Continuing For About Three Hundred Paces Farther Along The Valley, Which
Is In This Part About One Hundred And Fifty Feet In Breadth; Several
Small Tombs Are Met With On Both Sides Of The Rivulet, Excavated In The
Rock, Without Any Ornaments.
Beyond these is a spot where the valley
seemed to be entirely closed by high rocks; but upon a
Nearer approach,
I perceived a chasm about fifteen or twenty feet in breadth, through
which the rivulet flows westwards in winter; in summer its waters are
lost in the sand and gravel before they reach the opening, which is
called El Syk (Arabic). The precipices on either side of the torrent are
[p.423] about eighty-feet in height; in many places the opening between
them at top is less than at bottom, and the sky is not visible from
below. As the rivulet of Wady Mousa must have been of the greatest
importance to the inhabitants of the valley, and more particularly of
the city, which was entirely situated on the west side of the Syk, great
pains seem to have been taken by the ancients to regulate its course.
Its bed appears to have been covered with a stone pavement, of which
many vestiges yet remain, and in several places stone walls were
constructed on both sides, to give the water its proper direction, and
to check the violence of the torrent. A channel was likewise cut on each
side of the Syk, on a higher level than the river, to convey a constant
supply of water into the city in all seasons, and to prevent all the
water from being absorbed in summer by the broad torrent bed, or by the
irrigation of the fields in the valley above the Syk.
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