. Our troubles in Poona and the Deccan by Arthur Crawford. With numerous illus. by Horace Van Ruith . sh poverty with the potato. Leavingthis inhospitable belt, we ride for many miles over a friablebrown soil, obviously washed down from the naked hillsand spurs around, of no great depth at any point, butfairly productive of the coarser food grains. The plain isdotted here and there with rich green oases of garden land,irrigated from wells and quarry holes, sunk with little labouror outlay wherever the village astrologer advised that aboring should be made. At every step we perceive whatmight h
. Our troubles in Poona and the Deccan by Arthur Crawford. With numerous illus. by Horace Van Ruith . sh poverty with the potato. Leavingthis inhospitable belt, we ride for many miles over a friablebrown soil, obviously washed down from the naked hillsand spurs around, of no great depth at any point, butfairly productive of the coarser food grains. The plain isdotted here and there with rich green oases of garden land,irrigated from wells and quarry holes, sunk with little labouror outlay wherever the village astrologer advised that aboring should be made. At every step we perceive whatmight have been, what might yet be done; and again, inthe countenances and demeanour of the half-starved inhabi-tants we note that with the advance of disforesting anddesiccation, of mutual impoverishment, comes on economicruin. A few miles further we encamp in a luxuriant region;fine old mango, babul, banyan trees rear themselves inand around fat arable fields and teeming gardens, gratefulfor the moisture that cools and nourishes their wide spread-ing roots. Such a place is Hoongoond, where we shall be. o X < l^ Iz, S 2 ^ I ^ OO 2 IL FAUT CULTIVER SON JARDIN. 187 taken by the impoverished descendants of a shrewd Mahom-medan gentleman, to a well-shaft, driven to no great depthinto solid rock till water was struck—then galleries or tun-nels were driven for hundreds of yards to all points of thecompass from the bottom of the shaft wails, and thus anabundant perennial supply of water was obtained. Thereare many such shafts and galleries in the neighbourhood,we are told, and it is plain that for many square milesthere lies beneath the soil a water-bearing—one might al-most term it a water-logged—rock stratum. We note theimproved appearance of the villages and hamlets, the com-paratively cheerful demeanour of the people, and perceivethat with water of irrigation goes ever the water of abettered social individual life, that where there are practic-ally no manufactures, and commerce
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