Surtabeh; and also W., as Wady Bîr Jenâb, by Kubelân to the western plain. From 'Akrabeh we took a circuitous route northward by Yanun to the S.E. corner of the little plain of Sâlim, E. of Nâblus; and then descending and passing through Beit Fûrîk, we crossed the water-bed of the Mukhna running through the W. end of the little plain, and came to Nâblus for the night.

The following day (May 13th) we turned again N.E. towards the Ghôr. At the mouth of the valley of Nâblus, on the N. side, are the ruins of a village called 'Askar, which name has sometimes been compared with the Sychar of the New Testament. It has, however, the letter Ayin, which precludes any such affinity. We passed on northwards along the plain; which is here narrow, and soon breaks down by a deep and singular gorge to the Wady Fâri'a and its wide rolling tract. We turned more to the left, and ascended steeply to Tullûzah, lying N. of Mount Ebal, and surrounded by immense olive-groves. This seems to be the ancient Tirzah, for a time the residence of the kings of Israel, though it now bears few marks of a royal metropolis. Hence we crossed the branches and intervening higher plains of Wady Fârï'a to Tûbâs, in two and a half hours. This is the Thebez of Scripture; where Abimelech met his death. It lies on a declivity looking E., and has a fine plain with olive-groves before it. We kept on for less than an hour further to Teyasîr, a small village, and there stopped for the night.

This village is near the head of Wady el-Mâlih, which we followed next day down to the Ghôr, climbing on our way to the ruins of a fortress of moderate size, Kusr el-Mâlih, once commanding a pass. The descent is here very gradual; the hills become lower and lower, and by degrees lose themselves in the plain. In Wady el-Mâlih are springs of saltish water, bloodwarm, and in its lower part is a running stream. As it crosses the Ghôr to the Jordan there is on its northern side a broad low swell, extending from the western hills quite to the upper banks of the Jordan; the river being here crowded quite to the eastern part of the Ghôr. We kept along upon this swell, and came at its extremity to a low hill, on which are the slight remains of Sâkût, a name corresponding to the ancient Succoth. It looks down upon the lower valley of the Jordan, here a plain of some width; the place and banks of the stream are seen, but not the water itself.

We now turned N.W. through a lower portion of the plain, exhibiting the utmost fertility, and covered with the rankest vegetation. The grass and weeds came up to our horses' backs, and the taller thistles often rose above our heads as we rode along. On the higher plateau, nearer the western mountains, the inha

bitants of Tûbâs and other villages cultivate wheat. They were now in mid harvest; and we pitched our tent by the side of a colony from Tûbâs, who were dwelling in tents and booths, with their women and children, horses and donkeys, dogs and poultry. What struck us here especially were the many fountains and brooks in this part of the Ghôr, furnishing an abundant supply of water, and giving rise to a most luxuriant fertility.

Here we bargained with two young Sheikhs from Tûbâs, active and intelligent men, to take us on an excursion of a day across the Jordan. Our object was to ascertain whether any place or ruin called Yâbis (Jabesh) still existed on or near Wady Yâbis; and in that way determine, if possible, whether the ruins at Tubukat Fahil were those of Pella. Eusebius gives the distance of Jabesh from Pella at six Roman miles, on the way to Gerasa (Jerash). We proposed to go first to Kefr Abîl (not Bîl), which lies high on the side of the mountain, not very far distant from the probable position of Jabesh Gilead; since the men of Jabesh had gone down by night to Beisân, and carried off the bodies of Saul and Jonathan.

