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VINEYARD CULTIVATION 39
Dagh. But there the water is snatched away at
once in channels for irrigation, and only enough
flows along the natural course to make a few unpleasant
pools among the shingle.
Marsovan is a warren of narrow alleys and streets
and courts, such as might be expected in a walled
city but not in an open town of 20,000 souls. And
yet from a little distance it makes a good appearance
for many of its buildings, though only of sun-dried
brick, are plastered externally, and give the effect
of a white town with red-brown roofs. Up to this
huddle of white walls and warm roofs upon rising
ground come vineyards and orchards and gardens,
the custom being to build closely in towns, and for
each householder of substance to have his piece of
cultivated land in the immediate outskirts. Here,
therefore, for a mile outside the dwellings, are innumerable
plots divided by paths and water-courses,
and dotted with huts for summer dwelling standing
amidst trees and vines.
Farmers and cultivators of the district get wheat
and barley, vegetables and fruit— grapes, apples,
apricots, melons, cherries—in profusion. By merely
scratching the surface with a wooden plough and
sowing broadcast, there comes in June tall bearded
wheat, heavy and long of ear, that rustles in the
wind across the slopes. And down in hollow places
the ground is hidden by rank waving poppies, grown
for opium as the most profitable crop of all. It is
a fat land, which yields all things for little labour,
if you do but supply water.
With each piece of garden ground is the right
to water in proportion upon payment ; the water
measured by time of flow. When a cultivator's turn
for irrigating comes he must make sure of his opportunity
or suffer loss. He has a few hours of haste
and hard labour—leading the stream into the rows,
damming them, opening the dams, and making as
many channels as possible to drink up the fluid. It
may be also a time of quarrels for him, of standing