The land of Israel : a journal of travels in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to its physical character

HANDBOLND
AT THE

UNI\LRSITV OF
TORONTO PRESS

^

THE LAND OF ISRAEL.

LONDON :

I'RINTED BY R. CLAY, SON, AND TAVLOll,

BREAD STREET HILL.

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Cf]c fanir ai Israel;

JOURNAL

OF

TRAVELS IN PALESTIIfE,

UNDERTAKEN WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE
TO ITS PHYSICAL CHARACTER.

BY

H. B. T R I S T R A M, M.A. F.L.8.

ETC.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIKECTION OF

THE COMMITTEE OF GENERAL LITERATURE AND EDUCATION

APPOINTED BY THE SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE.

LONDON :

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE;

SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES :

77, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS ;

4, ROYAL EXCHANGE ; 48, PICCADILLY ;

AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.

1865.

DS

PllEPACE.

Divines, antiquarians, and poets have trodden the fichls of
Palestine, and made the world familiar witli its most inte-
resting and striking features. Not to enumerate others, the
researches of Dr. Eobinson and the glowing pictures of Dean
Stanley have, upon most subjects connected with the country,
left little to be filled in by their successors. .

Notwithstanding this, however, and although libraries teem
with volumes of geographical and archaeological investiga-
tions, the physical history of the Holy Land appears, hitherto,
to have scarcely received the attention that is due to it, and
there may in this direction be still room loft for a contribution
to our knowledge.

In the belief that this field was not yet exhausted, 1 spent,
accompanied by a small party of friends, in 1863-4, a period
of nearly ten months in the examination chiefly of the geolog;y'
and natural history of the country. Our attention was par-
ticularly directed to the basin of the Dead Sea, and to the
districts east of the Jordan, as being those least accessible to
travellers, and of which our knowledge was least complete.

Every country is interesting to the student of nature, but
the interest is vastly enhanced when he wanders among the
scenes M'hich suggested their imagery to Prophets and
Psalmists ; and, far more even than this, which supplied
illn.strations for the teaching of our Divine Redeemer ; and

h

VI PREFACE.

which are also consecrated by the memories of Himself and
His Apostles.

Though Palestine boasts in its productions neither the tro-
pical splendour of India, nor the gorgeous luxuriance of
Southern America, yet from its fowls of the air are drawn for
us our lessons of faith and trust, from the flowers of its fields
our lessons of humility. Tlie phenomena of its climate, the
character of its agriculture, the fishes of its lake, the bears of
its woods, the wild goat of its rocks, the turtle and the stork
returning to their haunts amidst its groves, the sparrow and
the swallow sheltei-ed in its temple, are subjects, an ac-
quaintance with wliich may not be essential to a com-
prehension of the lessons of Sacred AVrit, but yet may be
of considerable value in enabling the reader to appreciate
the force and beauty of the parable or the narrative, and in
impressing the scene or the story upon his imagination and
his memory.

There are two circumstances which must be impressed upon
every thoughtful visitor to the land which was selected to be
the cradle of God's revelation to man, and of a faith that was
intended to be universal : first, the absence in its scenery of the
romantic — of all that could bewilder the imagination or foster
a localized superstition ; and, secondly, the marvellous variety
of its climate, scenery, and productions, — from the dreary
deserts of Southern Judsea to the wooded glades of Gilead and
Galilee — from the seething valley of the lower Jordan, 1,300
feet below the level of the sea, to the almost Arctic heights of
Hermon and Lebanon. When Solomon " spake of trees, from
the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that
springeth out of the wall," his botanical range extended from
the hardy pine under northern snows, to the plants of the
sultry deserts of Arabia. No land could have been found
more capable of providing illustrations for a book which was
to be read and understood liy the men of North and Soutli

PREFACE. vii

alike — M'hich was to teach tlie lessons of truth equally to the
dweller iu the tropics and under the pole — than this, in
which the palm, the vine, and the oak flourish almost side
by side.

My attempt in the following pages, which are for the most
part a transcript of letters written on the spot, has been
simply to convey the observations and impressions of each
day as to the scenery, features, and products of the country
through which we were passing : and I have kept back those
technical details and enumerations which would have little
attraction except for the naturalist, though, for the sake of
definition, I have thought it advisable generally to insert the
scientific names of such animals, plants, and fossils as are
incidentally mentioned in the text : nor have I scrupled
occasionally to enter upon topographical disquisition when
on comparatively untrodden ground, or when the sacred
narrative seemed to be thereby elucidated.

To the zealous and indefatigable co-operation of my fellow
travellers, whose companionship enabled me to accomplish
my long-cherished desire, I owe much, and more than I can
adequately acknowledge. To the accurate and artistic pencils
of my friends Mr. W. C. P. Medlycott and Mr. P. Egerton-
Warburton, and to the careful photographs of my friend,
Mr. H. T. Bowman, all kindly placed at my disposal, the
volume is indebted for its illustrations. The scientific know-
ledge and perseverance of my constant companion, Mr. B. T.
Lowne, were devoted to the botany of the country, and his
ready information on this subject has been largely drawn
upon in the preparation of my notes ; while to the keen eye
and indefatigable labours of my zoological assistant, Mr. Edw.
Bartlett, a young naturalist of no ordinary promise, are due
the discovery and preservation of many specimens which
would never otherwise have enriched our collections^ ]\fy
friends, Mr. H. :M. Upcher and Mr. C. W. Shepherd, were

h 2

via PREFACE.

unwearied in their efforts to promote in every possible way
the objects of our expedition. Xor must I omit my grateful
acknowledgments to Messrs. J. H. Cochrane, Barneby-Lutley,
and Gamier, by whose kind assistance and in wliose society,
with Mr. Egerton-AVarburton, I was enabled to accomplish,
at length, the most interesting part of my trans-Jordanic
excursion.

In the hope that this humble contribution to our know-
ledge of sacred scenes may conduce in some degree, however
slight, to the elucidation or illustration of Holy Writ, and in
the firm conviction that every investigation of even the minor
details of the topography and the natural character and
features of the land has tended to corroborate the minute
accuracy of the Inspired Eecord, and to confirm our faith in
its divine origin, these pages are committed to the press ; not
without a deep sense of gratitude to the Divine Providence
which enabled us to complete our journey in health and
safety ; and an earnest prayer that God may prosper this
and every attempt to illustrate His Holy Word.

Gre.\tham Vicarage,

23rf March, 1865.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGE

Vrrival off Beyrout — First Impressions — On the Borders of the Laud of
Promise — Disembarkation — Turkisli Custom House — Sultan's Firman
and its Effects — Our Landlord's History — The Hotcd — View from its

Roof — Dragomans and Servants Expedition to the Nahr-el-Kelb —

Ass^TJan and Egj'ptian Eock-Tablets — Sennaclierib — Bone Breccia-
Flints and Teeth — Red Deer and Elks — The Bison, the Unicorn 6f
Scripture — Boat Expedition — Sea Fowl — Gorge of the Ancient Lycus
— Its Birds and Plants — Cavern Pools^Fishes — Visit to Daoud Pasha
— Scenery of the Lower Spurs of Lebanon — Olive-Trees — Reception by
the Pasha — His Justice — Political Views — Druses and Maronites —
E<lucation among the Druses — Learned Researches of Daoud Pasha
— Mrs. Thompson's Schools in Beyrout — American JMission — Dr.
Thomson 1

CHAPTER II.

)epaii;ure from Beyrout — Scene in a Syrian Post Office — Sea-side Wells
— Birds of the Shore — Fording a River in the Dark — The Tamyras—
Companions and Guides — First Night under Canvas — A Sunday on the
Phcenician Shore — Description of our Camp and Attendants — Hamoud
the Muleteer — The Sycamore-tree of Scripture — Its Fruit — Biblical
Allusion.? — Nebi Yunas — Geology of the Hills — Sidon — A Moslem
Fimeral — The Gardens of Sidon and their Birds — The Gourd of Jonah
— Phcenician Tombs in the Hills — Limestone and Flint Deposits —
S)Tian Country Priest — Thunderstorm — Birds of the Bostrenus —
American Mission — The Doctor's Shelter in a Sturm — Ruins of Sidon—
The old Quays — Night under Canvas in a Storm — Swollen Ford —
Narrow Escape of Moussa 27

CHAPTER III.

arepta — Its Traces and Modern Site — The River Leontes — Bridge —
Oleanders — Contrast of Tyre with Sidon — Desolation — Filth^Rtiins in
the Sea — The Old Cathedral — Massive Remains — Quarrying of Mines

X CONTENTS.

PAGE

— Tj'rian Purple— Shell-Fish— Ancient Sca-'^Vall—Litoral Fulfilment of
Ezekiel's Proi>lie('\- — Hiram's Well — Excursion to Hiram's Tomb —
Agriculture of the District — Description of the Tomb — Serpent
catching — Local Traditions — Kanah — Winter Flowers — Phoenician
Sculptures — Cisterns — Eagles — Coins of Philip anil Alexander — Rarity
of Jewish Coins — Absence of Phoenician Stone-AVork — Wood Sculpture
— Ras el-Ain — Palatyrus — The Ladder of Tyre — Interesting Landscape
— Ruined City of Iskanderiyeh — View from Ras en Nakura— Descent
into the Plain of Acre 46

CHAPTER IV.

El Bussah — Birds— The Owl of Scripture — Syrian Christians — Costume
of the Women — the Semadi — Syrian Church and Service — Visit to the
Sheikh — Description of his House — The Manger — Nativity of our Lord
— Demands on the Hakeem — Proposal of Marriage — Visit of a Turkish
Official — Excursion to Wady Kurn — Fish — Shells — Eagles — Castle of
Ku]at-el-Kum — Description — Chronology of the diiTerent Bevels on the
Stones — Kurn probably a Crusading Fortress— Shrubs and Flowers — ■
Solitary Column — Partridge of Scripture — Conies — Superiority of
Christian over Moslem Women — An EI Bussah Interior — Baths —
Feast of Tabernacles — Bees and Hives — Scriptural Allusions — Discoveiy
of an Indian Owl — New Bats — Geology 67

CHAPTER V.

Plain of Acre — Ichneumon^Francoiin — Birdsiand Flowers — City of Acre
— River Belus — Discovery of Glass — Shells — Wrecks — The Kishon —
Currents-^Caiffa, Sycamiuum — Visit to the Consul — Dilapidated Forti-
fications— Camping in a Canal — Washed out — The Convent — Its Value
to Travellers — A Consul's Funeral — Shooting by the Kishon — The
Flamingo — Mandrakes — The AVady Zerka — The Crocodile — The
Leviathan of Scripture — Swallows in Winter — Panorama from the
Convent Roof — Ancient Wine-Presses— Cistern — Underground Grana-
ries— Scriptural Allusions — The Sect of the Metawileh — Freebooters —
An useful Example 9]

CHAPTER VI.

Tombs in Camiel — Character of the Scenery — SmaUuess of the Trees —
Fossils — Ride along the Top to Esfia — Reception — Visit to a Christian
Family — Domestic Arrangements —Ride to Mohraka, place of Elijah's
Sacrifice — Elisha's Altar — View from the Top — Plain of Esdraelon —
Historical Associations — Place of Sacrifice — Well and Tree — Swamps —
Fording the Kishon — Hills of Galilee — Birds — Arrival at Nazareth —
Agyle Agha —Extension of Naiiareth — Change of Site— Precipice—

CONTENTS. xi

The Wall of Nazareth— Bareness of the Hills— Jlount of the Preeipi-
tation— Iskal, Chisloth-Tabor— Interesting Remains — Raids of the
Bedouin — Sutferiugs of the Peasantry —Tabor anil Hermon — Endor —
Cave-Dwellings— Xain— Burial Ground— Well— An Arab Girl— Geolo-
gical Phenomena — Basalt — Shunem or Suleni — Zerin, Jezreel — Jenin or
Engannim — Palm-trees — Olive-trees — Gardens — Crows — Dothan —
Trading Caravan — Eagles — Passes of Manasseh — Sebustiyeh or Samaria
— Church— Long Colonnades — Fulfilment of Prophecy — Heaps of the
Field and Vineyards- Stony Hills— Vale of Shechem— Its Beauty-
Arrival at Xablous 110

CHAPTER VII.

Nablous — Its Trade— Cotton — Sunday in tlie Mission School — Bisliop
Bowen — Aralnc Service — A Protestant from Gilead— Shalem — Jacob's
Well — Associations of the Scene — Value of AVells — Joseph's Tomb —
Moisture of Shechem — Gerizim and Ebal — Frait-trees — Joshua's As-
sembling of Israel — Distance to which Sound Travels — Samaritan
Temple— Altar- Platform— Landscapes — The Moriah of Abraham —
Samaritan Synagogue — Rolls and Manu.scripts — The Priest Amram —
Tuibiilence of the People of Nablous — Commisbions for Jerusalem . . 1.39

CHAPTER VI II.

Plain of Shechem — Lebonah — Alarm of Shepherds — Situation of Seih'ni
(Shiloh) — Ruins — Reasons for its Selection by Joshua — Variety of
Flowers — Ain Haramiyeh, The Robber's Well — Bethel — Ancient Cis-
tern— Old Woman and her Sticks — Robbery and Restitution — Frost —
Abraham's Camp — Its Site — Michmash — Bireh, or Beeroth — Cru-
sading Church — Gibeah, Mizpah, and Ramah — ^Meeting with M. de
SauIcy^His Discoveries — First View of Jerusalem — Russian Hospice
— Camp by the Jafla Gate — A Volunteer Sentry — Missions in Jerusa-
lem— Jewish Converts' Quarter — Bishop Gobat's Schools — English
Church — Visit to the Mo.sque of Omar— The Sakhra — Stone of Sacrifice
— El Aksa — Vast Substructures — Immense Stones — Pillars — Arches —
Golden Gate — Botany and Ornithology of the Haram — Doves, Ravens,
and Crows— !-The Syrian Mole — Quarries of Jerusalem — Steps in the
Rock to the City of David 159

CHAPTER IX.

Negotiations with the Sheikhs of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea — Abou
Dahuk— Diplomacy — Sealing the Treaty — Night Storm — Midnight
Flitting — Departure for Jericho — Olivet — Bethany — The Apostles' Well
Bareness of the Wilderness of Judaea — Its Geology — New Birds — Wady

-I

Xli CONTENTS.

PAGE

Kelt — Situation of the Cherith — Sublime Scenery— View of the Plain
of Jordan — Ain Sultan — Eiisha's Fountain — Beautiful Camp — Birds —
Their Number and Beauty — liulbul — Sunbird — Shells — Plants — Palm
and Balsam perished — Mount Quarantania — Native Dance — Sunday
Callers — Defeated Freebooters — Women's Dance — A Bridal Party^-
Ain Duk — Grakle of the Glen — Caves in the Mount of Temptation —
Hermits' Cells — Inscriptions and Frescoes — Sepulchres — Difficult
Climbing — The old Anchorites — Arian Persecutions 191

CHAPTER X.

Ancient Jericho — Its Traces — Gilgal, probably Er Riha — Wady Kelt —
Herod s Jericho — The S)-camore — A Native Naturalist^Capture of a
Wild Boar — Native Horror of Pork — Geology of Jericho — Night Scenery
— Climate — Ride to the Jordan — Deir Hajla — Beth Hogla — Convent —
Sulphur on the Plain — Banks of the Jordan — Its annual Rise — Kurn
el Yehudi, St. Jerome's Monastery — Formation of Terraces on the
Plain — Effects of Rain and Floods — Ruins — Rock Doves — A False
Alarm — Native Ideas on Natural Histoiy — Ride to Jerusalem in the
Rain— Nebi Moussa — Limestone and Chalk Formation — Ta'amireh
Camp — Ruin of a Khan^An Italian Traveller — Return by the Hills
of Benjamin — Anathoth — Gi'ottoes — Sheep and Goats — Sunday Rest . 215

CHAPTER XI.

Ride up the Ghor — Boar Hunt — Ruined Aqueducts — View of Shittim —
Es Sumrah, Zemaraim — Its Quarries — Hyaena Caves — Formation of
Bone Breccia — El Aujeh — Phasaelis, Ain Fusail — Kurn Surtabeh —
Galilsean Swift — Wolf — Turtle Doves — Lynx — -Ride on the Desert
Plain — Its Geology and Formation — Departure from Ain Sultan —
Revisit the Jordan — Traces of Leopard — Wild Animals — Date Palms
— Mouth of the Jordan — Dead Sea Shore — Skeletons of Trees — Mineral
Specimens — Birds and Fishes — The Estuary — Island — Doubtful Ruins
—Terraces on the Hills — Trap Dyke — Gomorrah of De Saulcy — Ain
Feshkhah — Conies — Warm Spring — Character of the Shore — Ras
Feshkhah — Bold Headland — Difficult Climbing — Coast Line — Fine
Sand spits — Solitary Expedition — Bonfires 234

CHAPTER XIL

Ascent to Marsaba — The Sheikh's Invitation to Dinner — A Bedouin
Camp — Reception — Interpreter — Arab Girls — Carpets and Cushions

— Coffee-making — Dinner — Huge Dish — Arab Etiquette — Below
the Dais — Washing Hands— Squaring Accounts — Mental Arithmetic

— Principle of Backshish — Blackmail — Sunday Morning — Convent
Bell — Matins — ^[onks of Marsaba — Severe Rule — Contrast between

CONTENTS. xiii

PAGE

Roman and Greek Monks — System of Eome — Relics of filartyis —
Pet "Wolf— Delays— Non-arrival of the Jehalin — Aliou Dahuk — The
Archimandrite of Marsaba— Library — Departure — "Wady Ghuweir —
Ta'dmireh — Fossils — Ain Ghuweir — Ain Terabeh — Its Oasis — New
Sparrow— New Raven — Jloonlight on the Dead Sea — Map-making —
Arab Tales — "Walk to Ain Jidy— Bitumen 257

CHAPTER XIII.

Dead Sea —Sulphur Springs — Description of Ain Jidy — Engedi — Hazazon-
Tamar — Plain— Trees — Apple of Sodom — Rashayideh Arabs — Hungry
Bivouac on the Plain — Retreat to a Cave — Dreary Night — Meeting
Friends — Moonlight— Return — AVant of "Water — Difficulties of the
Caravan — Fountain of Engedi — Arab Acquaintances — "Wady Sudeir —
Lovely Grotto— Palm Trees — Ferns— Conflagration— "Wady Areyeh —
Ascent of Ras Sudeir — Height — Ancient Vineyards— Reports of War
— Salt-making — AVild Goats — Allusions to Engedi in the Psalms of
David — Canticles — Camphire 279

CHAPTER XIV.

Ride from Engedi to ilasada — Sulphur Springs — "Wady Khuderah —
"VS'ells dry — Halt under Sebbeh — Ascent to the Fortress — Its Height-
Its Tragical History — Access— Roman Causeway — Description of the
Ruins — Chapel — Crusading Remains — Cisterns — Magnificent View —
Roman Camps — Objection of our Arabs to proceed Eastwards — Cap-
ture of Ibex — "Wady Um Bagkek — "Water— Lovely Glen — Ruins — De
Saulcy'sThamara — Salt Springs — Camp at Zuweirali — Plants — Absence
of Volcanic Traces— Jebel Usdum— Mountain of Salt — Difficulty of
Ascent— Extent of the Rock Salt Ridge — Theory— Geological Specula-
tions—Similarity to the Sahara — Destruction of Sodom 301

CHAPTER XV.

Departure from Zuweirah for the Safieh — Jebel Usdum — The Sebkha or
Salt Marsh — Its Rivers and Birds — False Alarm — Oasis of Feifeh —
Belt of Reeds — Capture of Prisoners — Vegetation and Luxuriance of
the Ghor es Safieh— A Burning Village — General Pillage — Dead Bodies
— Indigo — Arab Ideas of Morals — Council of War — Causes of Fertility
— Streams — En Nemeirah — Ruined Sugar Mills — Crusading Traces —
Geology — Sandstone and Trap — Detennination to Return — Sirocco
Wind— Night Watches — Ravens — Camp at Zuweirah — Abou Dahuk—
Hamzi— Saul and David — Jehalin Guard, an Inferior Caste— Method
of Baking — Indolence — Poor and Aged — Geology of the Zuweirah —
Ruined Fortress and Archway — Cistern — Our Bath — Shrimps — Wady
Mahawat — Singular Deposit — Sulphur and Bitumen — Method of the

XIV CONTENTS.

PAGE

Destruction of Sodom — Natural and Supernatural Agencies — Absence
of Volcanic Traces — The Cities of the Plain not Submerged — Argu-
ments for their Position at the South — At the North — Su])criority of
the Latter — Plain of Jericho — Zoar — Moab and Amnion 331

OHAPTEK XVI.

Departure from the Dead Sea — Description of the Lisan — The Negeb,
or South Country — Hadadah — Zuweirah el Foka — Sudeid — Birds —
Dotterel — Eujum Selameh (Shema) — The "Wolf — Wilderness of Judah
— Abou Dahuk's tempting Pro])osal— Ofler of a Bedoiun Wife — Mr.
Wood lost in the Wilderness -El ISIiiilha ^Moladah) — Wells— Ruins —
Cranes— Sand Grouse — Beersheba — Horned Cattle — Cultivation — The
Wells— Insurgents — Their Chief, Mohammed Isa — Ruins — Turkish
Foray — Flight into the Wilderness — Arab "Warfare — Proposals for the
Pasha— Sudden Collection of Warriors — Precipitate Retreat from Beer-
sheba—Tell Hhora — Its Well — Ruins — Fugitives from Safieh — The
Hill Country of Judah — Attir (Jattir) — Rafat — Semua (Eshtema) —
Turkish Officer — Susieh — Yuttah (Juttuh) — Maon — Kurmul (Carmel) —
The Convoy lost — Ride in the Darkness — Perils of the Way — Hebron
at Night — Sheikh Hamzi's House — Nocturnal Invasion — Hospitable
Reception — Changes of IJaiment 3G4

CHAPTER XVII.

Hebron — Abraham's Oak — The Haram — Cave of Macpelah — Antiquity
of the Wall — Manufactures — Glass — Leathern Bottles — The Upper and
Nether Springs — Dura ( Adoraim) — Rameli— Bantica — Well — Slamre
— View of the Ghor — Road — El Biuak — Solomon's Pools — Ducks —
Urtas (Etham)— Gardens of Solomon — Ancient Baths— Frank Moun-
tain—Herodium — Tekoa — Adullam- — Giacomo Lost — A Night on the
Hills — Bethlehem — Women — Flowers — Rachel's Tomb^Jcrusalem —
Settlement with Hamzi — Arab Avarice and Cunning — Tombs — En-
trance to Tombs of the Kings — Rolling away the Stone— Ride to Jaifa
— M. 's Departure — Ramleh — Fruit Trnes — Persecution — Domestic
Changes — Signs of Spring — Agiiculture — Plain of Ephraim (Mokhna)
— Lepei-s — The Pasha's Harem — Sanui" — Lake — Women of Nazareth . 390

CHAPTER XVIII.

Departure from Nazareth — Ride by Mount Tabor — Beauties of Spring —
Deer — Agyle Agha's Camp — Courteous Reception — Invitation to
Dinner — Basaltic Ridges — Ard-el-Hamma — Bedouin Camps — First
View of the Sea of Galilee — Tiberias — Missionai'ics' Tents — Jewish
Sabbath — Costumes — Geanesaret by Moonlight — Mode of Fishing —
Shoals of Fish^— Cinereous Vulture — Mission- Work and Difficulties—

CONTENTS. XV

PAGE

Rabbinical Learning— Jewish University — Mineral Hot Baths — Boat on
±he Lake — Entrance of the Jordan — BuflFaloes — Birds — Stonii on the
Lake — A Night at Sea — Friends at Tiberias — Midnight Walk — Camp
at Mejdel (Magdala) — Geological Formation of the District — Basalt —
View — Flowers — Butterflies — Shells — Ain Mudawarah (the Eound
Fountain) — Its Fishes — Survey of the Shore — Ain Tin — Khan Miuyeh
— Papyrus — Ain Tabighah — Tell Htim — Naked Fishermen — Upper
Ghor — Bethsaida or Julias — Feeding tlie Five Thousand — Identifica-
tion of Ancient Sites — Ain Mudawarah the same as Capernaum —
Reasons — Josephus — Fishes — Bethsaida and Chorazin 417

CHAPTER XIX.

Plain of Gennesaret — Wady Sellamah — "Wady Leimuu — Fine Gorge —
Caves — Birds — Wady Hamam — Bud-nesting — Rope-climbing — Wild
Animals — Kulat — Ibn Maan — Robbers' Caves — Friendly Neighbour-
hood — Arab Fray — Funeral — Hatti n — Crusaders' Defeat — Cheerful
VQlage — Children — Departure of U, and S. — Om* Dragoman deserts us
— Visit to Agj'le Agha — Arab Feast— Presentation Ceremonies — Wady
Bireli— Castle of Belvoir — Geology of the Ghor — Bridge across the
Jordan — Sinuosity of the River — The Yarmuk (Hieromax) — Inundation
of Basalt^Sulpliurous Springs — Amatha — Vm Keis — Ruins of Gadara
— Field of Tombs — Stone Doors — Scene of the Miracle of the Healing
of the Demoniac, not Gadara, but Gergesa — Its Situation — Route from
Gadara — Loveliness of the Country — Oaks of Bashau — Cultivation —
Alanns of Husbandmen — Taiyibeh — Dinner with Village Sheikh —
Arrival at Tibneh 445

CHAPTER XX.

Description of Tibneh— City Square — Princely Sheikh — The Town Hall
— Reception— Coflee-making— Primitive Lamp — Politics and Wars of
Tibneli — El Kurah — Panorama from our Camp — Native Christians —
The Sheikh's House — Oiu- Visit — Barbaric Splendour — Presents —
Forest of Ajlun — Its Beauty — Contrast of Eastern and Western
Palestine — Reverend Guards— A Bedouin Raid — Fellaliin Pursuers —
Doubiah — 'Abbin — Suf — Sheikh Yusuf — Certificates of Character —
Difficulties — Extortion and Insidts — Position of our Camp — Threat-
ened Attack — Military Mauccuvrcs — Diplomatic Skill of Mr. Z. —
Threats — Escape — Sheikh Jusuf our Guard — Alone in the Forest —
Detour to the East — Fertile Plain — Beni Hassan Freebooters — Mahneh,
the ancient Mahanaim — Its possible Site — Retiirn to Taij-ibeh — Descent
to the Ghor — Bedouin on the Move — Fishes — Huleh Lil}- — Arrival at
Caiffa — B.'s Departure — Tribes of the Ghor — Hhawarah — Hinadeh —
S'hoor-el-Ghor— Sakk'r— Sardiyeh — 'Abba'at — GhaAv^rineh — Ta'amireh
— Rasha}ndeh — Jehalin — Beni Sakk'r — Beni Hassan — Adwiin— Beni
Hamedi— Origin of the Beni Sakk'r— Political Prospects of Palestine 467

xvi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XXI.

PAGE

Carmel in Spring — Its Trees and Flowering Shrubs — Flowers and Birds
— Plain of Acre— The Schoolma«ter Abroad — A Nomad School — Eeturn
to Nazareth — Visit to the Got-ernor — Tiberias — Camp at the Eound
Fonntain — Spring Birds of Gennesaret — Dinner with Agyle Agha—
Ascent of Tabor — Objections to descending the Ghor — Ride to Beisan
(Bethshean) — Ruins — Khan — Citadel — Theatre— Panoramic View —
Recollections of tlic Past — Present Degi-adation of Beisan — Gilboa —
Nabloixs — Samaritan Synagogue Service — Ramallah — Misfortunes of
Abou Dahuk — Solitary Life at Jericho — Nocturnal Visit of Adwan —
Summer Birds of Jericho — Gorge of the Wady Kelt — Boat on tlie Dead
Sea — Return to Jenisaleul — Departure of the Bishop — Visits to the
Synagogues — Expedition of th6 Due de Luynes — Adwan Sheikhs . . 491

CHAPTER XXIT.

Negotiations with the Adwan — Di ploniatic delays — Descent to the Ghor
— Crossing the Jordan — Nimriu — Bcthnimrah and Bethabarah — The
Crossing of Elijah and Elisha — Spot where Elijah was taken np —
Kefei'eiu — Probably Identical with Abel Shittim — Plains of Shittim —
Camp of Israel — Beth Jeshimoth — Faithfulness of the Adwan —
Nocturnal Visitors — Ride to Arak el Emir — Views of the Western
Side — Ravine of Seir — Oleanders — Wild Boars — Arak cl Emir — Ruins
of Hyrcanus' Palace —Colossal Sculptures^-Stables and Halls in the
Cliff — Beauty and Richness of the Country — The ancient Jazer— Naiir
— Wady Heshban — Saracenic Castle — Ruins of Hunah — Mountains of
Moab — Abarim — Nebo — Position of Pisgah, not Jebel Attarus —
Glorious Panorama from the Top of Pisgah — Heshbon — Ruins and
Fishpools— Main— Elealah ; 516

CHAPTER XXIII.

Ruined Villages between Heshbon and Amman — Countless Flocks —
Valley of Amman (Rabbah) — Its Ruins — Description of the Site — The
Ancient Citadel — Cathedrals, Temples, Theatres — Perfect Byzantine
Church — Fulfilment of Prophecy — Es Salt — Ramoth Gilead — Lovely-
Valley — Christians at Es Salt— Ruined Castle — Indejicndence of Es
Salt — Mount Gilead — Tomb of Hosea — Magnificent View — Parklikc
Beauty of Gilead — The Jabbok — Its Ford — Esau and Jacob — Gypsies —
Ravages of the Bedouin — Gerash (Gerasa) — Its Streets and Buildings
— Wonderful Perfection of its Remains — Restitution from Suf — Adieu
to the Adwan — Ajlun— Kulat es Rubud — The Yabis — Jabesh-Gilead —
El Fahil (Pella) — Beit Idis — Christian Blacksmith— El Kiirah— .
Isolated Agricultural District — Pcacefulness — A False Alarm — General
Panic — Fertility of the Eastern Ghor — Numerous Streams — Palm Tree
— Birds — Arab Horsemen— Their Salutations— The Bridge of the
Jordan 542

CONTENTS. xvii

CHAPTER XXIV.

PAGK

Halt at Agyle's Camp — Rctiiru to Nazareth — Greek Christian "Wedding —
Gennesaret in Summer — Arab Natural History — Fish of the Lake —
Connexion with Africa — Safed — Jews — Small Paper Currency — Geology
— Kedes (Kedesh Na])htali) — Natural Riches of the Country — Beth-
Rehob — The Upper Jordan — Tell Kady (Dan) — Sources of the Jordan
Upper and Lower — Banias (Ca^sarea Pliilippi) — Booths on the Houses —
Sacred Reminiscences — (Castle of Banias) — Bu-ket er Ram (Lake Pliiala)
— Marshes of the Huleh — Ghawiirineh — Cotton Cultivation — Sukeik
(Seleucia) — Herons — Impenetrable Swamp — Water Lily — Papyrus —
Druse Labourers — Buffaloes — The Lake of Huleh ("Waters of Mcrom)
— Harvest Time — Parched ('orn — Note on Palestine Agriculture, and
Crops 572

CHAPTER XXV.

From the Huleh to the Litany (Leontes) — "Watering the Cattle — Bridge
Khardeli — Kulat es Shukif (Btdfort) — Jedoideh — Beauty of the Leontes
Gorge — Burghuz — Italian Scenery — Hasbeiya — Christian Schools —
Needlewomen — El Kiiweh — Natural Bridge of the Litany — "Wild
Ravine— Birds of the Rocks— Gigantic Tree — The Oak of Libbeiya —
Thelthathah — Ionic Temple — Rasheiya — Goats — The Dew of Hermon
—Ascent of the Mountain — The " Apple " of Scripture not the Apple,
Orange, or Citrou, probably the Apricot — Vineyards of Hermon —
Plants and Birds — Subarctic Forms accounted for — View from the top
of Hermon — Ruined Temple of Baal — Costumes of Rasheiya — Temple
at Rukleh — Thunderstorm — Damascus — Gardens — Interiors — Mosque 593

CHAPTER XXVI.

Damascus — The Barada (Abana)— The Art of Sitting— The Sahra— Ain
Fijeh — Wonderful Fountain— Noble Mountaineers — Bludan — Zebdany
— Surghaya— Baalbec — Moonlight in the Temjdes — Nocturnal Fox-hunt
— The Bukaa (Ccele-Syria) — Ascent of Lebanon— Shrubs on the Lower
Slopes— Ainat — Ascent of Jebel Arz— First View of the Cedars — Birds
of the Crest, and of the Grove — Scripture Allusi(ni3 to the Cedars —
Cedars near Elidcn — Vale of the Kadisha — Hazrun - Cedars of El
Hadith— Cedars of the Duweir, of Ain Zahalteh— Traces of the Cedar
elsewhere— Abundance of the Cedar in Ancient Times— Jebeil (Gebal)
—Shepherds' Camps on the Mountains — Akurah — The Adonis— Afka —
Meiruba— Natural Bridge— A Funeral in Lebanon— Descent to the
Shore — Our Travels ended 614

LIST or ILLUSTEATIONS.

MAPS.

The Author's Routes in the Holy Land to face Chap. I.

Dead Sea, to illustrate Mr. Tristram's Koutes and

Observations at the end.

FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

Mount Tabor, from Endor . . . W. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. . to face 126
Ebal and Gerizim, from Nablous

(Sychem) H. T. Boxoman, phot 14.3

Plains of Jericho. North End of

Dead Sea W. C. P. Medlycott, piux. ... 248

Engedi, with Shukif H. T. Boicman, phot 293

Crossing the Jordan P. Egerton-Warburton, del. . . 520

Keferetn.— Plains of Moab ... P. Egerton-Warburton, del. . . 525

Hunting Boars in Moai! .... P. Egcrton-Wai-burton del. . . ;"-2^

Amman (Rarboth Ammon) . . . . P. Egerton-Warburton, del. . . r<4j

PRINTED IN COLOURS.

At Ain Feshkhah. North-West Side

of Dead Sea W. C. P. Medlycott, piiix. .

Wady Rubt el Jamus. West Side

of Dead Sea W. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. .

Dead Sea Shore under Sebbeh.

(Masada) TI^ C. P. Medlycott, pinx. .

Jebel Usdum (the Salt Mountain),

and South End of tuf. Dead Sea W. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. .

Front.

''59

31.3

A

i

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS. xix

VIGNETTES.

PACK

Betrout W. C. P. Medhjcott, pinx. . 7

Xebi YuxAS W. C. P. Medlycott, Y'lnx. . 31

Tyre II. T. Bowman, phot. . . 48

Hir.\m's Well P. Egerton-Warburton, del. 54

Hiram's Tojib H. T. Botvman, phot. . . ^Q

MovNT Carmel and the Plain of Acre . W. C. P. Medhjcott, piux. . 64

JPlan of Ruined Castle, Kureit-el-Kuan W. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. . 78

■View from Kulat-el-Kurn W. C. P. Medhjcott, pinx. . 82

I View from Carmel IF. C. P. Medhjcott, pinx. . 100

jMonastery of Carmel 109

I.S'azareth p, Egerton-Warburton, del. 122

■;5EBUstiyeh (Samaria) W. 0. P. Medhjcott, pinx. . 136

jPhee at Elisha's Fountain W. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. . 203

jVIoNS Quarantania, Jericho . . . . . W. C. P. Medhjcott, pinx. . 208

ViN Sultan, Jericho p. Egerton-Warburton, del. 215

\iN FE.SHKHAH, West Side OF Dead Sea . W. C. P. Mcdhjcott, pinx. . 249
tTiEW from Top of Pass above Aix

Feshkhah IF. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. . 258

klARSABA n. T. Botvman, phot. . . 259

-"^'GEDi //. y. Bowman, phot. . . 282

•'ROM UNDER Jebel Shukif, Engedi . . W. C. P. Medhjcott, pinx. . 294

:he Lisan and Mountains of Kerak . . W. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. . 304

'LAN of Chapel at Sebbeh (Masada) 309

^EBBEH (Masada) //. y. Bowman, phot. . . 310

louGH Ground Sketch Plan of the

Platform of the Fortress of Masada //. B. T 312

'LAN of Roman Camp at Masada . . . H. B. T. 313

EBEL UsDUM jj, T. Boivman, phot, . . 332

)ASis OF Zuweirah H, T. Bowman, phot. . . 345

Theikh Hamzi W. C. P. Medlycott, del. . 348

Vady Zuweirah ff. t. Bowman, j)hot. . . 350

Vady (Ruins) Zuweirah ll. T. Bowman, phot. . . 352

Jeological Section in Mahawat . . . W. C. P. Medhjcott, del. . 355

Vells of Moladah IF. C. P. Medlycott, pinx. . 370

^lEW of Beersheba H. T. Boivman, phot. . . 374

)oor-head in the Ruins of Jattir . . II. B. T.

384

)00RWAY IN the Ruins OF Semua . . . H. B. T. 387

i

XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

Oak of Hebron. II. T. Boioman, phot. . . 392

Mosque of Hebron II. T. Botvman, pliot. . . 395

Hebron P. Egcrton-Warburton, deL 397

Plan of Entrance to the Tomb of the

Kings, Jerusalem II. B. T. 407

Girl at J^azareth P. Egerton-Warhortoji, deL 41''

Tiberias P. Egcrton-Warburton, del. 423

Plain of Gennesaret ....... II. T. Poivman, ])hot. . . 432

Hattin /I. T. Bowman, phot. . . 450

Kridge over Jordan P. Kgerton-Warhurton, deL 455

Tiberias H. T. Botvman, phot. . . 496

Adwans . . . - P. Egcrton-Warburton, dcL 514

Mounted Adwan . P. Egerton-Warourton, doL 551

Sheikh of Es Salt P. Egerton-Warburton, deL 553

Group of Adwans and Horses .... P. Egcrton-Warburton, del. 558

The Leopard — Abd el Asiz P. Egerton-Warburton, del. 5G2

Rasheiya P. Egcrton-Warburton, del. 602

Hazrun P. Egcrton- Warburton, del. 627

El Mohrakah . 636

^i

i

THE

LAND OF ISRAEL.

CHAPTER r.

.-1 i-rival off Beyrout— First Impressions — 0)i the Borders of tlie Land of Proraise

— Discmbarkatimi — Turkish Custom House — Sultan's Firman and its Effects
— Our Landlord's History — The Hotel — Viciv from its Roof — Dragomans
and Servants — £:cj}edition to the Nahr-el-Kelb — Assyrian and Egyptian Rock -
Tablets — Sennacherib — Bone breccia — Flints and. Teeth — Red Deer and Elks
— The Bi^oii, the Unicorn of Scripture — Boat Expedition — Sea Fowl —
Gorge of the Ancient Lycus — Its Birds aiul Plants — Cavern Pools — Fishes —
Visit to Daoud Pasha — Scenery of the Lower Spu'rs of Lebanon — Olive-Trees

— Reception by the Paslut — His Justice — Political Views — Druses and
Maronitcs — Education among the Druses — Learned Researches of Daoud
Pasha — Mrs. Thompson's Schools in Beyrout — American Mission — Dr.
Tliomson.

On a briglit autumu morning we made the port of Beyrout
our boat having accomplished the run from Cyprus during
the night. Though the best harbour in S}Tia, Beyrout is not
much better than an open roadstead. Yet the skeleton of
a huge iron steamer, bottom upwards and rent in twain on
a rock in front of our bows, appeared strangely out of keeping
with the calm beauty of all else around. Like the upturned
and contorted strata which underlie the rich and peaceful
glades of the Lebanon, it seemed at once an unheeded record
of the past, and prophecy of the future. Before us rose, tier
above tier, in calm beauty, the dark-green heights of those
mountains, well wooded on this their seaward face, until the
farthest retiring terraces could be perceived just tipped with
the first snows of autumn.

B

2 BORDEKS OF THE LAND OF PROMISE.

Our hearts beat high with anticipation of long-cherished
hope now on the eve of accomplishment, as we set foot on the
quay, and felt we were treading more than classic — sacred
ground. We were in the Land of Promise, If not actually
occupied by Israel except in the palmy days of David and
Solomon, Beyroul^ must at least be included within the
boundaries assigned by prophecy. "And the border from
the sea shall be Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus and the
north northward and the border of Hamatli" (Ezek. xlvii. 17).
The line, then, from Damascus to the coast must have been
intended to run just to the north of Beyrout, probably to
the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb (Lycus fl.), where a spur
of Lebanon pushes right to the sea, and forms the famous
pass, so evidently looked upon by the conquerors of the
ancient world as the gate of southern Syria, and attested
as such by the Assyrian and Egyptian tablets. It forms a
natural boundary for the plain of Phoenicia, which, widest at
its southern extremity near Tyre, runs up, gradually narrowed,
and even interrupted, by the encroaching hills, till it finally
terminates in a X3oiut six miles north of Beyrout. The Phoe-
nician lords of the coast, from whom Asher never fully wrested
her allotted portion, must have possessed the whole of this
plain, so entirely cut off from the kingdom of Syria.

The enthusiastic lovers of Beyrout endeavour to assign to
it a place in sacred history in the unknown " Berothah," or
" Berothai ; " but the context, in which the name occurs as
a dependency of Damascus, and is mentioned as between that
city and Hamath, must, we fear, exclude Beyrout from the
honour in question, especially as when Berothai is mentioned
in 2 Sam. viii. 8. David appears to have captured it and its
stores of brass, after subduing Damascus, and on his way to-
wards the Euphrates. If Beyrout did exist in Jewish times,
certainly no memorials, whether monumental or written, have
been handed down to us. The present city is wholly modern ;
Turkish in its houses, Turkish in its filth, Turkish in its veiy
ruins. Of these there are abundance ; for the earthquakes,
the waning efforts of those subterranean fires which have rent

DISEMBAEKATIOX. 3

the Lebauon aud poured their torrents over the Lejah to the
eastward, have more than once overwhelmed the Eoman and
Saracen cities. Their history is written in the masses of
broken columns and granite shafts which form the substruc-
ture of the mole on which we were landed.

In spite of the deafening shouts and frantic gesticulations
of the rival boatmen (and it is not among boatmen or muleteers
that oriental dignity and gravity are to be sought), there is an
order and system on the quay which bespoke familiarity with
trade and with Western system, and contrasted strongly with
the accessories of my landing six years before on the pier of
the more sacred Joppa. There we had lain at anchor for
some hours, tossed by a rolling swell which broke heavily on
the beach, and forbad any attempt at launching the gig of our
yacht. AVe were taken off at length in a large flat-bottomed
barge, which with some difhculty was worked head to shore
over the crest of the breakers, and inside a narrow reef in
smoother water we found ourselves suddenly under a scaffold-
ing of piles built out into the sea. About these clustered a
crowd of swarthy half-naked Arabs. Before we had time to
speculate on the mode in which we might accomj)lish our
landing, my arms and shoulders were seized from above ; I
was handed up like a bale of merchandise, and passed from
one to another, my legs too being soon grasped as well as my
arms. To resist or help myself was impossible, for every by-
stander was eager to have a hand in the haul, and of course a
contingent claim thereupon on the Howadji's backshish; and in
less time than it requires to recount it, I found myself pitched,
right side up, on the quay of Jaffa, somewhat amused at my
imdignified and unromantic entrance into the land of Canaan.

At Be^Tout the landing at the Custom-House quay was
well ordered. Our future host, Constantino, the landlord of
the Hotel de I'Univers, accompanied us, and quelled the tumult
of the boatmen, while the exhibition of an enormous firman
was acknowledged with due deference by the stocking] ess
Custom-House officials. This firman or special passport it
was evident that none could read or interpret, but the Sultan's

b2

4 OUR landlord's history.

sign iiiaiiual in the corner was recognised at once. It was
certainly a portentous document. Six lines of Turkish, closely
but boldly inscribed, wandered over a square yard of stiff
cartridge paper, testifying at least to the liberal spirit of the
Ottoman stationery office. Through the kind intervention of
a friend, we had been fortified with this document, which
authorized all officials to let our baggage pass unquestioned,
as pertaining to a scientific expedition. Without such pro-
vision we might have trembled for the fate of mountain
barometers, copper cylinders for preserving reptiles in spirits,
photographic apparatus, and all the .miscellaneous equipments
with which our twenty-six packages were stored, and in which
treason, heresy, or more probably magic, might at once have
been detected.

Having left our boxes on the quay, we proceeded to the
British Consulate, for the purpose of securing a dragoman to
enforce and expound our firman. On the way, Constantino
contrived, with the characteristic volubility of his race, to give
us an epitome of his history, an illustration of the strange
vicissitudes and romance with which every-day life in the
East is crowded. A Greek by birth, he remembered well the
massacre of Chio, his native isle, from which he escaped only
to be sold as a slave boy into Egypt. There he had been
employed by an Englishman, who had purchased for him his
freedom. After serving in various positions he set up as a
dragoman, first in Greece and then in Syria, and in this
capacity he accompanied M. de Saulcy during his first expe-
dition, and, probably from a combined sense of truth and
self-interest, gives the enterprising French savant a far better
character than he has bestowed on his attendant.

The kind assistance of Mr. Eldridge, H.B.M. Consul-General,
and of Mr. Wrench, his zealous Vice-Consul, to both of whom
we are indebted for much valuable help in our expedition,
soon relieved us from all embarrassment as to our baofsaoe.
A cavasse, dressed in brilliant red, with a scimetar of state
slung by a broad sash across his shoulder, and a huge silver-
mounted staff in liis hand, which he clashed on the pavement

DRAGOMANS AND SERVANTS. 5

with more than the dignity of beadledom, conducted us to the
bureau of the cliief of the Customs; wliere the firman was
studied, and handed to the secretary to be interpreted. After
the ordinary compliments had been exchanged, the backshish
or fee of three or four dollars to the subordinates passed all
our goods unquestioned through the charmed circle of the
Custom House.

At length, having escaped from the din and turmoil of
oriental streets, we can take a survey of Beyrout and its
lovely environs from our pleasant quarters. The hotel is a
thoroughly oriental house, and our suite of rooms is at the
top, built upon three sides of a square, with the fourth side
an open terrace ; while a balcony runs round the inside,
looking down into the court-yard of the hotel. Tlius, while
perfectly secluded ourselves, we can command a view of all
that passes below in the interior. The arrival of five English-
men so early in the season, was an event of no ordinary
importance to the various hangers-on of the establishment,
and to the dragomans and travelling servants with whom
Beyrout abounds. These often met in the area, and we
watched the Avrangling of rival dragomans in the court below,
with such feelings as the doves gazed at the battle of the
kites and the crows, which was to decide by w^hich of the
two they were to have the pleasure of being eaten.

But there was much to explore in the neighbourhood, and
we had no desire to sell ourselves at once. Morning after
morning some gorgeously arrayed interpreter would present
himself with a packet of testimonials from those whom he had
led in charge through the country, supplemented by his personal
assurances that he was a very polyglot in language, a rival
of Soyer in his cookery, a paragon of valour in danger, and
the ally and brother of every Bedouin chieftain in the desert.
Meanwhile his competitor for our purses would remain at the
door, listening eagerly, and taking note of every weak point
in his qualifications, which he was sure in turn to make the
strong one in his own. We nevertheless delayed our decision
for a fortnight, and spent the time most profitably.

6 THE HOTEL.

It is one of the great recommendations of Beyrout as a
point of departure for a tuur in Palestine, that there alone
can a choice of servants, horses, and tents be found ; while
the direct trade with Europe, and the large population of
resident English and French merchants, have attracted trades-
men whose shops and stores are not much inferior to those
of Sm}Tna or Alexandria, though their prices are higher. If
the traveller enter Syria from the south, he must engage at
Jaffa or Jerusalem any interpreter he is able to meet with,
and must also pay the highest price for miserable horses and
most indifferent wares.

