"On the eastern frontiers of Syria," says Burckhardt, "are several places allotted for the hunting of gazelles: these places are called 'masiade' [more properly, 'maṣyedehs']. An open space in the plain, of about one mile and a half square, is enclosed on three sides by a wall of loose stones, too high for the gazelles to leap over. In different parts of this wall, gaps are purposely left, and near each gap a deep ditch is made on the outside. The enclosed space is situated near some rivulet or spring to which, in summer, the gazelles resort. When the hunting is to begin, many peasants assemble, and watch till they see a herd of gazelles advancing from a distance towards the enclosure, into which they drive them: the gazelles, frightened by the shouts of these people, and the discharge of fire-arms, endeavour to leap over the wall, but can only effect this at the gaps, where they fall into the ditch outside, and are easily taken, sometimes by hundreds. The chief of the herd always leaps first: the others follow him one by one. The gazelles thus taken are immediately killed, and their flesh is sold to the Arabs and neighbouring Felláḥs."[166] NOTE 25. In the Cairo edition, the word "jezeereh" (an island) is erroneously put for "kharábeh" (a ruin). NOTE 26. "Ghooleh" is the feminine of "Ghool." The Ghool is a fabulous being, of which some account has been given in No. 21 of the notes to the Introduction. NOTE 27. This epithet of the Deity appears to be used in preference to others in this instance, in order to imply that God always decrees what is best for a virtuous man, even when the reverse would seem to us to be the case. He is here described as appointing that the sage should die a violent death; but this death, being unmerited, raised him, according to Mohammadan notions, to the rank of a martyr. In the edition from which my translation is chiefly made, four poetical quotations are here inserted on the subject of fate, and the inutility of anxious forebodings. The first of these is as follows:-- "O thou who fearest thy fate, be at ease; commit thine affairs unto Him who spread out the earth. For what is predestined cannot be cancelled; and thou art secure from every thing that is not predestined."