The Plain Is Intersected In Every Direction By Paths Formed By Camels, Called Daroub El Aarb [Arabic].

At the end of two hours we saw to the left, in the mountains, the ruined village Om el Kezour;

And one hour eastward from thence, in the plain, an insulated pillar called Amoud Esszoubh [Arabic], i.e. the Column of the Morning, on which, as I was afterwards told, are several inscriptions. Our road now turned N. and we reached, after sunset, in three hours and a quarter from Missema, the ruined village Merdjan, where we found some men who had come to sow a few acres of ground, and partook of a frugal supper with them.

December 3d.--The small village of Merdjan is picturesquely situated on a gentle declivity near the foot of the mountain, and is surrounded by orchards, and poplar trees, which have escaped the rapacious hands of the Arabs: hard by flows a rivulet, which irrigates the adjacent grounds. We left Merdjan early in the morning. Twenty minutes north is Ain Toby [Arabic], or the spring of the gazelle, consisting of several wells, round one of which are the remains of a well built wall. At one hour and a half is Soghba [Arabic], a few houses surrounded by a wall; three quarters of an hour from thence is Deir Ali [Arabic], a village at the western foot of Djebel Mane; before we came to the village we crossed the Moiet Deir Ali, a rivulet whose source is in the neighbourhood.

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