formed of a single slab of jasper, and supported by four pillars. Dr Wetzstein speaks of this remarkable place as "old Edrei, the subterranean labyrinthine residence of King Og."
Herr Schumacher has also visited this underground city of Dra'a or Ed Der'aah, and describes it, giving plans, in his work, "Across the Jordan." He regards such cities as the work of the earliest inhabitants of Hauran, the so-called giants of Scripture. He was assured by the sheikh Naif, and by many others, that this underground city extends below the whole of Ed Der'aah. Although the chambers and passages were ventilated, the question arises, why any people should choose to live in such gloomy seclusion instead of in the light of day? Mr Schumacher's conjecture is that they did ordinarily live in the daylight, and that these subterranean places were hollowed out in order to receive the population in time of danger. They were thus prepared to stand a siege, as long as their magazines were filled with food, their stables with cattle, and their cisterns with water. If, however, the enemy had found out how to cut off their supply of air, by covering up the air-holes, the besieged would have been compelled to surrender or perish. Another circumstance also might have proved disastrous—if armies of wasps found their way into the underground city the inhabitants would be driven out. Some writers think that this occurrence is actually spoken of in Exodus xxiii. 28—"And I will send the hornet before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite from before thee;" and Deut. vii. 20—"Moreover the Lord thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves, perish from before thee"—they that are left, and hide themselves!
Herr Schumacher and Mr Laurence Oliphant find many names and traditions which lead them to regard the country
