The Memoirs of Bābur 932.8.2

932.8.2

The greater part of the Hindūstān country is situated on level land. Many though its towns and cultivated lands are, it nowhere has running waters.[1731] Rivers and, in some places, standing-waters are its "running-waters" (_āqār-sūlār_). Even where, as for some towns, it is practicable to convey water by digging channels (_ārīq_), this is not done. For not doing it there may be several reasons, one being that water is not at all a necessity in cultivating crops and orchards. Autumn crops grow by the downpour of the rains themselves; and strange it is that spring crops grow even when no rain falls. To young trees water is made to flow by means of buckets or a wheel. They are given water constantly during two or three years; after which they need no more. Some vegetables are watered constantly. In Lāhor, Dībālpūr and those parts, people water by means of a wheel. They make two circles of ropes long enough to suit the depth of the well, fix strips of wood between them, and on these fasten pitchers. The ropes with the wood and attached [Sidenote: Fol. 274.] pitchers are put over the well-wheel. At one end of the wheel-axle a second wheel is fixed, and close (_qāsh_) to it another on an upright axle. This last wheel the bullock turns; its teeth catch in the teeth of the second, and thus the wheel with the pitchers is turned. A trough is set where the water empties from the pitchers and from this the water is conveyed everywhere.