Page 165 - The Tigris Expedition

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The Tigris Expedition
Water was a divine gift to any people in the gulf area. Deserts and
dry wasteland dominate coasts and islands. Bahrain is a striking
exception. On Bahrain water rises from the dry ground in springs
and fountains, and flows endlessly into the sea. Around the coast
there are even underwater springs, where divers can swim down to
drink sweet water and refill their air-filled jars.
The amazing way in which nature has brought an abundance of
fresh water to this low limestone island surrounded by the salt sea is
almost enough to make anyone who drinks from these springs
believe in miracles. On our way to the tombs Bibby took a
side-road to a true oasis of palms and green grass. Inside was a deep
and divinely beautiful pond of crystal clear water retained within
the ancient stone walls of a circular reservoir. Young Arabs were
diving and swimming, and one of them was sitting soaping himself
in the water while three women washed clothing. Yet the water was
constantly renewed and clear as morning dew. Every one of the
smooth stones on the bottom was seen as clearly as if the pool were
empty. In the centre the water was welling up to the surface like
a fountain, and a constant overflow sent the soap-suds away
down a fast-running drainage ditch formerly used for date palm
irrigation.
Bibby could tell us of several such pools and springs on the island.
No wonder that their origin had been ascribed to divine inter­
ference. This water came from the distant mountains of the Arabian
peninsula, where the rain sank into the naked rocks and was lost for
the mainland. Through a freak of nature it filtered into subterranean
cracks and fissures, some of which carried the fresh water under
the bottom of the gulf to reappear as springs on the island of
Bahrain.
From the slopes of the island’s central hills prehistoric engineers
had constructed hidden water channels deep under the desert sand.
They were walled and roofed with slabs and ran for miles, often
twenty feet or more below the surface, to end in formerly cultivated
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fields. About every fifty yards circular stone shafts rose like buried
chimneys from these subterranean channels up to the surface.
Perhaps they had served as gutters for maintenance. Without them
there was nothing to disclose the existence and route of these
prehistoric pipelines. To Bibby and his colleagues these masterly
examples of engineering remained a puzzle. Had the stone-lined
aqueducts been built on the ground and the chimneys gradually
extended upwards as wind-borne sand accumulated over them? Or
had they been dug as deep underground passages from the very
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