Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 32

The Kerekein cultivate the plains in the neighbouring mountains and feed their cattle on the uncultivated parts. One-third of the people remain encamped the whole year at two or three hours distant from the town, to superintend the cattle; the rest encamp in the harvest time only. During the latter period the Christians have two large camps or Douars, and the Turks five. Here they

[p.388] live like Bedouins, whom they exactly resemble, in dress, food, and language. The produce of their fields is purchased by the Bedouins, or exchanged for cattle. The only other commercial intercourse carried on by them is with Jerusalem, for which place a caravan departs every two months, travelling either by the route round the southern extremity of the Dead sea, which takes three days and a half, or by crossing the Jordan, a journey of three days. At Jerusalem they sell their sheep and goats, a few mules, of which they have an excellent breed, hides, wool, and a little Fowa or madder (Rubia tinctorum), which they cultivate in small quant.i.ties; in return they take coffee, rice, tobacco, and all kinds of articles of dress, and of household furniture. This journey, however, is undertaken by few of the natives of Kerek, the trade being almost wholly in the hands of a few merchants of Hebron, who keep shops at Kerek, and thus derive large profits from the indolence or ignorance of the Kerekein. I have seen the most common articles sold at two hundred per cent. profit. The trade is carried on chiefly by barter: and every thing is valued in measures of corn, this being the readiest representative of exchange in the possession of the town?s-people; hence the merchants, make their returns chiefly in corn and partly in wool.

The only artizans in Kerek who keep shops are a blacksmith, a shoemaker, and a silversmith. When the Mekka caravan pa.s.ses, the Kerekein sell provisions of all kinds to the Hadj, which they meet at the castle of Katrana. Many Turks, as well as Christians, in the town, have negro slaves, whom they buy from the Bedouins, who bring them from Djidda and Mekka: there are also several families of blacks in Kerek, who have obtained their liberty, and have married free black women.

The houses of Kerek have only one floor, and three or four are generally built in the same court-yard. The roof of the apartment

[p.389] is supported by two arches, much in the same way as in the ancient buildings of the Haouran, which latter however have generally but one arch. Over the arches thick branches of trees are laid, and over the latter a thin layer of rushes. Along the wall at the extremity of the room, opposite to the entrance, are large earthen reservoirs of wheat (Kowari Arabic). There is generally no other aperture in these rooms than the door, a circ.u.mstance that renders them excessively disagreeable in the winter evenings, when the door is shut and a large fire is kindled in the middle of the floor.

Some of the Arab tribes in the territory of Kerek pay a small annual tribute to the Sheikh of Kerek, as do likewise the peasants who cultivate the sh.o.r.es of the Dead sea. In order, however, to secure their harvests against any casualties, the Kerekein have deemed it expedient to pay, on their, part, a tribute to the Southern Arabs called El Howeytat, who are continually pa.s.sing this way in their expeditions against the Beni Szakher. The Christians pay to one of the Howeytat Sheikhs one Spanish dollar per family, and the Turks send them annually about fifteen mule loads of carpets which are manufacured at Kerek.

Whenever the Sheikhs of the Beni Szakher visit the town, they receive considerable presents by way of a friendly tribute.

The district of Kerek comprises three other villages, which are under the orders of the Sheikh of Kerek: viz. Ketherabba (Arabic), Oerak (Arabic), and Khanzyre (Arabic). There are besides a great number of ruined places in the district, the princ.i.p.al of which are the following; Addar (Arabic), Hedjfa (Arabic), Hadada (Arabic), Thenye (Arabic), three quarters of an hour to the S. of the town; Meddyn (Arabic), Mouthe (Arabic), Djeldjoun (Arabic), Djefeiras (Arabic), Datras (Arabic), about an hour and a half S.E. of the town, where some walls of houses remain; Medjdelein (Arabic), Yarouk (Arabic), Seraf

[p.390] (Arabic), Meraa (Arabic), and Betra, where is a heap of stones on the foot of a high hill, distant from Kerek to the southward and westward about five hours.

