And yet water is often a very costly thing, so much so indeed that there are lands where people, and civilized people too, cannot afford a drink of it every time they feel thirsty. If we live in the country we go to our well, or our spring, or our pump from the cistern, and we get all the water we want. If we live in the city we have our hydrants, and perhaps have the water carried to every floor of the house. This is because we are Americans, and, as a nation, we believe that we cannot spend too much money in making ourselves comfortable, and having thing’s convenient around us. We build great reservoirs and conduct into them the pure water from the streams, often far distant from our cities, and we have pipes running through every street, and into every house, so that even the poorest people can always have plenty of water, no matter what else they may have to go without. But in many countries that were civilized and enlightened long before America was ever thought of, there are to-day no such conveniences for obtaining a drink of water. In some places in Europe water is carried about from house to house, as the milk-man brings us milk, and some of the plans of carrying it are very curious. In parts of Holland where the canals serve as roads, there are water-boats, that go up and down the canals serving water to everyone who wishes to buy it, and has money to pay for it. And sometimes it is pretty stale water when the last families get their supply. But people who are not used to Croton water, or Schuylkill, or Cochituate water do not seem to care much for this. They are glad enough to get water at all. In other parts of Europe, and in this continent too, the water is carried about by men and women. In the opposite picture you may see how some of these water-carriers supply their customers. In Malaga a jaunty Spaniard with a cigar in his mouth, and two jars of water hanging from his shoulders and arms, walks up and down the streets selling the precious fluid at so much a quart or a pint. [Illustration: WATER CARRIERS. 1. Water Carrier of Malaga. 2. Pongo. 3. Water Carrier of Mexico. 4. Water Carrier of Guaymas. 5. French Water Carrier. 6. Arabian Woman at the Fountain. VARIOUS METHODS OF CARRYING WATER.] In Pongo the water is conveyed in a great leathern jar on the back of a stout, bare-legged fellow who carries a long funnel, so that he can pour the water into the pitcher and pails without taking his jar from his shoulders. In parts of Mexico the jars are fastened to broad straps which pass around the water-carrier’s head, while in Guaymas, the carrier has no load at all himself, but puts two great skins of water on the back of a little donkey. The French water-carrier has a stick on his shoulders with a pail of water on each end; and when one shoulder is tired he can shift his load to the other, which is, perhaps, the next best thing to having a donkey.