WORK AND WATER.
It is so easy for most of us to get a drink of water when we feel thirsty, that we are not apt to even think of the vast amount of thought and labor and money that is necessary in many parts of every country in the world in order to give people a glass or a cup of water when they want it.
And yet water is often a very costly thing, so much so indeed that there are lands where people, and civilized people too, cannot afford a drink of it every time they feel thirsty.
If we live in the country we go to our well, or our spring, or our pump from the cistern, and we get all the water we want. If we live in the city we have our hydrants, and perhaps have the water carried to every floor of the house. This is because we are Americans, and, as a nation, we believe that we cannot spend too much money in making ourselves comfortable, and having thing’s convenient around us.
We build great reservoirs and conduct into them the pure water from the streams, often far distant from our cities, and we have pipes running through every street, and into every house, so that even the poorest people can always have plenty of water, no matter what else they may have to go without.
But in many countries that were civilized and enlightened long before America was ever thought of, there are to-day no such conveniences for obtaining a drink of water.
In some places in Europe water is carried about from house to house, as the milk-man brings us milk, and some of the plans of carrying it are very curious.
In parts of Holland where the canals serve as roads, there are water-boats, that go up and down the canals serving water to everyone who wishes to buy it, and has money to pay for it. And sometimesit is pretty stale water when the last families get their supply. But people who are not used to Croton water, or Schuylkill, or Cochituate water do not seem to care much for this. They are glad enough to get water at all.
WATER CARRIERS.1. Water Carrier of Malaga.4. Water Carrier of Guaymas.2. Pongo.5. French Water Carrier.3. Water Carrier of Mexico.6. Arabian Woman at the Fountain.VARIOUS METHODS OF CARRYING WATER.
WATER CARRIERS.1. Water Carrier of Malaga.4. Water Carrier of Guaymas.2. Pongo.5. French Water Carrier.3. Water Carrier of Mexico.6. Arabian Woman at the Fountain.VARIOUS METHODS OF CARRYING WATER.
WATER CARRIERS.
VARIOUS METHODS OF CARRYING WATER.
In other parts of Europe, and in this continent too, the water is carried about by men and women.
In the opposite picture you may see how some of these water-carriers supply their customers.
In Malaga a jaunty Spaniard with a cigar in his mouth, and two jars of water hanging from his shoulders and arms, walks up and down the streets selling the precious fluid at so much a quart or a pint.
In Pongo the water is conveyed in a great leathern jar on the back of a stout, bare-legged fellow who carries a long funnel, so that he can pour the water into the pitcher and pails without taking his jar from his shoulders.
In parts of Mexico the jars are fastened to broad straps which pass around the water-carrier’s head, while in Guaymas, the carrier has no load at all himself, but puts two great skins of water on the back of a little donkey.
The French water-carrier has a stick on his shoulders with a pail of water on each end; and when one shoulder is tired he can shift his load to the other, which is, perhaps, the next best thing to having a donkey.
But the water-carriers of Arabia and Egypt, who very often are women, are the most graceful and in some respects the most sensible of all. They carry their jar of water on their heads.
As this makes it necessary for them to keep themselves very erect, it gives them fine, straight figures, and a graceful walk. The disadvantage of their plan is that they cannot carry very much water at a time.
Carrying water on the head reminds me of a little negro girl I once saw in the South. This girl had been to a spring to get a pail of water. The pail was so large and the girl was so small that she had a hard time of it as she staggered along, holding the handle of the pail with both hands, and with the greatest difficulty keeping it from touching the ground.
I pitied the poor little creature, for her load was a great deal too heavy for her.
But at length she reached a stump of a tree, and by great efforts she got the pail on the top of this. Then she stooped down and managed to slide the pail from the stump to the crown of her head.
Then she stood up. She was all right! She seemed to forget thatshe had a load, and skipped away as if she had nothing heavier on her head than a spring bonnet. She did not go directly to the house where she was to carry the water, but trotted over to where some children were playing, and began running around in a perfectly easy and unconcerned way, not appearing to think at all of her pail. But she did not spill a drop of the water.
The Southern negroes are very dexterous in this matter of carrying things on their heads.
On some of the water-melon plantations there may sometimes be seen long lines of men walking from the fields to the boats which are to be loaded with these melons, and each man carries a water-melon under each arm and one on his head.
Sometimes one of these men will drop a water-melon from under his arm, but no one ever drops one from his head.
Such a thing would be considered a disgrace.
I think it is likely that very few of us would ever have a pail of water or a water-melon, if we were obliged to carry either of them very far on our heads.