Volume 1

Rambles and recollections of an Indian official / [Sir William Henry Sleeman].

  • William Henry Sleeman
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rambles and recollections of an Indian official / [Sir William Henry Sleeman]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    220/492 page 180
    CHAPTER XXIV Corn Dealers—Scarcities—Famines in India. . Near Tehri we saw the people irrigating a field of wheat from a tank by means of a canoe, in a mode quite new to me. The surface of the water was about three feet below that of the field to be watered. The inner end of the canoe was open, and placed to the mouth of a gutter lead- ing into the wheat-field. The outer end was closed, and suspended by a rope to the outer end of a pole, which was again suspended to cross-bars. On the inner end of this pole was fixed a weight of stones sufficient to raise the canoe when filled with water; and at the outer end stood five men, who pulled down and sank the canoe into the water as often as it was raised by the stones, and emptied into the gutter. The canoe was more curved at the outer end than ordinary canoes are, and seemed to have been made for the purpose. The lands round the town generally were watered by the Persian wheel; but, where it \sciL the water] is near the surface, this \sciL the canoe arrange- ment] I should think a better method.^ On the loth- we came on to the village of Bilgai, twelve miles over a bad soil, badly cultivated; the hard syenitic 1 Irrigation by means of a ‘'dug out” canoe used as a lever is commonly practised in many parts of the country. The author gives a rough sketch, which is not worth reproduction. The Persian wheel is suitable for use in wide-mouthed wells. It may be described as a mill-wheel with buckets on the circumference, which are filled and emptied as the wheel revolves. It is worked by bullock powei acting on a rude cog-wheel. December, 1835.
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