v. 38.)

* * * * *

In conclusion of this expedition to Petra, I have a few observations to
make, arising from local peculiarities connected with it.

A. _On the payment of toll_, _or Ghuf'r_, _as it is termed_, _for
traversing unfrequented districts_.

Of course, this custom could never obtain in a country enjoying the
benefits of a vigorous central government; but it is, and perhaps always
has been, common in the far East. In Persia or Tartary, wherever a chief
is able to lay hold of a tower, and collect around him a band of
followers, he invariably exacts this tribute from strangers; just as in
our middle ages of Europe was done by the same class of persons in
countries where feudal institutions prevailed. The petty barons were the
shaikhs of their place and period.

But some considerations may serve to show that there is, after all,
something useful in the practice.

1. In such countries, the payment of this toll exempts the traveller
from the violence of all other claimants.

2. Those who get the toll, (I speak now of Palestine,) are always ready
to perform small services in return, which would be assuredly missed if
omitted, independently of the price paid for hire of camels.

3. If there were a better government existing, the traveller would
expect that government to provide good roads and bridges, and to
establish military posts for guarding them. This expense would be
defrayed from tolls, or some such mode of taxation, and so the fee or
duty would be only removed from one receiver to another. This is done at
present, and probably has been for many centuries, at the _Jis'r benat
Ya'koob_, between Safed and Damascus.

One cannot be surprised at the peasantry of Wadi Moosa exacting a toll
from travellers on entering the valley of Petra, to see the wonders of
antiquity which are attracting the attention of the most remote nations;
remembering, too, the position of the place, viz., in a hollow,
surrounded by crags and hills, where no Turkish rulers have ever been.

In like manner, we shall only be in a condition to remonstrate on paying
ghuf'r in the shape of presents to the Adwan beyond Jordan, when we are
able to find our way to Amman and Jerash without them, or to keep off the
Beni Sukh'r and 'Anezeh, either by our own right hand or by means of the
Turks. {339}

Finally, it must be borne in mind that the Turkish government itself pays
ghuf'r to the Eastern Beda