As a rule, in our dependencies and settlements, water supply is of a private character, as only a few of the larger towns enjoy the advantages of public waterworks. Even where this is the case too, it is not always safe to trust entirely to its purity, as in many places the arrangements are not such as to ensure safety, and it is only in towns where the waterworks are large modern instalments, with proper filter-beds, under the constant supervision of an adequate European staff, that it is safe to forego the systematic sterilising of the water. In India, for instance, while the supply of Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, and most of the other large towns is probably a great deal above the European average, the mere fact of the supply being laid on in pipes is by no means a guarantee of purity. In Naini Thal, a considerable hill station, for example, the supply is pumped directly from a lake without filtering, close to the spot at which the drainage of a filthy native bazaar is allowed to flow into it. When living, then, in a place where there is a piped water supply, it is well to ascertain if filtration is properly carried out, and if not, to treat the water with the same suspicion as that derived from any other doubtful source. Where water of undeniable purity is laid on, all that has to be attended to is the method of transport from the nearest standpost to the house, for it is as yet extremely exceptional for pipes to be carried right into buildings as is the practice in Europe, so that a special servant as a water-carrier is still a necessity in India, even in large towns. In this case, and indeed whatever may be the source of supply, it is of the greatest importance that nothing but metal vessels, so constructed as to be easily cleaned, should on any account be used. In all Mahomedan countries, water is conveyed in a goat or calf skin, stripped from the animal entire, with the legs tied up, and filled from the neck, which is secured with a thong for transport; and it is a most unfortunate circumstance that it has become traditional for Europeans to employ the Mahomedan _bhisti_ with his _mashak_ instead of the more cleanly Hindu kahar with his easily cleansed iron water vessel, for the Mahomedan water-skin or _mashak_ is an abomination that cannot be too strongly condemned. Few will, it is thought, deny that if a piece of half-tanned hide were found lying in water intended for domestic uses, they would at once reject it; and apart from the objectionable character of the material of the _mashak_, it must be remembered that from its construction it is absolutely impossible to clean the interior; and this must necessarily become foul in the course of a few days’ use, even if it were constructed of silver instead of half-dressed hide. Added to this, it has been ascertained, by actual experiment, that disease germs, deposited on the outside of a water-skin, are capable of growing into