peons resorted to torture, or pulled down the houses and drove away the cattle. The inhabitants of one of the districts through which Heyne passed asked 'When will the Dharma Company (East India Company) take care of us also? 'Some of the villages were deserted, the people having fled to escape the cruelty of the tax-gatherer. When Heyne asked an old woman to provide him with a fowl, for which he would have paid her, she replied bitterly 'Fowl? What sort of an animal is a fowl? The Moors take care that we never see any.'
This state of fatal oppression ended when the English took over the administration of the different districts and pensioned the native princes. Even at the dawn of better times the villagers could not at first believe that the old system had been swept away, and that justice for the future was to be meted out to the industrious worker. When their crops were harvested and the tax became due, they left their homes to hide in fear lest they should be spoiled of all they possessed. It took some years to foster the confidence which is so marked a feature of the happy, contented dwellers in the Cauvery Valley to-day.
It is not among these peaceful people of the land that political agitators are to be found. It is true that the villagers are credulous and their fears may be played upon. They are foolish enough to believe that the sacrificial blood of their children will be needed to ensure the firm foundation of bridges, and that a disease like the plague is due to the wholesale poisoning of their wells by the British ; but of politics they know nothing and care less. From time immemorial the Hindu village system has remained unchanged, surviving every political convulsion and every change of government down to the present time.
Each village is complete with its different trades and professions. To the former belong the washerman, carpenter,
