Water Cart

Hand-colored aquatint showing a water cart in the area of Buenos Aires. The cart and the cask it carries are pulled by two oxen going down a slope as the driver sits on the rudimentary yoke. Such a cart is described as follows by the author:

These carts ply all day, except during the heats of summer, when they work only in the morning and evening, and the whole city is supplied by their means; for the wells, though numerous, produce nothing but bad, brackish water, unfit for culinary purposes: the number of carts is consequently considerable. The cask is commonly a butt or puncheon, which is raised upon wheels eight feet high, to enable the carts to go deep into the water, that it may be procured as clean as possible. The bucket contains about four gallons, and four times this quantity drawn off and deposited by the driver in the yard of the house, where a cask is always kept for the purpose, costs half a rial. The piece of hide which hangs at the tail of the cart, is laid upon the ground to keep the bucket clean, while the latter is filling by means of the hose attached to the back-head of the butt.