[p.397] of justice, as he had done at Ketherabba, and decided a number of disputes between the peasants; the greater part of these were concerning money transactions between husbands and the families of their wives; or related to the mixed property of the Arabs in mares, in consequence of the Bedouin custom of selling only one-half, or one-third of those animals. August 6th.———Khanzyre is built on the declivity of one of the highest mountains on the eastern side of the Dead sea; in its neighbourhood are a number of springs whose united waters form a rivulet which irrigates the fields belonging to the village, and an extensive tract of gardens. The villages of this country are each governed by its own Sheikh, and the peasants are little better than Bedouins; their manners, dress, and mode of living are exactly the same. In the harvest time they live in the mountains under tents, and their cattle is entrusted during the whole year to a small encampment of their own shepherds. In the afternoon of this day we were alarmed by loud cries in the direction of the opposite mountain. The whole of our party immediately mounted, and I also followed. On reaching the spot from whence the cries came, we found two shepherds of Khanzyre quite naked; they had been stripped by a party of the Arabs Terabein, who live in the mountains of Hebron, and each of the robbers had carried off a fat sheep upon his mare. They were now too far off to be overtaken; and our people, not being able to engage the enemy, amused themselves with a sham-fight in their return home. They displayed superior strength and agility in handling the lance, and great boldness in riding at full speed over rugged and rocky ground. In the exercise with the lance the rider endeavours to put the point of it upon the shoulder of his adversary, thus showing that his life is in his power. When the parties become heated, they often bear off upon their lances the turbands of their adversaries, and carry them