free, but the settlers had to build the houses.
The loans were repayable in four or six
instalments, within three years after the village
was established. Wells, tanks, and terrace-wells
for gardens on the steep hill sides
followed. And thus, within twelve years, a
hundred and six flourishing hamlets were
founded in the midst of what had previously
been jungle waste. The superintendent took
care to warn his subjects that, now that an
ample field for industry had been opened,
cattle-stealing and similar crimes would be
punished more rigorously than before. The
village smith, the barber, the potter, the
carpenter, the leather-dresser, and other
handicraftsmen, who are usually remunerated in
kind for their services, and who do not usually
engage in field labour, were turned into food
growers. Even the minstrel yielded to the
influence of the engineer officer, and became
a husbandman. Colonel Dixon went further.
The villagers under his control attacked a
band of robbers, from whose depredations
they had suffered, and made twenty-nine of
them prisoners, after slaying twelve. These
prisoners were confined in the Mairwara
gaol under sentence for four years; but
before the time had expired, a piece of waste
land, near Majari, was marked out; the
prisoners were permitted to leave the prison
every morning unfettered to dig wells and
prepare for settlement; on the expiration of
their sentence they were joined by their
families; and a prosperous village of twenty-seven
families was the result of the robbers'
foray. This village has since been remarkable
for the orderly conduct and industry of
its inhabitants.

As the improvements advanced, the eagerness
of the peasantry to partake of these
improvements advanced also; it became so
intense, indeed, that the authorities were
unable to keep pace with it. One village
(Soorean) having been deferred until the
next season, a few months afterwards they
requested a visit from the superintendent,
without assigning a reason. He went, and
was pleased and surprised to find that,
out of their own resources, by the sale of
cattle and the betrothal of their daughters,
they had constructed a great embankment
for a tank. They were rewarded by a
donation of one half the expense—forty
pounds. In one instance, a jungle waste has
been converted into fertility by a series of
tanks connected by weirs for an unbroken
distance of twenty-six miles.

A town was found to be needed as a centre
of this new colony, and (Nya Nuggar—new
city) was founded, where at the date of the
report, two thousand souls of every caste and
profession were settled in handsome, solid
dwellings and shops. The example of the
more solid architecture spread to the
neighbouring villages. The average annual value
of merchandise passing through Nya Nuggar
in three years was one hundred and forty-seven
thousand pounds. The number of
carts increased to six hundred and eighty
from forty,—the whole number in the local
district before the founding of the city.

Colonel Dixon next proceeded to found an
annual fair, fixed the fair day in the beginning
of the autumn, when the whole country is
covered with the rain crop, when the tanks are
overflowing, and agricultural prosperity at its
height. The invitation of the Great Chief,
equal to a command, was cheerfully accepted.
"The men decked out in their best attire,
accompanied by their wives and children,
attended by their minstrels. Clans, kept
apart by ancient feuds, met and made friends.
More than ten thousand Mairs attended these
fairs."

All this has been done by the zeal, intelligence,
and perseverance of two men, Colonels
Hall and Dixon, without other assistance
than the acquiescence of the Indian Government.
The total expense of Colonel Dixon's
improvements was only twenty-four thousand
pounds, and this sum produced in Mairwara,
between eighteen hundred and thirty-five
and eighteen hundred and forty-seven,
an increase of revenue of from nine thousand
pounds to twenty-one thousand pounds;
an increase in the value of agricultural
produce, from twenty-nine thousand pounds to
sixty-three thousand pounds; of the
population from thirty-nine thousand six hundred
to one hundred thousand two hundred. In
a neighbouring district of Ajmeer, with less
favourable soil, and less available land, the
same system has produced most satisfactory
results; the people being stimulated by the
example of their neighbours, and encouraged
by the support of Colonel Sutherland, who
commenced improvements without waiting
for the sanction of Government.

Wherever money has been wisely spent on
reproductive works in India, the condition of
the people has improved, and the revenue
returns have been enormous. But such
works, which altogether have not cost more
than twenty millions sterling, or about one
year of the revenue of India, are but
specks upon so vast a country. They are
the accidents of an enlightened collector,
an enthusiastic engineer, or a governor
acting contrary to all the precedents. It
has not yet become part of the fixed policy
of the Indian government to spend a
certain minimum per-centage of the annual
revenue in road or river improvements, or
in works of irrigation. And, if it were the
theory, it could not be carried out without
sweeping away a wilderness of forms, and
enlisting an army of intelligent engineers.
General Routine lives and flourishes in
India, in Leadenhall Street, and in Cannon
Row, as well as in Downing Street and
Whitehall. Each Presidency is most
absurdly placed in leading strings, Bengal
at the head, and Bengal under a hundred
checks. Matters of simple detail, which the