16 BASHAX, 



CHAPTER 11. 



BASHAN. 



The English Soldier— A Mountain Eide— Es-Salt — Lost on the Hills — 

 The Jabbok — Camp of the Beni-Hassan — Suppressing a Sheikh — The 

 Oak Forests of Gilead — The Tablelands — An Uxorious Sheikh — Derat — 

 The Eoraan Road — The Robbers repulsed — Ghusara — Bozrah — Honoured 

 Guests — A Ramble in the Ruins — Kureiyeh — Patriarchal Hospitality — 

 Hebran — A Stone House — Kufr — Ascent-ofEl-Kleib — Suweideh — Kunawat 

 — Noble Ruins — Sbuhba — Hades on Earth — Visiting Extraordinary — 

 The Lejah — A Lava Flood — Ahireh- — Khubab — A Rush to Arms — The 

 Stolen Mule — A Village in Pursuit — Mismiyeh — The ' Giant Cities ' are 

 Roman Towns — The "Wrath of the Beys — A Friendly Sulut^Iiesweh — • 

 Entrance to Damascus, 



OuE tents were pitched, close to the river, in a pictur- 

 esque situation on the eastern bank. In this our first 

 camp beyond Jordan, we felt, if not all the emotions so 

 eloquently described by the author of ' Eothen ' on finding 

 himself in the Arab territory, at least a pleasant sensa- 

 tion of having escaped from the everyday track of travel, 

 and of being on the edge of a fresh and unspoilt country. 



During the evening our dragoman was exposed to the 

 tender solicitations of Groblan junior (or ' young Gobbler,' 

 as Williams preferred to call him), who had, when at Jeru- 

 salem, declared that we might cross the Jordan, but that 

 our coming back again was a diflPerent matter. He was 

 now perfectly civil, but represented that we were robbing 

 his tribe of their prescriptive dues, by refusing the escort 

 they would be hajDpy to furnish, and that any harm which 

 might happen to us would be on our own heads. Our 



