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 THB DJDIQO CRISIS IN i860. 77 fair "image of the present The rebellion oame upon us with • shock for which no claea of the community was prepared. It has taken by surprise the country— not excepting the vast body of the rebels themselves. For eight long months it has ravaged the land in its length and breadth, spreading crime and misery of every hue and form. And when now its strength has been broken and ite end has made itself visible, it bids fair to leave the nation a legacy of prolonged and yet unknown troubles." (vide Life of K. D. Pal, p. 187. CHAPTER IV. THE INDIGO CRISIS IN 1860, AND HURISH CHUNDER MUKHERJEE. The word Indigo with its Latin equivalent Indicum shews that it is one of the indigenous products of this country as much as rice or sugar-cane. As regards its superior quality, it has been stated in the report of the Indigo Commission that " the Indigo manufactur- ed" in Lower Bengal, especially in Jessore and Nuddea, 11 is probably the very finest in the whole world ; * and that the "annual outturn" of it in the year preceding the crisis in Bengal and Behar was 1,05,000 maunds valued at about two millions sterling. We cite these figures to shew what enormous sums of money was in circulation among the people of the Indigo districts and benefitted them in more ways than one. With this money, large tracts of uncultiva- ted lands, marshes and pestilential jungles were re- claimed, ponds and tanks were excavated, roads were made, Bazars established, schools opened, and dispensaries flourished wherever the English Indigo Planters settled since the beginning of this century. But these indirect advantages derived from the sys- tem of indigo cultivation were gradually eclipsed by the intolerable disadvantages which made the ryots