[p.252]Djerash. I counted upwards of fifty sarcophagi, and there were many more; they are formed of the calcareous stone with which the Zoueit and Moerad mountains are composed. Some of them are sunk to a level with the surface of the ground, which is very rocky; others appear to have been removed from their original position. The largest was ten spans in length, and three and a half in breadth; but the greater part are much smaller, and are not even large enough to contain the corpse of a full grown person. On the sides of a few of them are sculptured ornaments in bas-relief, as festoons, genii, &c. but in a mutilated state, and not remarkable for beauty of execution; I saw only one that was elegantly wrought. The whole of these sarcophagi had flat covers, a few of which still remain. Upon one of the largest of the sarcophagi, and which is one of those first met with in going from Souf, is a long inscription, but so mutilated as to be almost wholly illegible. In the neighbourhood are several heaps of large square stones, the remains of some building. In an hour and a half from Souf we reached the city walls of Djerash, or Kerash, [Arabic], the Dj being the Bedouin pronunciation of the letter [Arabic], which in the language of the city corresponds with our K. Djerash was built upon an elevated plain in the mountains of Moerad, on uneven ground, on both sides of Wady Deir, which, besides the name of Kerouan [Arabic], bears also that of Seil Djerash [Arabic], or the river of Djerash. This river empties itself, at a short distance from the town, into the Wady Zerka [Arabic], probably the Jabock of the ancients. The principal part of the city stands on the right bank of the river, where the surface is more level than on the opposite side, although the right bank is steeper than the other. The present ruins prove the magnitude and importance of the ancient city; and the modern name leads to the belief that it was the ancient Gerasa, one of the principal DJERASH. [p.253]towns of the Decapolis, although this position does not at all agree with that given to Gerasa from the ancient authorities by D'Anville, who places it to the north-east of the lake of Tiberias, forty miles to the north-westward of this place. The ruins are nearly an hour and a quarter in circumference, following insulated fragments of the walls, which were upwards of eight feet in thickness, and built of square hewn stones of middling size; I could not judge of their original heighth, as the upper parts were every where demolished.