Such is the popular argument, indefinitely felt rather than definitely expressed; and there is no doubt that it has had some effect in inducing a feeling of contentment with British rule. I have also heard it remarked by the people that since the coming of the English the villages have ceased to be decimated by the deadly epidemics that once visited them. A sage old farmer whom I asked for an explanation of the recent remarkable increase in the value of agricultural land explained it as due to the fact that the British Government had vaccinated all the children. This prevented half the members of each family from dying of smallpox, as had formerly been the case, and there was naturally an increased demand for land to supply food for a greater number of mouths! The medical work carried out by Government is doubtless of great value; but the reduced mortality among the people is probably chiefly due to the succession of good harvests, the increased facilities for trade, and the consequent improvement in the general conditions of life. A few successive years of bad crops may, it is to be feared, not only reduce the people to extreme poverty--for as a rule the land represents their only capital--but will also produce the epidemics that inevitably follow in the wake of famine. That such disasters may be expected from time to time in the natural course of events the reader will have gathered from the lists of notable local events given in the last chapter. When they come, the people's faith in the fortune-controlling capacities of the foreigners may then suffer a painful shock, and the results may not be unattended by something like disaffection towards their alien rulers.