in 1489. 
 "To this day," writes the historian, "the descendant of 
 Pandu applies the unguent of royalty to the forehead 
 of the successors of Beeka, on which occasion the prince 
 places ' the fine of relief,' consisting of twenty-five pieces 
 of gold, in the hand of the Jit. Moreover, the spot 
 which he selected for his capital was the birthright of 
 a Jit, who would only concede it for this purpose on the 
 condition that his name should be linked in perpetuity 
 with its surrender. Naira, or Nera (Nir), was the name 
 of the proprietor, which Beeka added to his own, 
 thus composing that of the future capital, Beekaneer" 
 (Bikanir). 
 
 Maharajah Sri Ganga Singh, Bahadur, is the present 
 ruling chief. He is a young man of some twenty -three 
 years of age, enlightened in his ways, and possessing a 
 good English education. The revenues of the state 
 amount to about eighteen lakhs of rupees, or $600,000, 
 annually. 
 
 Bikanir, the capital, the city of the desert, has a 
 population under fifty thousand. It is surrounded by 
 a stone wall, with battlements and towers, and has a 
 solid and substantial appearance. For hundreds of 
 years Bikanir has been the home of wealthy merchants 
 and bankers, who do business in Calcutta and Bombay 
 and other large cities of the empire. The Jodhpur- 
 Bikanir railway has been in operation for some years, 
 and the extension is being pushed on to Bhatinda, which 
 will give an outlet to the Punjab. 
 
 144 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 But one crop is raised during the year, when the 
 season is favorable. Millets form the staple crops. 
 Although sand abounds, yet in good years, during and 
 after the rains, the grass grows in abundance, making 
 it a splendid pasture-land. In consequence Bikanir is 
 famous for its horses, cattle, and buffaloes. Camels also 
 thrive, and are found most useful in travelling across the 
 sandy plains. During the late famine Bikanir, from one 
 end to the other, was a land of death. The conditions 
 were perfect. But little rain had fallen for three years. 
 The wells, for the most part, had gone dry. There were 
 no rivers or canals. There was nothing in all that great, 
 rolling plain of twenty-two thousand square miles but 
 burning sand. The cattle were driven away in search 
 of pasturage, or their bones and hides had become 
 articles of commerce, and were either giving forth their 
 evil odor at the railway-stations, or else were rattling 
 down over the road to Cawnpore or Bombay to find a 
 market. Whole villages were deserted, only the bare 
 walls showing where human beings had lived. A rail- 
 way official told me that he saw parts of a human skeleton 
 in a bone-heap. A gentleman travelling with me in the 
 compartment of a train sprang to his feet and pointed 
 to dogs devouring a human body at the side of the line. 
 The cry of the hungry at the railway- stations haunt 
 me still. Children, with old-looking, pinched faces and 
 shrunken bodies and spindly legs, held out their puny 
 little hands and begged. Mothers, often with mere 
 skeletons of babies in their arms and other children 
 dragging at their scanty, ragged skirts, pleaded not so 
 much for themselves as for their offspring. Over it all 
 was the silence of death. The heavens were brass. The 
 wind blew fierce and hot, and the sand it carried stung 
 as it struck the face and settled down upon everything. 
 The very crows, usually so jaunty and impudent, sat 
 lo 145 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 forlorn, with wide - open mouths, gasping for breath. 
 And cholera! Alas for the poor wretches eating things 
 never intended for human food, and drinking the filthy, 
 contaminated water of the almost empty tank or well! 
 I spent a day at Nagaur, between Merta Road and 
 Bikanir, when scores were dying daily. The water 
 brought me from a well, two miles distant, was of the 
 color of chocolate and of the consistency of pea-soup. 
 No permanganate of potash, or other chemical known 
 to the sanitary committee or medical profession, could 
 take the microbes out of such water. The theorist says 
 " Boil it." But where is the fuel to come from in such 
 times as these? Besides, no boiling could make such 
 water pure. But Bikanir state was not neglected by 
 its energetic rajah. More was done here to help the 
 people than in some other places. Relief works were 
 opened ; roads, tanks, and wells, and other useful works 
 were put under construction to give employment to 
 the people. It is a great thing even, although the 
 achievement of complete success be beyond one's power, 
 to make an effort. When the famine came it was a 
 testing time, and the imperial government was anxious 
 to know how the feudatory states would act in such 
 an emergency. x\s Mr. Nash has said: 
 
 "What was the policy of the native princes going to 
 be? Some of them had no money in the treasury, others 
 were known or suspected to be indifferent as to what 
 became of their subjects, and not a rajah had before 
 been called upon to steer his ship through a tempest 
 that threatened annihilation. The Viceroy, at any rate, 
 lost no time in declaring his policy ; and he decided early 
 in the day to give the native rulers a strong lead. He 
 offered loans on easy terms to the states that wanted 
 money ; he sent to Rajputana, as Famine Commissioner, 
 
 146 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Major Dunlop-Smith, who won his spurs in Hissar at 
 the last famine in the Punjab, and he offered the services 
 of staff - corps men, engineers, and doctors. Nobody 
 could have given more practical or strenuous encour- 
 agement to the chiefs, and Lord Curzon may to-day 
 fairly congratulate himself on the way in which his 
 challenge was accepted. With a few exceptions, the 
 princes, both in Rajputana and other districts, have set 
 manfully to the task of saving life, and, so far as I can 
 judge, the famine organization in Rajputana has been 
 as successful as could be expected. There have been 
 several cases in which the native princes have shown a 
 signal public spirit and capacity for effective leadership. 
 The young maharajah of Bikanir took his place at the 
 head of the famine organization from the start. He 
 set works going in the desert, organized a system of grain 
 supply, and turned over to the famine service the camel 
 corps of the imperial service which Lord Dufferin in- 
 vited the native states to organize." 
 
 We early commenced to distribute relief to the starv- 
 ing people of Bikanir state. At first, money relief was 
 given, but afterwards doles of grain were substituted, 
 as thus their primary need was directly met. A wagon 
 of Christian Herald com, aggregating four hundred 
 bushels, was sent to Bikanir, and a shop was opened 
 within the city walls. The maharajah kindly remitted 
 the octroi tax and allowed it to enter duty free. The 
 political agent also wrote me as follows: 
 
 "Dear Sir, — I have to acknowledge your letter of the 27th 
 
 of June. His Highness is grateful to you for the trouble you 
 
 have taken in distributing the maize at Bikanir, and hopes that 
 
 you will express to the donors how he appreciates their kindness. 
 
 "Believe me, yours very truly, 
 
 "H. A. Vincent, Resident." 
 
 147 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Advantage was taken of the need of teachers for 
 primary schools to train some of the present unem- 
 ployed for this work, which would be reopened, it was 
 hoped, in the future more prosperous times. A train- 
 ing-school, attended by about thirty men, women, and 
 children, was kept up, and the poor people were fed 
 with the corn. Many weavers were employed, weaving 
 woollen blankets, of which they made about two thou- 
 sand. The famine was particularly hard upon weavers. 
 In famine times they neither have materials with which 
 to weave cloth nor a market for their products. The 
 weavers as a class are, even in the best of times, no- 
 where well to do. The census of 1891 returned for 
 British India 9,655,231 " manufacturers of textile fabrics 
 and dress," and the Famine Commission of 1898 say 
 of them: 
 
 "The effect of a calamity such as famine soon mani- 
 fests itself on the weaver population When the crops 
 fail, the resources of the people at large are crippled, 
 the customary demand for cloth is arrested, the weav- 
 ing trade, ceasing for want of a market to be a source 
 of profit, fails to be a means of support to those engaged 
 in it, and the high price of food-grains, induced by fam- 
 ine, aggravates their depressed condition As in the 
 case of the poorer agricultural and the laboring classes, 
 it then becomes necessary for the state to intervene and 
 help the weavers by providing them with the means of 
 earning a wage enough for their subsistence. The im- 
 portant question arises, what should be the mode of 
 relief in their case? Should they be employed in their 
 own craft, or in some other form of manual labor?" 
 
 It is, no doubt, every way preferable to give them 
 work that will keep them employed in their own craft. 
 
 148 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Agents were employed to purchase all the wool that 
 could be found ; and wherever starving weavers were 
 found they were set to work weaving cloth. In this 
 way they were not only saved from starvation, but saved 
 to their profession, which would die out if they sank 
 down into mere tillers of the soil. 
 
 In some places money had to be given to buy water. 
 As at Nagaur, so at other places, it had to be brought 
 from long distances, and was very scarce in quantity 
 and poor in quality. Even in the best of years, in many 
 places water is sold. "Water is sold," says Colonel Todd, 
 "in all the large towns, by the mallis, or gardeners, who 
 have the monopoly of this article. Most families have 
 large cisterns, or reservoirs, called tankas, which are filled 
 in the rainy season. They are of masonry, with a small 
 trap-door at the top, made to exclude the external air, 
 and having a lock and key affixed. Some large tankas 
 are established for the community, and I understand 
 that this water keeps sweet for eight and ten months' 
 consumption." In famine time the supply would be- 
 come exhausted, and no water could be had for love or 
 money. 
 
XVI 
 
 AJMIR-MAIRWARA 
 
 "Oh, come with me and ye shall see 
 How well I begin the day, 
 For I'll hie to the hungriest slave I have 
 
 And snatch his loaf away. 
 Oh, come with me and ye shall see 
 
 How my skeleton victims fall; 
 How I order the graves without a stone, 
 And the coffins without a pall." 
 
 — Eliza Cook. 
 
 AjMiR is the capital of the British province of Ajmir- 
 Mairwara, which nestles Hke an oasis in the centre of a 
 great desert of sand. This province contains an area of 
 two thousand seven hundred square miles, and has a 
 population of about five hundred and forty-three thou- 
 sand, the city itself having about fifty thousand. 
 
 The city is situated on the crest of the great Raj- 
 putana water -shed, occupying, as it does, the lower 
 slopes of the hill Taragarh, which dominates the city 
 and rises to 2855 feet above the level of the sea. The 
 city, like most of the towns of Rajputana, is surrounded 
 by a stone wall and has five gateways. It has some 
 wide streets and well-built houses and a few places of 
 historic interest. Tradition says it was founded in 145 
 A.D. Akbar had a palace outside its walls, and Jahan- 
 gir made it his capital for several years. It was taken 
 by the Mahrattas, who retained it till Sindhia made it 
 over to the English, in 18 18. The history of Marwar, 
 
 150 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 or Mairwara, the hill country of the Mairs, lying to the 
 southwest of the Ajmir district, is exceedingly interest- 
 ing, as showing not only how a rough, uncivilized people 
 may be tamed, but how a rough, unfruitful territory 
 may be made fruitful and peaceful. The story has been 
 related thus : 
 
 "For many centuries its inhabitants were savage 
 marauders, the terror of the surrounding nations. They 
 made plundering expeditions into the very heart of the 
 adjoining territories, but their movements were so rapid 
 that they generally retreated in safety to their strong- 
 holds. The large states of Rajputana, in attempting 
 to subjugate Mairwara, not only entirely failed, but at 
 times suffered great losses. Though they occasionally 
 took a fort or burned villages here and there, they never 
 succeeded in overcoming any considerable body of 
 Mairs; while the latter, watching the opportunity, and 
 descending rapidly on some weak point, often took 
 ample revenge. Many of them were fugitives from 
 other states ; they were robbers by profession and prac- 
 tice. They had little or no regard for human life or 
 liberty — murdering their daughters, selling their moth- 
 ers, committing every kind of atrocity, without shame 
 and without remorse. 
 
 "When the district came under the British, armed 
 bands paraded the country or occupied the passes. The 
 servants of government were cut off ; prisoners were res- 
 cued. There was no safety on the public ways. Captain 
 Hall, the agent of government, first formed a regiment 
 composed of Mairs. When trained, they proved them- 
 selves to be good and loyal soldiers, and through them 
 the robber-gangs were suppressed. 
 
 " The Mairs had always had the most primitive ideas 
 of justice. Either the contending parties, backed by 
 
 151 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 their sympathizing kinsmen, resorted to the sword, and 
 blood-feuds were handed down among them from son 
 to son, or the accused was challenged to prove his inno- 
 cence by thrusting his hand into boiling oil or grasp- 
 ing a red-hot shot. Captain Hall introduced the Pan- 
 chayat ^ system for all except the highest class of offences. 
 
 " But the plough was the chief civilizer. In 1835 Cap- 
 tain Hall was succeeded by Captain Dixon. Hitherto 
 the land had been so difficult of cultivation that no one 
 cared to possess it. The rains were uncertain, and in 
 a mountainous country, without artificial means of re- 
 tention, the water soon ran off. By constructing em- 
 bankments across valleys, by sinking wells and digging 
 tanks, a water supply was obtained. Every man was 
 encouraged by small advances of money to apply him- 
 self to agriculture. A large number of professional rob- 
 bers were converted into industrious farmers, and peace 
 smiled upon the land. 
 
 "Dixon's next step was to get traders to settle in the 
 country. He built a town called Nyanagar — ' New City. ' 
 The Mairs at first did not see the good of this, and 
 thought it would only have the effect of subjecting them 
 to unaccustomed exactions. The traders were also 
 afraid lest the Mairs should swoop down upon the city 
 and loot it; so they asked that a wall should be built 
 for their protection, which was done. In a short time 
 Nyanagar had nearly two thousand families. 
 
 " As early as 1827 Captain Hall reported the complete 
 and voluntary abolition of the sale of women and of 
 female infanticide. The security of the country now is 
 so great that the Mairs have mostly left the tops and 
 declivities of the mountains, where they formerly con- 
 cealed themselves, and taken up their residence in ham- 
 
 * A native court of arbitration, consisting of the leaders of the 
 clan. 
 
 152 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 lets, or single houses, among their fields and by the side 
 of their wells. Their smiling and healthful countenances 
 and their well-dressed condition show that they are a 
 prosperous people." 
 
