Manuscript of Persia and the Persian Question (Continued) [‎46v] (92/690)

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rock it sacrifices a further portion of its waters, which pass into a
subterranean tunnel pierced beneath the citadel, and opening on to
a further artificial canal on the western side of the town, manifestly
designed in order to irrigate the suburbs, which are situated at too
great an elevation above the Karun itself to get their^re<|ui 8 ite water
supply therefrom. These three features, tln'lAb-i-G^rgfr, the Ab-i-
Sh|teit, and the Mina^ Canal, are the determining characteristics
of the situation, and it is to their history, nature, and purpose, as
well as to the elucidation of the problem in hydraulics which they
present, and whic h flit IT. Rawlinson described as “ one of the most
intricate and contradictory objects of research upon which he was
ever engaged,” * 1 that I now turn. If my explanation or description
does not exactly coincide with that of previous writers, it is not in
either case given without careful study of all that has been written
on the subject, nor without personal examination on the spot—a
task which some of my predecessors appear to have discharged in
the most perfunctory fashion.
'^j^-The Ab-i-Gfp-g^r Canal. At the point of its divergence from
the Karun, wx bnnrlred- yards above the town of Shunter, an arti
ficial dyke is thrown across the opening of the canal. This dyke is
constructed of large blocks of hewn stone, which in the low water of
the summer months are left quite bare, with six sluices or passages
for the water between. It appears to have been repaired, at the
same time as Valerian’s Bridge, by Mohammed Ali Mirza, in the
early part of this century, and to have then exchanged its previous
name of Bund-i-Kaisar (a probable allusion to the legendary handi
work of Valerian in the reign of Shapur) for that of Bund-i-
Shahzadeh, or Prince’s Dyke. I did not, however, gather that
either name is now in use.
At a little distance below this dam commences the artificial cutting
in the sandstone rock through which the canal is conducted, and at
half a mile from it occurs a second bund or dam which now completely
blocks the progress of the stream. The present structure cannot be
of ancient date; for when Sir J. Kinneir visited Shuster in 1810, he
describes this bund as “ a bridge of one arch, upwards of eighty feet
high, from the summit of which the Persians frequently throw them
selves into the water without sustaining the slightest injury; ” 2 and
Sir "If Rawlinson, in 1836, still speaks of “ a bridge of a single
Gr ■ S .
(1) Journal of Gk'wupii mm! ftinvdj/, vol. ix., p. 75.
(2) * Geographical Memoir uf iko IWsian Empire^ by J. M. Kinneir, p. 97. I shall
have occasion more than one® to allude to the extraordinary errors of previous writers
in describing the waterworks of Shunter. But not one of them is comparable with that
of Kinneir, who, both in his narrative and in his map, confounded the river and the
canal, and reversed their geographical positions. After this it is not surprising to find
him mistake the bund of Ahwaz for the continuation of an old palace wall across the
river.