n the other hand, no doubt that you have encouraged
perjury a good deal in your courts of justice; and this perjury must
have some effect in depriving the land of the blessing of God.[3]
Every man now, who has a cause in your civil courts, seems to think
it necessary either to swear falsely himself, or to get others to do
it for him. The European gentlemen, no doubt, do all they can to
secure every man his right, but, surrounded as they are by perjured
witnesses, and corrupt native officers, they commonly labour in the
dark.'

Much of truth is to be found among the village communities of India,
where they have been carefully maintained, if people will go among
them to seek it. Here, as almost everywhere else, truth is the result
of self-government, whether arising from choice, under municipal
institutions, or necessity, under despotism and anarchy; self-
government produces self-esteem and pride of character.

Close to our tents we found the people at work, irrigating their
fields from several wells, whose waters were all brackish. The crops
watered from these wells were admirable--likely to yield at least
fifteen returns of the seed. Wherever we go, we find the signs of a
great government passed away--signs that must tend to keep alive the
recollections, and exalt the ideas of it in the minds of the people.
Beyond the boundary of our military and civil stations we find as yet
few indications of our reign or character, to link us with the
affections of the people. There is hardly anything to indicate our
existence as a people or a government in this country; and it is
melancholy to think that in the wide extent of country over which I
have travelled there should be so few signs of that superiority in
science and arts which we boast of, and really do possess, and ought
to make conducive to the welfare and happiness of the people in every
part of our dominions. The people and the face of the country are
just what they might have been had they been governed by police
officers and tax-gatherers from the Sandwich Islands, capable of
securing life, property, and character, and levying honestly the
means of maintaining the establishments requisite for the purpose.[4]
Some time after the journey here described, in the early part of
November, after a heavy fall of rain, I was driving alone in my buggy
from Garhmuktesar on the Ganges to Meerut. The roads were very bad,
the stage a double one, and my horse became tired, and unab