The Rivulet Was Very Small, Owing To The
Remarkable Dryness Of The Season, And Was Lost In The Wady Before It
Reached The Plain; At Other Times It Flows Down To Baalbec And Joins The
River, Which, After Irrigating The Gardens And Fields Round The Town,
Loses Itself In The Plain.
A little higher in the mountain than the spot
where the water of the Djoush first issues from the
Spring, is a small
perpendicular hole, through which I descended, not without some danger,
about sixteen feet, into an aqueduct which conveys the water of the
Djoush underground for upwards of one hundred paces. This aqueduct is
six feet high and three feet and a half wide, vaulted above, and covered
with a thick coat of plaister; it is in perfect preservation; the water
in it was about ten inches deep. In following up this aqueduct I came to
a vaulted chamber about ten feet square, built with large hewn stones,
into which the water falls through another walled passage, but which I
did not enter, being afraid that the water falling on all sides might
extinguish the only candle that I had with me. Below this upper passage,
another dark one is visible through the water as it falls down. The
aqueduct continues beyond the hole through which I descended, as far as
the spot where the water issues from under the earth. Above ground, at a
small distance from the spring, and open towards it, is a vaulted room,
built in the rock, now half filled with stones and rubbish.
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