the wonderful
city wherein I was forced to remain.

A second time my dragoman prepares food for our journey; and again, on
the morning of November first, we hurry to the station. This time we do
not miss the train--we wait for it--and we wait a long time; but with
the waiting there is contentment, for, if the train move south, I, too,
am sure of going.

"Through Bashan"

CHAPTER II.

At the time of this writing there is a railroad extending from Damascus
to Mecca, but at the time of my visit the terminus was at Mezarib, a
small town about fifty miles south of Damascus, near the northern
boundary-line of Gilead. It was in my plan to travel that distance by
rail; hence my presence at the city railroad station.

The ride to Mezarib, through Bashan, especially that part of it now
known as the Hauran, is one of more than ordinary interest. For the
first twenty-five miles the land is literally covered with black
basaltic rocks, as is also part of the remaining distance. How it is
cultivated I can scarcely understand, for I am sure that the American
horse could not be made to serve well here. But I was told that the
natives do cultivate it, and that they raise excellent crops of grain.
When I looked upon them at work with their crude wooden plows and brush
harrows, and then heard that they raise excellent crops of grain, I was
satisfied that the land must be very fertile; and I was reminded of a
certain humorist's remark about the fertility of some land in Kansas,
of which he said, "All you need to do is to tickle the ground with a
hoe, and it will laugh with a big harvest." Farther on the rocks almost
entirely disappear, and there is spread out a beautiful valley,
extending far to the south, whose fertility and pasturage attracted the
Israelites on their march to Canaan, and which, ever since, has caused
the name "Bashan" to be a synonym for "plenty." And, because of its
abundant production of grain, which finds a ready market in Damascus,
it has been aptly called the "granary of Damascus."

The manner in which this grain is put on the market is quite novel to
me. I see hundreds of camels loaded with large sacks of grain moving
with slow, swinging tread toward Damascus, or returning unloaded to the
desert. The camels proceed in single file, usually ten or more in a
train, and each is led by means of a rope fastened to the animal next
in front--the rope of the foremost of all being fastened to the saddle
of a