CHAPTER XXII

Summary

For two days we travelled over a district that had suffered severely from famine. The tale was told in roofless and doorless houses. All the woodwork had, in many cases, been torn out and sold for food. The millet stalks in the roofs had been taken and chewed, to stay the pangs of hunger. In some villages many houses were untenanted, and many fields around them were untilled. The remaining inhabitants were finding that in self-defence they would have to till these weedy fields, as the seeds from thence were spoiling their good crops. I asked where the people had gone from the locked-up houses. ‘Went away at the famine time, and have not come back.’ That was the invariable answer. Still, the empty house is no proof that the former inmates are dead; for they may have wandered away, and found employment. Some day they may return, and claim their houses and lands. In the hamlets, where the population was certainly greatly diminished, those that remained.had a sturdy, healthy look. In some places they offered their ground for sale at about ten shillings an acre. The soil had always been poor and dry.