left around a lofty precipice, continued my descent, having the precipice above and the awful chasm below, with the river roaring at its bottom, and here so narrow as to coop the stream within straitened bounds; while the opposite precipice, near at hand, rose up so high above as to exclude every prospect but the sky. I seemed to be descending into the bowels of the earth; and a fitter haunt for beasts of prey or marauding robbers I never saw. Yet even here nature had her ornaments; and the beautiful oleander smiled upon me from many a nook in the frowning precipice. At length, with knees wearied by the steep and long descent, I reached the bridge, the Kûweh. The river was still any feet below me, running in a channel worn in the rock entirely by its own friction, and so narrow and tortuous as occasionally completely to hide the water from view. The Kuweh has evidently been formed by the falling of masses of rock from the precipices above, which still threaten to throw down more. The fallen masses, spanning the narrow stream, have in time become covered with earth and bushes, and now form a bridge. It is in fact now crossed by a road; for, difficult as I had found the descent, this is one of the roads from Hasbeiya to Deir el-Kamar and Beirût. It ascends, on the other side, a declivity apparently as steep as the one I had descended; and crosses the ridge of Lebanon by a gap somewhere south of Niba."

III. KEDESH OF NAPHTALI AND THE HULEH.

From the first journal of the Rev. Eli Smith, mentioned above, I extract the following account of the ancient Kedesh of Naphtali, still known as Kedes. The place has seldom been visited by travellers; and, so far as I know, this is the most full and exact account we have of it in modern times. A few notices are added respecting the streams of the Hûleh.

On the 23d of April, 1844, Messrs. Smith and Calhoun left the direct road from 'Akka to Hasbeiya at Bint Jebeil; and turned more to the east in order to visit Kedesh. Passing over a high rolling region of country, they came in an hour and a half to the village of Mâlikîyeh, situated in a beautiful though not large plain, in which were growing some very large and old terebinth trees. This plain forms one of the first offsets or steps of descent on this side towards the Hûleh. On the eastern hills, which rise but little, they stopped.

"We had here, considerably below us, another step towards the Hûleh, in which, directly beneath us, was the plain of Kedes, separated by hills and a Wady from another plain on the north. We descended immediately and rapidly to Kedes; which we reached, directly at the foot of the hill, in two and a half hours from Bint Jebeil.

1849.]

Kedesh of Naphtali.

375

Kedes, the once ancient Kedesh of Naphtali, is on a Tell, resting against the side of the hill which we had descended, with a plain of uncommon loveliness lying before it. On the highest part of the Tell, over which we first passed, is the modern village. A step down from this towards the south-east, an offset projects for some distance towards the plain; but yet at a considerable height above it. Here we encamped in the midst of grass of a luxuriant growth. On the south-west side of the Tell the plain extended up in the form of a narrow valley; in which, just at the foot of the Tell, bursts out a copious spring of the most limpid water. On the opposite side, lower down than the projection just mentioned, there projects another and larger offset; in the centre of which, at its junction with the main Tell, is also another beautiful fountain.

"On this lowest part were two ruins, of large hewn stone, apparently of Roman origin. The walls of one, in part, and one door-way, were standing; but we saw no traces of columns. Between the two ruins were some uncommonly large sarcophagi, which we conjectured to be older, but we could discover no inscriptions; one or two of them were double. In the village above, we saw one or two columus lying on the ground.

"Everything indicated that this was once a large and important place. And well it may have been; for I have rarely seen a place with which I was so much charmed. The abundant supply of water has been mentioned. The plain, three or four miles long, from north to south, and a mile wide, is perfectly level, and has the fertility of an alluvial bottom. The eastern hills in front are low and partly wooded. They hide the Hûleh; but you see over them the vast table-land of Jeidúr, extending from the foot of Jebel esh-Sheikh to the Jaulon, with its groves and luxuriant pasturage, and now spotted everywhere with the black tents of the 'Anazeh Arabs; while Jebel esh-Sheikh, with its snowy summits, rose up in all its majesty full before us.

