1837.] Mechanical Instruments of the Nepalese. 959 



washing their hair, in the same way as the females of Hindustan em- 

 ploy the aulah. 



No. 3. — The water-mill, Pan-chuki of the northern Doab and wes- 

 tern hills, kan of the Newars, — is so well described in the 19th num- 

 ber of the Journal of the Asiatic Society, as used in the Doab, that I 

 shall only notice the slight points in which the Nepal one differs from 

 the other. Of the Doab one it is said, " a horizontal water-wheel with 

 floats placed obliquely so as to receive a stream of water from a shoot 

 or funnel, the said float boards being fixed in a vertical axle passing 

 through the lower millstone, and held to the upper one by a short iron 

 bar at right angles, causing it to revolve with the water-wheel ; — the 

 axle itself having a pivot working on a piece of the hardest stone that can 

 be procured from the shingle near at hand : — this, with a thatched roof 

 over it, and the expense and trouble of digging a cut, so as to take 

 advantage of a fall of water, are the only articles required in this very 

 simple mill." This description is correct for the Nepal mill, with the 

 exception of the contrivance for a pivot on which the axle turns, and 

 that for a cup for the reception of the said pivot. Instead of a rounded 

 pebble being sunk into the lower end of the arbor, and a larger stone 

 being embedded in the horizontal beam, or transom, on which the pivot 

 revolves, we have in the Nepal one, an iron pivot driven into the 

 nave of the water-wheel, and a square piece of the same metal sunk 

 into the transom, and its upper surface hollowed out for the pivot to 

 revolve in. In all essential respects they are the same, and alike rude 

 in construction. On this point I am enabled to speak from personal 

 observation, as 1 have had many opportunities of examining the water- 

 mills of the Dehra Dhoon, and western hills, as well as those of the 

 valley of Nepal. 



The water-mill does not supersede in Nepal the use of the common 

 hand-mill, as the latter is to be found in almost every cultivator's 

 house, and exactly similar to the one used in the plains of India; viz. 

 nothing more than a couple of circular stones, about 18 inches in dia- 

 meter, the superior one resting on a pivot fixed in the lower one and 

 having a peg of wood driven into it, by means of which it is made to 

 revolve on the other as it lies on the ground. Mr. Elphinstone found 

 the water-mill with a horizontal water-wheel immediately below the 

 millstone in general use beyond the Indus, and says that it "is used 

 all over Affghanistan, Persia and Turkistan." Throughout the hills 

 from the Sutlege to the Mitcher or eastern limits of Nepal, its use is 

 general, and has been so in all probability for along period of time. 

 More recently this kind of water-mill has been introduced into our 

 6 f 2 



