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BOOTA N. 
communicated with distant springs, and conveyed water, whenever the 
farmer saw occasion to avail himself of such a resource, to every part 
of the valley. Three of these aqueducts were ranged one above the 
other, with a considerable space between them; and, as we looked up 
to the Raja’s villa above them, surrounded with well grown firs, and 
other choice trees, I thought them highly ornamental to the prospect. 
The hollowed trunks of large trees, which were in some parts fixed 
in the soil which covered the rock, and in others sustained by beams 
inserted in it, across deep dells, and along the sides of precipices, 
gave a passage to the waters. The eye could trace these conduits for 
more than two miles in continuation ; they exist as noble though 
modest monuments of the genius of the people, and lose very little in 
• comparison with the more costly models of antiquity. So plain but 
ingenious a contrivance certainly merits admiration, especially when 
we see the inventors of it intrenched, in impervious mountains, among 
whom, the sciences never yet became a study, and who are totally 
excluded, as well by natural impediments, as local prejudices, from 
all communication with more enlightened nations. The most perfect 
- comprehension of the science of hydraulics, could hardly, in the present 
instance, have suggested to them any improvement. 
Our return, when we chose to vary from the road by which we 
came, was in front of the palace of Lam’ Ghassatoo b , on lire south 
side of which was a long narrow tract of level ground, supporting 
many tall flagstaff’s, that had narrow banners of white cloth reaching 
nearly from one end to the other, and inscribed with the mystic words. 
b Plate VII. 
