the surf, to gaze upon them with eager curiosity. Their faces bore no trace of starvation, but were smiling with the content and happiness that belonged to a successful picnic-party. Plump and well-nourished, they seemed to give the lie direct to the tales that had reached us. They were the villagers of the districts round Madras, herdsmen and small cultivators, who had been drawn to the Presidency town to seek the charity of a benevolent Government. Their excellent condition was a testimony to the liberality with which that charity had been dispensed. A merry ragged crew it was that circled round me, pressing too close to be pleasant, and with difficulty kept at arm's length by the umbrella that I had unfurled. If this was India, where was the much-talked-of famine?
Far inland it held the country in its paralysing grip. Millions of human beings, dying by inches, waited in vain for the rain that did not come. The cattle died or were sold because their owners had no water for them. The dogs and jackals, gaunt and maddened with thirst, searched the bare countryside in vain for food, and traversed the dry beds of the rivers and tanks for a drop of water. Finding none they fell exhausted, and died by the blasted bushes which could no longer shelter them from the burning rays of the sun. Their sufferings from thirst far exceeded the pangs caused by hunger.
The grain that should have brought relief was heaped upon the shore in sacks. It had arrived thus far by ship, but could get no further for want of means of transport. The railway on which the Government depended did its utmost, sending out freight trains as fast as they could be loaded. But its rolling-stock was limited, and the supply of rice brought by sea far exceeded its capabilities.
It was sad to see food lying there when thousands were dying a few hundred miles away. It is sadder still to have to relate that much of it never reached the
