To the agents, Mr. LeMesurier and Mr. Barnett, to the traffic manager, Mr. Conder, to the locomotive superintendent, Mr. Jackson, and to the servants of all grades of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, the Government and the country are under the greatest obligations for their unflagging exertions day and night, in the time of trouble, to carry the food grain for the famishing people. The wear and tear of body and mind caused by such sore and longsustained effort will be fully known only to those who witnessed it. The vast quantity of grain carried by this railway has been already stated. It is difficult to measure the value of the railway at such a time as this, or the magnitude of the calamity which, without it, must have supervened. If these events had happened before the construction of this railway, the misfortunes of the people and the responsibilities of Government would have been indefinitely aggravated. MYSORE. CHAPTER I. THE PROVINCE OF MYSORE; FAMINE BEGINNINGS. THE province of Mysore, though within the tract of the famine, being situated between the distressed districts of Bombay Presidency on the one hand, and bordered by the most severely afflicted portions of Madras on the other, for a long time after it was recognised that famine was in the land, attracted but little attention. It was overshadowed by the greatness of the calamity on either side. Depending, like other portions of Southern and Western India, upon the south-west monsoon for its main water supply, when the seasonal rains failed, distress was inevitable. Mysore is a native State, and for some years-during the minority of the youthful raja-has been under the direct control of the Government of India, which was represented by a chief commissioner, the raja meanwhile being placed under the care of a guardian, and educated for the important position he would afterwards have to fill. In the period under review, Mr. C. B. Saunders, C.B., was chief commissioner, being preceded in office by Mr. R. A. Dalyell as acting chief commissioner. The State of Mysore occupies a position well defined, in the South of India, and has been termed a rocky triangle; a not inapt description. It is a table-land situate in the angle where the Eastern and Western Ghat ranges converge into the group of the Nilgiri hills. Almost on every side it is encircled by mountains, on whose shoulders the plateau which constitutes the country rests.' The general elevation rises from about 2,000 feet above sea level along the northern and southern frontiers; to about 3,000 feet along the central water-parting which separates the basin of the Krishna from that of the Kaveri and divides the country into two nearly equal parts. But the surface is far from preserving the even character suggested by the designation of table-land. The face of the country is everywhere undulating, much broken up by lines of rocky hills or lofty mountains, and scored in all parts by nálas or deep ravines. There is probably not a square mile in the whole superficies absolutely flat or level, the slope of the ground ranging from 10 to 20 feet per mile in the more level portions, and as high as 60 and 80 feet elsewhere.1 The Malnad, or wet country (a name derived from the heavy rainfall which prevails there), lies to the west, and is confined to the tracts bordering or resting on the Western Ghats. It is a land of magnificent hill and forest, presenting alternations of the most diversified and charming scenery. A fertile soil and perennial streams clothe the valleys with verdant cultivation. The sheltered hill-sides are beautiful with waving woods, which give shade to numerous plantations of coffee. Higher up are swelling downs and grassy slopes, dotted over with park-like groups of trees. Above all the gigantic mountains rear their towering crests in every fantastic form of peak. Human dwell 1 For these and other facts relating to the physical features and social condition of Mysore, I am indebted to a Gazetteer compiled for the Government of India by Mr. Lewis Rice, Director of Public Instruction, Mysore and Coorg. |