How the Middle-East's original railroad met a Jerusalem Water Shortage

[daveklepper]

ct: From 'Die Warte'

To: Steve Sattler <[e-mail]>, Ehrlich Sybil (home) <[e-mail]>, Melling Chen <[e-mail]>

 p.270. 21.12.1907. Letter from Jerusalem

 ''… in the year 1900 there was a dreadful water emergency, which meant here the opposite of a flood. As a consequence the Government arranged for the water conduit from the old Solomon Pools to be refurbished with iron pipes, the main pipe of which led to the Haram esch-Scherif (Temple Place), a subsidiary pipe to the Sultan Pool opposite the Jewish Montefiore Colony on one side and 'Zion' on the other. But even this flow of water came to a sudden end this year, because in the past winter barely a half of the usual amount of water fell, so that even the springs for the Solomon's Pools failed and the supplies in the cisterns were used up earlier than usual.

 

The City administration then met with the Railway Company in order to deal with the water shortage. The last railway station before the terminus at Jerusalem is Bittir, the Bethara of the Bible. About two to three kilometres above this railway station which lies in a wadi there is the Philip's Well, according to tradition the place where ''the desert road to Gaza passed by'' (Acts 8:26) and Philip baptised the Satrap of the Ethiopian King Kandaze (Acts 8:38). From this spring the city authorities have now built a pipeline of 6 to 7cm diameter through which the water flows to stone reservoir built by the railway company at Bittir and which has a capacity of 36 cubic metres. The pipeline several kilometres long is very narrow and made from tinned zinc. It is therefore to be expected that this pipeline cannot stand the constant pressure of the water and so a plumber with a monthly salary of seven Medschidie (1 Medsch. = 4.23 Frc.) is employed who has nothing else to do but to walk up and down the three kilometre long pipe, his soldering equipment under his arm, to repair sections which have become damaged and he has always something to do. In addition a special guard has been employed with the same salary in order to protect the water pipe from any wilful damage.

 

The reservoir mentioned is emptied two or three times a day according to demand. For this purpose the company has introduced so-called water trains which bring the water to the station of Jerusalem at Rephaim. The wagons have partly iron, partly wooden basins of a capacity of 8 cu.m. and each water train therefore has 32 cu.m. At our railway station the wagons are emptied out into another basin constructed by the company and the spring water is then led to the Sultan's Pool through a strong iron pipe. In order that everything runs 'smoothly' and in order to ensure a fair distribution of the water and also halt the wild horde of ''the water carriers, donkey and mule drivers'' and keep them under control, a tent has been erected near the point where the water is distributed, marked by a large barrel with several brass taps and here three policemen are present on duty day and night. At present the water costs 1¼ Piastre per petroleum canister. The railway company receives per cubic metre a Half-Medschidie at the Jerusalem Station.

 

(Jerusalem, 20^th. October 1907. On.)

 

 

Virenfrei. www.avg.com

 

 

 

''

[Overmod]

Shouldn't that be "Ethiopian Queen"?

[daveklepper]

I don't know that history well enlugh to answer you.   Possibly someone else knows, but I've usually found Steve Sattler pretty accurate on the sort of history.

[Overmod]

daveklepper

I don't know that history well enough to answer you.

I went back and checked Acts 8 in my RSV to be sure I remembered right.  The name as normally spelled (and used as a girl's name) is "Candace" and it was surprising to see it spelled as if no one recognized what it signified.

A bit like the way nobody gets the "Barabbas" reference at Easter time because it's left untranslated, or the sense of 'maskil' in the Psalms.