main force, the seventh was still closed. This was S.W. of the Acropolis.
All the works or ornamentations above ground were of Greek or Roman construction, but we found no inscriptions or coins. Heshbon must have been at all periods a strong place for defence, but with an unduly large proportion of ornamentation to the small size of the city according to modern ideas. Before leaving this site, far inferior to ’Ammân, as we found afterwards, I got the Arabs around me upon a rising ground, and, with a compass in hand, wrote down from their dictation the names of sites visible to their sharp eyesight:—
| To | To | ||
| S.S.W. | Umm Sheggar. | S.E.S. | Kustul. |
| “ | Neba (Nebo?). | S.E. | Umm el ’Aamed. |
| “ | Main. | “ | Khan em Meshettah. |
| S. | Medeba. | “ | Jâwah. |
| S.E.S. | Ekfairat (Kephiroth?). | “ | Kuriet es Sook. |
| “ | Jelool. | E. | Samek. |
| “ | Umm er Rumâneh. | E.E.N. | Ela’âl. |
| “ | Zubairah. | N. | Es-Salt. |
| “ | Manjah. | (The town | not visible.) |
These must have been the places that “stood under the shadow of Heshbon,” (Jer. xlviii. 45.) One of them at least appears in Joshua xiii. 17, etc., among “the cities that are in the plain of Heshbon.” [17]
In half an hour we came to Ela’âl, (Elealeh,) (Isa. xv. 4 and xvi. 9, and Jer. xlviii. 34.) Large stones were lying about, and one column standing upright, but without a capital. Fine corn-plains in every direction around. Our tents pitched at Na’oor were visible to the E.N.E. through an opening between two hills. Cool cloudy day; all of us enjoying the ride through wheat-fields, and over large unoccupied plains—my old friend ’Abdu’l ’Azeez still adhering to me as his willing auditor.
On coming up to his camp at Na’oor, we found that Shaikh Dëâb had already arrived.
And now I may pause in the narrative to describe the status of (1.) ourselves; (2.) the Arabs.
(1.) Although apparently forming one company of English travellers, we were really a combination of several small sets, of two or three persons each—every set having its own cook, muleteer, and dragoman; but all the sets on terms of pleasant intercourse, and smoking or taking tea with each other.
We calculated that our horses and mules amounted to above a hundred in number.
(2.) The whole territory from Kerak to Jerash is that of our ’Adwan tribe, but divided into three sections—the middle portion being that of the supreme chief Dëâb, the northern third that of ’Abdu’l ’Azeez, and the southern that of a third named Altchai in the south towards Kerak; but