By the roadside came two figures tottering5 along, and then, turning to look at me, showed me the horror of their shrivelled bodies, their dimmed eyes—all that seemed alive in those drawn6 faces of skin and bone—the jaw7 stiffened8 in a skull-like grimace9; victims of the famine, who had come from the Central Provinces where there had been no rain for two years, and where everything was dying. This couple were making their way to a poorhouse hard by. They had come from a village in Bundelkund, whence all the inhabitants had fled—themselves the sole survivors10 of a family of eighteen souls. First the children died, then the very old folks. These two had kept themselves alive on what had been given them on the way, but immigrants soon were too many in the districts unvisited by famine, and ere long they could get nothing; then they fed on roots, on what they[Pg 191] could steal from fields or garden-plots, or found left to rot, scorned even by the beasts.
They were clad in colourless rags, matted and grizzled hair hung about their pain-stricken faces. The woman was the more delicate, her bones smaller and less knotted than those of the man, whose joints11 were gnarled, his scraggy knees forming thick bosses of bone above his shins. They threw themselves like hungry animals on some cooked grain which Abibulla brought out for them, and then, with scared looks all round, they went quickly away, as quickly as they could with halting, weary feet, without even saying thank-you.
The poorhouse is about two miles from the city; it consists of a courtyard enclosed by walls, from which awnings12 are stretched supported on poles. And here from twelve to fifteen hundred wretched skeletons had found shelter, spectres with shoulder-blades almost cutting through the skin, arms shrunk to the bone, with the elbow-joint like a knot in the middle, and at the end hands which looked enormous and flat and limp, as if every knuckle13 were dislocated. Their gnarled knees projected from the fearful leanness of their legs, and the tightened14 skin between the starting ribs15 showed the hollow pit of the stomach. Men and women[Pg 192] alike were for the most part naked, but for a ragged16 cotton loin-cloth. And all had the same scared look in their eyes, the same grin of bare teeth between those hollow cheeks. Almost all had bleeding wounds where the bones had come through the skin.
Such as were able to work at making rope or straw mats earned an anna a day, the children half an anna. This was extra to their food, a cake of gram flour, which was all the allowance for twenty-four hours. But among those admitted to the poorhouse about a quarter of the number were unable to work. In a similar but smaller enclosure adjacent was the infirmary, a hospital with no physician, no remedies. The shrunken creatures lay shivering in the sun, huddled17 under rags of blanket. All were moaning, many were unconscious, wandering in delirium18, shrieking19, and writhing20. One man, too weak to stand, came up grovelling21 on his hands and knees, taking me for a doctor, and beseeching22 me to go to his wife who was lying over there, and by her a dusky moist rag as it seemed—her very inside purged23 out by dysentery.
Near her was another woman, gone mad, dancing, her skeleton limbs contorted in a caricature of[Pg 193] grace; and a child of some few months, like an undeveloped abortion24, of the colour of a new penny, with a large head rolling on a neck reduced to the thickness of the vertebr?, and arms and legs no larger than knitting-pins, but, in a sort of mockery, the swollen25 belly26 of the fever-stricken. The eyes blinked in the little wrinkled face, seeking something in vacancy27; it tried to cry, but the only sound was a feeble croak28.
One boy, who being very tall looked even more emaciated29 than the rest, dragged an enormous leg swollen with elephantiasis, which had not diminished with the reduction of the rest of his body.
"And is there no doctor?"
"He comes now and then," said the baboo, who was our guide; but on my pressing the question this "now and then" remained vague, no day or week could be named.
"And no medicine?"
"We give rice to the sick, who all have dysentery, instead of the daily cake."
"And is that all?"
"But rice is very good, and it is very dear, and some of them have been ill for three weeks."
"And how many die every day?"
"Five—six," said the baboo, hesitating; then,[Pg 194] seeing that I was quite incredulous, "Sometimes more," he added.
Further away was one of the famine-camps—established all over India—to afford the means of earning a living to those whom the scourge30 had driven from their native provinces.
Two or three thousand haggard and fleshless beings were digging or carrying earth to form an embankment for a railway or a road. With arms scarcely thicker than the handles of the tools they wielded31, the labourers gasped32 in the air, tired in a minute, and pausing to rest in spite of the abuse of the overseers. Emaciated women, so small in their tattered33 sarees, carried little baskets on their heads containing a few handfuls of earth, but which they could scarcely lift. One of them, wrinkled and shrunken, looked a hundred years old tottering under her load; on reaching the spot where she was to empty out the soil, she leaned forward a little and let the whole thing fall, indifferent to the dust which covered her and filled her mouth and eyes; and after taking breath for a moment, off she went again as if walking in her sleep.
The men are paid as much as two annas (one penny) a day. The women earn ten, seven, or three[Pg 195] cowries (shells at the rate of about 190 to the anna) for each basket-load, according to the distance, and could make as much as an anna a day. But each of these toilers had to support many belongings34 who could not work, and squatted35 about the camp in their desolate36 and pitiable misery37. And the food was insufficient38 for any of them, only hindering the poor creatures from dying at once.
The baboo who has lost caste and been half-civilized in the Anglo-Indian colleges, is always the middleman between the Government and the poor; and he, barefaced39 and with no pretence40 of concealment41, took twenty per cent. of the wages he was supposed to pay the labourers. And there were none but baboos to superintend the poorhouses and the famine-camps. It is said that during the previous famine some made fortunes of six to eight lacs of rupees (the lac is ￡10,000).
These gentlemen of the Civil Service would put in an appearance "now and then"—the eternal "now and then" that answers every question in India. They stepped out of a buggy, walked quickly round, had seen, and were gone again in a great hurry to finish some important work for the next European mail.
