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The Swape in Arabia.

[Book I.

treatise on Pneumatics . It is figured in most of the old authors, and wasmost likely, copied from the Picotah, and other oriental machines, whichhave been propelled in a similar manner from very remote times. SeeGregory’s Mechan. Vol. ii, 312. Ed. 1815.

The Swape is one of the ancient and modern Implements of China ,where it is used, as in Egypt and India , for the irrigation of land. It isfrequently made to turn in a socket, (or the post itself moves round,) inaddition to the ordinary vibratory motion. In several situations, this is adecided improvement, as the vessel of water when raised above the edgeof a tank or river, can, if desirable, be swung round to any part of thecircle which it describes. Sir George Staunton , has given a figure of it,which Mr. Davis has copied into his populär work on the Chinese . Whenthus constructed, it is according to Goguet, (Tom. iii, Origine des Loix,)identical with the engines mentioned by Herodotus , B. ii, 125, as em-ployed in the erection of the Egyptian pyramids; these, he supposes wereportable swapes, or levers of the first Order, with a rotary movement likethose of the Chinese . A number of these being placed on the lowesttier of stones which formed the basis of the pyramids, were used to raisethose which form the second tier; after which, other swapes were placedon the latter and materials raised by them for the third ränge, and in likemanner to the top. This was the process which Herodotus says wasadopted. M. Goguet, supposes that two swapes were employed inraising every stone, one at each end, and that the levers were depressedby a number of men laying hold of short ropes attached to them for thatpurpose. This mode appears to accord with the meagre description of themachines used in the erection of the pyramids, which the father of historyhas given.

It has already been observed, that the engines employed by Archimedes to destroy the Roman ships in the harbor of Syracuse , were so analagous tothe swape, as to elicit from Marcellus, an observation to that efifect. In fact,machines similar to it, were used by ancient engineers both for attacking anddefending cities. Yegetius, says they were used to raise soldiers to the topsof walls, &c. In the oldest translation of his work, (Erffurt, 1511,) thereis a figure of it, which is identical with the Chinese swape, and with thatwhich Goguet supposes was used by the old engineers of Egypt . Bar-baro, in his edition of Vitruvius , also figures it. In Rollin’s ‘Arts andSciences of the Ancients,’ are several examples and figures of it, appliedto the purposes of war; and among others to the destruction of the Ro-man vessels before Syracuse .

A story in the ‘ Hegiat al Megiales’ shews how common it was in Arabiain the seventh and preceding centuries. Mahomet in one of his visionsof paradise, “saw a machine much used in the Levant for drawingwater out of wells, called by the Latins Tollens, and consisting of a longlever fixed on a post, [i. e.the swape.] Enquiring to whom it belonged, hewas told it was Abougehel’s, (the bitterest enemy to him and his religion.)Surprised at this, he exclaimed, ‘ what has Abougehel to do with paradise,he is never to enter there !’ Shortly after, he understood the drift of thevision, for the son of his enemy became a Mussulman, upon which he ex-claimed 1 Abougehel was the swape , by which God drew up his son fromthe bottom of the pit of infidelity.’ ” It is used by the Japanese • and as fi-gured by Montanus, the bücket is raised by pulling down the opposite endof the lever by means of cords attached to it.

In Fisher’s “ Constantinople, and the Scenery of the Seven Churches ofAsia .” Lon. 1839, is a beautiful view of the city of Magnesia near MountSipylus, in Asia Minor, a city founded by Tantalus , whose fabled punish-