ENPages That Mention Mountains of Gilead
Norris: Diary, January - May, 1905
BSY_FB_28-019
Umm idj-Djimâl 9:00 A.M. Temp. 43 ° Baro. S 27.50 " Baro L 27.72 1/3 in of ice at night - Clear, Calm. Beautiful day.
Very busy and fascinating day for all, finding new wonders of intense interest as this city of the past gradually opens up its secrets. Many new inscriptions & buildings throwing more light on the history of mankind.
With one week of good weather and no interference from the government or Arabs, we can obtain enough data to cause a sensation when the results are published.
This complete city of an Arabic civilization now dead - as far as known, the only thing of its kind in the world - I believe to be doomed to distruction? within a very few years, after having stodd for at least twenty centurys?. The railroad now building from Damascus to Mecca runs within ten miles to the west and even now can be seen rising in the clear air the white steam from the locomotives as they slowly pull the construction trains South along the foot hills of the blue Mountains of Gilead. From the North and East the Druse, those vultures for the ruins are crowding the Arab nomads, and even now the city is recognised as the property of the Druse village of Dhibin, some 12 miles to the N.E. Only its slight inaccesibility gives it a short respite, before the Druse swoops down on his prey and carrys? away every lintel, every inscription, every piece of earring in fact nearly every cut stone, to build his miserable hovel of a nest. (Altis Nest)
