HISTORICAL SUMMARY. II 



H The property of these wells is in the owners of the soil, natives of the coun- 

 try, and descends to the heirs generally as a kind of entailed hereditament, with 

 which it is said Government never interferes, and which no distress will induce them 

 to alienate. One family perhaps will possess four or five wells, I heard of none 

 who had more, the generality have less, they are sunk by, and wrought for, the 

 proprietors ; the cost of sinking a new well is 2000 tecals flowered silver of the 

 country, or 2500 sicca rupees ; and the annual average net profit 1000 tecals, or 

 1250 sicca rupees. 



" The contract price with the miner for sinking a well is as follows : for the 

 first forty cubits they have forty tecals, for the next forty cubits three hundred 

 tecals, and beyond these eighty cubits to the oil they have from thirty to fifty 

 tecals per cubit, according to the depth (the Burmha cubit is nineteen inches 

 English) ; taking the mean rate or forty tecals per cubit and one hundred cubits 

 as the general depth at which they come to oil, the remaining twenty cubits will 

 cost 800 tecals, or the whole of the miner's wages for sinking the shaft 1140 tecals; 

 a well of 100 cubits will require 950 cassia staves, which at 5 tecals per hundred 

 will cost 47^ tecals. Portage and workmanship, in fitting them, may amount 

 to 100 tecals more ; the levelling the hill for the crown of the well, and making 

 the draw road, etc., according to the common rate of labour in the country, 

 will cost about 200 tecals, ropes, etc., and provisions for the workmen which 

 are supplied by the proprietor when making a new well ; expenses of pro- 

 pitiatory sacrifices, and perhaps a signiorage fine to government for permission to 

 sink a new well consume the remaining 512^ tecals. In deepening an old well they 

 make the best bargain in their power with the miners, who rate their demand per 

 cubit according to its depth, and danger from the heats or mephitic air. 



" The amount, produce, and wages of the labourers who draw the oil, as stated 

 to me, I suspect was exaggerated or erroneous from misinterpretation on both 

 sides. 



" The average produce of each well per diem, they said, was 500 viss or 

 1825 lbs. avoirdupois, and that the labourers earned upwards of eight tecals each 

 per month, but I apprehend this was not meant as the average produce or wages 

 per every day or month throughout the year, as must appear from further examina- 

 tion on the subject, where facts are dubious we must endeavour to obtain truth from 

 internal evidence. Each well is worked by four men, and their wages is regulated 

 by the average produce of six days' labour, of which they have one sixth, or its value 

 at the rate of one and a quarter tecals per hundred viss, the price of the oils at the 

 wells ; the proprietor has an option of paying their sixth in oil, but I understand he 

 pays the value in money, and if so, I think it is as fair a mode of regulating the wages 

 of labour as anywhere practised, for in proportion, as the labourer works he benefits, 

 and gains only as he benefits his employer. He can only do injury by over-working 

 himself, which is not likely to happen to an Indian ; no provisions are allowed to 

 the oil drawers, but the proprietor supplies the ropes, etc. and lastly the king's 

 duty is a tenth of the produce. 



" Now, supposing a well to yield 500 viss per diem throughout the year, deduct- 

 ing one sixth for the labourers and onetenth for the king, there will remain for the 



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