Part 51 (1/2)
3. The Hiliya, or Haliya, Pa.s.s is near the town of the same name in the Mirzapur district, thirty-one miles south-west of Mirzapur. A bilingual inscription, in English and Hindi, on a large slab on the bank of the river, records the capture of the fort of Bhopari in 1811 by the 21st Regiment Native Infantry. The tank described in the text is at Dibhor, twelve miles south of Haliya, and is 430 feet long by 352 broad. The full name of the builder is Sriman Nayak Manmor, who was the head of the Banjara merchants of Mirzapur. The inscription on his temple is dated 23 February, 1825, A.D. 'I suppose', remarks Cunningham, 'that the vagrant instinct of the old Banjara preferred a jungle site. No doubt he got the ground cheap; and from this vantage point he was able to supply Mirzapur with both wood and charcoal.'
(_A.S.R._, vol. xxi, pp. 121-5, pl. x.x.xi.)
4. The new road pa.s.ses through the Katra Pa.s.s. The pa.s.s via Dibhor and Haliya, which the author calls the Hiliya Pa.s.s, is properly called the Kerahi (Kerai) Pa.s.s. Both old and new roads are now little used. The construction of railways has altogether changed the course of trade, and Cawnpore has risen on the ruins of Mirzapur. Lalu, Nayak's 'grandson, died in comparative obscurity some years ago, and only a few female relatives remain to represent the family--a striking example, if one were needed, of the instability of Oriental fortunes.' (_A.S.R._, vol. xxi, p. 124, quoting _Gazetteer_.)
5. Within a few miles of Gosalpur, at the village of Talwa, which stands upon the old high road leading to Mirzapore, is a still more magnificent tank with one of the most beautiful temples in India, all executed two or three generations ago at the expense of two or three lakhs of rupees for the benefit of the public, by a very worthy man, who became rich in the service of the former Government. His descendants, all save one, now follow the plough; and that one has a small rent-free village held on condition of appropriating the rents to the repair of the tank. [W. H. S.]
The name Talwa is only the rustic way of p.r.o.nouncing 'tal', meaning the tank. Gosalpur is nineteen miles north-east of Jabalpur. Two or three lakhs of rupees were then (in eighteenth century) worth about 22,000 pounds to 33,000 pounds sterling.
6. India, except on the frontiers, has been at peace since 1858, and much revenue has been spent on the duties of peace, but the power of combination for public objects has developed among the people to a less degree than the author seems to have expected, though some development undoubtedly has taken place.
7. In the original edition these statistics are given in words.
Figures have been used in this edition as being more readily grasped.
The _Central Provinces Gazetteer_ (1870) gives the following figures: Area of district, 4,261 square miles; population, 620,201; villages, 2,707; wells in use, 5,515. The _Gazetteer_ figures apparently include wells of all kinds, and do not reckon hamlets separately.
Wells are, of course, an absolute necessity, and their construction could not be avoided in a country occupied by a fixed population. The number of temples and mosques was very small for so large a population. Many of the tanks, too, are indispensably necessary for watering the cattle employed in agriculture. The 'baolis' may fairly be reckoned as the fruit of the public spirit of individuals. This chapter is a reprint of a paper ent.i.tled 'On the Public Spirit of the Hindoos'. _See_ Bibliography, _ante_, No. 10.
8. The _C.P. Gazetteer_ (1870) states that in 1868-9 the land-revenue was R5,70,434, as compared with R500,000 in the author's time. It has since been largely enhanced. The lessees (zamindars) have now become proprietors, and the land-revenue, according to the rule in force for many years past, should not exceed half the estimated profit rental.
The early settlements were made in accordance with the theory of native Governments that the land is the property of the State, and that the lessees are ent.i.tled only to subsistence, with a small percentage as payment for the trouble of collection from the actual cultivators. The author's estimate gives the zamindars only 15/80ths, or 3/16ths of the profit rental.
9. The people of the Jubbulpore district must have been very different from those of the rest of India if they planted their groves solely for the public benefit. The editor has never known the fruit, not to mention the timber and firewood, of a grove to be available for the use of the general public. Universal custom allows all comers to use the shade of any established grove, but the fruit is always jealousy guarded and gathered by the owners. Even one tree is often the property of many sharing, and disputes about the division of mangoes and other fruits are extremely frequent. The framing of a correct record of rights in trees is one of the most embarra.s.sing tasks of a revenue officer.
10. Under the modern System it often happens that the land belongs to one party, and the trees to another. Disputes, of course, occur, but, as a rule, the rights of the owner of the trees are not interfered with by the owner of the land. In thousands of such cases both parties exercise their rights without friction.
11. This sentence shows clearly how remote from the author's mind was the idea of private property in land in India. Government has long since parted with the power of giving grants such as the author recommends. The upper Doab districts of Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, and Saharanpur now have plenty of groves.
