The tanks in the hills, that is to say, such as have resulted from artificial means, are generally small, full of weeds, and rarely lined with masonry; their banks are soft, and the waters, being accessible to cattle on every side, foul and turbid. Sometimes these become nearly dry during the hot months, affording, if any, a most offensive and insalubrious beverage. Nevertheless, the indolent native will often drink thereof, rather than send half a mile to a purer spring. The generality of these tanks have originally a regular supply from numberless springs, fed either by a natural syphonic process from higher lands, or by percolation of the profuse dews that, throughout the immense jungles on the higher soils, fall during the hottest months; but the want of proper attention to preserve the tanks from the incursions of cattle, which, being very wild in their nature, often swim or wade over to the opposite sides, quickly choak the springs, which, in such open soils, easily find other vents, and expose the inhabitants to great suffering from drought. In many instances we see wells dug in the tanks; thereby causing a great saving of labor; as, when once a spring discharges into the tank, in such a situation, it is not necessary to dig the whole area to an equal depth. This is a cheap expedient, adopted by such as have vanity enough to attract public notice, but not money enough to do the thing completely, or to a great extent.
From these causes, we are led to the consideration of those effects produced in hilly countries, by the waters in common use. Nor are we deceived in our expectation as to the results naturally arising from so forcible an agent. We find throughout the hilly country, that, exclusive of the diminutive features attached, all over the world, to the various classes of mountaineers, there is an additional tendency to departure from the ordinary bulk of the natives in the adjacent low lands, obviously induced by the diet, and most especially by the waters in use. It is remarkable that in Tomar, the back part of Chittrah, and Ramghur, where the immense extent of low woods almost debars population, and where the Hill people, known by the name of Dhangahs, subsist principally on rice, wild fruits, and, occasionally, a little game, and where they drink of water such as has just been described, collected either in small pools, or in artificial tanks, the inhabitants are extremely stinted in their growth, are squalid, troubled with wens, half devoured with a kind of scurvy, herpetic eruption, and appear even at a very early age to lose their vigor. They have, besides, a peculiar kind of opthalmia, partly induced by an excessive passion for liquor, there distilled in large quantities, and by their exposure to a damp, impregnated atmosphere; while in their huts, their whole happiness seems to consist of an intense fumigation, chiefly from green-wood, such as would wholly suffocate one not habituated from his birth to so admirable an imitation of the fumes of Tartarus.
The difference between these haggard objects, and the inhabitants of the plains from which the mountains take their rise, requires no comment. It most forcibly arrests the traveller’s attention, causing him to doubt whether, within the short interval of perhaps six or seven miles, he may believe his senses, which pourtray to him a change from vigorous and personable manhood, to a decrepid, hideous, and dwarfish, state: more resemblant of the Weird Sisters than our imaginations can conceive, or than our best comedians can represent.
Some tanks, dug by the more charitable persons of property, are on a very extensive scale, covering perhaps ten or twelve acres. Many of these are of great antiquity, and have been very deep, perhaps thirty feet, but, by the growth of vegetable matter, added to the heavy bodies of sand and dust that nearly darken the air in the dry season, of which much falls into the waters, their depth is considerably reduced: in some, various shoals appear, indicating the accumulation of rubbish, and in a manner reproaching those who use the element with indolence and ingratitude. In such places fish abound, and grow to an astonishing size, sometimes affording excellent angling, but their flavor does not correspond with their looks; for the most part they are intolerably muddy. The quantity of weeds, the shoals, and various posts being generally sunk in different parts of the tank, armed with tenter-hooks, for the purpose of preventing poachers from robbing the stock, are insuperable bars to the use of nets. Boats are not in use in such places, and there seems to be no attention in any respect to any thing relating to such waters, except that the shecarries, or native sportsmen, exercise much ingenuity and skill in their depredations among the wild geese, wild ducks, teal, widgeons, &c., with which all the waters of India are profusely stocked during the winter months; when every unfrequented puddle is covered with wild fowl, which often alight during the dark nights on waters situated in the very hearts of cities, in which sometimes tanks are seen of such size, as to secure the birds, when collected near the centre, from the reach of small shot. This, though not to be classed with daily occurrences, is by no means singular.
By far the greater number of tanks, especially those by the road-side, or contiguous to cities and populous towns, are walled in with masonry. In such case, they have at one, or more sides, either a long slope, or a flight of steps of excellent masonry; some, indeed, have both, the former being intended for the use of cattle, which are either suffered to drink there, or are employed to carry large leather bags of water for the use of the inhabitants. Owing to the great force of the periodical rains, and to the swelling of the soil during the season of excessive moisture, the masonry is generally burst in various places, and for the most part either sinks, or is prostrated into the tank. As no credit would follow the repairs of such breaches, they are left to their fate.