 I have seen some of those "embankments across val- 
 leys," and also the valleys made to "blossom as the 
 rose" by them. It shows what good government can 
 do for the people, and how a strong, independent, yet 
 kindly hand is needed in a country like this. 
 
 During the famine Ajmir was one of the chief centres 
 from which we carried our relief to the stricken people 
 in the villages. It was a mart for our grain for the 
 hungry, and a storehouse for clothing for the naked, 
 and a dispensary from which medicines were dispensed 
 to the sick, an asylum for the widows and orphans, and 
 a rest-camp for waifs rescued and carried to other places 
 of refuge. Two thousand bags of corn, just unloaded 
 from the steamship Quito and put down at the door pre- 
 paid, found here ready hands, moved by grateful hearts, 
 ready to distribute ; and by bullock-cart and by railway- 
 train and on stately camel went into many a town and 
 village to feed the hungry — this food, sanctified and 
 blessed by the prayers of many donors — the gift of "the 
 farmers of Kansas to the farmers of India." Some 
 went to Srinagar and to Kharwa to feed the Bhils, some 
 to Bir and Pisangan to feed the Sweepers, and some to 
 Sujat Road and Disa to feed all classes. The only 
 thing that distressed me was that, after having been 
 put down free of all charges in Ajmir, the munic- 
 ipality made us pay octroi duty on it, which had 
 to be paid out of famine money sent to save from star- 
 vation. 
 
 From far and near were brought to Ajmir, to be dis- 
 tributed to places of refuge, the gaunt and starving 
 
 153 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 waifs. Between four and five thousand miserable hu- 
 man beings were thus snatched from death. 
 Mr. Clancy tells what he saw one day: 
 
 "At Ajmir I went to the station to see a company of 
 people that were being taken through by two ladies. 
 They stopped at Ajmir to rest and give them food. It 
 V\^as a most repulsive sight. When they got out of the 
 train they were in worse condition than a car-load of 
 hogs, and the smells were almost unendurable, and yet 
 those refined ladies went about among them, attending 
 to their wants as if they were their brothers and sisters. 
 Before they left two or three of the worst cases died. 
 One who has not seen famine can form no idea of what 
 it means." 
 
 I was present there that day. It was in the month 
 of June, the hottest month in the year, when the ther- 
 mometer registers i6o degrees in the sun and 115 de- 
 grees in the shade. And yet these refined ladies had 
 travelled with those children for hours in a third- 
 class carriage. When they were got out of the train 
 onto the long railw^ay - platform, the only thing that 
 could be done in the way of cleansing was to call water- 
 men and have them pour water over them from the 
 water-skins. There was no place for them to rest on 
 the platform ; in fact, they would not be allowed to re- 
 main there, so I hastened across the street and secured 
 the whole of a native inn — an open court-yard with 
 rows of rooms around it, fronted by a veranda — and 
 into this they were taken to rest, and be fed, and await 
 the time of departure in the afternoon. 
 
 The dormitories for the orphan girls became too 
 crowded, and the matter was made more embarrass- 
 ing by taking in a large number of women, who were ac- 
 
 IS4 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 commodated in out-houses. The old Mission property 
 was sold, and new dormitories for the boys and a new 
 church were built, and were overcrowded from the be- 
 ginning, necessitating the erection of additional dormi- 
 tories. Early in May several cases of cholera occurred, 
 which so alarmed the authorities that, after much cor- 
 respondence and various consultations, we were with 
 reluctance permitted, under certain conditions, to fix 
 the maximum number of girls at two hundred, and the 
 Widows' Home was to be removed altogether. Cholera 
 growing worse and many deaths occurring, the whole 
 of the women and girls were removed to a cholera 
 camp, as already mentioned. Concerning this work Mr. 
 Clancy, of Allahabad, who visited Ajmir in June, re- 
 marks : 
 
 " Miss Lilian Marks, assisted by Miss Tryon and Miss 
 Dr. Emma Scott, has been doing nobly, A little over 
 a month ago cholera broke out in the girls' school at 
 Ajmir, and carried off twenty. One of the number was 
 the matron, who had been a very faithful worker. The 
 people living near the school became frightened, and the 
 authorities compelled them to move out into the country 
 two miles. There they had to live in tents, under the 
 blazing sun, with a very scanty supply of water, yet 
 none of these brave women even thought of running 
 away. The cholera has at last subsided, and their work 
 is progressing favorably. They are planning to take 
 five hundred famine children into their schools at Ajmir. 
 This will entail a tremendous cost, to house, clothe, feed, 
 and educate them. They have sent away hundreds of 
 children to other schools." 
 
 They were no sooner back from the cholera camp than 
 it was necessary to look up additional quarters for the 
 
 155 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 rapidly increasing famine refugees, and a large native 
 serai, or inn, was rented at about twenty-seven dollars 
 a month, and several hundred were sent there under the 
 care of Miss Tryon. This inn was in the city, and 
 opened into the public road. But the fear of cholera 
 was upon every one, and on June 6th, Miss Marks wrote: 
 
 " AjMiR, Rajputana, June 6, 1900. 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — Here I am again with another tale of 
 woe. I am not discouraged, but perplexed. God closes our 
 way here, but surely He has better things for us somewhere. 
 
 "The Plindustani doctor informed me this morning that we 
 cannot keep famine people in that serai. I took it for ten months 
 at eighty rupees per month. They must let me keep the weavers 
 there. But what am. I to do with our extra orphans? We 
 cannot keep very many in Tilaunia, and Phalera does not seem 
 a good place, as very few of the orphans are coming from that 
 direction. The Jodhpur rajah closes our way. I am turning, or, 
 rather, have turned, sixty-seven boys over to the Plomers to- 
 day. The boys can sleep out-doors until the barrack is finished. 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 "L. E. Marks." 
 
 On the 9th, Miss Scott (who had volunteered from 
 Bindraban to spend her vacation in helping Miss Marks 
 in famine work) wrote: 
 
 "Miss Marks is going to see the civil surgeon about 
 the serai. The authorities do not seem pleased to have 
 the people gathered in it, and say it must be closed. 
 Since it is taken for ten months, Miss Marks thinks it 
 can be used for the weaving if she is prevented from 
 using it for its present purpose. Mr. Smith thinks the 
 best places down that road for an orphanage would be 
 Sujat Road or Abu Road. Two of the workers yester- 
 day, while bringing children from the station to the 
 house, were attacked by an Arya and beaten, because 
 they would not give the children to him. Miss Plomer 
 
 156 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 leaves Monday. She will bring sixty people up from 
 Sujat Road on the evening train. Miss Marks is quite 
 delighted at the prospect of Mr. Robinson being here. 
 He can look after building, weaving, grain-shops, and 
 kitchens, and give her leisure to gather in children for 
 the new orphanage." 
 
 The scare about being turned out of the serai passed 
 away with the cholera, and on the 12th of June Miss 
 Scott wrote again : 
 
 "The serai has proved quite a success; there are over 
 one hundred persons, ninety-two of them boys, and fifty 
 to go from here to-day. 
 
 "I meant to ask you when you were here what you 
 thought of my staying for a while, till new help can 
 come. If this isn't done at once, it will be too late in 
 a short time, and the opportunity be gone. If you think 
 best for me to stay, especially if there is a chance to 
 open the new orphanage in or near Erinpura, will you 
 kindly have my wheel sent me, or bring it when you 
 come again? It is at the Deaconess Home. In going 
 back and forth from the serai it will be very useful, if 
 you think best for me to stay perhaps a few months 
 longer. Money was granted by the society for an assist- 
 ant in Bindraban (sixty rupees a month) , which has not 
 been used, and is being held in reserve by the treasurer. 
 It has been granted on condition that Miss Burman was 
 not reappointed, but could be used under the present cir- 
 cumstances, and even seventy-five rupees a month paid 
 from now on for a doctor to take up the work there for 
 a short time. Then, if she proved a proper person, the 
 society could keep her permanently. Then I could 
 itinerate or do anything I liked. Miss Burman is a 
 better evangelist and preacher than I would ever be, 
 
 157 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 and can look after that part of the work, if there is some 
 one else in the dispensary. If you think I would better 
 come home now, and find some one else for here, I will 
 be ready any time, only I like these boys very much." 
 
 In order to understand Miss Scott's anxiety about 
 Bindraban, it is necessary to give a brief history of her 
 connection with that interesting and important place. 
 Bindraban is a town of twenty-five thousand souls, seven 
 miles north of Muttra, situated on the right bank of the 
 river Jumna, and connected with Muttra by rail. It is 
 a sacred city of the Hindus, being devoted to the mem- 
 ory and worship of Krishna, the eighth incarnation of 
 Vishnu. In it are a thousand temples, and it is said 
 that some eight thousand widows make it their home. 
 Dr. Scott took up the work there in 1897, being the first 
 foreigner to live in the place. Consequently, there be- 
 ing no European residence available, it became neces- 
 sary to live in a native house. A small house was taken 
 in the very heart of the town, on a narrow street, in 
 which Miss Scott lived and carried on her work for a 
 year. Out of deference to the religious scruples of the 
 Brahmins, she became a vegetarian. She opened a dis- 
 pensary, and treated all classes alike. In 1898 a bunga- 
 low and dispensary building were completed, and the 
 work expanded, not only in the town, but throughout 
 the district. Miss Burman joined her in 1899. When 
 the famine in Rajputana became severe. Miss Scott, as 
 stated elsewhere, volunteered to help in the work, and 
 continued to do so until she broke down, although she 
 felt her responsibility for the work in Bindraban also. 
 I was able to arrange for the medical work in Bindraban, 
 and wrote and told her to remain, and she stayed on 
 with the boys she loved so much, taking no thought for 
 her own comfort or rest, but all through those awful 
 
 158 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 hot days and nights nursing and helping back into life 
 men, women, and children, from the Sweeper to the 
 Brahmin, desiring not "to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister." 
 
 The next thing that engaged the energy of the work- 
 ers at Ajmir was the Christian Herald corn, which ar- 
 rived in Bombay on the 26th of June, and was shipped 
 to various centres at once. The Rev. E. F. Frease, sec- 
 retary and treasurer of the Christian Herald Famine 
 Relief Fund Committee, and also member of the Amer- 
 ico-Indian Relief Committee, was in Bombay to meet 
 the ship, and wrote me as follows : 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — The Quito arrived yesterdaj', and began 
 clearing cargo to-day, which explains why I am here. It may 
 be that some wagons will be started your way to-morrow, and 
 if so, I'll try to wire you. 
 
 "On my arrival here I found there was to be a meeting of 
 the Americo-Tndian Relief Fund Executive Committee, for the 
 distribution of funds. I had understood that applications were 
 not to be considered until after the circulars, one of which I am 
 now sending you, had been sent out, and hence had no written 
 applications in. I, however, went before the executive com- 
 mittee, and explained why our written applications were not 
 ready, and asked permission to make them orally, to be covered 
 by a written application to be made out later in the day. 
 
 "Knowing your great need, I ventured to ask for 5000 rupees 
 for you, that being the largest amount the executive committee 
 can grant. The amount was granted, and I axn. sending in the 
 written application for you as agreed. This will give time for 
 any additional applications from you and your missionaries, 
 to whom also I am sending circulars, to reach Bombay in time 
 for the meeting of the general committee, the second Thursday 
 in July. That committee will, of course, take into account the 
 5000 rupees now granted in considering your applications. I 
 hope I have not been presumptuous in putting in for you, but 
 felt I, in a sense, represented all our famine work on this com- 
 mittee as well as the Christian Herald Committee. 
 
 "Sincerelv yours, 
 
 "E. F. Frease." 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 The Americo-Indian Relief Committee, referred to 
 above, as to organization and object, and method of 
 operation, is explained in its circular, issued on June 
 15, 1900, which says: 
 
 " In the latter part of April, 1900, when the Ecumen- 
 ical Missionary Conference was held in New York, Ind- 
 ian missionaries, who were present, called a special pub- 
 lic meeting to awaken and promote interest in sending 
 famine relief to India. As a result 'The India Famine 
 Fund Committee of One Hundred,' well-known citizens 
 of New York, was formed, with William E. Dodge, Esq., 
 as chairman. Dr. E. R. L. Gould, secretary, and John 
 Crosby Brown, Esq., treasurer." 
 
 On June 9th a telegram from Mr. Dodge was received 
 in Bombay, saying, " Promptly form Americo-Indian 
 Relief Committee of Nine," and specified its constitu- 
 tion. Accordingly, this committee was formed, and the 
 object and scope of its work stated as follows: 
 
 "This Americo-Indian Relief Committee desires and 
 intends to work in co-operation with the committee of 
 the Indian Famine Charitable Relief Fund and with 
 the Christian Herald Relief Committee, and in con- 
 junction with missionary and government relief, so as 
 to avoid, as far as possible, overlapping in plans and 
 grants. The secretary of the Indian Charitable Relief 
 Committee and the chairman and the secretary of the 
 Christian Herald Committee being members of this 
 Americo-Indian Relief Committee, it is hoped that all 
 overlapping may be avoided. 
 
 "For the present this committee proposes mainly to 
 confine itself to four objects: Relief for (i) orphans, and 
 (2) farmers; (3) clothing, and (4) village relief." 
 
 160 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 The grain-shops were opened immediately upon the 
 arrival of the com, and on July 17th Miss Marks wrote 
 me: 
 
 " The grain-shops are working. The police have given 
 some trouble to-day, and want to stop the traffic. We 
 think the bunyas are at the bottom of it. 
 
 " Miss Scott is in Tilaunia and Miss Try on in the 
 serai, so we really have two establishments. Can't you 
 make room for more boys at Phalera? Isn't it a good 
 time to write to the Commissioner for Orphans, and say 
 that since we have been forced to open other institutions 
 we can take two hundred girls and boys. If we decide 
 that we do not want them all, we can find homes for 
 them, Many missionaries are still writing for children. 
 If we don't get them the Roman Catholics and the 
 Bramo-Samaj are bound to. The Americo-Indian Com- 
 mittee gave me 4000 rupees for medicines and clothing. 
 Mr. Frease telegraphed me to put in my petition, so I 
 did. All goes smoothly. I am trying to get more weav- 
 ers to work." 
 
