" "Why is this? It seems
to me to be just as good as the rest around, which produces such fine
crops." "It is called _khubtee_--slimy, and is said to be altogether
barren." "I assure you, sir," said Rajah Bukhtawar Sing, "that it is
good land, and capable of yielding good crops, under good tillage, or
it would not produce the fine grass you see upon it. You must not ask
men like this about the kinds and qualities of soils for they really
know nothing whatever about them: they are _city gentlemen's sons_,
who get into high places, and pass their lives in them without
learning anything but how to screw money out of such as we are, who
are born upon the soil, and depend upon its produce all our lives for
subsistence. Ask him, sir, whether either he or any of his ancestors
ever knew anything of the difference between one soil and another."
The collector acknowledged the truth of what the old man said, and
told me that he really knew nothing about the matter, and had merely
repeated what the people told him. This is true with regard to the
greater part of the local revenue officers employed in Oude. "One of
these city gentlemen, sir," said. Bukhtawar Sing, "when sent out as a
revenue collector, in Saadut Allee's time, was asked by his
assistants what they were to do with a crop of sugar-cane which had
been attached for balances, and was becoming too ripe, replied, '_Cut
it down, to be sure, and have it stacked!_' He did not know that
sugar-cane must, as soon as cut, be taken to the mill, or it spoils.
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