On the Irrigation of Land in India. 95 
for a stipulated sum, and under certain regulations, to any distance tliat may suit 
him. 
“ From a canal of a certain size*, at so much per hour (per week) ; and even 
from one hour down to a quarter. The usual price for an hour, per week, in perpe- 
tuity is 1500 francs, or livres.” 
It will be shown in the second part of this essay very satisfactorily, that the 
cost of irrigation in the northern states of Italy, does not exceed one-third of the 
expense incurred in India : putting the value of an ordinary labourer’s day’s exer- 
tions, or their worth in silver, on a scale of th e exchangeable value of that metal 
in Europe and in Hindustan, at the same period. 
In Egypt, the season of the Nile’s annual fecundation is celebrated as a festival ; 
while the artificial supply of water, to vast tracts of country, in some parts of Europe, 
is numbered among the most profitable objects of the state, and supplies a large 
revenue, that is derived from a source of prosperity totally unknown, and therefore 
unappreciated, in almost every other division of that quarter of the globe. 
Little as _ that curious, shrewd, and suspicious people have permitted foreigners 
to glean from their national institutions ; the Chinese are sufficiently well known, is 
cultivators of the soil, to be entitled to the highest respect, as a nation of husband- 
men. 
Tire sovereign himself holds the plough, on the occasion of a certain annual agri- 
cultural festival. Nor, semi-barbarous as they were termed by a late periodical 
writer +, can they he considered so well entitled to the epithet) as some people of 
more doubtful ancestry ; since, to the art of agriculture, in which they must be con- 
fessed to be second to very few, they have added an improvement! which is practis- 
ed by Europe, only in the solitary instance adduced by Mr. Young ; as is amply 
evidenced in the number arid extent of their canals, equally the source of the com- 
mercial, as of the agricultural, prosperity of that singular people. 
If barbarism has destroyed some of the noblest monuments of the national gran- 
deur, and public utility of former ages ; it is but just to a fanatical religion to record 
the modern achievements of an African prince : who, regarding his own interest and 
the public benefit as inseparably united, has dared to falsify the sarcasm, that his- 
tory§ had cast on the Moslems, in every century and in all countries. 
The Pacha of Egypt, has opened a new view to his country, by the successful in- 
troduction of an efficient irrigation, that may well deserve the imitation of other 
states, whose territories are equally susceptible of a similar advantage. Tills im- 
provement has now had the support of some years of probation in Egypt, and bids 
fair, to renew for it the title, of “ one of the granaries of the world,” which that 
division of Africa once enjoyed. 
“ Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth,” is a command, that dates its 
origin as far back as the first days of the history of the human race. Then, shall 
the prince be held obedient who, possessing the power, lias not encouraged the 
means, of maintaining the increase ? It has always been esteemed, that lie, who 
made two blades of grass to glow where only one grew before, deserved well of his 
country. 
Mr. Malthus has taken much pains to show, that the tendency of population is 
constantly to press on the means of subsistence ; and be has rung the changes on 
this position, for every degree of latitude and longitude on the globe, from China 
to Peru. But that gentleman does not appear to have suggested any practical mode, 
by which the evils of excessive population may be avoided. 
Had he told us in wlmt manner, a population of ten millions might be subsisted, 
where at present only five millions are but indifferently supplied with food, he would 
not merely have furnished the “ medius terminus,” but in so doing, he might also 
have availed himself of the occasion it would have afforded to descant upon the »io- 
* That of one foot square with the assumed acclivity of 3.5 feet for the current; 
is the datum upon which the second part of this essay is founded, and from which 
all the inferences are drawn. 
t Mr. Gifford, late Editor of the Quarterly Review. 
* “ Fas est et ah hoste doceri” is a maxim applied to war usually ; and nations, 
being rivals some way or other, might apply it to civil affairs. We borrowed the 
bayonet from France, and porcelain from China, but are too proud to dig ditches 
to fill water for other than commercial advantages. 
§ Gibbon says, “Islamism not only retards, but blasts every attempt at improve- 