A due attention to the proper proportion of base, so as to give a substantial talus both within and without the walls, added to the precaution of leaving vents for the free discharge of the springs, or the super-abundant fluid, into the tank, would most assuredly counteract so destructive a weakness as now generally exists. I cannot call to mind, at this time, any very old masonry that has not succombed thereto, excepting the great bund, or dyke, at Juanpore; which, according to tradition, was built about fifteen hundred years ago, and having been made of a very obdurate kind of kunkur, found in those parts, blended with excellent lime, probably burnt from the same stones, appears now a complete mass of rock, capable of resisting the ravages of all time to come. This bund, which bears all the venerable marks of antiquity, was originally thrown up to limit the Goomty; a fine river that rises in the Peelabeet country, and, washing Lucknow, the capital of Oude, passes through the city of Juanpore under a very lofty bridge, built on strong piers, terminating in gothic arches. The want of due breadth in the arches occasions the waters to rise during the rainy season to an immense height, creating a fall of which that at London Bridge, at its worst, is indeed but a poor epitome! The distance between the top of the bridge and the water below it, in the dry season, is something less than sixty feet; yet it is on record, and in the memory of many inhabitants of Juanpore, that the river has been so full as to run over the bridge, which is flat from one end to the other, lying level between two high banks, distant about three hundred and twenty yards.
Formerly, when the waters were high, they used, according to the tradition alluded to, to over-run the country on the left bank; forming an immense inundation throughout the country lying east of Juanpore, and extending down towards the fertile plains of Gazypore. The hollow, or low land, by which they penetrated, was about two miles in width; therefore the bund was built to a suitable extent: it is now about two miles and a half long; in most parts, about thirty feet broad at the top, and double that width at the base. Its height varies from ten to twenty feet. The record states it to have proved effectual in resisting the inundation, which, however, on account of the bund being at right angles with the river, so as to occupy a favorable position, and cut off the torrent, continued to flow annually as far as its base. In time, the sediment deposited by the water thus rendered stagnant, filled up the hollow, raising its surface as high as the other parts of the river’s boundary, and creating a soil peculiarly valuable, now chiefly occupied by indigo planters. The insalubrity occasioned by the many swamps left by the inundation, was at the same time averted, and the dread entertained that the Goomty would, in time, force a new channel for the entire body of its stream, removed. Large tracts, before of little value, acquired a deep staple of soil, which, at this date, yields sugar, indigo, wheat, barley, &c., in abundance and perfection.
The rage for digging tanks, has, I apprehend, in a certain measure, subsided; for we find little of that very absurd ostentation now prevalent, which must have actuated to such immense works, rendered useless by their too great number, or carried to an excess in regard to their measurement. It would be, perhaps, difficult to ascribe to any other motive than that of unparalleled vanity, why a man should have dug near seventy tanks, all nearly contiguous, on a plain not many miles distant from the military station of Burragong, in the district of Sircar Sarung, situate between the Gunduc and the Gogra. The population did not require more than one tank; especially as a stream of tolerably good water passes within a few hundred yards of the site of these offsprings of ostentation. The inhabitants tell various stories as to the person who lavished his money in this empty manner; and, (which would, no doubt, vex the real prodigal to his very heart,) the modern narrators differ widely even as to the name and rank of the individual!
With respect to seraies, we may, at least, praise the convenience they afford, without bestowing much admiration on the charity of their founders. Some of these are very extensive, covering, perhaps, six or eight acres. They generally consist of a quadrangle, built across the road, which passes under two lofty arched gateways, having battlements, or turrets, over them. The gates open to an extent sufficient to allow any laden elephant, however stupendous, to pass freely. They are made of strong wood, well bound with iron, and studded with iron spikes, of which the points are on the outside; for the purpose of preventing elephants from forcing them by pressure. The surrounding walls of the quadrangle are generally about fourteen feet in height, and from two to four in thickness, according either to the antiquity of the building, or to the parsimony of the builder. They are lined all around with a shed, built on pillars, and divided by mats, &c., into various apartments, all sheltered from the sun and rain by means of doors, &c., of bamboos, mats, grass, &c., as the country may afford; or, eventually, a part is built up with thin brick, or with mud.
In the central parts of the seray there are generally some shops, ranged on each side of the road, and one building appropriated to the cutwal, or superintendant of the place; whose office is, properly, to regulate all matters, and to see that travellers are duty accommodated; that the bytearahs, or cooks, dress their victuals, and that the chokey-dars take due charge of the goods consigned to their care. All this, however, is done in a slovenly way; the greatest impositions are often practised; and the itinerant journies on from one scene of thievish combination to another.