er of the thirteenth century
merely mentions it as "a great city of ruins"; and so it lay, deserted
and forgotten, until a German traveller visited it in 1806; and so it
lies to-day, with all its dwellings and its walls shattered and
dissolved beside its flowing stream in the centre of its green valley,
and only the relics of its temples, its theatres, its colonnades, and
its triumphal arch remaining to tell us how brave and rich and gay it
was in the days of old.

Do you believe it? Does it seem at all real or possible to you? Look up
at this tall pillar above us. See how the wild marjoram has thrust its
roots between the joints and hangs like "the hyssop that springeth out
of the wall." See how the weather has worn deep holes and crevices in
the topmost drum, and how the sparrows have made their nests there. Lean
your back against the pillar; feel it vibrate like "a reed shaken with
the wind"; watch that huge capital of acanthus leaves swaying slowly to
and fro and trembling upon its stalk "as a flower of the field."

* * * * *

All the afternoon and all the next morning we wander through the ruins,
taking photographs, deciphering inscriptions, discovering new points of
view to survey the city. We sit on the arch of the old Roman bridge
which spans the stream, and look down into the valley filled with
gardens and orchards; tall poplars shiver in the breeze; peaches, plums,
and cherries are in bloom; almonds clad in pale-green foliage; figs
putting forth their verdant shoots; pomegranates covered with ruddy
young leaves. We go up to see the beautiful spring which bursts from
the hillside above the town and supplies it with water. Then we go back
again to roam aimlessly and dreamily, like folk bewitched, among the
tumbled heaps of hewn stones, the broken capitals, and the tall, rosy
columns, soaked with sunbeams.

The Arabs of Jerash have a bad reputation as robbers and extortionists;
and in truth they are rather a dangerous-looking lot of fellows, with
bold, handsome brown faces and inscrutable dark eyes. But although we
have paid no tribute to them, they do not molest us. They seem to regard
us with a contemptuous pity, as harmless idiots who loaf among the
fallen stones and do not even attempt to make excavations.

Our camp is in the inclosure of the North Theatre, a smaller building
than that which stands beside the South Gate, but large enough to hold
an audience of two or three