It might be supposed that there would be good caravan roads, at least, in a country where all produce must be carried on quadrupeds, and all travelers must ride or walk. The reverse was true, and though the past twenty-five years have witnessed great improvement in this respect, there is still much to be desired in most localities. Many of the roads cannot be described as anything but trails through the rocky ground. The chief consideration in locating a road seems to be to have it run through ground which is fit for nothing else, for it would be a pity to waste arable ground, and so a road must go around, no matter what the distance. Whatever stones are gathered from the fields are thrown into the highway, making it rougher than ever. In some parts of the mountains, the road will lie along the top of a solid stone dike, ten to fifteen feet wide, from which the traveler looks down to a depth of eight or ten feet upon the fields and mulberry patches on each side. It has been said that a road, in Syria, is that part of the country to be avoided in traveling, so far as possible. This inference is easy to understand when you notice that all the trodden paths are in the fields at either side, and that people travel in the rough roads, only when there is no escape. While the grain is growing the farmers will do their best, by building up stone walls, to keep the animals out of their fields, but just as soon as the harvest is gathered these obstructions go down and the current of traffic resumes the easier course until the winter rains make the mud a worse enemy than the rough stones. In other places it is often an interesting study to try to decide whether the water flows in the road, or whether people travel in the watercourses. It is something like the insolvable question as to which came first, the hen or the egg. The fact remains that, as a rule, in wet weather and rough country, the traveler will find his horse splashing through a stream of water flowing down the road. The explanation is simple. There is nowhere any system of drainage, and every man's purpose is to turn the streams of rain water away from his own land. Useful land cannot be wasted for watercourses any more than for roads, and hence the waste lands are devoted to the double purpose, with the resulting confusion as to which is the intruder. The obscurity of the roads leads to many more or less unpleasant experiences. There are roads so steep and difficult that it is no unusual experience to see a muleteer take hold of his mule's tail as he goes down the mountain path, and by a judicious holding back, help the animal to steady himself under a heavy, awkward load. On the other hand, when he is going up the mountain, the tired muleteer will take hold of the same convenient handle to get a little help for himself in the ascent.