The villages are everywhere few, and their communities very small.
The greater part of the produce goes for sale to the capital of
Gwalior, when the money it brings is paid into the treasury in rent,
or revenue, to the chief, who distributes it in salaries among his
establishments, who again pay it for land produce to the cultivators,
farmers, and agricultural capitalists, who again pay it back into the
treasury in land revenue. No more people reside in the villages than
are absolutely necessary to the cultivation of the land, because the
chief takes all the produce beyond what is necessary for their bare
subsistence; and, out of what he takes, maintains establishments that
reside elsewhere. There is nowhere any jungle to be seen, and very
few of the villages that are scattered over the plains have any fruit
or ornamental trees left; and, when the spring crops, to which the
tillage is chiefly confined, are taken off the ground, the face of
the country must have a very naked and dreary appearance.[3] Near one
village on the road I saw some men threshing corn in a field, and
among them a peacock (which, of course, I took to be domesticated)
breakfasting very comfortably upon the grain as it flew around him.
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