cii. XXIII.] Desert Villages. i ; j 



as Deyr and Ana speak with terror and almost 

 under their breath of the Choi. 



The Euphrates was so accurately surveyed by 

 Colonel Chesney, that nothing is wanted by the 

 modern traveller beyond a revision of the names 

 of places. These, if they were ever correctly given, 

 have now nearly all been altered, and since the 

 Turkish occupation of the valley new places of im- 

 portance, military or otherwise, have sprung up 

 requiring notice on the map. The Tigris survey is 

 far less accurate, but for that Colonel Chesney 

 was not responsible, while his map of the desert 

 is entirely useless. He places Tudmur fifty miles 

 south, and El Haddr thirty miles west of their real 

 positions. 



Except on the line of the two rivers Northern 

 Arabia possesses nothing which can be called a town, 

 and only a few villages which are in fact oases. In 

 the south these are surrounded by palmgroves ; in 

 the north by gardens or open fields of corn, whose 

 acreage is dependent exactly on the amount of water 

 apphcable to irrigation. Those described by Mr. 

 Palgrave as existing in the Jof seem to be fairly 

 flourishing, but further north there is nothing till 

 w^e come to the line of hills dividing the upper from 

 the lower plains. Along the foot of these a few 

 miserable villages are scattered, occupying the site 

 each one of a scanty spring, and owning from fifty 

 to a hundred acres of irrio-able land. These are 

 usually surrounded by a mud wall, pierced with 



