Large quantities of rice are usually cleared by contract, the operator receiving the grain at the door of the _golah_, or warehouse, where he sets up his cauldron and machines, and returning twenty-five seers of clean rice for every maund (forty seers) delivered to him; he finding the fuel, and reserving the husks. In a country where labor is so very cheap, it is not so very necessary to have recourse to mechanical devices for the purpose of diminishing the expence of such operations; yet it occurs to me, that, were tide wheels to be used at Backergunge and elsewhere, or a floating mill, like that moored between Blackfriars’ and London Bridge, to be made out of some condemned hulk, an immense advantage would be gained in regard to time. By the proper adaptation of machinery, whereby the rice might be hoisted in, or lowered down, either by the force of water, or of steam, and the beetles be properly worked, the grain might certainly be prepared for market in less time, and infinitely less charge for _cooly_ hire, in landing, loading, &c.: should this hint be well received by any speculating European, it might tend to lower the prices of rice at those times, when, either from want of laborers, or from the expediency of shipping off with as little delay as possible, the saving of a few days might prove an object of importance. At all events, the work might be done more regularly, more frugally, and more independently, than by manual process.
The rice grown in the low countries by no means equals that produced in the uplands, where it is cultivated with great care, and subjected to many vicissitudes in regard to the state of moisture in which its roots are retained. In many parts of the most hilly districts _d’haun_ is to be seen in every little narrow valley, winding among the bases of those stupendous eminences from which the torrents of rain supply a superabundant flow of moisture at one time, while, at others, only the little rills proceeding from boggy springs seem to feed the artificial pools in which the growing plants are kept in a state of semi-immersion, by means of small embankments made of mud. In every instance the _d’haun_ is to be kept duly watered; else it withers, and becomes unproductive. In order to preserve the water as much as possible, the bed, or level, nearest to the springs, is raised as high as can be afforded, and its exterior border banked up, to about a foot and a half, with soil: the next level may be from a foot to a yard lower, and receives the overflow; which is again passed on to the next lower bed; and thus, in succession, for perhaps a mile or more; the ends of the beds requiring no embankment, on account of the land rising on either side. Such situations afford a certain crop in ordinary seasons; and, if the rains should fail, the dews falling on the adjacent hills, generally covered with jungle of some kind, ordinarily afford moisture enough to keep up the springs, thus causing sufficient dampness to prevent the rice from perishing, before some ample showers may again float the whole of the irrigated cultivation. Rice thus produced is commonly small in grain, rather long and wiry, but remarkably white, and admirably suited to the table. The natives, though they admire its appearance, are not partial to it; they generally preferring the larger-bodied grain, with a reddish inner rind, which does not readily separate, when new, from the rice: this kind, as I have before expressed, is assuredly the sweetest, and is, on that account, preferred by those who distil arrack.