[Greek] There Are Two Other Buildings In The Town, Which I Suppose To Have Been Sepulchral.

In one of them is a long inscription, but the rain had made it illegible.

We rode on for three quarters of an hour farther to the village Kafer el Loehha [Arabic], situated in the Wady Kanouat, on the borders of the Ledja. I here passed a comfortable evening, in the company of some Druses, who conversed freely with me, on their relations with their own Sheikhs, and with the surrounding Arabs.

November 14th.--The principal building of Kafer el Loehha is

RIMA EL LOEHF.

[p.68]a church, whose roof is supported by three arches, which, like those in the private dwellings, spring from the floor of the building. Upon a stone lying near it I read [Greek]. Not far from the church, on its west side, is another large edifice, with a rotunda, and a paved terrace before it. Over the gateway, which is half buried, is the following inscription:

[Greek]

From Kafer el Loehha we rode N. forty minutes, to a village called Rima el Loehf, [Arabic] inhabited by only three or four Druse families. At the entrance of the village stands a building eight feet square and about twenty feet high, with a flat roof, and three receptacles for the dead; it has no windows; at its four corners are pilasters. Over the door is this inscription:

[Greek]

The walls of this apartment are hollow, as appears by several

DOUBBA.

[p.69] holes which have been made in them, in search of hidden treasure. Beneath it is a subterraneous apartment, in which is a double row of receptacles for the dead, three in each row, one above the other; each receptacle is two feet high, and five feet and a half long. The door is so low as hardly to allow a person to creep in.

I copied the following from a stone in an adjoining wall:

[Greek]

This village has two Birkets, or reservoirs for water, which are filled in winter time by a branch of the Wady Kanouat; they were completely dried up this summer, a circumstance which rarely happens. Near both the Birkets are remains of strong walls. Upon an insulated hill three quarters of an hour S.E. from Rima, is Deir el Leben [Aarabic], i.e. Monastery of Milk; Rima is on the limits of the Ledja; Deir in the plain between it and the mountain Haouran. The Deir consists of the ruins of a square building seventy paces long, with small cells, each of which has a door; it contained also several larger apartments, of which the arches only remain. The roof of the whole building has fallen in. Over the door of one of the cells I read the following inscription:

[Greek] [Hence it appears that Rima has preserved its ancient name. Ed.]

Half an hour E. of Deir el Leben lies a ruined, uninhabited village upon a Tel, called Doubba [Arabic] it has a Birket and a

SHOHBA.

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