runs down on the right to the village of Taiyibeh. I could not see the place where the road crossed this ravine, but soon after passing it I again observed what I considered faint traces of its course. I had travelled so far in a direction nearly south-west, but here I turned southby-east up the gentle slope, having on my right a dry shallow wady. In half an hour I reached a sublime glen that intersects a great side ridge of Antilibanus. Through this I passed diagonally in the line of the ancient road. The scenery is wild and grand, beetling cliffs towering high overhead, surmounted by graceful wooded hills. The little village of Shaîbeh stands on the declivity half a mile to the left, and behind it rise the rugged sides of the central chain. After ascending the bank of the ravine, and crossing a low narrow ridge, I came to the head of a long winding valley called Wady Marabûn. On my left was a little knoll crowned by the ruins of an old temple, and at its eastern base is a small fountain. I now rode down this valley, crossing and recrossing the gravelly bed of a stream that flows most of the year. The hills on the right slope gently up, but those on the left have bold features and are deeply furrowed by wild ravines: the whole is thinly covered with the oak and hawthorn. After riding for about two hours down this valley, in a southwesterly direction, I reached a place where it expands into a little plain of verdant meadows and luxuriant cornfields. On a rocky tell on its eastern side stands the halfruined village of Marabûn. The mountain on the left rises up nearly three thousand feet almost a sheer precipice, and on its jagged summits are dark forests of juniper.

The wild grandeur of the scenery among these peaks is scarcely exceeded by any part of Libanus.

The ancient road appears to have skirted the northern side of this plain. At the base of the tell on which Marabûn stands is a large fountain, the principal source of the Nahr Yahfûfeh. A quarter of an hour after passing it I dismounted for breakfast, beneath a giant walnut, close to the massive foundations of a very ancient temple. This building was small, with a portico of heavy columns to the east. Its architecture, so far as it can now be seen, appears to have been simple and chaste.

After an hour's rest I again mounted, and rode twenty minutes farther through rich fields along the left bank of the wady. I then had close on my right a Roman bridge of a single arch spanning the stream. By this the ancient road appears to have crossed from the opposite side of the vale. A few yards below this spot the river enters a wild and picturesque ravine called Wady Yahfûfeh, through which it winds to the Bukâa, five miles distant. The ordinary road to Bâ'albek crosses this bridge, and ascends the steep mountain on its northern side by a zigzag path. There is another route down the ravine to near the little village of Yahfûfeh, and then over a difficult rugged pass to Neby Shît, a village so called from the tomb of Seth, the son of Adam, which is there shown!

I now turned to the left up a picturesque branch valley containing a fine tributary of the Yahfûfeh. Its banks are lined with corn-fields and fringed with poplars and walnuts. In twenty-eight minutes I reached the large village of Surghâya, which gives its name to the river, the wady,

and a fertile plain on the south-west. There is a large fountain, the source of the stream referred to, in the gardens beside the houses. I here entered a plain about a mile in breadth, having on the right a low ridge of hills, and on the left the loftiest peaks of Antilibanus. Along the base of the latter are extensive vineyards. About the centre of this plain is the watershed between the valleys of Yahfûfeh and the Barada, and, consequently, between the Bukâa and the eastern plain. In forty-five minutes from Surghâya I had on my left, at the foot of the precipitous mountain-side, the little village of 'Ain Hauwar, with a large fountain, the source, as has been already stated, of the Nahr Zebdâny. In ten minutes more I reached the end of the plain of Surghâya and the head of Wady Zebdâny, and another hour brought me to Bludân.

This region, though traversed during the last century by hundreds of travellers, has never hitherto been correctly described or delineated upon maps. My numerous bearings and minute observations, connected with carefullykept Itineraries, have enabled me to construct the accompanying map, in the accuracy of which I feel confident. It will be seen by any observant traveller who passes along this route, that the plains of Zebdâny and Surghâya, and the Wady Marabûn, are all in a direct line, running very nearly from south-west to north-east, by compass; yet hitherto the route from the southern end of the plain of Zebdâny, towards Marabûn, has been represented as running due north! and by some north-by-west! It is

Dr. Wilson appears to have travelled the same route between Zebdâny and Ba'albek as that here described. His notes, however, are full of errors. He does not notice the plain of Surghaya at all,

this strange error which has tended so much to misplace Baalbek and the whole ridge of Antilibanus on all previous maps.

but says that "the plain soon contracted after we passed Zebedání.” This is true; but it soon expands again. He says that "a few yards north of Surghaya the watershed occurs, a stream flowing southward through Wádí Baradá, and another, called Karaiyah, flowing first northward, and then escaping to the westward." This is wholly incorrect. The watershed is nearly a mile south of Surghâya; and there is no stream flowing into the Wady Barada from any place north of 'Ain Hauwar. Wady M'arabûn he calls Wádí Rummáni. This name I never heard. He took bearings from Khán Bundúk, a little ruin on the eastern side of the plain of Zebdâny, and from the head of Wady M'arabûn, which tend to confirm my previous statement about the direction of this route. Mount Hermon bore from the former place S.W. by S., and from the latter likewise S.W. by S.; and from this it is plain he must have travelled between these two places in a course N.W. by N. He draws the singular conclusion that he must have proceeded due north in the interval! It is strange that his cartographer did not observe this blunder. See Lands of the Bible,' vol. ii. pp. 375-6.

ANTILIBANUS.

Ride over Antilibanus from Saidnâya to Baalbek-Temple at Nahleh -Topography of Antilibanus - The ruins of Lybon and source of the Orontes-Ancient canals- Convent and ruins at Ras BaalbekGreat fountain of the Orontes - Excavated convent of Mâr Marûn Monument of Hărmul - Ruins of Jûsy- Not the site of Laodicia Depredations of the Bedawîn-Site and history of RIBLAH-The Orontes Probable site of Laodicia ad Libanum - The lake of Hums and its ancient dam-Hums, the ancient Emesa-Effects of Turkish misrule Assyrian mounds - History and antiquities of EmesaNorthern termination of Antilibanus-Tragic death of the Aga of Hasya. NORTHERN BORDER OF THE "LAND OF ISRAEL"-Mount Hor-The "Entering in of Hamath"-Identification of ZEDAD and HAZAR-ENAN.

Night march and adventures with Bedawîn-Site of ComocharaNebk-Ride by Málûla to Damascus.

ON the 11th October, 1853, I set out, in company of the Rev. Mr. Barnett, on a tour to the town of Hums, whither