"The present village is occupied by people from Haurâu, who had moved over but a few months before. Previously it was nearly or quite deserted. It was interesting to remark, in this case as well as in that of Mâlikiyeh, how the country of the Metâwileh is becoming the asylum of the oppressed. This is owing to the present upright and mild but firm government of Hamid el-Beg and Husein Suleimân, bereditary sheikhs of the family of 'Aly ez-Zŭghir, who now jointly govern the districts of Besharah and Shukif. In passing through the territory twice, I have never heard them otherwise than well spoken of, whether by Muslims or Christians. The people here had fled from Hauràn, to escape the depredations of the nomadic Arabs on the one hand, and the enormous exactions of the Damascus government on the other.

"The following bearings, among others, were here taken :

"Khureibeh is a Tell, apparently with ruins on it, at the south end of the plain of Kedes. Just there, in a deep ravine, the Wady el-Mu'adhdhamîyeh, known before in going from Safed to Bint Jebeil,1 finds its way into the plain of the Huleh at the fountain of Mellàhah. By this fountain there rises a conical peak from the superjacent mountain, which serves as an important landmark." There is some reason for supposing that el-Khureibeh marks the site of the ancient Hazor.2

"Benit appears as the point of a higher and distant table-land." It was from Benît that Mr. Smith and myself obtained a view of the basin of the Hûleh in 1838.3

The travellers left Kedes the next morning, and in half an hour reached the eastern edge of the plain. "It here extended up in a small offset into the eastern hills; but there was no outlet, nor did any appear anywhere. Indeed, this portion seemed the lowest, and was covered in part with water; which however seemed fast drying up. Coming in a few minutes to the eastern declivity of the hills, we ascended a point on the right, which commanded a magnificent view of the whole basin of the Hûleh.

"Our principal object was to discern the course of the rivers; but from this position it could not be determined. They appeared at one point, and disappeared in another; and finally seemed entirely lost in the marsh before entering the lake." Two days afterwards they were informed by an old man resident at Tell el-Kâdy, that the four rivers which enter the Hûleh, viz. that from Bàniâs, the Leddân from Tell el-Kady, the Hasbany, and the Derderah from Merj 'Ayûn, all unite below Sâlihîyeh a large encampment of Arabs in the Húleh, near a cluster of trees. In the afternoon of the same day they crossed the high ground above Abil, on their way to the castle of Shukif. "This position gave us the most distinct view we had of the rivers of the Hûleh. It produced the conviction of certainty, that the rivers do not continue distinct to the lake. We could clearly see the junction of two of them, the Hasbàny and that from Bânias, at the point above specified, below Sâlihiyeh; and these form but one stream below that point. I was not sure but that the Hasbâny and Leddân unite a little higher up; but Hasbeiyans well acquainted with the Hûleh assured me afterwards, that the three rivers form a junction at the

1 Bibl. Res. in Palest. III. p. 370.

3 See Bibl. Res. in Palest. III. p. 339 sq.

See Biblioth. Sac. May 1847, p. 403.

1849.]

Kadesh-Barnea.

377

same point, and that it is called el-Kaiteh. The Derderah, on the contrary, wanders off towards 'Ain Belàtah, and is lost from the view.

"Difneh is a small collection of cabins used by the Arabs for granaries, with a cluster of trees near it, in the direction of the Hûleh, and bearing 202° from Tell el-Kâdy. Our guide, an old man from Bànias, thought it had its name from an Arab burying-place in the neighbourhood. The etymology will allow of this; but it seems also to be a resemblance to Daphne." Many have supposed this to represent the Daphne (4άqvŋ) mentioned by Josephus (B. J. 4. 1. 1.). But the reading of Josephus is far more likely to be an error for Aurn, which is read in Antt. 8. 8. 4; seeing it required but the accidental insertion of a single letter. Josephus too speaks (B. J. I. c.) of the place as having in it the fountains of the lesser arm of the Jordan; which is not true of Difneh. The old Arab's etymology is probably the correct one.

