WCP2123

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EXTRACTS OF THE BOMBAY GAZETTEER, 1884. (Gujarat)

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X X X. Field rats of the fawn-coloured black-tailed species ^sometimes appear in vast numbers and cause great loss. The year 1814-15 goes by the name of the Rat Year, Undario Sal, from the famine caused by their ravages. In 1840, also, rats did great injury. They suddenly appear about harvest time (October — November) in dense masses, past counting, as if they sprung from the earth. Nothing can stop them: fires, ditches, and water have been tried in vain. They move along a mighty host, eating all that comes in their way and then suddenly vanish as if by magic, and for years not one is seen. (Page 103-4.)

In 1813 the scarcity was still more severe. In 1814 there was excessive rain and destructive floods, especially in Jhalawad, and in 1815 there was a plague of rats. These terrible calamities desolated the country, and hundreds of villages fell waste. In Morvi the number of inhabited villages, though this is perhaps an exaggeration, is said to have sunk from sixty to fifteen. Nawanagar is said to have lost sixty villages. But this is below the mark. At least a hundred villages must have been temporarily abandoned, while two or three hundred more were greatly enfeebled. The accounts of many villages show that their tillage and revenue are even now less than they were before the 1814 famine. It is difficult to account for the plague of rats. Probably the rats of the towns and villages, unable to obtain sustenance among the starving people, left their usual (P.T.O.) [2] haunts and took to the fields. This view is strengthened by the fact that a plague of rats is never known to occur save towards the close of a famine. (Page 194.)

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