The thorny jungles would soon disappear from the surface of the ground, and a densely-populated and prosperous district would again exist where all has been a wilderness for a thousand years.
The system of rice cultivation is exceedingly laborious.

The first consideration being a supply of water, the second is a perfect level, or series of levels, to be irrigated.

Thus a hill-side must be terraced out into a succession of platforms or steps; and a plain, however apparently flat, must, by the requisite embankments, be reduced to the most perfect surface.
This being completed, the water is laid on for a certain time, until the soil has become excessively soft and muddy.

It is then run off, and the land is ploughed by a simple implement, which, being drawn by two buffaloes, stirs up the soil to a depth of eighteen inches.

This finished, the water is again laid on until the mud becomes so soft that a man will sink knee-deep.