224 REPORT— ISrS. 



now called " Mushnekkr," or " the gallows." No other ruius could we find. 

 We explored ou foot the widest part of the Safieh towards the Dead Sea, on 

 the edge of which a rank vegetation of sedge and reed takes the place of the 

 dense thickets of nuhk and dom tree which stud the cultivated plain, here 

 ahout four miles wide. 



Leaving the Safieh we proceeded hy the route of Irby and Mangles to Dnia. 

 The day's journey led us through every conceivable variety of vegetation and 

 non-vegetation. Leaving tlie Nahr el Hassan, the great source of fertility to 

 the Safieh, we passed through a scrubbj' plain, rushes, canebrakes, and finally 

 a bare salt marsh, without a scrap of vegetation to the sea, and a gravelly 

 shelving slope, with scattered gnarled acacias above it; near its commence- 

 ment is a ruined village, Um el Hashib, not far from the Wady Grahhih. 

 The barren plain is fringed by a fetid ditch, well named Mir'whar, or " stink- 

 ing river," with salt and offensively smelling liquid. Having crossed the salt 

 plain, we came to the Nahr Hanyir and Nahr Nimeirah, salt streams. At 

 this latter are the mean and almost obliterated ruins of a large place, appa- 

 rently iinfortilied, and usually marked in the maps as the ancient Nimrim of 

 Scripture. This, however, we have reason to believe is incorrect, as the 

 position is defenceless ; and we were told of ruins higher up near the sources 

 of the stream in the mountains, which still bear the name of " the waters of 

 Nimcirah." Near them is another Scripture locality, " the brook of the 

 willows," which is given to the head of the next stream before it leaves the 

 mountains. 



A little above this lower Nimrim we visited the ruins of a fort, Ivhirbet es 

 Sheikh, which appears to have been nothing more than a watch-tower to 

 guard the road. 



After crossing the Nahr es Asal, or Honey Eiver, we began to ascend the 

 shoulder of the Lisan, a mass of barren salt marl, without a trace of life, past 

 or present, and in a few hours reached Draa, generally said to be the an- 

 cient Zoar, after crossing the Wady Weydah, in which the palm-tree is 

 abundant. 



Draa, though the seat of a bishopric in the time of Euscbius, has left no 

 traces beyond lines of foundations and heaps of sandstone, some of them 

 squared and dressed. But the deep glen on the crest of which the city stood 

 is richly wooded with palm, oleander, and other trees ; and its fertile belt can 

 be traced by the eye as far as the Mezraah, a wide, scrubbj^, tree-dotted plain, 

 opening on the bay to the north of the Lisan, and now covered with the 

 tents of the Beni Atiyeh. This has been traversed by Messrs. Palmer and 

 Drake. 



From Dr.ia we ascended to Kerak by the route so well described by Irby 

 and Mangles. A fort, hitherto unnoticed, guards the pass about halfway 

 up, called El Kubboh. The character of the architecture is crusading, and 

 the local tradition makes it the stronghold of a Christian Sheikh. Just to 

 the south of this, the " Wady of the Willows " was pointed out to us. AVe 

 calculated the ascent from Draa to Kerak to be 3720 feet, — Dnia, thougli 

 on the brow of a bold shoulder, being 570 feet below the sea-level, and 

 Kerak 3180 feet above it (barometric). 



Without pretending to compare the country with Switzerland, and at the 

 risk of incui'ring the sneers of those who, judging only by Ijigness, accuse 

 any one who is enthusiastic on Palestine of " Holy Land on the brain," any 

 one less prejudiced than these critics will admit the x^ass to be a magnifi- 

 cent one, and the situation of Kerak to be majestic. 



It has already been described by Irby and Mangles, and is sufficiently 



