the first objects of his attention. He
manifests a reckless disregard of social position. The distinctions of
caste and rank, of beauty or learning, are not for him. And even as I
write he may be preparing his invisible hordes of bacilli for fresh
invasions, more terrible than those that have ever swept down from the
mountains of Afghanistan. While we are spending millions upon
strengthening our North-Western Frontiers against a foe who may never
exist, save in our imagination, can we dare to neglect the more terrible
enemy who defies all Boundary Commissions, who overleaps the strongest
fortresses, and who laughs to scorn the largest cannon that ever capped
our walls?

3. Finally there is one very sad shade in this part of our picture of
darkest India. If on the one hand pestilence may be said to somewhat
thin the ranks of the destitute by decreasing the number of mouths
requiring to be fed, it must be remembered on the other hand that it
continually recruits them both by sweeping away so many of the
breadwinners, and by frequently paralysing many of those who are left,
and preventing them from earning what they otherwise might. How often do
we hear of even public institutions having to be closed, and of
thousands being thrown out of work by the panic which ensues at such
times.

I have sought to confine myself to a matter-of-fact description of this
gloomy subject, and to avoid anything that could be construed into mere
sensationalism. And yet deaf must be the ears, and hard must be the
hearts, that can be insensible to the cries of agony that yearly ascend
from thousands and tens of thousands of homes. In a recent Government
report, I find that from cholera alone in one year there were reported
no less than 300,000 deaths; and yet the year was not remarkable for any
exceptional outbreak. Still more terrible and regular are the ravages of
the various malarial fevers, that sweep away millions yearly to a
premature grave, often just in the prime of life, when they are most
needed by the country. That a very large percentage of these deaths are
directly connected with destitution, and that pestilence frequently but
finishes the work commenced by months and years of starvation, is too
notorious to require proof. It is a melancholy picture, and yet without
it our review of Darkest India would be necessarily incomplete.

CHAPTER XI.

THE WHITE ANTS OF INDIAN SOCIETY.

Hitherto our description of the Submerged