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As this has been named in Scripture as the land of the giants, and even the dimensions of the iron bedstead of their king have been given, which was kept in Rabbath of the children of Ammon, as a memorial, and was there referred to by the writer of Deuteronomy (c. iii. v. 11.), there is no part of the country wherein this enquiry as to the probable stature of man in the early ages of which the Scripture speaks, could be carried on with greater probability of success than here*; where the proverbial expression of there being "three hundred and sixty-six ruined towns," now commonly used by the natives of these parts when speaking of many other districts of the country beyond Jordan, may be uttered with less exaggeration than in any other quarter to which I had yet heard it applied; so thickly strewed is every part of this interesting region with the vestiges of former strength and abundant population.

We had been now upwards of an hour on the ruins of Salghud, and it appeared to me that I had done nothing; so ardent were my desires, and so insignificant appeared to me the few notes that I had taken, compared with what I should have done if my power to record facts and observations on paper had kept pace with my eagerness to collect them. I had done my best, however, and strove to be content; but when we remounted our horses to return to Gheryeh, I confess that I experienced a feeling of regret at my being unable to go farther, which one must travel in untrodden countries, and have an enthusiastic love of research, to understand, and which it requires the strongest sense of duty and the most determined resolution to conquer.

videtur. Porrò anno Christianæ salutis millesimo centesimo quadragesimo tertio nobilis quidam Turcorum Satrapa hanc et Bostrensum urbem, quibus præerat. Hierosolymam profectus, Christianorum regi Baldwino tertii tradero molitus fuit. Sed uxor ejus, dum ipsa hæc agebat, hostibus civitates aperuit, ac adversæ partis præsidiarios in arces admisit, et Christianis adventantibus bolum è faucibus eripuit. Adrichomius Theatrum, Terræ Sanctæ. p. 94.

*See, for further mention of Salchah, (or Salghud as it is now pronounced,) Deut. c. iii. v. 10. Joshua c. xii. v. 5. c. xiii. v. 11., and 1 Chron. c. v. v. 11.

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Returning by the same route along which we had come to the castle, nothing worthy of note occurred in our way; and we reached Gheryeh in safety about an hour after sunset. We had a welcome reception, and passed our evening in a pretty large party, in which I learnt that the population of the place did not exceed fifty families, of which twenty were Christians, who had all come here to settle from Debeen, a village near to Jerash, from which they said they had been driven out by the Arabs, and fled to this place for greater security from their depredations, though here they had been subsequently almost as liable to pillage as in the place they had abandoned. In our party were both Mohammedans and Christians, who appeared to be unusually tolerant towards each other, the former rising up and performing their prayers in the middle of the room without seeming to offend any of the latter, and afterwards entering with greater freedom into the religious conversation that principally engrossed the attention of the company; the Greek Christians being much more given to controversy on disputed points of history and faith, than any other sect of Eastern Christians that I had yet seen. Abu Farah, one of my guides, relished any other subject better, however, and was perpetually breaking in upon the solemnity and gravity of a debate by some rude joke, at which no one could refuse to laugh, so natural and so striking was his humour, while his companion, Georgis, as frequently indulged in his peculiar vein of predicting events, which gave an agreeable variety to the subjects of our mirth.

In the course of the evening we removed from the house in which our party was first assembled to the one adjoining it, which was larger, and without an occupant. This gave me an opportunity of observing that the folding stone door of the first house, which was of the same description as those seen in the most ancient buildings, and at the entrance of Roman tombs, was fifteen inches thick, from which some idea may be formed of these ponderous masses, how unwieldy they must be to open and shut, and with

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what propriety they might be enumerated under the terms of gates and bars," when speaking of the strength of the threescore cities of Og the king of Bashan; as these ponderous doors of stone were all closed on the inside with bars going horizontally or perpendicularly across them, and the whole edifice even to the beams and roof being of stone also, must have rendered them almost inaccessible to any but the battering-ram or cannon. This also appeared to me as another proof of the very high antiquity of most of the towns and buildings as we now saw them (notwithstanding the peculiar marks of Roman and Saracenic work about them which might well be subsequently added), from their accurate correspondence with the descriptions in the earliest books of the Scriptures: for such buildings must have been impossible to be destroyed and swept away entirely to give place to others, without infinitely more labour and cost than it would take to make them the abodes of all future successors; while each race of their occupiers might make such additions, improvements, and ornaments, as suited their own style of taste, leaving the more solid parts of the structure just as they found them, and as they are likely to endure, as memorials of the highest antiquity for ages yet to come. In the house adjoining us, to which our party retired, I remarked a central fire-place, with massy stone beams forming the roof, pointed arches, and extremely solid masonry throughout.

Among other matters related during the evening, I learnt that the seven largest towns of the Haurān were appropriated to the seven days of the week, and that each bore the name of the day on which it held a market or fair; the round of the week being completed by each town holding a market once in seven days; so that during every day of the week there was a market or fair in some one or other of the seven, which being regularly observed was accurately known and attended as occasion required.

Just before we were breaking up to retire, a stranger joined our party, who communicated as his portion of news, that an English fleet had arrived off Alexandria, and that Toussoun

Pasha, the eldest son of Mohammed Ali in Egypt, was coming from Constantinople, where he had been sent on a mission after defeating the Wahabees, to assume the government of Damascus ; but as the latter part of this intelligence was one that most nearly affected the interests of all present, it entirely absorbed the attention of the company, and the English fleet were forgotten almost as soon as the rumour of their destiny and purpose had been mentioned; so much do events rise and fall in human estimation, in proportion as they more nearly or more remotely bear on the interests of the individuals by whom they are considered,

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FRIDAY, March 16.-I rose with the earliest dawn of day, and while morning coffee was preparing, I took an opportunity to steal out unobserved, for the purpose of taking a hasty glance around the town, well knowing that our party would not be ready to mount before they had taken their breakfast and enjoyed their pipes, which would be nine o'clock at the earliest. During this hurried excursion I observed that the town of Gheryeh resembled, in all its general features, the many places of a similar size that I had already passed through in the Hauran, with very few local peculiarities to distinguish it. In the centre of the town is a reservoir for water, sixty-five paces long, forty paces broad at the east end, and thirty broad at the west, the descent into it being by

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