Mon 20. [20 March 1905] Pouring rain but it cleared and we set off
soon after 8. I wasted a good deal of time looking for the Dionysus
relief which I could find nowhere and for the relief of the horse and its
rider by the north gate which seems to have been broken up. Copied
some inscriptions there. So we rode into the Zawiyeh [Zawiyah, Jabal
az] hills and presently began to come to traces of ruined towns. Saw
a big ruin called Termala to the right and lunched at 12.15 at one of
the many Ma'arrahs. So we rode on to Kfer Anbil, villages all the way
and outstanding tombs, the country low sweeps of hills all cultivated,
red earth, olive groves, very beautiful of a wide bare sweeping kind
and everywhere the dead towns, partly inhabited, at first by Arabs
then by a Muslim population. At Kfer Ambil we struck stright across a
wilderness of rocks towards Khirbet Hass. Hyacinths and anemomes
and grass between the stones and even patches of cultivation in the
valleys. Khirbet Hass uninhabited except for a tent of Arabs. I saw the
church and the street[?] and the great houses, rock cut tombs,
gardens enclosed, lots of birkehs. When I got back I found I had lost
my coat. Mahmud went to look for it and we waited an hour and a half.
He returned without it and we set off at a little after 6. At dusk a storm
broke and we were wrapped in pitch darkness. We lost our way and
wandered down a pallisade of huge stones, turned and tried again,
fired off shots, crossed the valley and went far out into the country and
finally made one more try, before sleeping in a tomb, and found that
we had been 5 minutes from the village at the time. Got in, in the rain
at 10.30.