The peasantry of India, in
consequence of living and talking so much in the open air, have all
stentorian voices, which they find it exceedingly difficult to
modulate to our taste when they come into our rooms.
Another thing in this part of India strikes a traveller from other
parts--the want of groves of fruit-trees around the villages and
along the roads. In every other part of India he can at every stage
have his tents pitched in a grove of mango-trees, that defend his
followers from the direct rays of the sun in the daytime, and from
the cold dews at night; but in the district above Agra, he may go for
ten marches without getting the shelter of a grove in one.[5] The
Sikhs, the Marathas, the Jats, and the Pathans destroyed them all
during the disorders attending the decline of the Muhammadan empire;
and they have never been renewed, because no man could feel secure
that they would be suffered to stand ten years. A Hindoo believes
that his soul in the next world is benefited by the blessings and
grateful feelings of those of his fellow creatures who unmolested eat
the fruit and enjoy the shade of the trees he has planted during his
sojourn in this world; and, unless he can feel assured that the
traveller and the public in general will be permitted to do so, he
can have no hope of any permanent benefit from his good work.
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