passing immediately through the site of the city, keeping on its western edge, and passed there an extension of the Necropolis, through which we had gone on the preceding day; the form, the size, and the sculptured ornaments of the sarcophagi, were still the same, and there were certainly more than fifty of them now above the ground. They lay together in heaps, and seemed, like the rest, to have been dragged up from the earth with violence, as many of them were broken, and others reversed.

Notwithstanding the violence of the rains, which had reduced the parched earth to a state of mud, and rendered the ploughed lands almost. impassable, the peasantry were all out, either at the plough or scattering seed, the labour of husbandry being already too much retarded by the late long drought to admit of an hour being lost. This was most unfortunate for us, as we necessarily passed several of them, and attracted the more notice, from being on foot in such unseasonable weather.

At length we reached the back of the southern theatre, and descending into it by one of the regular doors, sought a moment's shelter and repose in the covered passage which led to the

seats.

Even here, we were visited by one of the old peasants from the fields, who insisted that we were come to take away the hidden treasures

of the genii who had built these palaces and castles. We replied, that, being on our way from Egypt to Constantinople, we were desirous of carrying to the Sultan, (whom all the faithful reverenced as the head of Islam,) some account of so wonderful a place as Jerash, of which he had never yet heard; and we begged that he, as a true Mohammedan, would implore the blessing of God upon our labours. The man was rather confounded than satisfied, and soon began to grow impatient; but we contrived to bribe him to stay, fearing that, by leaving us, he might communicate our being here to his fellows, and occasion our further interruption.

Mr. Bankes now prepared to draw from hence a view of the interior of the theatre, including chiefly its front and scene, being completely sheltered from the rain, as well as from sight, by the arched. covering of the passage under which he stood; and in the meantime I employed myself in measuring the principal features of this building, in laying down, by compass, from an overlooking eminence, the relative positions of the principal edifices, and in forming as accurate a ground-plan of the whole as the unfavourable circumstances of the moment would admit.

When Mr. Bankes had finished his drawing, the two Arabs became impatient to return

to Soof, and the third to see the treasure opened. The rain still continued with increasing violence, and nothing could be set on paper without being under the shelter of some portion of building, as even our inner clothes were as wet as our outer ones, and nothing could be done under them.

We set out together, however, from the theatre to the southern gate of entrance, and paced the whole of the way from thence to the northern gate and wall, examining, cursorily, all the buildings in the way, and forming from it the ground-plan on a separate sheet, as well as collecting the following observations of a general nature on the city itself.

CHAP. XXI.

RUINS OF THE ANCIENT GERAZA.

THE geographical position and relative bearing and distance of this place, from other established and well-known points, will be best seen from the map of our route, which has been constructed with great care, and that portion of it, which includes the country east of the Jordan, laid down entirely from our own journey through it.

The city occupied nearly a square of somewhat less than two English miles in circumference; and the greatest length, from the ruined arched building on the south of the first entrance, to the small temple on the north of the opposite one, is about five thousand feet, as mea. sured by paces, or nearly an English mile. The general direction of this square is, with its sides, nearly towards the four cardinal points; but none of these sides are perfectly straight, probably from the inequality of the ground along which they run.

The city stood on the facing slopes of two