Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official Part 22

There is no doubt that the great ma.s.s of those who had nothing but their horses and their _good blades_ to depend upon for their subsistence did most fervently pray throughout India for the safety of this Maratha chief, when he fled before Lord Lake's army; for they considered that, with his fall, the Company's dominion would become everywhere securely established, and that good soldiers would be at a discount. '_Company ke amal men kuchh rozgar nahin hai_,'--'There is no employment in the Company's dominion,' is a common maxim, not only among the men of the sword and the spear, but among those merchants who lived by supporting native civil and military establishments with the luxuries and elegancies which, under the new order of things, they have no longer the means to enjoy.

The noisy _puja_ (wors.h.i.+p), about which our conversation began, took place at Sagar in April, 1832, while I was at that station. More than four-fifths of the people of the city and cantonments had been affected by a violent influenza, which commenced with a distressing cough, was followed by fever, and, in some cases, terminated in death. I had an application from the old Queen Dowager of Sagar, who received a pension of ten thousand pounds a year from the British Government,[9] and resided in the city, to allow of a _noisy_ religious procession to implore deliverance from this great calamity.

Men, women, and children in this procession were to do their utmost to add to the noise by 'raising their voices in _psalmody_', beating upon their bra.s.s pots and pans with all their might, and discharging fire-arms where they could get them; and before the noisy crowd was to be driven a buffalo, which had been purchased by a general subscription, in order that every family might partic.i.p.ate in the merit. They were to follow it out for eight miles, where it was to be turned loose for any man who would take it. If the animal returned, the disease, it was said, must return with it, and the ceremony be performed over again. I was requested to intimate the circ.u.mstance to the officer commanding the troops in cantonments, in order that the hideous noise they intended to make might not excite any alarm, and bring down upon them the visit of the soldiery. It was, however, subsequently determined that the animal should be a goat, and he was driven before the crowd accordingly. I have on several occasions been requested to allow of such noisy _pujas_ in cases of epidemics; and the confidence they feel in their efficiency has, no doubt, a good effect.

While in civil charge of the district of Narsinghpur, in the valley of the Nerbudda, in April 1823, the cholera morbus raged in almost every house of Narsinghpur and Kandeli, situated near each other,[l0]

and one of them close to my dwelling-house and court. The European physicians lost all confidence in their prescriptions, and the people declared that the hand of G.o.d was upon them, and by appeasing Him could they alone hope to be saved.[11] A religious procession was determined upon; but the population of both towns was divided upon the point whether a silent or a noisy one would be most acceptable to G.o.d. Hundreds were dying around me when I was applied to to settle this knotty point between the parties. I found that both in point of numbers and respectability the majority was in favour of the silent procession, and I recommended that this should be adopted. The procession took place about nine the same night, with all due ceremony; but the advocates for noise would none of them a.s.sist in it. Strange as it may appear, the disease abated from that moment; and the great majority of the population of both towns believed that their prayers had been heard; and I went to bed with a mind somewhat relieved by the hope that this feeling of confidence might be useful.

About one o'clock I was awoke from a sound sleep by the most hideous noise that I had ever heard; and, not at that moment recollecting the proposal for the noisy procession, ran out of my house, in expectation of seeing both towns in flames. I found that the advocates for noise, resolving to have their procession, had a.s.sembled together about midnight; and, apprehensive that they might be borne down by the advocates for silence and my police establishment, had determined to make the most of their time, and put in requisition all the pots, pans, sh.e.l.ls, trumpets, pistols, and muskets that they could muster. All opened at once about one o'clock; and, had there been any virtue in discord, the cholera must soon have deserted the place, for such another hideous compound of noises I never heard. The disease, which seemed to have subsided with the silent procession before I went to bed, now returned with double violence, as I was a.s.sured by numbers who flocked to my house in terror; and the whole population became exasperated with the leaders of the noisy faction, who had, they believed, been the means of bringing back among them all the horrors of this dreadful scourge.

I asked the Hindoo Sadar Amin, or head native judicial officer at Sagar, a very profound Sanskrit scholar, what he thought of the efficacy of these processions in checking epidemic diseases. He said that 'there could be nothing more clear than the total inefficiency of medicine in such cases; and, when medicine failed, a man's only resource was in prayers; that the diseases of mankind were to be cla.s.sed under three general heads: first, those suffered for sins committed in some former births; second, those suffered for sins committed in the present birth; third, those merely accidental. Now,'

said the old gentleman, 'it must be clear to every unprejudiced mind that the third only can be cured or checked by the physician.'

