72 GODFREY SYKES 



bearings, a ribbed drum over which an endless double line of 

 straw rope bearing a series of earthenware jars, is laid. 



The blindfolded motive power is goaded around a circular path 

 by a small boy ; the mechanism creaks and groans, and presently 

 the ascending jars begin to empty their small contributions into 

 the trough or shoot from whence it is carried to the ditch. 



The straw ropes can be lengthened and more jars added as the 

 level of the water supply lowers, and the only limit to the ca- 

 pacity of the machine is the ability of the straining animals to 

 lift the line of full jars. The loss by friction in the roughly con- 

 structed shafts and gears is of course enormous, but the jars, 

 of perhaps two gallons each, are emptied into the trough at about 

 the rate of one per second, although the rate is largely dependent 

 upon the height of the lift. 



The shaduf, being a more simple and portable arrangement, is 

 erected in situations where the water supply is temporary, the 

 needs of the crop evanescent or the means of the farmers not 

 sufficient to support the more elaborate contrivance. 



The machine is simply the ordinary well-sweep, the method of 

 construction being governed largely by the material available in 

 different localities, though practically unchanged since very early 

 times, as is evidenced by m^ny ancient representations. 



The only permanent part about it is the lifting rod, for the 

 sweep pole is generally built up of odd fragments of drift or other 

 wood, lashed together; the counterpoise is a large lump of mud 

 sun-dried on to the lower end of the sweep; the bucket is merely a 

 piece of goat or other hide, caught up at the corners by thongs, 

 and the supports for the fulcrums are usually made of small 

 bundles of dhurra (maize) stalks, incorporated with and sur- 

 rounded by a mass of dried mud. Equipped with this machine, 

 the irrigator pulls down the long end of the sweep by means of his 

 wooden or bamboo rod, dips his bucket, lets the rod slide upward 

 again between his hands (the full bucket being slightly overbal- 

 anced by the counterpoise), tips out the water and repeats the 

 cycle indefinitely. 



The lift may be anywhere from 5 to 12 feet, or sometimes even 

 more, and the time of the complete cycle is perhaps 10 to 15 



