The distance from the lake is so great as to be utterly incompatible with the recorded transactions in the Gospels--having valleys and high hills intervening; and even supposing the miracle of relieving the demoniac to refer not to the city but to a territory named Gadara, it is inconceivable that the territory belonging to this city (Umm Kais) could extend beyond the deep natural crevasse of the river _Yarmuk_, and then rise up a high mountain, to descend again into a plain, all before reaching the lake. Our descent to the Yarmuk was long and steep; and upon the plain which it intersects, the heat exceeded any that I had ever encountered anywhere. The air was like fire. Such a day I shall never forget. The Yarmuk is so considerable a river that the Arabs call it _Sheree'a_, as they do the Jordan--only qualifying the latter as the larger one. It is called the _Sheree'a el Menadherah_, from a party of Bedaween occupying its banks in the interior. The crevasse through which it issues is wild and romantic in the extreme. High cliffs of basalt are the confines of the water. This, on reaching the plain, is parted with several streams, (to compare great things with small,) in the fashion of the Nile or the Ganges; which the Jordan is not, either at its entrance into this lake or its entrance into the Dead Sea. All the streams are fringed with oleander; and, in the extreme heat of the day, the horses enjoyed not only their drinking, but their wading through the rolling water. This was the boundary between Bashan and Gilead, through the latter of which we had hitherto been travelling, and gave name to the great battle A.D. 637, where the victory obtained by the fierce _Khalid_ and the mild _Abu Obeidah_ decided the fate of Palestine, and opened the way of the Moslems to Jerusalem. Over an extent of four or five miles, before reaching the Jordan, a rich harvest of wheat was being reaped upon the plain. We first attempted to cross at _Samakh_, but finding it impossible at that season, had to turn back to the ford at the broken bridge, which the natives call the 'mother of arches,' (_Umm el Kanater_;) and even there the water was still deep. Corn-fields and flocks of sheep in every direction; but all the shepherds carrying firearms. We most of us lay down on our breasts to drink greedily once more from the dear old river; and then we crossed the Jordan into the land of Canaan, going on to Tiberias, and passing on the way some Franciscan monks. What a change of associations from those of the country we had traversed exclusively for the last nine days! How absurd the sudden and unexpected contrast from old 'Abdu'l 'Azeez and the brilliant young 'Ali Deab in the freedom of the desert, to the cowl and the convent of the monks--from the grand savage language of the Ishmaelite to the mellifluous Italian.