volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

202 As-Saw'af on the Khdb^r.
were filled with salt water, and for this reason were
called Al-Malahah. That desert was a territory of
the Baggarah Arabs, who were at that time suffering
severely from the attacks of the Shammar. A further
ride of two hours brought us to As-Saw'ar,^ on the
Khibur, and we camped at a place near the ferry. A
little distance from the modern village were the remains
of a town of considerable size, and in several places
the track of the walls could be plainly seen. Fragments
of glazed pottery were lying about all over the site,
but none of them seemed to be older than the thirteenth
or fourteenth century. In three or four places I saw
traces of the kind of excavation which I had begun to
associate with native searches for antiquities, but one of
the men told me that many years before the English
had sent men to dig up the mound. I knew that a
native called Na'um made attempts to dig there in
i88i,^ but it is quite possible that Layard sent men to
dig there in 1850, though there is no mention of such a
thing in his account of the excavations he carried out
on the Khabur. The Turkish soldiers stationed at
As-Saw'ar for quarantine purposes gave me no trouble,
but they quarrelled freely with the two who came
with me.
We left As-Saw'ar at 7 a.m., and as I had an attack
of fever the day before we only rode as far as Markadah,
where we arrived at 2.10 p.m. We passed Tall al-Husen,
a long low mound about 40 feet high, which no doubt
contained the remains of an ancient Arab town ; almost
opposite to it on the east bank of the Khabur was Tall
ash-Shekh Ahmad, which marks the site of another
old town, but I have not been able to identify either
of them. A few miles further on we passed an old ford
across the Khabur. During the afternoon, taking a
native with me, I went to look at the hill of
Markadah. It was a nearly square mound about a
1 So the name is spelled by Sachau ; I have never seen it written
in Arabic by a native.
^ Sachau, Reise, p. 191.