The Highlands of EthiopiaHarris, William Cornwallis, Sir
History
The Highlands of Ethiopia
Harris, William Cornwallis, Sir
Ethiopia -- Description and travel
Few fragments now survive the general decay, to record the high estate
of the once populous metropolis, or reveal the magnificence it could
formerly boast in works of public utility. The chief buildings are
believed to have been situated ten miles inland, and to have been
swallowed up by the ever rising, never ebbing, tide of the desert. The
red brick conduit of Abd el Wahab can still be traced from the Durab el
Horaibi, whence it stretches to Bir Omheit, upwards of eight miles,
across a now dilapidated bridge. Here are numerous wells, which
supplied the reservoirs; but, "like the baseless fabric of a vision,"
every vestige of an edifice has vanished.
Among the most perfect and conspicuous relics of the past are the
laborious and costly means adopted to insure in so arid and burning a
climate, a plentiful supply of water. In addition to the wells, three
hundred in number, the remains of basins of great magnitude are found in
various directions; and in the Valley of Tanks are a succession of
hanging cisterns, formed by excavations in the limestone rock. These
are lined with flights of steps, and supported by lofty buttresses of
imperishable masonry, forming deep reservoirs of semi-elliptical form,
which still blockade every channel in the mountain side, and once served
to collect the precious drops from heaven, when showers doubtless fell
more abundantly than at the present day.
In the extensive repositories for the dead, too, may be found assurances
of the former population of Aden. Many of the countless tombs in the
Turkish cemetery were of white marble, and bore on jasper tablets
elaborately-sculptured inscriptions surmounted by the cap and turban;
but the greater number of these pillared monuments have either
disappeared or been overthrown. Of the evidences of Mohammadanism that
once graced the city, nearly all lie buried from sight beneath heaps of
accumulated rubbish and debris, the removal of portions of which has
disclosed many curious coins of remote date. The minaret of Menaleh,
and a tottering octagon of red brick, attached to the Jama el Musjid,
lone survivors of the wreck, still point to the sky; and of the few
mosques that have been spared by the destroying hand of time, the
principal is that of the tutelar saint of the city, beneath the cupola
of which, invested with a pall of crimson silk, and enshrined in the
odour of sanctity, repose the venerated remains of Sheikh Hydroos.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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