sented on
the earliest Arvadian coins. He has a fish-like tail, the
body and bearded head of a man, with an Assyrian headdress;
on his breast we sometimes find a circular opening which
seems to show the entrails.

The whole island was surrounded by a stone wall, built on the outermost
ledges of the rocks, which were levelled to form its foundation. The
courses of the masonry were irregular, laid without cement or mortar of
any kind. This bold piece of engineering served the double purpose of
sea-wall and rampart, and was thus fitted to withstand alike the onset
of hostile fleets and the surges of the Mediterranean.*

* The antiquity of the wall of Arvad, recognised by
travellers of the last century, is now universally admitted
by all archaeologists.

[Illustration: 248.jpg]

There was no potable water on the island, and for drinking purposes the
inhabitants were obliged to rely on the fall of rain, which they stored
in cisterns--still in use among their descendants. In the event of
prolonged drought they were obliged to send to the mainland opposite; in
time of war they had recourse to a submarine spring, which bubbles up
in mid-channel. Their divers let down a leaden bell, to the top of which
was fitted a leathern pipe, and applied it to the orifice of the spring;
the fresh water coming up through the sand was collected in this bell,
and rising in the pipe, reached the surface uncontaminated by salt
water.*

* Renan tells us that "M. Gaillardot, when crossing from the
island to the mainland, noticed a spring of sweet water
bubbling up from the bottom of the sea.... Thomson and
Walpole noticed the same spring or similar springs a little
to the north of Tortosa."

[Illustration: 249.jpg Page Image]

The harbour opened to the east, facing the mainland: it was divided
into two basins by a stone jetty, and was doubtless insufficient for
the sea-traffic, but this was the less felt inasmuch as there was a safe
anchorage outside it--the best, perhaps, to be found in these waters.
Opposite to Arvad, on an almost continuous line of coast some ten or
twelve miles in length, towns and villages occurred at short intervals,
such as Marath, Antarados, Enhydra, and Karne, into which the surplus
population of the island overflowed. Karne possessed a harbour,
and would have been a dangerous neighbour to the Arvadians had they
themselves not occupied and carefully fort