[131b] Ηροδρομος.
[133] I have been there three times, twice late in autumn, and once in July, and always found water abundant.
[136] Since writing the above I have seen the photograph taken of this temple by the Palestine explorators in 1866.
[149] I do not find this place in any lists or books of travels.
[155] Since that journey I have been told by the country people that between Gaza and Beersheba it is the practice to sow wheat very thinly indeed, and to expect every seed to produce thirty to fifty stalks, and every stalk to give forty seeds.
[182] In a journey to Gaza from Hebron, in the spring season of 1853, I was proceeding from the great oak down a long valley—but I was induced to deviate from the direct line by the tidings of Bait Jibreen being infested or taken by the Tiyâhah Arabs.
We everywhere found the peasantry armed, and on arriving before Dair Nahhâz, almost within sight of that town, and communicating with the village for water to drink, as I rested under a tree, Mohammed ’Abd en Nebi sent me word that Bait Jibreen was recovered from the Arabs, and now occupied by themselves; that thirty-five corpses of Arabs were lying round Bait Jibreen, and one of the two Arab chiefs (Amer) was slain—he himself was wounded in the knee.
From hence to Gaza we passed Zeita, where a breastwork had been hastily thrown up by the peasantry, and into which a number of armed men rushed from a concealment, and parleyed before they would allow us to pass on. Then to Falooja, and between Idsaid and Karatiyah on our right, and the Arâk Munshîyah on the left. Halted at Brair for the night.
The return from Gaza was by Ascalân, Mejdal, Julis, the two Sawafeers, Kasteeneh, Mesmîyeh, and Latron, on the Jaffa road to Jerusalem.
[203] Pronounced sometimes Dewân, sometimes Debwan.