The roof of our hotel was the loftiest in the neighbourhood,
and commanded a landscape to which we returned evening
after evening with ever fresh enjoyinent. The busy little port
and Custom House lay at our feet, with the roadstead to the
left, where three English men-of-war and a French frigate
rode lazily at anchor on the glassy sea. Since the massacres
of Damascus and Hasbeiya in 1860, the port has seldom been
left without one or more of these substantial representatives
of the great Western powers. Beyond the centre town, which
is enclosed with dilapidated and dismantled walls, a gently
sloping ridge rises to the southward, too low to be called a
headland, but which is really the hill which terminates in the
depressed promontory called Eas Beyrout. The ridge is at no
point higher than 200 feet, but still is sufficiently elevated to
show the slopes covered with a mass of gardens, which are
irregularly spread out from the nucleus of the old city ; each
with its villa, built in all the fantastic shapes oriental imagi-
nation could devise, but invariably with a flat whitewashed
roof. Had some Titan hand flung broadcast his lapful of
building stones on the hiU-sides they might have fallen in
some such order as reigns in these suburbs. A forest of
orange, apricot, fig and mulberry-trees, relieved occasionally
by a tall palm or stately poplar rising from their midst, quite
embosoms the houses. Here all the rich, the tradesmen, and
many of the poorer class reside.

Cast your eye across the biiy to your left; there towers

LEBANON. 7

mighty Lebanon, with a rich belt of garden cultivation car-
peting its base from the water's edge, surmounted by a broad
fringe of olive groves. Higher up, amidst bare but carefully-
terraced hills, where not an inch of ground is wasted, many
a sharp cliff and pointed rock stand out from the mulberry
groves, justifying, even when there is no snow on its brow,
the Hebrew name of Lebanon, " the white [mountain]," as the

v^gij^- 1***^-

BEYROUT.

white reflections sparkle in the afternoon sunlight. Amidst
these mounds and peaks, village after village, Druse or
Maronite, nestles on the mountain side ; and over all, above
a belt of chasm-rent, wrinkled, and water-worn rocks, the
long flat line of Jebel Sunnin, the highest part of Western
Lebanon, glistens in the sunlight with its mantle of snow.
It is indeed a lovely scene — not sublime, perhaps not ma-
jestic, without the grandeur of the Alps or the splendour of
the P}Tenees, but winning and absorbing — recalling vividly
to the imagination what all this goodly land must have been
when, under the blessing of Jehovah, the sceptre of Solomon

8 ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN KOCK-TABLETS.

guided its destinies. If Lebanon, with its scanty soil and
terraced sides, tilled and maintained by incessant toil, can
support its teeming population, and produce such harvests of
corn, fruit, oil, and silk, as it now does under Turkish mis-
rule, who shall question the past capabilities of the maritime
and central plains, or be startled at the results of the census,
of Joab ?

We soon commenced in earnest our exjjloration of the
natural history of the country, the especial object of our
expedition, by several visits to the valley of the Xahr-el-
Kelb, wliich for convenience we may assume as the boundary
of Southern Syria. On one occasion we rode by the shore for
six miles, skirting the Bay of St. George (the traditional site
of the slaughter of the famous dragon), up to the point where
a little h'eadland pushes into the sea at the height of about
100 feet, on the very edge of which is hewn the ancient road,
so often traversed for the last 3,000 years by the invaders of
Syria — Egyptian, Assyrian, Eoman, or Turkoman.

On the highest point of this promontory, facing the sea,
and a few yards behind and above the road, and also a little
lower down, wdiere the path rapidly descends to the moutli
of the river, are hewn those tablets which were first brought
to the notice of modern times by Henry Maundrell, in
A.D. 1G97, and which have ever since been considered the
most attractive monuments of antiquity in Northern Palestine.
As every writer on the country has fully described them, it is
needless to repeat their accounts, but it was not without a
feeling of the deepest interest that we gazed on those rock-
hewn figures and inscriptions, and remembered that those
monuments which to the old traveller of 160 years ago were
merely " perhaps the representation of some persons buried
hereabout, whose sepulchres might probably also be discovered
by the diligent observer," have been ascertained by the actual
researches of Lepsius and Layard on the spot to be the
records of the progress of the successive oppressors of Israel,
both Egyptian and Assyrian. Here Sennacherib has left the
verificacion of his proud boast, " By the multitude of my

SENXACHERTB. 9

chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the
sides of Lebanon : and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof
and the choice fir-trees thereof, and I will enter into the
height of his border ... 1 have digged and drunk water ; "
and, did the Hebrew text admit, one might feel disposed to
add the gloss of the Septuagint, " I have made a .bridge," and
apply it to the noble structure which spans the stream below.
Close by the tablet of Sennacherib is the Egyptian sculpture
of Eameses, a monument of hoar antiquity, even in the days
when the Assyrian chariots drove beneath it, and on which
probably Herodotus (II. 107), more than 2,200 years ago,
gazed with the same longing as ourselves to pick up the
threads of broken tradition. And though but one of the
As.s>Tian tablets still retains any legible c\meifomi characters,
may not the remaining sculptures, however closely the figures
resemble each other, be the records of other invasions of
Palestine, of which no less than five are recorded in Holy
"Writ 1 After these old figures, how strangely modern reads
the inscription of Antonine at the foot of the pass. Yet the
Roman had conquered and put his stamp on Syria, of which
the very road we trod was an evidence. That road, as every
traveller and his stumbling horse know full well, is but a
wreck of upturned paving stones; Pity that those Gallic
legions who in the year A.D. 1860 appropriated an Egj^ptian
tablet to record the unresisted presence of the troops of
Napoleon III. had not, like the Roman, employed the hammer
of the engineer before they gave licence to the chisel of the
engraver.

On the north side of the pass we could clearly trace the
remains of an ancient road, rather higher and a little further
back than the present one, which a Roman inscription tells
us was constructed by Antoninus Pius. Here for a few
minutes I lingered behind my companions, attracted by the
number of small land shells (of the genus Clausilia) of species
new to me, which adhered to the rocks, fed by the moisture
that exuded from the fissures. While j)icking the shells out
of a crevice, my attention was attracted by what appeared to

10 FLINTS AND TEETH.

be a fragment of bone cmbedcled jn the rock ; and having
secured tlie assistance of one of my zealous companions, by
the unwearied use of our hammers, we soon discovered that
the hard crystalline limestone was in this place a mass of
bone breccia, Mith fragments of flint chips mingled iii the
stalagmite.

The position of this mass of bone was several feet above
the height of the present roadway, but below the level of the
more ancient Egyptian track. The remains extend perhaps
for 120 feet, and it has probably formed the flooring of an
ancient cavern, the roof of which must have been cut away
by Eameses to form his road, or to obtain a surface for his
tablet. From the position of the deposit it would seem as
though the floor of the cave had been once extended to the
sea-face of the cliff, and that the remaining portion was exca-
vated by Antonine for his road, leaving only the small portion
which we examined. We were induced, therefore, to descend
to the shore, and search among the broken masses of rock
at the water-line for fragments containing bone. Among the
cliffs, lashed by the waves and covered with seaweed, Ave dis-
covered several large blocks corresponding with the stalagmite
above, and containing both bones, teeth, and flints, which
have perhaps lain there for 2,000 or 3,000 years.

"With the kind assistance of the Eev. H. H. Jessup, the
American Missioriary at Beyrout, to whom we pointed out
the locality, we were enabled afterwards to obtain a more
extensive series of bones and flints. The latter consist almost
entirely of elongated chips, with very sharp edges, and I may
remark that I am not aware of any natural deposit of flint
w'ithin three miles of this spot. One remarkable character
of this mass of breccia is the extreme hardness of the crys-
talline limestone or stalagmite which forms it. Probably
under the conditions of a Syrian climate it would crystallize
more rapidly than in our northern regions ; and the hard
lime-water still oozing from all the fissures around tells how
abundantly it must have streamed from the old cavern's roof
Yet, from the existence of the fragments in the sea below.

THE BISON, THE UNICORN OF SCRIPTURE. 1 I

we may coiKludc that when Eameses or his Roman succes-
sors constructed their military road, the stone was as compact
and crj^stalline as it is to-day, and that many ages must have
intervened between the time of the tablets and the days when
some rude savage fabricated his weapons on the soft floor of
that cavern.

The bones are all in fragments, the remains, in all probabi-
lity, of the feasts of tlic makers of the rude implements. Four
of the teeth have belonged to an ox, somewhat resembling the
ox of our peat-mosses, and one of them, probably, to a bison.^
Of the others, some may probably be assigned to the red-deer
or reindeer, and another to an elk.^ • If, as Mr. Dawkins
considers, these teeth are referable to those now exclusively
northern quadrupeds, we have evidence of the reindeer and
elk having been the food of man in the Lebanon, not long
before the historic period ; for there is no necessity to put
back to any date of immeasurable antiquity the deposition of
these remains in a limestone cavern. Still, there is nothing
more extraordinary in this occurrence than in the discovery
of the bones of the tailless hare of Siberia in the breccias of
Sardinia and Corsica ; and though it brings the ancient range
of these animals to a point more southerly than any pre-
viously ascertained, yet it throws light on the traditions of
the bison, now almost as exchisively a northern form as
the others.

These traditions remained to the days of the Psalmist,^ and
were familiar to Moses, Avhen he blessed the sons of Joseph,'*
and still more so to the patriarch Job, when he is asked by
the Lord, " Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide
by thy crib ? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in
the furrow ? or will he harrow the valleys after thee ? Wilt

1 The bison is with good reason supposed to he the Rem (Unicom) of our
authorized version, and therefore known in Palestine as late as the time of
Moses. See Qnarta-hj Reviciv, No. CCXXVll. p. 53.

« For the determination of the teeth of this cavern, I am indebted to the
kindness of W. B. Dawkins, Esq. of the Geological Survey of England.

s Ps. xxix. 6 ; xxii. 21 ; xcii. 10. •* Deut. xxxiii. 17.

12 BOAT EXPEDITION.

thoTi trust liini, because his strength is great? or wilt thou
leave thy labour to him ? Wilt thou believe him, that he will
bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?" (chap.
xxxix. 9 — 12.) The writer of the article in the Quarterly
Revievj, alluded to above, after showing that the so-called
unicorn of our Engbsh version is no unicorn at all, for that
the Hebrew word, r'ewi (D^^"l), denotes an animal with two
horns, as proved by Deut. xxxiii. 17, " his horns are like the
ho7'7is of an unicorn," as correctly translated in the margin,
observes that the whole force of the passage depends upon
the r^em, having, two horns upon one head, one for Ephraim
and the other for INIanasseh. After referring to the discovery
of bones of the lion in gravel near the Jordan, by Dr. Eoth,
he continues : " It is, therefore, quite probable that future
investigations in Palestine may result in the discovery of the
bones of Bos primigenius, or Bison pnscus, or some other
species of once formidable ox." We may now congratulate
him on the speedy verification of his anticipation, and on the
further elucidation of an obscure Scriptural reference.

Our investicjations of the bone remains detained us long,
and rendered another and a third visit to the Nahr-el-Kelb
necessary to investigate its natural history ; for, in a thickly-
peopled district, it was only in the recesses of so deep a glen
leading down to the sea, that we could hope to find specimens
and illustrations of Nature's hand, undisturbed by man. One
day we rowed across the bay to the mouth of the river, — by
far the most convenient plan for those who have not much
time at their disposal, — and so captivated the hearts of our
boatmen, that the youngest of them volunteered to accompany
lis throughout our journeys, and tO' carry for B his photo-
graphic apparatus. I fear, however, that the fervour of his
zeal was soon tempered ; for, after having repeated his offer
with all apparent earnestness, and having stipulated on the
night before our departure the amount of his future wages,

we never saw more of him, and B received his first

lesson in Arab truthfulness.

Many gulls and other sea-birds passed over us as we

GORGE OF THE AXCIEXT LYCUS. 13

crossed the bay, several of which we obtained. Large flocks
of the graceful gull-billed tern {Sterna Anglica, Mont.) swept
past us — a bird of most universal range in warmer latitudes,
thouuh a verv rare visitor to those English coasts from Avhich
it derives its scientilic name. I had met with it in vast
numbers in the lagoons near Smyrna, and also in the salt-
marshes of Northern Africa. It loves calm and shallow
water, and its occurrence here in an open roadstead we justly
took as an omen of fine and settled weather. The common
cormorant of our own coasts splashed along the surface of the
sea, so low as almost to plough a track in the water in its
rapid but slovenly flight. The herring-gull of the North,
mingling with a few of Andouini's gull, screamed overhead,
or dashed down on its prey in front of us ; while some flocks
of the Adriatic gull {Lams mclanoccphalus, Natt.), quietly
riding on the scarcely -perceptible swell, were the only sea-
fowl whose presence at once indicated our distance from the
Northern seas.

It was still early morning when we hauled up our boat on
the sand (untroubled here by fall or rise of tides), and, in
heaxy marching order, with guns, hammers, insect-nets, botany-
boxes, and sketch-books — not forgetting, of course, the com-
missariat— started on our way up the gorge towards the caves
from which the river is principally fed. The dew still hung
to the twigs of brambles and clematis ; and, screened from
all but the mid-day sun, the glen, at first, recalled the
North, rather than the warm South. But very soon the
scenery changed. The sides of the valley were scarcely less
steep, but were terraced up to the bare cliffs near the top in
graceful sinuous lines ; orange, lemon, and olive-trees occu-
pying, for the most part, the lower tiers, and mulberry-trees,
with corn beneath them, the upper. Along the edge of each
terrace waved a double row of tall canes, nourished by the
little water-courses, carefully conducted from the higher part
of the valley in stone-built channels. These mountaineers
know well how to apply what the Americans would term
" a water privilege." It was channels such as these which

14 CAVERN POOLS.

could make the fruit of the laud " to shake like Libanus."
It was terraces and channels such as these which once made
this land " a good laud, a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and depths that spring out of valleys and hills."

By the side of these little water-courses, sheltered and con-
cealed by the reeds, many a little warbler, known to us in
the summer, was pouring forth its blithe chirrup ; the wdllow-
wren and chiffchaff were enjoying their pleasant winter-
quarters, in company with the robin and the hedge-accentor ;
and the little Egj^^tian fantail {Brymmca gracilis, Eupp.) was
running up the stems, and, with its loud, clear note, and long
white-tipped tail, told us that, however familiar might be the
livery of liis companions, he was there to remind us that both
England and Europe liad long been left Ijehind. Occasionally
we caught a glimpse of the true bulbul, the nightingale of
Palestine {Ixos xanthopygius, H. v. Ehr.), hopping among the
orange-trees, and just showing his brilliant yellow patch, that
we might identify him while, thrush-like, he stole away into
the thickest of the foliage ; and our European wagtails, white
and yellow, w'ere running on the moist ground beneath.

After a scramble of six miles, the terraces gave place to
bare, scarped cliffs, with scanty but interesting mountain
vegetation ; and we reached the great caverns, from which
issues the chief supply for the fertilization of the valley
below. To explore these caves was impossible, as they are
dark and deep, and the w^ater which washes their perpendi-
cular sides leaves no margin for the adventurous climber ; but
a gun fired into one of them reverberated long and loud, as
though there were ample sj)ace for a subterranean regatta. It
is only by boats and torches that these reservoirs could be
examined, and they might, perhaps, be found to be the home
of some new species of Proteus. The water of the upper
stream was icy cold ; and among the boulders in its bed
many little water-ouzels, or dippers, identical with the dipper
of our own highland streams, hoi)ped and darted from stone
to stone, finding the temperature of the water as much to their
taste as were the orange groves below to the tender bulbul.

VISIT TO DAOUD PASHA. 15

Thus, in our first day's expedition, we had abundant illus-
tration of what to the field naturalist is the most marked
peculiarity of Palestine, the juxtaposition of northern and
southern forms of life, animal and vegetable, within the
narrowest limits. What has often been observed of its phy-
sical geography holds equally true of its fauna and flora, that
no spot on the earth's surface could have been selected which
could better have supplied the writers of a book intended to
instruct men of every latitude and climate, with subjects of
illustration familiar, one or other of them, to the dwellers in
every region of the world.

On our way down the valley we halted at a rustic cafe by
a watermill, a simple shed of wattles supported by poles,
%\here mine host boiled coffee on a little brazier, set on what
might have been a country blacksmith's forge, or dispensed
stronger stimulants from the shelf over the ingle nook. As
my botanical friend had twice, in his eager haste after plants,
been imraei'sed to the neck, he was not sorry to be able to sit
down on a stool by the river-side, and sip the liliputian cup
of coffee which, with his pipe, is the oriental's solace for all
the ills of life. A knot of peasants were gathered round, who
addressed us in French, and presuming on our nationality from
our reply, began to lament the departure of the " armee d'oc-
cupation." Doubtless the legionaries had been good customers
for the potent but somewhat nauseous beverage, which under
the name of " rhum " formed the most profitable ware of the
establishment. Meantime we secured from the stream speci-
mens of three kinds of fish, one of which afterwards proved
to be the common fish of the Jordan, and not hitherto known
elsewhere excepting in the Nile. The sun had long set when,
laden with booty, fish, fowl and vegetable, animal and mineral,
we recrossed the Bay of St. George, and landed under the
battered ruins of the fort of Beyrout,

A few days afterwards, by the invitation of Daoud Paslia,
Governor of the Lebanon, kindly conveyed through Mr.
Eldridge, H.B.M. Consul-General, I accompanied that gen-
tleman to pay the Pasha a visit at one of his country seats.

16 THE LOWEE SPUKS OF LEBANON.

Babda, in the Mountains. Soon after nine o'clock we started
on horseback, preceded by the chief cavasse of tlie consul, in
his picturesque costume of embroidered blue, with rich turban,
scarlet saddle, and long scimetar dangling by his side. The
sorry hack with which I was provided felt himself wholly
unworthy of the company of the consul's spirited charger,
and but for the sharpness of my new rowels, conversation
would have been impossible. After winding for some time
among the picturesque villas embowered in orange and
mulberry groves, with which Beyrout is girdled, we toiled
through a deep sandy lane, overshadowed by hedges of prickly
pear, wdiich were now edged with bright red knobs of fruit.
Emerging from this we entered the pine groves, which arrest
the invasion of the sandhills on the Sidon road. The glossy
pale green of the foliage is too cheerful to recall the gloom of
a Scottish forest, and the trees {Pinus aleppensis, L.) planted in
large clumps of various ages, are too park-like to permit com-
parison with a Surrey heath. Every here and there a tall
ancient pine towers in solitary grandeur over the dense
plantation below ; while at frequent intervals a gnarled
carouba-tree (Ceratonia siliqua, L.) overhangs, with its dark,
dense foliage the flat-topped verandah of a Turkish cafe, and
behind it a somewhat shabby palm-tree reminds us that we
are in southern climes. Eoad there is none, and through the
deep sand we plunge till we reach a lane, sunk deep in a soil
of rich red loam, seeming to tell of exhaustless fertility.

As we gradually ascended the mountain by this lane, which
serves the double use of roadway and occasional watercourse,
the character of the vegetation rapidly changed. Orange
groves with frequent palm-trees gave place to long plantations
of white mulberry, where, the silkworm season being now
over, little Arab boys, with short blue shirts for their only
garments, were busily employed as they sat in the trees,
shredding the leaves for the donkeys and goats which stood
below. To the mulberries succeeded for several miles a series
of oliveyards, purple with ripe fruit, and said to be the most
extensive olive plantation in Syria.

OLIVE-TREES. 17

Here, for the first time in Turkish territory, I saw young
olive-trees. Indeed, young trees of any kind in the East are
as rare as ruins in the West. The marvel is that there should
he any at all, under a system of finance which ruthlessly
extorts an annual tax of several piastres for every fruit-tree
from the very year it is planted, even when, as in the case of
the olive, it is forty years before it arrives at perfection. But
what can be hoped for from a government which, in a half-
desert but fertile country like Sj'ria, imposes its heaviest taxes
on animals employed in agricultural labour ? The absurdity
is carried even further than this. By a sort of vegetable or
botanical game-law, certain trees belong to the State, and thus
the sycamore-fig, and all the space over which its shadow may
extend, belongs at once to the Government, and is forfeited by
the villein proprietor. But even were the weight of taxation
more rationally adjusted than it is ever likely to be under
Ottoman rule, it will be long ere proprietors or cultivators in
Syria can be expected to plant. A rayah may sow seed of
which he hopes to reap the fruit in a few months; but to
plant a tree, which will probably bring him no return for
many years, implies a sense of security in the possession of
property, to which, during centuries of Moslem rule, the East
has been wholly a stranger.

The gathering of the olives seemed to be the care of the
women alone, and the cheerful groups iinder the trees,
with their unveiled faces and bright black eyes pleasantly
greeting us as we passed, proclaimed at once that we
were in a Christian district. From the olive region we
gradually ascended to the bare sides of the Lebanon, the
path being no longer a track, but a series of ledges and
steps worn in the rock, while the whole hill-side was
terraced most carefully for corn cultivation, with long rows
of dwarf mulberry trees, and many fig-trees interspersed.
Village after village crowned the heights, perched always
on the tops of the ridges, but never compactly arranged like
those of the plains. With their whitew^ashed walls, white
fiat roofs and small windows, they looked at a distance

c.

18 EECEPTION BY THE PASHA.

like handfuls of dice thrown at random along tlie liill-
sides.

After two hours' riding, wo suddenly turned up a rocky
track, covered with IMcditerranean heath, amaryllis, and
cyclamen in full blossom, among which our little horses
skipped about with the agility and sure-footedness of goats ;
and ten minutes' clambering brought us to Btibda.

. A few Druses in their picturesque costume were lounging
about, clean and polite ; rough-looking Arabs were moodily
smoking, as they leant by the gateway ; quaintly-caparisoned
horses were standing ready saddled, among groups of red-
jacketed spahis. As we rode under the archway which ad-
mitted us to the palace of Babda, a small guard in the shabby
uniform of Turkish infantry turned out, and we found our-
selves in an irregular square used as a barrack, hanging rather
than placed on the side of a hill. Passing through another
gateway, where a few irregular troopers and mounted attend-
ants were assembled, we reached a long flight of steps cut
out of the rock, up which our horses, to my astonishment,
unhesitatingly walked, as though getting up stairs were a
part of their daily exercise.

At the top Avas a narrow doorway, after riding through
which we were in the inner court of the Pasha's residence,
quite on the crest of the hill. Albanian-looking grooms
seized our bridles and made their salaam ; and dismounting,
we met the Pasha just within the doorway of a hall on th
first floor. The large room in which he received us hai
windows on all sides ; and its only furniture was an ottoma:
extending across the farther end, a small writing-table an
arm-chair, and a few chairs placed round the walls. A ric
Turkey carpet covered the greater part of the floor. A hea
shower had fallen as we were riding up the hill, and the
Pasha insisted in the first instance on supplying us with a
change of clothing. In a few minutes I found myself com-
fortably seated on the ottoman, clad in a pea-gi^een satin
gown, lined with squirrel fur, and before me a foaming
tumbler of Bass's pale ale.

O'

HIS JUSTICE. 19

Daoud Pasha is a man of scarcely middle age, with a pro-
minent Eoman nose, keen piercing eyes, and a remarkably
mild and ingenuous expression of countenance ; tall, and of
spare figure, which is well set off by his dark Armenian
costume, light embroidered trousers, gaiters, and velvet vest.
He is an Armenian Christian by birth, and for several years
served as attaclie successively at the courts of Berlin and
St. James. "When, after the massacres of 1860, the great
powers stipulated that the Pasha of the Lebanon should be
a Christian, but not a member of one of the dominant sects of
the district, the choice of the Porte, under the wise suggestion
of Lord Dufferin, happily fell on Daoud Oghli. So far as those
best acquainted with the country are capable of judging, the
scheme of subdi\ision proposed by Lord Dufferin and the
Hon. Mr. ^Nleade was the only plan by which populous Lebanon
could with certainty have been protected at the same time
from European intrigiie and domestic anarchy. As the next
alternative the appointment of Daoud was certainly best ;
but who can guarantee the character of his successor, or feel
sure that the British Embassy on the Bosphorus, now that
the great Elchi has departed, will have as potent a voice in
the Councils of the Porte ?

Of Daoud's administration it is sufficient to say that neither

he nor any of his subordinates have ever been accused of

■eceiving a bribe, or of the slightest act of peculation. Even

lie Maronites, who are bitterly opposed to his government,

^ay that it is not the man, but the system, to which they

object. They demand either a Maronite governor, or, if that

'"if* impossible, they would prefer a Turkish pasha to a Chris-

lU ; as they know that a Turk would do nothing, and that

'hey might indulge in their feuds and quarrels without inter-

rence. Though not so warlike, they are far more numerous

lian the Druses, mustering 220,000 against perhaps 75,000

t their hereditary foemen, and they long for the opportunity

f revencje.

The Pasha understands English well, but prefers to con-

erse in French. He entered at once upon the politics of

1 c 2

i

20 rOLTTICAL VIEAVS.

the Lebanon and liis difficulties. Sent here to govern races
living side by side with the most implacable jealousies, em-
bittered against each other not only by the hatred of religious
fanaticism, but by the recollection of the most cruel mutual
injuries, he is yet wholly unprovided with any military force
to rej)ress disturbances, and is told that he must govern
the Lebanon " par sentiment." " How," he exclaimed, " can
rival factions wliose passions are heated by religious feuds
be governed, even in the most civilized countries, by sen-
timent without police? Is it by sentiment, or is it by
policemen's batons that Orange and Eibbon processions are
prevented from attacking each other in civilized Ireland ? "
Yet, to his honour be it said, Daoud Pasha has for two years
and a half succeeded in this difficult task, excepting that the
Maronites of Northern Lebanon refuse to pay their taxes, and
he has no force at command to compel them. The only
regular troops at his disposal are two battalions of Turkish
infanti'y, one of which is detailed for the protection of the
road between Damascus and Beyrout, and the other for that
between Tripoli and Sidon. For purposes of internal govern-
ment he has no force except the local constabulary, about as
reliable a body as the old parish constables of England, and
150 spahis, splendid, well-mounted fellows, trained and com-
manded by French officers of the Algerian native corps,
ready to dash anywhere and attempt anything at the bidding
of their chiefs, but too few to control such a j^opulation as
this Pasha has to deal with. He labours under the further
disadvantage that Turks and Maronites are alike anxious he
should fail, and no real help can be looked for from foreign
powers. " I have," said Daoud, " but three duties to perform,
yet any one of them is more tlian enough for one man : to
collect the taxes for the maintenance of government, to secure
life and property, and render justice between man and man."
In the latter department the Pasha has enough to do. Seven
Inindred cases in a year, all of which come under his per-
sonal investigation, prove that the moimtaineers are as liti-
gious as they are warlike, and never will a defendant submii

DRUSES AND M.VKONITES. 21

to the decision of the district judge without an appeal to the
Pasha. " Should I be superseded to-morrow, I shall have
the satisfoction," observed his Excellency, " of knowing two
things : one, that the Lebanon has been peaceful and secure ;
and secondly, that the peo})le have tasted— what they never
knew before, and may afterwards remember — free justice,
Avithout payment or bribes."

"NA'hile we were with him, the Pasha was incessautly inter-
rupted by business. Secretary after secretary came in with
I'upers to be approved ; S2veral cases were dismissed, and,
amongst others, a batch of prisoners was brought in, and
iiulged in the courtyard below. The daughter of a Druse
had been betrothed to a neiuhbour ; but her father, findin"f
another suitor who could pay a greater dower, had broken off
the match. The families of the rival claimants had conse-
({uently indulged in a faction fight, the results of which were
indecisive : and, finally, the two suitors and their friends
were brought up as prisoners, and confined in one room ; and
the father with the daughter, the causa tcterrima belli, in
another, until it could be decided which should have the
bride, and which should suffer the punishment due to the
breach of the peace. One thing was plain, that to consult
the wishes of the young lady in question, was the very last
idea that M-ould occur to any of the party.

To the English casual observer, there is, in spite of the
unquestionable cruelties of which they have been from time
to time guilty, much that is attractive in the Druses. In
manners, their wild mountain air notwithstanding, they con-
trast most favourablv with their rivals the Maronites. In-
stead of the ill-conditioned brusqueness with which the latter
returns a stranger's greeting, there is a native politeness about
the Druse, which never, even in the moments of his wildest
excesses, entirely forsakes him. The story is well known of
one who had entered a house by night, and cut the throat of
a private enemy, but on discovering that an English consul,
on his travels, had been lodging in an adjoining chamber, was

22 EDUCATION AMONG THE DRUSES.

overcome with grief and sliame, and sent the most profuse
apologies in the morning for having unconsciously disturbed
the night's rest of a stranger.

In spite of their strange inconsistencies and mysterious
creed, their Pasha by no means despairs of the Druses, and
his gi-eat hope i.''; that the steady progress of education may
do nmch to allay the enmity of the rival races. He spoke
A^•ith nmch warmth and interest of the American ]\Iission-
schools ; and it was gratif}'ing to hear his independent testi-
mony to the importance and solid nature of the work they
are carrying on, especially among the Maronites, with whom
he considered they have met with greater success than with
any other sect. But he explained with positive enthusiasm
the efforts the Druses are, at length, making to support their
own schools, and to establish a good college for their youth
in the mountains. This he felt to be the most hopeful
sign of all, as the movement has originated entirely among
themselves, and is unsupported by any extraneous aid. The
college is already at work, and descriptions of the festival at
its opening have already appeared in the English papers. For
its maintjenance, and for that of their other schools, the Druse
villages have spontaneously taxed themselves to an amount,
for them, by no means inconsiderable.

This eagerness for education is the result of the politic and
far-seeing character of the people. Formerly they were mucli
opposed to it ; yet, when they wished to conciliate Western
influence, they did not hesitate to invite the American Mission
to establish schools aniong them. The proposal was accepted,
though no reliance was placed on its sincerity. All went
weU for a short time, when an intimation M'as sent to the
missionaries at Beyrout, that, during an approaching general
festival, the children must remain at home, and that the
teachers had better enjoy their holiday at BejTout. When
the time was about to expire, another polite message arrived,
to the effect that the schoolmasters had better not return
at once ; and finally, a third, that their services could be dis-

LEARKED KESEARCHES OF DAOUD PASHA. 23

peused ■with altogether. All this Avas managed with the most
dignified courtesy. "Within the last four years, however, their
views have undergone an entire change.

The Pasha confirmed what is, I believe, the impression of
most Englishmen, that the Druses are the most noble, honour-
able, and industrious of the Lebanon races. Their word is
their bond, and their vices are those of a wild highland tribe,
accustomed to take the law into their own hands. In civi-
hzation, they are, probably, more advanced than were the
Highland clans of Scotland before A.D. 1745 ; and, dim as are
their religious notions, they have no prejudice against Pro-
testant Christianity, and now freely permit their daughters to
be educated in Mrs. Bowen Thompson's English schools at
Beyrout. Perhajis v:c were slightly biassed by their preference
for Englishmen, and the Pasha by their submission to the
tax-oatherer.

Our host soon turned the conversation to the objects of our
tour in Palestine, and to literature in general, and amazed me
by the extent of his Ivnowledge of early English history. He
inquired Nvhether I had ever read any Anglo-Saxon works,
and at once entered upon the subject of the literatm'e of that
period. He has thoroughly mastered the language, and lias
puljlished, at Berlin, a work, in 2 vols. 8vo., on the early
history of the races of the Teutonic stock. It was interesting
to glance over his correspondence on this subject with Hum-
boldt, with the late King of Prussia, and especially with Jacob
Grimm, while, with an honest, unaffected pride, he showed us a
portfolio of their letters. When he received his present appoint-
ment, he was occupying himseK with a work on the question
of the influence, good or bad, of the Church of Eome in the
dark ages ; and he attributes the present liberties of England,
as contrasted with those of Germany, neither to the admixture
of the Scandinavian element among us, nor to the peculiar
operation of our feudal politics, but to the fact that Eome
never gained any real hold on the national mind of the
insular branch of the Teutonic stock, such as she had ob-
tained in Germany previous to the Eeformation. He is now

24 MRS. THOMPSON'S SCHOOLS IN BEYKOUT

collecting materials for the investigation of the history of the
races of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, from the epoch of
their semi-independence of the Byzantine Empire, to that of
their subjugation by the Ottomans ; having apparently in his
mind a parallelism between the Teutons and the Armenians,
on the one hand, and between the Sclave races and those of
South-western Europe, on the other. It was difficult, indeed,
to realize that we were discussing the laws of Alfred, and the
origin of English liberties, with a pasha of the Ottoman
Porte. There may have been pasLas before Daoud who did
not sell justice, though history must have been unkind to
their memories, — there certainly never was one who had
studied the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the original.

We could have remained till night ; but a long ride was
before us, and we reluctantly followed our horses down-stairs ;
not hoM'ever until the Pasha had given me a cordial invi-
tation to visit him, with my friends, in the summer, at his
more distant mountain residence, and there to w^ork out the
geology of the Lebanon. While riding down, we turned to
admire the villages behind us, fringing every crest ; and to our
surprise we traced the long range of Lebanon, white with the
snow which had been covering it during the rain we had
encountered in our ascent.

The few remaining days of our sojourn in Beyrout — or, at
least such portion of them as could be economized from the
important business of outfit and preparation — were devoted j
principally to investigations scarcely within the province of
a Xaturalist ; namely, the inspection of the different Mission-
schools, of which there are several for both sexes, those of
Mrs. Thompson alone belonging to the Church of England.
There is no English service or resident clergyman; but the
American missionaries offered me the use of their pulpit in
the morning, and our kind Consul collected a little congre-
gation in his salon in the afternoon, on each Sunday during
our stay.

In visiting the schools, it was most satisfactory to note
that the prejudices of caste or sect have been, at least in the

MRS. THOMPSON'S SCHOOLS IN UEVllOUT. 25

city itself, completely overcome. To those who best know
the Oriental character, this is of itself suflicient proof of the
success of the American JNIission. In the various schools, we
found the children of Moslems, Druses, INIaronites, Greeks,
and Jews studying side by side, together with no inconsi-
derable number of native Protestants. We had here excellent
opportunities of studying physiognomy, and could not but
note the contrast between the Syrians and the Greeks. The
former are more* robust, and not so handsome, yet without
the cunning and often ill-conditioned expression which spoils
the fine features of the latter. The women are dressed in
the voluminous trousers tied at the ankles, which the Moslems
also wear, but with white stockings and patent leather boots
or shoes. With their fair skins and dark gazelle eyes, though
wanting in expression, and somewhat heavy, they often pos-
sess a lustrous beauty, which realizes our idea of the Syrian
maiden of olden time.

We had a favourable opportunity of judging of these
Syrian belles, as the photographic apparatus of my companion,
Mr. Bowman, was in much request at Mrs. Thompson's
schools, where were collected many, both married and single
Greek, Druse, Jewess and Maronite. The most remarkable,
though the least beautiful, were the wild, restless-looking little
children made orphans by the massacres of llasbeiya. If we
criticised them, they very naturally took the same liberty with
us, and our dress created some perplexity among them. My.
coat had leather shoulder caps, and one of them was overheard
to remark, that " I must be a very rich man to have come so
far, and a great padre to wear so long a beard, but how could
a great padre wear a patched coat, and then not have it pieced
with the same colour ! " One little fellow whom w^e met
returning from school quite upset our gravity. He was a
Turk, about four years old, very fat, in the complete dress of
a man, and was waddling homewards with the solemnity of a
pasha, and a large New Testament under his arm.

Doubtless a great work has been done and is doing in these
schools. There is a harvest as well as a sowing in the very

26 mi. TiioMrsox.

fact of women being educated at all in a land where Christian,
Moslem, and Jew have agreed in one point at least, that
woman was not Avorth educating. And this training in all
the schools of Beyrout is on an uncompromising Christian
basis. Not only have the Druses, as I mentioned above,
learnt the lesson and begun to establish their college as well
as their schools ; but the Greeks of the Pashalic of the
Lebanon, as distinguished from the Maronites, have petitioned
the Government for a firman to erect a college for themselves,
and for power to tax their own community for its maintenance.
The Bedouins alone seem hopeless ; and till missionaries and
teachers can mount horses as fleet as theirs, and give their
lessons on the gallop, I fear we must not look for the progress
of education there. But as regards the rest, the experience
of all those who have studied the question in the East seems
to coincide w^ith the testimony of our missionaries in India,
that the natives neither fear nor dislike the inculcation of
Christianity in our schools, and will as readily send their
children to a religious as to a secular seminary, so long as
they are not compelled to change their faitli ; and that the
liberty-of-conscieuce objector is a mere phantom of Western
politicians.

Before leaving Beyrout w^e obtained some valuable hints
from Dr. Thomson, the well-known author of " The Land and
the Book," and the oldest missionary in Syria. He too longed
for an excursion across Jordan, where he had never yet been,
and we arranged to meet if possible at the south end of the
Dead Sea in February, on the Doctor's return from Sinai,
whither he was just about to start, in search of materials for
another volume. To our mutual disappointment, our subse-
quent letters miscarried, and we never met again until the
end of our wanderings.

CHAPTER II.

Departure from Beijrout — Scene in a Sifrian Post Office — Seaside Welts —
Birds of the Shore — Fording a Miver in the Dark — The Tamyras — Com-
panions and Guides —First Night under Cartvas — A Sunday on the Phoenician
Shore — Dcscrijytion of our Camp and Attendants — Hamoud the Muleteer —
The Srjcamore-tree of Scripture — Its Fruit — Biblical Allusions — Nehi
Yunas — Geology of the I/ills — Sidon—A Moslem Funeral — The Gardens of
Sidon ami their Birds — The Gourd of Jonah — Phcenician Tombs in the Rills
— Limestone and Flint Deposits— Syrian Country Priest — Tkuiulerstorm —
Birds oftlie Bostrenus — American Mission — Tlic Doctor's Shelter in a Storm
— Ruins of Sidon — The old Quays — Night wider Canvas in a Storm —
Swollen Ford — Narrow Escape of Moussa.

At length, on ilSrovember 28t]i, we started from Beyroiit on
our southward journey. Our stores had been calculated and
examined, and the greater portion forwarded by steamer to
Jaffa, to be deposited at Jerusalem for future needs ; tents,
outfits, culinary and table apparatus had been purchased,
horses and mules examined and approved, muleteers, drago-
man and servants engaged, and contracts sealed at the British
Consulate. "NVith ever}'thing paid in advance to Christmas,
the golden stream which had unceasingly flowed for a week
past, ran dry ; and light in heart as in pocket, we charged
Hamoud, our chief muleteer, to be ready by ten A.M., with
every mide laden. We had to do with a man who understood
his business, and at ten minutes past the hour, he quitted the
yard, mounted on his tall ass, behind the last mule. A
formidable cavalcade it looked, seven horsemen, ten baggage
mules, five asses, and last, but not least, our good watch-dog
Beiriit.

;M. and I having seen the cortege depart, lingered behind,
to pay a farewell visit to the Consulate, where in friendly
keeping my valuable watch was prudently deposited; and
then to the Post Office to receive our letters from the steamer

28 SCKNE IN A 8VU1AX TOST OI-FICE.

which had tliat morning arrived. irere was a scene of
bewildering disorder. A long latticed harrier divided the
offic<^ ; and in front of it a motley crowd of Greeks, Jews,
and Syrians were grinning through the bars, and shrieking
every inconceivable and unprononnceable name in a dozen
languages at once, while no one Avithin was paying attention
to any of them. Finding we might wait there till sunset, we
struggled through the mass, and presuming on the immunity
of Howadji Inglez, coolly went in by the private entrance,
and walked up to the letter boxes. The Greek in charge,
after vainly attempting to comprehend our names, bid us look
out for ourselves, which we did with success ; and on our
applying for newspapers, he pointed to the floor, where an
American and one or two foreigners were overhauling an
immense pile, and where every one might help himself.
I'erhaps we experienced a passing pang of regret, that the
prejudices of honesty prevented our investigating some files
of Times and Illustrated Nnas destined for consuls at Damas-
cus and Bagdad.

It was two o'clock before we movmted, and we flattered
ourselves that by the aid of Van de Velde's map we could not
mistake the way, though we had seven hours' ride before us.
The first part of the road was dull enough, though through a
lovely country, or rather on one side of a lovely country ; but
deep lanes without a stone, ankle deep in sand, and hedged
by tall prickly pear, are trying enough both to horses and
riders. Nor did our case improve when, leaving the promon-
tory of Beyrout, we emerged on the sea-shore, where heavy
gravel took the place of sand.

A deep well, a few yards from the sea, a\ ith troughs placed
irregularly round it, which women were filling for patient
herds of thirsty cattle, reminded us of the scenes by the
wells, so often alluded to in Scripture, especially when, as we
halted, a Syrian maiden offered us water for ourselves and
our horses. As we followed along the water's edge we met
with several shore-birds, winter visitors from the far north,
dunlins, little stints, redshanks, and a merganser, and I

BIRDS OF THE SHORE. 29

obtained a rare kind of wheatear, witli wliicli I had nnt
liitlierto met, S((vicola libanotica of Heraprich and Ehrenberg,
one of the birds pecnliar, so far as we know, to the stony
region of Palestine. There was no lack of khans, rninous
and picturesque, generally under a large carouba-tree. At
one of them we found Wilhelm, our German cook, who had
been left behind by the caravan, quietly ruminating over his
pipe, with my mountain barometer on his back. I gave him
a mount, and walked fi)r an hour, when "Wilhelm left my
horse for me with M., who waited till I came up. But when
a moonless night overtook us, as it soon did, we were inclined
to regret the time we had spent over the empty sarcophagi,
which strew the road and lie under the hill by the khan of
Khulda, the ancient Heldua, without an inscription and
without a story. AVe rode on by the shore till we came to a
river, the Nahr ed Damour, the ancient Tamyras, which we
had to ford. It was swollen with the rains, and we could see
no track. Attached as a man may be to his morning bath,
yet an evening plunge from horseback is a very different
matter, and I know of no sensation more intensely imcom-
fortable than that of trying an unknown stream in the dark.
However, there was no help for it, and in spite of the reluc-
tance of our horses we spurred them in, and found the water
reached only to the saddle-girths.

But now we were completely bewihlored. The rocks came
down to the water's edge, and the road must needs lie some-
where up the shoulder of the hill. A halt, and at length we
detected the glimmer of a tent a little way up, and our horses
groped their way to it. In vain the Arab occupant whom we
hailed endeavoured to make us understand the track up a
rocky precipitous hill on a pitch dark night. But soon some
men with laden asses came up, told us they were going to
Sidon, and volunteered their company, quite as glad of our
escort as we of their guidance. In long single file we crawled
for an hour and a half up and down, clamljering up rocks
where it seemed marvellous that horses could find a footing,
while the sea murmured immediately heneath us. I could see

30 FIRST NIGHT UNDER CANVAS.

iiotliiiig but the faint figure of M.'s white horse close in front,
till we came down again upon the sands. A few minutes,
and a light appeared on the left. We hailed, and found our-
selves at our oM'n cam]), tents pitched, fire lit, soup ready,
and all in beautiful order.

" Where is B — t ? " was the first greeting of our party ;
" we have not seen him since we started." They imagined he
had remained behind with us ; but we had seen him leave
the hotel with the convoy, and could give no information,
Giacomo, our dragoman, instantly loaded his gun, and was
mounting to go back in search, when a -voice which was re-
cognised as B — t's, hailed in the distance. How he had reached
the camp, is a mystery. He knew not a word of any language
but his own, and had turned up a wrong street in leaving
Beyrout. Fortunately, he had met an American missionary,
whom he knew by sight, and had been set right by him ; but,
after riding on for some time, had found himself, like our-
selves, benighted, and had determined to sit down on the
sand, and bivouac till the morning. While resting, he had
heard the voices of Arabs passing, and, with native shrewd-
ness, had quietly foUow^ed them at a distance, calculating that
he must thus stumble upon our camp. With fears relieved, we
sat down to dinner, and soon the other courier, whom we had
sent after Wllhelm, returned with him and the barometer in
safety. There is an exhilarating, almost a triumphant, sensa-
tion in the first night under canvas, so glowingly described
in Eothen, when eager anticipation looks forward to months
of pleasing toil ; and, with thankful hearts, we joined in
evening prayer, and turned in to our sheepskin bags for our
first night on the ground.

The next day w^as Advent Sunday. We were up at dawn,
and for the first time saw where we were camped. A wide
sandy liay, with the waves gently murmuring up its sides,
and a calm sea beyond, was surrounded on all sides by low
rugged hills, rent by ancient water-courses, and with the tall
ridge of Lebanon in the distant north. This bay fringed a
sandy, level tract, whose rise was scarcely perceptible for

A SUNDAY ON THE rHrENICLNJ^ SHORE. 31

about a mile from the sea. At its further end was the squalid
village of Xebi Yuuas (" the Prophet Jonas "), in front of
Avhich were masses of olive, fig, and mulberry groves, — all
cultivated with corn beneath their shade, — and with groups
of tall date-palms here and there. Between the groves and
the shore is a narrow strip of sandy ground, with a few
clumps of fine tamarisks, and veiy ancient sycamine fig-
trees {Ficus sycomorus, L. ; Arab. Jourjiidz), the tree men-
tioned by St. Luke (chap, xix.), as that into wdiicli Zaccheus

sS<*?'*'§S^I

NEBI YUNAS. •

climbed, near Jericho, to see our Lord pass by. In the midst
of a dark-foliaged clump of these gnarled old trees, whose
appearance is far more like that of an old English oak than is
that of the terebinth, so often compared to it, stood our camp ;

Bthe three tents completely overshadowed by the branches.
Over the chief tent — a round Marabout tent, with double roof,
and lining besides, far the most convenient shape and con-
struction foi; Eastern travel — floated the English ensign, which
ve always hoisted. On one side of it stood our second tent,
f similar form ; and on the other, the long oblong one for our
^'r\'ants, in front of which was planted our travelling grate
ud kitchen. It would be difficult to conceive a more pic-
uresque spot for a camp. Just before us was a quaint khan,
. ith a well, and a wely, or Mohammedan chapel, sacred to

%

^>2 OUR CAMP AND ATTENDANTS.

the mciaoiy of the propliet Jonah. The women, earlier risers
tlian their lords, were already drawing water for the cattle
standing in groups around them, when we turned out for
coffee, and then, in our dressing-gowns, ran down to the shore
for a swim.

After ]\rorning Service and a late breakfast, we liad time to
scrutinize and leani the features of our motley following, of
most of whom we had already formed a good opinion, which,
happily, we had never, during nine months' experience, occa-
sion to alter. They were a pleasant contrast to the attend-
ants who had alHicted me during former iournevs in Africa.
Pirst in the list is our head-muleteer, Ilamoud Eazouy, who
is the owner of all the horses, and who, having served in this
capacity to Dr. Thomson, Lord Dufferin, and the Prince of
Wales, considers himself as sheikh of Syrian muleteers. He
is a short, stiffly-built, middle-aged man, with close-shaven
head and face, of the Syrian, not the Bedouin or Turkish
type. He sits with a brocaded handkerchief, which he always
wears, round his fez, to mark his dignity, pensively watching
the iron trough in which are ranged the cooking utensils over
the scanty charcoal fire, and every now and then glances
over his shoulders, to see that his muleteers are at work and
his animals all right. His hubble-bubble, with its great
cocoa-nut bowl, is rarely out of his hand ; but if he spies
a slackened tent-cord, down it goes, and, seizing a mallet, 1
hammers at the peg, exclaims " Taib " (good), and, wit'ii
bright smile, glides back upon his haunches. His shai
nose, keen, piercing, close-set eyes, and thin, compressed lips,
bespeak at once his acuteness and firmness. He wears a long
silk cassock of l>lue and white stripe (rather the worse for
wear), large blue cotton bags, bare legs, and red slippers,
shaped like a gondola. Over all, in cold weather, his blue
cloth jacket is covered with black silk embroidery, and has
long slashed sleeves, hanging loose, like pendants, from his
elljOM's.

His brother, Hadj Khadour, is dressed in a similar style,
but, being a bachelor instead of a widower, affects full dandy

OUR CAMP AND ATTEND.VXTS. 83

toilet, and is never -without his sky-blue jacket. He dis-
penses, however, with the cassock, and wears a short waist-
coat instead. He never walks, but bestrides his donkey, with
his legs stretching out far on each side, and cleverly balances
his huge red slippers on his toes, as he swings them. Night
and day, riding or sitting, his hubble-bubble is held in one
hand, like the lyre of Apollo. Hadj is the gossip, the news-
j monger of the camp, with his large, round face beaming with
igocd humour, and a perpetual twinkle in his deep-set, dark
I eyes — always ready to joke and banter, regardless of dignities,
!but as ready to lend a hand whenever it is wanted, and having,
[in Eastern phrase, the heart and the paw of the lion,
i The two brothers brought five servants with them, of whom
I the head was Abou-an-Yuly, irreverently corrupted into " Aunt
Judy " — a stiff, elderly ^Moslem, of sixty summers, who held
to us faithfully throughout the campaign, poorly dressed,
with a long stocking on one leg only, large blue bags, cotton
turban, and dilapidated Turkish jacket, with a packing-needle
and a chibouk-stick always stuck in his turban. He proved
himself afterwards an invaluable snake-catcher and shell-
collector.