IV. KADESH-BARNEA, "IN THE UTTERMOST BORDER OF EDOM."

From the northern Kedesh we pass at once to Kadesh Barnea in the southern extremity of Palestine. Since the discovery of the great valley of the 'Arabah by Burckhardt, most commentators and geographers have sought the position of the place somewhere in that valley, not far south of the Dead Sea, "in the uttermost border of Edom," Num. 20: 16. In the Biblical Researches, I have assigned the reasons for probably fixing it at the fountain el-Weibeh, or some other fountain not far distant, on the western side of that valley, north-west of Mount Hor and in full view of it, and at the foot of the western mountain by which all the ancient roads from the valley and from Petra and Edom ascended into the south of Judah. Those reasons it is not necessary to repeat here.

In the appendix to the work of Mr. Williams, entitled The Holy City, Lond. 1845, is printed a letter from his companion, the Rev. J. Rowlands, who travelled from Gaza through the desert by way of el-Khulasah (Elusa) and Ruhaibeh to Suez, giving an account of his supposed discovery of a Kūdes or Kadesh near his route, and quite in the interior of the desert. Until recently it has seemed to me, that the very fanciful and amusingly credulous character of the whole narrative would put every one upon his guard; and furnish in itself the best exposition of the fallacy of the whole matter. But the idea has since been taken up by Prof. Tuch of Leipzig, as falling in with a theory of his own on another topic;2 and his article has been translated by Prof. Davidson, and published in England.3 Winer, also, in the new edition of his Realwörterbuch (art. Kadesh) 2 Zeitschr. der D. Morgenl. Gesellsch. I. p. 179. 3 Kitto's Journ. of Sac. Lit. July 1848. p. 90.

1 II. p. 583, 610.

adopts the same view, relying on the supposed identity of the name. Hence it has become worth while to bring the matter to the test of examination.

Mr. Rowlands appears in his writings, and is described by those who know him, as a very amiable man; but fanciful, visionary, and full of credulity. A letter written some years ago mentioned respecting him the following incident: "He said, that in passing Mount Carmel he observed a tumulus, as to which he at once conjectured that it covered the remains of Baal's prophets (1 K. 18: 40); and on inquiring of his Arab guides, he was assured that it was a fact! And his eyes glistened as he proceeded to tell of several other like things he had discovered in those parts. His letter in Williams's Appendix, is a tissue of moonshine." After this, no one can wonder that he should have found Kadesh, his " much-talked-of, and long-sought-for Kadesh," to his "entire satisfaction!"

Mr. Rowlands went first from Gaza to Khŭlaah; in which he thinks he finds the ancient Chesil; though very few now question its identity with Elusa. From thence to Ruhaibeh his route was of course the same with that of Mr. Smith and myself in 1838, in the opposite direction. A quarter of an hour before coming to Ruhaibeh, he found an ancient site, "only a few traces of a city, pottery, etc." called Sepâta; this he holds to be the ancient Zephath or Hormah. We passed over the same ground, but neither saw nor heard of any such place; and, most assuredly, Mr. Rowlands heard no such name, for the word Sepâta is an impossible one in Arabic; that language not having the sound of p. Ruhaibeh itself, he "has not the slightest doubt whatever," is the Rehoboth of Gen. 26: 22. I had already pointed out the identity of the name; but with the remark, which still holds good, that Isaac's Rehoboth was simply a well with no mention of a city, and was situated apparently, according to the context, much further north.1

In ten hours with camels from Ruhaibeh Mr. R. came to el-Muweileh, a brackish fountain in a Wady of the same name. This is a usual station on the direct route between Sinai and Gaza; but lies a little west of our route; though it is mentioned by us and inserted on our map.2 The name el-Muweileh is a common one in Arabic, and signifies "salt places." Mr. R. writes it Moilahhi, and finds in it nothing less than Hagar's Beerlahai-roi of Gen. 16: 14. He has no doubt about it whatever;" and "the grand settling point is its present name;" that is to say, the Hebrew Beer (well) has been changed into Arabic Moi (water); and then of course lahhi corresponds to the lahai-roi of the Hebrew! This is the proof; and such is the philology in which we are invited to put faith.

Bibl. Res. in Pal. I. p.

291.

Bibl. Res. in Pal. I. p. 281, 561.