We rose very early (May 15th), and, sending our muleteers to Beisân, directed our course to the ford not far N. of Sâkût. Descending the steep upper bank of the Jordan, here 150 feet high, and crossing the low alluvial plain, which our guides said was never overflowed, we came to the ford. A narrow island, covered with rank vegetation, here divides the river into two branches, the eastern one being much the largest. The stream was rapid, and the water came up high on the sides of the horses. Having got safely over, we ascended at once the steep eastern upper bank, and crossed obliquely the narrow plain to the foot of the mountains, to reach the mouth of Wady Yâbis. As we approached the first hills, we found ourselves suddenly surrounded by twenty or thirty armed men. They proved to be from the village of Fârah on the mountain, and were here to harvest their wheat in the plain. They had recently helped to drive away the officer sent to enforce the conscription in their district; and they had now been watching us, thinking we might perhaps be coming from the government on a like errand. They were acquainted with our Sheikhs, and, finding all right, they took us to their encampments on the S. bank of Wady Yâbis, gave us coffee, and brought us bread and leben, which we left to our guides.

We now began to ascend the mountain by a smaller Wady just N. of the Yâbis. After half an hour, the hills became higher and greener; and oak-trees, the oaks of Bashan, began to appear, scattered like orchards upon the hills. After more than an hour we came out upon a prominent point, affording an extensive view

over the whole northern Ghôr, from Kurn es-Surtabeh to the Lake of Tiberias. The whole southern part, from the Kurn to the Dead Sea, I had already seen. This eminence proved to be the brow of the first plateau of the mountain, along which we ascended very gradually through a region of the utmost verdure and beauty and fertility, to Kefr Abîl, near the foot of the next high ridge.

We found it deserted. The inhabitants had been implicated with those of Fârah in the matter of the conscription; and seeing Franks approaching (an event of unusual occurrence), they had all left the village. They were, however, not far off, and soon returned.

Wady Yâbis is a mile or more S. of this village. It breaks down from the higher ridge by a deep glen, in which is a place of ruins called Maklûb, as having been overturned.' It was said to have no columns. Lower down on the Wady, about S. from us, and on a hill on the S. side of the valley, is another ruin called ed-Deir; it is on the road from Beisân to Helâweh and Jerash, and has columns. This latter ruin seems to correspond well to the site of ancient Jabesh Gilead; but the name Yâbis now exists only as applied to the Wady.

We now turned to descend the mountain by a more northern path leading directly towards Beisân; computing that, if the ruins at Tubŭkat Fahil were those of Pella, we ought to reach the spot in about two hours. Our road to Beisân passed ten minutes N. of the ruins; and we were opposite to them in just two hours. But our guides knew them only as el-Jerm, and we went on ten minutes further before turning off to them. They lie upon a low hill or mound, having a broad area on its top, surrounded by higher hills except on the W., where is a plain, which also runs up on the N. side of the hill or mound described. As we approached from the N, we came upon ruins in the low plain, with many fragments of columns. The area on the hill is covered with like remains, and others are also seen below in the western plain. Below the hill, on the S.E. quarter, there is a large fountain, which sends off a stream towards the S.W. Near it was a small temple, of which two columns are still standing, and the valley below is full of oleanders. From men on the spot we learned that the name of the place itself is Fahil; the word Tubukah (meaning a story of a house, a terrace) being here applied to the narrow plain which stands out like a terrace in front of the hills, several hundred feet above the valley of the Jordan below.

The situation of this spot in relation to Beisân and Wady Yâbis, the extensive remains obviously of a large city, the copious

fountains, and also the name, left no doubt upon our minds that we were standing on the site of ancient Pella. The ruins were discovered and visited by Irby and Mangles in 1817, but no idea of any connection with Pella suggested itself to their minds. Since that time no Frank traveller has visited the spot. The first public suggestion of the identity of the place with Pella was given in Kiepert's Map of Palestine, in which the name of Pella is inserted with a query. Our main object was now accomplished, in thus verifying the correctness of Kiepert's suggestion. Mr. Van de Velde, whom we had met again at Nâblus, accompanied us on this excursion at our invitation.

