excellent and suited to the country and the people, has
been renewed in its integrity for another period of thirty years. This has caused a feeling of security which has not been without a beneficial influence in the rapid restoration of the land to its former state.
The exact amount of loss of life can never be ascertained, from the want of a correct census of the population in 1865, when the distress began to be severely felt. There is reason to believe that since the careful survey of the province in 1837-38 by Colonel Thuillier, the population of Orissa had increased very largely. In the Pooree division the increment in thirty years was more than a third, and it was probably not less in the two other divi- sions of Orissa proper. Although the absolute destruction of population cannot be determined, the ratio of deaths has been tolerably correctly determined. The space which you can afford for my letter will not permit of my entering into much detail—a few of the figures from the division which suffered most will, how- ever, show the probable extent of loss sustained in the whole pro- vince, taking one part with another. The whole destruction of life in the Pooree district is estimated to have been 23-31 percent.
from actual want of food ; 5-03 per cent. from disease induced by famine ; in all, 28-34 per cent., or a little less than a third of the people. The greatest loss of life from sheer hunger was at a place called Sattipara, in the tract between the Chilka Lake and the sea, where it rose to within a small fraction of 52 per cent. The least loss was experienced at Haldeah, in the north of the district, where the famine was scarcely felt, and but -79 per cent. perished. This was, however, a very exceptional case—the numbers oscillated between 5 and 9 per cent. and 44 per cent., a larger number being above than below 30 out of every 100. The average number who left their villages, and most of whom have n3t since been heard of, was very nearly 5 per cent. They were chiefly ablebodied men in the prime of life, who abandoned their homesteads and families in search of food and work. Many of them doubtless fainted by the way, and succumbed in the unequal struggle. Many, however, are known to have reached harbours of refuge, and of these a few are returning.
It must be confessed that the Uriyas, although patient and long- suffering, and not without many of the virtues of Eastern races, are, on the whole, an unusually bigotted, ignorant, prejudiced, and heartless set. Their stupid adhesion to the most absurd prejudices was painfully evident—one of which was their refusal of imported rice, as tabooed by caste, even when the famine was most sore.
Again, when the embankments gave way in the great flood of 1866, and many villages were threatened with entire destruction if the breaches were not rapidly repaired, not a single inhabitant of those villages could be induced by any amount of wages, although they were at the time starving, to lend a hand to save his own property from destruction, and it was destroyed accordingly, as no other labour was procurable. It is difficult to assist those who will not assist themselves. One of the results of the abandon- ment of their homes by men of the most active period of life has been somewhat singular. A very large number of women who were abandoned, and fed at the relief centres, having worked steadily, and grown stout and comely from the combined effects of regular food and labour, are very indignant at their abandonment, find that they can earn sufficient to maintain themselves in ease and affluence according to their ideas, and have acquired so strong a love of independence that they declare their intention to have nothing more to say to lazy, tyrannical, and cowardly husbands.
They appear to have adopted some of the tenets of free love which are said to be gaining ground in America, so that no decrement of population is likely to result from their freedom from marital bonds. They have also a code of morality of their own, for a well- to-do overseer, seeking to comfort them in their affliction, threw his handkerchief to one of the Kungalee sultanas. The lady dis- approved of his overtures, and he received a handsome thrashing from a band of the heroines for his pains—an event probably without parallel in the annals of Orissa. They are a very merry, sleek-looking, happy, and grateful lot of hard-work- ing creatures, and reverence the name of an European from the kindness they have experienced from them at the relief centres. One young member of the Civil Service whose name is now a household word in the homes of that part of the Cuttack district in which he laboured earnestly and well, is so beloved and respected by thousands of these poor creatures, that they denominate every European who shows them any kindness "a Kirkwood." I don't see why I should suppress his name, which is their synonym for large-heartedness and benevolence. He had charge of some thou- sands of these Kungalees, as they are called, and a short time since left his post for a week to run into Cuttack. On his return his admirers surrounded his palanquin, took it away from the bearers, threw the door open that they might look upon him, and carried him shouting in triumph to his bungalow—a throng of many hundreds of grateful hearts.
