A History of Agriculture in India v2.c65.s15: The Country-Side
A History of Agriculture in India v2.c65.s15
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The Country-Side
v2.c65.s15.1
Domingo Paes thus describes the country-side. ‘It is a country sparsely wooded except along this serra on the east, but in places you walk for two or three leagues under groves of trees; and behind cities and towns and villages they have plantations of mangoes, and jack-fruit trees, and tamarinds and other very large trees, which form resting-places where merchants halt with their merchandise. I saw in the city of Recalem a tree under which we lodged three hundred and twenty horses, standing in order as in their stables, and all over the country you may see many small trees. These dominions are very well cultivated and very fertile, and are provided with quantities of cattle, such as cows, buffaloes, and sheep; also of birds, both those belonging to the hills and those reared at home, and this in greater abundance than in our tracts. The land has plenty of rice and jowar, grains, beans, and other kind of crops which are not sown in our parts; also an infinity of cotton. Of the grain there is a great quantity, because, besides being used as food for men, it is also used for horses, since there is no other kind of barley; and this country has also much wheat, and that good. The whole country is thickly populated with cities and towns and villages.’⁵
v2.c65.s15.2
⁵ Sewell, R. *A Forgotten Empire, Vijayanagar*, p. 230