On the 27th[7] we reached Damoh,[8] where our friends, the Browns,
were to leave us on their return to Jubbulpore. Damoh is a pretty
place. The town contains some five or six thousand people, and has
some very handsome Hindoo temples. On a hill immediately above it is
the shrine of a Muhammadan saint, which has a very picturesque
appearance.
There are no manufactures at Damoh, except such as supply the wants
of the immediate neighbourhood; and the town is supported by the
residence of a few merchants, a few landholders, and agricultural
capitalists, and the establishment of a native collector. The people
here suffer much from the guinea-worm, and consider it to arise from
drinking the water of the old tank, which is now very dirty and full
of weeds. I have no doubt that it is occasioned either by drinking
the water of this tank, or by wading in it: for I have known European
gentlemen get the worm in their legs from wading in similar lakes or
swamps after snipes, and the servants who followed them with their
ammunition experience the same effect.[9] Here, as in most other
parts of India, the tanks get spoiled by the water-chestnut,
'singhara' (_Trapa bispinosa_), which is everywhere as regularly
planted and cultivated _in fields_ under a large surface of water, as
wheat or barley is on the dry plains.
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