Elias, a Christian boy, from Diarbekir, a huge lad, whose
strength was only equalled by his good-humour, had all the
hard work, and was the only one who had not even a donkey
to ride. Bare-legged and threadbare, he sang merrily as he
went, and lived upon hope and the thought of a backshish
at some time or other. Isa, or Yahoo, our kitchen factotum,
was another Christian lad, looking, in his mongrel costume,
ae if he had been kicked into stupor. We soon discovered,
however, that his looks belied his sharpness, and that if he
had been hardly used it w^as not for want either of honesty or
fidelity.

Our dragoman was not quite so much to our mind, being a
Syrian-Greek ; but Giacomo served us well, and if all Greeks
were like him, his nation would be in better repute. He
spoke no English, but French and Italian well ; and as he
had the keeping of all our accounts, which had to be daily

D

I

34 THE SYCAMORE-TREE OF SCRIPTURE,

examined, and were made out in the Italian language, but in
the Greek characters, we had a pleasing variety in our lin-
guistic studies. Wilhelm Horn, our cook, was a hard-working,
plodding German, who spoke no Arabic, but English well,
and whose lidelity and courage we found throughout our tour
most invaluable. Our watch-dog, Beiriit, attached himself
instinctively to Wilhelm, though his canine instinct soon
taught him to recognise every one of our party of fourteen,
and to cling to the tents, whether in motion or at rest, as his
home. Poor Beinit ! though the veriest pariah in appearance,
thy })lebeian form encased as noble a dog-heart as ever beat
at the sound -of a stealthy step !

We had been sitting under a sycamine fig-tree (the syca-
more of the Bible), and were talking of its connexion with
the history of Zaccheus, when, looking up, we espied two little
Arab girls hidden among the branches, gathering the wretched
fruit which it bore in abundance. Poor indeed must those be
who live by such labour, and deep must have been the poverty
of the prophet Amos, when he told the king that he was but
"a herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit!' Tasteless and
woody, these sycamore figs must surely have been those in the
prophet's vision, when he pronounced the figs in the second
basket to be " very naughty figs, wdiich could not be eaten, they
were so bad" (Jer. xxiv. 2), and which were an apt emblem of
the rejected Zedekiah and his people. Figs however they are,
and the tree is a congener of the celebrated banyan-tree of
India. It is one of the easiest of trees to climb, with its short
stem and wide lateral branches forking out in all directions ;
and bearing, as it does, its little figs on small sprigs all round
the trunk and principal limbs, the youngest children can
safely climb and gather them. It bears abundantly, perhaps
at all seasons, for I have certainly found its fruit from
November to June. But it is a very tender tree, and does
not thrive in the highlanls; indeed, 1 cannot recall any
instance in which we met with it exce|)ting on the sea coast,
where frost is unknown, and in the still warmer Jordan valley.
This fact illustrates the expression in 1 Chron. xxvii. 28,

BIBLICAL ALLUSIONS. 35

" Over the olive-trees and the sycamore-trees that were in the
Imo plains was Baal-hanan tlie Gederite," ^ and also that in
Ps. Ixxviii. 47, " He destroyed . . . their sycamore-trees with
frost," for in Egj-pt, where the sycamore-fig is abundant, frost
is of course unknown. These allusions all sufficiently show
that not the oriental plane, often taken for the sycamore, and
common on the banks of Syrian streams, but the Ficus s^/co~
morns, or sycamine fig-tree of the lowlands, is, as I have
assumed it to be, the tree spoken of both in the Old and New
Testaments.

The sun was hot and oppressive till evening, and we found
the shade of tlie tree more agreeable than the tents, while
overhead the little chiffchatf of our English hedgerows had
sought his %Wnter-quarters, and, with a habit somewhat dif-
ferent from that wliich he exhibits in Britain, was hovering
among the branches, and apparently catching insects on the
wing. We felt that the Moslems, in selecting this spot as the
traditional landing-place of Jonah when delivered from the fish,
have chosen with less than their usual contempt for possibi-
lities, since the beach is smooth and gently sloping ; and as
the place is between Joppa and Tarshish, the event may as
well have occurred here as elsewhere. A late dinner after
dark, followed by evening service, concluded our first day's
tent-life in SjTia.

Xext morning, November 30, we were ready for an early
start, and before the sun had overtopped the hills of Galilee
we were in the sea. The tents were soon struck, and by
eight o'clock our camping-ga-ound was deserted. In the hope
of enriching our collections I resigmed my horse, and shoul-
dered my gun on foot. But the rocks were unfossiliferous,
and birds were few. The only interesting capture I made
was that of the solitary blue thrush, Petrocincla cyanca,
among the rocks, a bird supposed by some to be alluded to
by the I'salmist under the name of " the sparrow that sitteth
alone on the house-tops." The stratification of the hills, so
far as we could trace it, appeared to be perfectly regular and

' See also 2 Chron. i. 15 ; is. 27.
D 2

36 SIDON.

horizontal, consisting of crystalline limestone, in Avlncli we
vainly searched for organic traces, though rewarded hy find-
ing numbers of a very beautiful, and, I believe, undescribed
species of Clausilia, a genus of land-shells found in the
northern portion only of Palestine. There appeared in places
to be a deposit of a much softer limestone on the higher
portion of the hilis, but which was generally denuded. Time,
however, was wanting for its examination ; but in one spot
where we reached it we obtained a single fossil, Hvpimrites
syi'iaais (?), not very perfect, and noticed that the stratification
■was not conformable with that of the bed below. We did
not meet w^ith any of the patches of sandstone reported to be
found in this district, though the formation of sandstone may
be said to be proceeding in the mass of fine sand which is
driven up in many of the bays. The road was much like
that of our first day's march, now through plunging sands by
the water side, now over rocky ledges and steps by the edge
of hills and cliffs overhanging the sea.

About a mile from Sidou we forded the Nahr-el-Auwaly,
the ancient Bostrenus, one of the streams of Lebanon, near
w'hich commence the extensive gardens of Sidon, and thence
passed directly through the narrow crooked streets of the
modern city to our camping-place on the edge of a Moslem
cemetery to the south. Indeed, our camp itself was on the
old graveyard, and we had to clear away bleached bones in
abundance before w^e could spread our carpets. Boys soon
came to display their knowledge of English, learnt in the
American Mission-schools, and to sell us oranges at double
the market-price, which is here about six a penny. We had
scarcely pitched, when we obsers^ed a INIoslem funeral coming
out of the city towards the cemetery — a noisy disorderly
crowd rather than a procession. First came a large party of
women, closely veiled, and howling, the hired mourners,
doubtless, of the occasion. " Call for the mourning women,
that they may come ; and send for cunning women, that thfV
may come : and let them make haste, and take up a wailing
or us." (Jer. ix. 17, 18.) Then was borne the bier, M'ith tli*

A xMOSLEM FUNERAL. 37

body stretched on it, dressed in its best clothes, followed Ijy
a motley straggling mob of men and boys in every sort of
costume, talking and jostling in the most unconcerned manner
till the grave was reached. The men then took up the wail-
ing— " La Allah ilia Allah, wa ]\Ioliammed russoul Allah " —
(There is no God but God, and Mohammed is the prophet of
God) repeated at the top of the voice with breathless rapidity,
as if trying to drown the " luUulu " of the women, until the
whole party seemed utterly exhausted, and paused for an
instant, foaming at the mouth. The body was let down on
a narrow plank into the shallow grave, which w^as rapidly
filled in, a few stones were heaped over it to protect it from
the jackals and hyaenas, and the mourners dispersed.

It was not yet noon, and we set out on various expeditions.
B. took a boat, and succeeded in obtaining two good pho-
tographs from the rocks which formed the entrance to the
ancient harbour of Sidon. Fruit is the chief commercial pro-
duct of Sidon (or Saida, as it is now called), and its gardens
extend for some miles north and south and behind the city.
I took my gun and went out alone among them, occasionally
attacked by dogs, or unceremoniously turned back by the
owners, as I deserved to be for my disregard of their hedges
and gates, but more frequently watched with interest ; my
<l>ort was spoiled by boys, who kept running before me and
jiclting e^'T3ry bird they could see. However, I succeeded in
nbtaining some interesting specimens, — corncrakes, identical
with our own, who had comfortably domiciled themselves for
the winter by the little watercourses in the gardens ; several
bulbnls, who were still practising their rich music in concert
from the tops of the orange-trees ; and other more familiar
songsters. Birds of prey were abundant, and the houey buz-
zard and marsh haiTier were skimming over the groves, while
several eagles hovered in mid air, or wheeled in circles almost
out of sight. I also shot, but lost among the hedges, a fine
short-toed eagle {Circdctos gaUicus, Gm.).

In one garden I met a negro at work, and asked for a diink
f water. He called for his wife from the cottage by the

38 THE GOUKD OF JONAH.

garden well, and liid her fetch it for me, which she did with
a simple natural grace. She was a young, pretty-looking
white Syrian, with a mulatto baby in her arms. Here at
least, thought I, the negro suffers under no social disadvantages.

The enclosures were generally neat, formed principally of
bramble, myrtle, and various thorny shrubs, and innumerable
little rills and ditches of water, fed for the most part by a
shallow well sunk in each property. The water from tlu;
well is raised by jars on a wheel after the well-known
Egy^ptian fashion, and poured into a trough, whence a neatly
cemented channel conveys it to the ditches and furrows, which
distribute the refreshing draught to every tree in the gardei).
The orange and lemon predominate, but there are also many
pomegranates, trellised vines and ajDricots, and a few palms
and iig-trees. Under all, the gi-ound is carefully cultivated
for green and root crops. At present turnips, carrots, and
radishes had taken the place of the melons and cucumbers
of summer, and would be succeeded, we were told, by barley.
It was interesting to meet in nearly every garden with an
arbour of gourds, like that under which Jonah sat ; but the
plants had all withered ; and the large bottle-gourds, left here
and there to dry on the tendrils which had lately afforded a
leafy shade, were all that remained.

There has been much discussion among critics since the
time of Jerome and Augustine, who used some rather strong
language on the suliject, as to what plant is really the gourd
of Jonah. The identity of the Hebrew jVp'^p {lil'ayon)
with the Arabic ,fj^ (kiirakh) has leen questioned on
etymological grounds, and a wilderness of plants, from the
ivy to the castor-oil-tree, have been introduced to provide the
prophet with shade. The favourite rendering with later com-
mentators, including the writer in Smith's Biblical Dictionary,
seems to be the Ricinus Communis, L, or castor-oil plant.
Niebuhr alone observes that both Jews and Christians at
Mosul maintained it was not this tree, cl kcroa, but el kerra,
the gourd. The names in Palestine are almost identical,
" kurah " being the gourd, " kliurwah " the castor-oil plant.

THCENICLVN TOMBS. 39

No cloul)t both of these plants are common in Pulestine, Itut
it seems strange that none of the disputants should liave
thought of inquiring which would provide the best shade, or
whether either were ever used for the purpose. To my own
mind the claims of the familiar gourd are incontrovertible.
It is used universally in the East on trellises for shatling
arbours and summer-houses— and a most effectual screen it
is; while as to the Ricinus, large though its leaves may be,
its straggling open growth renders it perfectly useless as a
protection against the rays of the sim.

The sun set angTily and threatened a change of weather,
but notwithstanding the quarrels of the pariah dogs and
the howling of the jackals roimd our tents, Beirut was the
only unquiet member of our camp, and next morning, in spite
of the clouds, we resolved to set off for the hills, with the
triple purpose of shooting partridges for dinner, inspecting
the ancient Phoenician tombs, and examining the stratification
of the rocks. In the first object we were disappointed. Birds
there were in places, but far too wary and wild to allow us to
add a dish to our frugal table. The tombs have been ages
ago rifled of all their contents, save some shattered sarco-
pliagus lids ; and the few inscriptions exhumed in modern
times are now to be seen, not here, but in the LomTe. They
are simply sepulchres hewn in the rocks, with entrances the
size of an ordinary door, and they abound in all the hills.
We could detect no difference whatever in construction or
form between these and the tombs about Jerusalem and else-
where in Juda?a. In one, into which we crept, were ranged
nine niches, each measuring six feet back into the rock, three
on each side, and three facing the door, evidently for the
reception of as many bodies, not of funeral urns ; and there
appeared besides to be an inner chamber, the entrance to
which was choked with rubbisli. The height of the cave had
never been more than five feet.

Of fossils we found none, the mass of the hills being formed
of the hard crystalline limestone on which we had travelled
from Beyrout, but much dislocated and contorted. These

40 LIMESTONE AND FLINT DEPOSITS.

inferior beds have once had enormous inequalities of surface,
which have been subsequently corrected by the filling in of
some sedimentary accumulations in the tertiary ocean, now a
softer limestone. Here and there upon the top of this latter
is a third denuded deposit of sandstone, very soft and friable,
yellow and red, apparently containing much oxide of iron.
Surmounting all, on tlie hills behind, is the band of calcareous
limestone, intersp(?rsed with flinty bands and nodules, which
may be traced from Beyrout right through Lebanon to Judiea,
and which here, as elsewhere, is beautifully variegated with
silicated calc, as if through some chemical action the soft
limestone had. been subjected to a siliceous metamorphosis,
and as it were petrified by infiltration. Being now much
decomposed on the surface, the layers of flint stand out most
conspicuously.

Whire wandering over these hills, whose lower slopes were
carefully terraced like long flights of stairs, we met a solitary
Syrian priest, driving his ass laden with marketings from Sidon
to some distant village. His appearance suggested to us
exactly what we may picture a Levite of the olden time to
have been, such as he of Bethlehem-Judah who came to the
house of Micah. His style and dress were ecclesiastical (more
so I think than those of the Greek priests, which recall rather
the monastic than the secular habit). He had a long beard,
the round, full black turban, exactly like the modern pictm-es
of the Aaronic priests, a loose, blue-black cassock, and loose,
long blue-black trousers. His very melancholy cast of counte-
nance became the priest of a race trampled upon by the
Turkish oppressor, like Israel by the Midianites of old.

We were still some six miles from camp when the clouds
began to gather, and rapidly the rain descended, accompanied
by crashing thunder peals. Shelter there was none, and long
ere we reached the tents Ave were drenched to the skin ; nor
did we succeed in keeping our powder, or at least our nipples
dry, a fact of which the birds seemed perfectly aware, to judge
by their boldness and indifference. Our course lay down the
banks of the Auwaly, and many an interesting sea-bird did

AMEEiaSJ^ MISSION. 41

we notice making np the stream from the shore. Here alone
in Syria we met with the beautiful pigmy cormorant {Graculas
pygmccus, Gr.), stealing quietly to shelter ; many oceanic
ducks were seeking food and refuge inland ; and especially
attractive were the brilliant kingfishers, our English species,
and the large black-and-white kingfisher of Egypt, both of
which we had noted on the previous day feeding on the
shore, but which, driven by the inhospitable weather, were
darting up the river in quick succession, under the screen of
tamarisks which overhung the banks. As we turned from
the river towards our tents the rain had washed the path, and
laid bare in many places fragments of fine coloured mosaic in
situ, telling us very plainly that this ruinous road was formed
of the flooring of rich Eoman mansions. Various broken but
polished shafts of granite and porphyry lay strewn by the
road and in the gardens.

After a change of clothing at our tents, we went to call on
the American missionaries, to one of whom we had been intro-
duced at BejTout. No description can do justice to the squalor
and filth of the streets of Sidon on a wet day. All of them are
more than half arched over, and very dark — so narrow, that
two laden asses cannot pass, — with a gutter a foot deep run-
ning down the centre ; and where not arched, a rotten screen
of sticks, overlaid here and there with pieces of ragged mat-
ting and wattles, adds to the deplorable appearance of the
place. Coppersmiths seemed the most thriving as well as the
noisiest of the artisans, while, like every one else, they sat in
their open shops, hammering away on the ground. We turned
up a blind entry, and then mounted a flight of steps in the
corner ; at the top of which a door ajar led to a courtyard,
clean and tidy, on the roof of the dungeons below. Eound
. this elevated court, and built over the street below, were the
various rooms of the Mission house. I rapped, when a little
boy peeped out, and ran back, exclaiming, " Oh, papa, here
is an Englishman ! " It is impossible to describe the sudden
contrast, when we found ourselves in a spacious, neatly-
furnished drawing-room, looking out on the sea which dashed

42 SHELTER m A STORM.

against its walls, and were received by a graceful lady. What
a lonely banishment a missionary's wife must endure in such
a place as Sidon ! There are, however, three here ; for the
Americans never isolate their missionaries, as we too often do ;
so that they have some little society of their own. They did
not speak hopefully of the progress of their Mission in the city
itself, but much more so of their success in the country dis-
tricts. Among the IVfoslems they have, as yet, made no way.

On our return through the still pouring rain, vre found
L. had just returned from his botanizing expedition in better
plight than ourselves. When caught in the storm, he had
taken shelter within the open door of a single-roomed house,
in a garden, where was a little carpet spread, on which
he had stretched himself and fallen asleep. Meantime the
owner returning, was astonished to find an uninvited guest in
the shape of a giaour at his hearth, but, awakening him, made
him welcome by signs. At length, he mustered some broken
Italian, and made L. understand he was a Druse, and
therefore, rubbing his two fore-fingers together, " soua-sovc,
bono con Inglez." The Doctor's tobacco-box made them very
good friends, and they sat, for the best part of the afternoon,
gesticulating to each other, and the host wishing the stranger
to remain all night on his carpet ; while he had the satisfac-
tion of obtaining medical advice, insisting on the " hakeem "
feeling his pulse, and looking at his tongue.

We turned in with uncomfortable forebodings, soon to be
realized, of the effects of a continuous tropical rain on the
best of tents. We carefully arranged our mackintosh sheets
under our carpets and sheepskin beds, and then turned them
over ; so that when the w^ater burst through, as at ler.gth it
did, we found ourselves lying dry in the pool. But I was
aroused, towards morning, by the drip on my face. I was .
fain to sit up under the hood of my burnous, with my legs
dry and warm in the woolly bag; while my companions to
leeward escaped altogether.

It is needless for me to say much about the city of Sidon
itself, which has been very accurately described by liobinson,

KUINS OF SIDON. 43

whose account has been faithfully followed by Porter. Tlicre
are several large khans within the walls, where European
travellers frequently remain, and where our muleteers and
animals were in comfort during the storm. The modern city
occupies a little promontory, from the south of which a ridge
of rocks runs out in a curve towards the north, forming the
ancient harbour, the entrance to which is contracted by a fine
half-ruined tower, connected with the north end of the city
by a bridge of several arches. This old fortress has many
broken shafts of polished gTanite and rich marble built into
its M'alls, and its erection must therefore date subsequently to
the period of Sidon's Eoman gTeatness. But by far the most
interesting portion of the remains are tliose on the outer ridge
of rocks. These m'c went out in a boat to examine, and after-
wards scrambled back on the reefs. The port, when compared
with the harbours of classic Greece, must have been a spacious
one, and was perhaps enlarged by an artificial mole, of which,
though not noticed by any -UTiter, we thought we could descry
the traces. In many places the old reef has been quarried out,
till the sea makes a clean breach into the harbour ; but this
has probably been the work of later times. The jagged,
fretted rocks in the sea are full of carved doorways, huge
stones of old arches, with many of the holes still visible
where the stanchions of gates have been fitted, and are strewn
with masses of undecipherable masonry. We were struck by
the Cyclopean character of the work — immense stones let in
to form the edges of the ancient quays, by the sides of whicli,
among and on these rocks, must have been the warehouses of
Sidon. The masses of broken columns on all sides form a
breastwork against the action of the sea below; but these
remains are so perforated and honeycombed by the water,
and by the boring-shells {jpholades), that it is impossible to
make out their style. Time, man, and, above all, the incessant
dashing of the waves, have so honeycombed rocks, stonework,
and columns alike, that no clear plan of the style of building
can be ascertained. A little outlay might yet suffice to make
it a servicealjle port for small craft. .Such is the harbour of

44 ni(;ht under canvas in a storm.

Sidon, the cradle of the world's commerce, the mother of
Tyre. Perliaps on the very spot where we stood on these
rocks St. Paul was courteously landed. Probably on the very
sands where we had been strolling in pursuit of kingfishers,
our Lord walked when He went to the coasts of Tyre and
Sidon ; the only road to T}Te being along these sands.

We had intendcu to remain another day at Sidon, but the
rains, dark and heavy, continued to pour down. The rats,
too, and the moles had been working up from the graves
beneath us, and we were not enamoured of our sepulchral
camping-ground. "While our muleteers declared the floods
must be out, and that it would be dangerous to attempt the
fords, our dripping dragoman, who had not, like them, been
enjoying the comforts of the khan, assured us that the
alarms were part of their practice, and that if we gave ear
to them, we might remain here a month, as they were very
comfortable in Sidon, with good quarters and abundance of
coffee and gossip. We determined thereupon to force a
march in the rain. A pitiable business it is to dismantle
a camp in a storm, but we carefully bestowed our beds and
a dry change within our mackintosh sheets, to make them safe
in all events. ' I found both pairs of boots filled with water,
but had only to make the best of it, empty them all and
begin the day with damp feet. We clearly could not be worse
off elsewhere than we were here. We gave up the idea of
reaching Tyre, and arranged to make Surafend (Sarepta) our
halting-place, a distance of four hours' ride, if we should be
able to ford the streams, now swollen to torrents. We kept
close along the shore for the whole way, ha\ang on our left a
narrow strip of rich fertile land, behind which the bare but
terraced hills rose steep and rocky. The first ford, the Nahr-
Senik, we crossed in safety, and quantities of birds of every
kind hovered about us — eagles, ducks, Egyptian geese, falcons,
and plover, but very few could we obtain.

At the second river, the Nahr-ez-Zaherany (flowery river),
which was fringed with oleanders just coming into blossom,
tlie " willows by the water-courses," the stream rose above

NARROW ESCAPE OF MOUSSA. 45

our horses' girths. The ford was only 100 yards from the
mouth of the stream, and jnst below were the ruins of an
ancient Ijridge, apparently of Saracenic construction ; for the
Turks, though they may sometimes build, yet would scorn to
repair a bridge. Wliile in the middle of the torrent, the
horse ridden by Moses (a soft lad, whom we had taken from
Beyrout as a confidential tent-servant, but who was utterly
untit for out-door life) stumbled, and Moses, encumbered with
his many wraps, and my barometer on his back, fell plump
into the current. Over and over he rolled, a helpless mass
of clothing, unable to extricate himself, with head and arms
buried in his great hood. One of the muleteers, who had
waded across half-stripped, rushed bravely after him, while
two of us who had not yet crossed ran down to the sea in
the hope of stopping him before he should be carried out.
We waded in as far as we could keep our footing, when the
muleti^er from the other side boldly struck out, and seized
him before us. We dragged him out, colourless and drown-
ing ; but dosing him with a little brandy, and then running
him up and down for a while on the l)ank, restored him to
consciousness. At length the whole cortege was got over in
safety, except that one mule was carried down for a few yards,
and did not reach the bank before my portmanteau and all its
contents were thoroughly saturated.

CHArTER III.

Sarepta — Its Traces and Modem Site — The River Leontes — Bridge — Oleander
— Contrast of Tyre tvith Sidon — Desolation — Filth — Ruins in the Sea — The
Old CatJiedral — Massive Remains — Quarrying of Mines — Tyrian Purple —
Sliell-Fish — Ancient Sea-Wall — Literal fulfilment of Ezelciel's Prophecy —
Hiram's Well — Excursion to Hiram's Tomb — Agriculture of the District —
Descri]}tion of the Tomb — Serpent catching — Local Traditions — Kanali —
Winter Flo'wers^Phoenician Sculptitres — Cisterns — Eagles — Coins of Philip
and Alexander — Rarity of Jewish Coins — Absence of Phoenician Stone-Work
— Wood Sculpture — Ras-el-Ain — Paloetyrus — Tlie Ladder of Tyre — Interest-
ing Landscape — Ruined City of Iskanderiyeh — View from Ras en Nakdra —
Descent into the Plain of Acre.

December 2d. — We readied the traces, very scanty and insig-
nificant, of ancient Zarepliatli, or Sarepta, soon after noon,
and pitched our camp on the sands, a little to the south of
the ruins, not more than 100 yards from the sea, with the
spray falling upon our tents. But close by was a well, the
traveller's first care. This was sunk only fifty yards from
the water's edge, and the access was by a descent of stone
steps to the little square-built reservoir, so contrived as to
prevent its being immediately choked with sand, but yet
requiring constant labour from the old keeper of the khan.
We must not be ungrateful, for it enabled us to have soup and
tea, salt though in truth it was. The weather cleared just as
we arrived, and allowed us to wander about the spot where
the desert prophet met the widow gathering sticks, and where
he so long blessed her exhaustless cruse. Not a house now
remains, and but few of its stones strew the ground. A little
" wely," once a Christian chapel, marks the spot where tradi-
tion states our Lord to have rested when He visited these
coasts. But, unlike most other hallowed sites in Syria,
Sarepta has not ])erished, but migrated up tlie hill. There
it is, only two miles back, set on a hill where it cannot be

THE RIVER LEONTES. 47

hid, an(J, moreover, where it cannot be harried by Bedouin
horsemen. Its Hebrew appellation is distinctly preserved in
the Arabic Siirafend. How this migration illustrates the
ages of insecurity which have passed over this down-trodden
land ! The strip of rich plain is deserted, the very stones
of okl Zarephatli have been laboriously carried up the hill,
iind the peasant, when his toil is over below, creeps up at
> unset to his rocky home, with his tools on his back or even
liis plough on his shoulder, while the herdsman and his flock
-])end half their time in journeying from security to pasture,
and from pasture to security. AVliile civilization and com-
merce are brrnging down our western cities to the rivers and
ilie sea, lawlessness and barbarism have driven Phoenicia
from tlie coast up to the mountains. The hills were very
bare, and the hard rocks sharply water-fretted, affording only
sui)port for straggling herds of goats. Their keepers we found
(■i\il and communicative, as we pursued the black wheatear
or Titliys' redstart from ridge to ridge in their company.
They told us of many ancient tombs higher up, but without
sarcophagi.

AVe had a cheerless night of rain, but happily not much
wind to draw our tent-pegs out of the soft sand, and I
beguiled the time by going through our dragoman's accounts.
The item " Tra^t? Trt. aec " somewhat puzzled me, till it was
explained to be the translation of "Backshish, six piastres ! "

The clouds lifted in the morning, and we had a fine ride to
Tyre, along the fertile plain of Phcenicia, rapidly expanding
10 the eastward as we proceeded. The scene was desolate,
dotted here and there by ghost-like heaps, ancient tombs, and
in one spot a small SjTian Stonehenge, standing weird-like in
the middle of the plain. Yet among the hills, a few miles
beyond, we could see each crest surmounted by a village, and
nuicli terrace cultivation. The swollen Leontes, now the
Xahr-el-Kasimiyeh, we crossed by a dilapidated bridge, with-
out parapet, the first unbroken arch we had seen. The bridge
is modern, and necessity has compelled its erection on tlie
site of an older structure, for the Leontes is quite unfordable

48

CONTRAST OF TYKE WITH SIDON.

in winter, and is perhaps the most considerable stream in
Palestine after the Jordan. Another little stream we forded,
hard by an old Ptoman bridge left to go to ruin. The banks
were fringed by the lovely oleander, already putting forth its
fruit-buds, and we enjoyed a long ramble by its banks, drawn
on by the lively but cautious black-and-white kingfishers.
From the muddy Leontes we walked along the sands for four
miles, with Tyre full in sight, projecting out into the sea, and
somewhat imposing at a distance, with its ridge of weather-

TYiu:.

beaten rocks running out to the north, in form and position a
close repetition of Sidon. But the illusion was soon to be
dispelled. Instead of the rich gardens and orange-groves
which extend behind Sidon, a desolate ridge of sand connects
Tyre with the broad plain beyond, heaped by the sea-drift
upon the causeway which Alexander made to connect the
island of Tyre with the mainland during his siege.

We selected a pleasant spot for the camp just outside the
north gate, and close to the principal fountain, a jfine massively
built erection over capacious cisterns, divided within into
different chambers for the men and for the women. This
well is close to the shore, like other more humble springs
we had already observed. The sands sloped gently down fi'ir
fifty yards from our tents. Leaving our people to pitcli these

DESOLATION — FILTH — IIULKH IN THE SEA. 49

and to unpack, surrounded by a gaping and admiring croAvd
of children of all ages, we started at once to explore the
antiquities of Sur, as the city is now named. Sidon in the
rain is wretched enough, but what is it to Tyre in the dry ?
The tilth and squalor of the little city surpass even that of
a Tunisian town. Scanty bazaars, about five feet wide, wattled
over at intervals by decayed sticks and palm-leaves ; the street
never less than ankle — often a foot — deep in putrid mud ;
dilapidated wiudowless hovels, raised among huge fragments
of polished granite and porphyry columns, prostrate in rub-
bish— such is modern Tyre. Through these we picked our
.^teps to the shore, where a few fishing-boats form the navy of
her "whose merchants were princes." We ascended to the
higher jtart of the promontory, and from the ruined walls
lookeil down on the wondrous fulfilment of prophecy. For
half a mile the sea flows to the depth of a foot or two over
flat rocks, covered by one mass of broken columns, leaning or
prostrate in bewildering confusion, as if pitched pell-mell
into the water. This is insular Tyre, " the waters have covered
her," She is " a place for fishermen to spread their nets on."
The nets indeed were not spread to-day, for the sea was too
high and rough, but they were hanging about. The columns,
blackened by the salt-water, appeared all to have been smooth,
and not fluted, but they are now fretted and perforated by
ages of exposure to storm and tempest. They are still quite
suflicient to attest the grandeur of the later or Eomau Tyre,
to which doubtless they belong.

While musing over them, we were accosted in good English
by a Syrian, who proffered his aid as guide. He was a mem-
I ler of our Church, a Jerusalem convert, and an old school-
lillow of our lad Moses, and became at once an attache of our
' ;imp. He was a shoemaker by trade, and his family were
the only Protestants in the place. Under his guidance we
visited the skeleton of the old Cathedral of Tyre, once the
finest church in Syria, but now an utter ruin, devoted to the
filthiest purposes, and with miserable ^loslem hovels plastered
like swallows' nests in all its corners and transepts. The

E

50 THE OLD CATUEDKAL.

wall of the apse remains, aud so do the massive buttresses
at its corners, from which extended the transepts. A portion
also of the west wall is still standing, so that the size of the
church can he traced — about 200 feet long by nearly 140 in
width. It seems to have been plain and massive, without
external decoration, and, within, was in the earlier and simple
Byzantine style. We clambered up the roof of a house in
the chancel to the top of the wall of the apse. We were
standing on a spot hallowed indeed in ecclesiastical history.
Paulinus was its bishop in the palmy days of the Constantines.
Eusebius wrote the consecration oration, still extant, for the
opening of the Church. The historian, William of Tyre, here
held archiepiscopal rank. Here was performed almost the last
religious service ever held by the Crusaders in the Holy Land.
Here moulders the dust of the "great Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa, and of a yet greater man than he — Origen."

Bevived and rebuilt time after time, and age after age, it
would be as vain to search here for the relics of the Tyre of
Hiram and Solomon, as to seek for David's city beneath the
heaps of Jerusalem, or for the Byrsa of Dido under the layers
of Koman Carthage. The ruins that are exhumed to-day yield
evidence that they were built of the fragments of the later
imperial city.

Through a gap in the dilapidated wall, a very recent struc-^
ture, we went on to the waste, the neck of the Peninsula, which
entombs the foundations of three successive cities, founded on
the causeway of Alexander. A deplorable rubbish-heap it is,
much like the ballast-hill of an English sea-port, covered with
scanty bunches of .shabby tliistles and centaureas. and tufts of
dusty echium. It is deeply furrowed in various directions by
trenches, dug to obtain the stones, which, "being ready squared
for use, are dug up and transported to Beyrout, as formerly
they were to Acre. There is no system in these excavations,
which are carried on from time to time at the caprice of the
workmen, and then filled in, while others are run parallel or
at various angles, and frequently over the same ground. It
is small wonder if, after ages of such quarrying, the ground-

TYELLN PURPLE. 51

]ilaii of Tyre be difficult to trace. Yet the massive founda-
tions which were being pitilessly uprooted were evidently of
a date long subsequent to the glories of imperial Tyre, for we
observed fragments of polished granite columns laid trans-
versely as building-stones in the wall. One of these appeared
to have been a portion of a sister shaft to the great double
column of red Eg}']^)tian granite, consisting of two connected
pillars of one piece, at which w^e had gazed in wonder, as it
lay across a yard under the Cathedral. Probably that column
likewise had served for some Eoman structure prior to its in-
troduction as one of the main supports of the Byzantine church.

There were traces, too, of the ancient trade and manufactures
of Tyre. Among the rubbish thrown out in the excavations
were numberless fragments of glass, and whole "kitchen
middens " of shells, crushed and broken, the owners of which
had once su})plied the famed Tyrian purple dye. All these
shells Avere of one species, and that one of the most plentiful
on the coast, the Murex hrandaris, L. It has frequently been
stated that Murex tnmculus, L. is the true original of the
Tyrian dye, and it is very possible that it may have been also
used for that purpose. But while we noticed only a few
broken specimens of M. truncidus scattered about, the com-
pact masses of broken shells, and which, therefore, had most
probably been used in manufacture, and not merely for food,
were exclusively of the former species.^ The fragments of
glass were shapeless, but variously coloured, and by their
solidity suggested the idea that they were the "rejectamenta"
of the ancient glass works.

Habib afterwards led us back to visit some traces of the
supposed ancient sea-wall, at the northern end of the island,
and which we had overlooked when alone. "Whatever be the
age of this wall, it cannot belong to the original Queen of
Commerce, for it is composed of most irregular masonry, and
stones and shafts taken from previous erections. One stone

^ I have observed large beds or kitchen middens of Murex hraiularis on
the coast of Laconia also, where they seem to have been used for the same
purpose.

52 FULFILMENT OF EZEKIEL S PKOPHECY.

bore testimony to the incgaUtliic propensities of its liewers.
It was above sixteen feet long, and apparently six and a lialf
feet high (but its height we could not exactly measure), and
was placed among some insignificant masonry. It bore the
well-known Jewish bevel, exactly like the stones of the
Availing Place at Jerusalem, and of the Haram at Hebron,
about six inches round the edge finely bevelled and ashlar-
dressed, while the body of the stone is more roughly hewn, and
left projecting above this carefully squared border. Probably
this stone was a portion of the older sea-wall of the original
city, as it can scarcely have been moved far to be placed in
its present position, by those who were content to use such
very fragmentary material for the rest of theii" work.

We noticed here the general aj)pearance of the reef and
the shore, but could see no traces whatever of there having
been any subsidence of the land in historic times, though the
shattered masses of columns corroborate unmistakeably the
historical records of earthquakes. Had these earthquakes in
any degree dislocated the stratification, it seems probable that
the water-supply would have been materially affected. But
the strata dip gently from the hills down to the shore, thereby
affording, in the moisture which percolates through the soft
calcareous limestone, but is arrested by the hard crystalline
layer below it, a steady supply for the shallow wells which are
sunk along the whole coast. These wells we had noticed at
Sarepta and elsewhere. One of them, close to the gate of Tyre,
supplies the modern town. They seem to have existed in olden
time on the island itself, and thereby to have enabled its
defenders to bid defiance to many a besieger ; and they pour
forth a copious and magnificent supply at lias-el-Ain, close to
the vestiges of Paltetyrus, the old continental city. Had there
been any considerable subten-anean disturbance, it is difficult
to believe that this water supply woidd not have been in
some degree interrupted. That the north harbour of Tyre is
now so small, and the south one completely obliterated, may
be easily accounted for, by the simple action of the silt from
the sea, and the rubbish from the land.

FULFILMENT OF EZEKIEL's PROPHECY. 53

After another plunge through mud and filth iuconceivaMe
to Western imaginations, we returned to our camp, to find our
entire wardrohes displayed to dry on the tent-ropes, and our
servants sitting sentry to keep off the curious, and perhaps
thievisli crowd. After dinner we read the prophecies of Isaiah
and Ezekiel, on the fate of Tyre. The story of Ezekiel sounds
on the spot like a descriptive history of the present. There
are tliose who have warned us not to be led astray by the
imagination, and that " to narrow the scope of these sublime
visions to the actual buildings and sites of the cities is as
unwarranted by facts as it is mistaken in idea." It may, or
it may not be, that Nebuchadnezzar was compelled to raise
Ids siege after thirteen years, when " every head was made
bald, and every shoulder was peeled ; yet had he no wages,
nor his army, for Tp-us " (Ezek. xxix. 18). If so, the fulfil-
ment of the prophetic denunciation " tarried," but did not
fail, grievously though the power of Tyre must have been
crippled by her resistance ; while the capture by Alexander
the Great exhausted to the letter the inspired predictions. It
is not when sitting by the wreck of her palaces, that the
suggestion that the prophecies of Ezekiel were patriotic
denunciations provoked by the kidnapping of some Israelites,
and encouraged by the near approach of the conquering
Chaldean army, will find acceptance. We have an elaborate
and most minute account of the items which made up the
wealth, the commerce, and the resources of Tyre, at a time
when that wealth and power were at their highest, and a
detailed description of the state to which it should be reduced.
I will make her like the top of a rock ; it shall be a place
for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea, for I have
spoken it" (Ezek. xxvi. 4, 5). "They shall lay thy stones,
and thy timber, and thy dust, in the midst of the water ; "

■ I will also scrape her dust from her" {ih. vv. 4, 12). The first
fulfilment of the prediction may have been complete centuries
ago ; Tyre may have risen again and again from her ruins,

ind may yet rise a fifth time, without controverting tlie truth
I if the utterances of the seer. But its present state is at least

54

FULFILMENT OF EZEKIEL S PROPHECY.

a vivid illustration of the prophetic declaration, and we have
a right to indulge an instinctive response within us, to the
strain in which Isaiah and Ezckiel foretold its desolation.
The riiccnician power which the prophets denounced- is long
since obliterated, and though the subsequent Tyres had no
connexion with it save a geographical one, yet their successive
doom, and the wretched present, at least add force and power
to the Scriptural warning; no less than the present Jerusalem,
" trodden down of the Gentiles," illustrates the woe denounced
on the city of the Jews.

The next morning, December 4th, we were up at dawn. The
sun rose gloriously, but before he had gilded the snovy range

i

htram's wki.i..

hiram's well. 55

of Lebanon, or the death-like paUor of the white peaks had
melted into a metallic lustre, we had our morning plunge and
swim in the Tyrian sea. Imagine in an English December
the luxury of sea-bathing at seven a.m. ! and then a break-
fast in the open air, under a bright sun, ofif cold mutton and
delicious fresh mullet ! The view as we sat at our meal was
lovely. The wind had gone down, the sea sparkled and
rippled calmly at our feet, beyond lay the rich but desolate
plam of Phoenicia, and over the nearer hills the long snowy
range of Jebel Sunuin and the dome of Jebel Sheikh glis-
tened in the morning rays. Just behind us, from the massive
square building over the fountain of Hiram's Well, as it is
called, long files of women were passing, with their tall
water-jars gracefully poised on their heads, while they gave
a good stare at the Howadji's breakfast-table. We waited to
see our tent-curtains taken down and our boxes opened, that
everything might be spread out and thoroughly aired by the
welcome sun, while we prepared for our various excursions.
M. devoted himself to his pencil near camp ; - B — t set off
in pursuit of shore-birds ; while B. and I, accompanied by
our new friend Habib to carry his camera, started for
Hiram's Tomb, a fine sarcophagus, some six miles off among
the hills. We passed through several isolated enclosures
on the plain, where orange, lemon, and pomegranate-trees
flourished luxuriantly, while all was deserted around them.
The rising ground beyond was carefully terraced, and studded
with fig and olive groves, while every eminence was crowned
by a little walled village, recalling the frequent scriptural
expression, " Bethshean and her towns" &c. The country
was bare and timberless, making these buildings still more
conspicuous. From one spot, as we walked on, we counted
sixteen of these villages in sight at once. ISIany an expression
in Scriptural phraseology was illustrated in our ramble. " The
inhabitants of the villages have ceased in Israel." The
plains, exuberantly rich and fertile, were desolate, choked
with thistles and centaureas ; there is " the noise of archers
in the places of drawing water." The wells are from time to

56

EXCUKSION TO HIRAM S TOMB.

time the resort of prowling Bedouin ; the fellaliin, or settled
inhabitants, shelter themselves in the little walled towns,
and rely for their principal crops on the scanty returns of
the rocky terraces on the hill sides, while they snatch a pre-
carious corn-harvest from the plains below. As we passed
over these stony and thorny patches, unfenced and traversed
by footpaths, the husbandmen were busily engaged in sowing

HIRAM S TOMK.

their barley for the spring crop, casting the seed many times
on the trodden way, or among the thistles and stone heaps,
while larks and buntings hovered around to pick it up.^all
recalling the parable of the sower.

B. obtained a good photograph of the so-called Hiram's
Tomb. It is impossible to disprove, still more to prove the

EXCURSION TO IITRAM's TOMB. 57

local tradition which assigns this tomb to the great Tyrian
king. It is a grand massive sarcoi)hagus, erected on a solid
pedestal of very large squared limestone, by the wayside, and
with a deep arched well, or large cistern, behind it, to which
we descended by steps. The great cofiin of stone is 12 feet
by 8 feet, and 6 feet high, surmounted by a lid, slightly
pyramidal and 5 feet high. The east end has been broken
at the corner, and rilled ages agone. There it stands, in
olitary desolation, commanding the sea and that city of Tyre
over which Hiram ruled. It is a noble site for the noble
•pulchre of a Phoenician monarch. The monument, though
weather-beaten, is not otherwise injured, and there is no
trace of the so-called Jewish bevel in the dressing of the
stones. It is singular that so isolated and remarkable a
structure is never mentioned in history, and that it was only
iu the present generation that it was first brought to the
notice of antiquarians by an English traveller.

A party of Arabs came up during the photographic opera-
tions, and watched us without expressing either wonder or
suspicion. We afterwards espied in a chink of the tomb a
large snake, comfortably coiled between the two stones. B.,
retiring a few yards, fired at hini. He seemed stunned, and
as he crept further in, left his tail within reach. A sudden
jerk and a swing brought him out and threw him to the
ground, when I succeeded in breaking his neck with a smart
stroke of my ramrod. The creature was two and a half feet
long, and proved to be the Daboia xantJmia, Gray, one of the
largest and most dangerous of the venomous vipers. When
I saw his ugly flat head, I felt somewhat inclined to repent
of my rashness, but we succeeded in safely housing him in
a tin box and lodging him in the game bag. The apathetic
Arabs, who have a childish horror of the whole serpent
tribe, venomous or harndess, were roused to admiration, and
having at first more than half-suspected us of magical art,
now changed their minds, and seemed disposed to look on us
as the Itarbarians of Melita did on St. Paul ; then fumbling
in the recesses of their 'abaiyehs, or large cloak.s, they pro-

I

II

5<S EXCURSION TO HIRAM's TOMB.

duced a couple of oraiifjes, of which they begged our accept-
ance, and social )ly sat down by our side. We catecliized
them on the ruins in the neighlwurhood, but they disck\inied
all knoM'ledge of " hadjera inactouba," written stones, within
reach, though there were many old cities, they said, built by
the " Itoumi," or Christian Greeks. Throughout the country
most of the ruins are ascribed by the country people to the
" Eoumi," and but few to the " Yehudi," or Jews — local tra-
ditions being, in tliis instance, probably more correct than tlie
traveller generally finds them.

After a short rest, we left our man with the camera, and
w-andered on, visiting several desolate heaps of ruins, of which
we could not make out any details. The country was bare,
rocky, and dreary, wild without grandeur, and barren without
desolation. Flowers, however, chiefly bulbs of various species,
carpeted the hills — very beautiful, but all of them very small,
cropping out everywhere from the fissures in the rocks. "We
noticed four kinds of crocus (white, blue, and yellow), and
several hyacinths, particularly the little grape-hyacinth of our
gardens {Muscari racemosum), or some closely-allied species
{mosdiatum ?). We followed for some way up the course of a
deep and rugged, but monotonous, ravine, wdiich leads to the
town of Kanah, mentioned in Joshua (xix. 28), under exactly
the same name, if we accept Eobinson's identification. Mr.
Grove has, however, remarked, in opposition to this generally-
received suggestion, that the Kanah of the Old Testament,
to answer the requirements of the text of Joshua, must
have been near Sidon, instead of Tvre, and that there is an
Ain-Kana eight miles south-east of Sidon. Be this as it
may, our Kanah bears marks of antiquity, especially in some
weather-beaten and coarsely-hewn figures of men on the face
of the cliff below it. These figures stand out in bold relief
from the rock, but are unaccompanied by any traces of in-
scription. Phoenician they must surely be — so unlike any
remains, Greek or Homan — and more ancient, apparently,
than Hiram's tomb. On the hill-side we found various traces
of ancient olive-presses (not unlike the cider-mills of the

AGRICULTURE OF THE DISTRICT. 59

West of England), yet but one small clump of olive-trees,
could be seen in the district. Water appears to have been
always scarce here ; for there were many old square cisterns
for rain, now choked with rubbish, bearing testimony to the
numbers and the industry of the inhabitants in the olden
time.

The beautiful black-shouldered kite {Elanns melanoi^tcrus)
flew over us, and received a passing shot: this was the oidy
specimen of this lovely bird we met with during our expedi-
tion. Common in Egypt, and a summer visitor U) Algeria, its
presence in Phoenicia in December was an interesting illus-
tration of the mildness of the climate near the coast. We
expended much powder and shot, to little purpose, over several
eagles ; and, after a nine hours' tramp, returned to camp,
happy, hungry, and weary, our bags laden with a miscel-
laneous assortment of small birds, new snails, slugs, lizards,
beetles, and crocus roots, — not omitting Hiram's serpent.

Dec. 5fh. — We determined to continue our southward pro-
gress while the weather, never to be depended on at this season,
continued so favourable ; and while we were enjoying our
hard-boiled eggs and barley-bread al fresco, the Tyrian Jews
made their last unsuccessful attempt at trading with some
very fine gold coins of Philip of Macedon, and Alexander. The
beautiful condition of these medals, fresh as from the mint,
as well as the comparatively low price at which they were
finally offered, excited our suspicion, but unjustly, as we sub-
sequently ascertained. Three or four years ago, there was an
inmieuse find of gold coins in a garden near Tyre. The secret
could not long be kept, and the governor, hearing the report,
and claiming the treasure-trove as a droit of the Sultan, suc-
ceeded by a liberal application of the bastinado in obtaining
the production of some eight hundred new pieces, almost
all of Alexander, with a very few of Philip. These were,
doubtless, but a portion of the exhumed treasure, and ever
since a few coins are judiciously and mysteriously offered to
all Frank travellers. They have been conjectured, from their
condition, to have been a portion of the newly-coined IVIace-

60 WOOD SCULPTURE.

donian currency, hidden by Alexander's general when com-
pelled to retire from the city. I may observe that, among all
the coins and curiosities offered to us during our travels, we
never met with anything unmistakeably Pha3nician or Jewish,
unless coins of the Herodian family may be counted as the
latter. In fact, all traces of art of any kind previously to the
Greek conquest are excessively rare. In the neighbourhood
of Carthage, I have frequently obtained Punic and Numidian
coins, though there are no satisfactory traces of the Punic
city. Xo wonder, then, if traces of Phoenician art be here so
scarce. This may be due, not only to the utter destruction of
the city by Alexander, but to the fact that the Tyrians pre-
ferred wood for all their more elaborate works. They had no
such material at hand as the granite of Egypt, or the marble
of Greece. The limestone of the country, though well adapted
for ordinary masonry, is too coarse and friable for the sculp-
tor's art ; and, as we may see from the detailed description of
the building of Solomon's Temple, they used the tall pine and
the cedar for architectural supports, instead of the columns of
the Greeks. They were cunning men to hew great stones and
costly stones, but, above all, to carve timber — an art in which,
to this day, their successors in Sidon retain their pre-eminence,
and for which they are employed, both at Damascus and
throughout Syria. Thus, when the fire was laid to the beams
of Tyre, all vestiges of their skill were destroyed for ever.
Perhaps, if the architects on the banks of the Nile, or among
the hills of Greece, had had to their hand material so abun-
dant, and so easily employed, as the forests of Lebanon and
Galilee, the evidences of their art might have perished as
utterly.

