succeeding hot months. The
sloping plain between the hills and the town is capable, with
irrigation, of great fertility, and the construction of these reservoirs
would prove a veritable gold-mine.

The distribution of water is a most important part of village
administration in Persia. The work of cutting off and letting on water
with most exact observance of time-measurements is carried out by a
waterman called _mirab_ (lord of the water) whose office is hereditary,
subject, however, to the special judgment of popular opinion. The duties
demand a clear head and nimble foot, and the waterman, in hastening
from point to point, has to show all the alertness of a street
lamplighter. He has to keep a correct count of time, for water is
apportioned by the hour, and his memory for all the details of change,
sale, and transfer must be good and unchallenged. When he becomes too
old, or otherwise incapacitated for the performance of his work with the
necessary quickness, he avails himself of the assistance of a son or
someone whom he proposes with the village approval to bring up as his
successor. The old man is then to be seen going leisurely along the
water-courses which issue from the underground channels, accompanied by
his young deputy carrying the long-handled Persian spade, ready to run
and execute his orders. Disputes between village and village over
_kanat_ water-cuts form the subject of severe fights occasionally, and
the saying is that water and women are the main causes of village
quarrels in Persia.

It was a hot day in June, and having been up before daylight so as to
start at earliest dawn and avoid the mid-day heat for my whole party, we
were all in the enjoyment of afternoon sleep, when the courtyard was
invaded by a shouting mob of excited villagers, calling on me to hear
their story and bear witness to their wounds. They said they were the
tenants of the landlord whose house I was occupying, and they begged me
as his guest to make a statement of their case, so that justice might be
done. There had been a dispute over an irrigation channel, and the
opposing side having mustered strong, they were overpowered by numbers
and badly beaten. Some of the hurts they had received were ugly to look
at, having been inflicted with the long-handled Persian spade, the
foot-flanges of which make it a dangerous weapon. After a patient
hearing, and getting some plaster and simple dressing for their cuts and
bruises, they went