Sufferings of Travelers.
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Chap. 4,]
erection of fountains, who believe they can do no act more acceptable toG-od. a This mode of expending their wealth, at the same time tbat itconferred real and lasting benefits on the public, was the surest way oftransmitting to posterity the names of the donors. The pools of Solomon,might have preserved his name from oblivion had nothing eise respectinghim been known. These noble structures, in a land where every other workof art has been hurried to' destruction, remain almost as perfect as whenthey were constructed, and Jerusalem is still supplied with water fromth'em, by an earthen pipe about ten inches in diameter. “ These reser-voirs are really worthy of Solomon; I had formed no conception of theirmagnificence; they are three in number, the smallest between four, andfive hundred feet in length.” The waters are discharged from one intoanother, and conveyed from the lowest to the city. “ I descended intothe third and largest; it is lined with plaister like the Indian chunan, andhanging terraces run all round it.” Lindsay’s Trav. Let. 9.
According to the moral doctrines of the Chinese , “to repair a road,make a bridge, or dig a well,” will atone for many sins. Davis’ China ,ii, 89. The Hindoos, says Sonnerat, believe the digging of tanks on thehighways, renders the gods propitious to them; and he adds, “ Is not thisthe best manner of honoring the deity, as it contributes to the naturalgood of his creatures!” Vol. i, 94.
SUFFERINGS OF TRAVELERS FROM THIRST.
The extreme sufferings which orientals have been, and are still called toendure from the want of water, have beennoticed by all modern travelers,from Rubriques and Marco Paulo, to Burckhardt and Niebuhr. Wellsinsome routes, are a hundred miles apart, and are sometimes found empty;hence travelers have often been obliged to slay their camels for the wa-ter these animals retain in their stomachs. Leo Africaims noticed twomarble monuments in his travels; upon one of which was an epitaph,recording the manner in which those who slept beneath them had mettheir doom. One was a rieh merchant, the other a water carrier, whofurnished Caravans with water and provisions. On reaching this spot,scorched by the sun and their entrails tortured by the most excruciatingthirst; there remained but a small quantity of water between them. Therieh man, whose thirst now made him regard his gold as dirt, purchased asingle cup of it for ten thousand ducats ; but that which possibly mighthave been sufficient to save the life of one of them, being divided be-tween both, served only to prolong their sufferings for a moment, and theyboth sunk into that sleep from which there is no waking upon earth.Lives of Travelers, by St. John.
Mr. Bruce, when in Abyssinia, obtained water from the stomachs ofcamels, which his companions slew for that purpose. Sometimes themouths and tongues of travelers, from want of this precious liquid, be-come dry and hard like those of parrots ; but these are not the onlypeople who suffer from thirst. Düring the long continuance of a droughtwhich prevailed over all Judea in Ahab ’s reign, every dass of peoplesuffered. 1 Kings, xvii and xviii. And such droughts are not uncom-mon. “ The poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and theirtongue faileth for thirst,” (Isa. xli, 17,) in modern times as when the pro-phet wrote, and not the poor alone, for “ the honorable men are famish-ed,” and, as well as the multitude, are “ dried up with thirst.” Isa. v, 13.