Upon A Stone, Built Upside Down In One Of The Interior Walls, Was This;

[Greek].

[P.82] [Greek] [The fourteenth Legion was surnamed Gemina. See several inscriptions in Gruter. Ed.]

At the lower end of the street is a tower about thirty feet high, and eighteen square.

Turning from the beginning of the street, to the south, I met with a large building in ruins, with many broken pillars; it seems to have been a church; and it is joined to another building which has the appearance of having once been a monastery. In the paved area to the S. of it lies a water trough, formed of a single stone, two feet and a half in breadth, and seven feet in length, ornamented with four busts in relief, whose heads have been knocked off.

In a stony field about three hundred yards S. of the Sheikh's house, I found engraved upon a rock:

[Greek].

KANOUAT.

[p.83]Round a pedestal, which now serves to support one of the columns in the front of the Sheikh's house, is the following: [Greek]. On the side of the pedestal is a figure of a bird with expanded wings, about one foot high, and below it is a man's hand grasping at something.

Near the Sheikh's house stands a colonnade of Corinthian columns, which surrounded a building, now entirely in ruins, but which appears to have been destined for sepulchres, as there are some small arched doors, quite choaked up, leading to subterraneous apartments.

November 17th.--We rode to the ruined city called Kanouat [Arabic], two hours to the N.E. of Soueida; the road lying through a forest of stunted oaks and Zarour trees, with a few cultivated fields among them. Kanouat is situated upon a declivity, on the banks of the deep Wady Kanouat, which flows through the midst of the town, and whose steep banks are supported by walls in several places. To the S.W. of the town is a copious spring. On approaching Kanouat from the side of Soueida, the first object that struck my attention was a number of high columns, upon a terrace, at some distance from the town; they enclosed an oblong square fifteen paces in breadth, by twenty-nine in length. There were originally six columns on one side, and seven on the other, including the corner columns in both numbers; at present six only remain, and the bases of two others; they are formed of six pieces of stone, and measure from the top of the pedestal to the base of the capital twenty-six feet; the height of the pedestal is five feet; the circumference of the column six feet. The capitals are elegant, and well finished. On the northern side was an

[p.84]inner row of columns of somewhat smaller dimensions than the outer row; of these one only is standing. Within the square of columns is a row of subterraneous apartments. These ruins stand upon a terrace ten feet high, on the N. side of which is a broad flight of steps.

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