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CHAPTER II
FAMINE
We may descend into hell, establish our dwelling in the abode of Brahma or in the paradise of Indra, throw ourselves into the depths of the sea, ascend to the summit of the highest mountain, take up our habitation in the howling desert… yet our destiny will be none the less accomplished. All that will happen to us will be such as it is not in our power to avoid.–Sloka.
The year in which we arrived in India, 1877, was a dark epoch for the country. A severe famine extended throughout the length and breadth of the land. The news of it reached us before we arrived. They who have never been in a tropical land nor have travelled through a desert have no conception of what drought can do. Drooping vegetation and a parched soil may be imagined, but the suffering which a prolonged absence of rain can inflict on man and beast is not easily realised except by personal contact.
England knows nothing of gaunt raging famine. The nearest approach to such a calamity within modern times has been dearth or dearness of provisions. Under these conditions the poorest classes of Great Britain have experienced semi-starvation, or perhaps even actual starvation, causing death in some cases. But the scarcity has only affected food. Such a thing as a famine of water has happily never touched the British Isles.
Water famines are confined mostly to the countries lying under a tropical sun. It is an appalling misfortune
