WOMEN DRAWING WATER. 317 to indulge in the draught they asked for. At such a well could any ask in vain? The Bible says, "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand." With each family is a rope this is attached to the handles of the pitchers, and the drawer, generally, as now, a woman or maiden, -lets down the pitcher, the rope held by her hand, or resting on her hand. And here we sat and saw this very scene. We might pursue the simile further the ornaments, the dress, even the veil; for we hear, when Rebekah knew that the man who sat in the field. was Isaac, she took a veil and covered herself. This shows she had done so before, or she would not have had one ready, or even at all. The objection Eliezer made, was one that would arise this day among all Easterns, and perhaps among them only: "Peradventure, the woman will not be willing to follow me into this land." The well, like many others, had a square stone. at the top with a circular hole to draw water, and near stood (this is usual, also) numerous stone troughs, some higher, some lower, for the different descriptions of animals to drink out of; and we read," She hasted and emptied her pitcher into 318 UNCHANGING MANNERS OF ARAB WOMEN. the trough." The pitcher itself, as may be seen from the Nineveh and Egyptian excavations, was of exactly the shape used still. Little did those laughing girls,-Rebekahs, Rachels, and Sarahs,perhaps, think of the reason we watched their every motion so closely, and of the deep interest we took in every step of what seemed to them a mere daily duty, but to us was a wondrous record of the past. On the morrow we left Haran with the dawn. HARAN THE SITE OF NAHOR. 319 CHAPTER XX. Haran the Site of Nahor-Site of the Defeat of Crassus-Haran in the twelfth century-The right-hand man of an Arab Chief-His dress described-A fight in an Arab village-The Sheik Dahhal and his Son Gradual declension and probable extinction of Arab tribesThe Agedach tribe-History of the Sheik Dahhal-The young Sheik and his Mare-Arab Saddles and mode of Riding-Arab Horses An Introduction to the Sheik Dahhal-His mannersHis character-An Arab prisoner-His treatment--Bargaining for a Conveyance across the Desert. NONE seem to doubt that the present site of Haran is the actual site of the City of Nahor, the place inhabited by Abraham; whence Eliezer took Rebekah, where Jacob served for Leah and Rachel. The Theodosian tables place Haran twenty-six miles from Edessa-probably a correct distance. In the earlier mentions of it in the Scriptures, it is called Haran, (Genesis xxix. 40.) and others later (Acts vii. 2.), Charran. It is also styled Charra, Carra, and Carres, by the Romans. It was anciently famed for being the seat of the Sabians, who worshipped the hosts of heaven. This part of Mesopotamia was also called 320 SITE OF THE DEFEAT OF CRASSUS. Anthemasia by the Macedonians, after a district in Macedon; and was so called from the superabundance of roses it produced. It was afterwards called Osrrhoene, from a race of Arab Princes who ruled it, but of this district Orfa was the capital. Two hours' walk from Haran, according to Hadfi Khalifah, a Turkish historian, there are to be seen, on a Hill called the hill of Abraham, the remains of a Sabian temple. Haran lies fifty-five miles south-east of Zeugma, the place at which Crassus crossed the Euphrates; and two roads separate here, one direct south, leading to the Euphrates at Nicephorium; the other to the north east, towards Nisibis and the Tigris. The site of the battle and defeat of Crassus, (B. C. 52, 53,) is placed twenty miles south of Haran. It is too much a matter of history to need repetition. Probably it was at the lower spurs of these mountains I have described, running north and south, a little to the east of Haran, which the Arabs told me were Djebel Dugdug. Their lower spurs run into the plain nowhere are they mountains, I should have better said high lands. The ground there is still marshy, as it then Bitterly, as is well known, did haughty was. HARAN IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. 321 Rome feel her disgrace, and Cæsar himself was preparing to efface it when he fell. Nor was it till thirty years afterwards that the Parthians restored to Rome, under the reign of Augustus, the trophies gained in that campaign. Crassus himself fell, by an unknown hand, upon the field of the rest of his forces, many were slain; but some met a far more hospitable fate, bitterly as their countrymen deplored such disgrace; for Romans and allies, in the words of Horace : Milesne Crassi conjuge barbarâ, Incolumi Jove et urbe Roma? At the time of the visit of Benjamin of Tudela, Mesopotamia appears to have been ruined, for the Rabbi mentions that then not one building was left in the city, where his father Abraham had his dwelling. This was about the year A.D. 1173, or shortly afterwards. In A.D. 749, however, the dungeons at least remained; for there the ill-fated Ibrahim, the Abbasside, sighed away the life he had dedicated to the empire of the Moslem world. VOL. I. Y |