of the India which he served; and it astonished him. His carts,
as you know, were loaded with wheat, millet, and barley, good
food-grains needing only a little grinding. But the people to whom he
brought the life-giving stuffs were rice eaters. They knew how to
hull rice in their mortars, but they knew nothing of the heavy stone
querns of the North, and less of the material that the white man
convoyed so laboriously. They clamoured for rice--unhusked paddy,
such as they were accustomed to--and, when they found that there was
none, broke away weeping from the sides of the cart. What was the use
of these strange hard grains that choked their throats? They would
die. And then and there were many of them kept their word. Others
took their allowance, and bartered enough millet to feed a man
through a week for a few handfuls of rotten rice saved by some less
unfortunate. A few put their shares into the rice-mortars, pounded
it, and made a paste with foul water; but they were very few. Scott
understood dimly that many people in the India of the South ate rice,
as a rule, but he had spent his service in a grain Province, had
seldom seen rice in the blade or the ear, and least of all would
have believed that, in time of deadly need, men would die at arm's
length of plenty, sooner than touch food they did not know. In vain
the interpreters interpreted; in vain his two policemen showed by
vigorous pantomime what should be done. The starving crept away to
their bark and weeds, grubs, leaves, and clay, and left the open
sacks untouched. But sometimes the women laid their phantoms of
children at Scott's feet, looking back as they staggered away.

Faiz Ullah opined it was the will of God that these foreigners should
die, and therefore it remained only to give orders to burn the dead.
None the less there was no reason why the Sahib should lack his
comforts, and Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up a
few lean goats and had added them to the procession. That they might
give milk for the morning meal, he was feeding them on the good grain
that these imbeciles rejected. 'Yes,' said Faiz Ullah; 'if the Sahib
thought fit, a little milk might be given to some of the babies';
but, as the Sahib well knew, babies were cheap, and, for his own
part, Faiz Ullah held that there was no Government order as to
babies. Scott spoke forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen,
and bade them capture goats where they could find them. Thi