Epidemics, he thought, must all be cla.s.sed under the second head, and as inflicted by the Deity for some very general sin; consequently, to be removed only by prayers; and, whether silent or noisy, was, he thought, matter of little importance, provided they were offered in the same spirit. I believe that, among the great ma.s.s of the people of India, three-fourths of the diseases of individuals are attributed to evil spirits and evil eyes; and for every physician among them there are certainly ten _exorcisers_. The faith in them is very great and very general; and, as the gift is supposed to be supernatural, it is commonly exercised without fee or reward. The gifted person subsists upon some other employment, and _exorcises_ gratis.

A child of one of our servants was one day in convulsions from its sufferings in cutting its teeth. The Civil Surgeon happened to call that morning, and he offered to lance the child's gums. The poor mother thanked him, but stated that there could be no possible doubt as to the source of her child's sufferings--that the devil had got into it during the night, and would certainly not be frightened out by his little lancet; but she expected every moment my old tent- pitcher, whose exorcisms no devil of this description had ever yet been able to withstand.

The small-pox had been raging in the town of Jubbulpore for some time during one hot season that I was there, and a great many children had died from it. The severity of the disease was considered to have been a good deal augmented by a very untoward circ.u.mstance that had taken place in the family of the princ.i.p.al banker of the town, Khushhal Chand. Sewa Ram Seth, the old man, had lately died, leaving two sons.

Ram Kishan, the eldest, and Khushhal Chand, the second. The eldest gave up all the management of the sublunary concerns of the family, and devoted his mind entirely to religious duties. They had a very fine family temple of their own, in which they placed an image of their G.o.d Vishnu, cut out of the choicest stone of the Nerbudda, and consecrated after the most approved form, and with very expensive ceremonies. This idol Ram Kishan used every day to wash with his own hands with rosewater, and anoint with precious ointments. One day, while he had the image in his arms, and was busily employed in anointing it, it fell to the ground upon the stone pavement, and one of the arms was broken. To live after such an untoward accident was quite out of the question, and poor Ram Kishan proceeded at once quietly to hang himself. He got a rope from the stable, and having tied it over the beam in the room where he had let the G.o.d fall upon the stone pavement, he was putting his head calmly into the noose, when his brother came in, laid hold of him, called for a.s.sistance, and put him under restraint. A conclave of the priests of that sect was immediately held in the town, and Ram Kishan was told that hanging himself was not absolutely necessary; that it might do if he would take the stone image, broken arm and all, upon his own back, and carry it two hundred and sixty miles to Benares, where resided the high priest of the sect, who would, no doubt, be able to suggest the proper measures for pacifying the G.o.d.

At this time, the only son of his brother, Khushhal Chand, an interesting little boy of about four years of age, was extremely ill of the small-pox; and it is a rule with Hindoos never to undertake any journey, even one of pilgrimage to a holy shrine, while any member of the family is afflicted with this disease; they must all sit at home clothed in sackcloth and ashes. He was told that he had better defer his journey to Benares till the child should recover; but he could neither sleep nor eat, so great was his terror, lest some dreadful calamity should befall the whole family before he could expiate his crime, or take the advice of his high priest as to the best means of doing it: and he resolved to leave the decision of the question to G.o.d Himself. He took two pieces of paper, and having caused Benares to be written upon one, and Jubbulpore upon the other, he put them both into a bra.s.s vessel. After shaking the vessel well, he drew forth that on which Benares had been written. 'It is the will of G.o.d,' said Ram Kishan. All the family, who were interested in the preservation of the poor boy, implored him not to set out, lest Devi, who presides over small-pox, should become angry. It was all in vain.

He would set out with his household G.o.d; and, unable to carry it himself, he put it into a small litter upon a pole, and hired a bearer to carry it at one end, while he supported it at the other.

