Page:03.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.B.vol.3.LaterProphets.djvu/1839

 also is the fountain which sprang forth at the stamping of his foot, when at the end of his trial God commanded him, and said: Strike with thy foot - (thus a fountain will spring forth, and) this shall be to thee a cool bath and a draught (Korân, xxxviii. 41ff.). There is also the rock on which he sat, and his tomb.” Recurring to the passage of the Koran cited, we shall see that the stone of Job, the fountain and the tomb, are not situated in the Monastery itself, but at some little distance from it. I came with my cortége out of Gôlân, to see the remarkable pilgrim fair of Muzêrîb, just when the Mekka caravan was expected; and since the Monastery of Job, never visited by any one now-a-days, could not lie far out of the way, I determined to seek it out, because I deluded myself with the hope of finding an inscription of its founder, 'Amr I, and in fact one with a date, which would have been of the greatest importance in reference to the history of the Ghassanides, - a hope which has remained unfulfilled. In the evening of the 8th of May we came to Tesîl. Here the Monastery was for the first time pointed out to us. It was lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, - a stately ruin, which lay in the distance a good hour towards the east. The following morning we left Tesîl. Our way led through luxuriant corn-fields and fields lying fallow, but decked with a rich variety of flowers in gayest blossom, to an isolated volcanic mound, Tell el-Gumû’, from which we intended to reconnoitre the surrounding country. from this point, as far as the eye could reach, it swept over fields of wheat belonging to the communities of Sahm, Tell Shihâb, Tesîl, Nawâ, and Sa'dîje, which covered a region which tradition calls the home of Job. True, the volcanic chaos (el-wa'r) extended in the west to the distance