On the 10th[2] we came on to the village of Bilgai, twelve miles over a bad soil, badly cultivated; the hard syenitic rock rising either above or near to the surface all the way—­in some places abruptly, in small hills, decomposing into large rounded boulders—­in others slightly and gently, like the backs of whales in the ocean-in others, the whole surface of the country resembled very much the face of the sea, not after, but really in, a storm, full of waves of all sizes, contending with each other ‘in most admired disorder’.  After the dust of Tehri, and the fatiguing ceremonies of its court, the quiet morning I spent in this secluded spot under the shade of some beautiful trees, with the surviving canary singing, my boy playing, and my wife sleeping off the fatigues of her journey, was to me most delightful.  Henry was extremely ill when we left Jubbulpore; but the change of air, and all the other changes incident to a march, have restored him to health.

During the scarcity of 1833 two hundred people died of starvation in this village alone;[3] and were all thrown into one large well, which has, of course, ever since remained closed.  Autumn crops chiefly are cultivated; and they depend entirely on the sky for water, while the poor people of the village depend upon the returns of a single season for subsistence during the whole year.  They lingered on in the hope of aid from above till the greater part had become too weak from want of food to emigrate.  The Raja gave half a crown to every family;[4] but this served merely to kindle their hopes of more, and to prolong their misery.  Till the people have a better government they can never be secure from frequent returns of similar calamities.  Such security must depend upon a greater variety of crops, and better means of irrigation; better roads to bring supplies over from distant parts which have not suffered from the same calamities; and greater means in reserve of paying for such supplies when brought—­things that can never be hoped for under a government like this, which allows no man the free enjoyment of property.

Close to the village a large wall has been made to unite two small hills, and form a small lake; but the wall is formed of the rounded boulders of the syenitic rock without cement, and does not retain the water.  The land which was to have formed the bed of the lake is all in tillage; and I had some conversation with the man who cultivated it.  He told me that the wall had been built with the money of sin, and not the money of piety (pap ke paisa se, na pun ke paisa se bana), that the man who built it must have laid out his money with a worldly, and not a religious mind (niyat); that on such occasions men generally assembled Brahmans and other deserving people, and fed and clothed them, and thereby consecrated a great work, and made it acceptable to God, and he had heard from his ancestors that the man who had built this wall had failed to do this; that the construction could never, of course, answer the purpose for which it was intended—­and that the builder’s name had actually been forgotten, and the work did him no good either in this world or the next.  This village, which a year or two ago was large and populous, is now reduced to two wretched huts inhabited by two very miserable families.