that promised the slightest chance of relief.  Every cultivator of the district prepared pots for the conveyance of the water, with tripods to support them while they rested on the road, that they might not touch the ground.  The spot pointed out for taking the water was immediately under a fine large pipal-tree[l7] which had fallen into the river, and on each bank was seated a Bairagi, or priest of Vishnu.  The blight began to manifest itself in the alsi (linseed) in January, 1832, but the wheat is never considered to be in danger till late in February, when it is nearly ripe; and during that month and the following the banks of the river were crowded with people in search of the water.  Some of the people came more than one hundred miles to fetch it, and all seemed quite sure that the holy water would save them.  Each person gave the Bairagi priest of his own side of the river two half-pence (copper pice), two pice weight of ghi (clarified butter), and two pounds of flour, before he filled his pitcher, to secure his blessings from it.  These priests were strangers, and the offerings were entirely voluntary.  The roads from this reach of the Bias river, up to the capital of the Orchha Raja, more than a hundred miles, were literally lined with these water-carriers; and I estimated the number of persons who passed with the water every day for six weeks at ten thousand a day.[18] After they had ceased to take the water, the banks were long crowded with people who flocked to see the place where priests and waters had worked such miracles, and to try and discover the source whence the water derived its virtues.  It was remarked by some that the pipal-tree, which had fallen from the bank above many years before, had still continued to throw out the richest foliage from the branches above the surface of the water.  Others declared that they saw a monkey on the bank near the spot, which no sooner perceived it was observed than it plunged into the stream and disappeared.  Others again saw some flights of steps under the water, indicating that it had in days of yore been the site of a temple, whose god, no doubt, gave to the waters the wonderful virtues it had been found to possess.  The priests would say nothing but that ’it was the work of God, and, like all his works, beyond the reach of man’s understanding.’  They made their fortunes, and got up the vision and miracle, no doubt, for that especial purpose.[l9] As to the effect, I was told by hundreds of farmers who had tried the waters that, though it had not anywhere kept the blight entirely off from the wheat, it was found that the fields which had not the advantages of water were entirely destroyed; and, where the pot had been taken all round the field without leaving any dry opening for the demon to escape through, it was almost as bad; but, when a small opening had been left, and the water carefully dropped around the field elsewhere, the crops had been very little injured; which showed clearly the efficacy of the water, when all the ceremonies and observances prescribed by the vision had been attended to.