chap, v.] LEVADAS. I 05 



the use of it ; nothing, however, could be made of the people 

 or their oxen, which had been trained to work as ill as their 

 masters. The harrow has met with more success. This it 

 must be remembered is on a serra, or elevated plain ; the 

 hill-side cultivation scarcely admits of the use of ordinary 

 agricultural implements. 



LEVADAS. 



The levddas, or courses for the water, are wonderful works ; 

 they are the result of the labour of centuries, and are still in 

 progress. The water is gathered by them from its sources in 

 the mountains; sometimes running through the solid rock, 

 and sometimes along the sides of perpendicular cliffs, where 

 it is difficult to conceive how workmen could ever labour; 

 sometimes carried in wooden pipes over your head ; and some- 

 times gliding near your feet, and refreshing you as you toil 

 up the precipitous roads under a hot sun. By these levddas 

 means of irrigation are afforded to each tenement. Each has 

 a right to let the water on to his land in turn, and there is a 

 monthly cycle, or giro, divided into so many hours, made for the 

 regulation of such turns. The right to water for irrigation is 

 held by title deeds, in the same manner as any other pro- 

 perty, and in these deeds the number of hours in each giro 

 of a levdda is declared. In some levddas the giro is thirty 

 days, in some more, and in others less. There is frequently 

 a good deal of partiality on the part of the levddeiro, the 

 person to whom the division of the water in the main course 

 is intrusted. Here, where water is riches, there are more 

 quarrels and lawsuits about this than any other kind of pro- 

 perty ; and those who do not carefully watch it, when their 

 turn comes round, may reckon upon being robbed of the 



greater part of their water. 



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