country on earth, perhaps, where the names of distinguished prophets are more frequently given to their respective followers than in this. Among the Mohammedans, the name of Mohammed is more common than any other. Among the Christians, Eesa or Jesus, and Abd-el-Messeeah, or the Slave of the Messiah, are also frequently found: and other sects follow the same example; though, among the many scriptural names used by all the various sects in England, I never remember to have heard of that of Jesus, which is perhaps thought too sacred. In India too, it is a common practice for the respective worshippers of the Indian gods to bear the names of their favourite deities; and even in England, as well as all other parts of the world, the Jews adhere to the names of their principal prophets and leaders, and are proud of being thus distinguished from other sects. Christians however too frequently, and with great inconsistency, call them by their great prophet's name," Moses," as a term of obloquy and reproach; as if the authenticity of his divine mission and holy inspiration were not as essential a part of the religion of Christianity, as the authenticity of the divine mission of Christ; as if it were possible to cast reflections of ridicule on the name of any one of the prophets whose mission Christ came to confirm, without, at the same time, reflecting on the authority from which all inspiration equally emanated, and by undermining the respect due to the earliest, abate much of that paid to the latest of the messengers of heaven; since no doctrine of Scripture is more clear than this, that`each succeeding prophet came to support and confirm the predictions and precepts of his predecessor. There would be no inconsistency, indeed, in the Jews reflecting odium on the name of Jesus, since their very existence as Jews is founded on their believing Christ to be an impostor: but there is the greatest possible inconsistency in Christians using the names of the Jewish prophets for the purpose of ridicule, inasmuch as they themselves believe them to be as truly commissioned from heaven as the most devout and orthodox among the Jews can do. If this practice were confined to the lower orders of people, with whom the names of the Father, the

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Son, and the Holy Ghost, are treated with much less respect in their ordinary oaths, than that of Beelzebub, the prince of devils, it would not be worth an observation; since, in the sweeping and indiscriminate habit of swearing, which distinguishes the English from most other nations of the globe, no sacredness of any name or epithet could secure it from profanation. But, as the practice of ridiculing the Jews, by the strange method of associating a feeling of contempt and odium with the names of their most distinguished prophets, prevails in better informed circles, and is to be found in our Plays, Songs, Novels, and other branches of literature, it is, perhaps, worth adverting to. At all events, as one great object to be attained by noting the manners of other nations is to condemn what is faulty, and recommend to the imitation of our countrymen what is praiseworthy, it is not wholly out of place to note, for the purpose of contrasting our absurd practice with the more sensible and tolerant behaviour of men of opposite religions in the East, who, whether Christians or Mohammedans, respect the Jewish names, and honour them by their adoption, as belonging to a religion on which each of their own is built and despise the Jews for that only for which they can with any consistency be despised, namely, not for being of the faith of Moses or the seed of Abraham, but, for not being also of the number of those who yield equal faith to the missions of Jesus and Mohammed.

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To return to the narrative after this digression: I was glad to profit, on this as on all other occasions, by the opportunity which a varied party generally presents for gleaning some useful information out of the vast mass of useless and uninteresting convers. ation that too frequently prevailed. From one of our party, I learnt that he had been to the eastward of the Hauran, as far as Lezhoof, or Lejhoof, a country of the Wahabees, bordering on the district of Nedjed. He described it as about fifteen days' journey to the eastward of Assalt. The road leading to it was through a country peopled by different tribes of Arabs, who are sometimes at peace but more frequently at war with each other. It was thirty

years since he had made this journey, and the occasion of it was a trading expedition, accompanying a caravan of cheap merchandize for sale into the desert, bringing back principally Arab horses and camels in return. The sect of the Wahabees were but then beginning to spread themselves; and at that time communication was practicable from Belkah all the way to Nedjed, and from thence to Baghdad; but at this moment, when the Wahabees were so powerful, and the whole desert in commotion, he thought such a journey would be imminently dangerous if not quite impracticable, so that I had reason to congratulate myself in not having persevered in my attempt to the eastward from Assalt, from which I might never have returned in safety if I had proceeded much farther. The old man, who informed me of his having made the journey alluded to, about thirty years ago, described the country generally from recollection, as being in many places highly fertile, and containing an abundance of water in small streams, with corn fields and date groves, as in the land of Egypt, which he had also seen. I should consider this picture highly charged: though to be peopled at all it must possess some of the means of existence in water and soil: but my companions considered Daood (for that was his name) a man of veracity and good character, and had often heard from him the same account as he had now given me, so that the general features of his description might with some slight allowances be taken to be correct. It would be certainly worthy the attempt of some enterprising traveller to explore that part of Arabia, and fill up the blank which it now presents in our maps.

