4Q BASHAX. 



of the plain-country of Bashan. The temple itself is not 

 very remarkable, compared with the ruins we afterwards 

 saw. In the village we found no antiquities worthy of 

 notice, although the inhabitants were very civil in j)oint- 

 ing out any old carvings or inscriptions likely to interest 

 us. The younger portion of the population, never having 

 seen so many Europeans before, thought us a capital joke, 

 and enjoyed themselves immensely at our expense. 



An isolated building, about a quarter of a mile to the 

 south-east of the village, attracted our attention, and we were 

 well repaid for visiting it. As it was the first specimen 

 of stone architecture we saw which was at all perfect, I 

 will describe it in detail. On the ground-floor a stone 

 door led into a long room, the ceiling of which, made 

 of huge blocks of stone, was supported by two circular 

 arches. In this instance I did not notice any stair- 

 case, but in other buildings it was outside the avails ; 

 above were several small rooms, where a giant must often 

 have knocked his head, and one curiously small door, 

 about four feet high. The windows were closed by stone 

 shutters, which still swung more or less easily in their 

 sockets. 



Our tents were pitched in a field below the village, 

 whence the view of the conical peak of El-Kleib, 'the 

 Little Heart,' now temptingly near at hand, rising behind 

 low wooded hills, suggested an ascent on the following 

 morning. Elias and Khasim went off in the evening 

 to take coffee at the Sheikh's, where, if the account 

 Elias afterwards gave was true, guests and host must 

 have required all their Oriental politeness to get through 

 the evening pleasantly. 



In the course of conversation, it came out that Khasim, 

 in some affray with the Druses, had killed a brother of the 

 Sheikh ; but matters were squared by the discovery that 



