There are about fifty villages scattered over the islands, recognisable from a distance by their patch of cultivation and groups of date-palms. Except at Manamah and Moharek they have little or nothing to do with the pearl fisheries, but are an exceedingly industrious race of peasants who cultivate the soil by means of irrigation from the numerous wells with which the island is blessed. There are generally three to six small wheels attached to the beam, which is across the well, over which the ropes of as many large leathern buckets pass. When these buckets rise full they tilt themselves over, the contents is then taken by little channels to a reservoir which feeds the dykes, transferred thence to the palms in buckets raised by the leverage of a date-trunk lightly swung by ropes to a frame, and balanced at one end by a basket of earth into which it is inserted; it is so light to lift that women are generally employed in watering the trees. To manure their date-groves they use the fins of a species of ray fish called _awwal_, steeped in water till they are putrid; _awwal_, by the way, was an ancient name of the Island of Bahrein, perhaps because it was the first island of the group in size, _awwal_ in Arabic meaning _first_. The area of fertility is very rich and beautiful; it extends all along the north coast of the island, and the fishing village of Nayim, with its bamboo huts nestling beneath the palm-trees, is highly picturesque; and all this fertility is due to the number of fresh-water springs which burst up here from underground, similar, no doubt, to those before alluded to which spring up in the sea. The Arabs will tell you that these springs come straight from the Euphrates, by an underground channel through which the great river flows beneath the Persian Gulf, doubtless being the same legend alluded to by Pliny when he says, 'Flumen per quod Euphratem emergere putant.' There are many of them--the Garsari well, Um-i-Shaun, Abu Zeidan, and the Adari, which last supplies many miles of date-groves through a canal of ancient workmanship. The Adari well is one of the great sights of Bahrein, being a deep basin of water 22 yards wide by 40 long, beautifully clear, and full of prismatic colours. It is said to come up with such force from underground that a diver is driven back, and all around it are ruins of ancient date, proving that it was prized by former inhabitants as a bath. The water is slightly brackish, as is that of all these sources, so that those who can afford it send for water to a well between Rufa'a Jebeli and Rufa'a Shergeh--called Haneini, which is exceedingly good, and camels laden with skins may be seen coming into Manamah every morning with this treasure. We obtained our water supply thence. The other well, Abu Zeidan, is situated in the midst of the ruins known as Beled-al-Kadim, or 'old town.'