Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter by James Inglis
page 161 of 347 (46%)
page 161 of 347 (46%)
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toiling tenants struck down in this way. Even if you give them
medicine, they often have not energy enough to take it. You must see them take it before your eyes. It is _your_ struggle not theirs. _You_ must rouse them, by _your_ will. _Your_ energy must compel _them_ to make an attempt to combat their weakness. Once you rouse a man, and infuse some spirit into him, he may resist his disease, but it is a hard fight to get him to TRY. What a meaning in that one word TRY! TO ACT. TO DO. The average poor suffering native Hindoo knows nothing of it. Of course their moods vary. They have their 'high days and holidays,' feasts, processions, and entertainments; but on the whole the average ryot or small cultivator has a hard life. In every village there are generally bits of uncultivated or jungle lands, on which the village herds have a right of pasture. The cow being a sacred animal, they only use her products, milk and butter. The urchins may be seen in the morning driving long strings of emaciated looking animals to the village pasture, which in the evening wend their weary way backwards through the choking dust, having had but 'short commons' all the day on the parched and scanty herbage. The police are too often a source of annoyance, and become extortionate robbers, instead of the protectors of the poor. It seems to be inherent in the Oriental mind to abuse authority. I do not scruple to say that all the vast army of policemen, court peons, writers, clerks, messengers, and underlings of all sorts, about the courts of justice, in the service of government officers, or in any way attached to the retinue of a government official, one and all are undeniably shamelessly venal and corrupt. They accept a bribe much |
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