 In June the Rev. J. W. Robinson, secretary and treas- 
 urer of the Methodist-Episcopal Mission Famine Relief 
 Committee, kindly wrote me that he thought he could 
 give me some help in July, and we were looking forward 
 to his coming after his visit to Gujarat. But Mr. Frease 
 wrote me of his great need in the following letter: 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — J. W. Robinson came on the 3d inst., and 
 it has been a great relief. I had expected him to remain a full 
 month, but it appears he had made an arrangement with you 
 which if carried out would take him away considerably earlier. 
 I, therefore, write to ask you, if there is an}'- way possible, to 
 release him from that, so he may remain here as long as 
 possible. You will have heard of the death of T. M. Hudson, 
 II 161 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 and that J. W. Park has lost his eldest child, both from cholera. 
 Besides which, the newly engaged English matron of the Nadiad 
 Orphanage, in charge of Park, has also died of cholera. I am 
 now much disquieted by a note just received from Park, saying 
 he is down with something very like cholera, and I must be off 
 to himi by the next train. 
 
 "The fact is that either Park or Ward is liable to break at 
 any time, and for Robinson to leave before the month is up 
 would be very hard on us all. I believe you can get other help, 
 and have no doubt you will release Robinson from going to 
 your place. In great haste, Yours sincerely, 
 
 "E. F. Frease." 
 
 Of course, as much as we needed help, he was re- 
 leased ; for, truly, famine work is full of hardships and 
 dangers. The Gujarat workers suffered severely. The 
 first to give way under the burden was T. M. Hudson. 
 Mr. Fox writes : 
 
 "There were signs of failing health before the day of 
 final failure. But it seemed impossible to take rest. 
 The evening before he died he had a social gathering 
 of friends at his house. He was as bright and cheerful 
 as any one among the company. About midnight the 
 sickness came on; at eight o'clock in the morning he 
 fell asleep. The next day after the death of Mr. Hud- 
 son, Miss Brown, the assistant in the boys' orphanage at 
 Nadiad, was taken down with cholera. In a few hours 
 she passed away. Immediately after this, Willie, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Park's eldest boy, was stricken with the dread 
 disease. It was evident from the first attack that he 
 could not live. He knew he was dying. He called the 
 servants and told them he was dying, and urged them 
 to meet him in heaven. Willie was only ten years old. 
 He was a bright, happy, spirited boy, the friend of every- 
 body. Mr. and Mrs. Ward were called to part with their 
 little girl, Ada. In the morning she rode out with her 
 
 162 
 
3 ffi 
 
 o > 
 
 f3- W 
 
 J^-^ 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 father, sitting in his lap, chatting brightly; late in the 
 afternoon she was taken sick; before the next morning 
 she was dead. Language cannot express the sorrow that 
 came to these parents' hearts. All of them, without a 
 word of murmuring, continued their work. 
 
 "About two months after the death of Mr. Hudson 
 Mr. Ward fell sick. He was sent to the hospital in 
 Bombay. After two months of medical care and rest 
 he was able to return to his work. It is worthy of men- 
 tion that his wife carried on the work very efficiently 
 during his sickness. 
 
 "While Mr. Ward was still sick in Bombay, Mr. 
 Frease was taken sick with fever. This proved to be a 
 severe form of typhoid fever. He, too, was placed in 
 the European Hospital, Bombay. For several weeks his 
 life hung in the balance. He received every care from 
 doctors and nurses. Then there came a change for the 
 better. We have good reason now to hope that he will 
 soon be able to resume his work." 
 
 These were, indeed, trying times. What with the 
 awful heat, the trying journeys into the villages to 
 rescue the starving, the loss of sleep, the constant vigil- 
 ance required, the awful, sickening sights, the menial 
 service necessary to be done, the diseases prevalent — 
 cholera, fever, small-pox, diarrhoea, dysentery, sore eyes, 
 sore mouth, guinea -worm, paralysis, the association 
 constantly with hopelessness, despondency, and gloom, 
 all these things, with the drain on one's sympathy, were 
 enough to break any one down. In Ajmir Dr. White- 
 house, of the United Presbyterian Mission, was struck 
 down with cholera in the prime of life. Miss Marks 
 was often completely exhausted, and in September was 
 driven to the hills. Miss Tryon was crowded with work 
 in the serai, and at times was unfit for duty. Miss Scott 
 
 163 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 toiled on, almost a shadow, drinking impure water and 
 without proper food, until she came down with fever at 
 Tilaunia. Miss Hoge, who had generously left her work 
 in Gonda, in Oudh, to help in the famine work in Ajmir, 
 was left almost alone. Mr. and Mrs. Plomer, with the 
 care of the boys' orphanage and the distribution of 
 relief in the district, felt the awful burden. And through 
 it all was the cry of the hungry for food and the wail 
 of the dying. 
 
XVII 
 TILAUNIA 
 
 "No rain-drops fell, no dew-fraught cloud, at mom 
 Or closing eve, creeps slowly up the vale; 
 The withering herbage dies; among the palms 
 The shrivelled leaves send to the sum^mer gale 
 An autumn rustle." 
 
 As you travel from Ajmir towards Agra, over the Raj- 
 putana-Malwa railway, after passing the town of Kish- 
 angarh you soon reach a little patch of land within the 
 territory of the Kishangarh state, but belonging to the 
 British government. There is a little railway-station, 
 a goods shed, an open - sided building, covered with a 
 corrugated iron roof for sheltering travellers, a long 
 stretch of " siding," and a village of perhaps five hundred 
 souls and emaciated bodies at the foot of a rocky mound, 
 or hill, and fringing a wide expanse of sandy plain. 
 That is Tilaunia. It is one of the centres from which 
 we gave out famine relief. How we came to select it 
 is this : One day, early in May, I was looking up places 
 for storing grain, and was shown an old, abandoned 
 cotton-press between the railway-station and the town 
 at Tilaunia. There was a large room, one hundred feet 
 long by forty wide, standing at the end of a yard, or 
 "compound," perhaps four hundred feet square, the 
 whole built of stone. The large room was without a 
 roof, but most of the rafters were serviceable. Part of 
 the old cotton-press was still standing in the centre of 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the room. There were some sheds and store-rooms in 
 the corners of the enclosure, and on one side, opposite 
 the large room, was a gate. As soon as I saw the old 
 building I felt that, if available, we could utilize it in 
 our famine work. We could put a thatch roof over the 
 room, clean it up, and use it for a store-room, while one 
 of the small rooms would do for a grain-shop, and the 
 yard would serve as a dining-room and for a kitchen, 
 which might be opened at once. The owner was seen. 
 He was willing to rent it at a reasonable price. The 
 bargain was closed, and I made preparations for its re- 
 pair and speedy occupancy. The kitchen was started 
 at once, and was a great success. In one corner room 
 the food was cooked in a large caldron, and dished out 
 to rows of hungry people seated on the ground. 
 
 The Rev. Dennis Clancy, when on tour in Rajputana, 
 took a deep interest in all forms of relief, and was espe- 
 cially interested in the kitchens. He says: 
 
 "I visited one of these kitchens at a place called 
 Tilaunia, and saw over two hundred fed. For hours 
 before the time to give out the food the people gather 
 in a great crowd around the gate. The preachers and 
 workers take advantage of this to give them religious 
 instruction. It is really painful to see these poor creat- 
 ures trying to sing. They seem to think that by singing 
 and answering questions they are in a way doing some- 
 thing to earn their food. When the gates were finally 
 opened, the people rushed madly in. It was very diffi- 
 cult to keep back those who had no tickets, and when the 
 gate was closed there was a howling mob on the outside 
 begging to be admitted. I could scarcely keep back the 
 tears as I looked into their pitiful, emaciated, disappoint- 
 ed faces. When those who had tickets were fed, what 
 was left was given to those on the outside. Women 
 
 ;60 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 came with little babies in their arms. One woman had 
 a little baby only six days old. When the food was ready 
 they made the people sit on the ground in rows, and 
 when they were all served, Dr. Scott asked God's grace 
 on the food, and the people ate as if they had had noth- 
 ing for weeks. Most of them bring an earthen dish of 
 some kind to receive the food. Sometimes people come 
 without dishes, and to receive the food make a hole in 
 the ground and put a cloth over it. They pick up every 
 morsel of food given them. They get food but once a 
 day, at most." 
 
 The two hundred which Mr. Clancy saw soon multi- 
 plied to a thousand, and our Christian cooks and waiters 
 were kept busy feeding the people. When the com 
 came, ten wagons, carrying two thousand bags, were 
 sent to Tilaunia. But before the arrival of the maize, 
 Ajmir became so overcrowded that it was necessary to 
 divert the restored cotton-press building from its original 
 purpose to that of a temporary home for famine waifs. 
 Sheds were put up around the sides of the wall, the out- 
 houses were cleaned up, the large room was put in order, 
 and several hundred famine waifs, half-starved women, 
 girls, and boys, rescued from death, were sent there to 
 be cared for. Shops were taken for the corn in the 
 town, tickets were issued to needy persons for the shops 
 and kitchen, and hungry multitudes were fed daily. 
 
 Miss Scott was sent to take charge of all this work at 
 Tilaunia early in July, and she remained there until she 
 broke down, in the middle of August. On July 6th she 
 "wrote from Ajmir: 
 
 "Mr. Smith writes that he has started three more 
 kitchens, and wants a man to help him gather orphans. 
 I was wondering if those boys who failed in their exam- 
 
 167 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 inations, Barnabas, Ruskin George, Nur Masih, or some 
 of the others, perhaps, could not help in some of the 
 work over here, if they have not positions already. They 
 could assist in the grain-shops, or work under Mr. Smith 
 to gather in the children. We could do such a lot if we 
 had more workers.' We are going to work in good ear- 
 nest now. Miss Tryon is to live in the serai and have 
 charge of one hundred and fifty girls, and look after the 
 weaving in the other serai. I am to go to Tilaunia, look 
 after the kitchen, the grain-shop, and the weaving, and 
 have headquarters for gathering in the starving, taking 
 care of all the sick, etc., and have the Widows' Home, 
 if they are turned out of here. A boy, or some inex- 
 perienced person, could help in Tilaunia, and leave one 
 of the preachers free to do some more important work, 
 as collecting children or starting a kitchen in some other 
 place. If it does not rain there will be need for several, 
 I am afraid, before next season. Wouldn't John Little 
 be a good hand to look after one? It would not hurt 
 his work to go a little while where these people are starv- 
 ing to death for want of some one to take food to them. 
 "Please send some help. We need matrons and 
 Bible women and school-teachers, etc. — in fact, almost 
 any one will be useful. Miss Marks wants a good bearer, 
 a Christian preferred. She says she could use Christian 
 laymen in her rescue work if there are not preachers to 
 be spared." 
 
 The summer-school was in progress at Muttra in those 
 days, and voluntary workers were called for; nine or 
 ten promptly expressed themselves willing to go, and 
 they were sent off to Ajmir by the next train. One old 
 graybeard among them, Edward by name, had been a 
 Christian for forty years ; another was an ex-policeman, 
 a more recent convert from Mohammedanism; there 
 
 t68 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 were three women in the party, the wives of three of 
 the men. All of them left places of employment to go 
 out into the dreadful famine land, from which some 
 never returned. On July 19th Miss Marks wrote me as 
 follows : 
 
 "The workers came thxS morning, and I was not a lit- 
 tle surprised. However, I've sent every one of them to 
 needy places. They thought they ought to have one 
 day for rest, but I told them I had not had a rest for 
 months. I sent to Tilaunia, Baldeo and Mary; to 
 Phalera, Sarah and Robert ; to Miss Tryon's serai, Ed- 
 ward and Jiwanie ; under S. O. Smith, to gather children, 
 Kalekhan and Nanhe ; Charlie Silas to assist here to send 
 to out-stations for children and to distribute thread to 
 weavers. I could use several others. The grain-shops 
 are doing a flourishing business. Mr. Robinson writes 
 that he will not come till the end of the month. I am 
 helping twelve farmers to sow their crops, and when the 
 crops are harvested they are to give me a chance to buy 
 cheap, and they will return some of the money. The 
 assistant commissioner seemed very glad of my offer 
 to help them, and he is to send twelve worthy men to 
 me, 
 
 " Mr. Smith was in and took two hundred bags of grain 
 yesterday. He pays the freight. He is feeding over one 
 thousand people at five centres, and as he goes up and 
 down the line he inspects them. I suppose you have 
 no object-ons if it reaches the needy through reliable 
 sources. Yes, Dr. Scott let Ran Bahadur have grain 
 for poor Christians. I also asked them to send some 
 from Phalera. Anthony will see that the poor Chris- 
 tians get it. Thread is so expensive that this weaving 
 is a losing business. It helps to keep the people from 
 being pauperized, however." 
 
 169 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 On the 2 1 St of July I received this from Miss Marks: 
 
 "The shops here and at Tilaunia are besieged by a 
 regular mob from mom till night, who scream and cry 
 and push and beat one another to get to the shop. 
 What a sight it is ! No rain, and no clouds even. I got 
 in fourteen boys yesterday, and thirty-seven to-day, and 
 more are to come to-night. I hope you can arrange for 
 two hundred boys at Phalera soon. Very few girls 
 come. I enclose a letter received from Mr. Smith this 
 morning. He thinks we could open an orphanage at Pa- 
 lanpur, the other side of Abu Road, and there is no mis- 
 sion work there. It is a Mohammedan state, and the Na- 
 wab is liberal, so I hear. What opportunities these days ! 
 I am ready to open two or three more orphanages. The 
 money could be gathered, I am sure, and the workers 
 found. I am not quite out of my senses. I have hired 
 a book-keeper at twenty rupees a month, and that will 
 enable me to give more attention to the thousand and 
 one other things that come up. My building gets on 
 slowly for lack of water. No water has come in Ana 
 Sagar Lake. The work at Tilaunia became very heavy. 
 The kitchen fed many hundreds daily. From morning 
 until night Mohan Lai and Parshadi Lai, with their as- 
 sistants, were kept busy measuring grain for the hungry 
 villagers ; the waifs required much care ; many of them 
 were much emaciated and afflicted with disease. Fam- 
 ine-stricken weavers were given weaving to do. These 
 poor weavers, who were out of both materials and 
 customers, were helped to set up their rude little 
 hand-looms at their own homes, thread was furnished 
 to them, and the cloth purchased from them when 
 woven." 
 
