All along the journey we were reminded of the fact that this was not only the East, but the old, old East. The soil is fertile, but the very wheat-fields are different from ours. Only a few yards in width, they are often of prodigious length; the thin green strips sometimes stretch away until in the far distance they are lost over the curve of the treeless plain. At one place the road is cut through a hill honeycombed with rock-tombs, which the Haj said were of Jewish origin. Every now and then we passed a _tell_, or great hemispherical mound built up of the rubbish of dozens of ruined towns which, one after the other, were built upon the same site. Even as late as Roman times, this was a densely populated and prosperous district. There is now no timber available for building purposes, and so in a number of villages the houses are constructed with conical roofs of stone. Where the rock happens to be of a reddish tinge, the windowless structures remind one of nothing so much as a collection of Indian wigwams; where the stone is white, as at Tell Biseh, it glitters and sparkles like a city cut out of loaf sugar. “Hamath the Great,” as the prophet Amos called it, is still the most important city between Damascus and Aleppo. It is larger than Homs and seems more prosperous, but the difference between the two is not marked enough to prevent considerable mutual jealousy. Hama is especially busy in the early morning, when the market squares are crowded with kneeling camels and the bazaars are bright with newly opened rolls of rich silks, which may be bought at ridiculously low prices—if the purchaser knows how to bargain. You see the same types in other Syrian cities—rough camel-drivers, veiled ladies, ragged peasants, underfed soldiers, Moslem wise men and reverend Arab sheikhs. Along tourist-beaten routes, however, the picture lacks somewhat of perfection because of the Hotel d’Orient or Hotel Victoria in the background, and, just as you have warmed to an enthusiastic interest in the bright scenes of Oriental life, a pert young fellow in French clothes is apt to ask you into his shop or offer to guide you through the bazaars at ten francs a day. But while we were in Hama there was, so far as I know, no other Frank in the city, only one other pair of European trousers, and but two natives who spoke any English. There is not even a resident missionary, and on the rare occasions when American ladies visit the city, they adopt the local costume, veil and all, in order to avoid annoying curiosity.