occupying a prominent site on our left, on the south side of the wady. I remembered that Burckhardt had mentioned a place which he did not visit, near the head of the river, where he was informed were many statues. It occurred to me that this might probably be the spot, and, having told my companions so, we agreed to send our servants direct to the city, while we turned aside with Mahmûd to visit the ruin. After fifteen minutes' winding through tangled thickets and up a steep bank, we reached the gate of the building. This is a vast quadrangular structure, encompassed by a lofty wall of fine masonry. Round the whole interior were cloisters, supported in front by a range of handsome columns, those at the corners being heartshaped. On the north side was a large projection, containing the ruins of a church; but the interior fittings of this building are of a much later date than the external walls. In the centre of the quadrangle are foundations of massive hewn stones; but the whole is now so much overgrown by the oak and other trees, that I found it impossible to ascertain its extent. The building is called Deir es-Sumeid, "the convent of Sumeid ;" and it may probably have been used as a convent in Christian times, but it was originally intended for some other purpose. The doorway is surrounded with beautifully executed wreaths, intermixed with bunches of grapes in bold relief. On a stone in front of it, now in part buried in the earth and wedged between the roots of oak-trees, is a Greek inscription in finely-formed raised characters. We tried in vain to exhume it; but after all our labour we could only get at the following letters, the remainder being under the soil:

In our approach to this building we did not see a single living creature, and we were ourselves almost completely hid by the thickets; but we had only been a few minutes engaged in our examination when several Arabs, with long guns, were seen peeping over a large cairn some distance in front of the ruins. We took no notice of their movements, but continued our search for the statues; and after ascertaining that this could not be the place Burckhardt had heard of, or at least, if it were, that the statues had disappeared, Mr. Barnett and I returned to our horses. Some of the party who had reached the gate sooner than the others wished to ride off alone; but Mahmûd, pointing to the suspicious group of hungry-looking faces, now numbering ten or twelve, quietly observed that we had better all ride with him. In fact it was only the presence of this single Druze, and the well-known courage of his race, that saved us from an attack on the spot. To attempt defence in such a place would be madness, for hundreds could lie concealed behind the oak-trees and take deadly aim. Not one of these fellows saluted us as we rode past them. They looked at us with scowling faces, no doubt cursing the necessity that kept their hands off us.

From Deir es-Sumeid there are traces of a good paved road to Kunawât. The present path runs near it, winding among the trees. In twenty minutes we reached the side of the deep ravine on the southern bank of which the city is built, and, crossing it by a modern bridge, we rode

up a well-paved road to the ruined gate. A few yards beyond this we entered the court-yard of the sheikh, where we met with a welcome reception.

The

After the salâms and. the "thousand and one" wishes and prayers for our health and happiness, the never-failing coffee was prepared and presented. After these necessary ceremonies I proposed a walk among the ruins. sheikh immediately offered himself as a guide, but not less than twenty others followed in his train. My object was to obtain a general view of the city preparatory to a more detailed examination on the following day, half of which we purposed to give to this place.

Kunawât is built on the left bank of a deep and wild ravine, which runs past it from about south-east to northwest. As the ground slopes in the direction of the course of the wady more rapidly than the bed of the stream, the precipitous banks are much loftier at the upper than at the lower part of the ruins. I estimated the extreme length of the city at about a mile, and the breadth nearly half a mile. On the southern side of the ruins is also a wady of considerable depth, and beyond it rises up a graceful wooded hill. The ancient walls run along the brink of the ravine, being in some places founded on the very edge of the scarped rock. After reaching the top they are carried over the rocky ridge and then westward for nearly half a mile along the brow of the second wady, when they turn down the declivity in a zigzag course toward the north-west. The north-western section of the city I did not examine minutely, as it seems to contain only the ruins of private houses. The accompaning plan I drew up from sketches made from several commanding positions, and