When you get within a few miles of the great dam which stems the stream at Dowlaisweram, first one canal and then another takes off in different directions. After the separation of each canal the artificial waterway grows broader and broader, till, near Dowlaisweram, it becomes as wide as the Thames at Maidenhead, but probably contains a great deal more water. At last it ends in a lock ; and, when we leave the boats and mount the banks, an expanse of water stretches some four miles before the eye. Immediately in front extends the first por¬ tion of the great anicut, which, with the help of three islands at the head of the delta, holds up the river, and diverts its waters on either side, so as to irrigate upwards of 612,000 acres of fertile rice-bearing lands, and to water with gold a delta of two thousand square miles. Every river in India is a Pactolus, but this great stream has been made more subservient to the wants of man than, perhaps, any other of its size in the world. Practically, at the present moment, it ends at this great anicut above which you see nothing but miles of water, and below which spread miles of yellow sand.
“It is the nature of such works that they are never finished. In 1852, the dam and some of the distribution works were com¬ pleted for the exceedingly low figure of ^150,000. Labour was then cheap, and material abounds on every side. Many times since have these titanic works been considered complete. In 1870, eighteen years later, they were completed, at a cost of £868,000, and now, in 1890, it is believed they are pretty well completed, at a cost of £1,180,000. Whatever they cost, how¬ ever, so long ago as 1877, the returns directly due to the water distributed amounted to upwards of £2,000,000, and in 1879 it was calculated that goods of the value of upwards of £3,500,000 passed over the canals, while the value of the exports and imports of the district, which, in 1847, before the construction of the anicut, amounted to £170,000, had risen, in 1887, to upwards of £1,500,000. The great dam itself rises some fourteen feet above the level of the stream, and consists of three long portions and one short one, amounting, in the aggregate, to 3,982 yards in length. The navigable channels, which distribute the water, are 28 miles long, and the total lengths of distributive channels is not less than 1,600 miles.
“These steamers belong to the Irrigation Department, but fleets of private boats ply on river and canal, and carry passengers at ridiculously low rates. Competition has reached such a pitch that rival carriers are said to take passengers occasionally not only for nothing, but also to give them bananas to eat on the way. No¬ thing like this has yet been exhibited in England ; though, occasionally, you can go from San Francisco to New York for the price of a journey from London to Edinburgh, from causes similar to those which operate here.”