By seven o'clock we were in the saddle, and our long
cortege filed off across the sandy isthmus. Our course was by
the water's edge for about three miles, till we reached Eas-el-
Ain ("The Fountain-head"), the reservoir or fountain whence
Tyre was supplied by an aqueduct, now a ruin, but a fine one,
with a gushing stream of water running useless to the sea.
All is decay; but nature is as beautiful as ever, and climbers.

THE LADDEll OF TYllE. 61

evergreens, and maiden-liair fern, decked "svitli tlie pearly
di-ops, bang gracefully over the mouldering stones. Between
Eas-el-Ain and the shore to the south is supposed to have
stood the city of Paltetyrus, destroyed by Alexander, "vvho
removed its very stones — so completely, indeed, that we could
not perceive the vestige of a ruin.

Gradually, the sun, which had long since lit up Lebanon,
lifted the shadows from the nearer hills. For about six miles
we rode along the sands, often in the sea itself, till we mounted
the chalky headland, Eas-el-Abiad (" White Head"), the ancient
" ladder of Tyre," and had left the plain of Phoenicia, A ladder
of rock, it may truly be called, though many of its nmgs are
wanting ; and the ride up is somewhat perilous, the path
being worn in the side of a cliff, without the slightest ledge in
places, and the sea dashing 200 or 300 feet below. When at
the top, we turned to cast a last glance at the scenes we had
left. A broad belt of sand, fringing a rich though desolate
plain, stretched away to the north, and then curbing in to the
east, ran out into the sea for a mile, formmg the low point on
which Tyre is built. Xorth of T}Te, we could trace this belt
curving again towards Sidon, till its silver thread was lost
to sight. Within this sandy girdle, the plain of Phcenicia
stretched for a width of from two to three miles, including
tbe lower rise of the hills, which appeared, from our elevation,
to be a part of the plain itself. This richly-coloured zone we
could follow, till far into the distance near Sarepta. The
ridges of the limestone hills behind varied in colour, through
blending shades of purples, reds, and yellows, till the head-
land on which we stood shone out white and glittering, studded
with masses of fossil echinoderms. Beyond all towered the
snowy ranges of Jebel Sunnin and Jebel Sheikh (Hermon),
from forty to sixty miles distant. The pass shut out all
view to the south and east. The landscape was one not soon
to be forgotten ; and fine as was the pictorial impression,
the geographical one was yet clearer. The cliffs overhead
were hung with myrtles, arbutus, bay, and many oriental
shrubs, with beautiful tufts of maiden-hair fern ; among which

62 RUINED CITY OF ISKANDEKIYEII.

the Greek partridge {Pcrdix saxatilis) was niiiiLly running,
and chuckling as he leapt from rock to rock ; while the large
kingfishers were hovering, kestrel-like, beneath us, and making
swoops at their tiny (piarry. The shwphan, or coney, is said,
but on somewhat doubtful authority, to inhabit these cliffs.

"We soon descended into a stony, crescent-shaped plain,
bounded by the Jebel Mushakka, and which reaches about
six miles to Eas-en-Nakura, a similar mountain pass. As we
rode along the shore, our attention was arrested, by a solitary
column, rising in the wilderness half a mile inland. "We
turned aside to examine it, and after scrambling among stones
and bashes, where we had to leave our horses secured to
trees, found a considerable extent of ruins, evidently of an
ancient Phoenician or Jewish city of the Eonian epoch, of
which not a record, not even a tradition, remains, beyond the
local name of Iskanderiyeh, perhaps derived from the Mace-
donian period. No human habitation was in sight ; the whole
district was a wilderness, where once luxury and magnificence
had reigned. The city had stood upon a gentle slope, where
many gnarled carouba-trees concealed its traces, till, forcing
our way through the tangle, we reached the column which
had attracted, our attention. It was of the Doric order, quite
perfect, and by its side were several others, broken, but their
lower portion upright, and many more prostrate from their
base. We were able clearly to trace out the place of some
large colonnaded building. On one side stood seven broken
shafts at equal distances in a row. The next ruin worthy of
remark appeared to have been a mansion of importance, with
the marble fountain still remaining in the centre of its court-
yard. Further on we came upon a piece of Roman tesselated
pavement, twenty-two feet long, and very nearly perfect, of
an elaborate pattern with floral devices. Near this remained
in situ the marble vase of a large fountain, marking the court-
yard of another wealthy residence. Climbing over heaps of
ruins for 400 yards further again, we found the massive stone
square ])illars of a gateway still standing, with the very sockets
in which the hinges or bolts of the gates had been fastened,

RAS-EN'-N.VKUKA. 63

and near them was lying a monolith, the stone capital of the
gateway, of an architecture differing from the ordinary Eoman
character. The ornamentation was plain, rather of the Egyptian
type, and in the centre of the lintel an entablature, apparently
representing the moon supported on each side by a fish,
perhaps an emblem of Ashtaroth or Astarte. From this gate-
way a paved road ran for some distance to the eastward,
deeply indented by the ruts of chariot-wheels. It was diffi-
cult to conceive how, even by earthquakes, the ruins of such
a place should have become so generally shapeless, till, further
on, we came on a large piece of wall, still standing, of Cyclopean
architecture, formed of huge undressed stones, not laid in
courses, but simply fitted together as coidd be best contrived,
like the pavement of modern Italian cities. Tliese stones
easily become dislodged, and when fallen in heaps, present
no traces of having ever been employed in hiasonry. Such
probably had been the style of all its edifices, relieved by the
pillars and colonnades we had observed. "What a commentary
on the mutability of human things is this ruined city, name-
less, traditionless, and desolate ! It " knew not the time of
its visitation," and now a stranger from far gropes his way
among its fallen columns and halls, the home of the jackal
and the hynena.

Our servants and mules were two or three hours in advance,
and we rode shari:>ly acro&s some stony fields, till we reached
the second ladder, Eas-en-Nakiira, difficult and dangerous for
horses, and where B — t had a providential escape. The rock
was bare and glassy, without any parapet to protect the track
from the sea, when his horse, which he had continued to
bestride instead of leading, slipped, and came down with his
haunches overhanging the precipice — some 300 feet over the
^oa. Ko English horse could have saved itself, but the little
animal, after a few struggles m itli its nose and fore-feet,
worked itself on to the path again, having given the party
a caution on riding up Syrian passes. AVe led our animals on
till we came to the old fort, the key of the pass, now a ruinous
khan, where a ragged Arab presents the thirsty wayfarer with

64

VIEW FKOM HAS E^" NAKUKA.

a drauglit tVoiii the spout of iiii rartlien pitclicr, and expects
a backshish of a farthing.

Here a glorious view hurst upou us in a nionient. Wc
stood on a rocky platform, overhanging the sea, the rear
closed in hy the Jehel Mushakka, and tall cliffs beetling just
behind us, while in front the wide expanse of the plain of
Acre stretched in its whole extent. Then, as the eye followed
the fringe of sand, we could see a brown knob on the coast
line, the town of Zib, the ancient Achzib, the frontier town of
Asher ; twelve miles off we could plainly perceive Acre, the
ancient Ptolemais, lighted up by the sunshine ; and eight
miles farther we could just distinguish Caifia, nestled under

MOUNT CARMEL ANO THE PLAIN OF ACRE.

the shelter of Carniel. Grandly old Carmel stretched forth
its neck, a long ridge or " hog's-back," {'xpipd<;) rising boldly
from the plain in the east, and dropping gently to seaward.
Though the effect of a bold headland pushing to the sea is
absent from this view, and the very long and gradual diminu-
tion of Carmel's elevation to the westward reduces the outline
almost to tameness, yet the great lengtli of the ridge, fifteen

DESCENT IXTO THE PLAIN OF ACKE. G5

miles from the place of Elijah's sacrifice to the Convent, and
its definiteness of profile, render this one of the most effective
views in Palestine. At our feet lay a smooth, green plain,
■well cultivated, a striking contrast to that we had just left,
and dotted here and there by groups of carouba-trees and
olive-groves. Then, as the eye turned eastward to Galilee,
and noted the dark green and black hills of Issachar and
Zebulou, what a history rose in vision at the glance ! Behind
them stretched the plain of Esdraelon. For the first time we
were looking upon Galilee. Cana lay on that slope. Just
behind that hill was Sepphoris, and then Nazareth. Dcnvn
that spur, far away to the left and south, lay Megiddo, and
beyond it Jehu pursued Ahaziah and smote him at Engannim.
The silver thread far away in the plain marks the now swollen
Kishon ; and then the eye returns to Carmel. AVe could only
join in shaking hands, as we gazed together on these Bible-
scenes, and in wishing those at home could have shared the
prospect. It may be that associations lend enchantment to
the view, but it is far beyond the power of words to describe
it. It is (if I may use the word) one of those emotional scenes
not easily to be forgotten.

Eapidly descending the pass, we left the shore-road at our
right at the ruins and well, called Ain Mescherfi (identified
by Dr. Thomson with the INIisrephoth-maim of Joshua xi. 8,
though it perhaps scarcely fulfils the conditions of the history,
lieing too far from Sidon), where, on the damp turf under the
shade of some fine trees, travellers usually camp on their way
to Acre. Here we found our muleteers, who, regardless of our
injunctions, had, with the usual obstinacy of their class, deter-
mined that if possible they would compel us to yield, and to
halt at the ordinary dragoman's spot. We imperiously moved
them on, and turned eastward across the plain for a couple of
miles or more, through olive-groves and tillage-plots to the
village of El-Bussah, where we had determined to spend our
Sunday. It is a Christian village of some 1,200 souls, not
mentioned by any traveller except Van de Velde, but con-
veniently situated within an easy ride of the opening of tlie

F

66 DESCENT INTO THE PLAIN OF ACRE.

AVady Kern on the plain, for those who wish to explore either
the natural history of the district, or the noble ruins of the
Castle Ivulat Kern and IMalia. AVe cantered up on the fine
turf through an open grove of gnarled old olive and locust-
trees, the former of which look ancient enough to have afforded
shade in their youth to our Lord when He i)robal)ly passed
through this region on His way from Galilee to the coasts
of Tyre and Sidou. We loitered long on its outskirts in
pursuit of various birds which were plentiful on the borders
of the cultivated ground, and supplied several additions to
our catalogue, and we then rode straight through the clean
and rather neatly-built unwalled town, where we found our
camp ready pitched, and the English ensign floating over a
small field close to the other side of the village. Fig-trees,
now nearly bereft of leaves, overhung our tents. A motley
crowd of all ages and sizes had to be pushed aside to reach
them. Howadjis are rare here, and the European dress had
never before been seen by half the village.

I

OHAriER IV.

El Busmh—Birds—Tlic On-l of Scripture— Syrian Christians— Cofstumc of the
Women — The Semadi—Si/iian Church and Service — Visit to the Sheikh —
Description of Ms House — The Maiiger — Nativity of our Lord — Demands on
the Hakeem — Projmsal of Marriacje — Visit of a Turkish Official — Excursion
to Wady Kurn — Fish — Shells — Eagles — Castle of Kulat-el-Kurn — Descrip-
tion— Chronology of the different Bevels on the Stones — Kurn probably a
Crusading Fortress— Shrubs and Flowers — Solitary Column — Partridge of
Scripture — Conies— Superiority of Christian over Moslem Women — An El
Bussah Interior — Baths — Feast of Tabernacles — Bees and Hives — Scriptural
Allusions — Discovery of an Indian Owl — New Bats — Geology.

Dinner was not yet ready, nor had tlie snn set, when we
reached our camp at El Bussah ; so, loth to lose time and
opportunity, I sallied forth with my gun, but not alone, to
survey the neighbourhood. At least fifty small boys crowded
round me as volunteer beaters, notwithstanding whose aid
I succeeded in shooting three small owls, and the great grey
shrike (Lanius Qxcuhitor, L.), which we had not hitherto met
with. The owls — appropriately called " boomah " by the na-
tives— were the variety of the little owl of France and Italy,
distinguished as Athene mericlionalis, Eiss., and very charac-
teristic of all the hilly and rocky portions of Syria. Hidden
in the rocks or hollow olive-trees during the day, they emerge
from tlieir roosts before dark, and commence their monotonous
" Boomah, boomah," before any of the large owls deem it
prudent to put in their appearance. Their food consists
ahnost entirely of large crepuscular beetles ; and, in spite of
their droning chant, sometimes prolonged too far into night
for the nerves of light sleepers, they well merit the protection
which superstition has accorded to them throughout the East.
It is certainly tliis little species which stands out 'on the coins
of old Athens, the emblem of ^Minerva, dignified, yet occa-
sionally grotesque, in its motions ; with all the gravity, yet

F 2

68 THE OWL OF SCKIITURE.

without the heaviness, of the owls of our own woods and
towers ; and it is the only kind universally distributed and
everywhere common and familiar in Syria, Greece, and the
Levant. There are no less than five different Hebrew words
rendered by " owl " in our Bible. Some of these are, certainly,
incoiTectly translated ; but there can be no doubt that, im-
observant as Orientals generally are in matters of natural
history, and poor as is the ornithological vocabulary both
of Hebrew and Arabic, yet at least three of the owls are
specifically recognised in both languages. These I have no
hesitation in identifying as the great liorned owl of Egypt
and Syria {Btibo ascalaphus, Sav.), the scops-eared owl [Scops
aldrovandi, Gm.), and the little owl in question {Athene
meridional is) , the 013 (kos) of the Hebrew, and the i^»^
{mo^ika) of Arab authors.

On my return to the camp, I found the servants mounting
sentry with long sticks, and Giacomo declared he could have
made his fortune, as he was offered a piastre a head for a
peep at the Howadjis in their tents. They had seen us all,
except B — t, who was compelled, at length, to come forth and
show himself, like the Queen at a balcony, Giacomo pro-
mised that to-morrow he would bring more Inglezes out of
the bird-boxes. The women were far more determined in
their curiosity than either the men or the boys, though none
of them ventured, without leave, to peep inside, even after
they had seen us indignantly chide one of our lads for ungal-
lantly threatening them with the stick. They were pleasant-
looking, some of them even pretty, and had not the degraded
and abject look of the Bedouin women. Their dress was
unlike any costume we had yet seen; consisting of rather
tight blue cotton trousers tied at the ankle, slippers without
stockings, a chemise of cotton, blue or white, rather open in
front, and over this a long dress, like a cassock, open in front,
with a girdle and short sleeves. This robe was plain, patcherl,
or embroidered in most fantastic and grotesque shapes, tlie
triumph of El Bussah milliners being evidently to bring
togetlier in contrast as many colours as possible. The liead-

COSTUME OF THE WOMEN. 69

dress, no doubt in strict accordance with the Sp-ian " ]Mar;asiu
des Modes," baffles my powers of description, but is very
interesting, as probably identical with that of the women of
Galilee of old. Such may Mary have worn, as she daily went
to the well of Xazareth. It is called the scmadi, and con-
sists of a cloth skull-cap, with a flap behind, all covered
with coins — silver, but sometimes gold, and a fringe of coins
suspended from it on the forehead. Eound the face, from
chin to crown, are two stout pads, by way of bonnet-cap,
fastened together at the top. But outside of these pads are
attached a string of silver coins, not lengthwise, but solidly
piled one on another, and hammered severally into a saucer-
shape, with a hole drilled through the middle. They usually
commence with some half-dozen Spanish dollars at the chin,
gradually tapering up to small Turkish silver pieces of the
size of sixpences at the forehead. The weight is no trifle, and
one little girl, whose head-gear was handed to me for exami-
nation in return for a present of needles, had 30/. worth of
silver round her cheeks. Many had frontlets of gold coins,
and I saw one centre-piece on the forehead of a sheikh's wife
consisting of a Turkish bl. gold piece. All the young ladies
thus carry their fortunes on their heads ; and this jewelry is
the pcculium of the wife, and cannot be touched by her
husband. An instance in which a Greek priest had insisted
on the payment of his fees out of the head-dress of a widow
has been recited to me as a case of grievous extortion. It is
certainly not a becoming coiffure, nor is it improved by the
universal exemption of the hair from tlie touch of either
brush or comb. At length, we got rid of our visitors, and
went to sleep to the music of jackals and of dogs returning
their challenge, varied by an occasional dropping shot from
shepherds, to keep ofi" the wolves.

Dcccmhcr 6th. — A lovely Sunday morning. I was roused,
soon after dawn, by the tinkling of the little church-bell, the
first home-like sound I had heard in Syria, and, leaving my
companions undistiu'bed, hun-ied out, anxious to see the ser-
vice in a Syrian village, and to learn something of the rites.

70 . SYIUAN CHRISTIANS.

Our tents were already surrounded by spectators, from among
whom I selected a boy as my cicerone for the day. The church
itself was a square, flat-roofed, lofty l)uilding, with two rows
of arches from cast to west, four in each row, and the whole
surmounted by a very small dome and a little jNIaltesc cross.
To the north-east corner the priest's house was attached, and
over the west end were two chambers, for what purpose
intended I did not ascertain. The church had three doors,
all on the south side ; one from the priest's house, a centre
one for the coiigregation, and a third at the south-west end
for the women. The windows were small and square ; 1 )ut
there was an upper tier of lattices rather larger— all, of course,
unglazed. There were only two pictures, both of the con-
ventional Greek type ; one of the Crucifixion, over the altar,
and another of the Virgin and Child, .in the body of the
church, hung against a pillar. Over the door was a simple
Greek cross, with an hour-glass on each side, and above it a
piece of carved marble — some antique fragment, which had
been found on the spot. The interior of the church was
divided into three parts, the east section by a rood-screen,
with three open doorways, and the western by an open lattice,
with wide centre doorway. There were no seats, but three
open railed stalls on each side the nave, near the screen.

When I entered, a little boy, in front of the rood-screen,
was reading the Lesson, in the tone and twang of a second-
class National School-boy. The church was very full, anil
many of the girls had swarmed out into tlie male compart-
ment. I remained in a corner, but was sent for several
times, and compelled, at length, to t^ake my stand in one of
the cages, close behind an old man, who must have been the
typical ])arish-clerk. In front, on the other side, was the
village sheikh, and in the stall behind him a young Greek,
evidently a rich strangi'r. The rest of the congregation be-
tokened by their dress the squalid poverty of Syrian peasantry,
somewhat in contmst with the well-to-do appearance of the
village outside. The priest stood in front, in the centre arch
of the rood-screen, dressed in a cassock, and a stole over it.

SYPxLVN CHRISTIANS. 71

fastened by a broad girdle round the waist. Over this he
wore a square piece of silk, of striped pattern, coming down
to the heels, by way of a cope, looking very much like a por-
tion of some lady's dress. Before he proceeded to consecrate
the elements, he placed a square green silk handkerchief, with
a small cross embroidered in the centre, over his shoulders.
The service — which was conducted partly in old Greek, and
partly in Arabic, and, I believe, also in the old Syriac — was
read in a manner and with a rapidity which rendered it
utterly unintelligible, though an old Service-book, with Greek
and Arabic in parallel columns, had been politely handed to
me, and my neighbour found my places. There were many re-
sponses ; but scarcely any one except a few little boys accom-
panied the clerk, who grunted them forth in a nasal, sonorous
twanfT ; while for all his chants he had but three semitones,
in a dreary minor key. The whole scene might have been
taken for an Oriental version of Hogarth's picture of the
sleeping congregation. AVhen the Lessons had been read, the
boy retired ; and he and another waved a censer of incense
while the Communion-service commenced in Greek. This
I could partially follow, even without my book, in spite of the
peculiar and rapid drone in which the Greek priests always
recite. Several portions are, of course, identical with those
which have come down to us in our own Prayer-book. Con-
trary to the usual Oriental custom, the people were mostly
uncovered, though some few, in Bedouin dress, had retained
their tarbooshes, and dropped their shoes. At the prayer of
consecratiou, all knelt down, uncovered ; and then the priest
came forth from the side-door, and walked round the church
with cup and paten. Very few communicated ; those who
did so, kneeling, bareheaded and barefooted, in front of the
altar. The priest dropped a sop into the cup ; then, taking it
out with a gilt spoon, put it into the mouth of each recipient.
Seeing preparations for an offertory collection, I sent my boy
down to the tents with a slip of paper for a couple of shillings,
which he faithfully and quickly brought, iii time to prevent
the danger of animadversions on the liberality of the Inglez,

72 VISIT TO THE SHEIKH.

which I should certainly have otherwise incurred (or de-
served), in the valedictory address of the priest, who looked
•|)iteous]y into the plate, as he held it forth and counted its
contents with his eye. After service, I waited and intro-
duced myself to the poor old man, who showed me his
Sendee-books, some of which seemed very ancient, and had
been printed at Damascus, the later ones at Venice. He ex-
plained to me the poverty of his people, yet how the church
was a new edifice, lately built entirely by themselves, without
extraneous aid, in consequence of the old one being too small,
but after having had to wait for ten years before the pasha
would allow the erection of a new Christian church, even
though they had bribed him largely for his good offices.

I found the old sheikh waiting for me at the church-door.
He invited me to accompany him to his house, which con-
sisted of a large lofty barn, the lower ^^art of w'hich was half
granary half stable, the granary open to the top, and a few
steps leading up to the dwelling portion, these steps forming
in part the manger and hay-rack of the camel and two cows
which were feeding there. It has sometimes occurred to me
that a house of this form and arrangement illustrates more
forcibly than any other the circumstances and the humiliation
of our Lord's birth at Bethlehem. Shut out from the already
crowded khan. His earthly parents were compelled to take
refuge in some poor cottage close by (for it is only in houses
of the poorer sort that this community of shelter for man and
beast exists). There, either from their poverty or humble
appearance, they were not received on the upper platform,
where every guest, bidden or unbidden, ought to be con-
strained to rest, but were left below, in the portion usually
allotted to the cattle, where the infant, when born, was natu-
rally laid at once in the long earthen trough which serves
for manger, and into which the fodder is pushed from the
floor ; no other place of safety could have been found, sup-
posing tlie family to have been refused the ordinary courtesy
of accommodation al)ove.

My host installed me on a cotton cushion in a coriier of his

DEMANDS ON TlIK HAKEEM. 73

loft, and presented me to his wife and three little boys, -who
kissed my hand, and then served ns with pipes and coflee.
I sent for Mousa, through whom we had half an hour's con-
versation. It turned upon the priest and the morning's ser-
vice. The sheikh did not seem to reverence the learning of
his spiritual pastor, and when I expressed my regret that he
had declined mv offer to send him a Greek Testament, he
burst into a laugh at the notion of the priest's understanding
Greek, but observed he was an honest man to decline what
he could not use, but could only sell ; a stretch of honour,
for which, I suspect, my companion set him down for a fool.

"When I returned, which I did as soon as politeness per-
mitted, I found the doctor surrounded by all the sick of the
village, and B. helping him to mix medicines for ophthabnia,
dropsy, and ulcers. Of the first he must have had a score
of cases. No disease should bo hopeless to a Frank hakeem,
and so two men came to be cured of blindness, and a third
of a crippled leg. At length the cases were disposed of, and
sulphate of zinc, calomel, and alum distributed, when, to
the delight of the populace, we breakfasted outside our tents.
Meanwhile the other sheikh of the village came down to
call, and was accommodated with a carpet. He was a good-
looking, intelligent man, with a bright, laughing eye, and
very clean. A\'itli an air of conjugal pride he pointed out
his wife in the crowd around, and certainly she was the best
looking of all, and most mar\'ellously clad in many colours
and many coins. The sheikh remained during our morning

I service, acting as volunteer policeman, and keeping off the
crowd bv a liberal flourishing of his stick.

Afterwards ^I. and I set out to walk and read among the
loiins of Maasub, a little higher up' the valley. This is
another extensive town, of which the old name is unknown,
but which must probably have been one of the towns of

• I Asher, and from the remains of which El Bussah is princi-
pally built. There is nothing of interest in these continual ly-
recun-ing ruins, save the evidence they afford of the former
population, and the illustration of the phrase "her towns"

74 VISIT OF A TUKKISH OFFICIAL.

following the meution of tlie principal city of even a small
district. On onr return we found our merry-eyed slieikli
again, and this time on very serious business. Ai-med with
a present of a couple of fowls and a basket of eggs, he had
come on a grave matrimonial speculation on behalf of his
daughter, a rather pretty dark-eyed maiden of eighteen ; and
as he was willing liberally to forego a dower for the young
lady and her facial disk of coins in consideration of the
English alliance, it was not easy, without offending his
dignity, for the bachelors of the party to decline his pro-
posals. However, more coffee and tobacco consoled the
father, who soon sent a fresh token of amity iu the shape of
a hamper of charcoal, for which, of course, we were expected
to return a present of double its value.

We had hoped for a quiet afternoon, when a handsomely-
dressed cavass came down to say the Turkish governor of the
district was in the place, and, hearing of our presence, would,
if wcwished it, pay us a visit. This was evidently con-
sidered a matter of grand ceremony. The chief tent was
hastily arranged, carpets spread in front of it, and the best
china coffee-cups got out, when the great man appeared, pre-
ceded by two baslii-bazouks, and attended by his secretary,
his pipe-bearer, and five officials of lesser note. All the
village was of course at his heels, at a respectful distance.
The governor took the right of the carpet, with three of his
suite, whose rank permitted it, on the same, his henchman
stood behind him, and M. and I vis-a-vis, with jMousa as
interpreter behind us. The compliments were long and tedi-
ous, but the sum of all was that he would be glad to furnish
guards, or whatever else we wanted, but that the district was
quite quiet, and guides only were needed. Our arms, espe-
cially the revolvers, were examined with interest, and many
intelligent questions put on the politics of the day. Our
visitor, like some other people, thought the French occuj)ation
of Eome and the invasion of the Confederate States by their
northern foes likely to terminate only at the Greek kalend-s.
At length he took his leave, afttu' inscribing his autograph in

EXCUESION TO WADY KUKN. 75

. iiir note-books ; and dinner and evening service concluded
this interestiDg day.

December 7th. — The morning was again warm and cloud-
less. We turned out at dawn, but the urchins were already
at hand, and did not seem disposed to retire at the sight of
preparations for a morning sponge. In vain we told them to
go to school. They replied triumphantly that the master had
shut up school and gone to Acca. We breakfasted as usual
al fresco, with oiu' sheikh by our side, who had brought with
him a Bedouin acquaintance, a Christian from the lluurau, a

. wild-looking tawny Arab, of large proportions and swarthy
face, in true desert costume. It was pleasant to find so many
Christians scattered here and there, and to see their readiness
to fraternize on the score of our common faith. AVould that
they knew more of its light and life ! Our guides had arrived,
and were waitini? to conduct us to the ruins of Kulat-el-Kurn,
said l)y Dr. Thomson, and I think with reason, to be the very
finest in Palestine. One of them was a fine but somewhat
fierce and morose-looking Bedouin of the tent, who, as we
learnt in the evening, was an exile from his tribe for murder ;
the other a smart and rather frisky young Syrian, who was
continually showing off his horsemanship by galloping vio-
lently round any ploughed or stony field we passed, flourishing
meanwldle an old matchlock over his head. Buth were of
course armed to the teeth with a small arsenal of unsei'viceable
weapons. In his first essay both Syrian and horse came
rolling together to the ground without further damage to their
hard heads and knees. Mousa, as interpreter, completed our
equestrian party.

For three miles we rode through olive-groves and stony
fields, till in front of a low, rocky, ruin-crowned hill, we
turned to the left up the Wady Kurn, through which a bright
mountain stream rushes tow^ards the sea, which it enters near
the town of Zib. At the entrance of the valley we saw two
fine tawny eagles {Aquila ncevioidcs, Cuv.) alight on some rocks
not far from us. We dismounted, and got within easy shot

j by stalking, but disgracefully lost our game. By-and-by we

/b CASTLE OF KULAT-EL-KUIJN.

came to an ancient watcrmill, nestled in a luxuriant but wild
and unfenced orange-grove, and a mile further on to another
corn-mill, similarly situated, where we forded the river, which
was swarming with fish. Having no other means of captur-
inor them, we contrived to shoot several in shallow water.
They proved to be the same species which we obtained in the
Nahr-el-Kelb, and afterwards in the Jordan and the Jabbok
(ScajjJiiodon capoeta, Giild.), mistaken by Burckhardt for a
species of trout. "We also collected a handful or two of
Jiuviatile shell-fisli, Mdanopsis irrcerosa, Lam. and Kcritina
jordani, Mich., which in places covered every stone. Tlie
wady now became rapidly narrower, and at tliis time of the
year the sun's rays never penetrated its cool and tangled
d(^pths, where maiden-hair fern mingled in fresh luxuriance
A\ith many a tender shrub, and the bright red berries of the
arbutus still hung from its green boughs. Every now and,
tlien any little open was carefully ploughed, and Bedouin
with their goats occasionally appeared among the overhang-
ing cliffs. "We disturbed' a pair of Bonelli's eagles, who
shook tlieir wings contemptuously at the assault of our
small shot.

Our ride occupied three and a half hours at a very slow,
pace, to the end of the path, and three miles more brought
us in sight of the castle, on a spur of the hills which projects
into the ravine, above which, according to Dr. Thomson, its
only describer, it stands at an elevation of 610 feet. The path
was most difficult, from tangled bush and prickly asparagus,
as well as from the boulders of the stream, which we had
repeatedly to cross. The gorge, however, in its deep, wind-
ing recesses, was deliciously cool, and the water limpid and
refreshing. We ate our eggs and oranges under the cliff, and
leaving our horses began the ascent. Amidst the thickets
Ave soon lost each other and our guides, but contrived to
reach the top at last, though one emerged in tatters, and
the other well scratched and bleeding. It is very difficult to
give a written description of this almost unknown ruin — a
sort of miniature Gibraltar of the olden time ; but though

DESCRIPTION. 77

isolated as the rock of Calpe, yet it still more strongly reminds
one of the situation of Constantino in Algeria, hnt on a mncli
smaller scale. Imagine a tongue of rock standing out between
two ravines, upwards of 600 feet high, its sides almost per-
pendicular and scarped to the water s edge, its platform about
21)0 yards long, and not more than from twelve to twenty
yards wide, wliilst behind, its neck is cut off by a deep
iirtificial chasm, wlience all the stone employed in building it
lias been quarried. In many places the rock is faced by
buttresses and a revetment of very large stones, smoothly
ilressed, with the \vell-known Jewish or Phccnician bevel, each
tier of masonry sloping with a slight inclination inwards, but
the next course projecting about three inches beyond it, so as
ti render scaling impossible. By these means the base of the
building is somewhat extended on the west side. Some of
these reveting stones are ten feet long, and the tiers are each
a yard high. Al)ove the buttressing tlie whole was vaulted
in a very different style of masonry, without any bevel, and
the long castle had stood upon crypts very massive and solidly
arched. In the southern portion was a square trap-door, giving
access to a long vaulted chamber, which was quite perfect. We
had no means of descending into this, which appears to have
1 leen a huge reserv^oir or cistern. Three other crjqits further
lit the north are quite exposed on the east side, and every
here and there a fragment of wall stands on the platform of
huge stones, but indicating the familiar use of the pointed
arch. The ruins of the superstructure still retain their
freshness of colour, while the bevelled buttressing below is
weathered by longer ages of exposure, and its sombre grey
strikingly contrasts with the yellow tinge of the later works.
The castle platf(jrm, though highest at its southern extremity,
is yet constructed like a succession of fortresses, each of
which seems to have been separately defensible. In each of
the four compartments were distinct water-tanks, and the
garrison might have fallen back to the keep at the north end,
offering a desperate resistance at each line of works.

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CHKONOLOGY OF DIFFERENT BEVELS. 79

an octagonal pillar of six feet in diameter, from wliicli sprung
eiirlit arches to the four corners and faces of the buildinrr.
This seems to have been the hall, or, more probably, the
chapel of the castle. The moulding of the capitals of the
pillars is plain and simple, of the Early Pointed typo, and
the same pattern occurs in many fragments of the upper
■works. On one side two upper storied chambers remain
entire, with only their west wall destroyed. The lower
chamber was loopholed, the upper one had only a narrow
postern doorway. The northernmost keep, beyond the chapel,
is forty feet lower than the others, but the southernmost next
the fosse must have been the key of the position, with its
massive walls twelve feet thick. Such a place, with but a
handful of defenders, must have been, before the introduction
of cannon, absolutely impregnable.

It is strange that history afibrds not the slightest clue to
the origin or builders of this fortress. Its modern name tells
nothing, being merely the Castle of Kurn, or " the Horn,"
the name of the wady. And yet it must once have been the
key of the passes from northern Galilee to the Plain of Acre,
and the variety in its architecture proves that it was valued
and occupied through a long series of ages. I do not venture
any opinion on the question of its antiquity, but the bevelling
of the stones below the platform proves at least its existence
as a fortress long before the later Roman period. According
to the views of Dr. Rosen, the learned Consid of Prussia at
Jerusalem, and by far the first local antiquary in Syria, there
are three epochs of the megalithic bevelled architecture.
First, the bevelled edge rather wide and shallow, while the
whole face of the stone is finely dressed, as is seen in the
Haram at Hebron, the Wailing Place at Jerusalem, and the
ruins of Arak-el-Emir in Gilead. Knowing as we do the exact
date of the erection of this latter, which was built by Hyrcanus,
son of Josephus Tobias, a Hasmonean prince, about 290 B.C.,
we have a clue to the architectural chronology, fixing this
style to the prai-IIerodian period. Secondly comes the deeply-
bevelled edge, with the face of tlio ston(^ ])rojpcting more

80 A CRUSADING FORTRESS.

boldly, and only roughly dressed. This Dr. Rosen ascrihes to
the Herodian and early Roman era, and, as we might expect
from the architectural tastes of the Herodian family, by far
the greatest number of the prce-Crusading ruins of Palestine
are of this character. Thirdly, we have the roughly-bevelled
edge, with the whole of the face of the stone boldly standing
out, but only hanmier-dressed, or left as it was hewn from the
quarry. This is assigned to the later Roman period, and we
shall find this theory frequentl}' corroborated by the chronolog}-
of many well-ascertained remains in the course of our travels.
Mr. Fergusson would assign a later date to the first style, but
it seems to me that the existence of Arak-el-Emir is an insur-
mountable objection to his theory, so far at least as regards
many of the ruins in question. If their style and their
megalithic architecture be identical, as they certainly are, with
that of the Castle of Hyrcanus, we can have no proof, apart
from the independent testimony of history, that they are not
of a date long antecedent to the Herodian epoch.

While rejecting at once the suggestion of Dr. Thomson that
the fortress may have been Jewish, yet probably the buttresses
below the basement tell of an earlier structure than the
present ruins above, perhaps of the time of the Seleucidai, if
not earlier, while the pointed arches and the mouldings of the
pillars seem unmistakeably Crusading. For the determination
of the ruins which cover Palestine, nothing is more needed
than some systematic exploration and history of the Crusad-
ing and earlier Saracenic epochs. While our Biblical and
geographical researches are comparatively exhaustive, and the
Roman and Byzantine periods have not been overlooked, no
geographical explorer, so far as I am aware, has yet devoted
himself specially to trace out the remains left by our Norman
ancestors of their long and hardly- won dominion, and to elu-
cidate their contemporary history by an examination of their
existing monuments.

During our stibsequent journeys, I became strongly im-
pressed with the belief that Kulat-el-Kurn nmst have been
one of the last posts held by the Crusaders, that it was

KURN PROBABLY A CRUSADING FORTRESS. 81

destroyed by the ]\Ioslems at the time of the capture of Acre,
and that they never afterwards repaired or used it. Tt seems
to have been one of a chain of fortresses wliich intersected
northern Palestine, and kejit open the communications between
the country south of Damascus, and the sea at Acre ; tlie other
castles being those of Tibnin, Kulat-es-8hukif, and Banias.
These will be described as they occur ; but there is a remark-
able identity in the architecture and plan of the superstructure
of all four, which can scarcely be overlooked by the most casual
visitor. They form as it were a chain of telegraph-stations,
each being visible from the one on either side of it. Of the
other three we have copious and exact histories to the present
day, especially of Kulat-es-Shukif, the famed Belfort of the
Crusaders. In most of them there are traces of earlier sub-
structures, and in the interior of the three castles, the Saracenic
additions to the Crusading defences are clearly visible. There
are none such at Kulat Kurn, which became comparatively
valueless when both the coast and the interior were held by
the Saracens. The old bevelled platform may be accounted
for with reasonable* probability by referring it to the dynasty
of the Seleucidte, who by this chain of strongholds would rivet
their hold on Galilee, and keep open their communications
with the coast. The lower masonry, on Dr. Eosen's theory,
would refer the erection exactly to this epoch. On the old
base, lioman, Greek, Crusader and Caliph, each as they held
possession, applied the modifications or improvements of their
own period, till, last of all, Turkish apathy has completed the
work of the besieger. Time, however, has had little to do
with the ruins of Kulat-el-Kurn, for the chiselling of the
■ one-work is fresh and sharp, as when the walls were first
I undermined and thrown down.

The view from the top was very fine. Away to the north
meandered the small stream of the Nahr Herdawil, a feeder
' if the Kurn, enclosed in fine wooded hills, broken by frequent
precipices and occasional caverns. Eastward we could descry
' small triangle of the plain of Acre, and over all the blue
:ue of the "Great Sea" of the ancients, the horizon of wliich

a

I

82

SIIKUBS AND FLOWERS.

must have been distant forty or fifty miles. The day, the
atmosphere, the scene, were all. in harmony. The grandeur of
the desolation, the fulfilment of prophecy, the loveliness of
nature, couiljined to form a map,nificcnt mind-picture. After

VIEW FROM KULAT-EL-KURiN.

a long rest, during which we watched the gyrations of six
noble griffons, who, after swooping near enough to ascertain
to their disappointment that our prostrate forms were not yet
carrion, had soared in wheeling circles till we could only by
our glasses trace their fliglit, we scrambled down. We had to
make our way through a tangle of arbutus, laden with bright
red fruit (not our species, but the fiir lighter and more orua-
mental Arbutus Andrachne), bay, pistachia, lentislc, carouba-
trees, and every thorn-shnib imaginable, with an undergrowth
of sage, rosemary, rue, wormwood, lavender, and many a
fragrant weed. INfost beautiful of all was the delicate cycla-
men, nestling itself under every stone, and lavish of its love-
liness, with its graceful tufts of blossoms varying in hue from
purest white to deepest purple pink. Sending on our horses.

EL ILVJVISIX. 83

we walked down to the mill, intent npon the ornithological
rarities of the ravine.

On emerging from the wady we galloped across the little
plain to a low hill on the sonth of it, on whose further slope
towered a solitary colunm, El lianisin. It overlooks the plain
of Acre, standing; about 150 feet above it, and is a niueli-
weathered pillar of round stones on a massive square pedestal.
No ruins are near it, and it nnist have stood alone. The
height of the pedestal is ten feet, that of the shaft thirty-three,
and that of the capital, now dislodged and lying on the ground,
three more, making fortv-six feet in all The shaft consists
of eleven stones, or, w4th the capital, twelve. There is another
similar column in the centre of the plain of El Bukaa (Coile
S^Tia). AMiat might this lonely pillar have been ? jNIousa at
once pronounced it one of the high places of Israel, the twelve
stones typifying the twelve tribes. This certainly was an
ingenious and original explanation, and a very literal render-
ing of " high places." It is doubtless a relic of the Phoenicia
of the Grecian, or the Herodian period.

From El Hamsin we sent on our horses and walked home-
wards, finding partridge x^lentiful. The common partridge of
Palestine, excepting in the Jordan valley, is the Greek par-
tridge {Caccahis saxatilis, Bp.), a fine red-legged bird, much
larger than our red-legged partridge, and very much better
eating, with white tlesh, and nearly as heavy as a pheasant.
If not itlentical with the chukar of India, Avhich many authors
maintain, it is very closely allied to it, though the differences
are sufficient to enable the specimens to be discriminated at
sight. This bird is undoubtedly the partridge of Scripture,
and differs much in its habits from our grey partridge, being
never found on the plains or in corn-iields, but only on the
rocky hills, where it is extraordinarily abundant, loving most
the low brushwood, among which it runs and leaps with pro-
digious .swiftness. We also came across hares {Lepus Syrineus,
H. and Ehrenb.) and jackals, and put up a golden eagle. AVith
lu'a\y bags we reached the camp after nightfall, and enjoyed
a hearty dinner off boiled woodcock and partridge.

g2

84 CONIES.

The doctor had had an adventurous ride to-day. A Chris-
tian Arab, originally from the Hanran, had come down, in-
troduced by our sheikh, and implored him to go with him
to see his wife, who w'as lying very ill at a camp among the
hills of Galilee, some six hours distant. He would take no
refusal, so humanity overcame science, and L. mounted his
horse to accompany him, lamenting that his reputation as a
hakeem should prove so sad an interruption to his collecting.
On his return, two hours after sunset, he reported that he had
had a magnificent ride through a wild, desolate, but wooded
country, and had been most kindly received. The husband
had accompanied him back, and he was able to send by him
some medicine, which he felt confident would relieve his wife.
As he had not a word in common with his companion or his
patient, his ingenuity must have been somewhat ta.xed ; but
the gratitude of the man was sincere and warmly expressed,
and he did not forget to leave a fee behind him, in the shape
of a parcel of tobacco.

Decemher 8th. — As the weather still continued lovely, we
determined to prolong our stay at El Bussah, certain that the
natural history would amply repay our researches. Having
heard reports of conies — or, as the natives term them, tubsitn
— in the hills to the north, and as I had myself espied one
dart into a hole among the ruins of Kulat Kurn, while I was
clinging with both hands to a rock, and my gun safely slung
behind my back, we despatched Giacomo in quest at day-
break. The others started for the wady ; B — t was busy in
pickling fish and soldering tins ; while I remained for an
hour or two, to continue my examination of the village. I
inspected the old church, of which I had heard before, but
found no remains of antiquity. Though disused, it was still
reverenced as a holy place, and consisted of a humble, mud-
plastered room, with the simple stone grave of the late priest
in the corner. A few picture tablets and the old Arabic
Service-books completed the furniture.

I then went to pay a visit of compliment to our second
sheikh. He was not at home; but T was ])leasantly received

AX KL BUSSAH IXTEKIOR. 85

by his mother, liis pretty wife, and his bright-looking daugliter,
tlie would-bo bride, who were busily employed in smearing
and patting down fresh mud on the clay floor. The thrifty
housewives of several other village mansions afterwards in-
vited a visit from the stranger, as he passed their doors, and
took a pride in. exhibiting their cleanly interiors. One could
not but be struck by the amazing difference between the
social position, manners, and appearance of the women in a
Christian village, however ignorant and neglected, and of the
degraded wives and daughters of the Arabs and Metawileh of
the rest of the country. If the Gospel had done nothing
more — if, in measuring its blessings, we were to reduce it to
the standard of a mere humanizing agency — the position of
woman under the lowest and most corrupt form of Chris-
tianity, as compared with her treatment under the most
refined development of Mohammedan monotheism, would be
sufficient to decide the question. One sees in Syria the
Christian worship degraded by childish and ridiculous cere-
monies, the spirit has long left the empty and distorted form,
the ignorance of the priesthood has become a byword and a
proverb. On the other hand, the worship of Islam is simple
and noble in idea and in form — learning of a certain kind yet
lingers among its professors : yet among the former, woman
is free and trusted — among the latter, she is below a slave ;
among the one, social virtue is believed in — the others " have
given themselves over to work all nncleanness with greedi-
ness."

The houses, excepting the very poorest, seem all alike.
Each has a courtyard, with a high wall, for the goats, camels,
firewood, and bees. At the end of the yard stands the nmd-
built house, with a single door opening into its one room. A
pillar and two arches run across it, and supj)ort the flat roof.
The door opens into the stable portion, of which I have
spoken before, where horses and camels are standing before
the manger of dried mud. Stepping u]i from this, the visitor
finds himself at ojice in the simple dwelling-room of the
family. A laige matting of flattened rush generally covers

86 BEES AND HIVES.

one half, and a fe^v cusliioiis are spread in the corner, near
the unglazed window. At the further end are the mud stah'S
leading up to the roof, the summer bedchamber of the family.
Furniture there is none, except the few cooking utensils
hanying on wooden pegs, a hole in the centre of the tloor for
holding the fire, with a few loose iron rods across the top, and
the quaint wooden cradles of the babies, apparently hereditary
heirlooms. In the better houses, there is a mat screen across
the platform, behind which sleep the single women and girls.

There is an interesting illustration of the observance of the
Feast of Tabernacles in the village architecture here. On the
top of every house is a wattled booth of oleander boughs,
sometimes of two stories, with a wicker-work floor, in which
the inhabitants sleep during the hot weather, and thus con-
tinue to observe the Jewish feast. The tough and tenacious
leaves of the oleander never shrivel or fall off, and form an
effectual shade for many weeks.

Olive-oil, goats'-hair, and tobacco, seem to be the principal
produce of the district ; the latter being exported in some
quantities, by way of Acre, to Egypt. Bee-keeping, also, is
not an unimportant item of industry, and every house pos-
sesses a pile of bee-hives in its yard. Though similar in its
habits, the hive-bee of Palestine is a different species from
our own. We never found Apis mellijica, L., our do}nestic
species, in the country, though it very possibly occurs in the
North ; but the common Holy Land insect, Ajm lif/iistica,
is amazingly abundant, both in hives, in rocks, and in old
hollow trees. It is smaller than our bee, with brighter yellow
bands on the thorax and abdomen, which is rather wasp-like
in shape, and with very long antenna?. In its habits, and
especially in the immense population of neuters in each com-
munity, and in the drones cast forth in autumn, it resembles
the other species. Its sting, also, is quite as sharp. The
hives are very simple, consisting of large tubes of sun-dried
mud, like gas-pipes, about four feet long, and closed with
mud at each end, leaving only an aperture in the centre,
large enough for two or three bees to pass at a time. The

SCRIPTUEAL ALLUSIONS. 87

insects appear to frequent both doors ecj^ually. The tubes are
laid in rows horizontally, and piled in a pyramid. I counted
one of these colonies, consisting of seventy-eight tubes, each
a distinct hive. Coolness being the great object, the whole is
thickly plastered over with mud, and covered with boughs,
while a branch is stuck in the ground at each end, to assist
the bees in alighting. At first, we took these singular struc-
tures for ovens or hen-houses. The barbarous practice of
destroying the swarms for their honey is unknown. When
the hives are full, the clay is removed from the ends of the
pipes, and the hon(!y extracted with an iron hook ; those
pieces of comb which contain young bees being carefully re^-
placed, and the hives then closed up again. Everywhere
diuing our journey, we found honey was always to be pur-
chased; and it is used by the natives for many culinary
purposes, and especially for the preparation of sweet cakes.
It has the delicate aromatic flavour of the thyme-scented
honey of Hybla or Hymettus.

