Happy had it been for mankind if those only who were supposed to do good had been deified.[11] On the 2nd we came on to the village of Khojanpur (leaving the town and cantonments of Sagar to our left), a distance of some fourteen miles.

The road for a great part of the way was over the bare back of the sandstone strata, the covering of basalt having been washed off.
The hills, however, are, at this distance from the city and cantonments of Sagar, nicely wooded; and, being constantly intersected by pretty little valleys, the country we came over was picturesque and beautiful.

The soil of all these valleys is rich from the detritus of the basalt that forms or caps the hills; but it is now in a bad state of cultivation, partly from several successive seasons of great calamity, under which the people have been suffering, and partly from over-assessment; and this posture of affairs is continued by that loss of energy, industry, and character, among the farmers and cultivators, which must everywhere result from these two evils.

In India, where the people have learnt so well to govern themselves, from the want of settled government, good or bad government really depends almost altogether upon _good or bad settlements of the land revenue_.

Where the Government demand is imposed with moderation, and enforced with justice, there will the people be generally found happy and contented, and disposed to perform their duties to each other and to the state; except when they have the misfortune to suffer from drought, blight, and other calamities of season.[l2] I have mentioned that the basalt in the Sagar district reposes for the most part immediately upon the sandstone of the Vindhya range; and it must have been deposited on the sand, while the latter was yet at the bottom of the ocean, though this range is now, I believe, nowhere less than from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet above the level of the sea.