38
Wells without Curbs.
[Book I.
The Wells of Asia are generally of great depth, and of course wereso in former times, In Guzzerat, they are from eighty to a hundred feet;in the adjoining provin.ce of Mulwah, they are frequently three hundredfeet. In Ajmeer, they are from one to two hundred feet. Mr. Elplnn-stone in his mission to Cabaul observes, ‘ the wells are often three hun-dred feet deep; one was three hundred and forty fiveand with thisenormous depth, some are only three feet in diameter. The famous wellof ancient Tyre, ‘ whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickerswere the honorable of the earth,’ is, according to some travelers, withouta bottom ; but La Roque, is said by Yolney, to have found it at the depthof ‘ six and thirty fathom.’
Shalmanezer besieged this city of mechanics for five years, withoutbeing able to take it; at last he cut off the waters of this well, when theinhabitants dug others within the city; after which they held out againstNebuchadnezzar , and the whole power of the Babylonian empire forthirteen years ; being the longest siege on record, except that of Ashdod .Jos. Antiq. ix, 14. Ancient Carthagenian wells of great depth have beenalready mentioned. Dr. Shaw (Trav. 135,) observes of a tribe of the Ka-byles, ‘ their country is very dry, they have no fountains or rivulets, andin Order to obtain water, they dig wells ‘ to the depth of from one to twohundred fathom.’ Jacob’s well is a hundred and nine feet, and Joseph’swell at Cairo, near three hundred feet deep. The well Zemzem at Mecca ,is two hundred and ten feet. ‘ Exceeding deep wells’ in Surat , are men-tioned by Toreen, in Osbeck’s Voyage to China . That the wells of Atticawere generally deep, is obvious from a provision in Solon ’s law respectingthem, by which a person, after digging to the depth of sixty feet withoutobtaining water, was allowed to fill a six gallon vessel twice a day at hisneighbor’s well. The frequency of not meetingwith water at that depth,evidently gave rise to this provision. a The wells of Herculaneum andPompeii , were probably all of considerable depth, if we judge from thosethat have been diseovered.
WELLS WITHOUT CURBS.
Another feature in ancient—particularly Asiatic—wells, was, they wereoften without curbs or parapets built round them; hence animals offenfeil into them and were killed. A very ancient law enacted, that, ‘ if aman shall open or dig a pit, [a well] and not cover it; and an ox or anass fall therein, the owner of the pit shall make it good, and give moneyto the owner of them, and the dead beasts shall be his.’ Exo. xxi, 33, 34.This was probably an old Phenician and Egyptian law which the Is-raelites adopted from its obvious Utility. Josephus ’ account of it is moreexplicit: ‘ let those that dig a well or a pit, be careful to lay planks overthem, and so keep them shut up, not to hinder persons from drawing wa-ter, but that there may be no danger of falling into them.’ Antiq. iv,8. Numerous examples of the Utility of such a law might be producedfrom oriental histories. Benaiah, one of the three famous warriors ofDavid, who broke through the hosts of the Philistines and drew waterfor him out of the well of Bethlehem, ‘ slew a lion in the midst of a pit inthe time of snow.’ Sam. xxiii, 20 : from Josephus , this appears to havebeen one of the ordinary wells of the country, which having no curb,had been left open, and the ‘ lion slipped and feil into it.’ Antiq. vii, 12.
‘ On our way back to the town, we'saw a poor ass dying- in a pit, into