assigned to her;[662] just as Mohammedan tradition asserts the grave of Ham to be in the district of Damascus,[663] and that of the forefather of the Canaanites to be at Chörbet râs Kenʿan near Hebron,[664] and also shows that of Uriah at the edge of the desert beyond the Jordan.[665] The Mohammedans took interest also in the grave of Aaron, and it was from them that the Jews received the local tradition relating to it.[666] But it also happens not unfrequently, that popular tradition allows one and the same patriarch or prophet to be buried at several places, often far distant from each other. Various countries take a pride in possessing the last remains of venerated persons, and vie with each other for this privilege. Even so established a tradition as that which placed the graves of the Patriarchs at Hebron, and was especially firm with regard to Abraham (al-Chalîl), is not so irremovable but that it could be localised somewhere else also. The district of Damascus has its tradition of Abraham, and the village of Berze its cave with Abraham’s grave.[667] The most noteworthy instance of the kind is the grave of Moses himself. It is well known that the Bible has nothing definite to say of the place of interment of this prophet; and hence in the Jewish popular tradition the prevailing idea is that it is impossible to discover the place where rest the bones of the Prophet with whom the origin of religion is so closely connected—the very same thing as the Sunnite Mohammedans assert of the grave of ʿAlî.[668] ‘And he (Jahveh) buried him[669] in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor, and _no man has known his grave up to the present day_’ (Deut. XXXIV. 6). The little Pesiḳtâ thinks the purpose of this was ‘that the Israelites might not pay divine honours to his grave, and raise a sanctuary at it, and also that the heathen should not desecrate the place by idolatry and abominations.’ It is at least certain that, as appears from the Biblical words just cited, the grave of Moses was imagined to be in the valley and beyond the Jordan; for the Prophet had never crossed the river. It may also probably have been in the region thus indicated in the Bible, that, according to an assertion in the older Midrâsh on Deuteronomy, a Roman Emperor—a royal precursor of the Palestine Exploration Society—sent explorers to find the grave, in vain: ‘The government of the Imperial house sent people out with the order, Go and see where Moses’ grave is. So they went and searched above, and they saw something below; so they went down again, and saw it above. So they divided themselves, and again those above saw it below and those below saw it above.’[670] Islâm, however, possesses the grave of Moses at several places. The best known place is the hill Nebî Mûsa, a very beautiful eminence in a romantic situation, well worth visiting by a slight but fatiguing détour from the road from Jerusalem to the Dead