The bullock being indispensable to the Indian cultivator, bull calves are prized, taken care of, well nurtured, and well fed.  The cow calves are pretty much left to take care of themselves; they are thin, miserable, half-starved brutes, and the short-sighted ryot seems altogether to forget that it is on these miserable withered specimens that he must depend for his supply of plough and cart-bullocks.  The matter is most shamefully neglected.  Government occasionally through its officers, experimental farms, etc., tries to get good sire stock for both horses and cattle, but as long as the dams are bad—­mere weeds, without blood, bone, muscle, or stamina, the produce must be bad.  As a pretty well established and general rule, the ryots look after their bullocks,—­they recognise their value, and appreciate their utility, but the cows fare badly, and from all I have myself seen, and from the concurrent testimony of many observant friends in the rural districts, I should say that the breed has become much deteriorated.

Old planters constantly tell you, that such cattle as they used to get are not now procurable for love or money.  Within the last twenty years prices have more than doubled, because the demand for good plough-bullocks has been more urgent, as a consequence of increased cultivation, and the supply is not equal to the demand.  Attention to the matter is imperative, and planters would be wise in their own interests to devote a little time and trouble to disseminating sound ideas about the selection of breeding stock, and the principles of rearing and raising stock among their ryots and dependants.  Every factory should be able to breed its own cattle, and supply its own requirements for plough and cart-bullocks.  It would be cheaper in the end, and it would undoubtedly be a blessing to the country to raise the standard of cattle used in agricultural work.

To return from this digression.  We plodded on and on, weary, hot, and thirsty, expecting every moment to see the ghat and my waiting horse.  But the country here is so wild, the river takes such erratic courses during the annual floods, and the district is so secluded and so seldom visited by Europeans or factory servants, that my syce had evidently lost his way.  After we had crossed innumerable streams, and laboriously traversed mile upon mile of burning sand, we gave up the attempt to find the ghat, and made for Nathpore.

Nathpore was formerly a considerable town, not far from the Nepaul border, a flourishing grain mart and emporium for the fibres, gums, spices, timbers, and other productions of a wide frontier.  There was a busy and crowded bazaar, long streets of shops and houses, and hundreds of boats lying in the stream beside the numerous ghats, taking in and discharging their cargoes.  It may give a faint idea of the destructive force of an Indian stream like the Koosee when it is in full flood, to say that this once flourishing town is now but a handful of miserable huts.