FOOTNOTES.

1000 x 3 = 3000 200 x 9 = 1800 ---- 4800

This total we among ourselves divided equally, equal to 400 each.

We also agreed to make a present from each when in the territory, besides giving a feast at ’Ammân, and another at Jerash—the feasts were a mere trifle.

A hundred piastres came to rather less than a pound sterling.

I am glad to confirm the recent testimonies of Tristram and De Saulcy as to the honourable and noble deportment of Gublân and the other leaders of the ’Adwân people.

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.

“qui tire l’ire Des esprits mieux que je n’ecris.”

In that direction also were the “fiery flying serpents,” concerning which I have never been able to learn anything more satisfactory than that, in the hot and unpeopled gorges west of the Dead Sea, there is a thin and yellow serpent called the Neshabiyeh, which flings itself across from one point to another in the air with astonishing velocity and force. It is therefore named after Neshâbeh, a dart or arrow in Arabic. The natives also apply to it the epithet of “flying.” The wound which it inflicts is said to be highly inflammatory and deadly, and from this effect it may be called “fiery.” It may be also that, from being of a yellow colour, it may glitter like a flame when flying with rapidity in the sunshine.

It is only in Isaiah xxx. 6, that the epithet “flying” is used for these serpents. Observe, however, in Hebrew Lexicons the several applications of this word תוע.

The ancient Britons used to summon the congregation to church service by means of “sacra ligna,” is it not likely that these were the same as the above, seeing that the Celtic nations were derived from the East?