EL SOFFRE. 89 how these were being driven off by their owners into concealment in the forest.

The number of huts and tents we beheld were some loOO or 2000, but far the greater number we did not see, and many, very many of the natives have no fixed dwelling. At all events, from the numbers of men, women, and children we met, double the number of huts we saw would have been necessary to house them.

In the present critical times, doubtless many natives from other places (such as the settlements of Issi and Teschum, nearer our camp) have joined Mohammed Din, but it is equally certain that a greater number (30,000 or 40,000, according to Sali EfFendi)have, from terror of the Pascha, or to conceal their herds and other goods, fled to the chaaba, to which wilds Mohammed Din himself has sent off 6000 camels, that they might be out of the way of the Turks. On reaching the centre of the village, our path led up a gohr some twelve or fourteen feet wide, which must at times contain a large body of water, and which runs from east to west.

In it, and on both sides along its course, were the greater number of the wells. It seems as if here, either a subterraneous stream ran, or that some sunken supply of water filtered up to the surface through the clay subsoil, as at all seasons of the year, water is to be had here in plenty. In the country of the Haddenda is one spring, which supplies nearly the half of it ; there one can plainly observe how the water runs strongly below the surface, and the laud of Taka is also full of such underground watercourses. But, perhaps, after all it is a mere gathering of water caused by the soil some twenty or thirty feet down being a stiff clay through which water cannot penetrate. However, in the gohr of the hills, even where the ground slopes, and a constant dropping of water must be going on, this element can every where be found. From this under stratum of clay, the inhabitants procure the material from which they form the burnt red earthenware water jugs, which they use in their washings before prayer and at other times.

In this gohr we came upon a great mass of men and beasts, and much surprised the former seemed at our appearance. We now understood our guide's anxious hurry to get us on to where Mohammed Din was. He believed us not to be in safety among