March 8, 1858.] DESERT EAST OF THE HAURAN. 
175 
the Druses of the mountains, under whose protection it was alone 
possible to venture on the border of the Desert. He merely crossed 
the mountains, and then returned and finished his journey in the 
centre of the Hauran. Since his time the Hauran has been visited 
by only a few travellers, the most recent and most enterprising 
being Mr. Porter, whose excellent book gives the most detailed 
account we have of the Land of Bashan. This gentleman much 
wished to visit the eastern side of the mountains, and to follow an 
ancient road which he saw from the castle of Salkhad (the ancient 
Salcah), and which he heard extends across the Desert to Basrah on 
the Tigris. His time, however, would not permit him to go east 
of Salkhad, but it was his strong conviction that important results 
would arise from a journey in the eastern desert. It was from Mr. 
Porter’s accounts of what he had seen from Salkhad, and of what 
he had gathered from the natives, that Mr. Graham was induced to 
make the hazardous journey into the Desert, for the difficulties and 
privations of which he was so amply repaid by his discovery of 
these old towns and strange inscriptions. 
It is the firm conviction of the author of these papers that we 
have, in the Hauran, the ancient Bashan itself, still remaining the 
cities which already existed when the Israelities conquered Og ; 
and, ancient as these seem, he looks upon the more eastern of towns 
which he found far out in the Desert as dating from a still older 
period, and probably the work of the first Hamite emigrants from 
Shinar. The reasons for this belief are. given in detail in the papers. 
Of the inscriptions nothing has yet been made. Whether they are 
of the same age as the buildings is difficult to say, but that they are 
of a very ancient form all philologists will probably agree. The 
fac-similes, together with a paper on the inscriptions, will be pub- 
lished in the Journal of the Eoyal Asiatic Society. If ever de- 
cyphered, we may hope that they will throw light on the history 
of this remarkable country, of whose early inhabitants we know 
nothing more than the short accounts we glean from the Penta- 
teuch, but whose works are before us in these old towns, which 
stand as witnesses to all posterity of the truth of the early 
Scriptures. 
The President. — I am glad that you have already returned your thanks so 
heartily to Mr. Cyril Graham for this very valuable communication, which has 
thrown so much light on the comparative geography of a region so interesting 
to all Christians. I have myself no knowledge of this region, but there arc 
gentlemen present who have, I believe, approached near to it ; and with refer- 
ence to what has been written upon it, I need not remind you that several 
Englishmen have explored portions of the adjacent country. Mr. Churchill 
