rock required it, on both sides of the ditch and at the foot of the fortress itself, where it slopes off near its foundations. The architecture of this castle appeared to me to be Roman, the stones being large in size, well squared, and the smooth edges united without cement, with the rough projection of the rustic masonry in the centre of the surface of each separate block. There are also loopholes for arrows in several parts of the walls, and shell-niches of the form of the Roman arch, resembling those seen in the ruins of Jerash. Within this building, however, the round, the flat, and the pointed arch, are all seen in the same apartment, and though the appearances of Roman work are found in every part, yet the pointed arches of the interior are of the most solid kind, and look as if they were coeval with the building. The loop-holes for arrows resemble the modern embrasures for cannon in every thing but the contracted space of the outer part, and they are so numerous as to prove that the building was erected with a view to hot and desperate defence. The castle may be almost said to be in ruins, though many parts of it are still habitable, for it would require great labour and great expense to restore it to a state of complete repair. It was with some difficulty that we mounted to the top of the walls, but when we succeeded, we were well rewarded by the fine view obtained from thence of all the surrounding country.

The mixture of Roman and Saracen work which appeared in different parts of the same building, rendered it difficult to decide to which it originally belonged; the opinion I formed on the spot, however, was, that it was originally a Roman edifice, but subsequently enlarged and repaired in different parts by Saracen hands, into which it must have afterwards fallen. This opinion was much strengthened by the discovery of an Arabic inscription, which was evidently not coeval with the building, but placed there after its erection, for which purpose the rough projecting parts of the surface were smoothed down, and a sort of tablet formed underneath two

fan-topped or shell-niches of Roman work on the eastern face of the castle. The only part of the inscription that I could make out was the name of Salah-ed-din-el-Mullela-ibn-Yusef, but no date could be traced. The castle faces nearly towards the four cardinal points, and must have been originally considered one of the strongest positions in the country, though in the hands of its present possessors it is of very little strength or utility. The following is a list of the bearings and estimated distances of places seen from the top of the castle; the former taken by a compass on the spot, and the latter from the authority of the guides and soldiers who were present:

All around the eastern side of the hill are the ruins of a town called Errubbedth, with a square reservoir for water hewn out of the hill, and stuccoed on the inside with a flight of steps descending into it; and from this town, though now in ruins, the castle of Adjeloon is frequently called Khallet-Errubbedth.

Before we departed from hence we remained to smoke a nargeel and take a cup of coffee with the soldiers, of whom there were, at present, only two stationed at the castle, some of their comrades, as they told us, having been called to Damascus. While taking this refreshment, I observed on a stone now standing like a dividing post between two small doors, a long inscription in Arabic, which neither of our party was sufficiently versed in the language of the olden time to read, though in the characters still used by themselves in all their writings.

X

ON leaving the castle, we descended the hill on which it stands, and passed over the ruins of Errubbedth, which we found nearly covered with trees. In our way to the village of Adjeloon, we passed a large mass of rock, in which we observed an arched recess, and several niches and portions of the surface hewn out, but for what purpose was not very apparent. In half an hour after leaving the castle we entered the village of Adjeloon, the situation of which in the valley is extremely agreeable. It had, however, been once much more populous than at present, there being now but few inhabitants, and the greater number of the buildings in the place in ruins. Among others there was an old mosque, with a central court and

pillars, lighted by circular windows from a

dome above, and containing several Arabic inscriptions, none of which, however, we had time to copy. In the court were a number of broken pillars that lay half buried in the earth; on one of which was a long Greek inscription of about twenty lines, now nearly obliterated; and Arabic inscriptions in great number. There was the same strange mixture of architecture as of languages, the Roman and Saracen being both united, as at the castle, triangular pediments marking the one, and pointed arches the other. Attached to this mosque, which might once have been a Christian place of worship also, was a slender but lofty tower of a square form, and about fifteen or twenty feet in breadth on each side. The tower could be ascended on the inside by a winding staircase of sixty-one steps, formed of coarse marble, above which was a small gallery, and above that again two octagonal stages, the whole being crowned by a small dome, with apertures for lighting the stairs from the bottom to the top. On the east of this tower, and on a little lower level, I observed a large well, now used for washing clothes, with the ruins of a large building once erected over it, and apparently of Roman architecture, with Saracen additions and repairs.

From the village of Adjeloon we ascended a steep hill to the E.N.E. over vine grounds, and in a quarter of an hour came to a place called Deer Mar Elias, or the convent of St. Elias, where there were the remains of some former building, probably a Greek monastery, as the name would import. No portion of the building was standing, but a number of hewn stones were scattered about in all directions, and broken pottery, of the red and ribbed kind before described, strewed all the way between the mosque of Adjeloon and this spot.

We remarked at this place that the stones of the original building had been carefully collected by some hand, and heaped up in a circular pile of seven or eight feet high, and about twenty feet in diameter, and on the top of this a smaller circle of about