His brother, Khushhal Chand, sent his second wife at the same time with offerings for Devi, to ward off the effects of his brother's rashness from his child. By the time the brother had got with his G.o.d to Adhartal, three miles from Jubbulpore, on the road to Benares, he heard of the death of his nephew; but he seemed not to feel this slight blow in his terror of the dreadful but undefined calamity which he felt to be impending over him and the whole family, and he trotted on his road. Soon after, an infant son of their uncle died of the same disease; and the whole town became at once divided into two parties--those who held that the children had been killed by Devi as a punishment for Ram Kishan's presuming to leave Jubbulpore before they recovered; and those who held that they were killed by the G.o.d Vishnu himself, for having been so rudely deprived of one of his arms. Khushhal Chand's wife sickened on the road, and died on reaching Mirzapore, of fever; and, as Devi was supposed to have nothing to do with fevers, this event greatly augmented the advocates of Vishnu. It is a rule with the Hindoos to bury, and not to burn, the bodies of those who die of the small-pox; 'for', say they, 'the small-pox is not only caused by the G.o.ddess Devi, but is, in fact, _Devi herself_', and to burn the body of the person affected with this disease is, in reality, neither more nor less than _to burn the G.o.ddess_'.

Khushhal Chand was strongly urged to bury, and not burn, his child, particularly as it was usual with Hindoos to bury infants and children of that age, of whatever disease they might die; but he insisted upon having his boy burned with all due pomp and ceremony, and burned he was accordingly. From that moment, it is said, the disease began to rage with increased violence throughout the town of Jubbulpore. At least one-half of the children affected had before survived; but, from that hour, at least three out of four died; and, instead of the condolence which he expected from his fellow citizens, poor Khushhal Chand, a very amiable and worthy man, received nothing but their execrations for bringing down so many calamities upon their heads; first, by maltreating his own G.o.d, and then by setting fire to theirs.

I had, a few days after, a visit from Gangadhar Rao, the Sadar Amin, or head native judicial officer of this district, whose father had been for a short time the ruler of the district, under the former government; and I asked him whether the small-pox had diminished in the town since the rains had now set in. He told me that he thought it had, but that a great many children had been taken off by the disease.[12]

'I understand, Rao Sahib, that Khushhal Chand, the banker, is supposed to have augmented the virulence of the disease by burning his boy; was it so?'

'Certainly,' said my friend, with a grave, long face; 'the disease was much increased by this man's folly.' I looked very grave in my turn, and he continued:- 'Not a child escaped after he had burned his boy. Such incredible folly! To set fire to the _G.o.ddess_ in the midst of a population of twenty thousand souls; it might have brought destruction on us all!'

'What makes you think that the disease is itself the G.o.ddess?'

'Because we always say, when any member of a family becomes attacked by the small-pox, "_Devi nikali_", that is, Devi has shown herself in that family, or in that individual. And the person affected can wear nothing but plain white clothing, not a silken or coloured garment, nor an ornament of any kind; nor can he or any of his family undertake a journey, or partic.i.p.ate in any kind of rejoicings, lest he give offence to her. They broke the arm of their G.o.d, and he drove them all mad.[l3] The elder brother set out on a journey with it, and his nephew, cousin, and sister-in-law fell victims to his temerity; and then Khushhal Chand brings down the G.o.ddess upon the whole community by burning his boy![14] No doubt he was very fond of his child--so we all are--and wished to do him all honour; but some regard is surely due to the people around us, and I told him so when he was making preparations for the funeral; but he would not listen to reason.'

A complicated religious code, like that of the Hindoos, is to the priest what a complicated civil code, like that of the English, is to the lawyers. A Hindoo can do nothing without consulting his priest, and an Englishman can do nothing without consulting his lawyer.

Notes:

1. _Ante_, Chapter 24, following note [4].

2. Sagar was ceded by the Peshwa in 1818, and a yearly sum of two and a half lakhs of rupees was allotted by Government for pensions to Rukma Bai, Vinayak Rao, and the other officers of the Maratha Government. A descendant of Rukma Bai continued for many years to enjoy a pension of R.10,000 per annum (_C.P. Gazetteer_ (1870), p, 442). The lady referred to in the text seems to be Rukma Bai.

3. A village about twenty miles north-west of Sagar. The estate consists of twenty-six revenue-free villages.

4. The Jewish ceremonial is described in Leviticus xvi. 20-26. After completing the atonement for the impurities of the holy place, the tabernacle, and the altar, Aaron was directed to lay 'his hands upon the head of the live goat', so putting all the sins of the people upon the animal, and then to 'send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness; and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness'. The subject of scape-goats is discussed at length and copiously ill.u.s.trated by Mr. Frazer in _The Golden Bough_, 1st ed., vol. ii, section 15, pp. 182-217; 3rd ed. (1913) Part VI. The author's stories in the text are quoted by Mr. Frazer.

