event expected to take place. The
sea-washed shore was crowded with thousands of
emaciated creatures standing, squatting, reclining,
kneeling, in every conceivable posture and
attitude; but all gazing in one direction—seaward.

Following the direction of their gaze, I beheld
in the offing a small schooner. Her sails were
scarcely filled by the sluggish evening breeze, and
her progress was so slight as scarcely to form a
ripple upon the face of the calm sea. Not a sound
was heard amidst all the gazing multitude save the
soft tread of new comers upon the sandy beach.
These were absorbed in the one great idea—
preservation of life. Food was in the schooner, and
O how each starving wretch longed for its
approach!

The dark coppery sky became duller and
fainter in colour until the grey of evening, and
then the leaden tint of night absorbed all other
shades. Still the silent multitude waited
anxiously on the sea-beach, hoping, but vainly, to
feast their sunken eyes upon the welcome vessel
and her blessed cargo. Never before was ship
so longed for.

Some hour or two after nightfall a heavy
splash was heard not far from shore, and lights
were visible flitting about above the water's
level. The small craft had anchored, and her
crew were loading their boat with a supply of
the staff of their life—rice. No sooner was the
quick, short plash of the oars heard, than
hundreds of the crowd rushed to the water's edge.
Some waded out to their necks; others swam
boldly towards the boat, clung to it, and tried
to spring into it and pounce upon the longed-for
food.

How many miserable-wretches died that night
by drowning, or by eating ravenously of the
raw grain as they tore it from the half-opened
bags, I know not. I shall not easily forget the
scene I witnessed. The boat's crew had a hard
struggle to bring their little cargo to the shore, so
pressed were they by the hungry mob. The excited
forms of the sailors, struggling by torchlight
with hundreds of famished ryots, the latter falling
over each other and desperately striving for
only a handful of the coveted grain; the few
fortunate ones crouching down on the sands,
hoping to swallow the stolen food unobserved; but
soon, set upon by others, lost half upon the shore.

Again and again this sad scene was enacted:
fresh boat-loads were landed until all had
partaken of the treasured gift, by which time it
was far on towards morning. Next day a guard
was formed to protect the landing; the cargo
was stored in a puckha building, and
distributed. Of the aftercourse of events I know
nothing, as my duties called me to a distant part
of the country; but I have reason for believing
that there was a vast amount of suffering after
that time. Private charity did much; public aid
did not a little; but how was it possible to feed
an entire nation for months until the next
crop could be got in? It could not be done. It
was not done. Half the people died before the
next harvest time.

Rice is to Orientals what every other description
of food is to Europeans. It is their bread,
their potato, their meat, their all . They know of
no substitute for it. When it fails them, they
starve. Admirably adapted to the soil and climate
of the East, rice in many varieties may be found
growing from Japan to the east coast of Africa.
It is found flourishing also in the West Indies, in
some parts of South America, and in the southern
states of the American Union. It is certainly
not too much to say that this article forms the
staple food of two-thirds of the human family.
Yet, enormous as is the extent of land under
rice cultivation, great as is its value to the
mass of the people, we do not find that in any
single respect the growers of it have modified in
the least degree the system of culture pursued
in the days of Moses and the Prophets. The
same rude, fragile implements, the same scratching
of the surface of the ground, the same irrigation,
the same barbarous harvesting, prevail
now that were the style and fashion of the ryots
of King Porus.

In one respect it would doubtless be no easy
task to improve upon the system of the
rice-growers of the year "one." Their extensive
irrigation works for storing and supplying water
in dry seasons are so essential, that no ryot
would think of sowing his seed if he could not
count upon an artificial supply, failing plentiful
showers.

In eastern countries where manures are almost
unknown, and where such a process as deep
ploughing is unheard of, water is the one great
fertiliser. It is seldom, indeed, that more than
one crop in the year is taken from the same soil,
though in favourable localities, and with plenty
of water at hand, two harvests may be secured.
Generally speaking, a crop every other year, and
not uncommonly once in three years, will be the
rule; the land in the mean time growing up in
coarse grass, on which cattle is grazed.

There can scarcely be imagined a more
uninviting picture than a wide expanse of country in
any part of India lying fallow after rice cultivation.
Deprived of irrigation, the soil has a
parched, exhausted, barren appearance, not
unlike Romney marshes in the midst of summer,
or some southern moors deprived of their
stunted vegetation. Hedges are altogether
unknown; the sole boundaries of the various
patches of rice-land are narrow channels cut in
the soil, with large stones or a bamboo placed
here and there to mark the termination of each
cultivator's holding.

A month previous to the fall of rain, the
Hindoo brings out his buffaloes and his queer
little old-fashioned wooden instrument, that looks
so very like anything in the world but what it is
—a plough. The cattle are none of the strongest,
the soil is none of the stiffest, and it is only
necessary to scratch little furrows in the ground at
right angles to each other, to enable the ryot
to carry on his culture. At length the rain begins
to fall, and the dry sandy clods of weedy soil are
saturated, and assumes something more of the
appearance of cultivation. Then, when another
earth-scratching has taken place, and a "lucky