But however extensive are the bee colonies of the villages,
the number of wild bees of the same species is far greater.
The innumerable fissures and clefts of the limestone rocks,
which everywhere Hank the valleys, afford in their recesses
secure shelter for any number of sM'arms ; and many of the
Bedouin, particularly in the wilderness of Judsea, obtain
their subsistence by bee-hunting, bringing into Jerusalem
jars of that wild honey on which Jo\ni the Baptist fed in
the wilderness ; and which Jonathan had long before unwit-
tingly tasted, when the comb had dropj)ed on the ground
from the hollow tree in which it was susi^ended. The visitor
to the Wady Kurn, when he sees the busy multitudes of bees
about its cliffs, cannot but recall to mind the promise, " With
honey out of the stony rock would I have satisfied thee."
There is no epithet of the land of promise more true to the
letter, even to the present day, than this, that it was " a land
flowing with milk and honey,"

Having thus explored the village itself, B — t ajid I nrounted
and rode sharply after our companions, to examine further

88 NEW BATS.

tlic riches cif tlie AVadv Kurn. Lcavinj^ our horses in charge
of an Arab at the mill, who took care to he paid his back-
shish in advance, vre set off on foot, and soon Hushed a veiy
fine owl, of the same species as one we had disturbed the
day before, and nearly as large as the great eagle owl of
Central Europe. He was concealed in the dense foliage of a
carob-tree (Ccratonia siliqua, L.) overhanging the stream, and
under which we had stood a few minutes before he stole
away, when we followed him with our glasses till he lighted
under a cliff. Keeping the spot steadily in view, we scram-
bled up to it, when I had the delight of bringing down a
noble specimen of the great fish-eating owl of India {Kefupa
ccyloncnsis, Gm.). This owl, equal in size to the Buho ascala-
j)hus, Sav., the eagle owl of Egj'pt and S}Tia, has the long
bare tarsi or legs, and the huge claws of the osprey, admi-
rably adapted for seizing and holding its slippery prey. But
the great interest of this capture lay in the fact of our thus
discovering on the very shores of the INIediterranean, a bird
which has never hitherto been found west of Southern India,
although its eastward range extends to China. It was the first
and the most remarkable instance which came under our
notice of the extension of the Indian fauna to Syria ; and to
an enthusiastic ornithologist one such discovery was a rich
reward for many days' toil. How so marked and peculiar a
species has extended its range to such a distance from its
known locality is difficult to explain, but possibly it may yet
be traced in the wooded portions of the Euphrates and Tigi-is,
though it certainly does not inhabit Egypt. It could not
easily have selected a better-stocked fish-pond than the "NVady
Kurn, however far it had wandered.

In climbing the rocks soon afterwards, to examine a cave,
I heard a singular whining chatter within, and on creeping
into its recesses, a stone thrown up roused from their roosting
places a colony of large bats, tlie soft wavy flap of whose
wings I could hear in the darkness. How to obtain one I
knew not, but on vigorously plying my signal- whistle, all the
party soon gathered to my help. B. suggested smoking

I

GEOLOGY. 89

lliem ; so a fire of bruslnvood was kindled, and soon two or
tln'oe rushed out. Two fell to our shot, and T was delighted to
lind myself the possessor of a couple of large fox-headed bats,
of the genus Pteropus {Xantharpijra mpjpiiaccC), and extend-
ing 20 i inches from wing to wing. As none of the bats of
Palestine are yet known, this was a great prize, and another
instance of the extension westward of the Indian fauna.
The owl and the bat were no ill-omened creatures to-day, but
made it deservedly alhci cretd notaiida, the red-letter day of
I'^l Pjussah.

In the evening Giacomo returned, but without a coney,
though with the assurance of the villagers of Alma that they
were common there, and might easily be procured. But he
astonished us by the assertion that he had seen close to him
a monkey (nisnas) with a long tail. A long-tailed monkey
in Palestine ! This was indeed incredible, more marvellous
far than the Indian fish owl. But Giacomo was positive.
Never before had he heard of such a thing, much less seen
it ; aiid more, when he inquired of the villagers of Alma,
they told him there were plenty of " nisnas " in the rocks,
and as they were Protestants, he added, they surely would
not tell a lie. The mystery was afterwards explained by the
discovery of the fact that the Arab name for monkey and
ichneumon is the same (nisnas), and on showing Giacomo a
skin of the latter, he at once pronounced it to be the beast
lie had seen. We did not ascertain this solution at the time,
and our dragoman was sent off the next morning before day-
break to the hills, with a charge to spend three days if
necessaiy in the search.

The geolog)' of this district varied slightly from what we
liad pre^^ously examined. From Eas-el-Abiad we appeared
to have got on an upper stratum of calcareous limestone,
liverlying the crystalline, and which had probably been de-
nuded further north ; but all the way up the "Wady Kurn
there was no sign of any in-egular disturbance of the deposits,
all being perfectly horizontal. Tn the cretaceous superficial
limestone we found a few fossils of the epoch of the Norfolk

90 GEOLOGY,

chalk. Outside the wady, the stratification dipped in phices
to the south and west, but very slightly. The upper lime-
stone was generally yellow, but overlaid from time to time
with a whitish variety in horizontal beds, varying from a few
inches to two feet in thickness. The lower beds may be
referred to the Jurassic period; and after these had been
l)artly water-worn and denuded, the chalky limestones have
filled in their inequalities, affording sufficient indications of
their geological age by the fossils mentioned above, and which
we afterwards found iu great plenty on the higher parts of
Carmel. fl

II

CHAPTEE V.

Plain of Acre. — Ichnewmoii — FrancoUn — Birds and Flowers — CUyofAcre — liivcr
Bclios — Discovery of Glass — Shells — Wrecks — I'hc Kishon — Currents — Caiffa
iSijcamimim — Visit to the Consul — Dilajtidatcd Fortifications — Canqnag in a
Canal — Washed, out — The Convent — Its value to Travellers — A ConsuVs
Funeral — Shooting hy the Kishon — The Flamingo — Mandrakes — The Wady
Zcrka — The Crocodile— The Leviathan of Scripture — Swalloivs in Winter —
Panorama from t/ie Convent Roof — Ancient Wine-Presses — Cistern — Utider'
ground Granaries— Scriptural Allusians—^The Sect of the Metdwihh— FreC'
hooters — An xiseful Example.

December 9tii. — The fallino' barometer warned us not to ex-
pect a long continuance of fine weather ; we tlierefore hastened
our departure, and were off soon after sunrise, intending to
spend a few hours at Acre, and reach Caitfa at the foot of
Carniel for the night. As we walked on through tlie olive-
groves, we were startled by a large ichneumon, which scudded
across our path with the gait of a polecat, on its return »froni
its nocturnal rambles. It was almost as large as a badger,
Avhich it resembled in colour. We pursued it to its hole,* for
none of our guns were loaded, and set a trap, which a servant
was to return next day to visit. Seeing a native watching
(»ur operations, as he thought unseen, we took the precaution
of afterwards saluting him, and discovering his name.

Through a rich but neglected plain, of alluvial soil, with
many decapng remains of old vineyards, and a few straggling
palm-trees here and there, we rode on for five hours, leisurely
collecting by the way, till we reached the famous Acre' ' The
plain was abundantly stocked with game of every kind. In
the lower and swampy porticnis we heard, though we could
not see, the i'rancolin, once the dainty of Italian epicures, but*
now utterly extinct in Europe. It is stiU frequent in Cyprus,
and in all the lowlands of Syria, and is well known to Anglo-
Indians by the name of the black partridge. Of plover we

D2 CITY OF ACliE.

found and obtained abundance of many sorts, golden, gi-een,
and Kentish, winter visitants from Europe, and the red-
throated and Asiatic dotterels from Eastern Eussia. The
pretty and lively little cisticole, well known in Sicily and
Algeria, a warbler smaller than our wren, frequently rose
lark-like from the tufts of rushes, and was added to our col-
lection ; and the whole plain was stocked witli birds of prey
of every kind, from eagles and falcons to harriers and sparrow-
hawks. As there was no cover, these w-ere very difficult of
approach, but M. secured a fine specimen of the common
buzzard (BiUeo vulgaris, L.) by the judicious use of an ass
as his stalking-horse. Of plants there M-ere very few in
blossom, fewer than on the plain of Phoenicia, and far fewer
than in the sheltered valley of the Kurn. Still some strag-
gling antirrhinums, and large bunches of bright yellow chry-
santhemum were not to be despised in the month of December.
Very different must have been this fertile expanse in the days
when it was the rich heritage of Asher, who, content to
continue on the sea-shore and to abide in his creeks, left
Accho and Aclizib in the hands of the Phoenicians, but peace-
fully ■" dipped his foot in oil," for here " his bread was fat, and
he yielded royal dainties." (Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; Gen. xlix. 20.)

There is but a single gate on the land-side into Acre, and
this is close to the water's edge. Here we halted, and then
riding into the town left our horses in the bazaar and walked
round the fortifications, after obtaining a pass from the com-
mandant. It has been strongly fortified, and its shattered
ramparts bristle with old and badly-mounted guns. The
place is squalid and miserable, with a ruined mosque battered
to pieces liy Admiral Stopford's cannon-balls, many of which
are still lying about. Very few traces of the Crusaders' strong-
hold can be seen. They are chiefly in the lower parts of the
houses and walls, in tlic vaulted cellars, the feature of the
*place, and in a few arches here and there. Every wall and
house facing the sea is spotted and punched by artillery, and
though twenty-three years haxe passed since the last bom-
bardment, little has been done to repair the damage. In one

ElVER BELUS. 93

filthy corner we came upon the battered and neglected tombs
of two English officers, Major Oldtield, killed in a sortie when
Sir Sydney Smith repulsed Napoleon, and another, who fell
under Stopford. Little as it suggests of Scriptural association,"
Acre must always be a deeply interesting spot, the last foot-
hold of the Crusaders in Palestine, where the remnant of the
Knights of St. John was so horribly butchered, and also as
the place where Sir Sydney Smith "marred the destiny" of
Xapoleon. Once only mentioned in the Old Testament, and
once again in the New, as the Ptolemais at which St. Paul
touched on his way to Jerusalem, we seem at Acre to be
transported to the West, and to the wars of Europe, and are
brought down to the day when the unhappy intrigues of
modern politics compelled us to aid in expelling from Syria
the Eg>q)tian Pasha, the only governor under whom the
countiy ever knew security for life or property.

Leaving Acre, a ride of fom- hours along the sands by the
water's eilge, with the long sloping ridge of Carmel in front,
brought us to Caiffa. Our horses were somewhat fatigued,
poor " Beirut " lingered far in the rear. He had been very
loth to leave Acre, and had anxiously scanned the outskirts
of the walls, scratching and whining whenever his canine
fancy suggested a spot suitable for camping, on which he
would sit and howl in vain, endeavouring to recall us to
a halt. But the traveller must be wearied indeed who
is not interested by the ride. The little Nahr Namau,
the ancient Belus, was soon crossed — so shallow as it soaked
through the sand on its way to the sea, that it wetted little
more than the fetlocks of our horses. Higher up, it is
deeper, and its banks are swampy and treacherous in places.
"VVe could not but call to mind the story of the Greeks, that
from the chance discovery of some sailors on this spot, our
crystal })alaces and all the other marvellous fabrics of glass in
modern times date their origin. Some travellers have imagined
they could trace a foundation for the tradition, in the vitreous
and smelted ap))earance of the rocks on the l)anks of this
stream, but we were unable to detect anything beyond an

94 SHELLS — WKECKS.

abundance of bright clear flints in any part of its course,
tliough we often afterwards traversed the district. Not that
we need, tlierefore, reject the tradition, for the presence of
sand, silica and sea-weed in juxtaposition may easily have led
to their fortuitous conibinatir)ii ; and the discovery would not
be lost on the observant I'hoenicians. As Acre was in the
lot of Issachar, perhaps the " treasures hid in the sands,"
promised as well as " the abundance of the seas " in the
blessing of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.), may be explained by the
glassy treasure of the sands of the Belus.

The late storms had strewn the wide shore with shells,
and many times we dismounted, till bags and pockets were
stored with souvenirs of the neighbourhood of the Kishon.
The shells were chiefly of the common Mediterranean sorts,
Donax trunculus, Pcdunculus glycimeris, Tellina costce and
jplanata, Ccritliium mediterrcmcum, but especially the delicate
purple sea-snails, Janthina fragilis, and Jantldna r/lobosa,
seldom found in any quantity, except after a storm, and
erroneously supposed by many to be the source of the Tyrian
dye. The mistake is a natural one, from the unique purple
colour of the shells, and from its peculiar abundance on
these shores. Many of these little shells contained the in-
habitant alive, and had the curious rafts and floats attached
to them, in which the animal carries its eggs and young on
the surface of the ocean. Widely differing in their habits
from most other molluscs, these little creatures live in mid-
ocean, and far from shores or sands, having no power to sink
nautilus-like below the surface. From the uncertainty of
their appearance on the coasts, and tlie small number of the
stranded shells which contain the fish, it is most improbable
they could be used to any extent in dyeing, though they do
exude a purple juice in very small quantities.

Other evidences of storms strewed the sands, the ffrim
skeletons of many a coaster, driven high on shore, stripped
of all but the main timbers, which still stood erect, in black
groups here and there, the favourite perches of the osprey and
the cormorant. In a westerly or north-westerly gale, the

THE KISHON. 95

whole of the bay is completely open, and even with a south-
west gale the wind sweeps round the base of Carmel with
such violence as to drive on shore any vessel which cannot
work out to sea. There is also a ground current which sets
strongly against the mouth of the Xishoii. This we had an
opportunity of observing when wc forded, two hours from the
Bclus, the Mukatta or Kishon. liiding out into the sea, we
crossed on the top of the sandy bar, where the waters scarcely
reached to our horses' knees, and felt almost disappointed to
find that ancient river had become so scanty a rill. Yet for
several miles above the bar it varies from six to fourteen feet
in depth, and three months later we were compelled at this
spot to swim our horses.

So rapidly does the drift choke the mouth of the river,
that sometimes during the dry season its channel is com-
pletely obliterated, and its waters merely percolate through
the sands imderneath. Then comes a flood, and the swollen
torrent, violent as when it swept away the hosts of Sisera,
dashes through the sandbanks, hollowing a new course for
itself, which remains till the coming season. Owing to the
steady silting of the sand from the south-west, the mouth of
the river is gradually working its way to the northwards,
and forming a sandy but not barren delta on its left bank,
which, within the memory of living man, has been ad-
vanced for more than a mile. "We lingered a short time near
the Kishon's mouth, allured by the many buzzards, sea-gulls,
and plover of various species which swarmed on the sands or
in the marshes ; and thence a short half hour by the side of
sandy but fertile gardens, filled with fine date-palms and orange-
groves, brought us to Caiffa, with its crumbling shattered
walls, and an English frigate the only vessel in its roadstead.
A Turkish sentry leaned against the back of a rock, from
the top of which M. brought down a too confiding king-fislu^i-
as we entered. We had seen a few miserable places in Syria,
but the tilth and squalor of the streets, or rather gutters of
Caiffa, outdid all the collections of sewerage through which
we had ever had to wade, always excepting Tyre.

e

96 SYCAMINUM.

Ciiifla is generally stated to occupy the site of the ancient
Sycaniinnm, a Greek and Roman town, not mentioned in the
sacred writings. Though the prince of Palestine geographers,
I)r. liobinson, unhesitatingly adopts this conjecture, careful
investigation of the city and the neighbourhood liave led
me to believe that Caiffti is exclusively mediaeval and modern,
and that we must fix the site of Sycaniinum at the point
of land a mile and a half to the westward. That site is
marked by a few aged j)alms and by gardens enclosed by
clumps of ungainly prickly pear, but the whole area is con-
stantly quarried for building stone, being one mass of founda-
tions, fragments of columns, and sculptured marble. The
extent of these ruins is considerable, the importance of the
buildings beincj evident from the size of the substructures. It
could have been no mere village or suburb of a city, for in one'
l)lace a long portion of wall has recently been exposed. In
Caiffa itself there is not a vestige of antiquity, save the
fragments brought from these antient ruins. Probably
Sycaniinum was destroyed when Syria was first lost to the
Byzantine empire, and very soon after Caiffa^ rose, in a
more convenient and defensible situation close to the rise of
Carmel, occupying the only point where the hill rises from
the shore without the intervention of even a narrow strip of
beach, and less accessible to cavalry raids than the old site,
which was open to marauders from the plains both of Acre
and Sharon.

After riding through the town we found our camp pitched
in a dilapidated garden, with a few stunted palms and hedges
of prickly pear, adjoining the western gate, and about 100
yards from the sea. The English Consul's house on the city
wall overlooked the spot ; the herbage was almost a fine turf,
and our situation on it seemed delightful. But we were soon
to discover our mistake. The thunder-clouds which had
been threatening in the horizon all day burst upon us in
torrents half an hour after our arrival. However, M. and I

' It WHS visited hy Sa-wulf, aiul mentioned under this nanu' in a.d. 1102.

I

CAMPING IN A CANAL. 97

set out after diniiur, with a lantern, to call on the Consul.
The city gate was locked, but we were told of a hole in the
wall near the sea by which we could reach his house, though
the guard could not possibly admit us through tlie gate after
dark. Heartily amused at the wisdom of this military regu-
lation, which locked the gates for safety at night, but directed
invaders to the unscrutinized breach in the fortifications, we
groped our way through the rain to the shore, and found a
lofty wall running into the sea. Like everything Turkish it
was in decay, and a few yards beyond the water's edge we
perceived a hole up to which we could scramble dry-shod on
the rocks. Sitting down here, and reconnoitering the gap
with our light, we found the sea knee-deep on the other side.
There was nothing for it but to sit down in our hole and off
with our lower garments before wading. This accomplished,
we sat down and dressed on the shore, an Arab guard scruti-
nizing us meanwhile very suspiciously with his lantern (not
a bull's-eye). After this fashion, at nine p.m. we introduced
ourselves to ]\Ir. Sandwith, H. B. M. Vice-Consul, to whom I
am most deeply indebted for kindnesses, assistance, and
information freely offered for many consecutive months.
With the exception of two vice-consuls, members of foreign
mercantile firms, ]\[r. Sandwith is the solitary European resi-
dent in Caiffa, where there is neither English Missionary nor
merchant ; but happily his literary and scientific tastes render
his isolation more endurable tlian it could be to most men.
Over English tea we chatted till long past midnight of the
country and its topics. He solved for us the mystery of the
monkey, or " nisnas " (see p. 89) ; and, as the rain continued
to descend, he warned us that we had pitched upon a
dangerous spot, and hoped we should not be washed out of
our beds before the morning.

Dcccmhcr 10th. — I was roused about five a.m. by finding a
stream of water running into my bed, and on feeling for my
slippers was horrified to find them afloat. Sad lamentations
were wafted from the other tents, and soon a servant ap-
peared with a lantern, and the extent of the disaster was

H

08 AVAi^TIED OUT.

revealed. Just above the garden was a little canal, wliioli
had overflowed, and we were absolutely camped in the middle
of a stream ; but our mackintosh sheets, which we had taken
the precaution to turn over our sheepskin beds, had in a great
measure saved thevi. A sloping trench was soon dug above
our tents to divert the stream, and another below them to
drain it partially, but not before the w^hole of our baggage
and our boxes were saturated at the bottom. I possessed not
a dry rag. My second suit, which formed my pillow, was
also soaked, the common boot-bag w^as in the same condition,
and there was nothing to be done but to sit up on a camp-
stool in our dressing-gowns, rubbing our feet, and keeping up
the circulation with a little brandy and cold tea till dawn,
when coffee could be got from the town.

Soon after the gates were opened, ]\Ir. Sandwith appeared
over the top of a pair of huge boots, to condole with us.
As he had only bachelor quarters himself, he advised us at
once to go up to the convent, where we could be comfort-
ably lodged till our stores were dried and the bad weatlier
had passed. He encouraged us by the promise that he would
himself join us for a couple of days. At once we proceeded
to load, and started up Mount Carmel. It was the fruitful
field or the vineyard of God ; but, alas ! the excellency of
Carmel is gone, there is not a vine on its bare and rocky
slopes, though its foot is well clad with ancient olive-trees.
We all walked up the hill in a torrent of rain, preceding our
baggage, and received a kindly welcome from the friars, who
are of the Carmelite order, " discalceatorum," and nearly all
Italians. After a hearty breakfast on eggs, coffee, brown
bread and honey, B, and I started to descend the south sidi;
of the hill in the rain, thinking it safer to do so than to sit
in wet clothes till another suit could be dried. The mist
and rain were too dense to permit any view of the plain of
Sharon as we descended tlie zigzag path to its commence-
ment, but we prolonged our Avalk by the shore, and procured a
few birds, — among them the redshank of our English marshes,
and the ]Manx shearwater, the mysterious ghost-bird of the
Posphorus, so common likewise in our northern seas.

THE CONVENT — ITS VALUE TO TRAVELLERS. 99

AVe returned at dark, and found all dry and comfortaLle
within the walls. None of us suffered from our night's soak-
ing and exposure ; and, doubtless, our plain fare, hard work,
with sponge-baths and quassia, were admirable preventives
against the rheums and agues of the country.

Our quarters were an agreeable contrast to the discomfort
of tents in a canal-bottom, and though cold and drafty, Avere
spacious and beautifully clean. We had a long suite of rooms
opening into each other. Next our sitting-room was my
chamber, tilled with saddles and camp properties. Next M.'s,
elegantl}' furnished with his paints, drawings, tools, and shell-
boxes. Through this we passed into B.'s, very like a chemist's
shop, filled with his photographic apparatus. L.'s followed,
carpeted with layers of botanical papers and disc^oloured
l^lants, which would not dry ; and B — t's last, with a strong
odour of bird-flesh, and a long array of disembowelled spe-
cimens.

The brother in waiting, a good-natured-looking young friar,
from Turin, was always moving about, taking a lively interest
in our welfare, and seeking to promote our comfort, so far as
the rules of his order and the capabilities of the house would
permit. In this land, where hotels are unknown, and in
situations like this, where, if there were any, they could not
be maintained, one does not feel disposed to criticise monastic
orders, and one can realize the uses and value of religious
houses to the traveller in the middle ages. In such a state
of society as exists here, and as existed once in England,
monastic houses are practically a great public boon, and
there is no substitute to take their place. The wayfarer finds
himself at once at home, where the rule is that of universal
hospitality to all comers. It is to be regretted that our
countrymen who travel under the charge of a dragoman
frequently, though unconsciously, take unfair advantage of
this hospitality, as their purveyor feeds and lodges them at
the expense of the convent, without leaving the customary
acknowledgment in the box, which their rules forbid the
fathers to demand.

II 2

1 00

MOUNT C.VTUIEL.

Deceniber IWi. — After a sound and refreshing rest in dry
beds, B. and I started off with our mail-bag for Caiffa, intend-
ing to explore the marshes of the Kishon. We first visited
the cave, where tradition has misplaced the scenes of Elijah's
life, and in which nn altar has been erected for this crypt-
chapel, with a figure of the old prophet blessing a Madonna !
The atmosphere was somewhat clearer than before, and we
were al)le to enjoy a portion at least of the fine ]3anorama.
C^armel here runs out a long, round promontory into the sea,
with the whole plain of Acre stretched on the right, and a
peep of the plain of Sharon to the south. But below the foot

VIKW FROM CARMKL.

of tlie hill a narrow belt of low, rich plain pushes forward — a
fertili! fringe round the bottom of Carmel's mantle, with a
hem of sand and a lace-edging of spray. liound its base on
this plain w iiids the highway from Phccnicia and Galilee to
Egypt. We looked down from the giddy height, and watched
a long caravan of several hundred camels on their way thither.

A consul's funeral. lol

with the attendant crowd of Bedouin and many wild horse-
men cantering about them. What pictures of tlie past rose to
the mind's eye ! What a gush of historic fancies filled the
imagination as we gazed on the strange scene ! On that path
we might imagine the Midianites, with their captive boy just
bought from his brethren, and weeping on his camel, taken
down to be sold in an Egyptian slave-market. Probably by
that route Joseph brought the child Jesus and His mother to
Nazaretli, when they heard that Archelaus was king in Jeru-
salem, and " turned aside " to the parts of Galilee. Eound
that hill Sennacherib's host may have marched, from tlie
passes of the Lebanon, to the siege of Lachish ; and Pharaoh
Neclio to Megiddo ; — to say nothing of crusading armies, and
the hosts of Saladin, and finally of Napoleon advancing to the
siege of Acre.

As we turned down the winding path, we saw the French
flag, half-mast, on the convent top, and the great bell slowly
boomed forth its solemn toll. The funeral cortege of the
French Consul was on its way to his earthly resting-place
under the convent walls. He had died yesterday of fever, at
Caiffa. We stood aside, uncovered, to let the procession pass
as it toiled up the hill. Surpliced priests, choristers, monks,
and Greek priests in full canonicals, were all on horseback,
— for the Greeks were admitted to take a share, at least
in this part of the ceremony, — preceding the bier, on which
were the uniform and military decorations of an old soldier
of the first empire ; and all the consular agents and their
cavasses, mounted, followed behind with a motley crowd of
Greeks and ]\[oslems. It was a touching sight in this far-
off land.

Leaving our letters at Caiffa for the steamer, we w^ent on
to the Kishon, to find waterfowl, and made several additions
to our collections. Among these were the merganser and the
magnificent Red Sea gull {Larus ichthi/aetos), not hitherto
known in winter plumage, and very rare in collections. It is
much larger than our herring-gull, and is the largest known
species of the genus, with a deep-black head when in fuU

102 THE MANDRAKE.

•l)lnma<]jc. "While wandennf]^ among the swamps, we saw the
Imck of what we took to be a swan, feeding in a pool, and,
slipping bullets into our guns, contrived to creep within shot.
As it rose, the long neck, and lovely pink of the wings, with
their black tips, showed a fine flamingo. We fired, and
wounded it slightly. For two hours we pursued it several
miles, with indifferent success, till at length B. struck it in
the neck as it passed overhead, and down fell the magniflcent
bird dead into the middle of the Kishon. We had long to
wait till it floated into shallow water, and we returned home
laden with spoil' which we could scnicely carry up the hill.
The flamingo is known to the natives under the name of

" nelwf" ( i\ss^, but is rare in Palestine, where it has but

one breeding-place, in the marshes of Huleh, the ancient
Merom. It does not appear to be mentioned specially in
Scripture. This was the only occasion on which I ever met
with a solitary specimen, it being generally found in vast
flocks about shallow lagoons, as in the salt lakes of the
Sahara, or^t Tunis ; but on the next day we noticed a small
band of about half a dozen, from which our prize had probably
been accidentally separated.

The following day we renewed our exploration of the banks
of the Kishon, but not with so much success, as the weather
was improving and the sea-birds had retired to their accus-
tomed element. The heron and the osprey hung about us,
wild and wary ; but we obtained, among other species, the
elegant Andouini's gull, which here takes the place of our
lesser black-back gull. There was some of the large red
antirrhinum of our gardens in blossom, and we gathered
some fine stems of a tall, blue campanula, and also several
specimens of the mandrake {Mandragora officinalis, L.), the
first we had seen, and one of the most striking plants of
the country, with its llat disk of very broad primrose-like
leaves, and its central bunch of dark blue bell-shaped
blossom. The perfume of the flower we found by no means
disagreeable, though it is said by some to be fetid. It has a
certain pungency, which is peculiar, yet there seems little

i

THE CROCODILE. 103

doiil)t 1)ut that this is the plant alhided to in Gen. xxx. 14,
and Cant. vii. 13. We found it not uncommon in every part
of I'alestine, but chiefly in marshy plains. The day's l)otan-
izing afforded altogother eleven additional species in flower,
a number with which we might be well satisfied in midwinter.
We added also a few shells to our list, as Conoindus firminii,
and G. hidcntatus, and filled our bags with a splendid dish
of mushrooms for dinner. The Kishon yielded likewise a
fine fresh-water mussel or unio, distinct from the species of
the Jordan and the Zerka, and several sorts of fish, similar
to those of the Nahr-el-Kelb and the Kurn, viz. Blcnnius
lupulus, Bp., Seaphiodon capoeta, Giild., and Angidlla microp-
tcra, Kaup.

In the evening two travelling companions, a French noble-
man and a Spaniard, who had been with us in Khodes and
Cyprus, appeared at the convent, having accomplished iSTaza-
reth. Tabor, and Tiberias, during a two days' ride in the ram.
They left at day-break next morning to hurry by Acre to the
Ladder of lyi'e. Such is the mode of " doing " Palestine with
economy of time ! We heard to-day various reports of the
existence of the crocodile in the Wady Zerka, or " blue river,"
on the plain of Sharon, a little to the south of Carmel, and
from inquiries repeatedly made both in Caiffa and from
residents on the plain of Sharon, I have not the smallest
doul)t that some few specimens of this monster reptile, known
to the natives under the name of --U»-*J' timsali, still linger
among the marshes of the Zerka. This is undoubtedly the
Crocodile Eiver of the ancients, and it is difficult to conceive
how it should have acquired the name, unless by the existence
of the animal in its marshes. These swamps at the head of
the plain of Sharon afford ample cover, and as the Greek
name of the stream has been lost, while the unanimous testi-
mony of the inhal)itants assei-ts the presence of the reptile, it
cannot be argued that the name has suggested to them the
story. The Crusading historians mention the existence of the
crocodile in their day in this very river. Dr. Thomson, who
gives full credence to the report, which he had from most

104 SWALLOWS IN WINTER.

trustworthy eye-witnesses, suggests that in ages past some
Egyptians may have settled here, and brought with them as
pets some of their favourite gods ! There is certainly not the
slightest occasion to resort to tjiis somewhat laughable hypo-
thesis. Like the hippopotamus, the bison, the lion, and most
other larger quadrupeds, the great reptile has gradually waned
before the presence of man, and the advance of population.
In earlier times, not only the Zerka, but the Jordan, the
marshes of Meroni, and the lower portions of Esdraelon must
have afforded suitable cover, and when we observe the strong
affinity between the herpetological and ichthyological fauna of
Egypt and Palestine, there is scarcely more reason to doubt
the past existence of the crocodile in the one, than its present
continuance in the other. It is most clearly the animal de-
noted by the word ^n^*)/ Uv'yatlian, in the book of Job, and
force is added to the rendering if we admit that the creature
was most probably familiar, not only in Eg}^t to the inspired
writer of the book, but to Job himself and to his contempo-
raries, whether dwelling on the banks of the Euphrates or
near the streams and swamps of Canaan. I must admit that
we did not succeed in obtaining a specimen, though we heard
of a carcase recently brought into Caiffa ; but those who know
the difficulty of its capture, even on the open banks of the
Nile, will readily admit that the most ardent collector might
search for days in vain among the reedy and treacherous
morasses of the Zerka. Still we do not despair of soon
receiving a specimen through the zeal of Mr. Sandwith.

December Idth. — We much enjoyed a quiet Sunday — a day
of rest for us all. After breakfast one of the monks called
and invited us to go over the convent. It is a large, massive
square building, constructed since the destruction of the old
convent by the Turks, subsequent to the retreat of Napoleon.
The chapel and its dome form the centre. We were lodged
on the first floor, and the cells of the monks with long corri-
dors occupy the second. On the roofs of the corridors we
observed many nests of tliat rare and interesting swallow,
Hirimdo rufida, Temm., which is here oidy a migrant, and

TAIS'OKAMA FllOM THE CONVENT EOOF. 105

had long since retired from its sinnnier quartei-s, unlike the
oriental chimney-swallow {Hirundo cahirica, Licht.), which
we daily watched skimming in great numbers round the
walls of Caiffa.

Yvom. the roof of the dome we had a fine panorama. The
day was clear, and this was our lirst gaze into Galilee. At
our feet lay extended the broad bay of Acre, and tlie dark
gi-een phiin beyond, with the bright cluster of buildings, the
city itself forming the further liorn of the crescent. Beyond
it we looked on tlic white headland of Eas-en-Nakura, the
Ladder of Tj-re, bounding the sea-view northwards. Above
this rose the distant snow-clad Lebanon, almost lost in the
clouds. The dark hills of Galilee rose one after another to
the east. The monk pointed out to us a little tower, just
\'isible, which marked the site of Nazareth below it ; and gTcen
Tabor, with snowy Hermon, seemed to rise behind into the
sky. In the gap between these two the green hills of Bashan,
beyond Jordan, were plainly visible, bright and pale by the
contrast with the dark foreground. Carmel here intersects
the view, but turning round to tlie south we could look into
the plain of Sharon. The headland nearest to us, with its
ruined castle and a tall fragment of ruin, looking almost like
a solitary column, but in reality part of an ancient church, is
Athlit, the " castellum peregrinorum" of the Crusaders, the old
landing-place of pilgrims for Jerusalem. Beyond it again
another low mound projects into the sea, marked likewise by
a slender fragment of an old tower, still more like a distant
column. This is Tantura, the ancient Dor, a city allied with
Juljin, king of Hazor, and allotted by Joshua to Manasseh,
who here came down to the coast. Further still, the dislo-
cated ruins of Ctesarea are plainly visible, as they stand out
against the sea. We lingered long to gaze, till the shivering
ligure of our friar guide reminded us that it was time to
descend.

After our service, we walked along the northern slope of
the hill for a few miles, and visited some interesting relics of
ancient times, when Carmel was indeed the " ploisaunce " or

lOG ANCIENT WINE-PRESSES.

cultivated park ; when its excellency was more tlian a name,
and wlien oliveyards and terraced vineyards took tlie place of
the bare rocks and the prickly shrubs (chieily Potcrium
spinnavm, L.), which now afford cover to the gazelle, the fox,
and the ichneumon. On the whole ridge not a vine now
exists save at one village, and in a little enclosed garden of
the convent.

We examined several wine-presses, to which our attention
was directed by ISfr. Sandwith, their discoverer, and which
exactly resemble those pointed out to Dean Stanley, by
Dr. Rosen, in the south of Juda?a. AVe examined four of
them on Carmel, and as they are so intimately connected
■with the name of the mount, and have not I believe been
yet noticed by preceding observers, it may be interesting to
describe them minutely. In all cases, both on Carmel and
elsewhere, a flat or gently sloping rock is made use of for
their construction. At the upper end a trough is cut about
three feet deep, and four and a half by three and a half feet
in length and breadth. Just below this, in the same rock, is
hewn out a second trough, fourteen inches deep and four feet
by three in size. The two are connected by two or three
small holes bored through the rock close to the bottom of the
upper trough, so that on the grapes being put in and pressed
down, the juice streamed into the lower vat. Every vineyard
seems to have had one of these presses. What a record is
liere graven in the rock of the old fitness of that name
Carmel ! Dr. Robinson mentions a press much longer and
more shallow.. In such an one Gideon threshed his wheat in
some obscure corner of the vineyard, where he would cover it
over with boughs or leaves and conceal it from the Midianites.
How well this simple wine-vat in the stone illustrates the
expression, "treading the wine-press alone!" Hard by one
of these we found a large deep cistern hewn in the rock, and
little converging channels about four inches wide, cut above
it to drain the water from the upper part of the vineyard.
The cistern had been wrought with a natural roof, and a
square ()i)cning in tlio centre. A few yards below this was a

UNDEllGROUND GRANARIES. 107

circular opening in the ground, about a yard in diameter, like
the mouth of a well, but really the mouth of an ancient
granary or " silo," for keeping and concealing corn. It
swelled into a round chamber below, about eight feet deep
and more than nine in diameter, carefully plastered wherever
it was not hewn out of the native rock, and having very much
the shape of a large flask or demijohn. Such " silos " are still
universally used by the nomad Bedouin for storing their
grain, and exist in great numbers in and around their favourite
camping grounds. More than once I have had a fall, through
my liorse, when galloping over a plain, setting his foot on the
treacherous roof of one of these empty granaries. It was to
such hidden stores as these that the ten men referred, who
appealed to the treacherous Ishmael, "Slay us not, for we
have treasures in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil,
and of honey " (Jer. xli. 8).

Doubtless we were here standing where some wealthy son
of Asher or of Zebulon once " dipped his foot in oil," and
cultivated the inheritance of his fathers. It may seem strange
at first how the lon^ ranire of Carmel should have become
thus desolate, while the less kindly Lebanon is so carefully
tilled, and even the neighbouring hills of Galilee are in some
degree utilized for cultivation. But its vicinity to the plains
of Acre and Sharon has been the cause of its decline. INIost
of the country here is overrun by the Metawileh, a sort of
heretical (so called) Moslems, of the sect of Ali, whose faith
is kindred to that of the Shiah, or Mohammedans of Persia.
They are said to have emigrated from that country several
centuries ago, and now form many distinct villages both here
and in Northern Galilee. They also comprise the greater part
of the population of Tyre. In their habits they too much
resemble the Bedouin of the plain of Acre, and the Kurds who
occupy the northern portion of the plain of Sharon, and they
have no scruples in robbing and cattle-lifting. Between such
neighbours the unfortunate fellahin (or cultivators) of Carmel
have been nearly exterminated, being driven from village to
village tiU they have succambed to starvation. The Meta-

108 FREEBOOTERS.

wilcli bear no good-will to the Turks, but Lave a traditional
veneratiou for the Shah of Persia, a representation of ^liose
turban may generally be seen in tlieir houses. Of Christians
they are perhaps more tolerant than others. They are not
generally given to luurder, although last week the bodies of
two Arabs, who had come from Gaza to purchase horses, were
found with their throats cut under an olive-tree on the path
from Caiffa to the convent, and the perpetrators were pretty
generally suspected to have been the people of a neighbouring
Metawileh village.

We had the satisfaction soon afterwards of learning that by
an unwonted exhibition of energy the Turks had made an
example of this village. An English gentleman and lady of
our acquaintance were stopped and robbed by these people
on the way from Ca3sarea to Caiffa, but all their baggage was
ultimately restored. The gentleman, however, was determined
tliat justice should be done, and being furnished with a special
firman from the Porte, insisted upon the reluctant Pasha of
Acre discovering the perpetrators. He accordingly sent some
troops to the village, who seized the w^hole adult male popula-
tion, or as many as they could find, and brought them to Acre.
Without trial the three chiefs were put in chains, and up-
wards of fifty men shipped off as conscripts to join the army
in Asia Minor. The Pasha thus succeeded in raising his quota
of recruits, which was in arrear, and it is to be hoped that, for
a few years at least. Englishmen will not be robbed on the
road to CsBsarea.

Nor were we to be robbed with impunity, though of more
ignoble spoil. In the course of the day Giacomo returned
from his three days' absence without monkey or even coney,
but bringing instead a large ichneumon. The trap had been
stolen, and its prey into the bargain, and with no other clue
than the name of the man whom we had seen watching our
proceedings, Giacomo had at once demanded and obtained of
the village sheikh the arrest of the thief and the restitution
of the beast, which was to decide the question of the existence
of the monkey in Palestine.

AN USEFUL EXAMPLE.

109

We closed the day as usual, and our vespers synchronized
with those chanted in our hearing by the monks ; and we
noticed the ai)propriateness to ourselves of the lines in the
hynin for the day in the " Christian Year" : —

" . . . . Seek the lioly land.
From robes of TjTian dye
Turn witli undazzled eye
To Bethlelieni's glade or Carmel's haunted strand. "

MONASTERY OF CARMEL.

CHAPTER VI.

Tombs in Carmcl — Character of the Sceneri/ — SmaUncss of tJu Trees —
FossfUs — Ride along the Top to Esfia — Becepimi — Visit to a Christian Family
— Domestic A /'rangements — Ride to Mohraka, place of Elijah's Sacrifice' -
Elisha's Altar — View from, tlie Top — Plain of Esdraelon — Historical Associ-
atio)is — Place of Sacrifice — Well and Tree — Swampis — Fording tlw Kishon —
Hills of Galilee — Birds — Arrival at Nazareth — Aghyle Agha — Extension of
Nazareth — Change of Site — Precipice — The Well of Nazareth — Bareness of
the Hills — Mount of the Precipitation — IJcsal, Chisloth — Tabor — Interesting
Remains — Raids of the Bedouin — Su^fi'erings of the Peasantrt/ — Tabor and
Hernwn — Endor — Cave-Dwellings — Nain — Burial Ground — Well — An Arab
Girl — Geological Phenomeiia — Basalt — Shunem or Sulem — Zerin, Jezrecl —
Jcnin or Engannim — Palm-trees — Olive-trees — Gardens — Crows — Dotlian
T'rading Caravan — Eagles — Passes of Manasseh —Sebustiyeh or Samaria —
Church — Long Colonnades — Fulfilment of Proplieey — Heaps of the Field and
Viiieyards — Stony Hills — Vale ofSliechevi — Its Beauty — Arrival at Nablous.

Another day was given to tlie exploration of the southern
side of Carmel, and of the many old tombs hollowed among
the rocks. They were all of the same shape and plan as
those we had examined near Sidon, and had long since been
thoroughly rifled. Xow they are sometimes used as sheep-
folds, and their dusty floors afford a refuge to mjTiads of
fleas, which rise in swarms, like sand-flies, to feast on the legs
of any luckless intruder. On the loth December we finally
left the hos})itable convent for the village of Esfia, at the
eastern end of the ridge, fifteen miles, or four and a-half hours
distant. Threatening as was the day, the wind kept the
clouds so high, that we were not robbed of the prospect on
either side, as we followed throughout the highest crest of
the hill.

Writers have continually cautioned ns against expecting
fine scenery in this country, and, especially, " the forest of his
Carmel" has been spoken of as very insignificant to those
familiar witli western landscapes. Certainly, the top of Carmel

EIDE ALONG THE TOP OF CARMEL. HI

is not the place on which to recall the sublimity of the Alps,
or the Pyrenees ; but for ordinary hill-scenery, it is, undoubt-
edly, fine — almost grand. The part that fails is forest scenery.
That is small ; but the plains are truly vast, and the tiers of
distant hills are so numerous and varied in outline, that
" tame " is the very last epithet that suggests itself as appro-
priate. Dean Stanley, M'ho, with many of the best authorities,
interprets Camiel, " a park," remarks that " tliough to European
eyes it presents a forest-beauty only of an inferior order, there
is no \Yonder that to an Israelite it seemed ' the Park ' of his
countrv : that the tresses of the bride's head should be com-
pared to its woods ; that its ' ornaments ' should be regarded
as the type of natural beauty ; that the withering of its fruits
should be considered as the type of national desolation." ^

Diu-ing our ride, we ascended 1,200 feet, to the elevation of
Esfia, wliich is 1,750 feet above the sea. Path there is none. As
it is not an ordinary traveller's route, we hired a native guide,
who took care to be paid in advance, Mr. Sandwith accom-
panied us, and pointed out the objects of interest ou the way.
The view was such as we had been enjoying from the convent,
with the addition of the Kishon, the course of which we could
clearly trace. An hour's walk, in advance of our horses,
brought us to the pine-forest, the trees of which are scattered,
and of no great size, but harmonizing well with the piercing
cold of the day. Birds were few : I searched in vain for the
crossbill, which is common in similar situations all along the
Atlas range, but M'hich I never could meet with in Palestine.
Now and then we flushed a woodcock, and partridge (Greek)
in abundance. A noble osprey sailed close overhead, as he
descended to fish in the Kishon.

AVe were enriched, however, by a hars'est of fossils, which
the rains, by washing clean the rocks, had left conspicuous,
and which occurred, in several places, in solid beds of consi-
derable thickness. The predominating species was a gryphtea
{Gt. capuloides), mixed with seven or eight other species of the

^ Sinai and Palestine, p. 352.

112 VISIT TO A CllUISTIAN FAMILY.

lower chalk, among them a pretty little corbula {C. Syriaca).
The fossils were sutticiently numerous to enable M. llcl>ert,
to whom they were shown, to decide at once on the age of the
formation as synchronous %vith our Norfolk or lower chalk.
The whole of the upper stratum of Carmel appears the same
— an undisturbed deposit of chalky limestone, very soft, with
great quantities of silex interspersed, sometimes in large
nodides, or irregularly-shaped masses, lilling interstices in the
stone, but very often regiilarly and evenly interstratified in
layers of from one to six inches thick. In the depth of a yard
in the face of one cliff w^e counted five even layers of this flint
at irregular intervals.

We had a letter to the Christian sheikh of Esfia, and, in
this stormy weather, determined to take advantage of his
hospitality, in preference to the exposure of our tents. A
large stable-like building was placed at our disposal, the state
bedroom of our host, with an ancient rickety bed- frame in
one corner. The store of olives which covered the floor was
hastily shovelled into a pile by the ladies of the establish-
ment, and one side cleared, along wliicli our beds, six in a
row, were packed as tightly as in the camp-tent of a French
regiment. Esfia is one of the two remaining villages of
Mount Carmel ; seventeen, which are marked in many maps,
having disappeared during the lawless epoch which succeeded
the expulsion of Ibrahim Pasha. The ruins of many of these
we had passed in the morning. Esfia owes its escape from
destruction, partly to the exceptional valour of its inhabitants,
and partly to their prudence in paying an annual sum to the
great loyal chief, Aghyle Agha, for protection, though far
beyond the limits assigned to his district : but in no degree
does it owe its security to the exertions of the Government.
The population is entirely Druse and Christian, principally
the ibrmer ; and this is the most soiitherly point to which
those noble though wild mountaineers have penetrated. The
people fully bear out the common remark on the sui>erior
lihysiriue of mountain triljes ; for th(>y are a handsome, well-
sha])('(l race, and the women, especially, far surpass in figure

FOSSILS, 113

and beauty the inhabitants of the cities and plains in the
neighbourliood. Oil-olive and honey form the trade and sup-
port of Esfia ; but there are also many vineyards on the
terraces which line the slopes below the village.

We had an opportunity of enlarging the circle of our
acquaintance, when, in the afternoon, we went out with our
hammers to look for fossils, but being caught in a heavy
slioM-er, were glad to take refuge in a house outside the
village. We were hospitably welcomed by the owner and
his family. The pot Avas boiling on a little fire of sticks in
the centre of the dwelling ; but the girls who were tending it
at once got up and ran for cushions, on w^hich they insisted on
our reclining round the hearth, whence they removed the pot,
which we had to replace by the exercise of a little friendly
force. " Alas ! " exclaimed the goodman, " it is a fast day, and
there is no flesh in the pot." They were Christians, and wel-
comed us as fellow-Christians, rubbing the two fore-fingers
together, and exclaiming, " Soua, soua " (together). As soon
as we were seated, we were introduced in due form to the
whole family, and each kissed our hands on presentation.
The father was a tall, fine-looking man, with a very Jewish
type of countenance, as have many of the Druses here, leading
one to suspect a Jewish or Samaritan origin. His mother was
a stout old lady, and his wife a buxom matron. The eldest
daughter was a handsome girl of eighteen or twenty, with a
fine figure, and large, sleepy black eyes. Her next sister was
perhaps fifteen, a sweet-looking, dark girl ; and three healthy
round-faced children succeeded her. The father lamented
that he had but one boy to his six girls, and was much
anuised on my telling him I could not condole with him,
being in the same happy position myself. " Then, indeed, we
must be brothers ! " he exclaimed. The two elder women
were employed in needlework, and a packet of English needles,
which M. had handy in his pocket, soon made us very popular
with all the young ladies. A pair of scissors which I pro-
duced as a present to the lady of the house, she was most
anxious to repay by a couple of pigeons for dinner, and most

I

114 DOMESTIC AERAKGEMENTS.

reluctantly yielded to my refusal. They were all dressed like
the Avomen of El Bussah, but with the semadi and roll of
coins on the head somewhat smaller, the trousers tied at the
ankles, and bare feet. Smaller or more aristocratic hands are
rarely seen ; and all the women have very small, neat feet,
narrow hands, long taper fingers, and filbert nails. AVe
observed the same of both sexes here. Indeed, they have
been termed the Circassians of Palestine.

Our new friends were very curious to learn how ladies
dressed in England, and were highly delighted with the
exhibition of some " cartes de visite." But the meaning of
the expanded skirts puzzled them beyond measure, as they
had never seen anything like a petticoat, and thought it must
be impossible to carry it. Though not rich, all the women
here wear gold bracelets, sometimes three on a wrist, of solid
metal, twisted in the pattern of a rope, and the ends not
meeting, so that the ornament can be easily taken off. The
house was much in the same style as those of El-Bussah, but
larger and beautifully clean. The lower part of the room was,
as usual, shared by the cows and donkeys, and numbers of
pigeons in cotes above them ; but on the dwelling-fioor there
was not a speck of dirt, while the further end was ornamented
by a long row of terra-cotta niches fastened on to the walls,
with a prettily stamped pattern of a somewhat Gothic design.
These pigeon-holes contained wooden combs, spoons, knives,
and other small articles of domestic use and ornament. A
few wretched Greek coloured prints of saints shared the walls
along with labels carefully preserved from Manchester bales,
and old needle-papers.

