2
in preference to water from tanks andrivers. As, however, wells in this country
are always uncovered, they are by no means free from liability to pollution,
impure matters find their way into the water from the surface ; and water flowing
back into a village well from a person washing on the brink might terribly infect
the sole water-supply available for the whole community. Drawing water from a
well with a gurrah or other vessel which has previously contained foul water,
would produce the same result ; and instances are not wanting in which the
diffusion of Cholera of extreme violence over a village has been, apparently due
to the pollution of the well in some such way.
7. All wells, the water of which is used for drinking, should, if possible, be
cleaned out every hot weather. This is especially necessary when the water-supply
of a well is scanty. Jhiryahs, or small shallow wells, are extremely dangerous as
permanent sources of water-supply; they are very liable to pollution, and in the
hot weather the supply of water commonly becomes very scanty. When a
Jhiryah is the sole source of water-supply available, efforts should be mude to
lessen the danger arising from it by deepening it to the greatest extent possible,
and by carefully preserving the ground around from being fouled.
8. The greatest vigilance should be used in preventing the banks of rivers
and streams, or the ravines intersecting them, from being defiled by excrement.
The great prevalence of Cholera in villages situated on the banks of rivers and
streams is no doubt due to pollution of the water from, this cause. The practice
of bathing and washing clothes in the same part oft the stream from which any
part of the population draws water, is in a high degree dangerous, and, should be
prevented. T here is however, a custom commonly resorted to—and, as it appears,
especially during the prevalence of Cholera—which most horribly pollutes the
water-supply, on which a large proportion of the population depends. I allude
to the custom of throwing dead bodies into the large streams. During the late
epidemic Cholera raged with extreme violence along the Nerbudda, the Hiron,
and other large streams, and there can be little doubt that this extreme soveritv
was in a measure due to this disgusting pollution of the water. The inhabitants ,
of all places situated on such streams- should, co-operate in putting a stop to so,
revolting a practice.
9. "Where a river or stream is the source of waters supply for a community
water for drinking should always be drawn above the village, and when the stream.
is running rapidly, where the nature of the ground renders it practicable a tem-
porary well may be sunk in the bank or bed several feet from the stream. Water
filtering into this, if carefully protected from surface pollution, will be less dan-
gerous than water from the stream itself. A well of this kind, however, must
not be continued in use for any long time ; it is chiefly serviceable towards the
end of the hot weather when the streams are lowest, and in the early part of the
rains when the water contains the greatest amount of impurities.
10. All tanks near towns or villages are liable to pollution, and are more or
less dangerous as sources of water-supply ; but a deep tank with steep sides faced:
with masonry is very much safer than a tank with shallow shelving sides. Where,
the latter condition exists, the measure of sinking a well some feet from the edge
of the water should be resorted
to.
11. The same precautions against fouling the borders and polluting the
water, as above recommended in the case of rivers, are, of course, quite as urgently
called for as regards tanks from which drinking water is drawn. It is necessary
here to refer to a custom which prevails in some places of not allowing persons of the
lowest caste to draw water from wells resorted to by the higher castes. From this it
sometimes happens, where there is but one well in a village that persons of low caste