Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/479

Rh within itself. The land is divided and recorded against its farmers, with its quality and extent, and the revenue is collected village by village. It matters little, therefore, to the Hindu peasant who is his master, so long as he is undisturbed in the enjoyment of his hereditary home. To him it is of small moment whether his rent be paid to “Hyder" or to "the Company," to a nabob or a collector. Districts have been depopulated, and provinces made a desert, by the monsters who have soaked India with human gore, and fattened her soil with human flesh; but, until thus depopulated, her villages remain the same.

Cruel as were the despots Hyder and Tippoo, who ruled the territory through which we were now passing, they had the sagacity to know that it was only in the prosperity of their subjects that they could prosper; and the Mysore territories were, on the whole, well governed. War, however, cannot be waged except at the expense of the blood, treasure, and happiness of the people. On our way, while we passed through thriving towns with their shop-lined streets, and saw old forts, unneeded for defence, crumbling to a happy decay, we also traversed lonely and melancholy wastes, where the Mu-