Continuing our march through the valley N.E., and passing the village Bu-Mát and the ruined old places called Hanshír Metelíli and Hanshír Jamúm[16], we reached the ruins of another old place called Hanshír Settára, in the centre of the olive-grove. The houses, which in general are built of small irregular stones, present a remarkable contrast to a pair of immense slabs, above ten feet long and regularly hewn, standing upright, which I at first supposed to be remnants of a large building; but having since had a better opportunity of studying this subject, I concluded that they were erected, like the cromlechs, for some religious purpose. On the road back to our encampment, the inhabitants of Gamúdi, who were unwilling to part company with me, gave vent to their hatred against the Turks in a singular way. While passing a number of saffron- plantations, which I said proved the productiveness of their country, they maintained that the present production of saffron is as nothing compared to what it was before the country came into the impious hands of the Osmanlis. In former times, they said, several stems usually shot forth from the same root, whereas now scarcely a single sample can be found with more than one stalk,—a natural consequence of the contamination or pollution (nejes) of the Turks, whose predominance had caused even the laws of nature to deteriorate. In order to prove the truth of this, they went about the fields and succeeded in finding only a single specimen with several stems issuing from the same root. Passing the subterranean villages of Suayeh and Ushen, and further on that called Housh el Yehúd, which, as its name indicates, is entirely inhabited by Jews, we reached our encampment in the housh of Ibrahim. The subterranean dwellings which have been described by Captain Lyon[17], seem to me to have originated principally with the Jews, who, from time immemorial had become intimately connected with the Berbers, many of the Berber tribes having adopted the Jewish creed; and just in the same way as they are found mingling with the Berbers in these regions—for the original inhabitants of the Ghurián belong entirely to the Berber race—on friendly terms, so are they found also in the recesses of the Atlas in Morocco. [Illustration: Drawn by J. M. Bernatz, from a Sketch by Dr. Barth. M. & N. Hanhart, lith. et impt. KASR GHURIÁN. Feby. 13th. 1850.]