Oriental Despotism 177terms – the distance from Berlin to Bordeaux or from Hamburg to Rome. For
labour on part of this gigantic water work the Sui government mobilized in the
regions north of the Yellow River alone ‘more than a million of men and women’,^49
that is, almost one-half of the total population which England is said to have had
from the 14th to the 16th century.^50
The gigantic effort involved in banking the rivers and building the canals of
China is indicated by the American agronomist, F. H. King, who conservatively
estimates the combined lengths of the man-managed watercourses of China, Korea
and Japan at some 200,000 miles. ‘Forty canals across the United States from east
to west and sixty from north to south would not equal in number of miles those in
these three countries today. Indeed, it is probable that this estimate is not too large
for China alone.’^51
- Large nonhydraulic constructions
a. Huge defence structures
The need for comprehensive works of defence arises almost as soon as hydraulic
agriculture is practised. Contrary to the rainfall farmer, who may shift his fields
with relative ease, the irrigation farmer finds himself depending on an unmovable,
if highly rewarding, source of fertility. In the early days of hydraulic cultivation
reliance on a fixed system of water supply must in many cases have driven the
agrarian community to build strong defences around its homes and fields.
For this purpose hydraulic agriculture proved suggestive in two ways: it taught
man how to handle all kinds of building materials, earth, stone, timber, etc., and
it trained him to manipulate these materials in an organized way. The builders of
canals and dams easily became the builders of trenches, towers, palisades and
extended defence walls.
In this, as in all corresponding cases, the character and magnitude of the oper-
ations were determined by internal and external circumstances. Surrounded by
aggressive neighbours, the Pueblo Indians ingeniously utilized whatever building
material was at hand to protect their settlements, which rarely comprised more
than a few hundred inhabitants.^52 The fortress-like quality of their villages is man-
ifest to the present-day anthropologist; it struck the Spanish conquistadores, who
were forced at times to besiege a single settlement for days and weeks before they
could take it.^53 Rigid cooperation assured security of residence, just as it assured
success in farming. An early observer stresses this aspect of Pueblo life: ‘They all
work together to build the villages.’^54
The Chagga were equally effective in the transfer of their hydraulic work pat-
terns to military constructions. Their great chieftain, Horombo (fl. 1830), used
‘thousands of people’ to build great fortifications, which in part still stand today.^55
‘The walls of these fortifications are some six feet high, and in length 305 yards on
the south side, 443 yards on the north, 277 yards on the east side, and 137 yards
on the west side.’^56 Tunnels, extended trenches and dugouts added to the defence
of the walled settlements, which appeared early in the history of the Chagga.^57