all probability Mâr Melko is to be counted among the oldest foundations of the Ṭûr ’Abdîn. Like Mâr Gabriel it is some distance removed from the nearest village, and depends for its security upon its own strong walls. After we had passed through Kharabah ’Aleh, which contains the ruins of a church, we wandered among the rolling, wooded hills, and had gone needlessly far to the north before we caught sight of the monastery of Mâr Gabriel standing upon an eminence, with my tents pitched beside it. The inevitable bishop was away and I could not regret his absence, since it implied a relaxation of the social duties which I should otherwise have been obliged to fulfil, and permitted me to give my whole attention to the building. The house of St. Gabriel of Kartmîn was, during the Middle Ages, the most famous and the richest of Jacobite establishments. It is said to have been founded in the reign of Arcadius (395-408) and rebuilt under Anastasius (491-518), and I see no reason to doubt that the great church of Mâr Gabriel is, as it now stands, a work of the early sixth century. There are two other churches within the existing monastic precincts, one dedicated to the Virgin, the other to the Forty Martyrs, but neither of these is as old as that which is dedicated to the tutelary saint (Fig. 197). A large area of ruins beyond the walls gives some indication of the former magnificence of the monastery which gained, as early as the days of Justinian, a reputation for holiness second only [Illustration: FIG. 195.--THE BISHOP OF MÂR MELKO.] [Illustration: FIG. 196.--KHÂKH, THE NUN.] [Illustration: FIG. 197.--NARTHEX OF MÂR GABRIEL.] [Illustration: FIG. 200.--KHÂKH, CHURCH OF THE VIRGIN.] [Illustration: FIG. 198.--KEFR ZEH, MÂR ’AZÎZÎYEH; PARISH CHURCH.]