Page 250 - Records of Bahrain (2)(ii)_Neat

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576 Records of Bahrain

TIIE ISLANDS OF BAHREIN. 195

i-Kadim, and on starting, again, I passed through dato groves,
and found myself almost immediately on a broad road entirely
devoid of a single blade of grass, and appearing to bo raised
an inch or two abovo the surrounding soil, which bears a few
.scattered shrubs. This, I think, for part of its length at
least, was at one timo a made road: there is not, however,
onough traffic at the present day between “ AH ” and
Manamoh to beat out a sheep track.
This village of “ Ali,” where the road lands us in a small
tumblcd-down village, inhabited by Shiahs, is built of and
over old habitations, and immediately outside of it tlicro
is a most singular group of mounds, to which I will now draw
attention. They number about 25 or 30, some larger, some
smaller, tho largest being from forty to fifty feet high, and
from forty to fifty yards through their broadest base; they
aro somewhat furrowed by tho weather, but retain a strong
family likeness, particularly in the squareness of their tops,
which arc often indented; they arc bare and close together,
which facts (in spite of tho enormous block of shaped sand­

stone cropping out near and on the top of some, and tho gallery
in ono of them, also near tho summit) made me doubt tho
correctness of my first conjecture that they must be temples.
Still, as they were the only distinctly shaped mounds of their
size that I was able to examine closely, while immediately
behind them stretched chain upon chain, and group upon
group of lesser tumuli, unquestionably graves, I clung to
the hope that this large group might be something more.
But if these miles upon miles of crowded heaps arc tombs,
i!
where did tho inhabitants live ? Probably they lived along
the coast as at present, building their houses of the branches
lili of the palm-tree, as do still the poorer classes.
I',!'
Or, possibly, these islands may have been tho cemetery of
Gerrha, which was the great Phoenician mart in these parts,
1
and which is believed to liavo been at the bottom of the long
bay behind Bahrein; while other causes, such as their fertility,
and their abundance in beautiful water, may have caused them
to liavo been regarded as holy ground. The correct site of
Gerrha lias been somewhat disputed. D’Anvillc places it

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