616
WADY  FEIRAN.
prudently  declined  to  do.  Ten  years  ago  I  should  hardly  have
been  able  to  extricate  myself  in  this  manner.
The  valley  of  Feiran  widens  considerably  where  it  is  joined  by
the  Wady  Aleyat,  and  is  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  breadth.
Upon  the  mountains  on  both  sides  of  the  road  stand  the  ruins  of
an  ancient  city.  The  houses  are  small,  but  built  entirely  ofstones,
some  of  which  are  hewn  and  some  united  with  cement,  but  the
greater  part  are  piled  up  loosely.  I  counted  the  ruins  of  about
two  hundred  houses.  There  are  no  traces  of  any  large  edifice  on
the  north  side  ;  but  on  the  southern  mountain  there  is  an  extensive ¬
  building,  the  lower  part  of  which  is  of  stone,  and  the  upper
part  of  earth.  It  is  surrounded  by  private  habitations,  which
are  all  in  complete  ruins.  At  the  foot  of  the  southern  mountain ¬
  are  the  remains  of  a  small  aqueduct.  Upon  several  of  the
neighbouring  hills  are  ruins  of  towers,  and  as  we  proceeded
down  the  valley  for  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  I  saw  many
small  grottos  in  the  rocks  on  both  sides,  hewn  in  the  rudest  manner, ¬
  and  without  any  regularity  or  symmetry;  the  greater  part
seemed  to  have  been  originally  formed  by  nature,  and  afterwards
widened  by  human  labour.  Some  of  the  largest  which  were
near  the  ruined  city  had,  perhaps,  once  served  as  habitations,
the  others  were  evidently  sepulchres  ;  but  few  of  them  were  large
enough  to  hold  three  corpses,  and  they  were  not  more  than
three  or  four  feet  high.  I  found  no  traces  of  antiquity  in  any  of
them.
At  half  an  hour  from  the  last  date-trees  of  Feiran,  I  saw,  to  the
right  of  the  road,  upon  the  side  of  the  mountain,  the  ruins  of  a
small  town  or  village,  the  valley  in  the  front  of  which  is  at  present
quite  barren.  It  had  been  better  built  than  the  town  above  described, -
  and  contained  one  very  good  building  of  hewn  stone,  with
two  stories,  each  having  five  oblong  windows  in  front.  The  roof