From the time when we began to follow this stream, our road was almost a dead level.

At many places along the river, we saw a peculiar style of irrigation machine, a great wooden scoop or spoon with long handle swung between supporting poles.
The instrument was worked by a single man and scooped up water from the river, throwing it upon the higher land and into canals which carried it through the fields.

Sometimes two of these scoops were supported side by side upon a single frame, and were worked in unison by two persons.

At the only town of any consequence upon the road, we found numbers of interesting hot springs which might really be called geysers.

They were scattered at intervals over the flat mud plain for a distance of a half mile or more.