We reached our goal, Tell esh Sha’îr, in two hours and forty minutes from Abu Sa’îd, but the time in this case represents about twelve miles, since we were not riding at caravan pace. There were no buildings on the tell, but a number of large stones had been dug out of it and set up as a landmark--rijm, the Arabs call such guiding stone heaps. Two shepherds of the ’Anazeh joined us while we were at lunch, much to their material advantage, for we shared our provisions with them; from them I learnt that there had once been a well here, but that it was now choked up. They knew of no ruins in the desert beyond, and my impression is that there has never been any settled population in this region, away from the Euphrates. We struck back to the river in a south-easterly direction, and in three hours came to our camp, pitched by some Afaḍleh tents on a mound of which I have not recorded the name. It is the boundary between the kazas of Raḳḳah and of Deir, and lies about an hour’s march below a site called by Kiepert the Khân. From our camp we rode in an hour to the ruins of Khmeiḍah, where there were vestiges of a considerable town, squared stones, baked brick walls and a stone sarcophagus. An Arab on a broken-down mare joined us here, and as we rode together Maḥmûd described to me the nature of the authority exercised by the government over the tribes, and particularly the incidence of the sheep-tax. “Effendim,” said he, “you must know that the government levies the sheep-tax from each sheikh.” Four piastres per head of sheep is the amount. “And the scribe having computed the number of sheep that belong to those tents, he calls upon the sheikh to make good the sum due, and perhaps the sheikh will have to pay 2,000 piastres. Then he levies from the men of his tents 3,000 piastres, and to the government he gives 1,800.” “True, true,” said the Arab beside us. “Wallah, so it is.” “And then,” pursued Maḥmûd, “another man is sent out by the government, with his clerk and half-a-dozen of us zaptiehs. And all this costs much money. And the sheikh levies another 500 piastres, and pays 150 piastres; and so it goes on till the sum is found, but the expenses of collection are heavy. And as for the tax on cultivated land, the owner gives a bribe to him who is sent to value it, and he estimates the produce at less than half the real amount. And so it is with the sheep-tax. Effendim, do you think that all the sheep are counted? No, wallah! Last year the cornlands of the Shâmîyeh between Raḳḳah and Deir paid only £800, and the sheep-tax in the Jezîreh was no more than £2,000.” “Eh yes,” said the Arab, “but the government takes much.” “The sheikhs take much,” returned Maḥmûd. “Oh Ma’lûl, is it not true that they levy a tax for themselves on every tent?” “Eh wallah!” said the Arab. “But if the men of the tents make complaint, the sheikh attacks them and slays them.” “Allah, Allah! he knows the truth,” cried Ma’lûl in vociferous approval.