Note 1 — Chapter I

Abulfeda’s description of it runs thus:—“The river, which flows to Damascus, takes its rise beneath a Christian church, called El Faÿgeh, and becomes at once a rivulet, which is increased in its course by many other small springs. It then unites with a stream, called the Barada, and forms one river, which, at its entrance into the plain of Damascus, divides itself into six or seven branches running to the different quarters of the town.” At this division there is a cascade, and an inscription on the rock in Cufic characters, which Mr. Burckhardt told me he had copied.