298 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON’S ADDRESS— ASIA. [May 24, 1858. 
called es-Safah, el-Harrah, and the whole eastern borders of the 
Jehel ed Druz. He has given us, in short, a most able and animated 
sketch of a region which, occupied successively in olden times 
by powerful and civilized races, is now a desert, over which 
wandering and predatory Arabs, almost alone, hold sway. The es- 
Safah is a highly-broken basaltic district, which extends to the 
N.N.W. into a chain above 30 miles in length, not marked on any 
map. The el-Harrah, on the contrary, is a broad lower zone of 
loose basaltic fragments, forming the western belt of the broad rich 
plain lying between the Hauran mountains and the river Euphrates. 
After a description of the physical geography of this long forgotten 
region, the author describes the position of numerous cities scat- 
tered over the desert to the east and south of the Hauran, which, 
though wholly uninhabited, and for the most part roofless, are in 
many respects as perfect as when the olden people lived in them. 
Agreeing with Porter, that the Hauran must be the ancient Bashan 
of Scripture, Mr. Cyril Graham believes that the towns lying to the 
east of it, and which he discovered, are of a still older date, and 
were probably the work of the first Hamite emigrants from Shinar. 
He also collected very curious inscriptions in an unknown character, 
which have not yet been deciphered. 
In reviewing the adventurous and successful travels of Mr. Graham, 
of which we shall soon have a detailed account in our Journal, we 
painfully recognise the fact, that a once highly cultivated, richly 
wooded, and densely peopled country, which after the times of Holy 
Writ was successively occupied by Greeks, Romans, Christians, and 
Saracens, has been reduced to a desert, supporting only a few no- 
madic tribes of Arabs. 
The desiccation of the country may in great part be attributed to 
the destruction of once stately groves of lofty trees, which attracted 
the clouds and moisture, as well as to the demolition of those great 
reservoirs of water which the ancients constructed; but we are 
forced to the conclusion, that the main cause of this wide-spread 
sterility is the misrule of ages, and the inability of the Turkish 
Government to protect any industrious and settled inhabitants from 
the incursions of lawless Arabs. In the mean time it is refreshing 
to know from Mr. Graham, that the persevering Druses, to whom he 
was so much indebted (and who now supply the indolent inhabitants 
of Damascus with nearly all their corn), are extending agriculture, 
with muskets over their ploughs, into the richest spots of this terra in- 
cognita, and are thus explaining to us how such lands may in 
