The driver
sits upon the end of the horizontal beam to which the bullocks are
yoked; and in cold mornings it is very common to see him with a pair
of good hot embers at his buttocks, resting upon a little projection
made behind him to the beam for the purpose of sustaining it [_sic_].
I am disposed to think that the most productive parts of the surface
of Bundelkhand, like that of some of the districts of the Nerbudda
territories which repose upon the back of the sandstone of the
Vindhya chain, is [_sic_] fast flowing off to the sea through the
great rivers, which seem by degrees to extend the channels of their
tributary streams into every man's field, to drain away its substance
by degrees, for the benefit of those who may in some future age
occupy the islands of their delta. I have often seen a valuable
estate reduced in value to almost nothing in a few years by some new
_antennae_, if I may so call them, thrown out from the tributary
streams of great rivers into their richest and deepest soils.
Declivities are formed, the soil gets nothing from the cultivator but
the mechanical aid of the plough, and the more its surface is
ploughed and cross-ploughed, the more of its substance is washed away
towards the Bay of Bengal in the Ganges, or the Gulf of Cambay in the
Nerbudda.
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