 On the 23d I received this letter from Miss Scott: 
 
 170 
 
V. 
 
 S3 
 
 #^* 
 
 
 ^^•^yd 
 
 ""^ 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — The grain is going so fast we are be- 
 ginning to wonder whether it will not be best to keep some of 
 it, as it won't last long at the rate it is going. A regular mob! 
 It takes three or four men with clubs to keep the people away. 
 It is not sold in larger quantities than eight seers to any one 
 person, and yet the sales to-day alone amounted to 200 rupees. 
 Since a week the proceeds have been over 1000 rupees. It keeps 
 the men busy giving out, and the poor pastor isn't very well 
 anyhow. The men are very much concerned about the piece 
 of land for sale here. The owner is anxious to know, as he 
 wishes to dispose of it some other way if we don't take it. The 
 land is good, well situated, cheap, and everything that could 
 be desired, if you want to buy in a small place. Three hun- 
 dred rupees will do. We hear Dr. Ashe is going to live at 
 Phalera. 
 
 "Your volunteers were gladly welcomed, and are busy. They 
 have gone to work in good earnest. Please let us know about 
 the grain soon, and the land also. 
 
 "I let Ran Bahadur, of Rup Nagar, have two camel-loads of 
 grain for the poor Christians in his charge. That was proper, 
 as I understood it was to be sent from the place where it was 
 stored to places where we have work in the villages. But 
 Mohan Lai said the order was to give to only those who are 
 able to come for it themselves; but I was wondering what 
 was to become of the hundreds who were not able to come. 
 
 "Mohan Lai sends his salaams. I like him very much. 
 
 "Yours sincerely, 
 
 " Emma Scott." 
 
 Miss Marks wrote me again on the 30th : 
 
 " We have cholera in Tilaunia, I just came home last 
 night, and return this morning. We are overcrowded, 
 so please get Phalera ready for more boys at once, so 
 that I can remove them as soon as this outbreak is over. 
 Our hands are full. Miss Scott and I are dead tired 
 nursing the sick. We have had a good many deaths in 
 Tilaunia lately : Thursday, four ; Friday, four ; Saturday, 
 three ; Sunday three, and I don't know how many more 
 there will be this morning. Not much sickness here. 
 
 171 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 Pray for us. I wish some one were here who could look 
 after the grain- shops. I can't do any more than I am 
 doing. I am so tired." 
 
 When I visited Tilaunia I found Miss Scott living in 
 a little out-house with two rooms, about ten feet square, 
 and a thatch-covered veranda, in the corner of the yard 
 where were crowded several hundred half-starved creat- 
 ures, many of them exceedingly repulsive, emaciated, 
 and diseased. There was fever, and there had been 
 cholera. She had no cook, and was being waited on 
 by a little famine boy, who served her, as they all did, 
 with a love and devotion which was touching, and if 
 skill and ability had been commensurate, there would 
 have been nothing left to be desired. As it was, there 
 was much. It was hot, and the whole place- was un- 
 sanitary. The sights were enough to sicken any one. 
 But love for humanity can rise above all these things. 
 Miss Scott remained, because she felt it was her duty 
 to live among and try and save these dying people. But 
 it was more than even she could endure. 
 
 Miss Marks wrote from Tilaunia on August ist: 
 
 "Well, we are still in the land of the living. Only 
 two new cases down this morning, and no deaths 
 yesterday. I have sent Dr. Emma Scott into Ajmir 
 to rest. 
 
 "The Kishangarh prime - minister wants us to open 
 a dispensary in Kishangarh. I've intended for a long 
 time to open medical work there if I can get a medical 
 worker somewhere. I'll oversee the business once a 
 week. I think he will give us a grant of money, medi- 
 cines, and a house, free. Since the grain came he seems 
 ready to oblige in anything, and I mean to strike while 
 the iron is hot. I think I can arrange to get our thread 
 
 172 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 for weaving a little cheaper through him. Can't you 
 get Phalera ready right away for a few more boys ? This 
 has been full for some time, and cannot possibly accom- 
 modate any more. 
 
 "We have nearly two hundred more boys for you, 
 but we need an extra number to fill vacancies. Many 
 are weak and sick, and have sore mouths, which are 
 very infectious, and the famine diarrhoea is also catch- 
 ing. Though they seem to get well, and look quite 
 strong, the first thing we know they are down again. 
 The boys that have come recently are very weak, and 
 need much care and attention. The state of the sheds 
 where they sleep, and the yard, is indescribable in the 
 morning. A lot of weavers have work, but it is hard 
 to find any one who knows how to weave blankets, 
 especially in these parts." 
 
 On the 24th of August she wrote: 
 
 "Dr. Emma Scott has fever, and I am taking her to 
 Ajmir for a change. Miss Hays will take her place." 
 
 Next day she wrote : 
 
 "Dr. Scott has strong fever to-day, and has had for 
 several days. I feel worried about her, as she has 
 typhoid symptoms." 
 
 On the 3d of September she wrote again: 
 
 " To-day the doctor has pronounced Miss Scott's fever 
 enteric. We have a trained nurse, and she shall have 
 the best care we can give her. He thinks that by the 
 25th of this month she may be able to go to the hills. 
 After enteric she will have to take a long rest. In the 
 
 ^73 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 present emergency Miss Hays is a godsend. She does 
 nicely at Tilaunia." 
 
 Long weeks of anxious watching passed. Then came 
 the slow recovery and the necessary vacation home. 
 Sickness follows famine. On November ist, Miss Marks 
 wrote : 
 
 "I am overwhelmed. So many sick and dying — at 
 least two hundred sick people on my hands, and no one 
 that knows enough to give a dose of medicine. There 
 are so many things to attend to besides the sick, yet for 
 the past two weeks I have not been able to do much 
 but compound and dispense medicines. Could you get 
 me an Agra medical assistant till these famine peo- 
 ple get into a more healthy condition ? I cannot stand 
 this much longer. In the two serais, and here and at 
 Tilaunia I have lost at least fifty this week, mostly 
 from famine malarial fever." 
 
 And so the work went on until the houses were ready 
 at Phalera, and the coming of the rains and more pros- 
 perous times rendered grain - shops and kitchens un- 
 necessary. When the cold weather came on, from Ti- 
 launia hundreds of blankets and suits of clothing were 
 distributed to the poor villagers. After the waifs were 
 sent away to Phalera and Ajmir, and the kitchens and 
 grain-shops were closed, the old building was used for 
 weavers, who are still doing a good work there, helped 
 by their friends, who rescued them when "the famine 
 was sore in the land." 
 
 More than a year has passed since the last of the fam- 
 ine-stricken left Tilaunia and the kitchens and grain- 
 shops were closed and the rescue work ceased ; but in 
 
 174 
 
IN FAMINE LAND . 
 
 November of the present year a great thanksgiving ser- 
 vice was held there in a large tent, attended by a thou- 
 sand people, eight hundred of them famine waifs, now 
 strong and well and happy, who gave expression to 
 their grateful feelings in their own quaint and hearty 
 manner, with bursts of song and shouts of praise. Look- 
 ing into the bright, upturned faces, one could not help 
 feeling that all the trouble and expense of saving these 
 people have been repaid a thousandfold. 
 
XVIII 
 PHALERA 
 
 "The tongue of the sticking child cleaveth to the roof of his 
 mouth for thirst." — Lamentations, iv., 4. 
 
 When we commenced to feed the starving at the 
 kitchens, convenient centres were selected to which the 
 poor people could gather and where there could be 
 rigid supervision and inspection. At first we cooked a 
 limited amount of food in front of the native pastor's 
 house, just at the end of the small village of Phalera, 
 but the number of applicants so rapidly increased, arid 
 as it was annoying to the people of the town to have so 
 many famine - stricken coming together daily at that 
 place, we realized that a removal was inevitable, and 
 yet it became a very grave question what to do in the 
 emergency. No one seemed able or willing to help us. 
 It so happened that next door to the pastor's house 
 lived his landlord, a Parsee, by the name of Prestonji, 
 who had leased some land from a Hindu for cultivation. 
 Hearing our story, he very generously came to me and 
 said I could have land from him upon which we could 
 erect temporary sheds for storage of grain and a place 
 for a kitchen. The place proved to be just the locality 
 desired, within a convenient distance of the mission- 
 house and railway-station, and yet far enough away to 
 obviate any inconvenience to the residents of the town. 
 
 There we erected mud-walled houses, and covered 
 them with a thatch roof, and soon had our kitchen in 
 
 176 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 working order. When the kitchen was first started 
 there was also opened a training-school, into which poor 
 men and women who were capable of being taught an 
 elementary knowledge of books were gathered. The 
 members of this school, as well as their teachers, gave 
 gratuitous help in carrying on the kitchen, which grew 
 into large proportions. From two hundred the numbers 
 ran up to four hundred, and then to six and eight hun- 
 dred, until finally one thousand, and twelve hundred 
 were fed daily. These poor people came about eight 
 o'clock in the morning, and sat in long, double rows, 
 waiting patiently for an hour or two until the food was 
 ready to be served. The majority of those admitted 
 were women and children, each of whom was provided 
 with a ticket, on which were number, name, and village, 
 and the dates of the month, from which each date, as 
 it fell due, was deleted when presented by the applicant 
 to a qualified inspector. Each adult was given a pound 
 and a half of cooked wheat, or corn-meal mush, and 
 children were fed in proportion to age and requirements. 
 It was often necessary to give the children specially 
 prepared food. Many of the people were very much 
 emaciated when they first came to us. Some were so 
 weak that they remained near the place all the time, 
 being unable to walk to their village and back again 
 daily. Some died with food in their hands. In cooking 
 for so many, it often happened that the untrained cooks 
 and waiters did not thoroughly cook and properly serve 
 the food, and many of the people, especially the children, 
 were unable to digest the mess that was served out to 
 them. 
 
 I shall never forget a sight I witnessed one day when 
 
 the people were being fed. A poor village woman had 
 
 managed to crawl to the kitchen with her starving little 
 
 child. She was too weak to get into the line, and lay 
 
 " 177 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 on the ground a few paces off. When the food was 
 served, one of the bearers carried her some of the mush 
 and placed it on one corner of her scanty clothing. She 
 was just able to carry a morsel to her mouth, when she 
 died with some of the food still in her mouth, and the 
 little, emaciated baby lying beside her. She was soon 
 carried away and buried in the sand of an adjoining 
 field, and the child was taken to the mission-house and 
 cared for, but the poor little thing had been too long 
 without food, and soon went to join its mother. 
 
 The suffering of the little children was terrible. It 
 was a very common thing to see children five and six 
 years of age wandering about in the fields or on the 
 road or at the railway- stations, pitifully crying for food, 
 or lying under trees, asleep, with no one to care for them. 
 Their parents had gone in search of food, or more prob- 
 ably had died of starvation or disease induced by famine. 
 I remember one midnight at Phalera, as I was on my 
 way to the station, I heard a child crying most pitifully 
 in the dark. It was so dark that I could see no one, 
 but the voice was so full of distress that at the risk of 
 missing my train I searched for the child under the 
 trees. Under a large shisam tree I found an emaciated 
 little girl, all alone. I said to her: 
 
 "What is the matter, little one?" 
 
 "My eyes hurt." 
 
 "Where is your mother, child?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 , " Have you no one to help you?" 
 
 "No one." 
 
 "How long have you been here?" 
 
 "A week." 
 
 "Why have you come here?" 
 
 "I am hungry." 
 
 I told her she should have food, but as I went on down 
 
 178 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 the road I could hear the poor Httle thing crying with 
 pain and hunger, alone under the shisam tree. 
 
 The reader will remember that on Saturday, the 7th 
 of April, I unexpectedly met the Rev. W. W. Ashe, 
 M.D., at Marwar Junction, and that we visited the Jodh- 
 pur state famine relief camp at that place, and spent 
 part of the day at Biawar. He returned to his work at 
 Aligarh, and my mind was occupied with the great prob- 
 lem of the hour — how best to distribute the funds com- 
 mitted to our care. While thinking over this I received 
 the following letter, dated at Aligarh on the 4th of May : 
 
 "Dear Dr. Scott, — Since my trip through the famine dis- 
 trict in Rajputana, the dreadful misery and suffering I saw- 
 have not ceased to haunt me by day and by night. I went to 
 see famine and I saw it. After leaving you I saw most heart- 
 rending sights. The suffering in the native states is most 
 acute, and in some places very little is being done for the 
 people. I inqtiired about the distress from several native 
 officers, but they all denied that the people were dying of 
 starvation. . . . 
 
 "At Marwar, where I met you, I walked a hundred paces 
 away from the station and picked up a human skull with some 
 of the sinews still intact, as I showed you. I saw one poor 
 woman lying within ten feet of the railway, unable to rise, and 
 there was no one near to help her. At Jaipur, where the train 
 stopped, a crowd of emaciated little children thronged the 
 platform begging, many of them too weak to stand long at a 
 time. A man came along and kicked them out of the way as 
 if they were a pack of dogs. At one place, among the crowd was 
 a wee bit of a girl hardly able to stand. I gave her an extra pice, 
 and as the train moved off the elder ones rushed upon her like 
 so many hounds and snatched the pice away from her. I wept. 
 Who would not? Survival of the fittest! If I possessed a 
 lakh of rupees I would ask for no greater pleasure than to 
 distribute it to those poor famishing people. 
 
