1833.] The Ancient Canals in the Delhi Territory. 119 
not so much to form a productive source of revenue from the actual 
price paid for the water, as to give them an efficient control over its 
expenditure, by making it of value sufficient to prevent its being wan- 
tonly wasted; and that they looked alone to the general improvement 
of the country, as the source from which they should derive the return 
adequate to the outlay. This announcement completely prevented the 
superintendents’ disposing of the water so far as irrigation was con- 
cerned to the best advantage, and led to the settlement of a fixed rate 
of assessment so low, that it is not sufficient to prevent carelessness, 
entailing much waste of water; from which it may be presumed, that, 
the instructions of government have been fully acted up to, and the 
rates levied are sufficiently moderate. Iam unable to state from want of 
knowledge whether the improvement of the revenue in canal villages 
has been commensurate with the expense: I know the rents of many 
have been raised, and that others, which were reckoned highly assessed, 
have been by the canal enabled to pay their revenue; and I also know, 
that tracts of jangal have disappeared in many parts, and are super- 
seded by cultivation, supported by the canals. This point might be 
elucidated on the Delhi canal by a statement showing the revenue derived 
from all canal villages for a series of years before 1820, and for the 
subsequent years, compared with an account of the revenue derived 
during the same years from villages not irrigating from the canal, and 
in which the wells were equally deep. The length of leases being consi- 
dered,—the advantage I believe would be with the canal villages, and 
the comparative difference would be fairly attributable to the canals; 
the improvement which would doubtless appear on the inland villages, 
as well as a correspondipg proportion of that on the canal villages, being 
attributable to the benefits arising from a settled government super- 
seding an unsettled one. On Feroz’s canal a similar comparison 
might be made, commencing with the year 1826; but the Doad canal 
is too recently opened to afford any room for comparison. I may be 
permitted here to observe a fact which has forced itself on my notice 
in my constant intercourse with the inhabitants of canal villages, that, 
wherever a lease is for any long period of years, of 10 or upwards, or 
even of five years, improvement, and the use of the canal water 
make most rapid strides; and that wherever the settlement is too sud- 
denly raised, or is for a short period, or from year to year,—the 
sole object of the cultivators appears to be to deteriorate their lands, 
often until they fall into a state from which it is difficult to recover 
them ; and to this the deadly epidemic of 1829-30 has much added, 
by leaving valuable villages without hands sufficient to cultivate their 