Several Wadys descend from the mountains of Kerek into the plain on the sh.o.r.e of the Dead sea, and are there lost, either in the sands or in the fields of the peasants who cultivate the plain, none of them reaching the lake itself in the summer. To the S. of Modjeb is the Seyl Djerra (Arabic), and farther south, Wady Beni Hammad (Arabic). In the valley of this river, perhaps the Zared of Scripture, are hot-wells, with some ruined buildings near them, about five hours from Kerek, in a northern direction. Next follow Seyl el Kerek, Wady el Draah (Arabic), Seyl a.s.sal (Arabic), perhaps a.s.san, which rises nearer Ketherabba; El Nemeyra (Arabic), coming from Oerak; Wady Khanzyre (Arabic), and El Ahhsa, a river which divides the territory of Kerek from the district to the S.

of it, called El Djebel.

Not having had an opportunity of descending to the borders of the Dead sea, I shall subjoin here a few notes which I collected from the people of Kerek. I have since been informed that M. Seetzen, the most indefatigable traveller that ever visited Syria, has made the complete tour of the Dead sea; I doubt not that he has made many interesting discoveries in natural history.

The mountains which inclose the Ghor, or valley of the Jordan, open considerably at the northern extremity of the Dead sea, and encompa.s.sing it on the W. and E. sides approach again at its S. extremity, leaving only a narrow plain between them. The plain on the west side, between the sea and the mountains, is covered with sand, and is unfit for cultivation; but on the E. side, and especially towards the S.

extremity, where it continues to bear the appellation of El Ghor (Arabic), the plain is in many places very fertile. Its breadth

[p.391] varies from one to four and five miles; it is covered with forests, in the midst of which the miserable peasants build their huts of rushes, and cultivate their Dhourra and tobacco fields. These peasants are called El Ghowarene (Arabic), and amount to about three hundred families; they live very poorly, owing to the continual exactions of the neighbouring Bedouins, who descend in winter from the mountains of Belka and Kerek, and pasture their cattle amidst the fields. The heat of the climate of this low valley, during the summer, renders it almost uninhabitable; the people then go nearly naked; but their low huts, instead of affording shelter from the mid-day heat rather increase it. At this period violent intermittent fevers prevail, to which, however, they are so much accustomed, that they labour in the fields during the intervals of the paroxysms of the disease.

The princ.i.p.al settlement of the Ghowarene is at the southern extremity of the sea, near the embouchure of the Wady el Ahhsa; their village is called Ghor Szafye (Arabic), and is the winter rendezvous of more than ten large tribes of Bedouins. Its situation corresponds with that of Zoar. The spots not cultivated being for the greater part sandy, there is little pasturage, and the camels, in consequence, feed princ.i.p.ally upon the leaves of the trees.

About eight hours to the N. of Szafye is the Ghor el Mezra (Arabic), a village much frequented by the people of Kerek, who there buy the tobacco which they smoak. About the middle of the lake on the same eastern sh.o.r.e, are some ruins of an ancient city, called Towahein el Sukkar (Arabic) i.e. the Sugar Mills. Farther north the mountains run down to the lake, and a steep cliff overhangs the sea for about an hour, shutting out all pa.s.sage along the sh.o.r.e. Still farther to the north are the ruined places called Kafreyn (Arabic), and Rama (Arabic), and in the valley of the Jordan, south of Abou Obeida, are the ruins of Nemrin (Arabic), probably

PRODUCTIONS OF THE GHOR

[p.392] the Bethnimra of the Scriptures. In the vegetable productions of this plain the botanist would perhaps discover several unknown species of trees and plants; the reports of the Arabs on this subject are so vague and incoherent, that it is almost impossible to obtain any precise information from them; they speak, for instance, of the spurious pomegranate tree, producing a fruit exactly like that of the pomegranate, but which, on being opened, is found to contain nothing but a dusty powder; this, they pretend, is the Sodom apple-tree; other persons however deny its existence. The tree Asheyr (Arabic), is very common in the Ghor. It bears a fruit of a reddish yellow colour, about three inches in diameter, which contains a white substance, resembling the finest silk, and enveloping some seeds. The Arabs collect the silk, and twist it into matches for their fire-locks, preferring it to the common match, because it ignites more readily. More than twenty camel loads might be annually procured, and it might perhaps be found useful in the silk and cotton manufactories of Europe. At present the greater part of the fruit rots on the trees. On making an incision into the thick branches of the Asheyr a white juice exsudes, which is collected by putting a hollow reed into the incision; the Arabs sell the juice to the druggists at Jerusalem, who are said to use it in medicine as a strong cathartic.[It is the same plant called Oshour by the people of Upper Egypt and Nubia. Norden, who has given a drawing of it, as found by him near the first cataract of the Nile, improperly denominates it Oshar.]

