Camping for the night a few miles south of this lake, I, as usual, inquired for the names of towns, ruins, &c., in the district, and to my surprise the name _Kades_ was among them. We therefore altered our plan, and turned aside to explore the place pointed out under this name. We found it to be the site of an important town on the Orontes, about five miles south of the lake, and it was afterwards discovered that previous travellers had recovered the name, though it had escaped the map-makers. Standing on the great mound, and observing how the Orontes washes it on the east, while a tributary stream flows on the west and joins the river immediately to the north, no doubt remained possible that the name survived at a site exactly fulfilling the requirements of the Egyptian account. Excavations at the recovered Hittite capital might lead to very important discoveries, if thoroughly carried out.
I was much interested also to find a considerable Turkoman population in these plains; for the border between Turkic and Arab populations is generally placed much farther north. This mingling of Turanian and Semitic peoples round the old Hittite capital represents, in our own times, just the same racial condition which we gather to have existed in the time of Rameses II.
It has come to be generally recognised that the Kheta or Hittites were a Mongolic people, speaking what is called an “agglutinative” language, which was, I believe, akin to the Turkic dialects.[46] They were thus related to that ancient race of Chaldea and Media which, through the labours of Sir Henry Rawlinson and of Dr. Oppert, and their disciples of the second generation, has been so wonderfully demonstrated to have produced the existing population of Central Asia and of the Turkish hordes which spread over Asia Minor. The hieroglyphics found at Hamath, a day’s journey north of Emesa, are the same characters now known in many parts of Asia Minor, and of which examples occur even in Nineveh and at Babylon.
Our troubles were all before us. The Wâli of Syria caused us to be privately told that he must forbid any exploration under the old firman. The Druzes were in rebellion, and the Hauran, which I had intended first to enter, was surrounded by a cordon which we could not pass. Moving southwards, I found the Belka governor, who lives at Nâblus, equally firm. The word had been sent all over Syria. Moreover, the great Arab tribes of the Belka were at war, and the Adwân had just killed a chief of the Beni Sakhr. I soon found that we were watched by spies, and, moreover, that the Turkish power east of Jordan had been so much strengthened since the time when Sir Charles Warren visited Moab, that it was very hard to find an Arab chief independent of the Turks with whom to treat. I felt that the lives and safety of my party rested on my decision, and that while subscribers at home were eager for results, the question of putting my followers in peril rested on my shoulders.