'Travels in Assyria, Media, and Persia, including a journey from Bagdad by Mount Zagros, to Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, researches in Ispahan and the ruins of Persepolis, and journey from thence by Shiraz and Shapoor to the sea-shore. Description of Bussorah, Bushire, Bahrein, Ormuz, and Muscat, narrative of an expedition against the pirates of the Persian Gulf, with illustrations of the voyage of Nearchus, and passage by the Arabian Sea to Bombay.' [‎457] (488/582)

FRESH WATER SPRINGS OF BAHREIN. 457
directed, and sent in that form to distant markets. They are then
called metaphorically, 4 Roomaan el Bahr,' or 4 Pomegranates of
the Sea,' as that fruit is in great esteem here, and these bundles
resemble them almost exactly in form and size.
Bahrein is famous also for its springs of fresh-water arising
in the sea. One of these rises in three fathoms, where the fresh
water gushes up through the sand of the bottom with great force.
A jar is fitted to the mouth of this spring, and the person who
procures the water from it, dives with an empty bag, made of a
goat's skin, rolled up under his arm; this he dexterously places
over the mouth of the jar, and it being filled in a few seconds, it
floats up to the surface with him. There are four or five springs
of this kind around the island; and the only water which is drunk
at Arad, is procured from one of these, situated a few yards below
low-water mark on the sandy beach there. The water from all
these springs is in itself very fresh; but from want of care in fitting
the skins on their orifices, the sea-water is often admitted with it,
and makes it brackish. A similar spring to these, it will be re
membered, was discovered at the bottom of the sea near the Phoe
nician island of Aradus, on the coast of Syria. The inhabitants of
that place are said, however, by Strabo, to have drawn their water
from thence by means of a leaden bell, and a leathern pipe fitted
to its bottom—a refinement in art, to which the people of Bahrein,
with all the wealth which their sea of pearls affords them, have
not yet arrived. The Arad of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. had at least this one
feature of resemblance to the Aradus of the Mediterranean Sea:
and both Tylos and it were worthy of their names, from the riches
which they drew from the ocean ; as colonies of a state, like Tyre,
whose strength was in her shipping and her commerce, and whose
purple, that dyed the robes of kings and emperors in ancient days,
was drawn from the same element as the pearls which went from
hence to deck the crowns and diadems of queens and empresses?
and serve more generally the purposes of ornament and decora
tion in modern times.
8 N