than were in the whole place, had been demanded, and the old Sheikhs who had to collect them, bastinadoed so long, till the inhabitants bought them with great trouble and at a high price in the camp of the Turks themselves. From Zachleh we went to Kerak, in order to visit the grave of Noah. We found a long narrow building of well-united free-stone, and near it a small cupola building, surrounded with a few trees, from whence we had a beautiful view over the plain, and disclosed Anti-libanon. I saw through a window hung with votive rags, in an arched space, a bricked-up tomb, in the usual oriental form, but I was not a little surprised, upon looking through all the windows the whole length of the building, always to see the continuation of the same tomb, which appeared neither to have beginning nor end. At last the door-keeper came, and I convinced myself, with astonishment, that the tomb was forty ells long, according to exact measurement 31m. 77´, thus something more than forty common Egyptian ells.[153] This allows us to suppose that the measure of Noah’s body was in proportion to his life, of a thousand years long. From Kerak we at last turned to the right, into the plain towards Tel Emdieh, then to the left into a valley, which led us straight to the north, and by sunset we came to El’Ain, a small village by a well, which lies at the end of the valley, at a tolerable height above the great plain. On account of the round to Zachleh and Kerak, we were somewhat behind our days’ reckoning, and for this reason, much to the disappointment of our mule drivers, we determined to go on further to Zebedêni, which is situated on the eastern declivity of Anti-libanon, two hours from here. As none of our people had gone this journey through the mountains, we took a guide with us, who conducted us soon out of our valley, which passed between the outer mountains and the principal ridge northward, up a tremendously steep, laborious, and endless rockway. The moon rose, the hours passed, and yet the desired Zebedêni was not reached. At length we stood at the steep verge of another valley, into which we had to climb on foot laboriously, leading the horses, for a whole hour, until we arrived at Zebedêni after a six hours’ march. Every one here lay in the deepest sleep; we had to knock at several houses, to ask the way to the convent, where we hoped to find shelter. At last it was found that there was certainly a church in the place, but no room to take us in, in the adjoining convent. We therefore quartered ourselves in the last house, which after much knocking was opened to us. It contained only one large room, which was, however, large enough for us and our servants, and the numerous family of men, women, and children, had withdrawn into one corner. But the people were friendly and kind, got their _bakshish_ next morning, and let us go with the invitation to repeat our visit upon our return. We now journeyed down