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On that same day at noon, my curiosity aroused, I took train to the old-world town with its wonderful cathedral, the Alcazar, and the aqueduct built by Augustus, the largest piece of Roman work extant in Spain, rivalling as it does the walls of Tarragona. Without difficulty I discovered the fine country house of the Countess de Chamartin situated high up on the broad tree-lined Paseo.

Nay, the victims and the gladiators might return to the cells below the seats of the people, and not know they had left them for a day; the wild beasts might leap into the arena from dens as secure and strong as when first built. The ruin within seems only to begin with the aqueduct, which was used to flood the arena for the naval shows, but which is now choked with the dust of ages.

He made an aqueduct, too, to conduct the water from a new spring which he discovered at a place higher than the house, and so brought a constant stream of water into the kitchen which he had made in the stoop. The stumps, too, in the fields around the house, gradually decayed, so that Thomas could root them out and smooth over the ground where they had stood.

I do wrong, perhaps, to say that I tried; from a flight so deliberate I should have shrunk. But there was a certain contagion of antiquity in the air; and among the ruins of baths and temples, in the very spot where the aqueduct that crosses the Garden in the wondrous manner I had seen discharged itself, the picture of a splendid paganism seemed vaguely to glow.

He avoided wars, only defended the empire; but he was a great builder, for he raised another rampart in Britain, much further north, and set up another column at Rome, and in Gaul built a great amphitheatre at Nismes, and raised the wonderful aqueduct which is still standing, and is called the Pont du Gard.

After leaving next morning, we saw at some distance to the south, the enormous aqueduct now being erected for the canal from the Rhone to Marseilles. The shallow, elevated valleys we passed in the forenoon's walk were stony and barren, but covered with large orchards of almond trees, the fruit of which forms a considerable article of export.

The inhabitants are supplied with water by means of an aqueduct, fed by the little river, or rill of Wai Elghored, two miles distant south. The climate hereabouts is extremely salubrious, the rocky sandy site of the city being removed from all marshes or low lands, which produce pestiferous miasma or fever-exhaling vegetation.

Here begins the San Cosme aqueduct, a huge, arched structure of heavy masonry, which adds picturesqueness to the scenery. Maximilian, upon taking up his abode here, caused a number of beautiful avenues to be constructed in various directions, suitable for drives, in addition to the grand paseo leading to the city, which also owes its construction to his taste and liberality.

I think these cisterns originally supplied Tyre with water; I traced the remains of an aqueduct from them nearly to the walls but better than half way across the isthmus, so that I think they are of a later date than the time of Solomon because the aqueduct could not be built over the isthmus before the isthmus was made.

It seems to me that there is little doubt that instead of the ruins of Rumiccolca representing a fortification, we have here the remains of an ancient azequia, or aqueduct, built by some powerful chieftain to supply the people of Piquillacta with water.