The adjoining district of Ledjah was familiarly known to all our party, and all confirmed the previous accounts that I had heard of its being full of ruined towns and cities, containing the remains of large edifices and innumerable inscriptions, like those at Bozra, Soeda, and Gunnawāt. Missema was the name of a town on the N.E. edge of the district, lying in the road from Damascus to Shukkah, Shuhubah, Hilheet, and Aiat, on the eastern

hills; and other names were mentioned, which from their number and variety I could not retain with sufficient accuracy to enter among my notes at the time.

Towards the close of the evening, we had another scriptural name added to our party in the person of an old sheikh named Aioobe, or Job, who, hearing of our assembly, came to join it; and, being a communicative old man, added to the pleasure as well as to the number of our party.

Wednesday, March 21.—We left Mahadjee at day-light, going to the N.N.E., and at sun-rise passed the bed of a stream called Wādi-el-Harrām, which was now dry and close by it on the right, observed a ruined heap, called Gussawah. In half an hour from hence we passed the small village of Toobbery, leaving it on our right about a quarter of a mile; and at the same time. saw the large town of Ikteeby, about four miles on our left. In half an hour more we came in a line with Gheryeh, a town with two castles, which lay about half a mile on our left; and at the same time we had on our right the town of Gherbt-el-Wāli, three miles off, and Busseer and El Ghoffy, about one mile distant, all within the stony district of Ledjah; all large, and all deserted, and without inhabitants.

Half an hour beyond this, we crossed the bed of Wādi Rammăn, which we found dry, and the channel bending to the northward. Continuing to ride along its bank for half an hour more, we reached the town of Sunnymein. This place contains a bridge of seven arches, a large building with columns, a manufacture of mill-stones from the rocky bed of the neighbourhood, a considerable number of houses, and six towers seen on passing. As we neither alighted nor even halted at the place, but pursued our way without delay, I obtained no further particulars of this town beyond those here noted.

In a quarter of an hour after passing Sunnymein, going now about N.E., we came to Deedy, a small place which we left on our

right; and about a furlong beyond this, we had on our left the town of Ghebt el Ghazaly. There was a paved road here; and an hour beyond this, we had the town of Deer el Bukt one mile our left, and Mothebein two miles on our right. In an hour from Deer el Bukt we reached what is considered the boundary of the Haurān, and entered on a stony tract of country not unlike that of Ledjah, so often spoken of before. On a hill to the left was a tower, called Kassr-ibn-Gowash, with a tank or reservoir of water near, for the ablutions of pilgrims, and a niche facing the Kaba at Mecca, for prayers; this place lying in the Derb-el-Hadj, or high road of the caravans that take the pilgrims to Arabia. To the south of this station, the inhabitants are called Haurāni; to the west of this, they are called Jeddoori; to the east of this, they are called Druzi, and Lejāhi ; and to the north of this, Shami, from Sham, the only name by which Damascus is known here. To the east of the reservoir, about 200 yards, is a small town called Garhib, and from thence the district of Ledjah extends itself away to the eastward.

The range of hills near to this is called Sub-et-Pharaoon, but they were no longer of the black porous stone before described, of which we had gradually lost sight as we approached the northern boundary of the Haurān. In an hour after leaving the tower and tank at that boundary, and proceeding in a northerly direction, we passed a place called Shukhub, which lay on a hill to the left, and appeared to be a station enclosed for defence. Near this, we passed through a pretty large party of Bedouin Arabs, which we learnt were the greater portion of a tribe coming from the eastward, and proceeding farther on, to take up an encampment for a season in the western plains.

From hence we proceeded in a N.W. direction for about three hours, over a stony ground with patches of light soil, when we came to a large caravanserai, built of black stone, and called Khan Denoon, near to which on the east was a small village, built of sun-dried bricks formed of a light-coloured earth, and present