134 AN ACCOUNT OF THE PETROLEUI^f WELLS 



dedu61:ed only a trifle for draw ropes, &c. for I could ' 

 not learn that there was any further duties or expence 

 to be charged on the produce, but the merchants fay 

 they gain only a neat looo tecals per annum for each 

 well, and as we advance we fliall have reafon to think 

 they have given themaximumrather than the minimum 

 of their profits, hence therefore we may infer that the 

 grofs amount produce per annum is not 182,500 vifs. 



Further, the four labourers (hare or one fixth de- 

 ducting the king's tythe, will be 2250 vifs per month 

 of thirty days, or in money at the above price twenty- 

 eight tecals fifty avas, or feven tecals twelve avas each 

 man per month, but the wages of a common labourer 

 in this part of the country, as the fame perfons inform- 

 ed me, is only five tecals per month when hired from , 

 day to day j they alfo admitted that the labour of the 

 oil drawers was not harder than that of common 

 labourers, and the employment no ways obnoxious to 

 health. To me the fmell of the oil was fragrant and 

 grateful, and on being more indirectly queftioned (for 

 on this part of the fubjeCt perhaps owing to the mi- 

 nutenefs of my enquiries I obferved moft referve), they 

 allowed that their gain was not much greater than the 

 common labourers of the country, nor is it reafonable 

 to expe£t it fliould, for as there is no myftery in draw- 

 ing of oil, no particular hardfliips endured, or rifk of 

 health, no compuUion or prevention pretended, and as 

 h is the interefl of the proprietors to get> their work 

 done at the cheapefl: rate, of courfe the numbers that 

 vvould flock to fo regL^lar and profitable an employ- 

 ment, would foon lower the rate of hire nearly at lealt 

 to the common wages of the country ;'befides I obferv- 

 ed no appearance of affluence amongft the labourers, 

 they were meanly lodged and clad, andfed coarfely, not 

 on rice, which in the upper provinces is an article of 

 luxury, but on dry grains and indigenous roots of the 

 nature of LV//y^?/-/(7, collected in the wailesby their women 

 and children ; turther it is not reafonable to fuppofe 

 what thefe labourers worked conftantly, nature always 



requires 