Indigo is a very common production of the Ghor; the Ghowarene sell it to the merchants of Jerusalem and Hebron, where it is worth twenty per cent. more than Egyptian indigo. One of the most interesting productions of this valley is the Beyrouk honey, or as the Arabs call it, a.s.sal Beyrouk (Arabic). I suppose it to be the manna, but I never had an opportunity of seeing it myself. It was described to me, as a juice dropping from the

[p.393] leaves and twigs of a tree called Gharrab (Arabic), of the size of an olive tree, with leaves like those of the poplar, but somewhat broader. The honey collects upon the leaves like dew, and is gathered from them, or from the ground under the tree, which is often found completely covered with it. According to some its colour is brownish; others said it was of a grayish hue; it is very sweet when fresh, but turns sour after being kept two days. The Arabs eat it like honey, with b.u.t.ter, they also put it into their gruel, and use it in rubbing their water skins, in order to exclude the air. I enquired whether it was a laxative, but was answered in the negative. The Beyrouk honey is collected only in the months of May and June. Some persons a.s.sured me that the same substance was likewise produced by the th.o.r.n.y tree Tereshresh (Arabic), and collected at the same time as that from the Gharrab.

In the mountains of Shera grows a tree called Arar (Arabic), from the fruit of which the Bedouins extract a juice, which is extremely nutritive. The tree Talh (Arabic), which produces the gum arabic (Arabic), is very common in the Ghor; but the Arabs do not take the trouble to collect the gum. Among other vegetable productions there is a species of tobacco, called Merdiny (Arabic), which has a most disagreeable taste; but, for want of a better kind, it is cultivated in great quant.i.ty, and all the Bedouins on the borders of the Dead sea are supplied with it. The coloquintida (Arabic or Arabic), grows wild every where in great quant.i.ties. The tree Szadder (Arabic), which is a species of the cochineal tree, is also very common.

As to the mineral productions of the borders of the Dead sea, it appears that the southern mountains are full of rock salt, which is washed off by the winter rains, and carried down into the lake. In the northern Ghor pieces of native sulphur are found at a small

DEAD SEA

[p.394] depth beneath the surface, and are used by the Arabs to cure diseases in their camels. The asphaltum (Arabic), Hommar, which is collected by the Arabs of the western sh.o.r.e, is said to come from a mountain which blocks up the pa.s.sage along the eastern Ghor, and which is situated at about two hours south of wady Modjeb. The Arabs pretend that it oozes from the fissures in the cliff, and collects in large pieces on the rock below, where the ma.s.s gradually increases and hardens, until it is rent asunder by the heat of the sun, with a loud explosion, and falling into the sea, is carried by the waves in considerable quant.i.ties to the opposite sh.o.r.es. At the northern extremity of the sea the stink-stone is found; its combustible properties are ascribed, by the Arabs, to the magic rod of Moses, whose tomb is not far from thence. The stones are thrown into the fires made of camel?s dung, to encrease the heat.

Concerning the lake itself, I was informed that no visible increase of its waters takes place in winter time, as the greater part of the torrents which descend from the eastern mountains do not reach the lake, but are lost in the sandy plain. About three hours north of Szaffye is a ford, by which the lake is crossed in three hours and a half. Some Arabs a.s.sured me that there are spots in this ford where the water is quite hot, and where the bottom is of red earth. It is probable that there are hot springs in the bottom of the lake, which near the ford is nowhere deeper than three or four feet; and generally only two feet. The water is so strongly impregnated with salt, that the skin of the legs of those who wade across it soon afterwards peels entirely off.

The mountains about Kerek are all calcareous, with flint; they abound with petrified sh.e.l.ls, and some of the rocks consist entirely of small sh.e.l.ls. Fine specimens of calcareous spath, called by the Arabs Hadjar Ain el Shems (Arabic), the Sun?s eye, are found

[p.395] here. Ancient coins of copper, silver, and even of gold are found in the fields near Kerek; in general they are bought by the silversmiths, and immediately melted. I procured a few of copper upon which was the Greek legend of [Greek].

The direction of Jerusalem from Kerek, as pointed out to me several times, is N. by W. The direction of Katrane, a station of the pilgrim caravan to Mekka, is E.S.E. distant about eight hours. That of Szaffye, or the S. point of the Dead sea, is W. by S. distant about twelve hours.

