Your ShelfYour Projects

On the Edge of Famine

10%

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 26, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 48.

Read the full edition

On the Edge of Famine

By Della Burroway

Our dispensary work in Karmatar calls us out to many villages, and brings us into close contact with the people. Last week while on the way to visit a patient, our cart was stopped at a little mud hut, where we found a man ill. He looked to us as if he were starving. We found that once a day he ate a little rice. His only relative was a nephew, who herded cows for a small allowance of food for himself, and this he divided with his uncle.
As we were coming home that night, we inquired of the man who drove our cart about the sick man and others of his village.
“Families live on one pow (half a pound) of rice a day, Mem-sahib,” he told us. “This they boil into mar (soup), the only meal of the day.”
“But do not the children cry from hunger?” we asked.
“Yes; but what can they do?”
They will not be able to get work until the rice season. Think of a family of six or eight living on half a pound of rice a day, not even salt with it.
THE MISSION HOME AT MUSSOORIE, IN THE HILLS
THE MISSION HOME AT MUSSOORIE, IN THE HILLS
As we were about to come away from a village one night, a hard storm came up, and I offered a man two annas (four cents), if he would drive us home. He fairly shouted, “Yes, Mem-sahib.” When we started, we found two men going. They said, “We want to divide the two annas to buy rice.”
We have started a fund to help those in need, and hope some of our brethren will add to it. DELLA BURROWAY.