'Reports of administration for 1918 of divisions and districts of the occupied territories in Mesopotamia. Volume I' [‎161v] (327/470)

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Fish tax has been confined to fish landed for sale in Qurnah itself.
The ferry tolls at the Suwaib ferry are collected by a farmer and credited to
the general revenues. The tolls at the ferry from Qurnah to Mazair‘ah are credited
to the Qurnah municipality.
Kodak .—The buffalo kodah was farmed for Rs. 8,350/-. As buffaloes are kept
only by the Ma‘dan out in the marshes any count of them is quite impossible, and
collection through the medium of a farmer is the only way to get the tax collected.
The sheepi kodah has been abolished and compensated for by doubling the
slaughter-house tax at .Qurnah and crediting half the proceeds to general revenues
and half to the municipality.
There is a slaughter-house in Madinah too, and the collection of the fees there
was farmed this year for Rs. 455/-.
(e) Customs.—Nil.
(f) Compensation .—The compensations due for the damage done at the beginning
of the operations in this country have now been estimated and await the sanction
of the Military authorities. A large area at Qurnah was commandeered early
in the campaign for wharves, railway sidings, and military lines, and no record
of the damage done was kept. Whole date gardens were cut down and the face
of the ground so changed that owners did not know where their boundaries had
been. An estimation has now been made and boundaries of holdings reconstructed
for the purpose to the satisfaction of all concerned.
3. Irrigation.— Although irrigation works on a large scale will be difficult,
if not impossible, in the Qurnah Division until an effective check has been placed
on the escape of the Tigris water down the Butairah and the Chahalah, yet the
preliminary work has been done in preparation for some smaller works, and in
one case plans have been formulated for a large and ambitious scheme.
This large scheme is connected with the work of the dredgers in Hammar Lake.
They have now dredged a channel right across the lake and have, by throwing the
spoil on the south side, formed a bund which is everywhere nearly above high-water
level, and in many places is entirely so. This is now being raised and revetted
so that it will be preserved permanently above high-water level.
The work of the dredgers alone, however, is of little or no avail for irrigation
purposes, a^s the water of Hammar Lake, which hitherto spread itself to the south
as soon as it reached A1 Ismafil, is now only kept in the lake until it reaches the end
of the bund at Bani Hutait and then banks up behind it. Hence the spilling of the
water over the south side of the lake is not prevented. The Irrigation Department
have examined the question during the year and plans have actuallv been formulated
for continuing by manual labour the dredger bund from Bani Hutait to Qurnah,
and thus preventing the water from spilling over the south side of Hammar Lake,
or the right bank of the Euphrates. Added to this bund are other necessary
concomitants, such as the dredging out of the mouth of the Euphrates at Qurnah
in older to allow of a greater discharge than at present. If these plans were put
into execution it is estimated that about 700 square miles of what is now marsh
would become available for cultivation. The amount of labour required for the
work and the fact that it would be impossible at present to find cultivators for
so large an area make it improbable that the scheme will be put into execution
immediately, and, in view of the fact that the amount of earthwork required in the
bund would be very considerably decreased if the Butairah were under control, it
is not impi obable that its execution will be delayed until the Butairah has been
attended to.
Meanwhile, however, levels are being taken with a view to a smaller scheme,
which will take advantage of the dredger bund and render cultivable the marsh
immediately behind it. lo effect this it is proposed to build a cross bund through
the marsh from the end of the dredger bund at Bani Hutait to some point on the
Basrah—Nasiriyah Railway. The Irrigation Department has already taken levels
across the niarsh from Bani Hutait to Luqait and now proposes to do so from Bani
lutait to Ghabashiyah. A bund from Bani Hutait to either Luqait or Ghabashiyah
would prevent the water banking up behind the dredger bund and would make
p ±0 F ? u . va ^ 1 lon area considerable in extent, but not so big as to be impossible
ot cultivation by the existing population.
Only one irrigation scheme has actually been taken in hand during the year,
and work on that is now in progress. The Muzair‘ah estate opposite Qurnah is
owned by Abdul Karim ibn Falih Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. al Sa‘dun and is now sequestrated. A