3-011-614 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cotton from India: a cotton convoy proceeding from Rewah towards the Ganges - night encampment under a banyan-tree, 1862. '...a small convoy of solid wooden-wheeled carts, pad bullocks, and camels...which has just effected the difficult descent to the Gangetic Valley by one of the ghauts, or mountain passes...down which all the cotton intended for shipment to Calcutta, and eventually to Europe, is brought from...the province of Bundelcund...The Illustration depicts the tired bullocks and camels unloading and resting for the night, under the shelter of a banyan-tree, near to one of the old feudal castles so common in this province...Let us hope that the exertions now being made to extend the cultivation of cotton in most, if not all, the cotton-growing districts of India, will in time assist to alleviate the terrible distress now prevailing in our own favoured land...The cotton at present raised in India clothes its own 135,000,000 of inhabitants, besides yielding enormous quantities to be exported to other countries; and there is yet abundant unoccupied land, at present overrun with primeval forest, which if cleared would be found capable of raising cotton to clothe many millions more'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.