The Dead sea is here called Bahret Lout, the Sea of Lot.August 4th.?After having remained nearly three weeks at Kerek, waiting from day to day for the departure of the Sheikh, he at last set out, accompanied by about forty hors.e.m.e.n. The inhabitants of Kerek muster about one hundred hors.e.m.e.n, and have excellent horses; the Sheikh himself possessed the finest horse I had seen in Syria; it was a gray Saklawy, famous all over the desert.

We descended into the valley of Ain Frandjy, and ascended the mountain on the other side, our road lying nearly S.S.W. In one hour and a half from Kerek we reached the top of the mountain, from whence we had a fine view of the southern extremity of the Dead sea, which presented the appearance of a lake, with many islands or shoals covered with a white saline crust. The water is very shallow for about three hours from its south end. Where narrowest, it may be about six miles across. The mountain which we had pa.s.sed was a barren rock of flint and chalk. We met with an encampment of Beni Hamyde, where we breakfasted. At the end of two hours and a half we reached, on the descent of the mountain, Ain Terayn (Arabic), a fine spring, with the ruins of a city near it. The rivulet which takes its rise here joins that of Ketherabba, and descends along a narrow valley into the Ghor, which it reaches near the ruined place called a.s.sal, from which it takes the name of Wady

KHANZYRE

[p.396] a.s.sal. Near the rivulet are some olive plantations. At two hours and three quarters is Ketherabba (Arabic), a village with about eighty houses. Many of its inhabitants live under tents pitched in the square open s.p.a.ces left among the houses of the village. The gardens contain great numbers of large fig trees. The mountains in the neighbourhood are cultivated in some parts by the Beni Ammer. The village of Szaffye in the Ghor bears from hence W.

August 5th.?We left Ketherabba early in the morning. Our road lay through a wild and entirely barren rocky country, ascending and descending several Wadys. In one hour and a quarter we came to Oerak (Arabic), a village of the same size as the former, very picturesquely situated; it is built at the foot of a high perpendicular cliff, down which a rivulet rushes into the Wady below. Many immense fragments have separated from the cliff, and fallen down; and amongst these rocks the houses of the village are built. Its inhabitants cultivate, besides wheat, barley, and dhourra, olives, figs, and tobacco, which they sell to advantage. We rested here the greater part of the day, under a large Kharnoub tree. Our Sheikh had no pressing business, but like all Arabs, fond of idleness, and of living well at other people?s expense, he by no means hastened his journey, but easily found a pretext for stopping; wherever we alighted a couple of sheep or goats were immediately killed, and the best fruits, together with plenty of tobacco, were presented to us. Our company increased at every village, as all those Arabs who had horses followed us, in order to partake of our good fare, so that our party amounted at last to eighty men. At two hours and a quarter is a fine spring; two hours and a half, the village Khanzyre (Arabic), which is larger than Oerak and Ketherabba. Here we stopped a whole day, our Sheikh having a house in the village, and a wife, whom he dared not carry to Kerek, having another family there. In the evening he held a court

[p.397] of justice, as he had done at Ketherabba, and decided a number of disputes between the peasants; the greater part of these were concerning money transactions between husbands and the families of their wives; or related to the mixed property of the Arabs in mares, in consequence of the Bedouin custom of selling only one-half, or one-third of those animals.

August 6th.???Khanzyre is built on the declivity of one of the highest mountains on the eastern side of the Dead sea; in its neighbourhood are a number of springs whose united waters form a rivulet which irrigates the fields belonging to the village, and an extensive tract of gardens.

The villages of this country are each governed by its own Sheikh, and the peasants are little better than Bedouins; their manners, dress, and mode of living are exactly the same. In the harvest time they live in the mountains under tents, and their cattle is entrusted during the whole year to a small encampment of their own shepherds. In the afternoon of this day we were alarmed by loud cries in the direction of the opposite mountain. The whole of our party immediately mounted, and I also followed. On reaching the spot from whence the cries came, we found two shepherds of Khanzyre quite naked; they had been stripped by a party of the Arabs Terabein, who live in the mountains of Hebron, and each of the robbers had carried off a fat sheep upon his mare. They were now too far off to be overtaken; and our people, not being able to engage the enemy, amused themselves with a sham-fight in their return home. They displayed superior strength and agility in handling the lance, and great boldness in riding at full speed over rugged and rocky ground. In the exercise with the lance the rider endeavours to put the point of it upon the shoulder of his adversary, thus showing that his life is in his power. When the parties become heated, they often bear off upon their lances the turbands of their adversaries, and carry them

[p.398] about with insolent vociferation. Our Sheikh of Kerek, a man of sixty, far excelled all his people in these youthful, exercises; indeed he seemed to be an accomplished Bedouin Sheikh; though he proved to be a treacherous friend to me. As I thought that I had settled matters with him, to his entire satisfaction, I was not a little astonished, when he took me aside in the evening to announce to me, that unless he received twenty piastres more, he would not take charge of me any farther.

