UPPER INDIA. 43 



are kept up more particularly on irrigated lands, are now 

 simply the bounds defining the limits of the different fields, 

 and are as narrow as they well can be, so as to occupy as small 

 a space as possible. 



It is possible that when these ridges were first brought into 

 use it was with a view, not only of defining the limits of the 

 fields, but of preventing the escapa and flow of the rain-water ; 

 or, when only a small portion of the land of the country was 

 cultivated, the latter may have been the only reason for making 

 them. 



Now with reference to jheels, if we want to prevent un- 

 healthiness arising from them, we have merely to take measures 

 to prevent their increased water area in the rainy season ; and 

 this can be done by banking up the fields of their drainage 

 basins, in the way the natives ridge up their fields, taking 

 care to do it effectually, so as to prevent surface- drainage. 

 The operation should be commenced at the highest point or 

 water- shed, and the different fields should be consecutively 

 taken in hand to the edge of the jheel. In forming the banks, 

 the soil to make them should be dug out from their lower 

 sides, from pits ; and not from ditches, which might become 

 channels of surface- drainage : they should be made of sufficient 

 width to withstand the water they may be required to hold 

 back ; of sufficient height to retain any probable heavy fall of 

 rain ; and on the upper side the soil should be filled in in a 

 sloping direction to the top of the banks, so that the water 

 should not lodge at their bases, but at some little distance 

 from them. I have been told that if we retain the rain-water 

 by banking up the fields we shall have the whole country 

 under water, and that the whole country will suffer from fever, 

 &c., as the low lands subjected to inundation now do. 



The average annual rainfall throughout Upper India may 

 be about 24 inches. Supposing it even to be 36 inches, and 



