arms. Still more of such families lingered on in hope till
all had been expended; then shut their doors, took poison and died
all together, rather than expose their misery, and submit to the
degradation of begging. All these things I have myself known and
seen; and, in the midst of these and a hundred other harrowing scenes
which present themselves on such occasions, the European cannot fail
to remark the patient resignation with which the poor people submit
to their fate; and the absence of almost all those revolting acts
which have characterized the famines of which he has read in other
countries--such as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers
devouring their own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian
famines;[10] here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real
cause, the want of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of
hatred against their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in
society who happen to live beyond the range of such calamities. They
gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are
always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and, though
their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride, the pride
of caste, they rarely ever drive the people to acts of violence. The
stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the
agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries,
must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line it
takes a greater number of people than they have the means of
relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say that
I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems to
animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing
occasions.

In such seasons of distress, we often, in India, hear of very
injudicious interference with grain dealers on the part of civil and
military authorities, who contrive to persuade themselves that the
interest of these corn-dealers, instead of being in accordance with
the interests of the people, are entirely opposed to them; and
conclude that, whenever grain becomes dear, they have a right to make
them open their granaries, and sell their grain at such price as
they, in their wisdom, may deem reasonable. If they cannot make them
do this by persuasion, fine, or imprisonment, they cause their pits
to be opened by their own soldiers or native officers, and the grain
to be sold at an arbitrary price. If, in a hun