Numerous wells of great antiquity are still to be seen in Egypt, and among the ruins of Ninevah, a city of which the foundation was laid by Ashur, the son of an

antediluvian, is a remarkable well which supplies the peasants with water, to which they ascribe many virtues.!

It was a common practice in those Eastern countries, to, erect stations and place guards for the protection of wells against robbers, who, knowing that travellers would of

* Ewbank, p. 25. t Capt. Rich's narrative of a residence at Koordistan, and on the site of ancient Nineveh.

PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 3

necessity resort there, made them objects of attack it is from this circumstance the old ;

" wells of fear." traveller, Sandys, speaks of them as The ancient Egyptians, resident beyond the reach of the inundations of the Nile, irrigated their land from wells, as do the Chinese to this day. It was in digging a well in 1711, that the long buried ruins of Herculaneum were discovered, by the accidental striking upon some pieces of marble and statues, which subsequently proved to be part of a temple, situated in the midst of Herculaneum, buried by an eruption of Vesuvius, 1630 years before and it is a fact interesting in itself and ;

not foreign to our subject, to add, that among the remarkable discoveries of this long buried

city, was a well in a high state of preservation, which, having been protected by a covering and surmounted with a curb, had been kept free from the lava and ashes. It still contains excellent water, and is in the same condition as when the last females retired from it,