[Pg 196]
And of all the victims of the disaster those I had just seen were not the most to be pitied. It was on families of high caste, men who might not work and whose wives must be kept in seclusion42, that the famine weighed most cruelly. At first they borrowed money (and the rate of interest recognized and tolerated here is seventy-five per cent.), then they sold all they could sell. Bereft43 of every resource, unable to earn anything in any way, regarding the famine as an inevitable44 infliction45 by the incensed46 gods, they let themselves starve to death in sullen47 pride, shut up in their houses with their womankind. Thus they were the most difficult to rescue. Their unassailable dignity made them refuse what they would have regarded as charity, even to save the life of those dearest to them, and it needed the angelic craft of the women of the Zenana Mission to induce the kshatriyas to accept the smallest sum to keep themselves alive.
Grain was now at five times the usual price, and would continue to rise till the next harvest-time. Official salaries and the wages of the poor remained fixed48, and misery was spreading, gaining ground on all sides of the devastated49 districts.
A few officers, a few clergy50 only, had organized some distribution of relief; the administration,[Pg 197] wholly indifferent, was drawing double pay in consideration of the increase of work in famine time.
The road from Cawnpore to Gwalior makes a bend towards central India across a stony51, barren tract52, where a sort of leprosy of pale lichen53 has overgrown the white dust on the fields that are no longer tilled. There is no verdure; mere54 skeletons of trees, and a few scattered55 palms still spread their leaves, protecting under their shade clumps56 of golden gynerium.
As we approached Jhansi we passed a village whence all the inhabitants had fled. The houses, the little temples, the gods on their pedestals by the dried-up tanks—everything was thickly coated with white dust.
Through the half-open doors in the courtyards bones were bleaching57, almost buried under the fine powder that lies on everything. And from this dust, as we trod it, rose a sharp smell of pepper and smoke. Twisted branches drooped58 forlorn from the skeletons of a few trees that were left standing59. Parasitic60 creepers had woven a flowing robe of tangle61 over a statue of Kali, left unbroken in front of a small temple in ruins; and all over the withered[Pg 198] and faded growth the fine white dust had settled in irregular patterns, a graceful62 embroidery63 rather thicker in the folds.
There was not a living thing in the silence and overheated air—not a bird, not a fly; and beyond the houses lay the plain once more, a monotonous64 stretch of dead whiteness, the unspeakable desolation of murderous nature, henceforth for ever barren.
At Jhansi, by the station, were parties of famishing emigrants65, all with the same dreadful white grimace and glazed67 eyes, and in the town more starving creatures dragging their suffering frames past the shops—almost all closed—or begging at the doors of the temples and mosques68; and the few passers-by hurried on as if they, too, wanted to escape, overpowered by this scene of dread66 and horror.
The train, now travelling northwards again, ran for a long way across the scorched69 plain through groves70 of dead trees and sandhills covered with lichen, till, in the golden sunset close to Gwalior, suddenly, at the foot of a hill, we came upon the greenery of fine parks with palaces rising above cool marble tanks.
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1
arcade
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| n.拱廊；(一侧或两侧有商店的)通道 | |
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apotheosis
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| n.神圣之理想；美化；颂扬 | |
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arid
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| adj.干旱的；(土地)贫瘠的 | |
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counteracting
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的现在分词 ) | |
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tottering
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| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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stiffened
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| 加强的 | |
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grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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awnings
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| 篷帐布 | |
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knuckle
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| n.指节；vi.开始努力工作；屈服，认输 | |
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tightened
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| 收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧 | |
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ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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shrieking
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| v.尖叫( shriek的现在分词 ) | |
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writhing
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| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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grovelling
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| adj.卑下的，奴颜婢膝的v.卑躬屈节，奴颜婢膝( grovel的现在分词 )；趴 | |
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beseeching
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| adj.恳求似的v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的现在分词 ) | |
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23
purged
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| 清除（政敌等）( purge的过去式和过去分词 )； 涤除（罪恶等）； 净化（心灵、风气等）； 消除（错事等）的不良影响 | |
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24
abortion
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| n.流产，堕胎 | |
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25
swollen
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| adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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27
vacancy
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| n.（旅馆的）空位，空房，（职务的）空缺 | |
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croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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emaciated
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| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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scourge
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| n.灾难，祸害；v.蹂躏 | |
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31
wielded
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| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的过去式和过去分词 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
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32
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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33
tattered
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| adj.破旧的，衣衫破的 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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35
squatted
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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36
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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37
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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38
insufficient
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| adj.(for，of)不足的，不够的 | |
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39
barefaced
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| adj.厚颜无耻的，公然的 | |
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40
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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41
concealment
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| n.隐藏, 掩盖，隐瞒 | |
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42
seclusion
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| n.隐遁，隔离 | |
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43
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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44
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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45
infliction
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| n.（强加于人身的）痛苦，刑罚 | |
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46
incensed
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| 盛怒的 | |
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47
sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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48
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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49
devastated
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| v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的 | |
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50
clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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51
stony
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| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
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52
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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53
lichen
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| n.地衣, 青苔 | |
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54
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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55
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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56
clumps
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| n.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的名词复数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声v.（树、灌木、植物等的）丛、簇( clump的第三人称单数 )；（土、泥等）团；块；笨重的脚步声 | |
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bleaching
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| 漂白法，漂白 | |
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58
drooped
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| 弯曲或下垂，发蔫( droop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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60
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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61
tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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graceful
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| adj.优美的，优雅的；得体的 | |
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embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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64
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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66
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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67
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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68
mosques
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| 清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 ) | |
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69
scorched
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| 烧焦，烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（植物）枯萎，把…晒枯； 高速行驶； 枯焦 | |
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70
groves
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| 树丛，小树林( grove的名词复数 ) | |
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