 ' ' I trust the committee wdll see fit to give you a large sum for 
 Rajputana, for I am sure there is not a more needy place to be 
 found. Yours sincerely, 
 
 "W. W. Ashe." 
 179 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 As the work at Phalera became more heavy, the 
 kitchen, training - school, and weaving, with outside 
 work in the villages requiring much thought and daily- 
 supervision, I was anxious to secure some one to take 
 charge of the work. My thought turned to Dr. Ashe. 
 I wrote to him, and the result was that he gladly gave 
 up his month's leave, to which he was entitled, to do 
 famine work at Phalera. Subsequently he was relieved 
 from his connection with the dairy-farm at Aligarh, and 
 he and Mrs. Ashe joined us, as permanent workers, on the 
 5th of September. In the mean time Dr. Ashe had given 
 most valuable assistance. In addition to the kitchen 
 and other work an orphanage for boys was started, and 
 more than two hundred were gathered in, requiring to 
 be fed and clothed and constantly attended, many of 
 them being in a sad plight. It was a great comfort to 
 have a doctor in charge of the orphanage. On the 6th 
 of August Dr. Ashe wrote : 
 
 "We fed 400 this morning at the kitchen, and some 
 were turned away. No rain yet. Wheeler's dog brought 
 a scapula of some poor victim, and laid it at my door 
 last night." 
 
 On the 9th, again: 
 
 " Yesterday we fed 620, besides the boys. To-day 715 
 got a morsel. There were a thousand people present. 
 It is impossible to feed them all. Four wagons of the 
 corn have come, and the rest will reach us to-day. Ten 
 or twelve carts are busy bringing it up. No rain yet. 
 It is dreadfully hot to-day. Will go to Merta Road after 
 I get things started here." 
 
 Merta Road is the junction where the line branches 
 
 180 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 off to Bikanir, and is within the limits of the Bhartpur 
 state. The town of Merta Hes some distance away 
 from the station. As it was a needy field, we decided to 
 open a grain-shop there. 
 
 On the 13th, after his visit to Merta Road, he wrote 
 me as follows: 
 
 "I have just returned from Merta Road, where I 
 rented two store-rooms and a room for a man to live in. 
 I took Masih Dass with me from Makrana to let him 
 see the place. He does not seem happy to go there. 
 The com must be sent at once, to save damage. De- 
 pending on what you said about him, I will send him 
 to see to unloading it. Please let me know what ar- 
 rangements are to be made about money. I have got 
 in over two hundred blankets, better than the Bikanir 
 ones. Am having them made in the villages. They 
 will be somewhat cheaper than the sample you brought. 
 We are too short-handed to manage a thousand people. 
 If we had an enclosure it would be much easier to man- 
 age them." 
 
 On the 23d he wrote: 
 
 " I returned from Merta Road, where I went to get 
 the grain- shop in operation. Daud is now settled there. 
 The situation is very critical up that way. The little 
 rain that fell has caused a lot of sickness. The people 
 drink from the filthy puddles, take the cholera, and die. 
 At this place the distress is growing worse daily." 
 
 During the most of August I remained at Phalera, 
 allowing Dr. Ashe to return to AHgarh. The manu- 
 facture of blankets and warm clothing for the famine- 
 stricken, who would otherwise for want of them perish 
 
 181 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 during the rains and in the cold season, occupied our 
 attention. A generous donation from the Christian 
 Herald fund of 7656 rupees enabled me to push the man- 
 ufacture of woollen blankets with vigor. I found I could 
 make a serviceable blanket for a rupee. I stated this 
 fact to Mr. Frease, secretary and treasurer of the Chris- 
 tian Herald fund, and from him received the following 
 reply : 
 
 " Dear Dr. Scott, — In yours of the 6th inst. you say 
 you are making four thousand blankets for the cold 
 weather. You have by this time received the list show- 
 ing the distribution for one hundred thousand blankets, 
 being provided by the Christian Herald fund. These 
 blankets we are having made by famine labor wherever 
 possible, under the direction of the missionaries, and most 
 of them are being made of heavy cotton, and at a cost not 
 to exceed one rupee each. I think that the committee 
 will be very glad to purchase from you the four thousand 
 you say you are already making, and as many more as 
 you can make, up to, say, 7656, the number which will 
 come to you according to the distribution mentioned 
 above, if you can make them at the price given. This 
 would enable you to produce the entire number of 
 blankets assigned to you by famine labor, and would 
 avoid transportation charges, and give you an article 
 usually used by your people. If you can undertake to 
 make the above number, please let me know immediately 
 by wire, if you wish, and I will send you my official 
 check for 7656 rupees, covering the number and com- 
 pleting your grant from the committee for blankets." 
 
 When the Christian Herald corn arrived, two thou- 
 sand bags, containing two bushels each, were stored in 
 the mission-house, and a shop was opened in the town, 
 
 182 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 while distribution was made in the surrounding villages. 
 Two hundred bags were sent to the shop at Merta Road 
 and a like number on to Bikanir. At all our shops we 
 sold the corn in small quantities, at a fixed rate of four- 
 teen seers, or twenty-eight pounds, to the rupee, to all 
 who were needy but able to purchase, and gave to those 
 who had no means of paying. To guard against impo- 
 sition, grain was only given to those who had been sup- 
 plied with our numbered tin tags and corresponding 
 dated tickets. In spite of the most scrupulous care, 
 however, some would appear several times on the same 
 day and draw the allowance, until detected and ex- 
 cluded. 
 
 What with blankets and corn stored in the mission- 
 house, there was but one room left in which to live, 
 and even that was shared with countless flies, mos- 
 quitoes, moths, lizards, snakes, and dogs. 
 
 When Dr. Ashe returned he had his hands full. What 
 with orphanage, industrial work, kitchens, grain-shops, 
 and training-school, there was enough to keep him busy. 
 A kitchen had been kept up at Naraina, a village a few 
 miles away. The grain-shop at Merta Road was doing 
 a good work. The blankets were coming in almost 
 daily. About two thousand were made at Bikanir. The 
 kitchens were kept open till the first week in October, 
 by which time there was no further need. Dr. Ashe 
 succeeded in sub -renting some land, and immediately 
 proceeded to erect suitable buildings thereon for orphan- 
 ages for both boys and girls. 
 
 This, in addition to the other work mentioned above, 
 fully occupied the time and attention of Dr. Ashe, for 
 the buildings have been erected under peculiar difficul- 
 ties. Workmen proved inefficient and slow. The walls 
 of the boys* orphanage were no sooner up than part of 
 them fell down again. The corrugated iron roof was no 
 
 183 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 sooner on than a storm blew it off. But the work has 
 gone on. Thousands have been saved from starvation, 
 and hundreds of children, rescued, fed, and clothed, are 
 being trained. On February 7th, just before leaving 
 for home, broken down under the long, hard work done 
 during the famine, Miss Marks reported as follows: 
 
 "The Phalera girls' orphanage will be ready for oc- 
 cupancy by the end of this month. I still do some res- 
 cue work. We have taken in forty-seven the past month 
 — fifteen girls, four women, and twenty -eight boys. They 
 are very emaciated and weak. Over ninety -nine thou- 
 sand rupees, or $33,000, have passed through my hands 
 for relief work during the year. I have had to render 
 an account to two famine committees, and have all 
 accounts audited. It has been an awful strain to feel 
 that I was responsible for the proper disposal of every 
 cent. Money came from Canada, France, England, Scot- 
 land, Japan, India, South Africa, and the Straits Settle- 
 ments. So, often this year, when I have seen that we 
 needed certain things very much, and wondered where 
 they would come from, some one would write, saying 
 they were sending these very things. It has seemed so 
 wonderful." 
 
XIX 
 
 FORMS OF RELIEF 
 
 "I will call for the com." — Ezekiel, xxxvi., 29. 
 
 The various forms of relief put in operation during 
 the famine were so numerous that it would be difficult 
 to give a detailed account of each. The committee al- 
 lowed large liberty in these matters, provided that (i) 
 the people needing relief were reached, and (2) the work 
 was done under strict supervision, so that there would 
 be neither waste nor theft. It was impossible for the 
 imperial relief to reach all who needed it, and often the 
 relief camps were so distant from the famine-stricken, 
 and the conditions upon which help was given were such, 
 that they were not succored. The people of India, owing 
 partly to many centuries of oppression and poverty, 
 and partly to their religious belief in a fixed destiny, 
 are a long-suffering and patient people, enduring quietly 
 the greatest wrongs without a murmur, and pining away 
 with hunger and making no sign. Sometimes native 
 subordinates were not sympathetic, and carried on the 
 work in an official and perfunctory way, not calculated 
 to inspire in the poor people a belief in " the brotherhood 
 of man . ' ' Sometimes ' ' the minimum wage ' ' meant star- 
 vation and death. Anyhow, there was a large margin 
 left to be met by private charity, and our workers were 
 ever finding out needy ones quietly suffering in out- 
 of-the-way places. We had men and women posted at 
 convenient centres in Rajputana, whose duty it was to 
 
 185 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 find out all cases of need and report them, and a special 
 fund was set apart for this work. In this way many 
 were saved from starvation. People were directed to 
 the nearest relief works, or given tickets which would 
 admit them to our grain-shops or kitchens, where they 
 could get help. But the most of our relief fell under 
 five heads — viz., grain-shops, kitchens, rescue work, or- 
 phanages, and industrial work. A word may be said 
 about each of these, as operated in Rajputana and else- 
 where. 
 
 I . Grain-shops. In Rajputana there were grain-shops 
 at Pisangun, Bir, Ajmir, Tilaunia, Phalera, Merta Road, 
 and Bikanir. These were really distributing centres, 
 from which grain was sent by rail, on carts and camels 
 and by coolies, into the interior. More than twenty 
 thousand bushels of grain were thus distributed. Our 
 rule was to sell to all who could buy at a fixed rate of 
 twenty-eight pounds to the rupee, never giving more 
 than the maximu.m amount of a rupee's worth to any 
 one person, and requiring those near at hand to appear 
 daily for their dole. For the very poor we furnished 
 the meal, already prepared for cooking, free, and some- 
 times a little fuel also. The opening of these shops had 
 a twofold beneficial effect. In the first place, it fed 
 the hungry people; and in the second place, by imder- 
 selling the corn-dealers, we brought down the price of 
 grain in some places. In the account of our work at 
 Ajmir and Tilaunia we have seen how clamorous the 
 poor people were to buy the maize, and that the men 
 were under the necessity of standing with sticks to keep 
 the villagers from mobbing the shops. When the sales 
 accumulated the money was used to buy other grain, 
 and so the shops were kept open as long as there was 
 need. 
 
 In Gujarat Mr. Frease and his associates opened grain 
 
 i86 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 depots, 'which were very useful. The editor of the Indian 
 Witness, who visited Gujarat in May, wrote as follows: 
 
 " Mr. Frease and his missionary associates deserve the 
 highest praise for the effective plans set in operation to 
 meet the needs of the trying situation. First, they re- 
 solved to establish food-grain depots at several stations, 
 where the people could obtain grain at actual cost, or, if 
 necessary, as it was found to be, at a small loss. Capital 
 to allow of the purchase of grain on favorable terms 
 was appealed for and received, although not to the ex- 
 tent that could be desired. For a considerable time 
 grain was sold at the mission depot to all comers, in 
 small quantities, of course, to each purchaser, but after 
 a time it proved that the funds available would not ad- 
 mit of this. So it was found necessary to restrict the 
 sale of grain to Christians, who, as the famine period 
 advanced, began to show proofs of the fact that they 
 were trying to exist on insufficient food. About four 
 hundred tons of maize, or forty railway wagon-loads, 
 have been sold at these mission depots. Many thou- 
 sands of villagers have been relieved in their own vil- 
 lages, besides those on relief works. Large numbers 
 have travelled twenty miles for a week's supply, be- 
 cause, as they explained, 'the difference between the 
 rate at which the corn was sold by the missionaries and 
 the local bazaar rate was just the difference between 
 starvation and life.' " 
 
 2. Kitchens. Kitchens were opened before grain- 
 shops were started, but after the maize came the shops 
 were a great aid to the kitchens, as the corn-meal was 
 used in making the mush which was fed to the patrons 
 of the kitchens. There were many of these kitchens at 
 centres right across Rajputana from Raho to Bikanir. 
 
 187 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 The largest ones were at Tilaunia, Naraina, and Phalera. 
 Here many hundreds were fed daily. Our rule was to 
 give a pound and a half to an adult male, a pound to a 
 wom^an, and lesser amounts to children in proportion 
 to their age. Any one eligible to draw must have a 
 properly filled -in and signed kitchen- ticket, a specimen 
 of which is herewith given: 
 
 I 
 
 23456789 
 
 10 
 
 II 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 15 
 16 
 
 17 
 18 
 
 19 
 
 
 No 
 
 Name 
 
 Village 
 
 Amount , . . . 
 
