it is intersected render the task of exploration, without a guide, one attended with some uncertainty. We take our bearings by compass, gallop under the vine-trellised trees, over green, level slopes, or along inviting glades, till we are suddenly brought up by a precipice down which it is impossible to scramble, which opens unexpectedly in a gulf at our feet. The spot we are making for is not half a mile distant, but we have to follow the edge of the gorge in the opposite direction. Then we come upon another at right angles, which forces us to double back still farther; so at last we wind round the head, first of one ravine and then of another, till we find two hours have elapsed since we were driven back on our tracks; the half-mile has now extended over five or six, the sun is declining with a rapidity which seems accelerated because the daylight has become so precious to us that we cannot bear to anticipate the prospect of its vanishing. At last we reach the head of the valley which has baffled us so long, and are compensated by discovering a ruin. Here are sarcophagi, rock tombs and cisterns, and carved fragments. Fortunately we come across a peasant, the only one we have seen since leaving the river, and he tells us that its name is Haleebna. We write it down and take its bearings as well as we can, for it is unknown heretofore, but the day is too far spent for us to linger for minute examination. The peasant tells us that the best thing we can do, if we would get back to our tents, is to go down the valley we had intended to cross. We follow his advice and have no reason to regret it. It is a _Viâ Mala_ of grandeur and beauty, though on a small scale. We pass between curved limestone cliffs, the fissures in which are filled with underwood, the shrubs cling to the rocks, from which at one place gushes a copious stream of water, by the side of which we hurry with it down the valley, till we get back to the Yarmuk once more, and, wearied and exhausted, reach our tents in the gathering darkness. Here we find a picturesque-looking Kurd waiting to receive us; he is an old soldier, and shows us the scars of five wounds—not all, however, received in military service, but for the most part in Arab skirmishes. He is the agent of the government in these parts, and also of the native capitalist who is the practical owner of the land, which is cultivated by an Arab tribe whose tents are pitched near us; they are heavily indebted to the capitalist aforesaid, who allows them enough of the crops to keep them from starving and takes all the rest himself. And our Kurdish visitor is his collector of revenue. He seems to have some difficulty in protecting his employer's interests, and tells us triumphantly that only a few nights before he has shot an Arab whom he caught plundering. He says that during the bathing season as many as a hundred tents may be seen pitched round the sulphur springs of Amatha,