[P.143]Difficulty In Extricating My Mare From The Swamp As I Approached To Reconnoitre The Lake, Which Our Company Had Left To The Right Of The Road.

In the spring the earth hardens and is then covered with most luxuriant pasturage.

In March the peasants and Arabs of all the neighbouring districts and villages, as well as the inhabitants of Hamah, send their horses and mules here to graze under the care of herdsmen, who regularly pitch their tents near the Waoyat, and each of whom receives a piastre a head from the owners. The cattle remain here till April. The best pasture seems to be on the S. and E. sides, the banks of the lake being there lower than on the opposite sides. It was here, perhaps, that the Seleucidae fed their herds of elephants.

Two hours and a half from Sekeylebye, to the left of the road, is a ruined mosque, called El Djelame; two hours and a half, Tel el Mellah, a hillock in the plain. Our road continued through fertile but uncultivated fields. E. of Tel Mellah about two hours is Tel Szeyad. Af ter three hours and a half slow march we reached the Orontes, near a spot where a large wheel, of the same construction as those at Hamah, raises the water from the river, and empties it into a stone canal, by means of which the neighbouring fields are irrigated. At the end of four hours we came to a bridge over the river, on the other side of which the castle of Seidjar is [Arabic] situated.

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