RUINED CITIES OP PALESTINE — SUTTON 513 



is honeycombed, many of these having massive basalt doors which 

 still swing on their hinges. More than 200 stone sarcophagi have 

 been taken out of these tombs, and now lie scattered among the ruins 

 of the city. 



At Beit er-Ras we come on very extensive ruins — arches of great 

 size, columns, Corinthian and Ionic capitals, chiefly composed of 

 basalt; a vast subterranean ruin, with several fine arches under- 

 ground. Inscriptions, chiefly Nabathean, are to be found among 

 the ruins. This was a city of great importance in the Roman Em- 

 pire, and has been identified withh Capitolias, one of the cities of 

 the Decapolis. 



We now reach Deraa or Dera'a (old Edrei), which to-day is a 

 junction where passengers dine on the railway journey to Damascus; 

 it is a remarkable place, for at least four cities exist here one above 

 another. The present Arab buildings are on the top of a Greeco- 

 Roman city, and this again stands on the remains of one still older, 

 in which beveled stones are used. Beneath this again is a troglo- 

 dyte city entirely excavated in the rock on which the upper cities 

 stand, the subterranean residence of King Og. The following pas- 

 sages of Scripture refer to Edrei : 



" Og, the King of Bashan, went out against them, he and all his 

 people, to battle at Edrei" (Numbers xxi, 33). "Moses * * * 

 after he had smitten * * * Og the King of Bashan which 

 dwelt in Ashtaroth at Edrei " (Deuteronomy, i, 4). " Salecah and 

 Edrei, cities of the Kingdom of Og " (Deuteronomy, iii, 10). 



The most prominent of the ruins, covering a circuit of 2 miles, 

 are those of a large reservoir of Roman times, fed by a great aque- 

 duct. There is a building, 44 by 31 yards, with a double colonnade, 

 evidently a Christian cathedral, but now a mosque. The most nota- 

 ble remains, however, are the caves beneath the citadel. They form 

 a subterranean city> a labyrinth of streets with shops and houses, 

 and a market place. This probably dates in its present elaborate 

 form from Greek times, but such refuges must always have been the 

 feature of a land so swept by Arab Tribes. The Crusaders who 

 besieged it called it Adratum (Encyclopaedia Biblica). 



Merril writes: "When King Baldwin III (1144-1162) and his 

 Crusaders made their wild chase to Boarah, they went by way of 

 Dra'a. The weather was hot, and the army was suffering terribly 

 for want of water, but as often as they let down their buckets by 

 means of ropes into the cisterns, men concealed on the inside of the 

 cisterns would cut the ropes and thus defeat their efforts." Probably 

 the underground city has connection with all the important cisterns 

 of the place. 



From Edrei we travel to Jerash, or Gerasa, which is a city of 

 stupendous ruins, second only to Palmyra in size and importance, 



