them.  They might lose their lease when the term expired, or forfeit it before; and the successor would have the land on which the trees stood, and would be able to exclude the public, if not the proprietor, from the enjoyment of any of their advantages.  Our Government has, in effect, during the thirty-five years that it has held the dominion of the North-Western Provinces,[6] prohibited the planting of mango groves, while the old ones are every year disappearing.  On the resumption of rent-free lands, even the ground on which the finest of these groves stand has been recklessly resumed, and the proprietors told me that they may keep the trees they have, but cannot be allowed to renew them, as the lands are become the property of Government.  The lands of groves that have been the pride of families for a century and a half have been thus resumed.  Government is not aware of the irreparable mischief they do the country they govern by such measures.[7]

On my way back from Meerut, after the conversation already related with the farmer of a small village (ante, chapter 58, text at [7]), my tents were one day pitched, in the month of December, amidst some very fine garden cultivation in the district of Aligarh;[8] and in the evening I walked out as usual to have some talk with the peasantry.  I came to a neighbouring well at which four pair of bullocks were employed watering the surrounding fields of wheat for the market, and vegetables for the families of the cultivators.  Four men were employed at the well, and two more in guiding the water into the little embanked squares into which they divide their fields.

I soon discovered that the most intelligent of the four was a Jat; and I had a good deal of conversation with him as he stood landing the leather buckets, as the two pair of bullocks on his side of the well drew them to the top, a distance of forty cubits from the surface of the water beneath.

‘Who built this well?’ I began.

‘It was built by one of my ancestors, six generations ago.’

‘How much longer will it last?’

’Ten generations more, I hope; for it is now just as good as when first made.  It is of ‘pakka’ bricks without mortar cement.’[9]

‘How many waterings do you give?’

’If there should be no rain, we shall require to give the land six waterings, as the water is sweet; had it been brackish four would do.  Brackish water is better for wheat than sweet water; but it is not so good for vegetables or sugar-cane.’

‘How many “bighas” are watered from this well?’

’We water twenty “bighas”, or one hundred and five “jaribs”, from this well.’[10]

‘And you pay the Government how much?’

’One hundred rupees, at the rate of five rupees the bigha.  But only the five immediately around the well are mine, the rest belong to others.’

’But the well belongs to you; and I suppose you get from the proprietors of the other fifteen something for your water?’