the first
year of his residence in India.

32. The work was 'begun upon' many years ago, and 'a superstructure
of municipal corporations and institutions' now exists in every part
of India. But 'the same foundation' does not exist. The stout
burghers of the mediaeval English and German towns have no Indian
equivalents. The superstructure of the municipal institutions is all
that Acts of the Legislature can make it; the difficulty is to find
or make a solid foundation. Still, it was right and necessary to
establish municipal institutions in India, and, notwithstanding all
weaknesses and defects, they are of considerable value, and are
slowly developing.

CHAPTER 58

Declining Fertility of the Soil--Popular Notion of the Cause.

On the 18th[1] we came on ten miles to Sahar, over a plain of poor
soil, carelessly cultivated, and without either manure or irrigation.
Major Godby left us at Govardhan to return to Agra. He would have
gone on with us to Delhi; but having the command of his regiment, and
being a zealous officer, he did not like to leave it so long during
the exercising season. We felt much the loss of his society. He is a
man of great observation and practical good sense; has an infinite
fund of good humour, and a cheerfulness of temperament that never
seems to flag--a more agreeable companion I have never met. The
villages in these parts are literally crowded with peafowl. I counted
no less than forty-six feeding close by among the houses of one
hamlet on the road, all wild, or rather _unappropriated_, for they
seemed on the best possible terms with the inhabitants. At Sahar our
water was drawn from wells eighty feet deep, and this is said to be
the ordinary depth from which water is drawn; consequently irrigation
is too expensive to be common. It is confined almost exclusively to
small patches of garden cultivation in the vicinity of villages.

On the 14th we came on sixteen miles to Kosi, for the most part over
a poor soil badly cultivated, and almost exclusively devoted to
autumn crops, of which cotton is the principal. I lost the road in
the morning before daylight,[2] and the trooper, who usually rode
with me, had not come up. I got an old landholder from one of the
villages to walk on with me a mile, and put me in the right road. I
asked him what had been the state of the country under the former
government of the Jats and Marathas, and was told that the greater
part was a wild jungle. 'I remem