12 PERRY, Terraced Cultivation and Irrigation. 



patient industry of this wonderful people. From peak to 

 valley the whole hill-side has been levelled into terraces, 

 so that not a foot of ground is lost. More than this, the 

 terraces are cut up into fields — beds would be better 

 words — averaging 50 feet by 40 feet, perfectly level, and 

 enclosed by narrow banks. The outside bank of each 

 bed has a rough sluice to regulate the level of the water, 

 any surplus, after the ground is sufficiently covered for 

 paddy, falling into the bed below, and so on till the 

 bottom of the valley is reached." 30 



Terraced irrigation is wide-spread in northern India. 

 It is found in Kashmir, where " the terraces are irrigated 

 by contour channels constructed along the hill-sides, 

 which bring water for miles from distant snow-fed streams." 

 Again, "the mountain sections of the native states of 

 Nepal and Bhutan present the view of slopes cut with 

 gigantic stairs, each step a field of waving rice kept satu- 

 rated by irrigating streams from abundant mountain 

 streams. Further north, where the Himalayas and Hindu 

 Kush meet, terrace agriculture is combined with irrigation 

 in the high Gilgit valleys, and farther still along that mere 

 gash running from the Pamir dome, called the Hunza 

 valley. Here live the once lawless robber tribes of the 

 Hunzas and Nagaris, .... whose extensive terraces 

 of irrigated fields and evidences of skilful tillage are 

 strangely at variance with the barbarous character of its 

 inhabitants." n Irrigation is carried out in the valley of 

 the Sutlej,and in western Thibet in the Taklahat district. 32 

 We are further told that " the western political boundary 

 of the Sind extends into the barren foothill of Baluchistan 



■ ;0 Gomme, op. ri/., p. 96, quoting from Blue Book, China, No. I., 1888, 

 p. 2. 



55 Semple, p. 568. 



"- C. A. Sherring, "Western Thibet," London, 1906, pp. 336. 168-70, 

 209. Semple, p. 572. 



