'NOTES ON THE ISLANDS OF BAHRAIN AND ANTIQUITIES BY CAPTAIN E. L. DURAND, 1 ASSISTANT RESIDENT, PERSIAN GULF.' [‎22r] (6/32)

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19. Water. —I have already noticed the springs that burst out fresh in the
seas around Bahrain. Porster mentions that the Arabs consider these as well
as others on the mainland to have their source in an under-ground river still
running from the Euphrates, as he puts it, this is most clearly the Flumen per
quod Euphratem emergere putant, mentioned in this quarter by Pliny. (It is
not an uncommon thing in Persia to see wells sunk apparently in hopeless
ground, and to find that they tap a small stream running under-ground.)
20. The principal springs are the Gassari on the road from Manameh to the
Bilad-i-Kadim, the Umm-i-Shaoom, a mile to the eastward of Manameh, the
Abu Geidan, in the Bilad-i-Kadim, and the Adari, which last supplies many
miles of date-groves through a canal of ancient workmanship (whose stone in
some places falling in) with a perfect river of fast
I had some pearl divers with me who . , it j . • j
went down and walked about on the running water some 10 feet broad by two m depth,
bottom, they then looked like pigmies spring itself is some 30 to 35 feet deep, and
rises so strongly that a diver is forced upwards on
nearing the bottom. I do not mean that you cannot reach it, but merely that
the force of the water is felt against you.
21. The water where it rises in this deep spring, whose basin artificially
banked is some 22 yards across by 40 long, is as clear as crystal with a slightly
green tint and very beautiful. It holds a shoal or two of large fish and many
water tortoises. It is not perfectly sweet, and this applioo to nearly all the wells,
the drinking water forconnoisseurs being brought on camels from the wells of the
.. . ^Umm Koefih and *Hanaini, said to be 20 fathoms
so aparTon the^top^of't^ci^ie of deep, in the hills of Rifaa. The water is conducted
diffs - from these various wells by ordinary unbanked
channels, the larger of which have now come to look like natural streams.
Wherfe it is necessary to raise it this is done from wells by the ordinary skin
bucket let down over a pulley and walked up to the cistern level by cattle pull
ing down an incline; from channels generally
by leverage of a datef trunk lightly swung by
ropes to a frame, and balanced at one end by
a basket of earth into which it is inserted, so
that little exertion is required to lift up the
water.
22. The Jebel Dukhan, as I said above,
seems to be of a sort of limestone. I found some
fossil shells upon it. The surrounding cliffs
were, where I saw them, I think of sandstone;
but they are generally limestone, and this
stone was enormously quarried from here, I
take it, to build the dead-houses under the
tumuli.
23. On nearing the coast, white dusty
ground, the cerecloth of dead races and habita
tions, intrudes everywhere as if to enforce atten-
, ,, , tion : and mighty
t I append a sketch of one group _ r\f
of these, probably the largest on the mounds + bare OL
island. vegetation tower
above the palm groves. The map gives a very
slight idea of this most noticeable feature.
Mass upon mass, mound upon mound, they
stretch on in endless chains all round the slope
that falls from the cliffs to the sea, clinging more particularly perhaps to the
higher ground, but found in separate clusters near the coast itselt.
24. The parent group is perhaps that at Ali, a modem village, but
F b 1 large ones are to be found at many places, noticeably
See Ma p. those in the Bilad-i-Kadim : The red ones on the
left of the high road to Eifaa, and the chain of five or six large ones facing ic
3
t Something like this-
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