orientalcairocit00sladuoft

212 Oriental Cairo
of Jacob was of course a great man in Egypt :
his reputation
in the traditions of the country is fully equal to his Bible
reputation. He is credited with having drained the Fayyum
and cut the Bahr-el-Yussuf, which scientists have pronounced
to be really a backwater of the Nile. But history says that
he is not the Joseph of the Joseph's Well in the Citadel
of Cairo, since Saladin also—and it seems rather prosaic for
him— bore the name of Joseph, which is still very popular in
Egypt.
But it is not chronologically impossible for the Joseph of
the Bible to have been the Joseph of this well, for archaeolo-
gists think that the well may date from Pharaonic times, since
there was an ancient Egyptian town, which Mr. H. R. Hall
calls Khri Ahu, on the site of the modern city.
Jo.seph's Well is an astonishing piece of construction. The
easiest way to conceive it is to imagine the fallen campanile at
Venice carried three hundred feet down into the earth instead
of up into the air ;
for the ascent of the later and the descent
of the former are on the same principle. A ramp, carried
round and round spirally, replaces the usual staircase. Only
here the ramp has steps cut in it in places, and the upper
portion, which is all that can be seen, is perfectly empty and
open to the sky ; the lower half, which had become unsafe, has
now been closed. It could never be properly seen. One of the
most curious features of the well is that it is not in one direct
vertical line. A hundred and sixty feet down the shaft takes
a sharp bend to the left of about its own width. This is why
it was worked by two sakiyas—one at the top and one half
way down. It is capable of supplying the entire garrison
with water, but since the waterworks have been laid, the
Citadel has been supplied by them. The ramp is lighted by
windows, cut through to the central shaft, which show that the
lajer of stone left between the ramp and the shaft is in some
places no thicker than a door. The well is 290 feet deep,
and is supposed to go back at any rate to Roman times,
though the ramp may have been constructed by Saladin's
orders. The gem of the Citadel is the little mosque known
as Sultan Selim's, dating from the sixteenth century, which