5. During the season of 1816-17 the ravages of the Pindharis were exceptionally daring and extensive. The Governor-General, the Marquis of Hastings, organized an army in several divisions to crush the marauders, and himself joined the central division in October 1817.

The operations were ended by the capture of Asirgarh in March 1819.

6. The people in the Sagar territories used to show several decayed mango-trees in groves where European troops had encamped during the campaigns of 1816 and 1817, and declared that they had been seen to wither from the day that beef for the use of these troops had been tied to their branches. The only coincidence was in the decay of the trees, and the encamping of the troops in the groves; that the withering trees were those to which the beef had been tied was of course taken for granted. [W. H. S.] The Hindoo veneration for the cow amounts to a pa.s.sion, and its intensity is very inadequately explained by the current utilitarian explanations. The best a.n.a.lysis of the motives underlying the pa.s.sionate Hindoo feeling on the subject is to be found in Mr. William Crooke's article 'The Veneration of the Cow in India' (_Folklore_, Sept. 1912, pp. 275- 306). In modern times an active, though absolutely hopeless, agitation has been kept up, directed against the reasonable liberty of those communities in India who are not members of the Hindoo system. This agitation for the prohibition of cow-killing has caused some riots, and has evoked much ill-feeling. The editor had to deal with it in the Muzaffarnagar district in 1890, and had much trouble to keep the peace. The local leaders of the movement went so far as to send telegrams direct to the Government of India. Many other magistrates have had similar experiences. The authorities take every precaution to protect Hindoo susceptibilities from needless wounds, but they are equally bound to defend the lawful liberty of subjects who are not Hindoos. The Government of the United Provinces on one occasion yielded to the Hindoo demands so far as to prohibit cow- killing in at least one town where the practice was not fully established, but the legality and expediency of such an order are both open to criticism. The administrative difficulty is much enhanced by the fact that the Indian Muhammadans profess to be under a religious obligation to sacrifice cows at the idul Bakr festival.

Cholera has been known to exist in India at least since the seventeenth century (Balfour, _Cyclopaedia of India_, 3rd ed. (1885), s.v.).

7. The cultus of Hardaul is further discussed _post_ in Chapter 31.

In 1875, the editor, who was then employed in the Hamirpur district of Bundelkhand, published some popular Hindi songs in praise of the hero, with the following abstract of the _Legend of Hardaul_: 'Hardaul, a son of the famous Bir Singh Deo Bundela of Orchha, was born at Datiya. His brother, Jhajhar Singh, suspected him of undue intimacy with his wife, and at a feast poisoned him with all his followers. After this tragedy, it happened that the daughter of Kunjavati, the sister of Jhajhar and Hardaul, was about to be married. Kunjavati accordingly sent an invitation to Jhajhar Singh, requesting him to attend the wedding. He refused, and mockingly replied that she had better invite her favourite brother Hardaul.

Thereupon she went in despair to his tomb and lamented aloud. Hardaul from below answered her cries, and said that he would come to the wedding and make all arrangements. The ghost kept his promise, and arranged the nuptials as befitted the honour of his house.

Subsequently, he visited at night the bedside of Akbar, and besought the emperor to command _chabutras_ to be erected and honour paid to him in every village throughout the empire, promising that, if he were duly honoured, a wedding should never be marred by storm or rain, and that no one who first presented a share of his meal to Hardaul should ever want for food. Akbar complied with these requests, and since that time Hardaul's ghost has been wors.h.i.+pped in every village. He is chiefly honoured at weddings and in Baisakh (April-May), during which month the women, especially those of the lower castes, visit his _chabutra_ and eat there. His chabutra is always built outside the village. On the day but one before the arrival of a wedding procession, the women of the family wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds and Hardaul, and invite them to the wedding. If any signs of a storm appears, Hardaul is propitiated with songs '(_J.A.S.B._, vol.

xliv (1875), Part I, p. 389). The belief that Hardaul wors.h.i.+p and cholera had been introduced at the same time prevailed in Hamirpur, as elsewhere. The _chabutra_ referred to in the above extract is a small platform built of mud or masonry.

8. The Hyphasis is the Greek name for the river Bias in the Panjab.

Holkar's flight into the Panjab occurred in 1805, and in the same year the long war with him was terminated by a treaty, much too favourable to the marauding chief. He became insane a few years later, and died in 1811.

