'No.'
"'Then why should you expect remissions in bad seasons?'
"'It cannot be disputed that the burkut (blessing from above) is less under you than it used to be formerly, and that the lands yield less from our labour.'
"'True, my old friend, but do you know the reason why?'
"'No.'
"'Then I will tell you. Forty or fifty years ago, in what you call the times of the burkut, (blessing from above,) the cavalry of Seikh, free-booters from the Punjab, used to sweep over this fine plain, in which stands the said village from which you are all descended; and to massacre the whole population of some villages; and a certain portion of that of every other village; and the lands of those killed used to lie waste for want of cultivators. Is not this all true?'
"'Yes, quite true.'
"'And the fine groves which had been planted over this plain by your ancestors, as they separated from the great parent stock, and formed independent villages and hamlets for themselves, were all swept away and destroyed by the same hordes of free-booters, from whom your poor imbecile emperors, cooped up in yonder large city of Delhi, were utterly unable to defend you?'
"'Quite true,' said the old man with a sigh. 'I remember when all this fine plain was as thickly studded with fine groves of mango-trees as Rohilcund, or any other part of India.'
"'You know that the land requires rest from labour, as well as men and bullocks; and that if you go on sowing wheat, and other exhausting crops, it will go on yielding less and less returns, and at last not be worth the tilling?'