158 R. C. TemiAe—Boufe of the Tal Chotiali Field Force. [No 4, 



ped straw for fodder) is kept in round mud-covered heaps containing about 

 100 to 200 maunds, as are turnips etc. in England for the winter. Grain 

 of all sorts is also stored in sacks weighing about 100 seers, which are kept 

 in the huts and sometimes buried in some place known only to the owner 

 to save them from the rapacity of the numerous hangers-on of the Sirdars 

 or of the Amir. 



. Secondly, ^sxas or watermills are noticeable objects everywhere. 

 Their general features have been frequently before described, as they are 

 common to Afghanistan, Persia and Turkistan, and the following from 

 MacGregor will answer the internal description of them all : " The wheel 

 is horizontal and the feathers are disposed obliquely so as to resemble the 

 "wheel of a smoke-jack. It is within the mill and immediately below the 

 mill-stone, which turns on the same spindle with the wheel. The water is 

 introduced into the mill by a trough so as to fall on the wheel. The 

 ■wheel itself is not more than 4 feet in diameter."* Externally they have 

 always the appearance of the ordinary habitations round them, whatever 

 the prevailing construction may be. They are to be found along the line 

 of a Ktj'l or of a natural running stream, and often, to give the water greater 

 power, a portion of the stream will be banked uj) for some distance before 

 it reaches the mill (fig. 4). The roof is usually on a level with the banks 

 of the stream. In places, as at AlIzai in the Pishin, long lines of 

 AsxAS and embankments are to be seen along the same stream (fig. 17). 



There is little to be remarked under the head of cultivation beyond a 

 notice of such methods of irrigation, etc., as came prominently under obser- 

 vation, for my journey was of too hurried a nature to admit of any inves- 

 tigation. In irrigation considerable skill is everywhere evinced in S. 

 Afghanistan, especially in the direction of Ku'is or artificial water-courses, 

 of Kaee'zes or underground water-courses, and of groins and river dams. 

 Wells are not seemingly in use for cultivation as in the Panjab and Persia. 

 The Ktj'l is well-known in all the northern districts of India and there 

 is little to be added here, except to notice the general prevalence of this 

 style of irrigation in S. Afghanistan, where along the Tarnak Valley it is 

 used to such an extent as to dry up and disperse the water of the river : 

 a state of things also noticeable along the rivers running towards the Indus 

 and the Kaciii Plain of Beluchistan. The entire flow of many mountain 

 streams is frequently thus utilised, and great skill is often to be observed 

 in the preservation of the levels ; and in one place in the Bo'eai Valley I 

 observed a Ktj'l carried under the stony bed of the E. To'e. Khaize' by a 

 rough but practicable syphon. 



* Such watermills are common enougli in tlic Himalayan districts, and I have in 

 mj' possession a wooden bowl turned by a lathe worked by a water-wheel in a remote 

 valley in Ku'lu'. 



