40 DESCRIPTION OF ARABIA. 



Streamlets, lyin^ among the hills, and formed by the 

 alluvial depositions of the winter showers. These 

 wadvs (the oases of the Greeks), which appear like 

 islands in the trackless ocean, are both fertile and 

 Dleasant. Their rich verdure and groves of date- 

 trees supply food and pasture for the roving colo- 

 nies of the wilderness. There are, besides, various 

 wells or watering stations, partly natural, partly ar- 

 tificial on the routes which traverse the deserts m 

 several directions ; serving as points of nitercourse 

 between distant parts of the comitry. Without 

 these reservoirs the greater portion of Arabia must 

 have remained unpeopled, and for ever impervious 

 to man Their brackish waters afford refreshment 

 for the weary pilgrims, and enable small hordes of 

 settlers to cultivate patches of ground, on which 

 scanty crops or a few common vegetables are reared. 

 These tanks or reservoirs are often built of stone, 

 and form the usual resting-places of travellers and 

 caravans : the water is raised in leathern buckets 

 bv means of an iron chain passed over a pulley, and 

 drawn by cows or oxen. It is sold to strangers on 

 their iourney, and is often transported to a consid- 

 erable distance on the backs of camels. Among 

 the Arabs, water constitutes a great part of their 

 wealth It is the most valuable property in dis- 

 tricts of fifty or a hundred miles round. The pos- 

 session of a spring has occasioned hot disputes, and 

 even been the cause of civil wars. Reread of 

 Abraham rebuking Abimelech because his servants 

 had violently taken possession of a well ; ana 

 of the strife "between the herdsmen of Gerar and 

 those of Isaac. It is also mentioned as an instance 

 of intolerable tyranny in one of the ancient Arab 

 kings, that he would sufler no camels but his own 

 to be watered at the same place. There are entire 

 districts, however, where this luxury, as it mayAvell 

 be called, is unknown. The great southern desert, 

 which extends from six to seven hundred miles in 



