PART III. station or fortress on the southern border of Palestine.

Karkaa is supposed with great probability to be the Coracea of Ptolemy, in Arabia Petræa. It is not unlikely that it is also the same with the castle called Carcaria, placed by Eusebius at the distance of a day's (?) journey from Petra.' The softening of Karkaa into Coracea enables us to identify the Wady el-Khuraizeh (one of the tributaries, as we have seen, of Wady el-Kureiyeh) as the modern representative of this most southerly point of the Holy Land. A more suitable spot for a border stronghold could not be found: it overlooked the desert in every direction; it had an inexhaustible supply of "sweet water" in the neighbouring wells of Mâyein; and from the names of adjacent valleys (Abu Tîn and el-Hamd, implying abundance of Figs), it must have had the advantage of a fruitful soil. Here, then, it was that the boundary line of Palestine, in its widest acceptation, swept round after descending so far to the south; and pursuing a N.W. course, touched the western extremity of Wady elKusâimeh (Azmon), and finally was merged in the Wady el-'Arîsh, which it followed to its outgoing at the sea.

I trust this digression from our main subject will not have been superfluous, if it has contributed in any

1 For these two particulars I am indebted to a note in Bagster's Treasury Bible, in loco.

measure to elucidate a matter which has hitherto re- PART III. ceived little attention from the critic or the topographer.

Having thus seen that Azmon, although generically related to Ije-Azem, is not specifically identical, our next object is to determine in what part of the pasture-grounds of the Avim or Azâzimeh we are to look for our 20th city.

When we think of the position of the four preceding cities, the probabilities are undoubtedly in favour of a northern rather than a southern direction. This consideration at once suggests the inquiry whether the ruined site, which is most familiar to us under the name el-'Abdeh, be not the very spot of which we are in quest; and I believe that the more the subject is investigated, the more satisfied we shall be that such is indeed the case.

(1) The position, as I have already said, is consistent with that of the cities which have gone before; and, as I hope to show, it is equally so with those which are to follow.

(2) It is very unlikely that a site of such importance as this, should not have been occupied from the first; and if so, it would necessarily be mentioned in this enumeration of the chief cities of the Negeb: but, unless it be referred to here, I see no other name that can with any probability be identified with it.

(3) There is, moreover, the meaning of the word Iim to assist us. We have already seen what the

PART III. Hebrew imports;-in the singular, an isolated mound or tumulus, rising in the midst of a plain; then, in its wider sense, a series or group of such detached heights; and finally, the irregular outline presented by the alternation of hills and valleys;-it only remains that we compare it with the actual physical aspects of the locality itself. Dr. Robinson, after speaking of the "hills, which from a distance appeared like mountain peaks," and of the 'Azâzimeh, whom he found "pasturing their camels and flocks," remarks that "the country around became gradually still more open, with broad arable valleys, separated by low swelling hills...... At 8 o'clock we turned off the road (to Beersheba) towards the left of a low range of hills, in order to visit the ruins of 'Aujeh or 'Abdeh. In half an hour we came upon a low ridge, commanding a view out over a boundless plain or slightly undulating tract."" We can now understand how these clustering yet detached hills, which must have looked so conspicuous in this wide expanse, served to designate a spot of which they were so marked a characteristic. The relation in which this city stands to the adjacent hills is clearly set before us in the following extract from Kurtz: "You proceed westwards (along Wady Murreh), and arrive at length at the link by which the S.W. corner of the Amoritish plateau of Rakhmah is connected with 1 Bib. Res. i. pp. 282, 283.

the N.W. corner of the 'Azâzimât. This link is PART III.

formed by an eminence to the E. of el-'Abdeh, from which the Jebel Garrah and Jebel Gamar emerge, the former towards the N.W., and the latter to the S.W., and encircle 'Abdeh in the form of an amphitheatre."

But the peculiar meaning of Iim is exemplified, not only in the configuration of the surrounding landscape, but in the local features of the site itself. "The principal ruins are situated on a hill or rocky ridge, from 60 to 100 feet high, running out like a promontory...... and overlooking the broad plain." Dr. Bonar thus describes the appearance of el-'Aujeh, as seen at a distance through the telescope: "There are two sorts of peaks; the higher looks like a castle, but turns out to be only the peculiar castellated formation of the rock. The lower is an old fortification, and both in situation and appearance was not unlike Home Castle in Berwickshire."

(4) Another mark of identity is furnished by the modern name of this site. We have seen that Dr. Robinson calls it el-'Aujeh or el-'Abdeh. Now there is much reason to believe that the latter name does not belong to this place at all. The evidence on which Dr. Robinson allowed himself to depend in deciding what he admits to be a much disputed point, 2 Bib. Res. i. p. 285.

1 Old Cov. iii. pp. 223, 224.

3 Desert of Sinai, p. 303.

PART III. appears to me very insufficient. Against a host of opposing testimonies, he can bring only a certain camel owner, whose personal knowledge we have no means of testing, and one of his Tawarah Arabs, who, however, admitted that his information was derived from a European traveller; while the regular guides ('Amrân Arabs from 'Akabah) declared that they knew only the name 'Aujeh. I have observed, indeed, as the result of a long and intimate acquaintance with the Biblical Researches, that its learned and excellent author is not to be trusted implicitly, as to his reasonings and inferences, when his mind is preoccupied with some favourite theory or foregone conclusion. Here, for example, he had fully persuaded himself that the Roman route from Jerusalem via Elusa to 'Akabah was across the central desert west of the 'Azâzimeh mountains. Consequently, when he arrived at Wady el-Lussân, although his "guides knew of no fountain or water in this valley, nor of any ruins," yet his faith was not shaken, and his conclusion was, that "the name, and perhaps the position, corresponds to Lysa, a station on the Roman road, lying, according to Rennell, about fifty-five geographical miles from Ailah." Had this been the only estimate of distance on record, it might have been considered a tolerable approximation; but he is compelled to add, albeit in a note, the damaging 1 Cf. Stewart, p. 193.