12. The cost of establis.h.i.+ng a grove varies much according to circ.u.mstances, of which the distance of water from the surface is the most important. Where water is distant, the cost of constructing and working a well is very high. Where water is near, these items of expense are small, because the roots of the trees soon reach a moist stratum, and can dispense with irrigation.
13. The author, in his appreciation of the value of arboriculture and forest conservancy, was far in advance of his Anglo-Indian contemporaries. A modern meteorologist might object to some of his phraseology, but the substance of his remarks is quite sound. His statement of the ways in which trees benefit climate is incomplete.
One important function performed by the roots of trees is the raising of water from the depths below the surface, to be dispersed by the leaves in the form of vapour. Trees act beneficially in many other ways also, which it would be tedious to specify.
The Indian Government long remained blind to the importance of the duty of saving the country from denudation. The first forest conservancy establishments were organized in 1852 for Madras and Burma, and, by Act vii of 1865, the Forest Department was established on a legal basis. Its operations have since been largely extended, and trained foresters are now sent out each year to India. The Department at the present time controls many thousand square miles of forest. The reader may consult the article 'Forests' in Balfour, _Cyclopaedia_, 3rd ed., and sundry official reports for further details.
A yearly grant for arboriculture is now made to every district.
Thousands of miles of roads have been lined with trees, and mult.i.tudes of groves have been established by both Government and private individuals. The author was himself a great tree-planter. In a letter dated 15th December, 1844, he describes the avenue which he had planted along the road from Maihar to Jubbulpore in 1829 and 1830, and another, eighty-six miles long, from Jhansi Ghat on the Nerbudda to Chaka. The trees planted were banyan, pipal, mango, tamarind, and jaman (_Eugenia jambolana_). He remarks that these trees will last for centuries.
14. 'In 1899-1900 Malwa suffered from a severe famine, such as had not visited this favoured spot for more than thirty years. The people were unused to, and quite unprepared for, this calamity, the distress being aggravated by the great influx of immigrants from Rajputana, who had hitherto always been sure of relief in this region, of which the fertility is proverbial. In 1903 a new calamity appeared in the shape of plague, which has seriously reduced the agricultural population in some districts' (_I.G._, 1908, xvii. 105).
CHAPTER 63
Cities and Towns, formed by Public Establishments, disappear as Sovereigns and Governors change their Abodes.
On the 17th and 18th,[1] we went on twenty miles to Palwal,[2] which stands upon an immense mound, in some places a hundred feet high, formed entirely of the debris of old buildings. There are an immense number of fine brick buildings in ruins, but not one of brick or stone at present inhabited. The place was once evidently under the former government the seat of some great public establishments, which, with their followers and dependants, const.i.tuted almost the entire population. The occasion which keeps such establishments at a place no sooner pa.s.ses away than the place is deserted and goes to ruin as a matter of course. Such is the history of Nineveh, Babylon,[3] and all cities which have owed their origin and support entirely to the public establishments of the sovereign--any revolution that changed the seat of government depopulated a city.
Sir Thomas Roe, the amba.s.sador of James the First of England to the court of Delhi during the reign of Jahangir, pa.s.sing through some of the old capital cities of Western India, then deserted and in ruins, writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury: 'I know not by what policy the Emperors seek the ruin of all the ancient cities which were n.o.bly built, but now be desolate and in rubbish. It must arise from a wish to destroy all the ancient cities in order that there might appear nothing great to have existed before their time.'[4] But these cities, like all which are supported in the same manner, by the residence of a court and its establishments, become deserted as the seat of dominion is changed. Nineveh, built by Ninus out of the spoils he brought back from the wide range of his conquests, continued to be the residence of the court and the princ.i.p.al seat of its military establishments for thirteen centuries to the reign of Sardanapalus. During the whole of this time it was the practice of the sovereigns to collect from all the provinces of the empire their respective quotas of troops, and to canton them within the city for one year, at the expiration of which they were relieved by fresh troops.' In the last years of Sardanapalus, four provinces of the empire, Media, Persia, Babylonia, and Arabia, are said to have furnished a quota of four hundred thousand; and, in the rebellion which closed his reign, these troops were often beaten by those from the other provinces of the empire, which could not have been much less in number. The successful rebel, Arbaces, transferred the court and his own appendages to its capital, and Nineveh became deserted, and for more than eighteen centuries lost to the civilized world.[5]
Babylon in the same manner; and Susa, Ecbatana, Persepolis, and Seleucia, all, one after the other, became deserted as sovereigns changed their residence, and with it the seats of their public establishments, which alone supported them. Thus Thebes became deserted for Memphis, Memphis for Alexandria, and Alexandria for Cairo, as the sovereigns of Egypt changed theirs; and thus it has always been in India, where cities have been almost all founded on the same bases--the residence of princes, and their public establishments, civil, military, or ecclesiastical.