above ground; there the water is let off into small channels or
fountains, at which some slaves of the Sherif are stationed, to exact a
toll from persons filling their water-skins. In the time of the Hadj,
these fountains are surrounded day and night by crowds of people
quarrelling and fighting for access to the water. During the late siege
the Wahabys cut off the supply of water from the aqueduct; and it was
not till some time after, that the injury which this structure then
received, was partially repaired.

The history of this aqueduct, a work of vast labour and magnitude, is
given by the Arabian historians at great length. Zebeyda, the wife of
Haroun-er'-Rashid, first carried the spring, called Ayn Noman, from its
source in Djebel Kora to the town. The spring of Ayn Arf from the foot
of Djebel Shamekh to the north of Djebel Kora, which watered the fertile
valley called Wady Honeyn, was next brought to join the Ayn Noman; and,
finally, four other sources were added to the aqueduct--El Beroud,
Zafaran, Meymoun, and Ayn Meshash.

[p.108] Subsequently it seems to have been obstructed; but in A.H. 643
it was repaired by Kokeboury, King of Arbela; again in 762, by order of
Sultan Sayd Khadanbede; and a third time, but not completely, in 811, by
the SheriL Hassan Ibn Adjelan, then reigning. Kaiabey, Sultan of Egypt,
expended a large sum upon it in 879; and in 916, Kansoue el Ghoury, one
of the last of the Zirkassian kings of Egypt, contributed to its repair:
but the aqueduct was still often obstructed; and whenever that happened,
the Mekkawys and Hadjys were ex-posed to great privations. In 931,
Sultan Soleyman attempted to construct it anew; but the design was not
completed. At last, his son, Selym Ibn Soleyman, or Selim II., after
many years labour, and at enormous expense, excavated a passage through
the rocks behind Arafat, and formed a new conduit, which alone now