356 1 HE IRR1 GAIION A GE. 



and in irrigation work an engineer requires a great deal of special' 

 knowledge and experience. He must have several years' training on 

 the construction and management of railways and canals beiore he is 

 fully competent to design, construct, or manage a railway or irriga- 

 tion canal to the best advantage. Hence arises the advisability of an 

 engineer beginning at the bottom of the ladder in either department 

 and steadily working his way up. He by degrees becomes better fitted 

 for and also obtains, in course of time, the charge of more and more 

 important works, according to the experience gained and the abilities 

 displayed by him. 



There is another point of considerable importance that concerns 

 the Irrigation branch especially, more than the other branches, and 

 makes transfers of engineers from one Province to another most 

 inconvenient. This is the fact that the engineer in charge of a com- 

 pleted and running canal has not only to look after the canal and its 

 distributaries and maintain them in proper working order, but has 

 also to arrange for the due allotment of water to every estate or hold- 

 ing, for the measurement and record of every acre irrigated and for 

 the proper assessment with water rates of all fields watered and crops 

 grown thereby. These duties bring him into constant and close com- 

 munication with the irrigators, who are mostly simple village folk; 

 and it is highly desirable, for the most efficient and economical man- 

 agement of a canal, that he be in close touch, and be able to converse 

 freely in their own language with the country village people. 



Now the language of the village people in one province is very 

 different from that in another province. The universal official lan- 

 guage, Urdu or Hindustani, is known only by educated people and 

 those that have lived in connection with such. But the simple coun- 

 try people, living in small villages scattered over the country, and 

 getting little or no education beyond what their isolated life and self- 

 sufficing communities require, speak only their own dialect and can 

 understand but little of the ornate Hindustani, the vocabulary of 

 which is largely made up of Arabic and Persian words, quite foreign 

 to the native dialects of India. An European official, after some years 

 residence in one Province, should have to some extent acquired the 

 language of that Province, and be able fairly well to understand and 

 make himself understood by the people. But if he should be trans- 

 ferred to another Province, he at once finds himself among a new 

 people, speaking quite a different language, which he cannot under- 

 stand nor express himself in. Therefore, though as an engineer his 

 efficiency is as great as before, as an administrator it is very much 

 hampered. Hence on account of the languages of the country, trans- 

 fers from one Province to another are inadvisable and not usual; 

 while for the sake of professional experience and efficiency, transfers 



