UPPER INDIA. 41 



country lower down the stream into which the jheel was 

 drained, at the loss of valuable land which cannot be 

 recovered, and water which is wanted on the higher lands 

 would be more quickly conveyed away to the sea. 



One newspaper, after describing the unhealthiness of parts 

 of Oude from shallow jheels, advocated drainage of the jheel s 

 and low country, on the ground that drainage and quinine 

 were supposed to be the only known remedies for fever and 

 its attendant evils ; and recommended irrigational canals (the 

 Sardah Canal project in this case), for that very part of the 

 country, on the ground that until it were irrigated by canals 

 there would be no chance of drainage being carried out ; 

 showing drainage is considered a necessary sequel to irriga- 

 tion by irrigationists. It does not seem to have occurred to 

 the editor that prevention is better than cure, and that there 

 might be a way of preventing the formation of jheels with 

 their attendant fevers and ill effects, as effectual and valuable 

 as vaccination is in preventing small- pox, and that this pre- 

 ventive remedy consists in accepting and taking advantage 

 of rain, one of the most valuable gifts of the Almighty to 

 man, and allowing it to sink into the earth where it fell, 

 instead of spurning the precious gift and doing our utmost to 

 get rid of it. 



Floods in the Ganges and other Indian rivers are hailed 

 in the newspapers, by a strange perversity of reasoning, as 

 cheering assurances of rain having fallen further up coun- 

 try. Surely the sight of so much water running to waste, 

 and damaging, instead of fertilizing the earth, should cause 

 feelings of regret rather than of rejoicing. 



Is Upper India suffering from an excess of moisture ? If 

 so, why extend irrigation ? If not Suffering from an excess 

 of moisture, why resort to drainage ? The fact is, that the 

 water so much wanted is allowed to run to waste by streams, 



