Page:History of Art in Phœnicia and Its Dependencies Vol 1.djvu/389

 TOWNS AND HYDRAULIC WORKS. 367 the neighbouring sea. But we know that the whole of the district was inhabited by a dense population and that it was highly cultivated ; l we may therefore conclude that the Phoenicians did not fail to discover how to utilise the springs to the best advantage, and the only way was to make use of the principle to which we have alluded. The walls must have been repaired and restored more than once, and parts may be pointed out which bear signs of a Roman hand, 2 but in the canal which runs from the springs along the foot of the hill and in the direction of Tyre, Gaillardot, an excellent judge, recognizes a system of masonry which has nothing either Greek or Roman about it. " Wherever the conduit is still covered it presents, almost without exception, bare walls formed partly by the rock itself, partly by huge stones fixed without a trace of cement." To the Romans, of course, belongs the aqueduct carried on arches from the Tell-el-Machouk, opposite Tyre, across the isthmus of Alexander, so as to bring the water of the Ras-el-Ain to the city itself. When this aqueduct was built the walls about the springs were perhaps heightened and the conduit repaired. But this very enterprise was no doubt suggested by the skill shown by the ancient Tyrians in compelling the column of water to mount to a convenient height. Before this great work was carried out Tyre depended for much of her consumption upon watering places on the neighbouring coast. An Egyptian traveller who visited Tyre about the end of the reign of Rameses II., says with surprise, " They carry water there in boats." 4 A conduit must have brought the waters of the Ras-el-Ain down to reservoirs constructed on the sea-shore, opposite the island, whence it was carried in skins to the city. But Tyre was too often menaced by her enemies to trust entirely to such a supply as this. Every house, like the houses of modern Syria, was provided with a cistern ; this is proved by the simple fact, which we know on the authority of a Phoenician writer, that for five years maritime Tyre was able to do without a supply from terra firma? Shalmaneser, who was 1 RENAN, Mission, pp. 577, 579, 582, and 634. 2 Ibid. p. 593. 3 Ibid. p. 594. Conf. p. 582. 4 Papyrus Anastasi, i. pi. xxi. 1. 1,2. Conf. CHABAS, Le Voyage dun Egyptien, pp. 165-171 (Chalons, 1866). 5 Menander makes a clear distinction between the Trora/xos (the Leontes which flows into the sea north of Tyre) and the vSpaywytat (the wells of Ras-el-Ain and the