On the following day a dense mist hung over the valley. An hour from Kahf ez Zaḳḳ the path left the Euphrates at a spot called Maḥârîz where there are said to be ruins, but owing to the fog I could see nothing of them.[43] Three-quarters of an hour later we returned to the river and rode under low cliffs in which there were caves; my guide called the place Ḳdirân, which is, I suppose, Kiepert’s Ghirân. Here again we left the water’s edge, and half-an-hour later the fog melted away and revealed a monotonous green plain with the camels of the Weldeh pasturing over it. In summer it is a favourite camping-ground of the ’Anazeh. At Billânî, three and a half hours from our starting-point, we rejoined the Euphrates. Billânî is visible from afar by reason of a number of bare tree-trunks set in the ground to mark the Arab graves which are grouped about the resting-place of some holy man. The ancient sanctity of the place is still attested by numerous shafts of columns among the graves, but seventy years ago Chesney could make out a small octagonal temple.[44] It was a fine site for temple or for tomb. The river comes down towards it through many channels in the shape of a great fan, gathers itself into a single stream, broad and deep, and so sweeps under the high bank on which the fragments of the shrine are scattered, and beyond it round a wide bend clothed with thickets of tamarisk and thorn and blackberry. Through these thickets we rode for two hours and a half, and [Illustration: FIG. 34.--ḤARAGLAH, VAULT.] [Illustration: FIG. 35.--RAḲḲAH, EASTERN MINARET.] [Illustration: FIG. 37.--RAḲḲAH, MOSQUE FROM EAST.] [Illustration: FIG. 38.--RAḲḲAH, ARCADE OF MOSQUE, FROM NORTH.] then camped under a mound called Tell ’Abd ’Alî, not far from a couple of very poor tents of the Afâḍleh, with the river a mile away. The night was exquisitely still, but from time to time an owl cried with a shrill note like that of a shepherd-boy calling to his flocks. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--ḤARAGLAH.]