In the evening we called upon the family of our host the
Sheikh, who were lodged next door to our room, and noticed
the same type of face and graceful figures as we had seen
elsewhere. Poultry abounded, and were by no means retiring
in their habits. In every yard the bees were hutted in their
pyramids of tilcs,^ but more carefully sheltered than in the
warmer villages below. The rest of the party returned with

» See pp. 86, 87.

RIDE TO MOHRAK^Vir. 11")

little in their bags, and the only additions to our natural
history stores were a species of sand-rat {Gcrbilkis, sp. ?)
caught in a trap below, the English chaffinch, and the
pretty meadow bunting of Southern Europe (Einbcnza cia, L),
certainly a rare bird in Central Palestine. With ten hours'
ride before us on the morrow, we were fain to retire early to
our carpets, and not for the first time did I find journal-
writing a liea%y task and a weariness to the flesh after the
more congenial exertions of the day.

December IG/A. — The clouds broke at dawn after a night
of heavy showers, and held out hope that we might to-day
escape the drenchings which latterly had been our lot. The
Sheikh not only supplied us with a guide to El-Mohrakah,
the place of Elijah's sacrifice, but proposed to accompany
us himself, in the hope, as he said, of hunting by the way.
They are early risers, those mountaineers of Esfia. On looking
out to scan the clouds at grey dawn, behold a bevy of the
voung ladies whom we had so much admired, with shovel in
hand and trousers tucked up to the knee, doing the work of
scavengers after the rain, as naturally as an English house-
maid might scour the door-step. Large parties of women and
children were hurrying down to the olive-yards with wide
wicker-baskets on their heads, the gathering of the olives not
being yet finished. On returning to our chamber, we detected
one of our mideteer's boys rewarding our host's hospitality,
by fiUing a sack with his olives in the corner ; when, to the
gi-atification of all except the culprit, a summary chastisement
and disgorgement of the spoils was inflicted ; which the lad
endeavoured to avert by assuring us of his intention equitably
to have shared the plunder.

By eight o'clock the mules were laden, and we rode on
accompanied by the Sheikh and all the dogs of high and low
degree the village could produce ; their joyous yelps when
they saw the guns evincing their opinion that if they started
the game to-day, it ought to be brought down by some one.
Wild boar, however, we saw not, though the glades were full
of his tracks, as well as of those of hysena and jackal, which

I 2

116 VIEW FROM THE TOP.

all abound in the thick cover of oak and brushwood that here
clothe Carmcl. We afterwards received from this place the two
largest hy?enas I ever saw, and were offered for a large sum
the skin of an adult leopard. The path was rough and rocky
along the crest of the ridge, till just above the Mohrakah,
where the mules left us to take the direct road to Nazareth,
We scrambled on for a little way in the saddle over rocks
and through thickets, till, close to a ruined cistern of some
size, we came upon heaps of old dressed stones ; and on
turning a corner, the whole view burst grandly upon us in a
moment. We were standing on the edge of a cliff, from the
base of which the mountain sank steeply down 1,000 feet
into the plain of Esdraelon, the battle-field of IsraeL

We looked down on a map of Central Palestine, The hewn
stones among which we stood, mark the site of the altar of
the Lord which Jezebel overthrew and Elisha repaired. To
this spot came Elijah's servant to look for the little clovid,
which at length rose to the Prophet's prayer, and portended
the coming rain, exactly as it does now. No site in Palestine
is more indisputable than that of the little hollow in the
knoll 300 feet below us, where the Lord God of Elijah mani-
fested His divinity before Ahab and assembled Israel, The
lower slopes rose abruptly beneath us from the plain. This,
though slightly inclining westward, appeared a dead flat,
bounded on the north by the hills of Galilee, generally bare
and woodless, and on the south by those of Samaria ; with
ISIount Tabor rising proudly behind on the east, and seeming
almost to span the distance across from Galilee to Gilboa.
We were overlooking the sites of the old cities of Jezreel,
Megiddo, Sliunem, Nain, and many others. The day was clear
enough to discern all the positions more or less distinctly, and
we had a panorama of three quarters of a circle. Imme-
diately below, on the banks of the Kishon, was a small flat-
topped green knoll, " Tell Cassis," " the mound of the priests,"
marking in its name the very spot where Elijah slew the
prophets of Baal, when he had brought them down to the
" brook Kishon." Eor twenty miles the eye could follow

PLACE OF SACRIFICE. 117

the vast expanse, with not a tree and scarcely a village
in its whole extent, now a desolate flat, swampy and brown,
though said in spring to bo a many-coloured carpet with
flowers of every hue. Behind us, on the one side of Carmel,
stretched the sea, whence rose the little cloud like a man's
hand ; and a long strip of Sharon ; on the other side we had
a peep of the plain of Acre and the sea washing its edge.
Down that distant Tabor once poured the hosts of Barak ; on
the edge of that Gilboa the shouts and the sudden gleaming
lights of Gideon's trusty 300 startled the sleeping Midianites ;
and in the unbroken darkness of another night, Saul crept
up that same Gilboa's side to seek the witch's cave, which he
quitted but to lose kingdom, life and army on its top, " for
there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away."

Across that plain fled in broken disorder the hosts of Sisera,
to be engulfed in the mud and swamps, and overwhelmed
in the Kishon, then, as to-day, swollen and treacherous, with
hardly a bush or a tree to mark its sluggish course. At the
further end of Esdraelon was scattered the routed army of
Saul ; across it marched the Assyrian hordes of Shalmanezer
to the final destruction of Israel ; and nearer still to Carmel
fell Josiah at tlia battle of Megiddo.

We remained here for an hour, drinking in the features and
the associations of the wondrous landscape, and then, leaving
our horses, descended by a slippery path to the Mohrakah, or
place of sacrifice. It is a glade overlooking the plain, some-
what in the shape of an amphitheatre, and completely shut
in on the north by the well- wooded cliffs down which we had
come. No place could be conceived more adapted by nature
to be that wondrous battle-field of truth. In front of the
principal actors in the scene, with the king and his courtiers
by their side, the thousands of Israel might have been gathered
on the lower slopes, witnesses of the whole struggle to its
stupendous result. In the upper part of the amphitheatre to
the left is an ancient fountain, overhung by a few magnificent
trees, among them a noble specimen of the Turkey oak. The
reservoir of the spring is stone-built and square, about eight

118 FOKDINCr TITF, KISHON.

feet deep, and the old steps which once descended to it may
yet be traced. The roof partially remains. The water is of
some depth, and is perennial. This was corroborated by the
existence of molluscs {Ncritina michonii) attached to the stones
within the cistern. In that three years' drought, when all
the wells were dry, and the Kishon had first sunk to a string
of pools, and then finally was lost altogether, this deep and
shaded spring, fed from the roots of Carmel, remained. After
we had drunk of this fountain, whence Elijah drew for the
trench round his altar, while Ahab sat under the rock, pro-
bably just w'here the oak-tree now grows, we toiled up again
to our horses, alarming the jays, and many a flight of wood-
pigeons (Columha 'palumhus, L.), rarely here disturbed.

The descent to the jjlain of Esdraelon was by a winding,
slippery path, and owing to the late rains we were compelled
to make a detour to the south, till we came upon a large
mound, apparently too regular to be natural, Tell Kaimun,
the ancient Jokneam, of which no trace remains save the
name and what may lie buried in the mound, which recalls
the sites of the villages of lower Egypt.

The Kishon was not fordable here, and we followed its
course for an hour, till we found the spot where our mules
had succeeded in passing. The water, though above the
girths, w^as shallow enough to admit of fording without
swimming, and not above twenty yards in width. Water-
hens, coots and little grebes were in their element, and large
numbers of swallows {H. cahirica) were skimming over the
plain, which, in spite of the season, afforded them a plentiful
meal of mosquitoes. After labouring through swampy mud till
we reached the edge of the GalihTean hills, we were compelled
to turn to the left, and kept close along their lower slopes.
The scenery was park-like, though man was wanting every-
where, and we often cantered through open glades, under
noble oaks and wild olives, or over shelving rocks of limestone.
This was the first time we had met with any natural forest of
old timber, and accordingly the black-headed jay (Garrulns
melanocejihalns, I>p.), and the pretty spotted w^oodpecker

ARRIVAL AT NAZARETH. 119

(Picus syriacus, H. and Ehrenb.) were added to our list.
Perhaps nothing could give the naturalist a clearer idea of
the scarcity of large timber in Syria than the fact that this is
the only species of the cosmopolitan genus, the woodpecker
which has been discovered in the country.

We passed the wretched village of Ta'baun, of evil repute
for raids, the inhabitants of which, though robbers by pro-
fession, did not look the richer for their trade. At the next
village we came up with our muleteers, who had had a heavy
day between rocks and quagmires. After assisting them across
some muddy ground, where the weary mules had many a fall,
and had again and again to be unloaded before they could
extricate themselves, we got a second time up on the spurs of
the hills, and, aided by the moon, pushed on ahead with our
dragoman to Nazareth. But not without a sad loss. Poor
Beirut was not to be found "SYe had fondly hoped he had
accompanied the mules, but the love of the chase had been
too strong for him, and he had been left on Carmel, to become
the prey of jackals, or to drag on a degraded existence among
the pariah dogs of Esfia. AVe felt we could well have spared
a better friend !

Our track lay for the most part up rocky wadys, and some-
times across a bare hill, where the ghost-like moan of the
little owl and the distant howl of the jackals alone broke the
silence, till, an hour after dark, we got through a gap in a
prickly-pear hedge, and found ourselves descending into the
town of Nazareth. We led our horses down its more than
steep streets, mere ditches of semi-fluid mud — on one occasion
pulling up on the roof of a house — and after escaping many a
hole and pitfall, in ten minutes more readied the door of the
Franciscan convent. The brethren received us kindly, pro-
vided us with two comfortable rooms, and, in an hour, with a
good dinner ; our mules arrived before midnight, and soundly
we slept after the heaviest day's work we had had.

Decemher 17th. — We went before breakfast to call on Mr
Zeller, the Church Missionarv Society's clergyman at Nazareth,
whose knowledge of Northern and Eastern Palestine is most

120 EXTENSION OF NAZ^UIETH.

extensive, and whose influence among tlie Bedouin slieikhs
is greater than tliat of any other European. AVe had from
him the information that Aghyle Agha was to return to his
government in a week. This was indeed good news, as on
him we chiefly relied for the successful prosecution of our
Transjordanic excui-sion in the spring. He has for some years
held the post of Governor of the district of Tabor, under the
Turks, who, with characteristic jealousy, were ever intriguing
against a man whose personal influence was indispensable to
their rule. Repeatedly the Pashas have endeavoured to have
him imprisoned or assassinated, till this year he was deposed
by order of the Porte, and compelled to retire to Gaza to
save his life. He has just been reinstated, owing to the
terror of the Turkish authorities at the utter lawlessness of
the tribes in his absence. All government has been paralyzed,
and robberies have been of daily occurrence. But I must defer
Aghyle's history for the present. AVe talked over our plans,
and j\Ir. Zeller traced out for us the routes which, with little
variation, we followed during the whole of our subsequent
wanderings.

After breakfast we set out to visit the principal objects
of interest in Nazareth. These are few, apart from the very
apocryphal localities of the monks, for Nazareth is the most
modern town in Palestine, and has only within the last
few years risen to any importance. Its rise is due partly
to its being a Christian and not a Moslem place, and partly
to its being the centre for the commerce of the districts east
of Jordan, which has attracted many active Greek merchants,
who carry on an export trade with Acre and Caiffa. Many
Christian famihes, driven by the raids of the Bedouin from
the unprotected villages of Esdraelon, have settled here. It
is rapidly increasing in population, and well-built stone
houses are rising in all directions. It is, however, scarcely
on the site of old Nazareth, which was on the brow of the
hill, but occupies most inconveniently the very steep slope.
Some of the streets are interrupted by the perpendicular
cliffs, which have no room for houses at their upper side, and

THE WELL OF NAZARETH. 121

which are being quarried for the buildings below. The
present town forms a sort of amphitheatre, and its extension
is altogether on the lo\A-er side. Mr. Zeller pointed out to us
many traces of the older city just above, and it was doubtless
to the brow of the hill, on the side of which the modern town
is built, that our Lord was led forth. There are still places
where a fall from above would be certain death, and where
the little kestrel {Tinnunculus cenchris) nestles in communities,
far out of reach of the boys of the place.

AVe -sdsited the richly decorated Eoman church, with the

so-called Virgin's grotto beneath it, and then went outside to

the fountain, a gushing spring, five minutes' walk from the

town, and doubtless the original fountain of the city. The

water is conducted to it from the hills by a conduit which bears

traces of antiquity, though the present is a modern building,

erected a very few years ago on the site of an older one. It

has six or seven constantly running taps over a trough-like

platform, where the children as well as the clothes of the place

are washed, while other spouts at the side supply the men

and horses, the front being resers'ed for the use of the women

exclusively. Hither, doubtless, went INIary daily for water,

accompanied by her Son; just as we saw the mothei-s of

Nazareth to-day. A long string of Nazarene matrons and

maids were filling their pitchers in turn, or washing their

clothes in the marble trough beneath ; while the men were

watering their horses and cattle at the other face of the

building, and meanwhile laughing and flirting with their

acquaintances ; for being a Christian town, courtship is the

custom, and the women have a voice in the selection of their

husbands. Yrom the open association of the sexes in public,

the Moslems accuse the Nazarenes of profligacy, but those

who have the best means of knowing, maintain that their

morality is high, and that they are infinitely superior in social

manners to their neighbours. The costume of the women is

like that of the Christian villages we had visited, with the

semadi and string of coins, but they are by no means of so

beautiful a type as the mountaineers of Esfia.

122

NAZAKETH.

We took a long ramble afterwards over those hills where
our Lord must often have wandered when a child. Bare and
featureless, singularly unattractive in its landscape, with
scarcely a tree to relieve the monotony of its brown and
dreary hills (I speak, of course, of their ivinter character),
without ruins or remains, without one precisely-identified
locality, there is yet a reality in tlie associations of Nazareth
which stirs the soul of the Christian to its very depths. It
was not the place where the sublimity of the scenery, the

NAZARiilU.

depths of the gorges, or the solitude of the forest, could have
filled a boyish mind with wild dreams or enthusiastic visions
— there was nothing here to suggest deeds of heroism or feed
tlie reveries of romance ; it was the nursery of One whose
mission was to meet man, and man's deepest needs, on the
platform of common-place daily life. " Can any good thing
come out of Nazareth ? " might naturally be asked, not only
by the proud Jew of the South, but by the dweller among
the hills of Galilee, or by the fair lake of Gennesaret. Our
evening was spent in pleasant conversation with ]\[r. Zeller
about his work and the people, and in examining a beauti-
fully-painted series of the plants of the country.

IVrOUXT OF THE PRECIPITATION. 123

Deccmhcr 18th. — It would be difficult to select a day's ride
so full of objects and reminiscences of all-absorbing interest
as our journey from Nazareth to Jenin. It was one of those
glorious days which so frequently break the dreariness of the
rainy season, and, with a keen wind from the south-east, the
weatlier had become settled and clear. The friars had taken
care to have our breakfast ready before dawn, and two of
them were in attendance to see to our comforts. They are a
kindly set of men, and without the bigoted, unscrupulous
activity which renders the Jesuits in Palestine so constant
a' thorn to our ^Mission. In fact, so little are the Franciscans
trusted at Eome, that a small band of Jesuits have recently
been planted in Xazareth to supply their deficiencies, and these
seem scarcely less friendly to the monks than to Protestants.
Having received the post-bag of the fathers for the convent at
Jenisalem, and that of Mr. Zeller for the Bishop, we were in
the saddle soon after seven. We descended from the fountain,
where the valley spreads into a small plain, and from the
opposite side of the slope had the best view of Nazareth,
facing eastward, with the brow of the hill overhanging it.
Fair at a distance, mean when near, it is only its intimate
connexion with the centre of all our hopes and blessings that
renders it so precious. Every path and rugged track must
have often been trodden by Him in childhood, and for what
else would we exchange the mystic charm of those bare and
stony hills ?

In half an hour we ascended the so-called Mount of the
Precipitation, and from its crest obtained a fine view of the
plain of Esdraelon, to which we descended by a disused track,
leading our horses down cliffs fit only for goats to climb, and
from the difficulty of which might be found a very good
reason for the monkish name of the hill. Tabor now stood
out on the plain in all its isolated grandeur. Indeed, but for
its isolation and its peculiar symmetry of shape, it would not
be very remarkable. Its elevation above the plain is not
more than 1,400 feet, and its platform may be about 500 feet
above the sea. It is no peaked height or bold mountain, but

124 IKSAL CHISLOTH.

a dome-shaped mamelon, connected only with the Galilaean
hills by a depressed ridge at the north-east ; but from our
point of view standing forth perfectly alone with an even and
graceful outline. Its northern side is well clad with forest ; its
southern is only sparsely dotted with shrubby trees, nowhere
crowded, generally the dwarf oak {Quercus cegilops, L. var.),
with a few evergreen ilices interspersed.

As we were descending the Mount of the Precipitation, we
overtook a native Christian pedlar, with his donkey ; and on
catechizing him about the neighbourhood, he told us there
were some curious riiins at Iksal, a village below (of wdiich we
could find no mention). Accordingly, leaving Deburieh (the
ancient Daberath) for a future opportunity, we turned down
to Iksal, which Dr. Eobinson has identified with the ChesuUoth
of Josh. xix. 18. To this Mr. Grove has objected, as, from the
position of the wood in the context, ChesuUoth ought to have
been between Shunem and Jezreel. Unless, however, we were
to make an eastern circuit, it would be difficult to place Chesul-
loth on the line between these two, where there is not the
slightest trace of ancient remains. But the Chisloth Tabor
mentioned in Josh. xix. 12, as in the border of Zebulon,
appears, from its connexion with Daberath, as well as from its
name, exactly to meet all the requirements of the text. On
entering the village, our pedlar guide led us down to what
seemed to be the remains of an old square fortress, with a
strong roomy tower at each corner. Asking permission of the
occupants, we entered one of these towers. We had to creep
in through an old pointed arch, which had been a gateway,
now choked with rubbish up to the spring of the arch, and
found ourselves at once in a large vaulted hall, with many
traces which pointed to its having been a crusading fortress.
The frequency of the early English arch, repaired in places
after the Saracenic fashion, decided this to our minds. There
was no trace of Roman work, though the people on the spot
stoutly maintained its architects were the Yehudi (or Jews).
From this hall another archway, nearly filled in with debris
and rubbish, opened into a second vaulted hall. Here were

KAIDS OF THE BEDOUIN. 125

traces of yet more ancient remains ; for a fine old sculptured
sarcophagus of marble was built into the wall, upside down,
at a height of about ten feet; and in another place, a singular
old vase, or altar, of black basalt — a material we had not pre-
viously met with — was inserted in the wall. Tlie vessel was
circular, with a diameter of a yard, had a broad rim of about
a foot in thickness, was slightly hollowed, and had a drainage-
hole perforated just beneath the rim. Had it been found
in the AVest, it would naturally have been set down as an
abnormal piscina, or diminutive font. Tlie other towers we
were not able to examine ; but they bore traces of having been
built out of the fragments of earlier and finer edifices.

From Iksal, leaving Tabor on the right, we struck straight
across the great plain of Esdraelon, to the village of Endor,
perched on the northern slope at the foot of Jebel Duhy, or
Little Hermon. Dreary and desolate looked the plain, though
of exuberant fertility. Here and there might be seen a small
flock of sheep, or herd of cattle, tended by three or four
mounted villagers, armed with their long firelocks, pistols, and
swords, on the watch against any small party of marauding
cattle-lifters. Grifibn xiiltures were wheeling in circles far
over the rounded top of Tabor ; and here and there an eagle
was soaring beneath them, in search of food, but at a most
inconvenient distance from our guns. Harriers were sweep-
ing more rapidly and closely over the ground, where larks
appeared to be their only prey ; and a noble peregrine falcon,
which in Central Palestine does not yet give place to the more
Eastern lanner, was perched on an isolated rock, calmly sur-
veying the scene, and permitting us to approach and scrutinize
him at our leisure.

The corn of this year's harvest had never been reaped,
owing to the war, and we rode on through the stubble of
down-trodden wheat-fields. Only a few weeks ago, the Sakk'r
Bedouin, the strongest tribe on the western side of the
Jordan, made a raid, and swept off the whole of the cattle on
the plain. The villagers naturally live in perpetual terror of
these freebooters, and every man guides the plough with one

126 TABOR AND HEKMON.

hand, and holds liis weapon in the otlier. (Neh. iv. 17.) The
protection of the Government lias proved worse than none.
The Turkish troops, who took care not to arrive till after the
retirement of the Bedouin, taught the unhappy fellahin to
pray, " Save me from my friends," judiciously selecting the
finest ])lots of standing corn for their camping-ground, in
order to save themselves the trouble of having to forage from
a distance ; which they followed up, in many instances, by
levying heavy fines on the luckless villagers for the crime of
non-resistance to the Sakk'r. When they appealed against this
on the ground of their helplessness, they were told that their
males ought to have fled in, and reinforced the Turkish troops.
Finally, after the Turkish locusts had eaten everything the
Arabian hail-storm had left, the Pasha of Acca published a
despatcli, announcing the retreat of the invaders before his
triumphant legions (who always kept two days between
themselves and the fugitives), and the campaign closed for
the year.

We soon came upon the division of the watersheds of the
Mediterranean and the Dead Sea ; one stream feeding the
Kislion, and a rill a few yards off from the same little marsh,
finding its way to the Wady Bireli and the Jordan. Between
a gap in the hills of Galilee, just behind us, the snowy crest
of Great Hermon glittered in the sunlight athwart the bright
green of Tabor. The contrast was startling, and it needed such
a view to realize in all its intensity the expression, " White
as snow in Hermon." A sparkling diamond, set half in the
clear blue turquoise, and half in emerald, seemed the crest of
that noble mountain. To our left ran the long and even, but
furrowed, range of Bashan, across the Jordan, with a faint
capping of cloud ; and further on, the taller crest of Ajalon,
with the white moon even now hanging over it ; while, on the
right, the dark hump of Carmel ran into the hills of Samaria,
and the corner of Gilboa stretched beyond Little Hermon
(Jebel Duhy) in front. It was one of the geograpliical lessons
of which the country is so full, and which no description can
adequately set forth.

c

z

ID

o

I

NAIN. 127

As we approached Eiidor, we could fancy the very walk
which Saul took over the eastern shoulder of the hill to reach
the witch's abode, skirting Little Hermon, on the front slopes
of M'hich the Philistines were encamped, in order to reach the
village behind them, a long and weary distance from his own
army, by the fountain of Jezreel, on the side of Gilboa. It
might be fancy, but the place has a strange, weird-like aspect
— a miserable village on the north side of the hill, without a
tree or a shrub to relieve the squalor of its decaying heaps.
It is full of caves, and the mud-built hovels are stuck on to
the sides of the rocks in clusters, and are, for the most part, a
mere continuation and enlargement of the cavern behind,
which forms the larger portion of this human den. The
inhabitants were the most filthy and ragged we had seen, and
as the old crones, startled at the rare apparition of strangers
strolling near their holes, came forth and cursed us, a Holman
Hunt might have immortalized on canvas the very features of
the necromancer of Israel. Endor has shrunk from its former
extent ; and there are many caves around, with crumbling
heaps at their mouths, the remains, probably, of what once
were other habitations. Subsequently, in our journey in
Southern Judaea, we saw many more, and more perfect,
illustrations of these ancient cave dwellings.

"We were now on the highway from Tiberias to Nain, and,
following the path along the northern edge of Jebel Duhy, in
about an hour or more we reached that spot of hallowed
memory. The foreground w^as singularly uninteresting, but
the distant landscape on the way was of striking beauty.
Hermon, clad in spotless snow, was now clear of Tabor, and
the two thus stood forth side by side ; Tabor, with its bright
green foreground, dotted all over with grey trees, contrasted
finely with the dazzlmg white of the former. Somewhere
near this the sacred poet may have passed when he exclaimed,
" Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in Thy Name." They are
eminently the two moimtain features of Galilee.

To the east of Nain, by the roadside, about ten minutes
walk from the village, lies the ancient burying-ground, still

128 BURIAL GROUXD.

used by the ]\Ios]ems; and probably on this very path our
Lord met that sorrowing procession. A few oblong piles of
stones, and one or two small built graves wdth whitened
plaster, are all that mark the unfenced spot. Nain must have
been a " city " — the ruined heaps and traces of walls prove
that it was of considerable extent, and that it was a vmlled
town, and therefore with gates, according to the Gospel
narrative ; but it has now shrunk into a miserable Moslem
village, i.e. a few houses of mud and stone, with flat earth
roofs, and doors three feet high, sprinkled here an.d there,
without order or svstem, among the debris of former and
better days. An old Mussulman rose up from his prayers to
point out to us what he said were the ruins of the widow's
house, a mere heap of stones, like the rest. It struck us as
curious that a Mohammedan should thus, unasked, have had
a locality to point out for a Christian miracle ; it can scarcely
have arisen from the number of inquiries after it, since Nain
lies somewhat out of the beaten track ; and though all the
great events of the Old Testament are handed down among
the Moslems in a more or less distorted form, their traditions
very rarely extend to the New Testament. This and the site
of the house of Simon the tanner at Jaffa are among the few
which occurred to us.

There is a painful sense of desolation about Nain. All
round is bare and forbidding, as though it had known not the
time of its visitation, and therefore its houses had been left to
it desolate. Still, one's mind is more solemnized, and the story
of the past rises up more vividly, in a dreary, lonely spot such
as this, than among the chapels and shrines wdiicli encumber
and disfigure so many so-called " holy places." Though tlie
buildings, the gardens, and the trees have all gone, the features
of the landscape remain, and they are what we w^ant. To the
west of the village, just outside the traces of the wall, is an
ancient well or fountain. Fountains never change, and the
existence of this one is, doubtless, the cause, of the place
remaining partially inhabited. The square cistern, arched
over with massive masonry, is very ancient, and the water is

SHUNE.M OR SULEM. 12!)

conducted to it from the hills by a small subterranean, square-
built aqueduct. AVe halted to examine it, A young Arab
girl had just been filling her pitcher, and we asked her for a
drink. She set down her tall water-jar, and teadily gave it.
On our offering her a small present, she declined it ; tears
tilled her eyes, and she said she did not give it for money —
she would take no backshish, but she gave it to the strangers
for the memory of her mother who was lately dead, for charity,
and for the love of God. In vain we pressed it — who could
not but feel a touch of sympathy ? — the poor single-hearted
girl kissed our hands, and we passed on.

A rather quick ride of about an hour round the base of
Little Hermon, into the plain to the south, brought lis from
Nain to the village of Shunem. A new geological feature
here presented itself to our notice. AVe had observed at
Nain many fragments and large rounded boulders of trap,
and sometimes pieces of columnar basalt; and we now
found that the south-west corner of Little Hermon is raised
up on a basaltic or trap dyke, and that the whole of the
lower portion of the shoulder here is basalt, which rises to
no great height, but presses forward, bulging in low roimded
mamelons into the plain of Esdraelon, while all the hills
above it consist of limestone in horizontal stratification. The
limestone adjoining the dyke was metamorphic several yards
tliick, and of a rich umber colour. It would appear, then,
that Little Hermon owes its elevation to the period of the
basaltic currents north-west of Gennesaret, and not to the
denudation which has moulded most of the Galilsean hills.

Shunem, now Sulem, a wretched mud-built village, lies low
in the plain, full in sight of Carmel, which bounds the other
side of Esdraelon, fifteen or twenty miles off. It gives no
trace, in its present state, of having ever had either a fair
Shunammite or a great woman among its inhabitants. There
was but one stone-built house, over the door of which
we observed a ifragment of ancient carved marble built in.
The place is surrounded by ungainly hedges of prickly pear,
and we waded knee-deep in mud through its lanes. We could

K

130 ZEllIN OR JEZUEEL.

see tlie bluff in tlie far distance, wliere the prophet stood and
recognised the figure of his hostess, as she hastened to unfohi
to him the tidings of her bereavement.

After half an hour more we began to ascend a low spur of
IMount Gilboa, or rather a projecting knob of rising ground,
covered ^\ith a few flat-topped huts, and with fresh verdure,
in pleasant contrast to the fallow plain below, but not relieved
by a tree or a shrub. This was Zerin, the ancient Jezreel. A
lovely position for a capital city, but not a vestige of it re-
remains. The very ruins have crumbled from desolate heaps
to flat turf-clad hillocks. On the crest a number of' Arab
boys were playing at hockey, near a marble sarcophagus, now
converted into a horse-trough. One other perfect and several
broken sarcophagi were strewn about, sculptured with the
figure of the crescent moon, the symbol of Ashtaroth, the
goddess of the Zidonians ; but these were the only relics of
the ancient beauty, no greater helps to the identification of
Jezreel than " the scull, and the feet, and the palms of the
hands " of the accursed queen, were the signs by which men
were able to say, " This is Jezebel." On that rocky slope
must have been Naboth's vineyard ; but not a shrub now
clothes the bare hill-side : here must have been the watch-
tower, where for miles we could trace the route from the
Jordan, by which, after dashing up round the knoll of Beth-
shean, Jehu urged on his horses over that smooth plain, as he
drove from Eamoth Gilead. Down that other side of the hill,
and across the plain to Engannim, " the garden-house " (2 Kings
ix. 27), now Jenin, he pursued the flying Ahaziah. With all
these points, so clear and unmistakeable, no destruction has
been more complete and utter, even in this land of ruins, than
that of Jezreel.

After a short halt, we followed the track of Jehu, but not at
his pace, till we came to Jenln, our resting-place for the night.
Our mules had taken a short cut across the plain, and had
long preceded us. We found that, under pretext of the
country being too unsafe to permit of camping, our servants
had stored our baggage in the house of a JMoslem, who lets

PALM-TREES. 131

a room to strangers. Here, as soon as the dinner-table was
removed, tliere was just space for five of us to lie down in the
chamber, packed like herrings in a barrel. Let no traveller
without a passion for practical entomology foUow our example
if he can do otherwise. Jenin is, for Syria, a tolerably flourish-
ing town, but of bad repute for robberies and Mussulman
fanaticism. The dress of the inhabitants is peculiar and
distinct. They wear no trousers, but a long blue and white
striped cassock, reaching to the ankles, and bound round the
waist by a broad red-leather girdle. It may be remembered
that this is the dress which Holman Hunt has selected for
our Saviour, in his picture of the Finding of Christ in the
Temple. The place is surrounded by rich gardens well
watered, and orauge-gToves, now laden with fruit ; and many
a palm-tree towers above the orchards.

There is a general impression that the date palm is now
scarce in Palestine. This cannot be said of the maritime
region, or of any of the more sheltered cultivated districts.
It does not exist in the hiU country, where the climate
must always have forbidden its gro^vth ; but as we have
seen, it abounds near Sidon, Acre, Caiffa, and many other
villages. Even about Nazareth there are many trees laden
with dates in the hoUows ; and here, at Jenin, they are
the feature of the scenery. The olive now becomes more
plentiful, for we are approaching Mount Ephraim, where
we have many a mile to ride under its sombre but plea-
sant shade, and where it continues to be more extensively
cidtivated than in most other parts of the country. We
had time, before darkness called us in to dinner, to take a
ramble among the gardens; but beyond the large Eg}T)tian
owl [Bulo ascalaphus), we saw no bird of interest ; and nothing
more valuable than the hooded crow, the ordinary bird of the
country, rewarded our exertions. The carrion crow of England
has not been found in Spia, but the hooded crow takes its
place, and, contrary to its habit here, remains throughout the
year, as it likewise does in Egypt. Our dragoman made sad
complaints of the dearness of provisions as we advanced

k2

132 TRADING CARAVANS.

inland ; oranges at twelve for a penny being the only cheap
articles, while eggs were three for twopence ; chickens, which
w^cre far from asi)iring to the size of bantams, a shilling each ;
and goata' flesh, our only substitute for beef and mutton,
eightpence per pound.

December V,)ih. — By the aid of the fleas, we were up long
before dawn, and got the mules off l)y daybreak. The day's
journey was to be a long one, as far as Nablous, the ancient
Shechem, or Sychar, where we wished to spend the Sunday,
making a detour to visit Sebustiyeh, or Samaria, and Dothan,
the scene of Joseph's sale by his brethren. Our course lay
south-west ; and we rapidly left the great plain, bidding
farewell, for the present, in succession, to the brow of Gilboa,
the death-Held of Josiah, and the rendezvous of Barak. Our
road was generally up the olive-clad narrow valleys which
lead from Manasseh's lot, the south-east portion of Galilee, to
the bolder hills of Ephraim, with an occasional little plain, or
vipland enclosed basin, such as that of Dothan, the most in-
teresting portion of our ride to Samaria. Just beneath Tell
Dothan, which still preserves its name, is the little oblong
plain, containing the best pasturage in the country, and well
chosen by Jacob's sons, when they had exhausted for a time
the wider plain of Shechem (Gen. xxxvii.). There is an
ancient well, near a deserted village, round which possibly
they sat, as we did for breakfast, talking over their bargain
with the Midianites.

Biding along the ridge of a hill, we saw below us, on
another track, a long caravan of mules and asses, laden, on
their way from Damascus to Egj'pt. An ass had fallen under
its load, and two men remained behind to rearrange it, when,
seeing six armed horsemen descending the hill, they fled, leaving
ass and cotton-bales to their fate. We galloped on, calling out
that we were only Franghi, not Bedouin ; and, reassured, they
returned to their merchandize. AVith our guns unslung, we
seemed to have a martial appearance, and, on coming up
with the caravan, had the laugh against them for their panic,
as we demanded backshish for our forbearance. They had,

PASSES OF MANASSEII. 133

besides the arsenal of dilapidated small arms wliich every
Oriental carries ronnd his stomach, only four armed horse-
men as a guard for the whole caravan ; a fact which spoke
well for the tranquil state of the country. We kept, from
Dothan, a route to the westward of the ordinary road, by
Kubatiyeh and Jeba, and had a lovely ride for six hours
among olive-groves, through gently sloping valleys, with occa-
sionally a brisk gallop in the open bottom. In one of these
was a sheet of water, merely tlie accunmlation of rain which
could find no exit ; and in the shallows, small flocks of the
beautiful stilted plover {Himantopus mdanopterus, Gm.) were
daintily wading, gracefully lifting their long pink legs, and
half folding them under their white bellies, as they stopped,
nodding and jerking forward their long necks in search of
tlieir insect food. Among the olive-trees we obtained again
the black-headed jay, and several specimens of the wood-
pecker, with its bright red collar beliind its neck. A splendid
imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca, Gm.) came and hovered for
some minutes over our path, but no gun was loaded f(jr him
at the moment. He was a sight such as the naturalist rarely
sees so closely — ^jet black, with pure white shoulders, and
white under the tail, he well deserved his imperial title. I
have never, in any museum, seen so magnificent a specimen.

We had just bid adieu to Plermon, of which we had our
last peep towering over the hills of Manasseh. As we
passed the defiles, furrowed by deep gorges to our left, the
east wind came down in violent gusts through these funnels,
with such sudden violence as to make our horses swerve.
These were the passes so often and so valiantly held by
Ephraim and Manasseh in their wars, and through one of
these the Syrian king must have marched when he attempted
to capture the prophet in Dothan. We only passed through
one village, Sileh, on the side of a hill, with a fountain
above it, after leaving Arrabeh, close to Dothan, on our right.
We found afterwards, on searching for these names, that we
had been preceded by Maundrell in this route more than a
century and a half ago ; but could not find them identified or

134 SEBUSTIYEH OR SAMARIA.

alluded to by later travellers. At Sileli we were well cursed
and abused for dogs as we rode through, sorry that so pleasantly
situated a village was not better inhabited. We were here an
hour from Sebustiyeh (Samaria), and from the brow of a hill
soon after we obtained our first view of a part of the ancient
metropolis. A few tall columns stood in rows, marking the
site, on the slope of a sort of amphitheatre of low hills. The
hills had been industriously terraced, and the terraces were
still in some measure preserved. These, when viewed from
the height, presented somewhat the appearance of a carefully
and trimly-cut flower-garden, with beds of all shapes, the
ever-varying sizes and heiglits of the terrace-sides forming
the earthen beds. The walls were all of limestone, very
chalky ; and we met with no more traces of basalt south of
Shunem.

Just after we had quitted the village of Sileh, L. had stayed
behind in an olive grove, and on reaching the opposite side of
the hill, at the ruins, we found he was not in sight. Giacomo,
in alarm, went back for him ; and with our glasses we could
make out the doctor riding furiously in a wrong direction.
"We could not follow him, and therefore remained at the ruins.
After we had left the place, he and Giacomo returned. He
had had a narrow escape, ha^dng ridden to some unknown
Moslem village, where he was mocked, insulted, and mis-
directed. Happily, he had fallen in with a native Christian
among the hills, who, for a backshish, was leading him back,
when Giacomo met them. Among these savage mountaineers,
we might well be thankful that nothing worse had befallen
him.

Before proceeding to the IMoslem village of Sebustiyeh, we
examined the lonely columns in this nook on the north side,
now completely isolated from the other remains. They seem
to be the remains of a colonnade, erected at the Herodian
period, which ran round this natural amphitheatre — if I may
so call it. Tliere are but sixteen left standing, some not more
than ten feet apart ; but none of the capitals remain, and it is
difficult to make out whether they belonged to the fagadc of a

LOXO COLONNADES. 135

luiilding, or were merely the ornaments of a street, like those
of Gerash. They are all partially buried in the soil, and not
above fourteen feet remain above ground, in their present
position. Thence we went to the village, which occupies,
perhaps, the centre of the ancient city. It is not large, and
is built entirely of stones from the ancient edifices. Its in-
habitants are all Moslem, and bear no good reputation ; but,
both on this and on a subsequent occasion, we found them
civil and obliging, and ready to point out M'hatever they
fancied might be of interest to us ; though, until they saw the
prospect of backshish, they scowled and muttered innocuous
curses. The track down the village was so difficult, that, as
at Nazareth, I found myself once on the top of a house,
looking into the yard ; but, happily, the roof was so strong
that my horse did not intrude on the domestic privacy of the
inhabitants.

We visited the noble church of St. John, round which the
modern village clusters, one of the finest Christian ruins in
Palestine, now perverted into a mosque, which, however, we
were allowed to enter, imder the guidance of the mollah. The
nave is roofless, with the apse and traces of the altar at the
end ; but the transepts have been covered in. There are many
broken tablets marked with the mutilated cross of the knights
of St. John ; and a little modern wely built inside covers
what is sho%\Ti as the tomb of John the Baptist, and reverenced
as a ]Mussulman shrine. We descended by some steps to a
little vault, where it is pretended he was beheaded. But,
apart from these apocryphal traditions, the pillars, pointed
arches, and round-topped windows are very fine, though not
in any pure style of Gothic architecture.

We mounted, and rode from the church to the top of the
flat hill behind, where are the finest remains of the Roman
Samaria, in a long street of columns like those iii the amphi-
theatre below, the numbers of which we did not attempt to
count. There must be more than eighty standing, and the bases
of many more still remain, forming the groundwork of a long
double colonnade, about fifty feet in width, leading to a ruined

in 6

FULFILMENT OF PROPHECY.

triumphal arch, or city gate, at tlie western extremity, From
this we had a noble view of the plain of Sharon, of the
proximity of which we hail no previous idea, and of the
jNleditcrranean beyond. Looking round, there was many a
peep over rich vallejs, studded with olives, and small fertile
plains ; but the platform on which Samaria stood is in one
remarkable particular somewhat like that of Jerusalem, in
being enclosed on all sides by other hills, which more or less
command it. How often from this spot must the besieged
Israelites have gazed upon the Syrian hosts investing their
city on all sides. One could picture, in fancy, the camp of
Benhadad in that valley below, while starvation wasted the

r^^V^ '-^?=^^^^- ,

SEBUSTIYEH (SAMARIA).

crowds within ; then the discovery of the panic of the Syrians
by the lepers, the rush at that gate just over the brow, and the
scattered garments and vessels along tliat valley by which the
invaders had fled towards the east. When, arain, we looked
down at the gaunt columns rising out of the little terraced
fields, and the vines clambering up the sides of the hill once
covered by the i)alaces of proud Samaria, who could help
recalling the prophecy of Micah : " I will make Samaria as an

ARRIVAL AT NABLOUS. 137

heap of the field, aud as plantings of a vineyard ; and I will
pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and 1 will
discover the foundations thereof" ? Not more literally have
the denunciations on Tyre or on Babylon been accomplished.
What though Sebaste rose, under Herod, to a pitch of greater
splendour than even old Samaria, the effort was in vain, and
tlie curse has been fully accomplished. In the whole range
of prophetic history, I know of no fulfilment more startling to
the eye-witness in its accuracy than this.

"VVe rode down into the little valley which leads up to
Nablous, watered by a bright rill which supplies the place ;
but on asking drink from a woman who was filling her
pitcher, we were angrily and churlishly refused — " The Chris-
tian doers miiiht get it for themselves " — " How is it that thou,
being a Chnstian, askest drink of me, which am a woman of
Samaria?" Thence, taking a shorter cut than the winding
gulley, we crossed some rugged hills, heaps of stones, and
rocks with scarce a vestige of soil, like cart-loads of building-
stones tumbled about, at once suggesting that stoning must
have been the ready and natural mode of punishment in such
a country. Stones, stones everywhere form the feature of
hill and valley alike, equally in the fertile and the barren
portions of the Holy Land. But the peculiar feature of these
hills was that they were a mass of rock, nof bare, as in many
cases, nor covered wdth scanty mould, as in most, but simply
with sharply broken and angular fragments, detached, pro-
bably, by the combined action of heat and moisture through
long ages of exposure.

Having crossed the hill, we entered the rich vale of Shechem,
or Nablous, clad with olives, full of gardens and orange groves
with palm-trees, and watered by plenteous rills. It was the
brightest and most civilized scene we had met with. Pas-
sengers on horse and foot, many of them unarmed, were
travelling to and fro ; camels, in long file, laden with cotton-
bales, were mingled with asses bearing firewood and baskets
of cotton-husks to the city ; and wild horsemen were galloping
in and out as they skiliidly threaded their w^ay among tlui

I

IP.S at!t:ival at nablous.

laden beasts. Jays and woodpeckers langhed among the
olive-trees, and a fox slunk past us to his hole ; while the
home-like caw of the jackdaw, whose acquaintance we had
nut before made in the country, was re-echoed from the
poplar-trees and the minarets.

Arrived at the gate of the town, no tents were to be seen ;
and we found that our muleteers, in defiance of our orders,
had taken our baggage to the Protestant School-house, telling
the master they had directions to that effect from Mr. Zeller.
We were provoked at the liberty taken, and still more at the
falsehood; but our Arabs evidently thought us most un-
grateful for the good turn they had done us in obtaining
comfortable quarters. It was too late to make any change,
for the sun had set. We submitted to our servants' arrange-
ments with what grace we might, and found ourselves com-
fortably installed in the Chapel-school of the Church Mis-
sionary Society — a neat little upper-chamber, fitted up for a
church on Sundays, and a school through the week. The
catechist was an intelligent young native, who spoke a little
English, having been educated at the Bishop's Diocesan
School in Jerusalem. We explained the mistake to him ; but
he was eager to receive us, and assured us the room had
frequently before been devoted to hospitality.

CHAPTER YII.

Nabloiis — Its Trade — Cotton — Sunday in the Mission School — Bislioi) Boivcn —
Arabic Service — A Protestant from Gilead — Shalein— Jacob's Well — Associo,-
lions of the Scene — Value of Wells — Joseph's Tomb — Moisture of Shechem^-
Gcrizim and Ebal — Fruit-trees — Joshxta's Assembling of Israel — Distance to
tvhich Sound Travels — Samaritan Temple — Altar Platform — Landscapes —
The Moriah of Abralw.m — Samaritan Synagogue — Rolls and Manuscrijits
— Tlic Priest Amram — Turbuloice of the People of Nablous — Commissions
for Jerusalem .

NABLors is by far the best towu we had seen since we left
Beyrout, and its houses are, as a rule, superior to those of
Jerusalem. The streets are cleaner, and often a little mill-
stream of purest water ripples down the centre ; for Shechem
was pre-eminently " a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and de^Dths that spring out of valleys and hills." The side-
streets are often like low cellars, quite dark, vaulted and
narrow : and so low, that the passengers can scarcely stand
upright, except in the centre of them. No windows can be
seen — only the little low doors, all carefully fastened. Yet
there is an incongruous but valuable importation here from
the West. Among the low Oriental domes and the tall palms
which here and there wave over the courtyards of Nablous,
rises a large modern structure of yesterday — neither more nor
less than a cotton-mill! The chimney is absent, for it is
merely a great warehouse and place for cleaning the cotton
for exportation; but even without that adjunct, the cotton-
factory in Shechem was as grotesque in appearance as in
idea. The busy hmn of the cotton-gins greeted us on all
sides, and heaps of cotton-husks lay about the streets. Cotton
has this year, in consequence of the war in America, become
the staple of the place ; and though we had seen everywhere
the signs of a nascent cotton-trade, yet in no place was it so

140 MISSION SCHOOL.

developed as here. It is one of tlie few towns wliere the
Moslems seem not indifferent to trade, and the only one in
the country, so far as I know, where the commerce is in their
sole hands. Indeed, the population of Nablous is chiefly
Mussulman. Out of 9,000 souls, for it has recently much
increased, there are not more than 650 Christians, not 200
Samaritans, and still fewer Jews. The Protestant congrega-
tion numbers 26 heads of families, chiefly, but not exclusively,
gathered from among the Greeks, and is now an organized
community, with its civil chief, or headman, recognised by
the Government.

Dcceiiiber 20th. — The desks and forms, wliich had been
heaped on the cov6red terrace outside our lodging, to make
way for our baggage, changed places with it soon after dawn ;
for we were up early, and breakfasted outside, that the room
might be ready for the Morning Service, conducted by the
catechist, at eight o'clock — or the second hour, as he called it.
"\Ve were much interested in the prospect of witnessing for
the first time a native Arabic service — held, too, without
European supervision. Our interest was deepened by the
recollection that Nablous was for several years the chosen
field of labour of the devoted missionaiy, John Bowen, who
consecrated his life and ample fortune to this work, until he
was called upon to occupy that foremost post of honour and
of danger, the jSIissionary Bishopric of Sierra Leone, where,
too soon for the Church, he succumbed to the deadly climate.
Since his departure, the post at Xablous has been relinquished
as affording but small encouragement ; but the Bishop of
Jerusalem has been enabled to maintain there the school and
native catechist, by means of his Diocesan Fund. Still, the
name of John Bowen, the " priest of the black beard," lingers
in the loving memory of many, both Christian and Moham-
medan, about Xablous. His works do follow him, and he is
mourned as a fatlier, not only by the little flock he gathered
round the cross, but by those whom his large-hearted benevo-
lence and kindness won to revere and love even " a Christian
dog." For bigotry and fanaticism are considered to be more

AliABlC SERVICE. 141

strongly marked in the iuliabitants of this district tlian in
any other, and many travellers have complained of the insults,
and even violence, to which they have been exposed. Tliere
had also been an outbreak, and a massacre of the Christians,
before the rising of 18G0. Whether it be that the presence
of a Turkish garrison (whose tattoo and reveille, performed
by French-taught drummers, morning and evening, awake the
echoes of Ebal and Gerizini) has repressed their antipathies,
I cannot say, but beyond the harmless muttered curses on
" the dogs," a few innocuous scowls, and the boys occasionally
spitting on our boots as we rode through the streets, we were
never molested during three visits which we paid to Nablous.
I have wandered alone, and sometimes unarmed, over the
hills and through the groves, and trespassed in many a garden
round Nablous, as I should not have ventured to do in some
other places of better repute.

