olumns remaining, quite
four feet in diameter.

Hitherto we had met many more peasants travelling with merchandise than I
had expected. They were all going in one direction, namely, towards
Nabloos, and therefore from Es-Salt in Gilead, beyond Jordan.

These, however, ceased after we had crossed the water of Wadi Bedan into
the larger _Wadi Fara'ah_,--which is, however, the high-road to Es-Salt.

Soon afterwards we observed, by our wayside, a square of solid ancient
masonry, three courses high. In England this would be certainly the
pedestal of some old demolished market-cross; but it may have been the
lower part of some memorial pyramid. In the previous year I had seen
just such another at Ziph (Josh. xv. 55,) beyond Hebron.

Then we came upon a distinct piece of Roman paved road, which showed that
we were upon the high-road between Neapolis and Scythopolis, _alias_
Shechem and Bethshan, _alias_ Nabloos and Beisan.--Crossed a stream
richly bordered with rosy-blossomed oleander, and soon turned the head of
the water. A demolished castle was on our right, commanding the entrance
of Wadi Fara'ah.

Soon after noon we gained the olive-trees alongside of _Tubas_, a
prosperous village, yet inhabited by a people as rude and coarse as their
neighbours. Tubas is always liable to incursions from the eastern
Bedaween, and always subject to the local wars of the Tokan and 'Abdu'l
Hadi factions. I have known it to be repeatedly plundered. The natural
soil here is so fertile that its wheat and its oil, together with those
of _Hanoon_, fetch the highest prices in towns; and the grain is
particularly sought after as seed for other districts.

The place, however, is most remarkable to us as being the _Thebez_ of
Judges ix. 50, where Abimelech was slain by the women hurling a millstone
on his head from the wall. The more I become acquainted with the
peculiar population of _Jebel Nabloos_, (_i.e._ the territory of which
Nabloos is the metropolis,) a brutish people "waxing fat and kicking,"
the more does the history of the book of Judges, especially the first
twelve chapters, read like a record of modern occurrences thereabouts.
It is as truly an Arab history as any other oriental book can supply. I
observed that Mount Gerizim can be seen from Tubas,--which fact seemed to
give additional emphasis to the words, "And all the evil of the men of
Shechem did God render upon their heads; and upon those came the curse of
Jotham, th