THE LEJAH. 53 



shall cry to liis fellow.' The village Sheikh had, as usual, 

 entertained our guard in the evening, and had bragged to 

 Khasim of his power, saying that he might tell the Pasha 

 of Damascus to come with 5,000 men at his back, and he 

 would beat him. In the morning this warlike hero con- 

 descended to cheat our muleteers out of six francs, in 

 settling for some provender they had bought ; but before 

 riding off we sent for him, and told him very plainly our 

 opinion of his conduct. 



The morning was damp and lowering, and we made up 

 our minds for a wet day, or (as Williams put it) ' guessed it 

 was going to flop.' We were not deceived, and when we 

 reached Damet-el-Alya, were glad to stable our horses 

 and shelter ourselves in a mosque with stone doors and 

 windows, while we ate our lunch. The pelting rain in- 

 terfered somewhat with our explorations, but I found one 

 interesting old house. The folding-gates of the entrance 

 arch, still in their places, led into a courtyard, from which 

 several doors opened into rooms of various sizes. The 

 basement, ground and first floors were all perfect ; the 

 staircase was, as usual, external. Our baggage-mules 

 had gone on while we rested, and we therefore shortened 

 our halt, and rode on in pursuit, as fast as the nature 

 of the ground would permit, for the character of the 

 district was so bad that we were uneasy at leaving them 

 long unprotected. The interior of the Lejah is not such 

 a desert as it has been represented, and the path was 

 decidedly better than the highway from Jerusalem to 

 Nablous. In the wilder parts little green paddocks are 

 interspersed between the banks of lava, and we several 

 times during the day came upon considerable tracts of 

 corn-land. The outside rim answers better to the des- 

 cription given of the whole in Murray's ' Syria ' ; but even 

 here the language must be modified, and ' mound ' must 



