Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c20.55

c20.55

The people of Malabar have two sorts of ploughs; one is heavier than the other, but they have both the same simple construction. The Malabar ploughs have only one handle. It is curious that this is the case also with the plough of the south of France, that of Suffolk, and the Shetland Islands. This is one of those resemblances which belongs to taste and fancy, rather than to imitation. We may be surprised that people who live so remote from each other, and under such different circumstances, should have come to adopt the same apparently feeble and inconvenient structure of this indispensable instrument. We can only answer, that they must have been led to it by some practical or imaginary advantage, and that habit has made it convenient.