This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 Excerpt: ...or even in the cold weather, when the river falls and the floods cease. Water-Courses.--The use and abuse of the ancient privilege of the zemindars, in damming up and turning the course of a stream into artificial khools or cuts, for the purpose of irrigating the lands in its vicinity, causes disputes and bloodshed; ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 Excerpt: ...or even in the cold weather, when the river falls and the floods cease. Water-Courses.--The use and abuse of the ancient privilege of the zemindars, in damming up and turning the course of a stream into artificial khools or cuts, for the purpose of irrigating the lands in its vicinity, causes disputes and bloodshed; and after much angry dissension, the result is generally a compromise, stipulating for a reciprocal enjoyment of the gifts of nature. In some instances, and in contiguous estates, the parties will agree to take equal shares of the water, either by the hour or the day, or by measurement; in other cases, one will receive two-thirds, and his neighbour one-third only, according to their respective and pressing wants. The landholders, whose possessions are adjacent to the hills, from which, and their base, these streams and springs take their rise, require and demand a very large portion of the water for their rice lands, into which it is diverted by numberless water-courses, drawn with great ingenuity by the cultivators into distant and countless parterres. Those who hold land at a distance, and lower down the river, in the more arid districts, are querulous that the streams do not flow unobstructed in their natural course, which would give them the unabsorbed portion to irrigate their wheat and barley crops. It seems to be a question how far a chief may be justified in entirely obstructing the course of a natural stream, and in appropriating the waters to his own exclusive advantage, to the serious detriment and loss of his neighbours, whose rights he may seem bound to respect, so far as they have relation to property. On the whole, it appears most just, that all should partake, as far as circumstances will admit, of a share in the water of a natur...
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