This village, which a year or two ago was large and populous,
is now reduced to two wretched huts inhabited by two very miserable
families.
Bundelkhand suffers more often and more severely from the want of
seasonable showers of rain than any other part of India; while the
province of Malwa, which adjoins it on the west and south, hardly
ever suffers at all.[5] There is a couplet, which, like all other
good couplets on rural subjects, is attributed to Sahdeo [Sahadeva],
one of the five demigod brothers of the Mahabharata, to this effect:
'If you hear not the thunder on such a night, you, father, go to
Malwa, I to Gujarat;'--that is, there will be no rain, and we must
seek subsistence where rains never fail, and the harvests are secure.
The province of Malwa is well studded with hills and groves of fine
trees, which intercept the clouds as they are wafted by the
prevailing westerly winds, from the Gulf of Cambay to the valley of
the Ganges, and make them drop their contents upon a soil of great
natural powers, formed chiefly from the detritus of the decomposing
basaltic rocks, which cap and intersect these hills.
Pages:
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362