Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
The remains of the old aqueducts testify to the skilful manner in which
the ancients used their abundant water supply for the irrigation of this
extensive plain. I counted altogether nine different ancient aqueducts.
One or two of these are still utilized, and of late years a handsome
bridge has been built in connection with one of them, but the
engineering skill of the ancients holds its own with our more modern
constructions. Many of the bridges by which these aqueducts span the
ravines are very handsome. Some are on two tiers of arches, one above
another. In places they are tunnelled through the hills. One bridge of
massive masonry of large stones is one hundred and twenty feet long and
thirty-five feet high, with pointed arches. There is one aqueduct eight
miles long, consisting of a cemented channel two feet broad, and
terminating in a handsome cemented cistern. It is carried over several
bridges, one fifty feet long and thirty feet high.
I mention this system of aqueducts because I have never seen any account
of Jericho in the records of travellers or in guide-books which does
justice to them. They are important as showing how much money must have
been spent in developing the resources of this plain, and what a garden
it must have been in old times. So late as the thirteenth century we
hear that the sugar-cane was cultivated around Jericho, and I believe
that at this day there are few spots on the earth's surface which could
be turned to more profitable account. Here all the products of the
tropics could be raised without having to go to the tropics for them,
and many fruits could be conveyed from here to a European market, which
it would be impossible to preserve for the length of time which is now
required to transport them from the tropics. At a comparatively small
expense the ancient system of aqueducts could be repaired and the
abundant water supply utilized, which is now left to stagnate in marshes
and breed fever and pestilence. It is, in fact, impossible to appreciate
the magnificent capabilities which this plain possesses and not feel
convinced that in these days of civilized enterprise the question of
their development is only one of time.
JERICHO—A NEW WINTER RESORT.
Haifa, Sept. 15.—When I last visited Jericho, six years ago, it
consisted of a miserable village of mud huts, containing a population of
mixed negroes and Bedouins, amounting at most to three hundred souls. I
was astonished now to find that, of all places in the world, it was
going ahead. There was a sort of boom going on; a very minute boom, it
is true, but still it was progress, and there is no saying what it may
lead to.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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