friends, able and willing to shield them from the exactions of their
own more powerful and uncharitable fellow-countrymen. Half, nay
nine-tenths, of the stories against planters, are got up by the
money-lenders, the petty Zemindars, and wealthy villagers, who find
the planter competing with them for land and labour, and raising the
price of both. The poor people look to the factory as a never failing
resource when all else fails, and but for the assistance it gives in
money, or seed, or plough bullocks and implements of husbandry, many a
struggling hardworking tenant would inevitably go to the wall, or
become inextricably entangled in the meshes of the Bunneah and
money-lender.

I assert as a fact that the great majority of villagers in Behar would
rather go to the factory, and have their sahib adjudicate on their
dispute, than take it into Court. The officials in the indigo
districts know this, and as a rule are very friendly with the
planters. But not long since, an official was afraid to dine at a
planter's house, fearing he might be accused of planter proclivities.
In no other country in the world would the same jealousy of men who
open out and enrich a country, and who are loyal, intelligent, and
educated citizens, be displayed; but there are high quarters in which
the old feeling of the East India Company, that all who were not in
the service must be adventurers and interlopers, seems not wholly to
have died out.

That there have been abuses no one denies; but for years past the
majority of the planters in Tirhoot, Chupra, and Chumparun, and in the
indigo districts generally, not merely the managers, but the
proprietors and agents have been laudably and loyally stirring, in
spite of failures, reduced prices, and frequent bad seasons, to
elevate the standard of their peasantry, and establish the indigo
system on a fair and equitable basis. During the years when I was an
assistant and manager on indigo estates, the rates for payment of
indigo to cultivators nearly doubled, although prices for the
manufactured article remained stationary. In well managed factories,
the forcible seizure of carts and ploughs, and the enforcement of
labour, which is an old charge against planters, was unknown; and the
payment of tribute, common under the old feudal system, and styled
_furmaish_, had been allowed to fall into desuetude. The NATIVE
Zemindars or landholders however, still jealously maintain their
rights, and harsh exa