This is one of the frequent instances of Arabic local names preserving the sound, while departing from the signification. This ford was called GhoranÊyeh. The other is called El Meshraa’. Tristram has since expressed (p. 535) a doubt of the verity of this name of a site, but I had it given to me both at Heshbon and Jerash, and De Saulcy has since been there. How often have I regretted since that we did not know of the existence of ’ArÂk el Ameer, which has of late commanded so much interest. We might have so easily turned aside for that short distance. This word signifies “a desert.” It is often found in the Arabic Bible, especially in the prophetic books. See Appendix A. The largest sort grown there. The officer deputed from the Porte lives in a pretty village called Cuf’r Yuba, and is said to have become enormously rich upon the levies which he does not transmit to Constantinople. Travellers of late report that enormous sums are exacted by the ’AdwÂn for their escort upon this same journey as ours. It may, therefore, be acceptable to learn what was our contract, and that it was honourably acted upon—namely, three of the party to pay 1000 piastres each, and 200 each for all the rest. As there were twelve in the party, the amount was
1000 x 3 = 3000
200 x 9 = 1800
----
4800
This total we among ourselves divided equally, equal to 400 each.
We also agreed to make a present from each when in the territory, besides giving a feast at ’AmmÂn, and another at Jerash—the feasts were a mere trifle.
A hundred piastres came to rather less than a pound sterling.
I am glad to confirm the recent testimonies of Tristram and De Saulcy as to the honourable and noble deportment of GublÂn and the other leaders of the ’AdwÂn people. Were not these the altars or other objects employed in idolatrous worship by the Geshurites and Maachathites who remained among the Israelites of Gad and Reuben?—(See Josh. xiii. 13.) I mean Jebel esh Shaikh of the Anti-Lebanon, as I do not believe in the existence of any little Hermon in the Bible. He afterwards died of fever in my service, caught by rapid travelling in the heat of July 1860, during the Lebanon insurrection, whither he accompanied my Cancelliere to rescue some of the unfortunate Christians in my district. According to the Talmud, private roads were made four cubits wide; public roads sixteen cubits; but the approaches to a city of refuge were thirty-two cubits in width. See Lightfoot’s “Decas Chorographica,” VII. Latitudo viarum Tradunt Rabini. Via privata ???? ??? est quatuor cubitorum—via ab urbe in urbem est octo cubitorum—via publica ????? ??? est sedecm cubitorum—via ad civitates refugii est triginta duorum cubitorum.” Bava Batra fol., 100 From Lightfoot’s “Centuria Chorographica.” “Synhedrio incubuit vias ad civitates hasee accommodare eas dilatando, atque omne offendiculum in quod titubare aut impingere posses amovendo. Non permissus in vi ullus tumulus aut fluvius super quem non esset pons erat que via illuc ducens ad minimum 32 cubitorum lata atque in omni bivio, aut viarum partitione scriptum erat ???? ???? Refugium ne eo fugiens a vi erraret.”—Maimon in ???? cap. 8. On visiting Kadis some years after, I was grieved to find all this much demolished, and the ornamentation taken away, by Ali Bek, to adorn the new works at his castle of Tibneen. Since fallen almost to the ground. ?????. ???d????. I have been there three times, twice late in autumn, and once in July, and always found water abundant. Since writing the above I have seen the photograph taken of this temple by the Palestine explorators in 1866. I do not find this place in any lists or books of travels. Since that journey I have been told by the country people that between Gaza and Beersheba it is the practice to sow wheat very thinly indeed, and to expect every seed to produce thirty to fifty stalks, and every stalk to give forty seeds. In a journey to Gaza from Hebron, in the spring season of 1853, I was proceeding from the great oak down a long valley—but I was induced to deviate from the direct line by the tidings of Bait Jibreen being infested or taken by the TiyÂhah Arabs.
We everywhere found the peasantry armed, and on arriving before Dair NahhÂz, almost within sight of that town, and communicating with the village for water to drink, as I rested under a tree, Mohammed ’Abd en Nebi sent me word that Bait Jibreen was recovered from the Arabs, and now occupied by themselves; that thirty-five corpses of Arabs were lying round Bait Jibreen, and one of the two Arab chiefs (Amer) was slain—he himself was wounded in the knee.
From hence to Gaza we passed Zeita, where a breastwork had been hastily thrown up by the peasantry, and into which a number of armed men rushed from a concealment, and parleyed before they would allow us to pass on. Then to Falooja, and between Idsaid and Karatiyah on our right, and the ArÂk MunshÎyah on the left. Halted at Brair for the night.