 
 31 
 
 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 20 
 
 Our kitchens were run upon a somewhat different plan 
 from that of the government. As a rule, the govern- 
 ment kitchens were opened in connection with relief 
 works for children and other dependants who were unfit 
 to go on the works. The famine committee of 1898 
 recommended kitchens especially for children. They 
 say: 
 
 " But as a general rule we are in favor of the kitchen 
 system in the case of children. In the case of adults 
 the existence of caste or other prejudice may undoubtedly 
 prevent many persons requiring relief from accepting 
 it in the shape of cooked food, but with young children 
 we think this is true only of a fev/ tracts or particular 
 castes. The experience of the recent famine, and the 
 evidence we have taken on the subject, confirm us in the 
 
 188 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 belief that in the great majority of cases parents will not 
 object to sending their young children to kitchens, al- 
 though it might be they would not be willing to accept 
 such relief themselves. In scarcities, or at the beginning 
 of famine, the cash or grain-allowance system may be 
 found convenient and unobjectionable for children as 
 well as adults; but if it is considered necessary to en- 
 force a test, owing to the excessive numbers of persons 
 attracted, claiming to be dependants, or if it is found 
 that sufficient relief is not afforded to children, then the 
 kitchen system should be substituted. In severe famine, 
 we think, it will always be necessary to introduce the 
 kitchen system for children; but in order to guard 
 against the possibility of deserving persons, who from 
 caste or other prejudice cannot accept cooked food, 
 being excluded from all relief, although they really 
 require it, we think that when the kitchen system is 
 introduced discretion should be allowed to the officer 
 in charge of the work to exempt from the obligation of 
 accepting cooked food persons who from caste feeling 
 or prejudice or local status cannot reasonably be ex- 
 pected to submit to such a form of relief, and to give 
 such persons either a money dole or an uncooked ration, 
 preferably the latter." ^ 
 
 But not having extensive relief works nor a large staff 
 of workers, it was found that we could reach the cause 
 of all the suffering and relieve it more directly by giving 
 cooked food to the very poor. If we gave them money it 
 would perhaps be stolen or some of them would spend 
 it for opium. If we gave everybody a grain dole, some 
 would have no fuel with which to cook it. We never 
 
 * The late Famine Commission (1901) are of the opinion that 
 "gratuitous relief is in every way more effective and successfully 
 administered by doles than by cooked food." 
 
 189 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 had much trouble on the ground of caste. Many high- 
 caste adults joined our kitchens and ate as heartily as 
 the Sweepers ; but, of course, we discriminated in favor 
 of women and children, and always noticed if they were 
 needy or not. 
 
 3. Rescue Work. This was carried on from beginning 
 to end. When the famine commenced I instructed the 
 whole staff, from Bikanir to Sujat Road, to be on the 
 lookout for starving orphans or abandoned children who 
 could be rescued from death, and often worse than death. 
 A volume could be written concerning the rescue work 
 alone. In this Miss Marks and Mr. Smith took a deep 
 interest. Nearly three thousand waifs were thus gath- 
 ered in. Daropti Das, the wife of a Christian worker at 
 Makrana, was the means of rescuing hundreds. This 
 good woman lived on one meal a day during the famine, 
 that she might have something to give to her starving 
 neighbors. During the hot weather these rescue trips 
 to the villages were made with great personal discom- 
 fort, and often with danger. The heat was awful in 
 May and June, and yet at that time the need was the 
 greatest. At one place our man was imprisoned under 
 a false charge of kidnapping,^ at another the man in 
 charge of rescued waifs was beaten. Often the children 
 were too weak to reach the place of refuge. Children 
 died in the trains and at the railway-stations when being 
 removed to rescue camps. Nor did an emaciated body 
 always reform the disposition. The Bhils are notorious 
 thieves. Miss Marks was bringing some starving Bhil 
 children home, and having to sleep on the platform of 
 a small railway- station, she gathered the children about 
 
 * The late Famine Commission have expressed themselves as 
 strongly opposed to missionaries and others removing deserted 
 children from the famine districts, and advise that "deserted children 
 should not be made over" to them except as a last resort. 
 
 190 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 her, and placed her bag of money under her pillow, 
 and went to sleep. When she awoke at four o'clock 
 in the morning to take the train, neither boys nor 
 bag were to be found. They had stolen it and de- 
 parted. 
 
 4. Orphanages. Out of the famine grew four orphan- 
 ages, two for boys and two for girls, in Rajputana. 
 Nearly eight hundred children were gathered into these. 
 Many of them either ran away or died, and others took 
 their places. Besides these a widows' home was opened. 
 For these orphans and widows buildings had to be 
 erected, which required time and money. At Ajmir 
 and at Phalera, where our orphanages and Widows' Home 
 have been established, the dormitories and other build- 
 ings are completed, and the children and widows are 
 being trained. Nor are we alone in rescue work and in 
 founding orphanages and widows' homes. The Rev. J. 
 Anderson Brown, secretary of the Presbyterian Mission 
 in Rajputana, reported from Biawar that at the end of 
 April they had received 1226 children, and had ninety- 
 six widows under their care, and the numbers would 
 have been considerably larger but for an outbreak of 
 cholera. He says : 
 
 " Many of the little ones who came to us were in a very 
 emaciated and weakly condition, and notwithstanding 
 all our care we have lost upward of six hundred, of 
 whom about a fourth died of cholera. On the 31st of 
 May there were 1507 orphans at Biawar, and in all 2400 
 had been rescued from starvation, but 898 had died 
 from exhaustion or cholera." 
 
 Of course, in other places, as in Gujarat and Central 
 India, thousands were thus rescued and brought into 
 orphanages. Mrs. Lawson writes from Aligarh: 
 
 191 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 "The recent famine has left us a heritage of over 
 seven hundred and fifty orphans and widows. These, 
 in addition to our four hundred orphans of the previous 
 famine, make a community of about one thousand one 
 hundred and fifty. Of these, three hundred are girls, 
 four hundreds and fifty boys, and three hundred and 
 fifty or more widows, with their fifty babies." 
 
 5. Industrial Work. We aimed from the beginning 
 to give work to all for whom work was available. A 
 number of poor people were employed at Ajmir in con- 
 nection with our building operations and in grading the 
 "compound." At Phalera I started shoemaking, sup- 
 plying the shoemakers with materials, and they turned 
 out some very good native shoes. Some carpenters, also, 
 were given work. Those learning in the training-schools 
 had to earn their support by steady work in. the schools 
 and by giving gratuitous help in the grain -shops and at 
 the kitchens; but the most extensive help given was 
 to weavers, who were supplied with thread and were 
 thus enabled to turn out very good cotton and woollen 
 cloth on their own inexpensive and exceedingly clumsy 
 looms. We expended more than ten thousand rupees 
 in thus helping weavers, from whom we purchased the 
 cloth to give to the needy people in the villages. At 
 Sambhar and at Bikanir, especially, this form of relief 
 proved very successful. 
 
 In Gujarat Mr. E. F. Frease says, concerning his weav- 
 ing: 
 
 " From the beginning of October to the end of January 
 we kept three hundred and fifty looms in comparatively 
 constant motion, thus supporting one thousand seven 
 hundred and fifty people. Since then we have been able 
 to work some six hundred looms, supporting three thou- 
 sand of our people. With sufficient capital we could 
 
 192 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 with our present staff more than double our weaving 
 operations, and, as we are anxious to do, employ the 
 non -Christian neighbors of the Christian weavers now 
 employed. 
 
 "The cheap grain sales and the weaving operate side 
 by side, and most of the pay for weaving is given in 
 grain, though cash is given when asked." 
 
 When the grain-shops and kitchens were closed at 
 Tilaunia, and the waifs were removed from there, the 
 old building was retained and continued as a Christian 
 weavers' establishment, from which some very good 
 cloth is being turned out. 
 
 The Rev. R. A. Hume, of Ahmedabad, has taken a 
 great interest in all kinds of industrial work, and has 
 given employment to many during the famine, and to 
 orphans and other waifs since. 
 
 Miss Marks took a great interest in, and Dr. Ashe has 
 given much time and attention to, industrial work, and 
 the latter is endeavoring to teach the orphan children 
 at Phalera thus to support themselves. He has pur- 
 chased two power-looms and hopes to develop this in- 
 dustry. He has in view the cultivation of land also, 
 and thinks that in time his orphanage will become self- 
 supporting. 
 
 Thus have the famine workers been enabled to help 
 the people in the time of their need, and many hundreds 
 are alive to-day because of the various forms of relief 
 which were started and carried on among them. 
 
 The effect of all this charity and benevolence upon 
 the life and feelings of the people has been very salutary, 
 and their naive expressions of gratitude have often been 
 most touching. It is occasionally said by some who 
 meet with the masses of struggling humanity in India, 
 that they find but little gratitude among the people. 
 
 13 193 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 It is, indeed, not surprising that such miserable poverty- 
 should develop selfish and sordid instincts, and render 
 the masses dull and irresponsive to unusual proffers of 
 charity, but the great and prolonged sufferings through 
 which they have passed have also shown their wonder- 
 ful patience and endurance, and, in many instances 
 have led to manifestations of gratitude as affecting in 
 their nature as they are homely and rustic in expression. 
 Often have I had villagers fall prostrate and embrace 
 my feet, while expressing their gratitude in loud tones 
 for being saved from starvation. Mothers have brought 
 their little children to render thanks, and that the hand 
 of the benefactor might be placed in blessing on their 
 head. The common Oriental forms of address, " Father " 
 and ' ' Mother, ' ' and ' ' Nourisher of the Poor, ' ' were uttered 
 with more than the usual significance. Men saved in 
 the time of direst need have returned to offer their ser- 
 vices free. It was touching to see sometimes the efforts 
 made to maintain self-respect. A chief in Rajputana, 
 dwelling in his ruined house and surrounded with his 
 starving people, accepted aid from charity for them, but 
 persisted in saying, "I am a Rahtor, I cannot receive 
 charity." Many parda nashins were reduced to the last 
 extremity before they would accept the proffered aid. 
 One man was given aid to get his family to the relief 
 works, but returned it, because, he said, he had 
 still a goat or two which he could live upon for a few 
 days. I visited many villages in Rajputana after the 
 famine, and have had the villagers crowd around, bring- 
 ing the blankets and other clothing they had received, 
 to show their gratitude, and how carefully they had 
 kept them. Gratitude is noticeable in the increased 
 friendliness and confidence of the ryots towards their 
 benefactors, in little tokens brought by them and given 
 with touching simplicity, in many words and expressions 
 
 194 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 used when talking among themselves but overheard by 
 outsiders: " If the help had not come the thread of life 
 would have been broken " ; " God has remembered us." 
 The praise of the Indian com was in everybody's mouth. 
 Its size and quality astonished them. " Now I have got 
 through to the other side," said a poor cultivator, who 
 had been given a few rupees to feed his bullocks during 
 the stress. " We have heard of the generosity of Hatim 
 Bai," said some, "but we have tasted that of the great 
 Queen." "These are not rupees which have come over 
 the sea," the poor people cried, in their joy, "but they 
 are the water of life." 
 
 Such has been the feeling created among the masses 
 of the people relieved. And it is such feelings which 
 make loyal subjects; for, truly, 
 
 "When gratitude o'erflows the swelling heart, 
 And breathes in free and uncorrupted praise 
 For benefits receiv'd, propitious Heaven 
 Takes such acknowledgment as fragrant incense. 
 And doubles all its blessings." 
 
XX 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 " If any man is in any doubt as to whether he should sub- 
 scribe, I would gladly give him a railway-ticket to a famine dis- 
 trict, and take what he chose to give me on his return. He 
 might go with a hard heart, but he would come back with a 
 broken one." — Lord Curzon. 
 
 It is now time to conclude this imperfect sketch of 
 the great Indian famine. It has been impossible to re- 
 duce to writing a perfectly vivid and accurate account of 
 the actual events and effects of this sad calamity. There 
 is an indescribable horror, an unspeakable misery about 
 it all which eludes the skill of the most graphic writer 
 and the talent of the ablest artist. Even photography 
 leaves out the most pathetic, and yet the most common 
 features — the groans of the suffering, the cry of the 
 hungry, and the pathetic pleading of mothers for their 
 children. Suffering and sorrow and the gna wings of 
 hunger are just as real as the more tangible physical 
 aspects and results of famine. This great visitation has 
 gone, but it has left its lessons. It has shown how 
 humanity is subject to misery and suffering ; how natural 
 law in its normal movement is irrevocable and impla- 
 cable ; how helpless man is in such emergencies ; how it is 
 incumbent upon him to plan to meet and mitigate such 
 awful visitations ; how he should seek to adjust himself 
 to his physical environments ; how, by varying and multi- 
 plying his industries, lessening his extravagances, and 
 
 196 
 
ORPHAN BOYS BAPTIZED BY BISHOP WARNE AT NADIAD 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 increasing his frugality and thrift, he can better his con- 
 dition and increase his staying power ; how, by a multi- 
 phed and extended system of tanks, lakes, canals, and 
 railways he should seek to maintain food supply and 
 transport it as required into needy places. 
 
 The famine has also called out the benevolence and 
 philanthropy of the world. It has shown one half of the 
 world how the other half lives. The farmers of Kansas 
 became interested in the farmers of India. The cry of 
 hungry children aroused universal motherhood. One 
 touch of nature has made the whole world kin. Turn 
 now to the outlook : A people does not recover from such 
 a calamity in a day. The famine did more than starve 
 people. The people are dependent upon their draught 
 cattle. In many places these all died. An agricultural 
 people must have ploughs, and cattle and grain. Villages 
 were deserted. Roofless houses show where man once 
 lived. Families were scattered and broken up, indus- 
 tries disorganized, and labor left stranded without cash, 
 kind, or credit. 
 
 Slowly the affected provinces will return to normal 
 conditions. The keen -eyed Viceroy, Lord Curzon, at 
 the close of the famine said to his Legislative Council : 
 
 "That the famine-smitten tracts will at once speedily 
 lose the marks of the ordeal through which they have 
 passed may not be expected. The rapidity of recovery 
 will depend upon many circumstances : upon the vitality 
 and stout-heartedness of the tillers of the soil, upon the 
 degrees of their indebtedness, upon the goodness or bad- 
 ness of the next few seasons, upon the extent to which 
 the cattle have perished, and, not least, upon the liber- 
 ality in respect to revenue remission of the governments. 
 As regards loss of stock, our latest reports are more en- 
 couraging than at one time could have been foreseen, 
 
 197 
 
IN FAMINE LAND 
 
 and justify us in the belief that if the season be propi- 
 tious the recuperation will be more rapid than might at 
 first sight be deemed likely." 
 
