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It is impossible to read this, without stopping to smile at the backwardness of the people, who, having invented all the machinery for a well, should still remain at that distance from the application of this discovery, as to resort to such a complicated and cumbersome arrangement, as cutting a trackway equal in length to the depth of the well! How easy to have applied the winch and coiled the rope, as other nations as far back in civilisation have done, in the way with which we are acquainted! But it is such little hitches that impede a nation’s progress![7] But to continue the narrative of the envoy.

“Our guide, an active, intelligent man, went to a neighbouring house and procured a well-rope, by means of which we were enabled to measure the depth, and ascertained it to be thirty-seven fathoms; but of the quantify of oil at the bottom we could not judge. The owner of the rope, who followed our guide, affirmed, that when a pit yielded as much as came up to the waist of a man, it was deemed tolerably productive; if it reached to his neck, it was abundant; but that which rose no higher than the knee was accounted indifferent. When a well is exhausted, they restore the spring by cutting deeper into the rock, which is extremely hard in those places where the oil is produced. Government farms out the ground that supplies this useful commodity; and it is again let to adventurers, who dig wells at their own hazard, by which they sometimes gain and often lose, as the labour and expense of digging are considerable. The oil is sold on the spot for a mere trifle; I think two or three hundred pots for a tackal, or half a crown. The principal charge is incurred by the transportation and purchase of vessels. We had but half gratified our curiosity, when it grew dark, and our guide urged us not to remain any longer, as the road was said to be infested by tigers, that prowled at night among the rocky uninhabited ways through which we had to pass. We followed his advice, and returned, with greater risk, as I thought, of breaking our necks from the badness of the road than of being devoured by wild beasts. At ten o’clock we reached our boats without any misadventure.”