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COLD.
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101
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It
has always been a puzzle whence the great wealth came which enabled the
Rajahs of Southern India to construct enormous works, which
collectively must have cost millions. The marvel is increased by the
fact that, so far from these Indian princes having been impoverished by
this expenditure, they were still possessed of vast treasures, which
fell into the hands of the Moslems in the fourteenth century and were
carried away to Delhi. The famous Tanjore Temple inscription speaks of
a great abundance of gold which can only have arisen from mines. Dr.
Burnell writes :—" It proves that in the eleventh century gold was the
most common precious metal in India. Silver is little mentioned, and it
thus appears that the present state of things, which is exactly the
reverse, was only brought about by the Portuguese in the sixteenth
century. I submit that the great abundance of gold spoken of in the
inscription can have arisen only from mines, and that in the terrible
convulsions caused by the irruption of Moslem invaders from the north,
and Europeans from the west, the position of these gold fields was lost
sight of."*
The History of Tippoo Sultan further gives definite accounts of vast accumulated treasure in gold.f
To
my mind, as an occasional visitor to the Madras Presidency, there is a
noteworthy and remarkable fact which seems to have been overlooked by
writers on this subject, and that is that the total amount of gold in
the possession of the poorer classes of the inhabitants of Southern
India must be enormous, and proportionally much greater than in other
parts of the
* Times, January 2nd, 1879.
+
It may be well to point out that gold working in these early times was
in all probability carried on by slave labour, or what amounted very
much to the same thing, and that peculation met with pretty summary
treatment.
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