9. See note 2,_ante_.

10. Narsinghpur and Kandeli are practically one town. The Government offices and houses of the European residents are in Kandeli, which is a mile east of Narsinghpur. The original name of Narsinghpur was Gadaria Khera. The modern name is due to the erection of a large temple to Narsingha, one of the forms of Vishnu. The district of Narsinghpur lies in the Nerbudda valley, west and south-west of Jubbulpore.

11. All cla.s.ses of Indians still frequently refuse to employ any medicines in cases of either cholera or small-pox, supposing that the attempt to use ordinary human means is an insult to, and a defiance of, the Deity.

12. Vaccination was not practised in India in those days. The practice of it, although still unpopular in most places, has extended sufficiently to check greatly the ravages of small-pox. In many munic.i.p.al towns vaccination is compulsory.

13._Quem deus vult perdere, prius dementat_.

14. The judge cleverly combines the opinions of the adherents of both sects.

CHAPTER 26

Artificial Lakes in Bundelkhand--Hindoo, Greek, and Roman Faith.

On the 11th[1] we came on twelve miles to the town of Bamhauri, whence extends to the south-west a ridge of high and bare quartz hills, towering above all others, curling and foaming at the top, like a wave ready to burst, when suddenly arrested by the hand of Omnipotence, and turned into white stone. The soil all the way is wretchedly poor in quality, being formed of the detritus of syenitic and quartz rocks, and very thin. Bamhauri is a nice little town,[2]

beautifully situated on the bank of a fine lake, the waters of which preserved during the late famine the population of this and six other small towns, which are situated near its borders, and have their lands irrigated from it. Besides water for their fields, this lake yielded the people abundance of water-chestnuts[3] and fish. In the driest season the water has been found sufficient to supply the wants of all the people of those towns and villages, and those of all the country around, as far as the people can avail themselves of it.

This large lake is formed by an artificial bank or wall at the south- east end, which rests one arm upon the high range of quartz rocks, which run along its south-west side for several miles, looking down into the clear deep water, and forming a beautiful landscape.

From this pretty town, Ludhaura, where the great marriage had lately taken place, was in sight, and only four miles distant.[4] It was, I learnt, the residence of the present Raja of Orchha, before the death of his brother called him to the throne. Many people were returning from the ceremonies of the marriage of 'salagram' with 'Tulasi'; who told me that the concourse had been immense--at least one hundred and fifty thousand; and that the Raja had feasted them all for four days during the progress of the ceremonies, but that they were obliged to defray their expenses going and coming, except when they came by special invitation to do honour to the occasion, as in the case of my little friend the Sagar high priest, Janki Sewak. They told me that they called this festival the 'Dhanuk jag';[5] and that Janakraj, the father of Sita, had in his possession the 'dhanuk', or immortal bow of Parasram, the sixth incarnation of Vishnu, with which he exterminated all the Kshatriyas, or original military cla.s.s of India, and which required no less than four thousand men to raise it on one end.[6] The prince offered his daughter in marriage to any man who should bend this bow. Hundreds of heroes and demiG.o.ds aspired to the hand of the fair Sita, and essayed to bend the bow; but all in vain, till young Ram, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu,[7] then a lad of only ten years of age, came; and at the touch of his great toe the bow flew into a thousand pieces, which are supposed to have been all taken up into heaven. Sita became the wife of Ram; and the popular poem of the Ramayana describes the abduction of the heroine by the monster king of Ceylon, Ravana, and her recovery by means of the monkey general Hanuman. Every word of this poem, the people a.s.sured me, was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by his inspiration, which was the same thing, and it must, consequently, be true.[8] Ninety-nine out of a hundred among the Hindoos implicitly believe, not only every word of this poem, but every word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanskrit. If you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these books, he replies with the greatest _navete_ in the world, 'Is it not written in the book; and how should it be there written if not true?' The Hindoo religion reposes upon an entire prostration of mind, that continual and habitual surrender of the reasoning faculties, which we are accustomed to make occasionally. While engaged at the theatre, or in the perusal of works of fiction, we allow the scenes, characters, and incidents to pa.s.s before 'our mind's eye', and move our feelings, without asking, or stopping a moment to ask, whether they are real or true. There is only this difference that, with people of education among us, even in such short intervals of illusion or abandon, any extravagance in acting, or flagrant improbability in the fiction, destroys the charm, breaks the spell by which we have been so mysteriously bound, stops the smooth current of sympathetic emotion, and restores us to reason and to the realities of ordinary life. With the Hindoos, on the contrary, the greater the improbability, the more monstrous and preposterous the fiction, the greater is the charm it has over their minds;[9] and the greater their learning in the Sanskrit the more are they under the influence of this charm. Believing all to be written by the Deity, or by his inspiration, and the men and things of former days to have been very different from the men and things of the present day, and the heroes of these fables to have been demiG.o.ds, or people endowed with powers far superior to those of the ordinary men of their own day, the a.n.a.logies of nature are never for a moment considered; nor do questions of probability, or possibility, according to those a.n.a.logies, ever obtrude to dispel the charm with which they are so pleasingly bound. They go on through life reading and talking of these monstrous fictions, which shock the taste and understanding of other nations, without once questioning the truth of one single incident, or hearing it questioned. There was a time, and that not very distant, when it was the same in England, and in every other European nation; and there are, I am afraid, some parts of Europe where it is so still. But the Hindoo faith, so far as religious questions are concerned, is not more capacious or absurd than that of the Greeks and Romans in the days of Socrates and Cicero--the only difference is, that among the Hindoos a greater number of the questions which interest mankind are brought under the head of religion.

