INDIAN FAMINES - Institute for Social and Economic Change

RECENT FAMINES. 81
the women dropped in the grain as the men
laboriously turned the furrow. Only one ploughing
to the soil was given by these poor halfstarved
people, and then thomR, in place of
harrows, were dragged over the furrows to
scratch the earth over the grain. . . . Thus
energetically did the Marwar population try
to retrieve the dire visitation which had fallen
on them.
"With all these exertions they managed to sow
a breadth of land almost equal to half the usual
quantity-a result most astonishing, when the
slender means at their disposal and their reduced
state is considered. The grain sprouted
splendidly, and all were in hopes that the famine
had passed away." But, alas! another oriental
plague was in store for these unfortunate people.
During the previous May, swarms of locusts
had entered the country and deposited their
eggs. These eggs are hatched shortly after
the rainy-season crops" sprout. In the first
stages of their existence, locusts resemble grasshoppers;
but they are none the less destructive
on that account, except that being then wing-
* See footnote, page 76.
F