Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/168

164 great the risk of malaria, the dangers of probable famine were much greater. He consequently ordered the works to proceed, though irrigation was stopped near the large towns, so as to minimise the injurious consequences. The cultivators of the Doáb owe a heavy debt of gratitude to the Governor-General for his firmness in this matter. Not only has the Ganges Canal saved the country from drought and permitted the regular cultivation of more valuable crops, but it has also proved a great financial success. According to the latest returns, which have been supplied to me by high authority, more than 600,000 acres are now irrigated every year; while the profits yield a return of 5½ per cent, a year on an expenditure of nearly £3,000,000 sterling. An extension of the original scheme, called the Lower Ganges Canal, has recently been opened, with every promise of no less favourable results.

Three subjects, which strongly aroused the feelings of Lord Hardinge, may conveniently be grouped together: Human sacrifice, satí, and infanticide. Mention has already been made of the measures adopted, soon after his landing in India, to deal with the practice of human sacrifice among the wild tribe of Khonds in the Orissa mountains. By adding no fewer than sixteen officers to the staff already employed in that region under Major Macpherson, Lord Hardinge was able to boast that human sacrifice was practically suppressed during his term of government; nor has there since been any recrudescence of the practice.