| “The disturbance of the season of 1783 seems to have been | general; but as the countries most affected were not then | subject to British rule, very little information therein | is obtainable. There are reasons for believing that the | upper parts of Hindustan had been visited with | extraordinary drought during the two previous years. In | September and October 1783 there was an abnormal | cessation of rain and extreme drought, and in the latter | month a terrible famine was reported in all the countries | from beyond Zahore to Karumnasa (the western boundary of | Behar) ... and the famine had been already felt in all | the western districts towards Delhi. To the northward of | Calcutta, the crops upon the ground had been scorched, | and nearly destroyed.”—Danvers, 1877. By the middle of | 1784 the famine had abated. | 1787-88 | India. Famine prospects in Behar and north-west provinces | of Punjab, consequent upon excess of rain and floods. The | Government laid an embargo on the exportation of grain. | 1790-91 | India. Famine in district of Baroda, and in many adjoining | districts, in some of which, however, it was only partial | and local. “Very little is known concerning the famine in | many of the districts named, beyond the fact that in 1790 | tradition records the occurrence of a very severe famine. | An almost total failure of rain was the immediate cause, | apparently, of the calamity; and sufficient information | exists to prove that it was one of the most remarkable on | record. So great was the distress that many people fled | to other districts in search of food; while others | destroyed themselves, and some killed their children, and | lived on their flesh. In Belgaum the scarcity was | aggravated by people flocking into the district boarding | on the Godavery.”—Danvers, 1877. | | In Kach, in 1791, a famine was caused by innumerable | black ants which swarmed in almost all parts of the | country, and destroyed vegetation. [This Kach, formerly | Cutch, is in Bombay Presidency, situated south-east of | the mouths of the Indus, and appears in later times to | have become a terribly God-forsaken place: famines and | plagues constantly!] | 1790-92 | India. Serious dearth in the northern districts of the | Madras Presidency, and the pressure continued for about | two years, from November 1790 to November 1792. “Many | deaths from starvation occurred. At an early period