818 Memoir of Sylhet, Kachar, ^adjacent Districts. [No. 104. 



improved the land, and in consequence people far from dreading 

 the inundation, soon learnt to turn it to account ; and having banked 

 such lands as were fit for the purpose, led the river to them by narrow 

 canals, which they closed after the flow of water was deemed sufficient, 

 and re-opened when the river had fallen sufficiently to allow it to run 

 off. This practice is now quite common, and by it much marshy land 

 has been reclaimed. The low lands in the Eastern parts of the country 

 may all in time be filled up by the sediment left by the inundations of 

 the rivers, but these are in reality so rare, and of such short duration, 

 that more will be effected by art than nature in this way. It 

 must be remembered, that the ordinary inundation which fills the 

 marshes does not proceed from the rivers but is furnished by the rains, 

 and yields no sediment, this distinction is, of course, not to be over- 

 looked in the execution of the operation above described. 



Husbandry. — The agricultural processes in the Bhatta are very 

 simple, and may be briefly dismissed. As soon as the inundation 

 begins to subside, or in the beginning of November, such lands as are 

 sufficiently high for the purpose, are ploughed and sown for rice and 

 millet, the crop being cut in April. Gardens and orchards are unknown, 

 and the cultivation derives the smallest possible aid from the labour 

 which in other parts is so productive. There are neither sugarcane 

 patches, plantations of pan, vine, chillies, nor vegetables, — a little 

 sursoo, and hemp, with some gourds and cucumbers about the huts, 

 appear occasionally, but in limited quantity. The marshes are however 

 filled with cattle, from which profits are derived sufficient to make 

 the occupation of these desolate tracts desirable. Ghee and cheese 

 are made from the milk of buffaloes and cows, and the upper lands are 

 furnished with young bullocks for the plough in numbers, being 

 driven to bazars and fairs in the spring of the year, before the return 

 of the inundation in May and June, after which months they are 

 confined to their sheds, and supported on green fodder brought in 

 boats from the jhils. The people here are extensively concerned in 

 the transport of grain, being the carriers between the high lands east- 

 ward and the country to the south-west. The husbandry of the 

 eastern quarter is of a far more elaborate description, though it has not 

 yet exhausted the resources of art on the one hand, nor those of nature 

 on the other. A fertile soil, renewed continually by accumulations from 



I 



