The crop and the assessment are the two kindred and vital points in the ryot’s earthly life, as distinguished from the life of his spirit. In the Deccan, as in all parts of India, the crop is simply a matter of opportune rainfall, and when I was in Poona there had been no good crop for fifteen years. That autumn the prospect was a little worse than ordinarily poor, though the main famine district of the year was in the United Provinces, far away north. Preparations for a serious famine had to be made already, for, as Sir William Hunter estimated, one-fifth of India’s population—say sixty million souls—are perpetually living on insufficient food, apart from famines; and, partly owing to the export-trade, the villagers no longer store grain to meet an evil day, nor do they possess cash to purchase grain from other parts of the country. So when the pinch of scarcity comes, the land-owning or land-taxing Government alone stands between them and starvation; and, indeed, the Government prides itself at all times upon its service as protector of the poor, especially against other landlords and money-lenders. There is always a good deal of justice in the claim, even when the Government, having first tempered the wind, proceeds to shear the lamb. But famine is the special opportunity for Government beneficence. All officials then vie with each other in the thankless labour of holding the bodies and souls of thousands together, and within a month of his landing as Governor of Bombay, Sir George Clarke had all his preparations ready for relief works, terracing of hills, sinking of wells, and remission (not merely suspension) of the year’s assessment money.