The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan | Page 6

or propagated by pilgrimages and other
forms of human intercourse. Such are the awful expedients by which
Nature checks the redundancy of a non-emigrating population with
simple wants. Hence the construction of drainage and irrigation-works
has not merely a direct result in causing temporary prosperity, but an
indirect result in a large increase of the responsibilities of the ruling
power. Between 1848 and 1854 the population of the part of Hindustan
now called the North-West Provinces, where all the above described
physical features prevail, increased from a ratio of 280 to the square
mile till it reached a ratio of 350. In the subsequent sixteen years there
was a further increase. The latest rate appears to be from 378 to 468,
and the rate of increase is believed to be about equal to that of the
British Islands.
There were at the time of which we are to treat few field-labourers on
daily wages, the Metayer system being everywhere prevalent where the
soil was not actually owned by joint-stock associations of peasant
proprietors, usually of the same tribe.
The wants of the cultivators were provided for by a class of hereditary
brokers, who were often also chandlers, and advanced stock, seed, and
money upon the security of the unreaped crops.
These, with a number of artisans and handicraftsmen, formed the chief
population of the towns; some of the money-dealers were very rich, and
36 per cent. per annum was not perhaps an extreme rate of interest.
There were no silver or gold mines, external commerce hardly existed,
and the money-price of commodities was low.
The literary and polite language of Hindustan, called Urdu or Rekhta,
was, and still is, so far common to the whole country, that it
everywhere consists of a mixture of the same elements, though in
varying proportions; and follows the same grammatical rules, though
with different accents and idioms. The constituent parts are the
Arabised Persian, and the Prakrit (in combination with a ruder basis,

possibly of local origin), known as Hindi. Speaking loosely, the Persian
speech has contributed nouns substantive of civilization, and adjectives
of compliment or of science; while the verbs and ordinary vocables and
particles pertaining to common life are derived from the earlier tongues.
So, likewise, are the names of animals, excepting those of beasts of
chase.
The name Urdu, by which this language is usually known, is said to be
of Turkish origin, and means literally "camp." But the Moghuls of India
first introduced it in the precincts of the Imperial camp; so that as
Urdu-i-muali (High or Supreme Camp) came to be a synonym for new
Dehli after Shahjahan had made it his permanent capital, so
Urdu-ki-zaban meant the lingua franca spoken at Dehli. It was the
common method of communication between different classes, as
English may have been in London under Edward III. The classical
languages of Arabia and Persia were exclusively devoted to uses of law,
learning, and religion; the Hindus cherished their Sanskrit and Hindi
for their own purposes of business or worship, while the Emperor and
his Moghul courtiers kept up their Turkish speech as a means of free
intercourse in private life. The Chaghtai dialect resembled the Turkish
still spoken in Kashgar.
Out of such elements was the rich and still growing language of
Hindustan formed, and it is yearly becoming more widely spread over
the most remote parts of the country, being largely taught in
Government schools, and used as a medium of translation from
European literature, both by the English and by the natives. For this
purpose it is peculiarly suited, from still possessing the power of
assimilating foreign roots, instead of simply inserting them cut and
dried, as is the case with languages that have reached maturity. Its own
words are also liable to a kind of chemical change when encountering
foreign matter (e.g., jau, barley: when oats were introduced some years
ago, they were at once called jaui — "little barley").
The peninsula of India is to Asia what Italy is to Europe, and Hindustan
may be roughly likened to Italy without the two Sicilies, only on a far
larger scale. In this comparison the Himalayas represent the Alps, and

the Tartars to the north are the Tedeschi of India; Persia is to her as
France, Piedmont is represented by Kabul, and Lombardy by the
Panjab. A recollection of this analogy may not be without use in
familiarizing the narrative which is to follow.
Such was the country into which successive waves of invaders, some of
them, perhaps, akin to the actual ancestors of the Goths, Huns, and
Saxons of Europe, poured down from the plains of Central Asia. At the
time of which our history treats, the aboriginal Indians had long been
pushed out from Hindustan into the mountainous forests that border