The great part of the wheat, gram,[3] and other exportable land
produce which the people consume, as far as we have yet come, is
drawn from our Nerbudda districts, and those of Malwa which border
upon them; and, _par consequent_, the price has been rapidly
increasing as we recede from them in our advance northward. Were the
soil of those Nerbudda districts, situated as they are at such a
distance from any great market for their agricultural products, as
bad as it is in the parts of Bundelkhand that I came over, no net
surplus revenue could possibly be drawn from them in the present
state of arts and industry. The high prices paid here for land
produce, arising from the necessity of drawing a great part of what
is consumed from such distant lands, enables the Rajas of these
Bundelkhand states to draw the large revenue they do. These chiefs
expend the whole of their revenue in the maintenance of public
establishments of one kind or other; and, as the essential articles
of subsistence, wheat and gram, &c., which are produced in their own
districts, or those immediately around them, are not sufficient for
the supply of these establishments, they must draw them from distant
territories.
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