Hauran, which separates these ranges of hills, there had been a continued drought for four months past, without the means of watering by irrigation; and, consequently, the soil, though naturally fruitful, was by this calamity rendered, for the present at least, quite unproductive.

In the parties we had met on the road, and among all the inhabitants of the towns, I had noticed an appearance of freshness and health, with much greater cleanliness than is common to Arabs in general. In the towns at which we now halted the same thing was observable: the women and children were quite ruddy in their complexions, the men were well dressed and clean; and as the ancient town had been originally paved with large blocks of black stone, with a raised causeway on each side for foot passengers, both the streets and the interior of the houses were remarkably free from dirt. It was distressing, however, to hear from all classes the universal cry of want, and to witness, as we did, extensive tracts of corn land, where wheat had been already sown, and the blade appearing above the surface, prematurely withered away while yet green, from want of moisture. The conversation of the evening was wholly engrossed by this painful and distressing topic, and in gloomy apprehensions of the miseries which must result from a continuation of the present weather; though some indulged a hope that a seasonable supply of grain might be brought by caravans from Egypt, as of old, or that the latter rains would admit of a second crop, before a famine should be confirmed.

Our

MONDAY, March 12. After partaking of an early breakfast of bread and oil, the only food which the rigid rules of the Greek Lent would admit, and which were as rigidly observed by the four Christians here as if there had been a much larger community, we departed from Gherbee about an hour after sunrise. course from hence lay nearly east, and proceeding in that direction for about an hour the road turned to the north for a quarter of a mile to the town of Elmey. At this place were many vestiges of ancient buildings, among which I noticed some stones sculptured with a cable moulding, and two curious pillars with square shafts and rude capitals; their outlines perfect, but no ornament of any kind apparent, either on their summit or at their base: they were

of a small size, not more than a foot in diameter, and both had fallen on the ground. From the walls of one of the buildings I remarked also a flight of stone steps projecting from its front, without any other support than that derived from the insertion of their inner ends in the wall, as in the flight of steps seen in the south end of the Temple of Isis, at Tentyra, in Egypt. The windows, instead of being circular, as we had seen them at Dahhil, were in diagonal squares, cut partly out of the upper and partly out of the lower stone, in nearly the same manner as the circular ones before described.

Having drank at this place, we pursued our way, continuing again along the high road to the eastward, and in less than an hour after quitting Elmey we arrived at the town of Suwarrow. We had been informed by some peasants, with whom we had exchanged salutations just as we entered this place, that there were forty horsemen of the tribe of Beni Hassan, from the eastern hills, stationed in the road only an hour beyond the town, and that they intercepted all travellers who passed that way. It was thought prudent, therefore, to halt at Suwarrow, and learn the real state of the case before we proceeded further, when we accordingly turned in, and, enquiring for the house of the sheikh, alighted there about ten o'clock.

All the inhabitants of this place were Mohammedans, and bore the character of being bigoted and intolerant in an unusual degree great caution was, therefore, necessary to be observed in our intercourse with them, to avoid insult, and, perhaps, aggression. Abu Fārah, the eldest of my guides, was so well known throughout every part of the country, that it was vain for him to attempt disguise, for he was almost certain of meeting some old acquaintance in every assembly. But it was not so with Mallim Georgis, who had less extensive connections in these parts: accordingly, Abu Farah maintained his own character as a Greek Christian, but represented Georgis as an Arab Moslem, from the west, under the name of Abu Shumr, and myself as a Turk, from Roum, under the

smoke, by which persons unaccustomed to its effects are sometimes nearly suffocated.

At the east end of this building rose a high tower, now partly ruined; but the angle of it, which remained most perfect, had an inclined slope, like the pyramidal moles which stand before the principal temples of Egypt. Between this and the eastern end, or in the centre of the south front, was a door that led into an interior court, which I was prevented entering from its containing the females of the sheikh's family. This outer door had a flat and deep architrave, in the centre of which was the circle formed by a serpent with its tail in its mouth, supposed to be an emblem of eternity, and frequently seen among the sculptured hieroglyphics of Egyptian temples. On one side of this was visible the fragment of a figure, which, had I seen it in any other place, I should have pronounced to be an Egyptian priest, so much of it as was visible exactly resembling the lower part of those personages as they are represented in the multiplied sculptures along the banks of the Nile: and the corners of this block of stone were marked by circles like wheels of fire, probably intended to represent planets in motion. Within this door of entrance, and at a short distance only beyond it, was seen a Roman arched passage of masonry, leading to the inner court, which was paved; the outer court, over which stood the sculptured architrave already described, was closed by a double door, or, as it is more generally called, a pair of folding doors, formed each of one large and solid stone. I had an opportunity of seeing both these doors opened and shut, by which I perceived that they were hung in exactly the same manner as the stone doors in the sepulchres of Oom Kais, and that like them also, these were secured by a bar of stone on the inside. The whole of this edifice appeared to me, both from its style of building, its divisions, and its ornaments, to have been originally a Pagan temple, whether of the ancient Chaldeans, or of more recent times, it was not so easy to determine, from the mixture of seemingly incongruous parts: but it might have been converted to various uses, and have undergone corresponding additions and repairs

since its original construction, which was decidedly of an age very remote from the present. I would gladly have bestowed an hour on the examination of its interior, but this was rendered impossible, from its being the apartment of the sheikh's female establishment, into which even their male relatives are not permitted to enter.

During the latter part of the day, which was spent in a circle round the fire, with a party of at least twenty persons, though these were constantly changing, by some rising up and going away, giving place to others who had newly come, I saw before me a complete picture of Arab life, and heard many curious particulars, which, as usual, I had occasion to regret my want of opportunity to record. It appeared that the forty horsemen in the neighbourhood, though they intercepted strangers and travellers coming from this town of Suwarrow, derived all their supplies from this place and another to the eastward of them, on condition that the towns themselves should be safe from their depredations, and that no strangers even should be molested as long as they were sheltered beneath their roofs. Their privileges were to extend thus far, and no farther; for they could not protect a man even a mile beyond their dwellings; so that the unwary traveller passing by either of these neutral or privileged posts, was almost sure of being stripped of all his property, though his life would be in no danger as long as he made no resistance.

The towns of the Hauran are so frequently visited by parties of plunderers of this description, that the present state of things was viewed here with comparative indifference, and was indeed expected by all to have existed to a much more extensive degree; for at the present moment the affairs of Damascus were in such confusion, that no one yet knew who was to succeed the late Pasha in his government, and accordingly, disorder and danger increased with every succeeding day. It is in periods of misrule like these, that one town becomes suddenly deserted and another repeopled at short intervals of time; so that from the edifices in each being of the most durable kind, they remain uninjured, and thus serve for the