crops are those of the tropics, or of a kind that do not suffer from excessive heat. There is thus in the productions and processes of agriculture a variety of which we have no example in Europe.

I am afraid that the belief that the people throughout India live generally upon rice is almost as prevalent in England as ever. There could be no more complete delusion. Rice, in the greater part of India, is a luxury of the comparatively rich. It is grown where the climate is hot and damp, and where there are ample means of irrigation; it is a valuable crop in a great part of India, but it is only in Lower Bengal and in parts of Madras and Bombay, in districts where the conditions of soil and climate are suitable to its abundant production, that it forms the ordinary food of the people, or enters to an important extent into the consumption of the poorer classes. Out of the whole population of India it is probable that not more than a fourth part live upon rice.

The mistaken notions that prevail on this subject doubtless had their origin, as Sir Henry Maine has observed, in the fact that the English have in a great measure obtained their ideas about India from what they have seen or heard on its coasts. Because the ordinary food of the people in Lower Bengal is rice it was assumed that it was the ordinary food throughout India. Sir Henry Maine has drawn from this an instructive illustration of the danger of over-bold generalisations a danger, as I have more than once remarked, which cannot be too carefully guarded against in regard to a multitude of Indian questions. Mr. Buckle,' he says, 'in the general introduction to his "History of Civilisation," has derived all the distinctive institutions of India, and the peculiarities of its people,

from their consumption of rice. From the fact, he tells us, that the exclusive food of the natives of India is of an oxygenous rather than a carbonaceous character, it follows by an inevitable law that caste prevails, that oppression is rife, that rents are high, and that customs and law are stereotyped.' This is as if an Indian traveller, landing on the west coast of Ireland, and finding that the people lived on potatoes, were to assume that potatoes were the ordinary food throughout Europe, and were to base upon the fact conclusions regarding the conditions of society in Germany and Spain.

Excepting in the rice-consuming countries that I have named, millets form the chief food of the population throughout almost the whole of India, and they furnish also the most important of the crops used as fodder for cattle. Pulses of various kinds are largely consumed. Little or no meat is eaten by the poorer classes, and the pulses supply the nitrogenous element which is required. Meat, however, is commonly eaten by Mohammedans when they can afford it, and the great majority of Hindus who abstain from it do so because it is an expensive luxury, rather than from religious scruples.

The millets and pulses which form the chief foodsupply of the people flourish throughout the greater part of India. In the damper and more tropical regions they are cultivated in the drier months of the warm winter; in the drier countries where the winter is comparatively cold, they are the principal crops of the

summer.

In Northern India the agricultural year begins with the periodical rains which, as I explained in my first lecture, are established towards the end of June. The crops of the cold season are cut in March and April,

after which comes a period of about two months, when, owing to the intense heat and drought, agricultural operations are almost at a standstill. Towards the middle or end of June the heat reaches its extremest point. Midnight is hardly less oppressive than midday, except that during the day a fiery wind blows strongly from the west. Vegetation is burnt up; hardly a sound of animal life is heard. All day and all night, except for a short time about sunrise, when there is a slight fall in the temperature, you will, if you are wise, keep every door and window closely shut to bar out the raging heat. Sometimes, but less frequently in the North-Western Provinces than in the Punjab, there comes one of those remarkable atmospheric disturbances known as dust-storms, when the day becomes as dark as the darkest night, the violent winds which accompany them occasionally bringing destructive hail or torrents of rain.

Among all the phenomena of nature, there are few more impressive than those which usher in the rainy season in Northern India. It is not only of heat and discomfort that one has to think. Until rain falls the fields cannot be ploughed for another harvest, and the danger of drought and famine, if the coming of relief should be too long delayed, cannot be forgotten. The telegrams with news of the progress of the monsoon from the sea are every day eagerly expected, as in time of war news of the progress of a campaign.

In India, and in regions of the earth lying under similar geographical conditions, within the tropics or in their neighbourhood, all meteorological phenomena recur with a regularity and an intensity unknown in Europe, and, if their normal course be seriously interrupted, the consequences have a significance which in

temperate climates it is not easy to appreciate. The vital importance for good or evil of the variations of the seasons is, of course, obvious in other countries, but in India it is brought home to everyone with extraordinary strength and vividness. Not a year passes in which it is not clear to almost the whole population that the very existence of the country as a dwelling-place for man depends on the regular sequence of the seasons. In Europe drought or floods may cause misery and loss, but they can hardly lead to absolute ruin over thousands of square miles, and to many millions of people, such as that which has not unfrequently happened in India from failure of the periodical rains.

In favourable years the rains have usually set in about the middle of June on the Bombay coast and in Bengal; they travel up gradually towards Northern India, where they arrive about a fortnight later, and you may often trace their advance from one day to another. At last, when the heat has become greater than ever, the clouds begin to collect, and there comes down a deluge, almost always accompanied by thunder and lightning. When the rain is plentiful and all goes well, nothing can be more wonderful than the change which comes almost instantaneously over the whole face of nature. Under the influence of the tropical heat and abundant moisture, within a time that may be measured by hours rather than days, the country that was like a desert begins to look like a garden. The rapidity of the progress of vegetation is astonishing, and the manner in which animal life suddenly reappears is not less wonderful. You are reminded of the description of Aaron and the magicians stretching forth their hands over the streams and over the ponds and bringing up frogs which covered the land of Egypt.

As soon as the rain has sufficiently moistened the ground, the fields are ploughed and the summer and autumnal crops are sown. All these are included under the general name of kharif. The most widely-cultivated, and the most important to the poorer classes, since they furnish to them and to their cattle the principal means of subsistence, are the millets called juár and bájra (Sorghum vulgare, and Pennisetum typhoideum). In districts where the climate is damp and irrigation easy, rice is extensively grown at this season. Sugar-cane is another crop of much importance; in no other part of India is it so valuable as in the North-Western Provinces; it may be classed among the hot-weather crops, since it remains on the ground nearly throughout the year, and its growth mainly depends on the heat and moisture of the summer. Some of the pulses, maize, indigo, and cotton are also cultivated at this season of the year.

The rains are over in Northern India towards the end of September, and in the following month the autumn crops are for the most part cut.

In October and November, when the excessive heat and moisture have passed away and the cold season has begun, the soil and climate become suitable for the agricultural products of temperate latitudes, and the winter crops, known under the general name of rabi, are sown. Between November and March it would be difficult to find a more delightful climate for Englishmen than that of Northern India. The nights and mornings are cold and even at times frosty, and the days pleasantly warm. After Christmas there is almost always a short season of moderate rain, which is of much importance to the growing spring crops.

The chief agricultural staples of Northern India at