were once pressed by a happy
peasantry, now standing upon a bare and barren surface of sandstone
rock, twenty feet above the present surface of the culturable lands
of the country. There are evident signs of the surface on which they
now stand having been that on which they were last worked. The people
get more juice from their small straw-coloured canes in these pestle-
and-mortar mills than they can from those with cylindrical rollers in
the present rude state of the mechanical arts all over India; and the
straw-coloured cane is the only kind that yields good sugar. The
large purple canes yield a watery and very inferior juice; and are
generally and almost universally sold in the markets as a fruit. The
straw-coloured canes, from being crowded under a very slovenly
System, with little manure and less weeding, degenerate into a mere
reed. The Otaheite cane, which was introduced into India by me in
1827, has spread over the Nerbudda, and many other territories; but
that that will degenerate in the same manner under the same slovenly
system of tillage, is too probable.[3]

Notes:

1. The lake known as Barwa Sagar was formed by a Bundela chief, who
constructed an embankment nearly three-quarters of a mile long to
retain the waters of the Barwa stream, a tributary of the Betwa. The
work was begun in 1705 and completed in 1737. The town is situated at
the north-west corner of the lake, on the road from Jhansi to the
cantonment of Nowgong (properly Naugaon, or Nayagaon), at a distance
of twelve miles from Jhansi (_N.W.P. Gazetteer_, 1st ed., vol. i, pp.
243 and 387).

2. The rude sketch given here in the author's text is not worth
reproduction.

3. The 'pestle-and-mortar' pattern of mill above described is the
indigenous model formerly in universal use in India, but, in most
parts of the country, where stone is not available, the 'mortar'
portion was made of wood. The stone mills are expensive. In the Banda
and Hamirpur districts of Bundelkhand sugar-cane is now grown only in
the small areas where good loam soil is found. The method of
cultivation differs in several respects from that practised in the
Gangetic plains, but the editor never observed the slovenliness of
which the author complains. He always found the cultivation in sugar-
cane villages to be extremely careful and laborious. Ancient stone
mills are sometimes found in black soil country, and it is difficult
to understand how sugarcane can ever have been