the vast plain is everywhere of good quality, and
everywhere cultivated, or rather worked, for we can hardly consider a
soil cultivated which is never either irrigated or manured, or
voluntarily relieved by fallows or an alternation of crops, till it
has descended to the last stage of exhaustion. The prince rack-rents
the farmer, the farmer rack-rents the cultivator, and the cultivator
rack-rents the soil. Soon after crossing the Sindh river we enter
upon the territories of the Gwalior chief, Sindhia.

The villages are everywhere few, and their communities very small.
The greater part of the produce goes for sale to the capital of
Gwalior, when the money it brings is paid into the treasury in rent,
or revenue, to the chief, who distributes it in salaries among his
establishments, who again pay it for land produce to the cultivators,
farmers, and agricultural capitalists, who again pay it back into the
treasury in land revenue. No more people reside in the villages than
are absolutely necessary to the cultivation of the land, because the
chief takes all the produce beyond what is necessary for their bare
subsistence; and, out of what he takes, maintains establishments that
reside elsewhere. There is nowhere any jungle to be seen, and very
few of the villages that are scattered over the plains have any fruit
or ornamental trees left; and, when the spring crops, to which the
tillage is chiefly confined, are taken off the ground, the face of
the country must have a very naked and dreary appearance.[3] Near one
village on the road I saw some men threshing corn in a field, and
among them a peacock (which, of course, I took to be domesticated)
breakfasting very comfortably upon the grain as it flew around him. A
little farther on I saw another quietly working his way into a stack
of corn, as if he understood it to have been made for his use alone.
It was so close to me as I passed that I put out my stick to push it
off in play, and, to my surprise, it flew off in a fright at my white
face and strange dress, and was followed by the others. I found that
they were all wild, if that term can be applied to birds that live on
such excellent terms with mankind. On reaching our tents we found
several feeding in the corn-fields close around them, undisturbed by
our host of camp-followers; and were told by the villagers, who had
assembled to greet us, that they were all wild. 'Why', said they,
'should we think of _keeping_ birds that li