The return from Gaza was by AscalÂn, Mejdal, Julis, the two Sawafeers, Kasteeneh, MesmÎyeh, and Latron, on the Jaffa road to Jerusalem. Pronounced sometimes DewÂn, sometimes Debwan. Beth is represented by the modern word Dair, and Aven has become EwÂn, with the Syriac d’ signifying of. It is worthy of notice that SuwÂn (in Arabic) (diminutive, Suwaineet) signifies “flint.” These rocks being flinty, it is possible that Seneh in Hebrew may have had the same meaning. ’ArÂbeh does not appear in any map before Vandevelde in 1854. As Hebron, Bethshemesh, Gibeon, Shechem, Beth-horon, Ta’annuk, Jeneen, etc., besides the cities of refuge. It is worthy of note, that in this single place the ancient name of Carmel is preserved among the people. This being called DÂliet el Carmel to distinguish it from the DÂlieh of the Rohha district, yet the denomination Carmel is not otherwise given to this mountain by the Arab population. DÂlieh signifies “a vine,” this, therefore, is the “vine of Carmel,” and Carmel itself signifies “God’s vineyard!” They afterwards dwindled to two families, the rest removing to Caiffa as that port rose in prosperity. Shakespeare; or as Ronsard has it:—
“qui tire l’ire
Des esprits mieux que je n’ecris.”
Yet there was a “city of palm-trees” towards the south, which the Kenites abandoned for this district south of Arad,—probably the present Nukh’l; the name has that signification. There are many such cachets of water in the desert, but known only to the tribes of each district. During the Israelitish wanderings, Hobab, a native of the desert, may have guided them to many such. It is not to be supposed, however, that this is a just representation of all that “great and terrible wilderness” through which the Israelites were led for forty years. It is indeed “a land not sown,” (Jer. ii. 2,) and a land of pits and drought fearful to contemplate, as a journey for a wandering population of nearly two millions of souls, especially in the hottest seasons of the year; but the peculiarly terrible wilderness must have been among the defiles, hemmed in by scorching cliffs in the Sinaitic peninsula.
In that direction also were the “fiery flying serpents,” concerning which I have never been able to learn anything more satisfactory than that, in the hot and unpeopled gorges west of the Dead Sea, there is a thin and yellow serpent called the Neshabiyeh, which flings itself across from one point to another in the air with astonishing velocity and force. It is therefore named after NeshÂbeh, a dart or arrow in Arabic. The natives also apply to it the epithet of “flying.” The wound which it inflicts is said to be highly inflammatory and deadly, and from this effect it may be called “fiery.” It may be also that, from being of a yellow colour, it may glitter like a flame when flying with rapidity in the sunshine.
It is only in Isaiah xxx. 6, that the epithet “flying” is used for these serpents. Observe, however, in Hebrew Lexicons the several applications of this word ???. Dr H. Bonar. They take a pride in attributing everything of antiquity here to Pharaoh, the cursed king of Egypt,—as those about the Euphrates attribute all their old wonders to the cursed king Nimrod. These names are learned from the KorÂn. Numerous travellers, however, have since gone from Jerusalem in virtue of the agreement made on this occasion by me, and returned without molestation from these people. This I repeat after having travelled at different times on most parts, north, west, and south of the lake, and read all that has been printed about the eastern side. (1867.) Since writing the above, we learn from Lieutenant Warren’s very interesting letters that the Turkish Government have sent a large force into the trans-Jordanic region, with a view of chastising the Arabs: it remains to be seen whether this measure will leave any permanent effects.—(Nov. 1867.) Especially in a book probably little known, but published as “Memoirs of a Babylonian Princess. By (herself) Marie Therese Asmar,” who was in London in 1845, and supported for a time by fashionable patronesses of romantic Orientalism. The events of 1860-61 led to a tragical termination of the career of this young chieftain. Mr Tristram has since done this, but on foot, the rugged road being impassable in any other way. Bait ZacÂri and Zecariah lie far away among the mountains in the south-west. Neither of them would command the road which Judas desired to intercept—neither of them therefore answers to the Bath Zacharias of the history any more than Baitzur near Hebron does to Bethsura—all are equally out of the question by reason of their distance. Very common in Oriental Christendom, and called by the Greeks the S???t??? (semantron.)
The ancient Britons used to summon the congregation to church service by means of “sacra ligna,” is it not likely that these were the same as the above, seeing that the Celtic nations were derived from the East?
