1 POPULATION, MANNERS, AND Customs. 123
2 part of the stream have been supplied, the
3 surplus should be again turned into, and per-
4 mitted to flow in its bed, to satisfy others lower
5 down, whether for irrigation or the consumption
6 of the people and cattle, in the arid districts.
7 The lesser currents’ do not swell in the hot
8 months, as is the case with the larger rivers,
9 which debouche from the Himalayas, and are fed
10 in warm weather by the liquefaction of the snow :
11 the supply of water in them is hence so scanty as
12 scarcely to administer to the necessities of those
13 near their heads, whilst the distress of others,
14 further down the stream, induces them to become
15 more clamorous as the quantity decreases, and
16 ultimately stops short of them.
17 “ Bunds, or dams, are always constructed,
18 after the rains have ceased, to raise the water
19 to a level with the surface, and to render it
20 applicable to the purposes of irrigation. Were
21 a total prohibition of this beneficial practice to
22 be enacted, large tracts, on many estates, through
23 which streams flow, in deep channels, would
24 become uncultivated; and the villages depopu-
25 lated, to the serious loss of the proprietors and
26 the ruin of their Zemindars. With the view
27 of relieving the deficiencies experienced from the
28 want of the fluid in the arid districts lower down,
29 a substitute for the dam might be found in a
30 hydraulic wheel of simple construction, to draw