 The paramount duty now devolving upon those who 
 made it possible to rescue starving waifs from death, 
 and often from worse than death, is the support and 
 training of the ten thousand famine - stricken, mostly 
 children and widows, gathered into various orphanages 
 and homes. These institutions will become in time, it 
 is hoped, partly, if not altogether, self-supporting, but 
 in the mean time these waifs, many of whom will develop 
 into useful members of society, are dependent upon the 
 charity of the disciples of Him who said, " Inasmuch as 
 ye have done it unto one of the least of these, My breth- 
 ren, ye have done it unto Me." 
 
 "One built a house — time laid it in the dust; 
 He wrote a book, its title now forgot; 
 He ruled a city, but his name is not 
 On any tablet graven, or where rust 
 Can gather from disuse, or marble bust. 
 Another took a boy from wretched lot. 
 Who on the state dishonor might have brought. 
 And reared him to the Christian's hope and trust. 
 The boy, to manhood grown, became a light 
 To many souls, preached for human need 
 The wondrous love of the Omnipotent. 
 The work has multiplied, like stars at night 
 When darkness deepens. Every noble deed 
 Lasts longer than a granite monument." 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aborigines, 21, 84. 
 Abu Road, 132, 135. 
 Additional dormitories, 155. 
 After two months, 156. 
 
 three months, 160. 
 
 four months, 162. 
 Aged by hunger, 145. 
 Agents found, 119. 
 Agriculture the chief industry, 
 
 14- 
 Ahmadnagar, 32, 81. 
 Ahmedabad, t,^. 
 
 poor-house, 44. 
 Ajmir-Mairwara, 38, 62, 150. 
 Ajmir, buildings, 155, 156. 
 
 cholera in, 155. 
 
 city of refuge, 153. 
 
 description of, 99, 150. 
 
 distributing centre, 153. 
 
 grain-shops, 161. 
 
 industrial work, 156. 
 
 orphanages, 156, 157. 
 Akbar, 150. 
 Aligarh, 118, 191. 
 Alliance Mission, the, 37. 
 Alms-giving, 96. 
 American donors, x. 
 Americo- In di an Committee , 61, 
 
 123, 125, 159. 
 Amritsar, meeting at, 87. 
 Anglo-Chinese College, 124. 
 Annals of Rajisthan, 141. 
 Apathy of Hindus, 89. 
 
 in native states, 73. 
 Arrival of corn, 159. 
 Ashe, Dr. W. W., 118, 179. 
 
 letters from, 179, 180, 181. 
 Assistance acknowledged, x. 
 At last, 86. 
 Average rainfall, 8. 
 Awful scenes in Gujarat, 80. 
 
 Bailey, Thomas A., 125. 
 
 Banas, 67. 
 
 Banyan-tree, the, 105, 106. 
 
 Baroda, 80, 106. 
 
 Baulia, 88. 
 
 Bengal, famines in, 3, 4. 
 
 Bhagwana, 86. 
 
 Bhartpur, 95. 
 
 Bhils, account of, 36, 84. 
 
 missions among, 87. 
 
 primitive character of, 84. 
 
 rude appearance of, 84. 
 
 thieving habits of, 190. 
 
 warlike nature of, 85. 
 Biawar, 95, 119, 191. 
 Bicycle tour, 99. 
 Bika, 144. 
 Bikanir, account of, 97, 141, 144. 
 
 area of, 141. 
 
 conquest of, 144. 
 
 famine in, 145, 147. 
 
 famine relief in, 147. 
 
 population of, 143. 
 
 present ruler of, 144. 
 
 revenue of, 144. 
 Bilaria, 88. 
 Bissell, H. G., 32. 
 Blair, G. W., 92. 
 Blankets, distribution of, 127. 
 
 manufacture of, 127, 130. 
 Bombay Presidency, famine in, 
 
 31- 
 
 officer's letter, 40. 
 Bones, 145. 
 Breaking stone, 50. 
 Brindaban, anxiety about, 158. 
 
 mission in, 158. 
 
 road, 78. 
 Brocklesby's Meteorology, 11. 
 Brown, J. Anderson, 119, 191. 
 Brown, Miss, death of, 162. 
 
 199 
 
INDEX 
 
 Browne, Dr. and Mrs., 88. 
 Buildings, 127. 
 Btmdi, 73, 100. 
 Bunya, the, 115, 116. 
 BycuUa, 32. 
 
 Camp at Godhra, 35. 
 Canals, extent of, 25. 
 
 the Ganges, 25. 
 
 usefulness of, 23. 
 Carey, Dr., 19. 
 Cattle, destruction of, 116. 
 Causes of famine, 10, 22. 
 Census returns, 1901, 62. 
 Central Provinces, famine in, 30. 
 
 India Agency, famine in, 38. 
 Central Relief Committee, 57. 
 Chambal, the, 67. 
 Chattaks, 49. 
 Child, the cry of a, 96. 
 Children, abandoned, 96, 12S, 168. 
 
 rescued, 134, 153. 
 
 sold, 34. 
 
 starving, 127, 128, 154. 
 
 suffering of, 127, 128,133, 178. 
 Cholera, 31, 35, 85, 92, 103, 105, 
 107, 117, 146, 155, 171. 
 
 camp, no. III. 
 Christian, the, 61. 
 Christian Herald, the, 31, 38. 
 
 famine relief, 59, 70. 
 Church Missionary Society Bhil 
 
 Mission, 87. 
 Clancy, Rev. Dennis, 36, 154, 166, 
 
 182. 
 Classification of relief, 50. 
 Code, the Provisional, 42, 46. 
 Code relief, allowance, 47, 48. 
 
 cattle, 46. 
 
 circle, 44. 
 
 classes, 46. 
 
 gratuitous, 44. 
 
 kitchens, 45. 
 
 orphanages, 46. 
 
 poor-houses, 45, 46. 
 
 works, 44. 
 Codes of local governments, 42. 
 
 the famine, 42. 
 
 unification of, 42. 
 Cold snap, 34. 
 College, the Mayo, 84. 
 Committee, Americo-Indian, 61, 
 
 123, 125, 159. 
 
 Committee, famine relief, 119. 
 
 international, 123. 
 
 of one hundred, 160. 
 
 of nine, 160. 
 
 Rajputana, 67. 
 
 Sialkote, 61. 
 Committees, relief, 123. 
 Conclusion, 196-198. 
 
 of commission, 17. 
 Condition of the people, 16, 17. 
 Conference, Ecumenical Mission- 
 ary, 160. 
 Construction of villages, 114. 
 Contents, v. 
 
 Contrast with former famines, 32. 
 Contributions, 124. 
 
 from children, 124, 125. 
 Convalescents, 58. 
 Cooper,deathof Mr. andMrs., 106. 
 Corn, arrival of, 159. 
 Cost of faraine, 1896-97, 28; 1899- 
 
 1900, 29. 
 Council in Calcutta, 40. 
 Curzon, Lord, 29, 51, 9-3, 146, 197. 
 
 Dante's Inferno, 99. 
 Darkest India, 15. 
 Daropti Das, 190. 
 Dead pit, the, 36. 
 Death, place of, 115. 
 
 the valley and shadow of , 1 14. 
 Debt, its prevalence, 18, 19. 
 Debt and the Right Use of Money, 
 
 20, 21. 
 Deccan, famine in the, 29. 
 Decrease in the population, 62. 
 Deep wells, 143. 
 Desert, the Rajputana, 116. 
 Destitution in India, 14, 15. 
 Development of resources, 27. 
 Devotion of workers, no, 154, 
 
 155, 159, 172. 
 Devouring fish, 35. 
 Dinners to Christians, 98. 
 to the poor, 120, 121. 
 Disappointed wanderers, 79. 
 Distribution of clothing, 130, 136. 
 
 of grain, 136, 183. 
 Divine Providence and famine, 
 
 12. 
 Dixon, Captain, 152. 
 Dohad, 107. 
 Donation from children, 124. 
 
 200 
 
INDEX 
 
 Donation, from China, 124. 
 
 from Christian Herald fund, 
 182. 
 
 from committees, 59, 61. 
 
 from friends, 124. 
 
 of clothing, 136. 
 
 of foods, 135. 
 
 of medicines, 61. 
 Dole system, 96. 
 Dudo Punja, 90. 
 Dunlop-Smith, Major, 147. 
 Dutt, Romesh, C.I.E., 3, 9, 26. 
 Duty, 198. 
 
 Ecumenical Missionary Con- 
 ference, 160. 
 
 Emigration from native states, 65, 
 77. 82. 
 
 Endtirance of natives, 194. 
 
 Epidemics accompanying famine, 
 103. 
 
 Equivalent, grain, 48. 
 
 Everlasting wail, 95. 
 
 Excessive land-tax, 27. 
 
 Expenditure on famines, 54. 
 
 Extent of famine, 1896-97, 28; 
 1899—1900, 29. 
 
 Extent of canals, 25. 
 of railways, 25. 
 
 Fairbank, Rev. E., 31, 37. 
 Famine in Gujarat, 33. 
 among the Bhils, 87. 
 codes, 42. 
 commission, 1898, 44, 49; 
 
 1901, 54, 63. 
 committee, central, 57. 
 
 Interdenominational, 71. 
 
 Rajputana, 119, 123. 
 conditions, 69, 70. 
 cost of, 65. 
 diseases, 119. 
 extent of, 28. 
 
 facts and fallacies, 26, 58, 59. 
 horrors of, 97, 98. 
 in Bombay Presidency, 31. 
 
 Central India, 38. 
 
 native states, 65, 72. 
 
 Punjab, 39. 
 
 Rajputana, 69. 
 
 the Central Provinces, 
 
 3°- 
 land, through, 97. 
 
 Famine, lessons from, 196 
 
 officers, 56. 
 
 preparedness for, 52. 
 
 relief, 54, 123. 
 
 relief camp, Jaipur, 122. 
 
 reports, 17, 28, 64. 
 
 tables, 46, 47, 50, 58, 59. 
 Famines and Land Assessments in 
 
 India, 26. 
 Famines, causes of, 10. 
 
 during the past century, 8. 
 
 great, in India, i. 
 
 in Bengal, 3. 
 
 Bombay, 7. 
 
 Deccan, 2. 
 
 Madras, i. 
 
 Northwest Provinces, i. 
 
 Punjab, I, 7. 
 
 Rajputana, 4, 5, 6. 
 
 Sind, 2. 
 
 prevention of, 23. 
 
 Victorian era, 8. 
 Farmers, condition of, 81, 82. 
 Fee, W. T., 61. 
 Feebleness of the people, 97. 
 Food required, 47. 
 
 stuffs, 134, 137. 
 Forms of relief, grain-shops, 186. 
 
 industrial work, 192. 
 
 kitchens, 187. 
 
 need of, 185. 
 
 orphanages, 191. 
 
 rescue work, 190. 
 
 results, 193. 
 
 various, 44, 54, 185. 
 Fox, D. O., 162. 
 Frease, E. F., his plans, 187, 192. 
 
 letters from, 159,161,162,182. 
 
 sickness of, 163. 
 Fruit bearing, 192. 
 Fuller, Mrs. M. B., 37. 
 •Funds, plea for, 100, 101. 
 Future prospects, 196. 
 
 Ganges Canal, 25. 
 Gill, C. H., 85. 
 Glossary, 206. 
 Godhra, 34, 104, 105, 107. 
 Government allowance, 46. 
 
 resolution, 1893, 48. 
 Grain bags, 114, 126, 153. 
 
 equivalent, 43, 45, 48. 
 
 for villagers, 160. 
 
 301 
 
i 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grain, ship-load of, 1/9. 
 
 transported, 23. 
 
 waiting for, 186. 
 Grain-shops, Ajmir, 161. 
 
 and kitchens, 187, 188. 
 
 Bikanir, 147. 
 
 Bir, 186. 
 
 Merta Road, 186. 
 
 Phalera, 186. 
 
 Pisangun, 186. 
 
 proceeds of, 126. 
 
 Tilaunia, 170. 
 Grant from Americo-Indian fund, 
 
 159- 
 Gratitude for help, 175, 193, 
 
 194. 
 Gratuitous relief, 54. 
 Great famines in India, i. 
 
 famine in 1631, i; 1770, 3. 
 Group of orphans, 156, 160, 162. 
 Guardian, the Bombay, 61, 90, 
 
 92, 123. 
 Guests, our, 96. 
 Gujarat, cholera in, 106, 107. 
 famine in, 33, 79, 80, 106. 
 grain depots in, 186. 
 usually exempt, 33, 41. 
 
 Hall, Captain, 151. 
 Hardships, 93. 
 Harrison, J. C, 88. 
 Hauser, Mrs. I. L., 139. 
 Hearing petitions, 64. 
 Help needed and secured, 168. 
 Henderson, Rev. George, 98. 
 Herald, the Christian, 123, 124, 
 
 126, 134, 159. 
 Herbert,' Rev. E. P., 88. 
 Heroism, 103, 109, 154. 
 Hides, 99. 
 
 Higher castes affected, 34. 
 Hissar, 39. 
 
 Historic faculty wanting, i. 
 Hoogly, corpses in the, 4. 
 Horrors of famine, 95, 97, 100, 
 
 loi, 103, 107, 108, 127, 145. 
 Hudson, Rev. T. M., 80, 161, 
 
 162. 
 Hume, Rev. E. S., 32, 37, 71. 
 
 R. A., 193. 
 Hunger, aged by, 145. 
 Hunter, Dr. W. W., 13, 16. 
 Sir William, 14. 
 
 Illustrations, vii., viii. 
 Immigration, evils of, 82. 
 Impotence of the people, 117. 
 Incineration, 107. 
 Indescribable conditions, 196. 
 India, map of, facing p. i. 
 
 poverty of, 14. 
 India' and Malaysia, 15. 
 Indian apathy, 72. 
 
 Famine Commission, 23. 
 
 famines (see Famines), 1-9. 
 Industrial work, 127, 192, 193. 
 Inglis, J., loi. 
 Inn rented, 156. 
 
 Interdenominational Famine Com- 
 mittee, 71. 
 Irrigation, its extent, 27. 
 