Should Sir Henry Ricketts or Mr. Mills, who are still alive, and remembered with gratitude and affection in this province, although they have long left it, read this record, they will know how much such an act on the part of the timid, retiring women of Orissa signifies, and how unfeigned must be the feeling of gratitude to cause a demonstration so utterly foreign to their nature. When reduced by want and every ornament had been parted with to buy food, the Kungalees bound their wrists with wreaths and flowers. Now their first savings have been spent in bangles and ornaments, and they are again adorned with "rings on their fingers and bells on their toes," making metallic music wherever they go. Some of them have returned to their villages ; very many continue working on, and show no disposition to revisit their homes. As we passed down the Kendraparah canal, numbers of them pursued us, shout- ing that they were dying of starvation, because they are now com- pelled to give a fair day's work for a full day's pay. When their massive limbs and portly persons, not much concealed by drapery, were objected to as indicating the very reverse of want, they went away laughing, but still shouting " Morl-gello!"—" Perishing from hunger !"
The works of the East Indian Irrigation Company are magnifi- cent, and will hereafter, when completed, render famine in Orissa impossible. They are well deserving of special description, both as admirable examples of engineering, and as changing the face of the country through which they pass. The locks, assients, kulnigulas, massive embankments, and ingenious distributions, contrast favourably with those of the best works of the great masters of this difficult art, but I am not possessed of sufficient technical knowledge of the subject to describe them.
The people are, as yet, slow to take water, chiefly in consequence of the hostile action of their landlords, who threaten to raise the rent of any tenant who produces a second crop with the aid of the Canal. In the majority of instances the rent cannot be raised legally, but the peasants are ignorant of this, and the Revenue Board, with the crotchety obliquity characteristic of that body of learned economists, will not permit the ryots to be enlightened on the subject. I am told, but can scarcely believe, that the Bengal Government endorses this policy.
The Uriya peasant is as timid as he is ignorant, and the mere threat of the landlord has hitherto been sufficient to deter him from improving his lands. The Zemindars of Orissa are reputed to be the most grasping and oppressive landlords of Lower Bengal, and from all I beard when in the province I do not believe that they have been painted in darker colours than they deserve.
To sum up the results of my inquiries regarding the famine, the dearness of food and distress are declared to have commenced before Sir Cecil Beadon visited Orissa. A large number of well paid Madras labourers in the irrigation works clamoured to him to cause a reduction in the cost of food. They are said to have- exhibited signs of want even at that early period. Most persona, European and Native, believed that there were considerable supplies of grain in Orissa, which would be forthcoming before actual famine could take place, and this delusion continued long after the supply was exhausted. Those who had money or other means purchased grain at an early period, and stored not for sale, but for their own use. One man told me that he spent every penny of his savings on rice, and that its supply carried him through the famine. His abode was in the centre of one of the most afflicted districts. The distress ultimately fell entirely on the poorest classes, who had nothing to save, and who lived from hand to mouth.
A singular fact for physiologists was mentioned to me in connec- tion with the starving poor. The coast people, who perished in largest proportion of all, had an abundant supply of fish ; but. without vegetable food it fails to sustain nature, and they died as complete victims of starvation as those who had no food at all. In fact, the famine was most sore among them. The early relief operations were not successfully managed. The Revenue Board are blamed by every one in the province as having paralyzed the action of the local authorities by their political economy and peremptory mandates. It was under extreme pressure, I was told, that the Commissioners at last consented to telegraph the terrible truth to Calcutta. After this, all that could be done was done to mitigate the evil, which had then well nigh become past remedy. If you have any influence with Punch, let me suggest a cartoon which will put the case of the Orissa Famine fairly before the British public. Bengal was a donkey which did its best, but being overburdened, broke down. India was—a prudent man who looked on and did nothing, and then he belaboured the donkey for sinking under his load. The said load was a people perishing from hunger, with extreme difficulty in taking them food when its need was only too apparent.
I could fill your paper with sensation pictures of the horrors that were witnessed. Strong men still shudder when they speak of them, and of the wolfish expression of even the youngest children at the mere sight of food. Skeleton children clinging to skeleton mothers, and the very birds of the air and beasts of the field quitting with loathing the food benignly prepared for them by the gaunt demon, Want, were every-day scenes which no time will efface from the memory of those who witnessed them.
A special record of the relief operations should be written by those who conducted them, while the information is fresh, and before any of the facts are lost. With the exception of the Canal, there is but very gradual improvement in the internal communi- cations of Orissa. The Great Trunk Road is still unavailable for considerable distances. With better internal communications, with the full operation of the Canal and Irrigation Works, and with carefully selected officers to rule over it under a non-regulation system, Orissa would shortly become, what its ancient historians
declare it once to have been, the Garden of India. VIATOR. Midnapore, January, 1868.
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