Although I knew it was not in his power to hinder me from following him, and that he could not proceed to violence without entirely losing his reputation among the Arabs, for ill-treating his guest, yet I had acquired sufficient knowledge of the Sheikh?s character to be persuaded that if I did not acquiesce in his demand, he would devise some means to get me into a situation which it would have perhaps cost me double the sum to escape from; I therefore began to bargain with him; and brought him down to fifteen piastres. I then endeavoured to bind him by the most solemn oath used by the Bedouins; laying his hand upon the head of his little boy, and on the fore feet of his mare, he swore that he would, for that sum, conduct me himself, or cause me to be conducted, to the Arabs Howeytat, from whence I might hope to find a mode of proceeding in safety to Egypt. My precautions, however, were all in vain. Being satisfied that my cash was reduced to a few piastres, he began his plans for stripping me of every other part of my property which had excited his wishes. The day after his oath, when we were about to depart from Ayme, he addressed me in the presence of the whole company, saying that his saddle would fit my horse better than my own did, and that he would therefore change saddles with me. Mine was worth nearly forty piastres, his was not worth more than ten. I objected to the exchange, pretending that I was not accustomed to ride upon the low Bedouin saddle; he replied, by a.s.suring

[p.399] me that I should soon find it much more agreeable than the town saddle; moreover, said he, you may depend upon it that the Sheikh of the Howeytat will take your saddle from you, if you do not give it to me. I did not dare to put the Sheikh in mind of his oath, for had I betrayed to the company his having extorted from me so much, merely for the sake of his company, he would certainly have been severely reprimanded by the Bedouins present, and I should thus have exposed myself to the effects of his revenge. All the bye-standers at the same time pressed me to comply with his request: ?Is he not your brother?? said they. ?Are not the best morsels of his dish always for you? Does he not continually fill your pipe with his own tobacco? Fie upon your stinginess.? But they did not know that I had calculated upon paying part of the hire of a guide to Egypt with the value of the saddle, nor that I had already handsomely paid for my brotherhood. I at last reluctantly complied; but the Sheikh was not yet satisfied: the stirrups he had given me, although much inferior to those he had taken from me, were too good in his eyes, to form part of my equipment. In the evening his son came to me to propose an exchange of these stirrups against a pair of his own almost unfit for use, and which I knew would wound my ankles, as I did not wear boots; but it was in vain to resist. The pressing intreaties of all my companions in favour of the Sheikh?s son lasted for two whole days; until tired at length with their importunity, I yielded, and, as had expected, my feet were soon wounded. I have entered into these details in order to shew what Arab cupidity is: an article of dress, or of equipment, which the poorest townsman would be ashamed to wear, is still a covetable object with the Bedouins; they set no bounds to their demands, delicacy is unknown amongst them, nor have they any word to express it; if indeed one persists in refusing, they never take the thing by force; but it is extremely

WADY EL AHSA

[p.400] difficult to resist their eternal supplications and compliments without yielding at last. With regard to my behaviour towards the Bedouins, I always endeavoured, by every possible means, to be upon good terms with my companions, whoever they were, and I seldom failed in my endeavours. I found, by experience, that putting on a grave face, and talking wisely among them was little calculated to further the traveller?s views. On the contrary, I aspired to the t.i.tle of a merry fellow; I joked with them whenever I could, and found that by a little attention to their ways of thinking and reasoning, they are easily put into good humour. This kind of behaviour, however, is to be observed only in places where one makes a stay of several days, or towards fellow travellers: in pa.s.sing rapidly through Arab encampments, it is better for the traveller not to be too talkative in the tents where he alights, but to put on a stern countenance.

