Page 248 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

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574 Records of Bahrain

TIIE ISLANDS OF BAHREIN. 193

cover old buildings,1 and the “well” that had been found
was either a etono conduit with cross branches or tho foun­
dations of an old stone building, somo six or seven feet
below tho surfaco, now holding water. The ground had
been struck with a scraper to make room for a young date
plant, and had fallen in, thus disclosing tho stone work
below. I could not ask to search there, as it would have
damaged tho garden, but I asked the gardener, though in
vain, to go down, and find out what it was.
After this I rode round to every mosque on this side of
tho island, thinking it most likely to find intelligent in­
habitants there. I was taken to many, into the walls of
which old Arabic inscriptions had been let, and to the ruined
mosque of tho Meshed-i-Abu-Zeidan,2 near the Bihul-i-
Kadim, said to have been built with the material of a still
older structure, and likely, therefore, to yield specimens of
old writing. It contains one old tablet, and a ring of stones
round one, if not two, of its room walls are scored with
large Kufic letters, perhaps from some earlier building.
Theso I did not copy.
At last, after having visited twenty mosques at least,
which produced nothing but a cup of cofFec, a kallian, and
innumerable complaints of the tyranny of the Sheikhs and
their tribe, I was told of a stone that nobody could read.
This, therefore, I went to see, and found it. imbedded in the
“holy of holies” in the Madrassch-i-Daood, in tho Bilad-i-
Kadim. The stone is of black basalt shaped like the prow
of a boat, or an animal’s tongue, and is two feet two inches
long. I had no difficulty in getting it, in spite of its holy

1 I have sinco heard from Abdullah bin Rijjab, ono of a rich firm of brothers,
ongaged in the pearl trado, that whon ho was a boy ho romemhers seeing tho
ofliccrs of a French and an English frigato accompanied by a Persian (Ailchi)
Ambassador digging and turning ovor stones in this vory place. Ho did not
know with what results.
2 Tho well of tho Abfi-Zoidfui is worth mentioning. It springs under an
arch of stone, which serves as the foundation of part of tho walls of a small
mosquo. Tho water is'beautiful and warm in the cool woathcr, boing said to
bocomo cold in tho hot. I supposo tho chango is morcly in tho temperaturo of
tho air. A stono pillar with two circular stones ns a basomont rising from tho
water supports part of the superstructure. Tho pattern on tho outer arch is
peculiar.