to great shifts. There are three other tanks approached by steps leading down
into them in which water is stored, and in the town there are 425 wells; but they
nearly all are said to run dry during the hot weather. Besides the above there
are 7 other tanks in the town, the water of which is brackish and not used for
drinking. It is estimated that the Yawateshwar and Mahárdara supply together
yield about 20 gallons per head, except in April, May, and June, when it
dwindles down to something like 3 or 4 gallons per head, or even less.
16. The public dipping-wells in Satara are raised stone cisterns, about 3
or 4 feet deep, and are divided into separate partitions, for the exclusive use of
different castes of Hindus and for Musalmans, there being no less than 34 for the
exclusive use of Brahmins, 35 for Marathas, and 11 for Musalmans. The
despised Mahar and Mang are not allowed to enter the enclosures where Hindus
of caste draw water; and in some quarters of the town, until lately, under
the energetic rule of Mr. Moore, the Collector, no provision was made by which
they could obtain it. Now at certain fountains persons of caste are paid by the
Municipality to distribute the water to these low caste people outside the enclo-
sure, and at other places separate cisterns outside have been provided for their
use.
17. At most of these dipping-wells, men and women were observed clean-
ing their copper vessels on the stone ledge running round the cisterns, or dipping
into it dirty leathern buckets, whilst the mud off their naked feet was in some
instances washed into the cistern. All this is wrong. The water should be
distributed, as at Pandharpur, from brass cocks let into raised iron pipes standing
about 3 feet above the surface of the ground. Or, if that plan is not feasible, as
at Ahmedabad, where it is drawn off through brass cocks from a masonry
(preferably from a cast-iron) cistern of such length that 26 people can draw water
at one time. If this plan is adopted, a cistern in the shape of a Maltese cross
will be found to afford great facilities for a large number of people to draw water
simultaneously.
18. In every case the ground outside and below the cistern should be
paved on a slope leading away from it, and the wastage water should be conveyed
through a glazed stoneware pipe to a drain. This course is necessary to preserve
the purity of the water and to prevent its getting fouled by dust being blown
into it, or by leaves or flowers, &c., being thrown or dropped into it (instances of
which I saw), or by dirty feet and hands, dirty utensils, &c., &c., being washed
in it.
19. There are stated to be 4,426 houses in the town, 109 of which are of
the better sort and 4,317 of inferior description. The better kind are built on a
plinth of cut-stone on which a brick house is erected sometimes for 2 or 3 stories
high. There is, I regret to say, no record to show the number. The inferior
class of houses have a rubble plinth, and are built up with brick, which is in some
casts plastered over with mud and cow-dung; and there is a large number of
mud hovels, although I am unable to state the exact number, as no record of them
has been kept. All the houses in Satara are covered with the flat brick tiles
made in the town.
20. As seen in all towns which in olden times were exposed to sudden
incursions of marauding bands, the principal houses present only a dead wall to
the street and are approached through a gateway leading into an inclosed but
open courtyard with a verandah running all round. The rooms on the upper
stories have windows facing the courtyard.
21. The inferior houses, though having doors opening into the street, have,
as a rule, no windows, or those only of small size, and the only means of ventila-
tion is through the doorway, which is closed at night. Such places are unwhole-
some. A bad instance might be mentioned, is a house I saw in Shanwar Peth,
where the floor of the room, in which a Musalman lived with his wife and 3
B 273—b