surface of sandstone rock, twenty feet above the present surface of the culturable lands of the country.  There are evident signs of the surface on which they now stand having been that on which they were last worked.  The people get more juice from their small straw-coloured canes in these pestle-and-mortar mills than they can from those with cylindrical rollers in the present rude state of the mechanical arts all over India; and the straw-coloured cane is the only kind that yields good sugar.  The large purple canes yield a watery and very inferior juice; and are generally and almost universally sold in the markets as a fruit.  The straw-coloured canes, from being crowded under a very slovenly System, with little manure and less weeding, degenerate into a mere reed.  The Otaheite cane, which was introduced into India by me in 1827, has spread over the Nerbudda, and many other territories; but that that will degenerate in the same manner under the same slovenly system of tillage, is too probable.[3]

Notes: 

1.  The lake known as Barwa Sagar was formed by a Bundela chief, who constructed an embankment nearly three-quarters of a mile long to retain the waters of the Barwa stream, a tributary of the Betwa.  The work was begun in 1705 and completed in 1737.  The town is situated at the north-west corner of the lake, on the road from Jhansi to the cantonment of Nowgong (properly Naugaon, or Nayagaon), at a distance of twelve miles from Jhansi (N.W.P.  Gazetteer, 1st ed., vol. i, pp. 243 and 387).

2.  The rude sketch given here in the author’s text is not worth reproduction.

3.  The ‘pestle-and-mortar’ pattern of mill above described is the indigenous model formerly in universal use in India, but, in most parts of the country, where stone is not available, the ‘mortar’ portion was made of wood.  The stone mills are expensive.  In the Banda and Hamirpur districts of Bundelkhand sugar-cane is now grown only in the small areas where good loam soil is found.  The method of cultivation differs in several respects from that practised in the Gangetic plains, but the editor never observed the slovenliness of which the author complains.  He always found the cultivation in sugar-cane villages to be extremely careful and laborious.  Ancient stone mills are sometimes found in black soil country, and it is difficult to understand how sugarcane can ever have been grown there.  The author was mistaken in supposing that the indigenous pattern of mill is superior to a good roller mill.  The indigenous mill has been completely superseded in most parts of the Panjab, United Provinces, and Bihar, by the roller mill patented by Messrs. Mylne and Thompson of Bihia in 1869, and largely improved by subsequent modifications.  The original patent having expired, thousands of roller mills are annually made by native artisans, with little regard to the rights of the Bihia firm.  The iron rollers, cast in Delhi and other places, are completed on costly