328 SEFORT— 1872. 



the station of the first Valeutian " Ala ;" and the name is preserved in the Wady 

 Thamcd close by. It certainly must have been one of the most important 

 cities in these highlands in the Eoman times, and is on the Eoman military 

 road. 



We made expeditions eastwards to the ruined fort M'scitbeh, where there 

 was abundant water in a large cistern, and the Hadj road eleven miles east 

 of it, cast of which is the ruined Khan Zebib, which places have never before 

 been visited. Khan Zebib is e\ndently built on the ruins and with the 

 debris of a former great city ; and to the east of it are the remains of an 

 interesting Doric temple. Jemail (two and a half miles south of Um Easas) 

 and Ghazal (Khazaleh of Palmer's map) were also visited. At both of them 

 there was water, and traces of vineyards in the neighbourhood. Khan 

 Zebib is above the rise of the Wady Shabelc, the head feeder of the Zerka 

 Main or Callirrhoe, a wide shallow basin fed by the drainage from a lime- 

 stone range to the east of it. 



The Hadj road is here closely marked by about fifty parallel furrows, 

 formed by the tread of loug lines of camels pursuing the same tract for 

 ages in succession. 



Near the great temple east of Khan Zebib are numerous natural caverns, 

 which form subterranean labj'rinths, and have been cemented and used as 

 reservoirs in past ages : now they seem occasionally employed as hiding- 

 places and folds by the Bedouins. Beyond these are a number of artificial 

 mounds and circles of stones, affording unquestionable evidence of the cairns 

 of the primaeval inhabitants. 



We spent several days at Um Easas, in the hope of securing a stone which 

 is buried there, but which the Bedouins would not reveal to us, I have 

 seen a squeeze of this stone, which is now in the possession of Dr. Dodge, 

 of Beirut, having been taken by a Bedouin before the stone was buried ; 

 it is of basalt, and bilingual. The centre is occupied by a sei'pent biting 

 a scorpion. On the serpent are inscribed numerous Phoenician characters, 

 and on one side is a long inscription of many lines in the Phoenician cha- 

 racter ; on the other, arranged in a similar semicircular fashion, one in 

 apparently Nabathean letters. I hope ere loug to obtain a copy of this 

 important inscription. 



From Um Easas we travelled N.AV., passing Beihar and the ruins called 

 Draa, a Moabite city of the very oldest type, probably the Zoas of Eusebius, 

 and the seat of a bishopric. This place has not been previously noticed, and 

 solves some of the difficulties which have encumbered the topography of the 

 Zoas of the Pentateuch, 



In two hours we crossed the Wady Thamed, overhanging which, on a 

 peninsula formed by the river, is an immense heap of stones, apparently an 

 old keep and enclosure. It is 300 feet above the Wady, and is known as 

 Um E'mail. We made this our station for a few days. Three miles north 

 of it is Zafaran, with a fort of large squared stones on the top of a till, and 

 the remains of the town below it. There are no traces of arches here, and 

 the place seems pre-Eoman. It may perhaps be the Naar Safari of the 

 ' Notitia,' the station of the second Ala miliarensis. Near it are the similar 

 ruins of El Alaki, and two miles further El Herri, a fortress on a knoll and 

 JV town below it, with the old Eoman road passing close by. 



The next ruin, N.E. from hence, is Um Weleed, one of the most important 

 and extensive in the whole country. The ruins are of three distinct types, 

 pre-Eoman, Eoman, and a Saracenic Khan. No previous traveller has visited it, 

 and its local name gives no clue to its ancient name. The Eoman road passed 



