encountered. The soil in Bokhārā is either a rich yellow loam or sandy waste, and the latter is ever encroaching. The rainfall is scanty; and, but for the help of irrigation, mankind would long since have given up the incessant struggle for existence. Nowhere in the world are the contrasts between desolation and plenty more startling. A caravan approaching the capital finds itself, after weary months spent in the sands, suddenly surrounded by waving crops, and trees laden with luscious fruit, while its ears are greeted by the ripple of water. The mechanism by which this wondrous change is effected would excite the derision of a European engineer. The surveyor lies prone upon his back in the direction from which he wishes to bring water, looks over his forehead, and notes the point when ground is last seen. This rude substitute for the theodolite involves a great deal of misplaced labour, but its results are as marvellous as those of the Egyptian irrigation department. The precious fluid is brought from the mountains in canals, carried round spurs, and crossing ravines in pipes, which, like those of our old London water companies, are often mere hollow trees. When the plain is reached the gradient is very slight; and so tenacious is the soil that streams 30 feet in breadth are restrained by banks 3½ feet high and 3 feet broad at the base. The whole adult village population are the labourers, their only implements being a clumsy hoe, the lap of their long flowing robe, and a hurdle of plaited branches. The administration of the canals is on a popular basis. The superintendents, called “aksakāls,” are elected by the cultivators; and every village has its own “mīrāb,” who watches over the repairs and distributories, and is remunerated by a fixed proportion of the harvests. In years of plenty the task is an easy one; but it is far otherwise at the critical weeks which precede the spring melting of the snows. Every drop of water is then worth its weight in gold, and it must be so divided that each plot may get its just proportion. Complications, too, occur owing to the privileges which certain villages enjoy by royal grant or immemorial prescription, and by the absence of any satisfactory method of measuring discharges.[689] The Russians have shown wisdom in leaving the canals in native hands in the territory administered by them. In Bokhārā, of course, there has never been any question of introducing reform. The Bokhāran cultivator manures his fields heavily after harvest, and until they receive the life-giving water. In the city streets, old men and boys may be seen gathering every particle of refuse; and, in spite of the constant supply, the hungry soil is still unequal to the incessant demands upon it. Then the task of preparation begins. The fields are turned up lengthways and again transversely by a plough clumsily built of wood, its share only being tipped with iron. A pair of oxen can plough