[Illustration:  {Gardener at work}]

11.  Next, Hugh took me to see the well.  It is behind the house.  The mouth of the well is on the top of a mound.  To reach it you must walk up a sloping road.  Above the mouth of the well there is a wheel.

12.  A rope runs over this wheel.  At one end of the rope there is a large leather bag.  The other end of the rope is fastened to the necks of a pair of bullocks.

[Illustration:  The Village Well.

(From the picture by W. Simpson, R.I.)]

* * * * *

13.  In the garden.

1.  The bullocks walk backwards up the sloping road.  This lowers the leather bag into the well, where it is filled with water.  Then the bullocks walk down the sloping road.  This pulls the bag up to the mouth of the well.

2.  A man empties the water out of the bag into a tank by the side of the well.  The water runs out of this tank into the garden, where it spreads out into many little streams.  It is this water which makes the trees, the plants, and the grass grow so well in the garden.

[Illustration:  {Oxen drawing water from a well}]

3.  If the garden were not watered in this way, it would soon be brown and bare.  For many months at a time no rain falls in India.  Then dust a foot deep lies on the roads, and the ground cracks with the heat.

4.  When the dry season is over the rain begins to fall.  It comes down in torrents for days together.  In some places more rain falls in a single day than we have in a whole year.

5.  During the “rains” the rivers become full to the brim, and the whole land is fresh and green.  Sometimes the “rains” do not come at all.  Then the crops wither away, and the people starve.

6.  In our country we are never sure of the weather.  It changes so often that we talk about it a great deal.  In India nobody talks about the weather.  During seven months of the year every day is fine.

7.  In our country we almost always have plenty of water for our crops, and for drinking and washing.  Plenty of fresh water is a great blessing to a land.  In many parts of India water is very scarce.

8.  I told you that the great river Ganges is not far away from little Hugh’s home.  This grand river begins in the mountains of North India.  I wish you could see these mountains.  They are the highest on earth.  They rise up from the plains like a huge wall, and their tops are always covered with fields of ice and snow.

9.  These ice-fields slowly move down the mountain sides.  Then they melt, and this gives rise to the Ganges and to the other great rivers of North India.

10.  Millions of the Indian people love the Ganges, and they have good reason to do so.  It gives water and food to more than twice as many people as dwell in the British Islands.

11.  Many Indians think that every drop of water in the river is holy.  They believe that if they bathe in its waters their souls will be washed clean from sin.