INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

RECENT FAMINES. 77
derers doomed to disappointment: the rain fell
in neighbouring countries, and rumours reaching
the emigrants, they made a second rush to
their fatherland; but, alas! the hot furnaceblast
still scorched the heated plains, and the
poor wanderers had to undergo a repetition of
their former miseries, much aggravated, however,
by their more wretched condition. However
willingly they had been formerly accommodated
in the countries of their.' temporary
adoption, with cholera in their train no one
now would stretch out a willing hand to save
them. The greater portion died miserably in
the desert; others halted for the season after
the first unsuccessful attempt to return home,
and were kindly treated there; while others
still wandered about till they could return to
Marwar. "Those who" -from the outset­
" remained at their homes, however, were in a
much worse plight than those who had emi.
grated. The latter were able to procure food
by purchase or by charity; but the former, in
country villages, away from large towns, could
obtain none whatever, and numbers with means
of'purchasing perished from starvation. . . .