There is nothing in the Hindoos more absurd than the _piety_ of Tiberius in offering up sacrifices in the temple, and before the image of Augustus; while he was solicited by all the great cities of the empire to suffer temples to be built and sacrifices to be made to himself while still living; or than Alexander's attempt to make a G.o.ddess of his mother while yet alive, that he might feel the more secure of being made a G.o.d himself after his death.[10] In all religions there are points at which the professors declare that reason must stop, and cease to be a guide to faith. The pious man thinks that all which he cannot comprehend or reconcile to reason in his own religion must be above it. The superst.i.tions of the people of India will diminish before the spread of science, art, and literature; and good works of history and fiction would, I think, make far greater havoc among these superst.i.tions even than good works in any of the sciences, save the physical, such as astronomy, chemistry, &c.[11]

In the evening we went out with the intention of making an excursion of the lake, in boats that had been prepared for our reception by tying three or four fis.h.i.+ng canoes together;[12] but, on reaching the ridge of quartz hills which runs along the south-east side, we preferred moving along its summit to entering the boats. The prospect on either side of this ridge was truly beautiful. A n.o.ble sheet of clear water, about four miles long by two broad, on our right; and on our left a no less n.o.ble sheet of rich wheat cultivation, irrigated from the lake by drains pa.s.sing between small breaks in the ridges of the hills. The Persian wheel is used to raise the water.[13] This sheet of rich cultivation is beautifully studded with mango groves and fields of sugar-cane. The lake is almost double the size of that of Sagar, and the idea of its great utility for purposes of irrigation made it appear to me far more beautiful; but my little friend the Sarimant, who accompanied us in our walk, said that 'it could not be so handsome, since it had not a fine city and castle on two sides, and a fine Government house on the third'.

'But', said I, 'no man's field is watered from that lake.'

'No', replied he, 'but for every man that drinks of the waters of this, fifty drink of the waters of that; from that lake thirty thousand people get _aram_ (comfort) every day.'

This lake is called Kewlas after Kewal Varmma, the Chandel prince by whom it was formed.[14] His palace, now in ruins, stood on the top of the ridge of rocks in a very beautiful situation. From the summit, about eight miles to the west, we could see a still larger lake, called the Nandanvara Lake, extending under a similar range of quartz hills running parallel with that on which we stood.[15] That lake, we were told, answered upon a much larger scale the same admirable purpose of supplying water for the fields, and securing the people from the dreadful effects of droughts. The extensive level plains through which the rivers of Central India[16] generally cut their way have, for the most part, been the beds of immense natural lakes;[17]

and there rivers sink so deep into their beds, and leave such ghastly chasms and ravines on either side, that their waters are hardly ever available in due season for irrigation. It is this characteristic of the rivers of Central India that makes such lakes so valuable to the people, particularly in seasons of drought.[l8] The river Nerbudda has been known to rise seventy feet in the course of a couple of days in the rains; and, during the season when its waters are wanted for irrigation, they can nowhere be found within that [distance] of the surface; while a level piece of ground fit for irrigation is rarely to be met with within a mile of the stream.[19]