As the congTcgation assembled, they turned into the school-
master's house, which occupied the opposite face of the terrace,
and sat down on mats in a circle round the wall. As soon as
a catechist and several natives from an outlying village had
arrived, they entered the chapel ; some sitting on the school-
forms, but the countryfolks evidently preferring a mat on the
groimd. They were twenty-six, all men; for Oriental pre-
judice is, as yet, far too strong among them to permit of the
mingling of the sexes, even for worship, except on very rare
occasions. We were told, however, that on the great festivals
the w^omen do attend, and that they would all be there on
Christmas-day, when the back part of the room would be
screened off for their accommodation. In rank and costume,
there was as striking a variety here as in the streets without.
The front seats were occupied by young men in their " Sunday
best," red or purple fez, bright slashed jackets, and trousers of
gaudy hue, with the patent leather shoes and white stockings
so affected by all young Greeks and Turks of fashion. The
villagers squatted in their brown abeyahs and cotton under-
garments ; but among them were two or three noble-looking
Bedouin, tall and sinewy, with their striped abeyahs, or

1-42 ARABIC SERVICE.

cloaks, — their striped yellow kaficlis bound round their heads
with the agyle, or w^orsted rope, and hanging with a straggling
fringe over their shoulders. Almost all had Prayer-books,
and knew how to use them. "We, too, were able to follow the
service, in some degree, by the aid of our English Prayer-
books, and felt the value of our common form, though in a
strange tongue. The responses were raised with hearty and
sonorous voices, although without singing or chanting, which
are a characteristic and striking part of most of the Arabic
services I have elsewhere attended. The catechist concluded
with a short sermon, read from a printed Arabic book, inter-
spersed with animated comments of his own ; after whicli,
I took my place within the rails, and addressed my fellow-
Christians in English, while the catechist of the neighbouring
village, who had a good knowledge of our language, inter-
preted fluently, sentence by sentence. The place and the
Advent season naturally suggested the text and the subject —
" Messias cometli, which is called Christ : wdien He is come.
He will tell us all things ;" and our worship was concluded
with the blessing.

The service over, we w^ere requested to follow the congre-
gation into the schoolmaster's house, to be introduced, in due
form, to our newly-found brethren. Seated on carpets which
were reserved for us on the dais at the further end of the
chamber, our hands were kissed, and all due compliments
passed, between the whiffs of the long chibouks which all of
them had resumed on leaving the chapel. Eegrets were
expressed that our coming had not been announced, as there
were children awaiting an opportunity of baptism, and a mar-
riage was impending. The chief of the community entrusted
me with letters for the Bishop, and gave many details on the
numbers, progress, welfare, and many difhculties of the con-
gregation. Among the latter was the common one of false
brethren, who had joined them for a time, out of pique with
their own priest, and had soon fallen back.

I liad been struck by the noble bearing of one of the
Bedouin of whom I spoke, whose long gmi stood against the

•r.

5

Jacob's well. 143

door, and asked for a special introduction to liiiu. He told
me he was a native of the Hauran, and an inhabitant of
Es Salt, on the other side Jordan, the ancient Eamoth Gilead.
He had had few opportunities of personal intercourse with
Protestants, but had been led to our Church by the purchase
of an Arabic Prayer-book, during his travels on business.
There had been an attempt made to establish a school at
Es Salt ; but the combined opposition of Turks and Greeks
(of whom there are several there) was too strong, and he
remarked Bishop Gobat's arm was not long enough to reach
across Jordan. His family, my new acquaintance told me,
were almost tlie only Protestants on the other side, and,
excepting when at Nablous occasionally on business (he was
a wool-merchant), " I must pray alone," said he ; but added,
after a pause, " God can hear on the other side Jordan." He
told us he had never seen but one European there, and ex-
pressed a hope, that when we should carry out our intention
of visiting Gilead, we would come and see him, as he could
point out many ruins which, he declared, were perfectly
unknown to travellers. He inscribed his name in my note-
book, and I gave him my card. Months afterwards, wlien
the circumstance of meeting him had quite escaped my
memory, it was recalled by his slipping my own card into
my hand in the bazaar at Es Salt.

One Sunday afternoon was devoted to visiting the most
hallowed spot near Shechem, the place in which our Lord sat
and rested on His journey — Jacob's Well. The distance is
nearly half an hour from the modern city, but it is evident
that the ancient town lay more to the east, among the rough
rocks and stone that strew the unenclosed and scattered olive-
yards for a mile and a half. As we passed through these,
Ebal's green sides sloped away more gently to the north, and
the bold face of Gerizim stood out more steeply, pierced with
caves and moistened by springs, on our left. The narrow
valley almost suddenly opens on the rich plain of Shechem.
A -vn-etched hamlet of a few hovels surrounded by low-walled
gardens fills the mouth of the valley. To the north a road

144 ASSOCIATIONS OF THE SCENE.

through the open bean-fields leads to the village of Askar, or
Azmiit, about 500 yards distant, with a few old trees just at
the eastern foot of IMount Y.hal ; then turning east it proceeds
to Sulini, an open village in the plain, identified by Dr.
llobinson with the Shaleni, in front of which Jacob encamped
after his passage of the Jal)bok and his meeting with his
brother Esau. From the Jabbok he crossed the fords of the
Jordan, not surely at the northern ford by the Wady Yabis,
where Dr. liobinson has placed Succoth, but much lower
down, opposite tliat valley which we can see opening out just
in front of us across the plain, and down which the little
stream from Sliechem drains into the Jordan. Up that wady
he leisurely drove his flocks when he had left his " booths "
in the scorched Ghor, and so he may naturally have been led
to halt and pitch in front of the village on the plain, which
still retains the name of Salim. Conversing as we walked,
on the precious associations which crowd into that narrow
space between Ebal and Gerizim, we wandered on, regardless
of the distance, and had reached the village of Salim before
we thou2[ht of lookinof for Jacob's WelL A few flowers had
anticipated spring, and beguiled the way — our first scarlet
anemones, the lilies of the field, were gathered to-day on the
plain of Shechem. The village seemed modern and insig-
nificant ; 'we took a hasty glance at it, did not even search for
its springs or fountains, and not observing any vestiges of
antiquity, remarked, " This is Salim," and turned back. We
discovered, when too late to atone for our negligence, that
the village is unexplored, and that much doubt has been cast
upon its identification, which a careful search might have
assisted in clearing up. But at the moment Jacob's Well was
uppermost in our thoughts. To it we returned. Two hundred
yards in front of tlie village at the mouth of the valley, is a
low mound formed of ruins, surrounded by a broken wall,
which encloses the remains of buildings and several prostrate
columns. As first seen in winter, there is an aspect of dreary
desolation about the spot. We clambered over the stones, and
towards the eastern end of the ruined enclosure came upon

JACOBS WELL. 145

the remains of a square vaulted cliamber, a portion of the
roof of which has fallen in, and which had been erected in
later times over the mouth of the well for convenience and
protection. On descending into the chamber we found an
irregular pile of stones over tlie mouth of the well, leaving
only a narrow aperture, but sutticiently wide to enable us to
look down into the shaft. We lighted twists of paper, and
sent them down in succession, so that for several minutes we
coidd observe the sides and bottom of the well. The width
of the bore is about nine feet, the upper portion built in M'ith
neatly-dressed and squared stones like the masonry of the
wells of Beersheba, the lower portion hewn, to all appearance,
out of the solid rock. The well was still deep, about seventy-
five feet, though evidently choked with many feet of rubbish.
At the bottom there was no water, but broken stones and
some wet mud, showing that it had recently contained water,
which indeed we found there afterwards in the month of
March.

"NVe mounted to the edge of the old vault, and read together
John iv. the first unfolding of a spiritual religion for the
whole world. Just there had our Lord sat, probably looking
as we did, towards Moiuit Gerizim, with that long, dusty road
which He had wearily travelled (the Wady ]\Iokhna) full in
view, while doubtless some trees, palm, olive,, or terebinth
then overshadowed the mouth of the well, and sheltered the
weary wayfarer. "When He sat there, the rich plain of
Ephraim was not, as now, bare and wintry, but carpeted with
a rich expanse of green corn, for it was " yet but four months
aud then cometh harvest." John iv. 35. The noble temple of
Gerizim, even then a ruin, every glance at which would shoot
a bitter pang into the Samaritan heart, stood just on the .brow
at the corner of the mount, commanding from on high the
entrance to the narrow valley up which the disciples had
gone to purchase provisions, while He entered not the semi-
Gentile city. That chapter of St. John, read by Jacob's Well,
brings vividly home the accuracy of the nari'ator. Tho
woman coming down to the venerated well for water, her

146 VALUE OF WELLS.

bitter prejudice against the Jew who asked her to give Him
drink even under the shadow of that temple which His people
had destroyed, — " Our fathers worshipped in this mountain ; "
the green corn suggesting to His mind in prophetic reverie
the coming harvest of the Gentile world ; the disciples re-
turning down the glen, and in mute astonishment not daring
to interrupt His conversation with the woman : eveiy incident
of the story comes home as we read and meditate. Among
the "UTangling disputes which have perplexed the antiquarian
and the geographer, and have cast doubt on so many sacred
localities, it is indeed a satisfaction to know that here at least
we are on a spot on the identity of which there has never
arisen any serious question. Dean Stanley speaks of it as
" absolutely undisputed." Jews and Samaritans, Christians
and j\Iohammedans, unite in attesting it. Eusebius and
Jerome mention it, and the latter refers to the Christian
church built over it, whose ruins and granite columns now
encumber its mouth, while no other spot could so perfectly
harmonize all the incidents of the inspired narrative. The
very ruins are in keeping with the scene, and we could not
but hope that the Latins may long defer the restoration of
the church, for which it is said they have obtained a firman,
but against the execution of which the Greeks have put in a
counter claim.

The sinking of a well in the East is a greater work than the
erection of a castle or fortress, and, whether the wells be those
of Abraham at Beersheba, or of Jacob at Shechem, they hand
down the name of their constructor from generation to gene-
ration, as the benefactor of posterity. It is the supply of water
and the well that decide the site of the Eastern city, and
whilQ the walls and even the whole position of the place,
as at Nazareth, may be changed, the fountain and the well
can never move.

How truly in keeping with Jacob's peace-loving character
as has been observed, was this act of sinking a well in the
plain at such enormous cost, so near the city and its abundant
s])rings and rills ; fearing lest his sons should be brought into

JOSEPHS TOJIB. 147

collision with the men of Shechcm concerniivj,- that water
which was far more precious than land. The laud might be
roamed over by his flocks, for the inhabitants were few ; but
the springs were not to be drunk up by the herds of the
stranger, Tlierefore, following the examples of his father
and his grandfather, Jacob determined to sink a well, but
profiting by tlie remembrance of their experience at Beersheba,
with characteristic caution he first purchased the piece of
land of the lord of the country — of Hamor the father of
fShechem. Gen. xxxiii. 18.

When we rose from the side of Jacob's Well, a few paces
brought us, doubtless still treading on that very parcel of a
field which Jacob had bought for 100 pieces of money, to
the reputed site of Joseph's tomb. It lies between the well
and the little village of Askar, where there is a copious
spring, and where, if the nomenclature would only permit,
one would feel disposed to place the ancient Shalem, so
exactly would it satisfy all the requirements of the text. It
stands just where the south-eastern comer of the range of
Ebal begins to rise from the plain. There is nothing remark-
able in the appearance of this little whited sepulchre, yet
there seems little reason to question the identity of the spot.
Tliere is another tomb under INIount Gerizim to which also
the Mohammedans give the name of Joseph, but this is stated
by the Samaritans to be that of a famous Eabbi Joseph. A
low wall incloses an open wely or chapel some twelve feet
square, and inside — not exactly in the middle, but placed
diagonally across from north-west to south-east — is a simple
raised, tomb about three feet high, under which are said to
rest the bones of Joseph. It has been preserved from moles-
tation from age to age by the common reverence in which tlie
patriarch is held by Jew, Samaritan, Christian, and Moslem
alike, while the fact of his name being the common property
of all, has prevented any one of them from appropriating
and disfiguring by a temple the primitive simplicity of his
resting-place. Thus, too, if report says truth, the fear of the
indignation of the population of Nablous recently prevented

L 2

148 GERIZIM AND EBAL.

an effort to search the tomb in the hope of depositing the
mummy of Joseph on a shelf in the Louvre. The walls
have many modern Hebrew inscriptions written or scratched,
but the building has no marks of antiquity, and is simply
whitewashed fnmi time to time. " And the bones of Jose])h,
which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried
they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought
of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem." (Josh,
xxiv. 32.)

Night was coming on before . we could draw ourselves
away from these hallowed spots, when a half hour's walk
under the olive trees transported us back from the patriarchs
to the bustling cotton-market of Nablous. Our host joined
us at our English evening service, and at its conclusion we
found the Samaritan guide Yacoob-esh-Shelaby, well known
to every English ^dsitor, waiting with a comi^liment of three
bottles of wine, an invitation to his house, and an ofiter to
be our guide over Gerizim. The examination of the sacred
mountain and of the Samaritan synagogue were well worth
another day, and we did not gTudge it.

Decemher 21st. — AVe enjoyed a view of the fine sunrise
from the roof of the school, though we were by this time
familiiir with the really beautiful landscape, which is I think
the richest in Palestine, and which, according to Van de Velde,
owes the variety of its tints to the exceptional moisture of
the valley. It is, like Damascus, one of those sites destined,
by nature to be a city, and where man, whenever he exists
there at all, is sure to congregate. It is the very centre point
of Palestine, the artery through which all must pass bqtween
north and south. Our stand-point presented the city in a
somewhat different aspect from that which is gained from
otlier positions. We were on the southern edge of the town
on the rise of Gerizim, and the city seemed spread out in line
along the valley, pleasingly broken by the groups of dark
orange-trees and occasional palm-trees, rather than in tlie
compact form which it assumes when viewed from either of
the enclosing hills. Nablous leans on Gerizim and avoids

JOSHUA ASSEMBLING ISRAEL, 149

Ebal, at the foot of which, in front of us, was a small level
space covered with ancient olive-trees, and rich green tnrf
below them, more English than Syrian in its elasticity and
fineness. Its sides are clad for some way up wdth the smooth
variety of the prickly pear, cultivated for the sake of rearing
the cochineal insect, so valuable for its crimson dye. Gerizim
facing north seemed more bare and scarped; caves and
springs diversified its face. Up the little wadys or nullahs
which furrowed its side rich fruit orchards of orange,
almond, pomegranate, peach, and fig-trees climbed till the
rocks were too bare to support them ; while on the highest
brow we could just see the wely or Mohammedail chapel
which marks the site of the ancient Samaritan temple.

As we afterwards ascended Gerizim with Shelaby we
noticed the many caves or hollows, from one of wdiich
Jotham must hath issued forth to utter in the ears of the
men of Shechem the first parable on record. There he
looked upon the olive and fig-trees below, and to the
bramble clinging to the rocks by his side for his illustration.
The acoustic properties of this valley are interesting, the
more so that several times they are incidentally brought to
our notice in Holy Writ, as on this occasion, when we are
told that Jotham " w^ent and stood in the top of Mount
Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried and said unto
them. Hearken unto me, ye men .of Shechem" (Judg. ix. 7),
and also in Josh. viii. 33, when, at a far more eventfid period,
we read that all Israel were gathered together there, " half
of them over against Mount Gerizim and half of them over
against Mount Ebal" when Joshua "read all the words of
the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is
written in the book of the law. . .before all the congregation of
Israel, with the women and the little ones and the strangers
that were conversant among them." This very statement
has been made the gi'ound for a- recent objection against
the veracity of the narrative. Yet it is impossible to con-
ceive a spot more admirably adapted for the purpose than
this one, in the very centre of the newly acc[uired land

150 SAMAEITAN TEMPLE.

nor ono which coiihl more exactly fulfil all the required
conditi(jns. Let us imagine the chiefs and the priests
gathered in the centre of the valley, the tribes stretching
out as they stood in compact masses, the men of war and the
heads of families, half on the north and half on the south,
crowding the slopes on either side, the mixed multitude, the
women and the children extending along in front till they
spread into the plain beyond, but still in sight : and there is
no dilliculty, much less impossibility, in the problem. A
single voice might be heard by many thousands, shut in and
conveyed up and down by the enclosing hills. In the early
morning we coidd not only see from Gerizim a man driving
his ass down a path on ISIount Ebal, but could hear every
w^ord he uttered as he urged it on ; and in order to test the
matter more certainly, on a subsequent occasion two of our
party stationed themselves on opposite sides of the valley,
and M'ith perfect ease recited the commandments autiphonally.
When half way up Gerizim w'e turned round and mounted
the shoulder of the hill till we came to a little plateau
perhaps 150 feet below the summit. Here the place of the
Samaritan sacrifice was pointed out, the holes in which the
lambs are roasted, and the pit into which the bones and offal
are cast to be ' burnt. We then climbed to the top, once
crowned by the ancient temple destroyed by Hyrcanus, wdiich
was afterwards restored, then changed to a Christian church,
and now shrunk into a miserable Mohammedan wely, rudely
constructed in the centre of the ruins. It is to be noted that
the site by no means overhangs the city of Shechem, but rather
the eastern plain, the w^ell of Jacob and the tomb of Joseph.
It is at the north-eastern brow of the range, inside the re-
mains of a massive wall, probably erected by Justinian as a
sort of fortress round the Christian church. The stones are
of great size, of the same limestone of which the hill is com-
posed, neatly bevelled round the edges, but undressed on
the face, in fact the third and latest type of the bevel. The
number of ancient deep wells both within and without the
enclosure is remarkable; all of them, so far as we could

LANDSC.VPE. J. 51

see, were now dry. About 200 yards to the southward, and
apparently in the rear of the ancient Christian church, were
a row of twelve stones in the ground, pointed out to us as the
stones of the ten ^ri'Scs, brought up by Joshua from the Jordan,
and a few paces further on was the spot esteemed most holy
by our guide. This is a large bare rock sloping towards the
west, and having a deep cave or well in its rear, apparently
used, if this were the stone of sacrifice, for the drainage of
the blood and offal. The correspondence between this and
the pierced rock in the centre of the Mosque of Omar, the
presumed site of the great altar of burnt sacrifice, strikes the
observer at once. It is not improbable that the Samaritan
temple was in its type accommodated to that of Solomon, so
far as difference of position admitted ; and that on this prin-
ciple the hollow behind the great altar was excavated.

AVe climbed by a broken staircase to the roof of the wely,
without offending an old devotee who was there, and thence
enjoyed a prospect unique in the Holy Land. That from the
summit of Nebo surpasses it in extent, that from ]\Iount
Gilead perhaps in grandeur of effect, but for distinctness and
variety of detail Gerizim has no superior. We thought we
had bid adieu to Hermon, but once more it rose before us in
spotless purity far beyond and above Tabor, Gilboa, and the
lesser hills of Galilee. On our right we could trace the trans-
Jordanic range from the Sea of Galilee, Bashan, Ajlun,
Gilead, down to Moab. On the left, the Mediterranean formed
the horizon from Carmel perhaps to Gaza, while Joppa and
Cffisarea could be distinctly recognised. The southern view
was more limited, being shut in by the hills of Benjamin. At
our feet to the right was spread the long plain of Mokhna, into
which the vale of Shechem debouches, where Jacob pastured
his flocks, and where there was ample space for the tents of
Israel when gathered thither by Joshua. All Central Pales-
tine could be taken in at a glance, and the lesson of geography
could not easily be forgotten. We looked straight down
upon the parcel of ground, Jacob's first possession, marked
by the tomb of his son and the weU which his fear of tlie

152 THE MOEIAII OF ABKHA.\.M.

men of Sliechcm impelled liim to sink. Above our heads no
less than six imperial and golden eagles kept circling almost
Avilhin shot, as wondering at our intrusion.

There are many writers who feel disposed to add to the
associations of Gerizim one more sacred still — believing it to
be the spot on which Abraham offered up Isaac. The origin
of this theory is primarily the Samaritan tradition. But
this surely is of little weight, for the Samaritans have very
naturally taken care to appropriate to themselves and their
holy places as many of the patriarchal sites as possible, and
the bitter rivalry between the claims of Jerusalem and Ge-
rizim would induce them eagerly to seize any ground for
honouring Joseph above Judah. Some of the arguments for
Gerizim have a strong prima facie plausibility as contrasted
with the site of Solomon's Temple, as, for instance, Abraham
lifting up his eyes and seeing the place " afar off," which,
strictly true of Gerizim from all points of the compass, is not
applicable to the Temple site. But the words "afar off" as a
measure of distance are most vague and indefinite, and " the
place " might be taken in a wider sense than the exact rock
on which he was to devote his son. Not indefinite, however,
is the statement that it was on the third day that he reached
the neighbourhood, and though " afar off"," it was not so far
but that he could calculate upon arriving at the spot, though
delayed by the burden of the wood, performing the sacrifice,
and returning to his yoimg men before sunset, else he would
have taken provision with him. Now, travelling at the ordi-
nary rate of the country, Jerusalem would just be reached on
the third day from Beersheba — to reach Nablous in the same
time is impossible^ at the pace of fellahin with their asses.
Nor will it remove the difficulty to suppose Abraham to have
travelled by the ])lain of Sharon. The time occupied would
be as long, and the fatigue to the ass, if not to the pedestrian,
greater. I have traversed and timed these routes repeatedly

1 Well-inouiittMl Kur()])caiis frciiiunlly riJc in one day from Nablous to
Jerusalem ; hut their muleteers aud haggage occupy two days. The traders
or carriers usually camp at Bcitin, or Bcerotli.

SAJkrARITAN SYNAGOGUE. 153

in a greater or less portion of tlieir course, and feel satisfied
that so lonrj as the sacred text remains as it is, " on the third
day," the claims of Gerizim are untenable. There is certainly
also a peculiar fitness in the offering of the t}-pe having taken
place on the same spot as the offering of the Antitype, the
Great Oblation for the sins of the whole world.

We descended the mountain at this north-eastern corner,
instead of winding by the side valleys, and passed through
the long street by the fine facade of a ruinous mosque over
a Crusaders' church, but which no Christian can enter. The
hum of the cotton-bow murmured on every side, and the
walls were dripping with the juices of cochineal and indigo,
as the webs of silk or cotton were hung out to dry. In a
fountain at the east end of the town, about the first which
drains toAvards the Jordan (for Nablous is just on the water-
shed of the eastern and western slopes), we noticed a number
of tiny fish, and, using our pocket-handkerchiefs for nets,
with the assistance of a good-natured negro, who had just
finished his devotional ablutions, secured several specimens
of the minnow-like Cyprinodon cypris, Heckel — a species quite
different from those we obtained near the Dead Sea and in
the Jabbok. Several fossils were also collected, ammonites
and others of the lower chalk.

We afterwards went to visit the Samaritan synagogue, the
only place of Samaritan worship in the workl, unique in its
form, in its creed, and its language. The building and its
surroundings are in keeping with the position of the op-
pressed and obscure race to which it belongs. It is a vener-
able but humble edifice, strangely concealed from observation
amongst a labyrinth of buildings, vaulted archways, and dark
passages, through which we groped till we entered a little
garden and a small clean courtyard, where we left our shoes,
and entered the gloomy synagogue, scantily lighted from
above, and consisting of a square nave, with a small transept
at the end facing the door, and on the left, or east end, a
chancel, or square recess, in which the sacred rolls are kept
behind a curtain. There was some difficulty about obtaining

154 THE PRIEST AMRAM.

a siglit of the rolls, wliicli was speedily surmounted by the
payment of a liberal backshish, though before the curtaiu
was drawn, and the precious treasure produced, Aniram, the
high priest, took care, by some pretext or other, to dismiss
all the loungers of his co-religionists who had accompanied
us. "When all save the junior priest and Shelaby had been
put out, with much deference and trembling hands Amram
brought forward the roll which was shown to the Prince of
Wales, and which is well known by Mr. Bedford's photo-
graph of its cylinder. The old man's frame convulsively
quivered as he produced it, and he seemed to be in momen-
tary dread of the fate of Uzzah, or at least of Uzziah, for his
profanity in exposing the holy relics to the eyes of unbe-
lieving strangers. We could not but fancy that the rolls are
to these Samaritans the objects of intrinsic worship, their
very gods. The graven image, the sculptured figure, the pic-
ture, even, is shunned, but the material of the written word
has taken their place as the object of visible adoration.

Amram is a fine old man, of noble countenance, with his
long grey beard and meek eyes, as becomes the descendant
of Levi, — truthful too, and with a strong sense of pecuniaiy
morality, which is not conspicuous in his co-religionists.
I much regretted that our want of a common language com-
pelled us to dilute our conversation through the medium of
an interpreter, in whom even my slight knowledge of Arabic
enabled me to detect inaccuracies, all tending to the exag-
geration of things Samaritan. We were shown several other
books of the law in the Samaritan, or, more strictly speaking,
in the old INIosaic character, for here the Jews are the inno-
vators, and, as Amram observed, Moses himself could not
read his own law, as written by the " Yehudi." These books,
though bearing the evidences of great antiquity, and seeming
more venerable than the roll itself, were not rolls, but leaves
of parchment, stitched together like a modern book, and
wrapped in innumerable folds of silk handkerchiefs, which
were severally and slowly opened out, so that darkness was
upon us before we left the synagogue. Knowing, however.

SAMARIT.VN PENTATEUCH. 155

that there was an older roll by far, which had uot boon
shown to lis, we lingered and waited still, by no means dis-
comfited by Amram's repeated declaration that we had seen
all, and that even the Prince saw no more. A pecnliar look
and sign from the younger priest induced us to give up our
quest, and to retire. He was a man of very different type from
Amram : cunning and meanness were in his eye ; he has not
the learning nor the strong faith of his senior, whom he will
one day succeed, and whenever he does, I suspect that Xablous
will be robbed of its most precious gems, and that tlie Sama-
ritan Pentateuch ■v\'ill have to be sought for in the West.

AVe went afterwards to tea with Yacoob esh Shelaby, who,
ha\'ing been six years in England, prided himself on under-
standing how to preside at the tea-table, ^fany of his brethren
were coming and going, all of them fine-looking and intelligent
men, and many, but not all, with the strongly-marked Jewish
cast of countenance which we might expect from their Israel-
itish descent. All wore the red turban, the peculiar badge
of the sect, while white is appropriated to the Moslems, green
being the exclusive colour of the shireefs or descendants of
the prophet, and black or purple left to the Jews and Chris-
tians. The crimson turban of the Samaritans was noted by
Sh- John Maundeville fixe and a half centuries ago, and doubt-
less dates, like their other usages, from still higher antiquity.
The house was spotlessly clean, and furnished more elabo-
rately than is the habit of the Mussulmans, — an upper gallery,
frequented by the ladies of the house, fonning part of the
reception-room in which we were entertained. From time
to time the subject of the ancient rolls was introduced, and
though Shelaby himself was voluble and communicative, he
seemed unwilling or unable to give the information we
sought. The younger priest mentioned above was evidently
on most intimate terms with our host, and remained after the
other guests had departed. He then, with an air of the most
solemn mystery, informed us that for a liberal backshish he
could show us all we wished to see, but that it could only
be managed under a promise of secresy. First of all he pro-

156 SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH.

diiccil several fragments of old rtjlls, and some ancient manu-
script books — tlic former, portions of the law ; the latter,
service-books — which he offered for sale. After some hesita-
tion, but feeling that our only chance of examining the syna-
gogue rolls at our leisure must be by previously propitiating
the priest, a bargain was concluded as to one of the rolls, more
in his interest than our own, but only on condition of our
having fidl opportunity of inspecting the treasures of the com-
munity. At length, in the darkness of the night, I was con-
ducted alone to the synagogue. A light was struck at the
door, and the priest, with an affectation of terror, as though
he had been committing an act of sacrilege, admitted me,
locked the door behind us, and silently held the light with
trembling hand as the curtain was drawn and the rolls and
their cylinders examined. The second roll we had seen
before, but the oldest was now produced, wrapped in many
folds of tarnished brocade and rich but faded satins. The
case and appearance of this roll have been fully described by
Mr, Grove in " Vacation Tourists," 1861. There is nothing
abont the old gilt cylinders to corroborate the assertion of
their immense antiquity. Mr. Grove assigns to them a date
of 450 years back. The roll itself is doubtless much earlier,
though the Samaritans would have us believe it is in the
handwriting of Abisha, the son of Phinehas, and the priest,
with grave face, declared that Dean Stanley, when with the
Prince, had concurred in this tradition. Wlien I told him
what the Dean had written on the subject, he laughed, and
said that at any rate it was the work of Manasseh, the higli
priest in the time of Ezra. But if we take 1,000 or 1,500
years from this, it still remains a venerable relic. Dr. Deutsch
considers that none of the Samaritan MSS. which have
reached Europe are older than the lOtli century A.D., but he
would probably assign a much higher antiquity to this, tlie
parent roll. AVe unfolded it to its commencement. The
earlier portion, having been less exposed than the centre,
wliich is annually kissed by the connnunity, retained a
freslmess in the appearance of the parchment which to our

TITEBULEXCE OF THE PEOPLE OF NABLOUS. 157

unlearned eyes militated against its great antiquity. The
■writing appeared not of ordinary ink, but of some gilt or
Lronzed composition. The priest pointed ont, not far from
the middle of the roll, letters projecting from the ends of the
lines at irregular intervals, and continued through several
columns. This, he said, was the inscription stating the name
of the transcriber and its date. Our ignorance of the Sama-
ritan characters, of com-se, prevented our deciphering this
quaintly-placed colophon.

It was nearly midnight when we quietly stole from the
synagogue, mourning our ignorance of Samaritan, puzzled
about the conflicting claims of antiquity, but quite convinced
of one thing, that whenever the junior priest succeeds Amram,
the fate of the old roll is sealed, and that the cylinders will
enclose a modern copy so soon as a sufficient price has been
offered for the original.

Decembci' 22. — The morning was fine and clear. "We break-
fasted in the chapel, by candlelight ; and before seven o'clock
all our baggage was loaded in the street, and the long pro-
cession started from Nablqus, on its way to Beitin (Bethel).
The noise of the crowd was deafening, their gesticulations
fraiitic, as every possible and impossible claim for backshish
was thrust with a yell into our faces. Two days' provisions
were to be laid in, and the vendors of musty eggs, attenuated
chickens, and rancid butter, all demanded a substantial ac-
knowledgment for having generously, on our behoof, parted
with their wares to our dragoman at double the market price.
One man had held a horse, another had attempted to catch a
mule, and a boy would have carried the boxes down had he
been allowed. The demeanour of the crowd grew threatening
when all were sternly refused, till, not wishing to provoke
a row in the fanatic city, we at length drew forth some small
coins, and pacified the foremost. The Moslems of Sychar
have, certainly, no objections to dealings with the infidel, if
they can make money; and a thievish, extortionate set we
found them. But let us except the Samaritans proper, whose
pecuniary transactions are far more subtle and decorous ; and

158 COMMISSIONS FOR JERUSALEM.

the rrotestants, with their worthy catechist, who treated us
as brethren, and entrusted to us a quantity of jewellery and
gold for their friends at Jerusalem, for whom some of them
work as goldsmiths.

We had several business commissions to execute for our
friends, which pleasantly illustrated the way in which com-
munication and trade is still carried on in the East. For
instance, bars of gold had been sent to the smith at Nablous
to work, the note of the weight of which was shown us ; then
the article manufactured and the remainder of the ingot were
weighed in our presence, and handed over to us, it being
explained that so many grains were retained, as an English
jeweller would term it, " for fashion." I suspect a London
goldsmith would have been ill satisfied to work for such
a sum. Among others, a young man entrusted to me a
gold bracelet of considerable weight, but not of very artistic
work, being, in fact, a string of small gold splints, or wedges,
run together on a thread, which I was to place in the hands
of a lady in Jerusalem, who was to deliver it to a young
person in the school there. This, information was conveyed
with much hesitation and circumlocution ; in fact, as I after-
wards discovered, I was to act the part of Eliezer, on behalf of
Isaac to his Egbecca ; and the bracelet I was conveying was
a declaration and well-understood proposal of marriage.

CHArTEPt YIIL

Plain of Shcchcm—Lehormli—A larm of Shepherds— Situation ofSciMn (Shiloh)
Jtui7is — Beasonsfar its Selection by Joshua — Variety of Flowers — Ain Ilara-
mtyeh, Tlie Robber's Well — Bethel— Ancient Cistern— Old Woman and }icr
Sticks — Robbery and Restitution — Frost — Abraham's Camp — Its Site — Mick-
mash— Rireh or Bceroth— Crusading Church— Gibeali, Mizpah, and Ramah
— Meeting with M. de Saulcy — His Discoveries — First View of Jerusalem —
Russian Hospice — Camj) by the Jaffa Gate — A Volunteer Sentry — Missions
in Jerusalem — Jewish Converts' Quarter — Bishop Gobnt's Schools — English
Church — Visit to the Mosque of Omar — TJie Sakhra — Stone of Sacrifice — El
Aksa — Vast Substructures — Immense Stones — Pillars — Arches — Golden Gate
— Botany and Ornithology of the Ilaram — Doves, Ravens, and Crovs —
TJie Syrian Mole — Quarries of Jerusalem — Stcjis in the Rock to the City
of David.

From Nablous to Beitin, passing by Shiloh, we had a ten
hours' ride to make ; and the wind blew rather cold in the
early morning, so that for the first time some of our party
mounted greatcoats. M., always indefatigable, kept up the
circulation on foot, and was rewarded by several birds, addi-
tions to our Palestine list. AVe rode along the plain on which
our Lord trode His weary way in the heat ; and at the outset
we turned aside to take another look at Jacob's Well. For
several hours we wound up the narrowing valleys of Ephraim
to its southern hills. The plain was rich and fertile— one
vast unfenced corn-field, in which the rooks (the first we had
seen) were following the ploughs, unconcerned at the strangers'
approach. The surrounding hills M-ere all ribbed by the
ancient terraces to their tops, and on their lower slopes clad
with gnarled blue olive-trees. A few hoary stragglers from
the olive-yards still lingered in the plain, dotted here and
there, and pleasantly relieving its monotony at the southern
end ; but not a house was to be seen, nor any other tree than
these olives. Only here and there, on some hill-top inac-

160 LEBONAH.

cessible to the Bedouin horseman, tlie low-huilt little cluster
of hovels might he descried.

After four and a-half hours, we had to climb a low rocky
ridge in front, and from its crest turned to gaze on the rich
portion of Ephraim, which extended far as the eye could
reach, still as fertile and as thinly peopled as when first pro-
mised to Abraham, three thousand six hundred years ago.
Descending the hill, we left an old bleak-looking village,
Lubban, the ancient Lebonah, on our right, and, a mile
further on, halted at its gushing fountain, Ain Lubbun,
witli an extensive heap of ruins round it, apparently an old
khan. Here we left our mules, to take the direct road to
Bethel, turning ourselves, with two servants, to the east-
ward, to make a detour to the site and ruins of the holy
Shiloh (now SeiMn) — " Shiloh, on the north side of Bethel,
on the east side of the highway that goetli up from Bethel
to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah." (Judg. xxi. 19.)

"We had to keep together, for the inhabitants of the district
have not the best reputation, though it would require more
courage than Syrian peasants usually possess to molest seven
well-armed horsemen. The scanty, scrubby vegetation, the
few sages, and the Poterium s2n7iosum, which held a little
scanty soil together by its roots among the rocks, at once
bespoke a change in the character of the district. The
birds, also, were different. We met again with the chats
(Scwieolinoi) of the northern rocky hills ; and the pretty black
redstart, which we had not seen for many days, hopped from
rock to rock. I obtained one chat, after a long pursuit, which
struck us as being distinct from the others, and which proved
to be the Arabian species (Saxicola xanthomelcena, Ehrenb.),
the only specimen we ever saw.

As we were slowly winding up a narrow, trackless glen, we
heard shrill whistles from the tops of the surrounding hills,
and answering signals, till at length a shepherd-lad suddenly
appeared liom behind a rock lower down, and called out in
Arabic, " No fear ; they are only Eranghi ! " The signals had
been those of alarm, presuming that we were a party of

SITUATION OF SEILl&N. Ifit

Bedouin, come for a cattle raid, a common amusement of
those gentry. One man after another now showed himself
over the hills, reassured by the announcement ; and we soon
found there had been many an eye upon our movements,
unseen by us. However, the poor fellows were very civil,
though they were unable to convince us of the justice of their
claims to the vociferously-demanded backshish.

A short turn in the wady, and then a scramble of two
hundred yards up its side, brought us to Shiloh, the modern
Seilun. Its situation is, at least when visited in winter, most
dreary and desolate. AVe had been gradually leaving the
fertile lands of Ephraim, typified by the strong and sturdy,
yet peaceful bullock, and were approacliing the rugged, barren
hills of Little Benjamin — barren and more forlorn than the
most sterile districts of continental Greece. Shiloh is a mass
of shapeless ruins, scarcely distinguishable from the rugged
rocks around them, T.\dth large hewn stones occasionally mark-
ing the site of ancient walls. Generally, however, the stones,
if they ever were dressed or shaped, have utterly lost all
traces of art, and are as shapeless and irregular as any flint
that has been disinterred from the gravel-beds of Abbeville.
Tliere is one square ruin, probably a mediaeval fortress-church,
M'ith a few broken Corinthian columns, the relics of previous
grandeur. On the eastern slope of the hill, on the top of
which this church is perched, is a fine terebinth-tree (the oak
of Scripture), in front of a massive, half-buried vaulted build-
ing, with a flat roof, and some old Corinthian pillars within —
a church transformed into a mosque. We crept into it on
hands and knees, but could find no trace of any sculpture or
carving earlier than the Eoman period. No one relic could
we trace which in any way pointed to earlier times among all
the wasted stone-heaps which crowded the broken terraces.
So utterly destroyed is the house of the ark of God, the home
of Eli and of Samuel. " Go ye now unto My place which was
in Shiloh, where I set My Name at the first, and see what
I did to it for the wickedness of My people Israel." (Jer.
vii. 12.)

M

h

162 REASONS FOE ITS SELECTION.

We sat down on that desolate heap for lunclieon, and then
read the history of Eli and Samuel. Scarcely a tree, not
a house, -vA-as in sight ; straggling valleys, too open to be
termed glens, within an amphitheatre of dreary, round-topped
hills, bare and rocky without being picturesque, were the
only characteristics of this featureless scene. What then, one
naturally asked, was the cause of the honour put upon Shiloh
in making it the religious centre of Israel through so many
generations, and the gathering-place whence the land was
allotted to the tribes by Joshua ? One reason may probably
be found in this very natural unattractiveness, inasmuch as
it was a protest against the idolatry of the people of the
land, which selected every high hill and every noble grove
as the special home of their gods ; here being neither com-
manding peak nor majestic cedar, neither deep glen nor
gushing fountain. But moreover, it was a central point for
all Israel, equidistant from north and south, easily accessible
to the trans-Jordanic tribes, and in the heart of that hill-
country which Joshua first subdued, and which remained, to
the end of Israel's history, the district least exposed to the
attacks of Canaanitish or foreign invaders. There is so little
to mark the spot, or to attract the traveller's notice, that it is
only twenty-five years since it was rediscovered, in spite of
the precision with which its site is pointed out in the Book
of Judges, and of its Hebrew name having been handed down
with so little variation of form. It is never mentioned by
any of the historians of the Crusades, though the ruins attest
its occupation at that period.

After descending the hill we rode along the rugged bed of
a winter torrent, which had torn its deep course through a
mass of diluvian gravel, covering the limestone. Fossils
were plentiful in the rocks of Shiloh, all apparently of tlie
chalk age. A small echinus (Echinus syriacus, Conrad), two
gryphffias {Or. ccqmloidcs and Gr. vcscicularis ?), and several
casts of a spiral univalve, as w^ell as a fragment of an
ammonite, were collected. As on Mount Carmel, the gr}^ih8eas
were the characteristic fqssils, and occurred in great masses.

4

THE robber's well. 163

Both among the ruins, in the earth of the cultivated terraces,
and in the gravel below, were numerous pieces of variously-
coloured mosaics and fragments of coarse pottery. Most of
the mosaic pieces were of a coarse marble, different from the
limestone of the locality, and indicating the extent or con-
sequence of the place in the Eoman period. Since there is
still mnch terrace-cultivation the valley might have worn a
less dreary aspect in spring. As it Avas, L. was delighted by
quantities of the mandrake in full blossom, and a white
crocus, which sprang out of every little cranny in the rocks.
It seemed distinct from any species cidtivated in England,
and was the characteristic ilower at this time through all the
central hills. Along the coast we had found chiefly the
yellow crocns, identical with our garden species, and a pale
purple amaryllis, much resembling a crocus. It was interest-
ing to note how sharply defined were the limits of most of
the Palestine winter bulbs, and how frequently the charac-
teristic flora changed. Some familiar favourites, like the
beautiful cyclamen, smiled on us everj'where. But the sepa-
ration of Judah and Ephraim seemed often to have reached
their flowers, and the hills of Jud?ea and of Galilee yielded
distinct crocuses, tulips, lilies, and sages, though climate and
other conditions could vary but little.

An hour's ride brought us to the favourite camping ground
of travellers from Jerusalem, Ain Haramiyeh (the Bobber's
Fountain), after a short detour of half a mile to the east to visit
a fountain, and some empty and uninteresting rock-tombs,
perhaps the ancient burying-place of Sliiloh. The name of
the Bobber's Fountain may have been deservedly given, but at
present European travellers need not shun the spot, present-
ing, as it does, the attractions of a plenteously gushing spring
in the hill-side, with a charming piece of turf for the tent-
pegs in front of it, at the entrance of a lovely glen. Now as
we leave the camping-ground behind us the scenery changes.
For two hours we rode up the glen, terraced to its very top
on both sides, the fig and olive-trees covering the whole
of the slopes and terrace-walls, and growing out of every

M 2

1G4 BETHEL.

cliiuk ill the rocks ; while on each ,sti;p of the terraces were
patches of corn, cotton, or tobacco. Woodpeckers, jays, and
little owds laughed, tapped, or hooted, as nature dictated, all
up the valley, and gave us the opportunity of securing them
in the bare fig-trees. At present the whole looked much like
a forest of white coral, but we were told that in spring not a
piece of rock can be seen. The maideu-hair fern hangs in
luxuriant tresses round the fountains, and the ceterach fern
peeps from all the crevices of the rocks, along with the lovely
cyclamen, pink or white, and the little wdiite crocus. No
villages were in sight. They are all hidden in the recesses.
Most of them are Christian, which accounts for the preserva-
tion of the terraces and the careful culture.

The sun was setting wdien we reached the head of the
valley and rode over a rugged hill, on the south-east side of
which we reached the ruins of Bethel (Beitin), among which
a few wTetched hovels are scattered. By a plenteous spring
are the ruins of an enormous cistern, more than 300 feet by
200, inside which Ave found our tents pitched, while a bright
moon lighted up the hill of Bethel. The south w^all of the
reservoir, under which we were camped on a piece of grassy
sward, was entire, but the other sides were in decay. Among
several acres of lines of foundations and hewn stones, the only
distinguishable ruins in the moonlight were those of a Greek
church in front of us, built out of the remains of some more
classic edifice, of which the sculptured capitals and cornices
occasionally peeped out. Jacob's altar and Jeroboam's abomi-
nation are alike obliterated. There is a strange and delightful
charm in camping close by the fountain of Bethel, which was
rippling in my ear as I wrote up my journal for the day, after
reading the various chapters relating to Bethel's history, and
then turned out to keep the second watch. In this rather
lawless district, having no guard, we mounted sentry through
the night by turns. " Why should you come to such roiroi
KaK(l)raToi as Seilfm and Beitin?" asked Giacomo, as we
beguiled the watch together. " No holy places here, and no
pilgrims ever visit them. I have been dragoman to scores of

ROBBEJIY AND KESTITUTION. 1G5

Eussians and Freuclimen, but it is only you English who
come here. Perhaps you only care for places where there are
no saints, as you do not adore them ? " I tried in vain to
explain to him how the place where Jacob slept and saw the
vision of the ladder reaching to heaven was the place of all
others where we should wish to sleep and feel our nearness
to a watchful Providence : there were no saints of the calendar
here, and beyond them his veneration could not stretch.

During the evening a small caravan of donkey-men had
arrived, and, seizing on the advantage of our protection, had
bivouacked by our side. While we Avere preparing to turn
in, a miserable-looking old woman came dow^n from the village
and with loud outcries accused us of having robbed her,
invoking the bitterest curses on the bones of our progenitors.
When her vocabulary was partially exhausted, w^e extracted
from her the ground of her complaint. Two days, she said,
had she laboured to gather a bundle of sticks to carry on the
morrow for sale to Jerusalem. She was very old and very
poor ; she had but sLx hens in the world by which to earn
her living, her husband and her sons were dead, she had no
eggs, with which to buy her bread, and if she could not carry
her firewood to the city she must lie down and die of hunger.
In vain we protested our ignorance of the theft, and pointed
to the charcoal in our travelling grate. Our servants heart-
lessly mocked her, and were about to kick her off, when we
perceived that the men with the asses must have been the
thieves. They were lying sleeping in a circle, with their toes
in the embers of a comfortable fire. We roused them and
taxed them with the crime. They bade us mind our own
business. Not washing to make a quarrel, we offered the old
woman a Turkish shilling, which she refused as bad, and
demanded her piastre (twopence). The poor creature had
never seen silver, and knew not its value. At length, pro-
voked by the insolence of our neighbours, we seized them by
the throat, and, by the use of sticks and threats of guns and
prison, levied a fine of a halfpenny apiece all round, with
which, and a gratuity from ourselves, we soon turned the

166 abhaham's camp.

curses into blessings, and the peace of the prophet was in-
voked on the heads of the Christians. Our muleteers could
not conceal their contempt at our acting the part of amateur
police for an old woman who could not have hurt us, but we
afterwards found that ihe act of justice had not been forgotten
in the place.

We had a false alarm duriiig the night. The moon had set,
and B — t Mas relieving the monotony of his watch by a
stroll, when one of the muleteers seeing him approach called
out, Howadji, barouti! "Gentlemen, to your guns." We were
all out on the icy turf before the mistake was discovered, and
laughing or growling according to our respective tempers or
our interrupted dreams, retired again to our sheepskins, while
the bullfrogs uninterruptedly sang our lullaby,

Deceiiibcr 2?>rd. — We turned out at seven to find the grass
white with hoar frost, and to enjoy our sponge bath if we
could. It was not so easy for some of us to shake off the
effects of camping in a cistern, which though empty was
scarcely dry, and which had not been selected by our mule-
teers on sanitary principles. Leaving them to follow the
straight route to Jerusalem with the animals and baggage,
we struck across country to the eastward to visit the Scrip-
tural sites which crowd the little district of Benjamin, i'irst
on leaving Bethel we recall how Abraham made his second
camp in the Land of Promise at " a mountain on the east
of Bethel, having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east."
In the little grassy valley to the south-east of Bethel the
patriarch's flocks and herds may have grazed, and that
mountain to which he came may be the little rugged hill
opposite, with shapeless cairns on its top, to which we
climbed, — Tell-el-IIajar, " the hill of the stones." Here Van
de Velde would place Ai ; but wo, rode on, and proceeded to
Deir Duwan, where, north of the village, on a rounded hill,
covered with really extensive though undecipherable ruins,
Piobinson identifies the ancient city. To our minds the con-
jecture of Robinson carried with it the weight of evidence.
In the first place, it would be difficult to assign a site tp

MICHMASH. 107

Abraham's camp between Beitiii and Tell-el-IIajar, unless he
actually pitched upon the hill itself, which is scarcely the
natural rendering of the passage in Genesis. But if Ai were
on the hill above Deir Dnwan, all the requirements of the
text are easily met, and there is a fine though. irregular plain
between it and Bethel. Dreary and bleak as that spot is
now, it may have been a lovely park-like glade, such as those
we see in Gilead, with open pasturage shaded by well-wooded
hills, when Abraham was induced to encamp there. Now
there is nothing to relieve the brown and rounded limestone
rocks, which rise into bare hills, without a tree to clothe them,
and but few olives in the valleys or even round the villages.

A second argument in favour of Eobinson's site is that it
affords ample space for the various military evolutions de-
scribed in Josh. viii. and at the same time is not too far distant
from Bethel (about an hour's walk). We can see where, in
the Wady Harith, between the two cities, Joshua could have
placed his ambush to the west, or " behind " Ai, unobsen^ed
by the defenders of either place. There is a third argument
which was very convincing to my own mind in favour of the
more eastern site, and that is the history recounted in Gen.
xiii. Abraham arrives with Lot at the same " place where his
tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai,
unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the
first." This altar would probably be erected on the hill, and
not in the plain below. If it were on this hill that Abraham
generously offered the choice of the land to his nephew. Lot
could from it have "lifted up his eyes and beheld all the
plain of Jordan," but had the transaction taken place further
west, or under Tell-el-Hajar, scarcely a glimpse of that plain
would have been visible. We scarcely perceived at the time
the great importance of the incidents mentioned in this
chapter in their bearing on the topography of the Cities of
the Plain. But these considerations must be deferred to
the proper place.

