the different corps concluded their retreat in great disorder, the last of them reaching Agra on the thirty-first of August. CHAPTER XXX. "Ill-fated race! the light that leads to heaven; THOMSON. "INDIA is a country," writes the medical gentleman whom we have already quoted from, "the natural resources of which are yet so unimpaired, that it may be said to be only coming now into useful existence, if its rulers will but permit it. Its vast and fertile provinces impress the mind with the conviction of its being gifted with perpetual abundance, and of its possessing the imperishable elements of national security. It holds out commercial advantages of the first order, and encouragement of every kind to the man of enterprise; whilst it presents to the philosopher and the enthusiast a grand and varied field of observation. "Yet what in our observations are we obliged sometimes to contemplate? Such scenes as this:-A district over-assessed; the farmer being ruined is cast into prison, in the desire to squeeze from him his last rupee. By some legerdemain he was to coin rupees in jail, and the land by lying fallow was to be improved. The one idea was as good as the other! "The farmer grew poorer; the land got choked with a brushwood which only years could eradicate. A lamentable instance of this I saw in a country, which, before it had been devastated by war, was a rich province for a length of time. For miles, in one un interrupted course, tracts of cultivation were to be seen waving to the breeze. Every night were to be heard the tinkling of the small bells of the herds and flocks, as returning from their mountain pastures they wound their way along the woodland paths. "Being one of the independent sovereignties of the Mogul empire it shared the fate which befel the Moslem rule. But though it lost its independence, it continued rich and populous. What is it under the British rule? With a fine navigable river flowing though it, with a town well situated, it has sunk into decay, and is surrounded by terrific jungles. 'Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death, a universe of death.' "A most remarkable remnant near one of these wastes is a grove of cypress trees, looking a fit haunt for the ghosts of departed sages. Several attempts have been made to induce cultivators to settle there once more; but, although the ground is rich, and offered for the trouble of clearing, they will not resort to it. The few who have gone were attacked by disease, soon followed by death." How such a change as has been just described may have taken place--and how it must have taken place in many instances over large districts-will be readily understood if we consider the nature of the governing power in India, as it is described by the historian. he says, "The relations established," he "with the princes of India were different in different circumstances. From those with whom their connexion was most intimate, it had become the object of the British government to take away not only the military, but likewise the civil power, in the countries to which their titles respectively extended, and leaving them the name of sovereign, to make them simply pensioners of state. With most this object had been completely attained. |