APRIL — JUNE 1857.] Memoir 07i the Aden Resenoirs. 29 
of Yemen, between his accession to the throne in A. D. 1472, and 
the great famine which decimated Yemen in A. D. 1502, built 
many religious edifices throughout the country, especially in Aden, 
amongst others, numerous reservoirs, aqueducts, &cc. the most im- 
portant of which was the aqueduct to convey the water of Bir Am- 
hait into Aden. • 
There is also a tradition in Aden, that about A. H. 906 (A. D. 
1500,) the Governor persevered in digging wells for sweet water, 
and being successful, the reservoirs were permitted to fall to ruins, 
or to be filled with the debris washed down from the hills. 
Probably the water obtained from these wells, and from the Bir 
Amhait, sufficed for the supply of tlje place, which had begun to 
decline in consequence of the Indian traffic having been diverted 
from its ancient channel, by the discovery of the route to Europe 
round the Cape of Good Hope, and the preservation and repair of 
the reservoirs became no longer a matter of pressing necessity. 
The aqueduct above mentioned appears not al*ways to have suffic- 
ed for the supply of Aden, (which continued, as late as the seven- 
teenth century, to have a population of 30,000 souls,) as, in a Latin 
tract written by Resendius bearing date A. D. 1530 and entitled 
" Epitome Rerum Gestarum in India a Lusitanis," he remarks, " that 
the water was daily brought in on camels, which on some days 
amounted to 1,500 or 1,600 and even 2,000, and that if they came 
in the day time, the water was taken to the city, but if in the 
evening, it was deposited in a Im-ge cistern near the ivater house.^* 
The above extract is quoted by Mr. Salt, to prove that the aque- 
duct from Bir Amhait did not exist in the time of Resendius, but 
I think this conclusion hastily formed, as there is no reason to doubt 
the fact that it was constructed by Abd-el-Wahab ibn Tahir, and 
that the " cistern near the water house'' was the large reservoir 
built at the Aden termination of the aqueduct, to receive the water 
of Bir Amhait. * 
This aqueduct and reservoir were in use when Aden was visited 
by a deputation of French merchants of St. Malo under M. de Mer- 
veille in A. D. 1708, and the remains of both were seen and de- 