 Jahangir, 150. 
 Jai Chand, i. 
 Jaipur, 95, 121. 
 
 maharajah, liberality of, 
 122. 
 
 relief works, 122. 
 Jalandhar City, 80. 
 Jats,i44. . 
 Jhalod, 90. 
 Jodh Rao, 144. 
 Jodha, Maharajah, 116. 
 Jodhpur, 95, 115. 
 Journal, the India Sunday-School, 
 
 123. 
 Jungle Tribe's Mission, 108. 
 
 Kanbai, 86. 
 Karmarkher, S. V., 81. 
 Kathiawar, 7,t,. 
 Khandesh, 84. 
 Khandwa, no. 
 Kherwara, 85. 
 Kishangarh, 95. 
 Kitchens, Banas, 132. 
 
 Bikanir, 147. 
 
 Disa, 132. 
 
 Erinpura Road, 132. 
 
 Mehsana, 132. 
 
 Naraina, 126, 188. 
 
 Phalera, 126, 188. 
 
 Raho, 132. 
 
 Rani, 132. 
 
 Sujat Road, 132. 
 
 Tilaunia, 126, 166, 167, 
 
 202 
 
INDEX 
 
 Klopsch, Dr. Louis, 37, 59, 80, 
 
 106. 
 Kuchawan, 95. 
 
 Land-tax excessive, 27. 
 Lawson, Mrs., 191. 
 Lessons from the famine, 196. 
 Letters to an Indian Rajah, 
 
 Liberal relief, 51. 
 
 Little children, suffering of, 
 
 178. _ 
 
 Locusts a cause of famine, 7. 
 Loni, the, 67. 
 Lord Comwallis, 4. 
 
 Curzon (see Curzon, Lord). 
 
 Landsdowne, 69. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 3. 
 
 Madras Presidency, famine in, i, 
 
 7- 
 Mahrattas, 150. 
 Mairwara, history of, 150. 
 lawlessness of, 151. 
 prosperity of, 152. 
 Map of India, facing p. i. 
 Mark Twain, i. 
 
 Marks, Miss Lilian, 38, 10 1, 127, 
 129, 156, 169, 170, 171, 172, 
 
 173- 174- 
 Marriages, expensiveness of, 21. 
 Marwar, 114, 116. 
 
 Junction, 115, 118, 133. 
 Marwari, his condition, 117. 
 Material losses, 63. 
 Mayo College, the, 84. 
 McNeill, J. H., 108. 
 McWhinney, Dr. R. B., 90. 
 Meaning of Indian words, 206. 
 Megasthenes, 25. 
 Merta Road, 95, 180. 
 Meteorology, 11. 
 Mills's History of India, 2. 
 Minimum ration and wage, 43. 
 Mission, Irish Presbyterian, 88, 
 
 90. 
 Money-lenders, the, 19. 
 
 and the government, 20. 
 
 extortioners, 19. 
 Moneyless, 113. 
 Monsoon, operation of, 10. 
 
 failure of, the cause of 
 famine, 10, 12. 
 
 More Tra-ihps Abroad, i. 
 Morgan and Scott, 137. 
 Mortality, among the Bhils, 36. 
 cattle, 64, 81. 
 extent of, 63, 64, 65. 
 frontispiece. 
 in native states, 62. 
 
 Central Provinces, 62. 
 Gujarat, 63. 
 prevention of, impossible, 
 
 56. 
 through epidemics resulting 
 
 from famine, 62, 63. 
 Mulligan, Rev. W., 37, 90, 92. 
 Mussood, I., I. 
 Muttra, 117. 
 
 Nadiad, 162. 
 
 Nagaur, 98. 
 
 Naraina, 120, 188. 
 
 Nash, Vangham, 30, 146. 
 
 Nasirabad, 100. 
 
 Native princes, policy of, 146. 
 
 Native states, emigration from, 
 
 77- 
 
 famine in, 71, 74, 145. 
 
 government of, 69. 
 
 independence of, 69. 
 
 number of, 71. 
 
 obstacles in, 71. 
 
 relief in, 74. 
 Need of help, 161. 
 Newton, Rev. C. B., 80. 
 Nightingale, Dr., 36. 
 Northwest Provinces, famine in, 
 
 I. 7- 
 Nursing mothers, 50. 
 Nyanagar, 152. 
 
 Obstacles to reform, 71. 
 
 Official Report of Commissioners, 
 28. 
 
 On the way, 78. 
 
 Orphan boys, Nadiad, 162. 
 
 Orphanages, 126, 207. 
 
 Orphans, 126, 160, 164, 191. 
 
 Osborne, Rev. Dennis, 135. 
 
 Our guests, 96. 
 
 Outram, Rev. Arthur, 86. 
 
 Over-assessment a cause of fam- 
 ine, 27. 
 
 Overlapping, 140, 160. 
 
 Overwhelmed, 174. 
 
 203 
 
INDEX 
 
 Pali, 117. 
 
 Panch Mahals, famine in, 35, 90. 
 
 Panic at Godhra, 35. 
 
 Parantij, 88. 
 
 Park, J. W., 162. 
 
 Willie, death of, 162. 
 Patients, sorting the, 108. 
 People chiefly agricultural, 14. 
 Pestilence, 2. 
 
 Petitions of the poor, 64. 
 Phalera buildings, 176, 183. 
 
 blankets, 120. 
 
 difficulties, 170, 179. 
 
 grain-shop, 1S2 
 
 heavy work, 180, 183. 
 
 industrial work, 183. 
 
 kitchen, 177, 186. 
 
 orphanages, 179, 184. 
 
 training-school, 177. 
 
 work opened, 176. 
 Philanthropy called out, 197. 
 Photographs, xi. 
 Piece-work forbidden, 43. 
 Piles of bags, 114. 
 Pit, the dead, 36, 105. 
 Place of death, 115. 
 Plague, the bubonic, 41. 
 Plans at Ajmir, 120. 
 Plea for funds, 100, loi. 
 Plomer, C. H., no. 
 Poor-house, the, 35, 104, 120. 
 Poverty of the people, 14, 16. 
 Preface, ix. 
 
 Preparedness for famine, 54. 
 Present duty, 198. 
 Prevention of famine, 23. 
 Prices and wages, 18. 
 Private relief, 59. 
 Proverbs, 10. 
 Provisional Code, 46. 
 Punjab, famine in, i, 7, 39. 
 Punjabis, 88. 
 
 Quality of corn praised, 195. 
 Quantity of food given, 186. 
 Quarters for the people, 127. 
 Quiet eating, 121. 
 Quito, S. S., 59, 61, 126, 159. 
 
 arrival of, 159. 
 Quitting home, 78. 
 
 Raho kitchen report, 132. 
 Railways, extent of, 25. 
 
 Railways, usefulness in time of 
 
 famine, 23, 117. 
 Railway-stations, 97, 165. 
 Rainfall in India, 8. 
 Rajputana, cause of severity of 
 famine, 69, 70. 
 
 description of, 67, 68. 
 
 famine relief, 54, 123. 
 
 famines in, 4-7, 36, 38, 69. 
 
 forms of relief, 185. 
 
 lack of enterprise in. 70. 
 
 late famine in, 69, 70. 
 
 relief committee in, 119. 
 
 starving villagers of, 66. 
 
 tour in, 95-ro2. 
 Rajputs, 97. 
 
 Ramabai, Pandita, 135, 137. 
 Rations, 47. 
 Ravages of famine, 9. 
 Receiving and giving, 123. 
 Rees, J. D., 26. 
 Reinforcements, 88. 
 Relief, Christian Herald, 61. 
 
 camps, 117, 118. ■ 
 
 classification of, 42. 
 
 measures, 42, 43, 44. 
 
 numbers receiving, 56. 
 
 reports, 58, 59. 
 Report of Commission, 1898, 8, 28; 
 1901, 64. 
 
 Viceroy, 1900, 29. 
 Rescue work, 135, 153, 170, 190. 
 Rescued children, 119, 134, 153. 
 Returns, censtis, 62. 
 Rhodes, Rev. E., 88. 
 Robinson, Rev. J. E., 104. 
 
 Rev. J. W., 161. 
 Robson, Dr. R. G., 119. 
 Room in the inn, 156. 
 Rustam, 96. 
 Ryot, his improvidence, 21. 
 
 Sacrifice, 94. 
 Sad sights, 177. 
 Saharmati, the, 67. 
 Sali, 120. 
 
 Sambhar Lake, 97. 
 Sand and salt, 97. 
 Scott, Dr. Emma, no. 
 
 letters from, 156, 157, 167. 
 
 sickness of, 173. 
 Scott, Robert, 9. 
 Sea of sand, 97. 
 
 204 
 
INDEX 
 
 Season reports, 43. 
 
 Serai, the, 157. 
 
 Shadow of death, 114. 
 
 Shops, grain, 147, 161, 170, 186 
 
 an aid to kitchens, 187. 
 Shylock of India, 20. 
 Sialkote Mission fund, 61. 
 Sind, farmers in, 2. 
 Singh, Sir Pertab, 117. 
 Skeletons, 118. 
 Smith, S. O., 118, 131. 
 
 letters from, 133, 138, 140. 
 Sorting the patients, 108. 
 South Rampur, 90. 
 
 Africa, letters from, 125. 
 SpontaneDus vegetables, 142. 
 Sri Ganga Singh, Maharajah, 144, 
 
 146, 147. 
 Staff that stuck, the, no. 
 Starved, 104. 
 Starving villagers, 68. 
 Stevenson, T. S., 88. 
 Stone-breaking, 50. 
 Suffering children, 178. 
 Sujat Road clothing, 136, 139. 
 
 grain, 132, 135. 
 
 kitchens, 132, 135. 
 
 rescue work, 131, 134, 138. 
 
 repDrts from, 132, 133. 
 
 work, how opened, 131. 
 
 work stopped, 133. 
 Summary of causes of famine, 
 22, 39. 
 
 extent and severity of fam- 
 ine, 40. 
 Sun-spots and famine, 13. 
 
 Table, census, 62. 
 
 famine, 7. 
 
 rations, 46, 47, 50. 
 Taragarh, 150. 
 Taubuland, 125. 
 Taylor, Dr. and Mrs., 90. 
 Thanksgiving service, in. 
 The horrors of famine, 97, 98. 
 Theory of sun-spots, 13. 
 Thoburn, Bishop J. M., 15, 60. 
 Thompson, Rev. C. S., 37, 85. 
 
 death of, 37, 85, 86. 
 
 work of, 37, 85. 
 Tilaunia cotton-press, 165. 
 
 description of, 165. 
 
 grain-shop, 169. 
 
 Tilaunia kitchen, 165, 166. 
 
 rescue camp, 167. 
 
 sickness, 174. 
 
 weavers, 192. 
 Times, the, 9. 
 Todd, James, Lieutenant-Colonel, 
 
 114, 141. 
 Too late, 91. 
 Tour Round India, 25. 
 Training-school, Bikanir, 148. 
 
 Phalera, 177. 
 Trekking, 77. 
 Trying times, 163. 
 Tryon, Miss, in. 
 Tucker, Commissioner, 15, 20. 
 
 Unconcern of Rajahs, 73. 
 Undersold bunyas, 186. 
 Unification of codes, 42. 
 Unpreparedness for famine, 27. 
 Unutterable sufferings, 97, loi, 
 
 104, 107. 
 Unwholesome food, 137, 177. 
 Useful foods, 135. 
 Usefulness of railways, 23, 117. 
 canals, 23. 
 
 Valentine, Rev. Colin S., 61. 
 Valley and shadow of death, 
 
 114. 
 Vegetables, spontaneous, 142. 
 Via dolorosa, 117. 
 Viceroy's statement, 51. 
 
 famine report, 29, 93. 
 Villagers, emigration of, 78. 
 
 grain for the, 159. 
 
 starving, 68. 
 Villages abandoned, 78, 81, 
 
 construction of, 114. 
 Vincent, H. A., 147. 
 Volunteers, 168. 
 
 Wadala, 31, 37. 
 
 Wage, how expressed, 52. 
 
 scale, 50. 
 Waifs from the famine, x. 
 Wail of woe, 95. 
 Waiting for food, 12. 
 Wanderers in Gujarat, 79. 
 Ward, Rev. Robert C, 104, 106. 
 
 sickness of, 162, 163. 
 War and famine, 2. 
 
 in Africa, 41. 
 
 205 
 
INDEX 
 
 Warren Hastings, 4. 
 Water famine, 29, 31, 32. 
 Way, on the, 78. 
 Weavers, 148, 170, 192. 
 Wells, deep, 143. 
 Westcott, Rev. Foss, 88. 
 Whitehouse, Dr. J., death of, 
 
 163. 
 Widows' home, 126, 191. 
 Witness, the Indian, 61, 104, 123, 
 
 187 
 Women, suffering of, 32, 177. 
 Words, Indian, 206. 
 
 Workers, sufferings of, 163, 164. 
 devotion of, no, 154, 155, 
 159. 172. 
 Wrecks of humanity, 97, 98. 
 
 Years of famine, 1-9. 
 Young forsaken, 96, 127, 128. 
 
 saving the, 134, 153. 
 Youthfulness gone, 145. 
 
 Zealous workers, 93, 94, 190. 
 Zenana women, 32, 34. 
 Zone, famine, 29, 39. 
 
 GLOSSARY 
 
 Anna, 1-16 of a rupee. 
 BuNYA, money - lender and 
 
 ^rain merchant. 
 Chattak, 1-16 of a seer. 
 Crore, ten millions. 
 Kharif, the autumnal harvest. 
 Lakh, hundred thousand. 
 Pice, 1-4 of an anna. 
 
 Pie, 1-12 of an anna. 
 PuRDA, curtain. 
 PuRDA-NisHiN, Purda woman. 
 Rabi, the spring harvest. 
 Rupee, ^^ cents. 
 Ryot, tenant. 
 
 Sari, Hindu woman's dress. 
 Seer, two pounds. 
 
 THB END