'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from January 1847 to May 1849. Edited by the Secretary. Volume VIII.' [‎354] (463/496)

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Grilgal, and out of the fields of Goba, and Azmaveth: for the singers had
builded them villages round about Jerusalem.”
From these and succeeding passages it is clear that Azmaveth was not
iar from Jerusalem, that it was in the border of Benjamin in the vicinity
of Anathoth, Ai, Michmash and Gilgal, and that it was a town of the
Levites and singers in the service of the Temple. This geographical
description accords perfectly with the position of modern Hizmeh, which
is one and a half mile from Anathoth, five and a half miles from Jerusalem,
about three miles by the road from Ai, about ten miles direct from the
supposed site of Gilgal, and within the ancient border of Benjamin.
There is a similar difference in the orthography of the original Hebrew
word and the present oral and traditional name, as that which I have
previously explained in speaking of Hai, and which exists also in the
finals and medials of the modern Arabic names Jiba for Gibeon, Yafa
for Japhia, Jilboa for Gilboa, &c. Otherwise, the Hebrew gutteral
Ajin, is seldom dropped or changed into an aspirate, having its equi
valent in the Arabic Ain, The present village contains about thirty
houses of Arab Mussulman Fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. , Like Jerusalem, it has no wells of
living water, but the supply is chiefly derived from rain water collected
in an ancient cistern on the northern slope of the ridge on which the
village stands. There are several caverns in the rock underneath the
village, the entrances of which are closed by wooden doors: they are
now used for the most part for stables for cattle, goats, &c. Several
hewn stones, and part of a column, are seen in the walls of the village,
and there are some traces of foundations in its vicinity. The southern
slopes of the hill were covered with wheat. The inhabitants seem
squalid and wretchedly poor. A fine view of the valley of the Jordan
in the vicinity of Jericho is obtained from this ridge : a green line of
verdure marks the serpentine course of the sacred river towards the
Dead Sea. I took the following bearings from the heights of Hizmeh: -
Er Earn (Bama,) W. 36° JST.; Jiba (Giibeah,) JST. 5° W.; Tel-el-Eul,
W. 15° S.
As we were taking these bearings and gazing on the desolate land
scape presented by the land of Benjamin and Mount Ephraim before us,
our attention was simultaneously rivetted by some long structures on the
lower slope of the mountain on which El—Giba (Gibeah) stands. On
my asking their name from the Arabic Sheikh who was with us, he im
mediately replied, u Kabur-~el-An(ialeheli” —the Tombs
of Amalek. The present Arabic orthography of, the latter woid