'_MADRAS, July 25, 1877._--There is not much news this week. One day I drove out to one of the Relief Camps beyond Palaveram to see it. A most curious and interesting sight it was. We went at half-past five, which was feeding-time; and there we saw nine thousand five hundred starving wretches all seated on their hunkers [crouched down in a sitting attitude on their heels], awaiting their food. What a motley crew and queer mixture of old men with more than a foot in the grave; strong men and young women and unweaned babes all mixed indiscriminately, but all seated in long rows of about a hundred each, in perfect order, and kept so by not more than a dozen native police with two half-caste inspectors. The majority of the people were Pariahs. Few caste people care to come to the camps, and prefer to die rather than have their food cooked for them by non-caste persons. However, there were some--about two hundred in all--Hindus and Mohammedans, and they were set apart from the Pariahs. 'The food, rice, is cooked in enormous chatties, and then spread out on matting to cool; after which it is put into gigantic tubs, which are carried slung on bamboos by a couple of coolies to the people, and a large tin measureful given to each. A measureful of pepper water (a mixture of chillies and water) is also given to each, and as much drinking-water as they like. 'So much for the food; now for the camp itself. It is situated on a large plain, and the inclosure is about a mile round. It is in the form of a square, three sides consisting of chuppers [a kind of wood and matting tents], roofed in, and protected from the wind on one side, being open on the other. Each of the three chuppers or houses of accommodation is built of the very simplest material: the floor is hardened mud, perfectly smooth and comfortable, as you know the people make it; while the roof consists of leaves matted together, supported on bamboos, and the side of matting. Each chupper is about a quarter of a mile long, and has accommodation for no end of people, the evils of overcrowding being avoided by the almost free exposure to the air. To windward is the Hospital, a good building, rain-proof, and covered in on all sides. Still further away are cholera and small-pox hospitals. The people at the camps receive two meals a day of rice and pepper water; and once a week on Sundays they get mutton. At this camp alone not less than fifty bags of rice were cooked and consumed daily, sometimes much more. The camp is open to all comers, and each is provided with a cloth and residence. The people appear all to be contented and happy, and await their turn for food calmly and patiently. The feeding is proceeded with rapidly now; but when first the famine came, it was not so; and owing to the paucity of servants, the feeding used to last from five P.M. till five the next morning. Rather trying for starving people to wait that time; hard too on the servants.