stages up the lower valley, whose direction lies nearly
north-east, lead to El-'Ila, Wallin's "Ela," which belongs to the
'Anezah. Thence a short day, to the north with easting, places
the traveller at Madain (not Madyan nor Medinat) Salih--"the
cities of Salih." The site is described to be somewhat off the
main valley, which is here broken by a Nakb (?); and those who
have visited both declared that it exactly resembles Nabathaan
Maghair Shu'ayb in extensive ruins and in catacombs caverning the
hill-sides.

Also called El-Hijr, it is made by Sprenger (p. 20) the capital
of Thamuditis. This province was the head-quarters of the giant
race termed the "Sons of Anak" (Joshua xi. 21); the Thamudeni and
Thamuda of Agatharkides and Diodorus; the Tamudai of Pliny; the
Thamydita of Ptolemy; and the Arabian Tamud (Thamud), who,
extinct before the origin of El-Islam, occupied the seaboard
between El-Muwaylah and El-Wijh. Their great centre was the plain
El-Bada; and they were destroyed by a terrible sound from heaven,
the Beth-Kol of the Hebrews, after sinfully slaughtering the
miraculously produced camel of El-Salih, the Righteous Prophet
(Koran, cap. vii.). The exploration of "Salih's cities" will be
valuable if it lead to the collection of inscriptions
sufficiently numerous to determine whether the Tamud were
Edomites, or kin to the Edomites; also which of the two races is
the more ancient, the Horites of Idumaa or the Horites in
El-Hijr.

And now to inspect the Gasr. The first sensation was one of
surprise, of the mental state which gave rise to the Italian's--