VOL. XIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 53 



right hand : here we made but a short stay, and proceeded to a better fountain 

 at the foot of a very high hill, covered with loose stones, the ruins of a village 

 called Broeder, of which there was not one house remaining; and dining here, 

 we advanced in an hour and a quarter more, in the afternoon, through a fertile 

 open plain, to a place called Emghir, famous for the best wheat that is brought 

 to Aleppo. This we made our first stage ; and mounting again in the morning 

 about 5 o'clock, in less than an hour, passed by an uninhabited village, called 

 Urghee, our road pointing as before, through the fruitful pleasant plain : but 

 when we came to ascend the hills, where I reckoned we entered the desert, and 

 were to take our leave of mankind, at least of an inhabited country for some 

 days, we had a troublesome passage over loose great stones, without any ap- 

 pearance of a road. 



Our guide had promised to conduct us through pleasant groves and forests ; 

 but no such thing appeared, unless we bestow that name on low withered shrubs 

 that grew in the way ; only one tree we saw, which was of good use to us, 

 serving as a land-mark. All the country hereabouts is stored with gazels, which 

 are the food of a barbarous sort of people, and necessity has taught them to be 

 no mean artists in their way, for they lie down behind the stones, and shoot 

 them as they pass by. After this we bent our course to the S. E. or something 

 more easterly, and came to the side of a bog, called by the name of Zerga, 

 where we found water enough, but it was neither palatable nor wholesome. 



October I, we departed from Zerga, about two hours before sun rising, and 

 as soon as it was light, had the prospect of a very high hill, which was to be 

 the boundary of our journey that day, called Esree, where we arrived about 

 1 1 o'clock, and found excellent water : here we could discern the foundations 

 of a spacious city, and a piece of a thick wall, built of a chalky stone, was 

 standing: this we judged to be the remains of a castle situated on the side of 

 the hill so as both to defend and command the city. On the top of the hill, 

 above the castle, stands the ruins of a fabric, in appearance very ancient, built 

 of very hard stone, yet exceedingly worn by the weather ; it is of an oblong 

 figure, pointing near to the N. R. and S. W. with only one door on the east 

 end, which was once adorned with good carvings, of which there are still some 

 remains, but the greatest part is either worn away or purposely defaced ; and 

 those marks of ancient beauty that remain are very obscure, and scarcely dis- 

 cernible : the outside of the walls is beautified with pilasters quite round, with 

 their pedestals and capitals regular and handsome : but the roof is all fallen 

 down, and within appears nothing either great or beautiful. 



October 2, we departed from Esree, about an hour and a half after midnight,, 

 and in 6. hours and a half arrived at two wells, the water 18 fathoms and 2 feet 



