the time for payment comes. I am aware also that the subject has long
occupied the earnest attention of Government, and that in some parts of
the country enactments have been introduced for the relief of poor
debtors. But these are only local and the evil is universal. A judicial
Solon is sadly needed who shall rise up and boldly face the evil. The
extortions of usurers have led to revolutions before now, and it seems
high time for an enlightened Government to do something on a large scale
for the abatement of the evil, if only by an absolute refusal to enforce
any such usurious contracts.

But I have only mentioned the subject, because it plays a specially
important part in the present depressed condition of the submerged
masses. In the following pages I hope among other things to be able to
cast some rays of light into this valley of the shadow of debt, if not
of death.




CHAPTER IX.

THE LAND OF FAMINE.


Any review of Darkest India would be incomplete without some mention of
the widespread and calamitous famines which periodically devastate the
country and which reappear from time to time with terrible certainty.

In a country where so large a proportion of the population is
agricultural, and where the poor are almost entirely paid in kind, the