Descending from the terrace five or six hundred feet to the plain below, we came to the ford of the Jordan. Here are in fact three fording places, of which that lowest down is said to be the easiest; but we found it deeper and more rapid than the ford of the morning. The Sheikhs proposed, and we assented, that one of them on foot should lead our horses one by one across. In this way we crossed safely, the water coming up almost to the horses' backs. We pushed on rapidly through the glorious plain to Beisân, where our tent was pitched, and we remained over Sunday. This was our hardest day's work in Palestine.

Beisân has a splendid position; just where the great valley or plain of Jezreel sinks down by an offset or gradual declivity of a hundred feet or more to the Ghôr. Just on the brow of this declivity is the village, and also many remains of the ancient city. But the Tell or acropolis is ten minutes further N., near the stream of Jalûd coming from the W., which passes down at the N. foot of the Tell. On the S. of the Tell are numerous columns still standing, and the very perfect remains of a large amphitheatre. All the ruins (except the columns) are of black basaltic stones; and the Tell is also of the same character, and black.

On Monday morning we left the direct road to Zer'în on our right, and struck off to the foot of the mountains of Gilboa, to a site of ruins called Beit Ilfa, which had been already visited by Schultz. The remains are those of a small place; there are two or three ancient sarcophagi. It could never have been a fortress of importance, since it lies in the plain directly at the foot of the high mountain. Whether it was the Bethulia of the book of Judith is at least doubtful.

We now passed on across the plain to Kûmieh, and came near getting our animals mired in the soft bottom of the Jalûd. At Tumrah we crossed the line of hills extending from the Little Hermon eastward to Kaukab, and descended so as to pass along the eastern foot of Tabor, to the Khân and Lûbieh. Here we encamped.

From Lûbieh we came next morning to the Hajar en-Nusrâny, where our Lord is said (in monkish tradition) to have fed the four thousand. My object at this place was to obtain the view of Capernaum described by Arculfus, as this seemed naturally to be the point of which he speaks. Thence we descended to Irbid, at the upper end of Wady Hamâm. The remains are not important, but among them are the columns and some other portions of an ancient Jewish synagogue, of the same type with those at Kefr Bir'im and Meiron. We now passed down Wady Hamâm, beneath its frowning precipices, with the caverns of the fortress Kul'at Ibn Ma'an, and, entering our former route at the Round Fountain, followed it to Khân Minyeh. Here I was more impressed than formerly with the extent and character of the adjacent ancient site; and the neighbouring fountain, 'Ain el-Tin, is fine and cold.

On the promontory beyond is a deep channel cut in the rock, now serving as a road, but obviously once an aqueduct conveying water from Tâbighah to irrigate the plain. At Tâbighah the water was formerly raised to an elevated head in a massive reservoir, but there are no traces of the intermediate channel. At Tell Hûm we at once recognized, in the sculptured remains, which formerly had puzzled us, another ancient Jewish structure, like those at Meirôn and Kefr Bir'im, and the largest and most elaborate of all.

At Tell Hûm we turned up from the lake along a shallow Wady coming down from the N.W., in order to visit a site of ruins called Kerâzeh. An hour brought us to the place. The remains are merely the basaltic foundations and walls of a poor village. In a side valley, five minutes N.E., is a small fountain called Bi'r Kerâzeh. This name may be compared with the ancient Chorazin; but the latter place, according to Jerome, appears to have been situated on the shore of the lake (in litore maris sita), and the remains seem too unimportan.

We now struck up into the road running N. from the Khân Jubb Yûsuf along the eastern foot of the Safed hills to the Hûleh. After a long hour we turned up for the night to Ja'ûneh, a village lying high on the declivity of the western hills, and overlooking the Hûleh, but still at some distance S. of the lake.

Our road next day continued along this declivity, passing through or near several villages and places of ruins. Among the latter was Kusyun, of which we had before heard. Coming at length to the deep Wady Hendaj, we were obliged to descend to the plain and cross its mouth. But we soon again began to ascend on the road to Kedes, and, coming out upon the plateau on which Kedes lies, we turned off S.W. to visit el-Khureibeh, a Tell with