nd benevolence and as an
exhibition of administrative energy and wisdom, it is remarkable,
and is of especial interest to the people of the United States
because the conditions are similar to those existing in our own
arid states and territories.

If you will take a map of India and run your eye up to the
northwestern corner you will see a large bald spot just south of
the frontier through which runs the river Chenab (or Chenaub)--the
name of the stream is spelt a dozen different ways, like every
other geographical name in India. This river, which is a roaring
torrent during the rainy season and as dry as a bone for six
months in the year, resembles several of out western rivers,
particularly the North Platte, and runs through an immense tract
of arid desert similar to those found in our mountain states.
This desert is known as the Rechna Doab, and until recently was
waste government land, a barren, lifeless tract upon which nothing
but snakes and lizards could exist, although the soil is heavily
charged with chemicals of the most nutritious character for plants,
and when watered yields enormous crops of wheat and other cereals.
Fifteen years ago it was absolutely uninhabited. To-day it is
the home of about 800,000 happy and prosperous people, working
more than 200,000 farms, in tracts of from five to fifty acres.
The average population of the territory disclosed at the census
of 1901 was 212 per square mile, and it is expected that the
extension of the water supply and natural development will largely
increase this average.

The colony has been in operation fat a little more than eleven
years. The colonists were drawn chiefly from the more densely
populated districts of the Punjab province, and were attracted
by a series of remarkable harvests, which were sold at exorbitant
prices during the famine years. The land was given away by the
government to actual settlers upon a plan similar to that of
our homestead act, the settlers being given a guarantee of a
certain amount of water per acre to a fixed price. The demand
caused by the popularity of the colony has already exhausted
the entire area watered by the canals, but an extension and
enlargement of the system will bring more land gradually under
cultivation, the estimates of the engineers contemplating an
addition of 2,000,000 acres within the next few years.

The value of the crop produced in 1902 upon 1,830,525 acres of
irrigated land in this colony was $16,84