We left Khanzyre late in the evening, that we might enjoy the coolness of the night air. We ascended for a short time, and then began to descend into the valley called Wady el Ahsa. It had now become dark, and this was, without exception, the most dangerous route I ever travelled in my life. The descent is steep, and there is no regular road over the smooth rocks, where the foot slips at every step. We had missed our way, and were obliged to alight from our horses, after many of us had suffered severe falls. Our Sheikh was the only horseman who would not alight from his mare, whose step, he declared, was as secure as his own.

After a march of two hours and a half, we halted upon a narrow plain, on the declivity of the Wady, called El Derredje (Arabic), where we lighted a fire, and remained till day-break.

August 7th.?In three quarters of an hour from Derredje, we reached the bottom of the valley. The Wady el Ahsa (Arabic), which takes its rise near the castle El Ahsa, or El Ha.s.sa, on the

EL KERR

[p.401] Syrian Hadj road, runs here in a deep and narrow bed of rocks, the banks of which are overgrown with Defle. There was more water in the rivulet than in any of those I had pa.s.sed south of Zerka; the water was quite tepid, caused by a hot spring, which empties itself into the Ahsa from a side valley higher up the Wady. This forms the third hot spring on the east of the Dead sea, one being in the Wady Zerka Mayn, and another in the Wady Hammad. The valley of El Ahsa divides the district of Kerek from that of Djebal (plur. of Djebel), the ancient Gebalene. In the Ghor the river changes its name into that of Kerahy (Arabic), and is likewise called Szafye (Arabic). This name is found in all the maps of Arabia Petraea, but the course of the river is not from the south, as there laid down; Djebal also, instead of being laid down at the S.E.

extremity of the lake, is improperly placed as beginning on the S.W. of it. The rock of the Wady el Ahsa is chiefly sand-stone, which is seldom met with to the N. of this valley; but it is very common in the southern mountains.

We ascended the southern side of the valley, which is less steep and rocky than the northern, and in an hour and a half reached a fine spring called El Kaszrein (Arabic) surrounded by verdant ground and tall reeds.

The Bedouins of the tribe of Beni Naym, here cultivate some Dhourra fields and there are some remains of ancient habitations. In two hours and a quarter we arrived at the top of the mountain, when we entered upon an extensive plain, and pa.s.sed the ruins of an ancient city of considerable extent called El Kerr (Arabic), perhaps the ancient Kara, a bishopric belonging to the diocese of Rabba Moabitis;[See Reland.

Palaest. Vol. i. p. 226.] nothing remains but heaps of stones. The plain, which we crossed in a S.W. by S. direction, consists of a fertile soil, and contains the ruins of several villages. At the end of two hours and three quarters we descended by a steep road, into a Wady, and in three hours reached the village of

AYME

[p.402] Ayme (Arabic), situated upon a narrow plain at the foot of high cliffs. In its neighbourhood are several springs, and wherever these are met with, vegetation readily takes place, even among barren sandrocks.

Ayme is no longer in the district of Kerek, its Sheikh being now under the command of the Sheikh of Djebal, whose residence is at Tafyle. One half of the inhabitants live under tents, and every house has a tent pitched upon its terrace, where the people pa.s.s the mornings and evenings, and sleep. The climate of all these mountains, to the southward of the Belka, is extremely agreeable; the air is pure, and although the heat is very great in summer, and is still further increased by the reflexion of the sun?s rays from the rocky sides of the mountains, yet the temperature never becomes suffocating, owing to the refreshing breeze which generally prevails. I have seen no part of Syria in which there are so few invalids. The properties of the climate seem to have been well known to the ancients, who gave this district the appellation of Palaestina tertia, sive salutaris. The winter is very cold; deep snow falls, and the frosts sometimes continue till the middle of March. This severe weather is doubly felt by the inhabitants, as their dress is little fitted to protect them from it. During my stay in Gebalene, we had every morning a fog which did not disperse till mid- day. I could perceive the vapours collecting in the Ghor below, which, after sun-set, was completely enveloped in them. During the night they ascend the sides of the mountains, and in general are not entirely dissipated until near mid-day. From Khanzyre we had the Ghor all the way on our right, about eight or ten hours distant; but, in a straight line, not more than six hours.

August 8th.?At one hour and a quarter from Ayme, route S. b. W. we reached Tafyle (Arabic), built on the declivity of a mountain, at the foot of which is Wady Tafyle. This name bears some resemblance to that of Phanon or Phynon, which, according

TAFYLE