[ 49 3 
upper end of it, which does not yield water enough to 
make a ftream, the bed then is dry; four valleys 
terminate here, and forma large area. I enquired 
about the road to Jerufalem ; the people agreed in the 
diftance and ruins. We travelled in the bed of the 
river through the valley to the north ; and in about 
half an hour, the fight and appearance of a large (lone, 
not unlike Meribah, which lay at fome difiance from 
the mountain on our right hand, ftruck me; and I 
alfo obferved, it had marly fmall fionesupon it. The 
Arabs, when they have any ftone or fpot in veneration, 
as Mahomet’s ftone, and the like, after their devotion, 
lay fome fmooth ftone upon it. I afked what it was, 
they told me Hagar Moufa, the ftone of Mofes. 
I told them that could not be, for that lay in Rephi- 
dim; they faid that was true, but this was Hagar il 
Chotatain, the ftone of the two ftrokes ; that he 
ftruck it twice, and more water came from it than 
from Meribah ; witnefs the river. The bed of the 
river winds to the eaftward, about E. S. E. I afked 
how far it went; they faid this bed ran by Sheich 
Ali to thofe ruins, and quite away to the lea ; fo 
the river muft have begun here, and not at Pharan, 
and the bed from Pharan here is only formed 
(I fuppofe) by winter torrents. If this is the bed of 
the river mentioned by St. Paul, as I dare fay it is, 
we have the fecond rock: if it runs to the ruins, 
as is faid, and there is no reafon to doubt it, they 
will be pretty plainly thofe of Kadefh Barnea ; and it 
this bed continues in the fame courfeto the fea, as it 
probably does, this probably is the river at Rinocolura, 
fuppofed, by Eratofthenes, to be formed by the 
Arabian lakes; becaufe he did not know its miraculous 
Vol. LVI. H head. 