Just across another wady, with many old caves and tombs,
rises the indisputable Michmash, preserving its identity of

168 B115E1I OR BEEKOTir.

name in tlie AraLic Mul-hmds, once a fortress, now a squalid
village. We did not visit it at this time, but on a subsequent
occasion .explored its neiglibourliood, witli the caves in which
Saul's army hid themselves after the Philistines had driven
them out of the citadel, and the ravine uj) which the king
returned from Gilgal to Gibeah. (1 Sam. xiii. 15.) The ruins
are, if possible, more desolate, but more massive than those of
Ai or of Bethel, and the city seems, by the fragments of
columns, as well as by two large rock-hewn cisterns, to have
continued to a later date.

From Deir Duwan we crossed back to Birch, the ancient
Beeroth, resuming here the ortlinary Jerusalem road. During
the whole of our ride, such was the barrenness of the land,
we had added neither bird, plant, nor insect to our collecting
boxes, — a blank absolutely without recurrence in our whole
tour. Bireh, though merely a Moslem village with houses
built of the fragments of former massive edifices, is well
worth a visit, for the sake of the ruins of its noble old church
raised by the Knights of St. John, whose property the village
once was. The apse, with the north and south walls, which are
•of enormous thickness, is quite perfect, and the architecture
exhibits a curious transition from the Norman to the Early
Pointed, or rather perhaps an attempt to engraft Byzantine
on the latter. The capitals of each pilaster are distinct in
their mouldings, no two being alike. Some of the villagers,
who had been watching us sketching, came up, and inquired
in all simplicity if there were any churches as large as that
in England. After pausing a moment at the foot of the hill
below Bireh, to admire and to drink from the fine old foun-
tain with its little cupola roof, we rode on by a broken and
almost impassable rocky track, but which once was a chariot
road, carefully paved or hewn from the native rock, and in
which the ruts of the ancient chariot wheels can still be seen.

M. being unwell, we gave but a hurried glance to Jiba, the
ancient Geba, and er Eani, Pamah of Benjamin. From the
former we could look down to Gilgal, as the Philistines from
the keep looked towards the camp of Saul ; and perhaps the

MEETING WITH M. DE SAULCY. 169

fort Mliicli Jonatliaii captured was on the site of those
large squared stones and the corner of the tower to the
top of which we climbed. The military topograpliy both of
Joshua's march from Gilgal and of Saul's great campaign
against the Philistines can be well studied and understood
from this spot. Eamah, the home and the tomb of Samuel,
seemed to be reduced to its primitive elements, and, as we
were assured that nothing was to be seen save a mosque formed
out of a crusading church, we contented ourselves w^ith having
mounted Geba, and went over the rocks — road there is none —
to Tuleil-el-Ful, the Gibeah of Saul. Dreary and desolate,
scarce any niins, save a confused mass of stones, wdiich form
a soit of cairn on the top : yet here stood the city of the first
king of Israel, the home of Saul. As we recall also the
hideous deed- of the men of Gibeah, the blighting doom seems
to have settled over the spot. In our sight, to the west
stands out the rival top of IMizpeh (Nebi Samuel), where all
Israel assembled to vow vengeance on the perpetrators of the
crime within view of the scene itself

But we must not linger, for we are approaching the Holy
City, and all these sites may be visited hereafter. Eagerly
now we passed over the hill Scopus, longing to reach its crest,
and gaze once more on the domes of Jerusalem, as many a
])ilgrim before us has longed to do, when we met a large caval-
cade descending towards us. This was M. de Saulcy's party
on their return from their three mouths' expedition. Having
mutual introductions, we halted, and had half an hour's con-
versation. M. de Saulcy is a charming, polished gentleman,
— frank, open, and enthusiastic. This latter quality may fre-
quently verge on the romantic, but it is not the less delightful
to meet a man so full of love and reverence for the land, so
thoroughly wrapped in his theories, and withal so tolerant of
difference of opinion. Besides M. de Saulcy himself, and a
botanical friend wlio liad only joined him at Jerusalem, the
party consisted of a draftsman, and an officer of g^nie in full
uniform, which he always wore throughout the expedition.
He was well satisfied with his success, having been employed

170 HIS Disco\T:rviES.

ill taking barometrical observations and in making a sketch
survey of the district east of Jordan as far as tlie north end
of the Dead Sea. M. de Saulcy spoke with delight of the
drawings and plans of Arak-el-Emir, and of his visits to
Heshban and Amman. He considered he had discovered
nnniistakeably the true Nebo, but though they had partially
ascended the mountain their guides did not permit them to
reach the top, nor had they prosecuted their researches to the
south of the Arnon. He strongly advised us not to waste our
strength over Kerak and the barren highlands of Moab, but to
devote as much time as we could to the elucidation of Gilead,
where he politely assured us he had left a rich harvest for
future explorers to reap. In our own special department
of natural history M. de S, could boast of a fine collection of
coleoptera, but none of the party had paid any- attention to
the animals or birds, the botany or geology of the countiy.
They had had no difficulties with the Arabs after backshish
had been settled, excepting on one occasion, when they had
exchanged a few harmless pistol-shots.

But the triumph of M. de Saulcy's expedition had been the
discovery of an undisturbed sarcophagus in the so-called
Tombs of the Kings, where he had obtained access to a
cliamber hitherto unopened since its first construction. The
sarcophagus contained a female skeleton, and there was an
inscription on it in Hebrew, of which none of the party were
able to decipher m.ore than the last words, which they read,
" of the Kings of Judah." M. de S. had not the slightest
doubt but that he had obtained possession of the bones of a
daughter of David's line before the first captivity. Unfor-
tunately, neither Dr. Rosen nor any of the best Hebraists of
Jerusalem had been able to see the inscription. The Jews
heard of the discovery, and began to arm themselves and
threaten a riot, as did the Armenians, who imagined the
coffin to belong to one of their royal saints ; so that the
inscrijition liad to be immediately plastered over, and the sar-
cophagus broken in order to get it out of the tomb, when it
was smuggled away to the coast by night, and is now de-

FIRST VIEW OF JERUSALEM. 171

r posited in the Louvre. AVhatever be its date, it is tlic first
undisturbed sarcophagus ^vhich has been brought to light in
I modern times. We were told that the outer chamber in front
! of the secret depository of royalty was filled to the roof with
bones and earth ; the remains, M. de Saulcy conjectured, of
the soldiers of Titus who had fallen in the siege. We felt
|j less disposed to yield credence to M. de Saulcy when he added
that he had successfully traced the line of the trench which
Titus cast np round the city. As this trench Avas of earth,
and, according to Josephus, was completed in three days, it
requires large faith in antiquarian acumen to credit this dis-
covery. With the expression of the heartiest good wishes for
our success east and south, our friends parted, and rode
qiuckly on after their mules.

A few moments brought us to the crest of the hill Scopus,
whence Titus and the Crusaders had gazed on the devoted
city with very ditierent emotions. In the first sight of
Jerusalem there is a thrill of interest which is scarcely
weakened by repetition, and one can only pity the man who
is not, for the moment at least, imbued with the pilgrim spirit,
aiid does not feel the sight to be one of the privileges of his
life. Enshrined in the depths of a Christian's affections,
linked with every feeling of faith and hope, — "If I forget
thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." I
had already in previous years approached Jerusalem from the
west, south, and east; this was the first occasion on which
we had looked at it from the north. On this side there is
nothing to excite the feelings ; if the mind were not absorbed
in the associations evoked by those blue grey hills which
enclose the little foreground in front, perhaps a sense of dis-
appointment would steal oVer us. There is but one true
approach to Jerusalem, and, if possible, even at the cost of
some hours' detour, let the pilgrim endeavour to enter from
the east, the favourite approach of our Lord, the path of His
last and triumphant entry. It is a glorious burst, as the
traveller rounds the shoulder of ]Mount Olivet, and the Haram
waU starts up before him from the deep gorge of the Kedron,

172 EUSSIAN HOSPICE.

with its domes and crescents sparkling in the sunlight — a
royal city. On that very spot He once paused and gazed on
the same bold cliffs supporting a far more glorious pile, and
when He beheld the city He wept over it. To one who is
familiar with this magnificent access, the other three ap-
proaches to the Holy City recall the contrast between the
grand old entrance to Oxford from tlie Iffley Road under
Magdalen Tower, and the wretched lanes Ity which Alma
]\Iater is now revisited when the traveller arrives by railway.

AVe ga^ed for' a few moments, grouped in silence. "That
is the Mosque," " There is the Mount of Olives," " That is
tlie Church of the Holy Sepulchre," were remarks enough.
The one thought, " This is Jerusalem," absorbs all others.
" Tliy servants take pleasure in her stones." It is like re-
visiting a father's grave or the home of one's youth, and
no one is disposed to expatiate on the outline or details of the .
landscape which rivets itself upon the soul with magnetic
power, for over it hover the memories of redemption achieved,
and the victory over the grave.

But it is useless to write more on these impressions —
every traveller has felt them, every writer has described
them, and only those who have felt can thoroughly under-
stand them.

One new building, out of harmony with the other sur-
roundings, arrested our attention — the immense Eussian pile,
which had arisen on the rising ground to the west of the city
since my last visit, and which completely overshadows every
other architectural feature. It combines in some degree the
appearance and the uses of cathedral close, public offices,
barracks, and hostelry; the flag of the Russian Consulate floats
over one part, while the tall cupola of the church commands
the centre. There are many Russian priests and monks, and
shelter is provided for the crowds of Muscovite pilgrims.
Still the whole style of the group seems a sort of taking
possession of the land by anticipation, in strong contrast with
the simple and chaste cluster on the top of Mount Zion,
where the English Mission has its centre. The Greeks view

CAMP BY THE JAFFA fiATE. 17

o

this Russian establishment ^ith great jealousy, not to say-
dislike, and attribute it to a settled determination on the part
of the Czar to separate the Muscovite Church altogether from
the Greek, and throw off what little dependence is still
acknowledged on the Patriarchate of Constantinople. They
remark %vith some bitterness on the settlement of a Russian
bishop in Jerusalem in addition to or rather in rivalry of the
Greek Patriarch.

AVe rode quickly past the Tombs of the Kings, and the olive-
yards which relieve the barrenness of the northern outskirts
of the city, through the Damascus Gate. Our thoughts now
turned homewards to far distant scenes as we mounted up to
the Consulate, eager for the packets which must await us there.
Then leaving M. (who was too unwell to risk the exposure of
camping out) at the hotel, we passed through the city and out
by the Jaffa Gate, where, just below the Paissian buildings,
we found our tents erected at the north-western corner of the
city wall. It "was somewhat unusual to spend Christmas at
Jerusalem under canvas, but organized as we were, with our
servants and provisions, we found both freedom and economy
in the plan, and had no cause to regret the experiment, espe-
cially as, through the kind exertions of N. T. Moore, Esq.,
H.B.M. Consul, the unusual privilege was accorded us of
passing through the gates at any hour of the night. Our
tents were perched on a platform just above the old fosse,
formed of the debris of many generations of ruins, somewhat
bleak but dry, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the
Turkish guard-house, as well as of an Armenian cafe, whence
a signal from our doors could at any time bring coffee and
narghilies for our visitors. So near the soldiers we could
sleep in security, and had no occasion to be on the Avatch
against pilferers during the daytime.

Indeed, the guard-house provided us unasked with an in-
valuable and vigilant sentry, who was never relieved, nor ever
quitted the post of duty. The poor Turkish conscript, like
every other soldier in the world, is fond of pets, and in front
of the grim turret that served for a guardhouse was a collec-

174 A VOLUKTEER SENTRY.

tion of old oraiige-boxes and crates, tliickly peopled by a
garrison of dof^s of Iom' degree, whose attachment to the spot
was certainly not purchased by the loftves and fishes which
fell to their lot. One of the party must indeed have had hard
times, for she had a family of no less than five, dependent
on her exertions and on the superfluities of the sentries' mess.
"Witli a sagacity almost more than canine, the poor gaunt
creature had scarcely seen our tents pitched before she came
over with all her litter, and deposited them in front of our
tent. At once she scanned the features of every member of
the encampment, and introduced herself to our notice. I)uring
the week of our stay she never quitted her post, nor attempted
any depredations on the kitchen-tent, which might have led
to her banishment. Night and day she proved a faithful and
vigilant sentry, permitting no stranger, human or canine, Euro-
pean or Oriental, to approach the tents without permission,
but keeping on the most familiar terms with ourselves and
our servants. On the morning of our departure, no sooner
had she seen our camp struck, than she conveyed her puppies
back to their old quarters in the orange-box, and no entreaties
or bribes could induce her to accompany us. On three sub-
sequent visits to Jerusalem, this same dog acted in a similar
way, though no longer embarrassed by family cares, and would
on no account permit any strange dog, nor even her com-
panions at the guardhouse, to approach within the tent-
ropes.

We remained a week in Jerusalem, fully occupied in the
arrangements and negotiations preparatory to our Dead Sea
trip, and, after our hard work, rejoicing in the comparative
quiet and rest of a Christmas on INIount Zion. Our inter\-als
of leisure were devoted to visits to the various objects of
archaeological and sacred interest, for there was but little
employment for the naturalist, and though not new to myself,
all was novel to my companions. It falls neither within my
scope nor my ability to enter upon a description or discussion
of the topography and antiquities of Jerusalem, \\hich have
been so fully and frequently sifted by far more competent

HUSSIONS IX JERUSALEM. 17;'

hands ; and content to take Robinson for our guide, avc pene-
trated wherever we could, not to discover, but to learn.

Our evenings were spent either at the hospitable Consulate
or with the excellent Bishop, making our Christmastide feel
very homelike ; and at each place we met the whole mis-
sionary staff, and the learned Dr. Eosen, the Prussian Consul,
to whom I am indebted for very much information and kind
assistance. It is not possible to associate with the devoted
Christian men who form the Mission staff, without taking a
deep interest in them and their Avork ; and I have met with
few men who combine in a higher degree ardent zeal and
perseverance with learning and research, than the missionary
body in Syria, whether of the Church ^Mission, the Jews'
Society, or the American Board. Their success, if reckoned
by the number of converts, is, in Jerusalem itself, not very
great, though two promising congregations, Arabic and Ger-
man-speaking, have been formed ; but, as yet, they have only
gathered in the remnant of Israel, and sown the seed for a
more plentiful harvest hereafter. About seventy families have
openly attached themselves to our Church.

Our search after Hebrew and Samaritan manuscripts and
natural history specimens led us more than once into the
Protestant part of the Jewish quarter on Mount Zion. The
converts have been not only spiritually but socially elevated
by their conversion. The neatness and cleanness of their
houses, the tidy children with their school-books, the clean
cradles, tlie pleasant-looking women in European costume,
the neat shelves with the little libraries of German books.
Prayer-books, " Pilgrim's Progress," &c., would have cheered
the heart of any pastor in an English parish. And this is
not from alms or gifts, but is the direct effort of their con-
version, which has shut them out from the Jewish means of
subsistence, and has sent the husbands to the INIission House
of Industry, where they learn remunerative trades, and soon
become thriving artisans. None of the Jerusalem Jews follow
any occupation but trade, and most of them are maintained
by the alms of their brethren in other countries, employing

176 BISHOP gobat's schools.

tlu'ii- time in prayers and synagogue worship on behali" of
tlie contributors, who are too busy or too distant to perform
a pilgrimage for themselves. We found the House of In-
dustry most useful in the refit so needful after our journey,
in the soleing of our boots, in mending our boxes, repairing
our guns and instruments, and making our thermometer-
stands, and even egg-blowing instruments.

"We went on Christmas-eve to. visit the Bishop's school,
outside the walls, and to see the annual distribution of prizes
from the Christmas-tree, which the Prussian deaconesses had
taken care to establish. There were upwards of seventy lads
present, whose examination, though exclusively on their reli-
gious knowledge, showed a much higher standard of attain-
ments, so far, than is ordinarily found in an English school.
But the confusion of tongues umst render advanced education
most difficult in Jerusalem, where it is impossible to adopt, as
at Beyrout, the common vernacular Arabic ; since old Spanish,
German, and, in some cases, English, are the common lan-
guages of the Jewish population in different* streets respec-
tively. The Spanish, introduced after the expulsion of the
Jews from Spain by the Inquisition, has retained its hold
among their descendants, though archaic in its form, mixed
wHth many Arabic expressions (which may have been learnt
from the Spanish Moors), and written in the Hebrew character;
in which character a Spanish edition of the Book of Common
Prayer has been published for their use.

Western customs had extended to the church, as well as to
the schoolhouse, and the place of the holly of Old England
was supplied, in the Christmas decorations, by olive twigs,
pines, and carob-leaves. Tliough there were no strangers but
ourselves, the church was filled at the English service ; for
most of the German Jews learn our language, and have their
children instructed in it. But, weekly within those walls, our
ritual is celebrated in five languages, b(^ginning with the
Hebrew (daily, at seven A.M.), Spanish, Arabic, English, and
German.

To those who had already witnessed the humiliating cere-

VISIT TO THE MOSQUE OF OMAE. 177

monies of Easter imder the dome of tlie Holy Sepulchre, the
Christmas celebrations at Bethlehem aftbrded little to attract ;
and \\e had preferred to remain on Mount Zion, and reserve
our Avalk over the hills of Bethlehem to some quiet season.
We saw, however, the ordinary procession start for the mid-
night mass, headed by the cavasses of the Eoman Catholic
Consulates, military and kettledrums, and the representatives
of France and other powers in full official costume. The
traditional military array is now more necessary for protection
against marauders than against Moslem fanaticism, which
seems now to be confined to jealousy of their own holy places,
and to take little cognisance of those of Christians, so long as
no sudden impulse rouses the innate hatred in the breasts of
Islam.

One morning was devoted to a visit to the sacred enclosure
of the Haram (the Mosque of Omar), from which, until very
recently, Christians were rigidly excluded, and which they
could not enter at the time of my former visit. Some forma-
lities were still requisite — a letter from the Consul to the
Pasha, the attendance of his cavasses as a protection against
the fanaticism of the negro guardians of the holy places, and
the payment of a backshish, or fee, of 1/. per head. The
visit, too, had to be accomplished at daybreak, and concluded
before the hour of prayer (the second hour). Accordingly,
before dawn we were ready at the Jaffa Gate, and had it
opened for our admission. Having sent to the Consulate for
the cavass, we were lingering in the Street of the Patriarch,
when our muleteer, Hanioud, put forth his head from a caf^.,
and invited us to take shelter. The keeper was asleep in the
corner ; but a few kicks from his guest started him to his
feet, and Hamoud's face beamed with delight as he enter-
tained his employers with coffee and cakes. Soon a couple of
cavasses, in full dress, with their swords of office and long
sDver-mounted staves, appeared, clanking the pavement at
each step with imposing dignity, as determined to leave the
impress of their presence on the stones of the street.

At the entrance of the mosque we deposited our shoes, and

N

178 STONE OF SACRIFICE.

as the rain M'as descending in turrents, onr stockings also ;
and then, preceded by the cavasses and the chief verger of
the mosque (a kindly-looking, stout fellow of six feet two
inches in height, with huge turban, and long staff like the
others), we crossed the wide, open area, in the centre of which
rises the beautiful dome over the great rock of the Sakhra.
The sides of the area are all carefully paved, as w^ll as the
open courts which partially surround it ; but towards the
centre the pavement gives place to the flat surface of the
native rock, and' we were probably treading, barefoot, the
very surface which had T)een trodden by kings and priests
of old, and which, above all, the feet of the Eedeemer must
often have touched. AVe entered the dome of the rock,
which, unlike any other Moslem building I have seen, is in
good repair — time-worn, but well preserved, without, gorgeous,
and almost dazzling, within ; exquisite in its proportions,
beautiful in its mosaics ; all its decorations, lavish though
they are, blend in wonderful harmony, sparkling with glass
of every tint, which casts a rainbow hue of blended colours
on every object around. In the grey dawn of morning
there was even less than a dim religious light — not enough
to distinguish clearly the brilliant arabesques and tracery
which lined every part of the dome and of the sides, but
quite enough to make the general effect bewildering in its
magnificence. But it was neither on Byzantine walls nor
on Saracenic decorations that our attention was fixed. Four
great piers supported the central dome : in the centre stood a
great wooden lattice-work, which screened from profane touch
the holy rock, and which at first suggests the idea that this
octagonal dome is a mausoleum erected over some venerated
tomb. We were not admitted within the screen, but were
allowed to peer through, to stretch forth our hands and feel
the rock upon which tradition says David offered his pur-
chased sacrifice on Araunah's threshing-floor, and Solomon
erected the great altar of burnt-sacrifice. We were unable to
measure this singular mass, but were told that it was sixty
feet by forty feet in extent, and seventeen feet high. Beyond

DOME OF THE ROCK. 179

the marks of tools where, at one eiul, a large fragment has
been broken off, the only special feature on its surface is
a slight indentation, the impression, says the Moslem, of
Mohammed's foot, as he stepped up into Paradise, It is
evident that this rock must have been left for some special
object, when all that surrounded it was so carefully levelled
to form a wide platform ; and when the sides of tlie mount,
south, east, and west, had been built up by massive — we
might say, stupendous — substructures, to enlarge that level
area still further. There must have been something sacred
in the eyes of Constantine, who we are assvu-ed from archi-
tectural evidence was its builder, and the tradition of a
peculiar sanctity in the rock has been handed down to the
subsequent occupiers, though they have utterly forgotten the
original reason for the erection, and have invented a very
different legend.

When we had carefully gone round the Sakhra, our guide
introduced us to the celebrated cave beneath it, whence they
say branch the subterranean communications with Siloam
and the City of David.^ ^Vo omitted to notice at what point

1 So far as has yet been ascertaiued, there is not the slightest eWdence
afforded by recent explorations to favour this theory, nor the idea that the
well under the Sakhra was a cesspool for the filth of the sacrifices. Jlr. Fer-
gusson appears clearly to have shown that whatever else the Sakhra was, it
was not tlie site of the altar of burnt incense. One suggestion, which carries
with it some semblance of probal lility, is, that it is the site of the tower which
we know stood at the north of the Temple, and that the rock was left there
enclosed by the walls built on the levelled surface around it, while the well
was merely the well of the fortress.

As to the reputed connexion between the Sakhra and Siloam, on which many
beautiful theories and poetic descriptions have been founded, I am assured by
the Rev. J. Barclay, the clergjTnan of the English Church at Jenisalem, that
he has personally tested this, by creeping through the whole tunnel, and that
it is simply a subterranean canal cut between the fountain of the Virgin " 15ir
Sitte iliriam " and the Pool of Siloam, by which the latter was fed. It seems
to have been excavated by simultaneous operations from each extremit}^ ; for
in its course, not far from the Pool of Siloam, there is a break, where the two
lines of excavation have not met, and where the workmen, hearing the sound
of their fellows in the other tunnel, have abruptly turned to the right and
united the two. There is one other short branch, of a few yards in length,
which alnuptly tenniuates in the face of the rock, so far as could be a.scer-

^T 2 tainc'l.

180 DOME OF THE ROCK.

of the compass the descent from the Sakhra commenced. The
passage was low, and the steps not built, but hewn out of the
native rock. One thing seemed evident, that the cave was
natural, and had not been artificially enlarged, though the
access was probably the enlargement of an original fissure.
Our guide evidently put small faith in the INIoslem tradition
which suspends the Sakhra in mid-air over the cavern, and
laughed heartily when we pointed out that the roof was of
the same piece with the sides. In the centre of the cavern
was shown to us a marble slab covering a well, which has
never been explored, and the examination of which might
possibly lead to interesting to2:)Ograpliical discoveries. As it
is, the Jews believe that somewhere in it are concealed the
tables of the law, forgetting that of them they find no trace
after the return from the Captivity.^

Proceeding southwards from the great dome, we passed to
the Mosque of El Aksa, at the southern extremity of the area,
and where all writers agree we are on the fiite of part at least
of the old Temple. The architecture is manifestly later than
the Dome of the Eock, lighter, with pointed Saracenic arches,
and without any entablature over the pillars. It is richly and
elaborately decorated with glass and lamps, but does not equal
the great dome in splendour. The little mosque at the south-
west corner, near the Wailing Place, called the ISIosque of the
INTograbin (^Vesterns), contained nothing worthy of a special
notice, but in the area stand most of those magnificent cypresses
which form so pleasing a feature in all views of this part of
Jerusalem, conspicuous from the outer hills. A few olive
and lemon-trees are mingled with them, but are not visible

taiued. The channel is very small, and the explorer can only push himself
along horizontally from the Virgin's Well among the sediment and moistui-e at
the bottom.

' Yet the tradition in the Apocrypha (2 IMacc. ii. 4 — 7), tells us that Jeremy
the Prophet hid the sacred things, the tabernacle and the ark, and the altar
of incense, in a hollow cave on the mountain, where Moses climbed up and saw
the heritage of God ; and that lie foretold that the place should be unknown
until the time that God gather His i)eople again together and receive them
unto mercy.

IMMENSE STONES. 181

from tlie outside. AVe were astonished at being introduced
into the ^Mosque of Issa (Jesus), a sort of crypt, in a corner
of which was pointed out the true tomb of Jesus,— a plain
marble sarcophagus, very small, and an object of jMoslem
adoration !

We passed through this part of the Haram rather hurriedly,
knowing that our time was limited, and being anxious to
devote as much of it as possible to the examination of the
vast crypts or substructures which support the upper plat-
form on which these buildings stand, and of the interest of
which ]\r. de Savilcy had spoken to us in glowing terms.
These great crypts are about the middle of the southern
extremity of the area. If the old Temple area be limited to
the position in which Mr. Fergusson places it, some part at
least of these enormous works possibly may date back to the
time of Solomon. There seems no sign, so far as we could
perceive, of these crypts having been ever utilized to any
purpose other than that of supporting the platform. We
could not detect the traces of any attempt to form chambers
or to excavate the floor to an even surface. We descended
by a slope until we stood in a large irregular chamber, with
massive circular pillars and elaborately carved capitals, sup-
porting narrow semicircular arches. In the two principal
pillars ^I. de Saulcy strangely imagined he had found Boaz
and Jachin, though it would require some architectural in-
genuity to convert these crypts into the porch of the Temple,
and to imagine a gi-and approach thereby to the area above.
The place was dimly lighted by apertures in the outer Haram
wall, which were too high up for us to decide whether they
had been purposely left at first or penetrated at some sub-
sequent period. They can easily be recognised on examining
the wall from the outside. The stones of this wall on the
inside are of colossal size. One which we measured was
eighteen feet long by about eight in height, and there ap-
peared to be some even larger than this above our reach. AVe
were told of one we could not see, which was declai'ed to
be thirty feet in length. The mouldings at the top of the

182 THE goldp:n gate.

pillars and along the arches were very curious, and different
from anything I had elsewhere seen, but the light was too
dim for us to make any drawings or to describe them accu-
rately. There was a very Egyptian look about the palm-
leaves of the capitals. If it be certain that the use of the
arch was unknown until introduced into the country by the
Eomans, then this magnificent work, as well as the Harara
wall, which must be of the same age, as part of the same
structure, is referable to the Herodian epoch. Had it not
been for the sculpture of those circular arches overhead, we
should have liked to fancy ourselves standing amidst the
masonry of Solomon ; and as Mr. Fergusson proves the arch
to have been used and applied in the time of Sargon, B.C. 721,
it may have been known to the wise man of Israel ; but there
were too many Herodian signs to permit us to indulge the
dream.

On ascending, we found ourselves under no pressure to
depart, as our guide, when he had marched us through the
holy places, felt no alarm for our safety in the open area,
and we were permitted at our leisure to linger about the
" Golden Gate," an elaborately carved gateway and porch now
built up, and near which is the pillar where the Mohamme-
dans believe the Prophet is to inaugurate the scene of the last
judgment. It can hardly be of the time of the Haram wall,
but recalls much more closely the architecture of the Dome
of the Rock, with a rich deep cornice running along both
sides of the wall, at the height of the spring of the arches
of the dome ; to our un artistic eyes a superfluous ornament.
Near this gate I climbed on to the top of the wall, and
walked along for some way, enjoying the fine view down into
the gorge of the Kedron, with its harvest crop of little white
tombs. In a chink I discovered a sparrow's nest {Passer
cisalpina, var.), of a species so closely allied to our own that
it is difficult to distinguish it, — one of the very kind of which
the Psalmist sung, "Yea, the sparrow hath found an house,
and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her
young, even thine altars, 0 Lord of hosts." The swallows had

BOTANY AND ORNITHOLOGY OF THE IIARAM. 183

departed for the winter, but the sparrow lias remaiued perti-
naciously through all the sieges and changes of Jerusalem.

Before leaving the sacred enclosure we had time to observe
the botany as well as note the ornithology of the Haram,
and a goodly collection even in midwinter my companions
secured. Besides the olive, the palm, the lemon, and the
cypress, many little tufts of flowers, blue, white, and yellow
were bursting through the chinks in the old pavement, among
wliich we found Ranunculus myriophyllus, Draba vcrna, Reseda
suffruticosa, Zizyphus vulgaris, Scnccio vernalis, Anchusa italica,
Pa rieta r ia offic in a lis.

The birds, well appreciating their security in this hallowed
area, were not less varied. Besides the sparrow, several pairs
of the beautiful little palm turtledove {Turtur sencgalensis,
L.) nestled in the shelter of the olive trees, and fearlessly
soun-ht their food in the porticoes. It is remarkable that this
turtledove, though the most southerly and the least abundant
of all the species which frequent the Holy Land, does not
share in the migratory habits of the common turtledove
{Turtur auritus, L.), so familiar to residents both in the
South of England and in Sp-ia. "The turtle and the crane and
the swallow observe the time of their coming." It might be
to this turtle and to its habit of nestling under the protection
of man in the cities that the prophet referred in Isa. Ix. 8 —
" Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their
windows ? " though more probably the allusion is to the clouds
of rockdoves flying to their natural caves or to their artiflcial

cotes.

Besides the sparrow and the dove, we observed the gold-
fmch and the great titmouse {Carduelis elegans and Parus
major) at home among the cypress trees, and a blue thrush
{Pctrocincla cyanca, L.) perched in tlie corner of the wall ; while
the white wagtail ran along the pavement, and several kestrels
(Tinnunculus alaudarivs) had taken up their abode in the
sides of the domes. Later in the year flocks of the beautiful
lesser or beetle-feeding kestrel {T. cenchris) might have been
seen in the walls, as well as the tiny scops owl, the "maroof '■

184 BIRDS.

of the natives. At present the common kestrel and our old
friend the little owl [Athene meridional is) held undisputed
possession of the upper regions. But the characteristic bird-
life of the Haram consisted in the immense nundjer of the
crow-tribe [Corvidce) of high and low degree which resorted
thither to roost in security. From the solemn raven down
to the impertinent jackdaw, all were there, and in harmony
too — of life, not of voice, for more discordant notes never
disturbed the echoes of the dell. But while the doves re-
mained within their ark, the ravens quitted it for the day ; and
as we first crossed the pavement many a hoarse croak gave
forth the summons to the lingerers that it was time to depart.
We enjoyed frequent opportunities afterwards of watching
the habits of these birds* Of all the birds of Jerusalem the
raven is decidedly the most characteristic and conspicuous.
It is present every^vhere to eye and ear, and the odours that
float around remind us of its use. On the evening of our
arrival we were perplexed by a call-note quite new to us
mingling with the old familiar croak, and soon ascertained
that there must be a second species of raven along with the
common Corviis corax. This was the African species (Corvus
umhrimcs, Hed.), the ashy-necked raven, a little smaller
tlian the world-wide raven, and here more abundant in indi-
viduals. Besides these, the rook [Corvus agricola, Trist.), the
common grey or hooded crow [Corvus comix, L.) and the jack-
daw [Corvus monedula, L.) roost by hundreds in th6 sanctuary.
We used to watch them in long lines passing over our tents
every morning at daybreak, and returning in the evening, the
rooks in solid phalanx leading the way, and the ravens in
loose order bringing up the rear, generally far out of shot.
Before retiring for the night popidar assemblies of the most
uproarious character were held by them in the trees of the
Kedron and Mount Olivet, and not till after sunset did they
withdraw in silence, mingled indiscriminately, to their roost-
ing places on the walls. j\Iy companions were very anxious
to obtain specimens of these Jerusalem birds, which could
only be approached as they settled for the night ; but we

BIRDS. 185

were warned by the Consul that shooting them so close to
the mosque might be deemed sacrilege by the jMoslems, and
provoke an attack by the guardians of the Haram aiul the
boys of the neighbourhood. My friends determined never-
theless to run the risk, and stationing themselves just before
sunset in convenient hiding-places near the walls, at a given
signal they fired simultaneously, and hastily gathering up the
spoils had retreated out of reach, and were hurrying to the
tents before an alarm could be raised. The discharge of ten
barrels had obtained fourteen specimens, comprising five
species. The same manoeuvre was repeated with equal
success on another evening, but on _ the third occasion the
ravens had learnt wisdom by experience, and sweeping round
over Siloam chose another route to their dormitory.

In the oliveyards and gardens round the city the black-
headed jay was conmion, fearlessly approaching the walls ;
but of other birds there were very few in the immediate
neighbourhood of Jerusalem, owing to the absence of wood
and water. The fieldfare had penetrated so far south, but
unaccompanied by the redwing ; and we were fortunate enougli
to obtain, through the kindness of Dr. Chaplin, of the Jews'
Society ^lission, a fresh specimen of the wild swan {Ci/gnns
inmicm, L.), which had been vshot at Solomon's Pools, near
Bethlehem, and was brought into market. In a geographical
point of view its occurrence here was most interesting, as it
has never before been observed so far south. Hasselquist
indeed mentions having seen a swan off the Damietta mouth
of the Nile, but this would most probably be the mute swan
{Cyrjnus olor), which often occurs in Greece. Not, however,
that either of these can be the ^^Ji'^ri (tinshemeth) of the
Pentateuch, incorrectly rendered " swan " in our version, and
it is scarcely possible that the Israelites should have had a
name for a bird so rarely (if ever) seen by them. The Arabs
called our specimei^ a flamingo, or «^ (bedjaa).

The crow tribe, with the exception of the brown-necked
raven, for the most part quit Jerusalem in spring and summer,
distributing themselves over the wild ravines of Judasa. The

186 THE SYRIAN MOLE.

Coi'vus umhrinus, liowever, may ahways be seen about the
mosque and the Kedron, and my friend Mr, Egerton "War-
burton took a nest and eggs after our departure, in the Valley
of Hinnom.

In collecting mammalia, through the kind assistance and
interest of Dr. Chaplin, we were more successful than we
could have anticipated. The hedgehog and the badger, the
existence of the latter of which in Syria has been denied,
were brought alive, both identical with our European species ;
and we obtained ' three species of bats which resort to the
Damascus Gate and the so-called Tombs of the Kings. We
had long tried in vain to capture the mole of Palestine. Its
mines and its mounds we had seen everywhere, and reproached
ourselves with lia\dng omitted the mole-trap among the items
of our outfit. From the size of the mounds and the shallow-
ness of the subterranean passages, we felt satisfied it could
not be the European species, and our ho])es of solving the
question were raised when we found that one of them had
taken up its quarters close to o\\\ camp. After several vain
attempts to trap it, an Arab one night brought a live mole in
a jar to the tent. It was no mole properly so called, but the
mole-rat {Spah.x typhlus, Pall.), which takes its place through-
out Western Asia. The local Arabic name is khhint, no doubt
a corruption of the Arabic Jii- (khuld), the synonym of tlie
Hebrew ■T'7n (choled), translated "weasel" in our version.
The man having observed our anxiety to procure a specimen,
refused to part with it for less than 100 piastres, and scorn-
fully rejected the twenty piastres I offered. Ultimately
Dr. Chaplin purchased it for live piastres after our departure,
and I kept it alive for some time in a box, feeding it on sliced
onions. I may remark, in illustration of the expression
casting the idols " to the moles and to the bats " (Isa. ii. 20);
that (though the original "lISH chephor has doubtless a
more extended signification than the spalax exclusively),
we observed that this animal, unlike our mole, affects in
great numl^ers the neighbourhood and debris of ruins, among
which doubtless it finds cavities ready provided for its

QUARRIES OF JERUSALKM. 187

nest. It is an interesting little creature, t^vice tlie size of o\ir
mole, without any A^estige of external eyes, and but faint
traces of the rudimentary organ within, of a pale slate colour,
with huge rodent teeth, a strong bare snout, no external
expansion of the ear, but the organ internally very largely
developed, short feet, not pads, with powerful nails, and a
rudimentary tail. Subsequently we obtained many specimens
throughout the hill" country.

On the Mounts of Olives and of Offence we obtained a rich
harvest of fossils, many of them species which had not
occurred on jNIount Carmel, but all apparently of the same
(the chalk) age. Some of them were perfect casts in silex,
embossed as it were on the surface of the softer limestone,
and three species of ammonites occurred in some abundance.

It was impossible to overlook the very great improvemerit
in the outskirts of Jerusalem within the last six years,
especially towards the west. Not to mention the buildings
and plantations of Sir M. IMontefiore, the Greek convent has
commenced to terrace and plant olives, and various private
individuals have followed the good example. But, alas, no
one has yet begun to replace the rapidly thinned trees on
Mount Olivet itself !

One day was given to exploring the old quarries of the
city. They are very extensive, and we were able to examine
only a small portion. The entrance was by a hole in the
north wall, a little to the east of the Damascus Gate, where
there is a deep fosse between the road and the wall. Pre-
ceded by our guide (a very needful precaution) we crept in,
feet foremost, through an aperture about two feet square, and
after a precipitous descent of a few feet, lighted our torches,
and descended still further. The quarries are not one vast
cavern, but a succession of irregular hollowed chambers in
labyrinthine disorder, with enormous shapeless pillars left
here and there to support the roof ; and the whole very much
rendnded us of a visit to the disused workings of an English
coal-mine, with the advantage that it was neither wet nor
lilack. We continued, with the bats fluttering over head, to

188 STEPS IN THE EOCK

descend for many yards, on a conglomerate pavement formed of
the hardened fragments k^ft by the masons. In many phices
the very niches remained out of which the great blocks had
been hewn which form the Temple wall. There lay on the
ground in one corner a broken monolith, which had evidently
split in process of removal, and been left where it fell. The
stone here is very soft, and must easily have been sawn, while,
like some other limestones, it hardens almost to marble on
exposure. There are a few wells, generally dry, sunk pro-
bably for the use of the workmen, and lor the most part now
filled up with rubbish. In one, however, we found good
water. Here had the sound of tlie hammer and the chisel
been buried, wdiile overhead

' ' Ko workman's steel, no ponderous axes rung ;
Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung."

The jackals and hyaenas have not found their way in, and
no bones could be distinguished ; and the caverns can never
have been used as places of sepulture. We were anxious to
trace the shaft that tradition makes to have led up to the
temple, and which might yield important evidence on many
questions of ancient topography, but our lights were inefficient,
and we should have needed the aid of a mining surveyor.
The intricacy of the quarries is such that we could not be
certain we had explored to the further end, and may have
missed many a chamber, especially towards the south. Cer-
tainly we never reached any point at which we could have
been so far south as to be standing under jNIount IMoriah.

It has frequently been supposed, that when the sun had
set on the last day of the great struggle, here were hidden
the most desperate of the defenders of Jerusalem ; and that
hence, his last stratagem, rose Simon as a royal ghost, in the
v^jn hope that terror at his apparition might open for him a
path through the Eoman lines. It is well known that,
in sinking for the foundations of the English church, a sub-
terranean passage was discovered, at a depth of forty feet
beneath the surface. This has recently been explored as far

TO THE CITY OF DAVID. 189

as the so-called Tower of David, near the Jaffa Gate, where
it terminates. In the other direction, it has been traced a
considerable distance towards the Temple area. Now, since
it has been satisfactorily shown that at the spot now occupied
by the so-called Tower of David the last stand was made, it
must have been by this passage that Simon escaped, and from
it that he emerged to attempt his desperate cast.

One recent discovery in Jerusalem, w^hich I believe has not
yet been published, w^as most interesting, and may prove
important. It was pointed out to us by Bishop Gobat,
througli whom it has been brought to light. Immediately
under the south-west corner of Mount Zion, on the steep
slope leading down to the Wady er Rahabi (the Valley of
Hinnom), is the English cemetery. The Bishop has recently
been levelling a portion of this, taking down the debris from
the upper part of the slope, and making a steeper embank-
ment below, to enlarge the burying ground. During the
work, the rock which forms the western face of the ground
w^as laid bare, and exposed a series of steps hewn in its side,
steep and much worn. Thii-ty-four of these have been un-
covered, and it is impossible to guess how many more are
still buried beneath. In no other spot do we obtain a more
striking example of the enormous amount of ruin and debris,
which for 3,000 years have been gradually filling up the
valleys in and round Jerusalem. We have here revealed to us
the steepness and formidable approaches of that fortress of
Jebus, which in the very heart of the country bid defiance to
Israel for 400 years, and was only captured by David when
he proclaimed, " whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth
the Jebusites ... he shall be chief and captain." (2 Sam.
V. 8.) On all other sides the accumulations of subsequent
ages have sloped the cliffs of the once impregnable fortress,
so that David's " l)lind and lame " might easily mount them ;
and it is difficult at first sight to realize the native strength of
the citadel of Zion, still more elevated, and, in the time of
David, more precipitous, than its sister mount of Moriah.
But when we turn to Nehemiah, we find a passage which

190 THE STEPS OF NEIIEMIAH.

points to another set of stairs. "Tlie gate of the fountain
repaired Shalhin the son of Colhozeh, the ruler of part of
Mizpah ; he built it, . . . and the wall of the pool of Siloah
by the king's garden, and ^uito the stairs that go doivn from
the city of David. Alter him repaired Nehemiah the son of
Azbuk, the ruler of the half-part of Beth-zur, unto the place
over against the sepulchres of David, and to the pool that was
made, and unto the house of the mighty." (Neh. iii. 15, 16.)
Here we have the exact position of what are called the steps
of Nehemiah. Tliey were to the ivest of the Gate of the
Fountain, and of the king's gardens, which are admitted to be
in the valley leading down to the Pool of Siloam ; where they
may to this day be seen and trodden, on the steejD sides of
Ophel, just above the Pool of Siloam, to the east of the
Tyropseon. In these two sets of steps, cut in the rock, we
have revealed to our sight the only certain remains of the
city of David prior to the Babylonish captivity.

CHAPTER IX.

"It was a momitaiii, at whose verdant feet
k spacious plain, outstretched in chciiit wide,

Lay pleasant and so large

The prospect was, that here and there was room
For barren desert, fountainless and dry."

Nef/otiafions rvith the Sheikhs of the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea — yihoit
Dahdk — Diplomacy — Sealing the Treaty — Night Storm — Midnight Flitting
— Departure for Jericho — Olivet — Bethany — The Aiwstles' Well — Bareness
of the Wilderness of Jtidcca — Its Geology— New Birds — Wady Kelt — Sitiia-
tion of the Chcrith — Sublime Scenery — View of the Plain of Jordan — Ain
Sultdn — Elisha's Fountain — Beautiful Cam}} — Birds — Their number and
beauty — Bulbul — Sunbird — Shells — Plants — Palm and Balsam 2}crished —
Mount Quarantania — Native Dance — Sunday Callers — Defeated Freebooters
— Women's Dance— A Bridal Party — Ain Duk — Grakle oftlie Glen — Caves
in the Mount of Temptation — Hermits' Cells — InscriiMons and Frescoes —
Sepulchres — Difficult Climbing — The old Anchorites — Avian Persecutions.

Decembee 29tii. — At leugtli all our arrangements were com-
plete ; our long looked for companions, Messrs. Shepherd and
Upcher, had an-ived from England, stores had been laid in,
servants, horses, and mules engaged for our enlarged party,
and treaties signed with the various Sheikhs who were to be
our guides and guards round the Dead Sea. All these
matters had required no little time and patience. Horses
and muleteers, always dear and bad at Jerusalem, were this
year worse than ever. The murrain in Egypt had drained
the country of every saleable animal, and my friends wer(>
glad to secure what they coukl, at a price one half more than
we were paying to Hamoud for really good steeds. We were
more fortunate in our cook, liaving engaged a Syrian of
Beyrout, who had learned in a Russian kitchen how to make
even goat's-flesh into most palatable and tender mutton.
Wine, likewise, and brandy were added to our stores, for wo
had all found by severe exporiouro, tliat, with oxposurc and

192 NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE SHEIKHS.

liard ^\■o^k in uncertain and trying Nveatlier, coffee was not a
sufficient stimulant, however it may supply the requirements
of the inert Oriental in his own climate.

The negotiations with the Sheikhs had been carried on
through the kind assistance of the Consuls, ■\\h<) had promptly
on our arrival despatched messengers for the Sheikh of the
Ghawarineh in the plain of Jericho, and for Abou Dahuk,
the Sheikh of the Jehalin on the south-east of Hebron, who
had been the guide and companion of Lynch and De Saulcy.
With the former We had very little difficulty. The Ghawarineh
have connexions and property near Jerusalem on which the
Consul is able to seize as a lien, in case of non-fulfilment of
contract ; and in fact there is very little real danger to be
apprehended in their territory, unless from themselves. How-
ever, they take care to magnify the perils, and with good
reason, • since they levy a blackmail of seventy piastres on
each traveller who goes down to the Jordan even for a day.
But they had never before had a proj)osal of a visit from a
party for a fortnight, with the stipulation that they should
roam about and encamp wherever they pleased ; and after
many exorbitant demands had been made and rejected, it
was finally agreed that we should pay the ordinary head-
money, and 21. sterling per diem in addition, for two horse-
men and five footguards, for as long a time as we chose to
remain, having liberty to move about between Jericho, the
Jordan, and Ain Feshkhah at the north-west side of the Dead
Sea, the southern limit of the tribe. Their terms were not
high for the country ; and well and faithfully did Sheikh
Mohammed and his men serve us during the whole time we
were under their protection.

Far more difficult were the diplomatic arrangements with
Abou Dahuk and his lieutenant, or rather prime minister,
Sheikh Hamzi of Hebron, to whom all negotiations were
entrusted by the old warrior. Again and again we met at
the Consulate, and with unchanging politeness the same
wearisome compliments were repeated, the same wonderful
stories of perils and wars recounted, the old impossibilities

NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE SHEIHKS. 193

alleged, winding up with the assurance, that perhaps for
200/. a safe passage might be secured. Even this was only
thrown in, with a solemn stroking of the beard, at the very
last, as a contingent possibility. Our proposal was to meet
the Jehrdin at the convent of Marsaba, when we had com-
pleted the survey of the northern plain, and follow down the
shores of the Dead Sea, till we should come round to the
Lisan, or peninsula, and thence up to Kerak, whence we were
to return to Hebron witliin not less than thirty nor more than
forty days from our first joining the tribe. At the third
interview, business progressed. We were told how much
M. de Saulcy had paid, and a like sum was demanded from
us. AVe felt here as we did also some months later in the
East, how little cause travellers have to thank M. de Saulcy
for his lavish expenditure on both his visits. He has simply
rendered it impossible for ordinary travellers to follow him,
and the Bedouin argues, very naturally for liim, that what it
was worth ]M. de Saulcy's while to pay, is not too much for
another to give. The consequence is, that the districts he
has visited have been virtually sealed behind him, and can
only be entered by a bridge of gold.

At last it was agreed that we should make a present of oOl.
to the ^Sheikhs, and that we should pay besides about 51. a day
for guards, as they positively refused to undertake our safe
conduct with a smaller guard than seven horsemen and
twenty-five footmen. There was no help for it, unless we
were prepared to relinquish all hope of carrying out our
cherished scheme. Half the sum was paid into their hands
at once, the other half deposited in their sight with the
Consul, whose dragoman drew out the treaty in due form in
duplicate. These were read and compared, and then came
the momentous business of affixing the seals. The seal was
not worn in this case on the finger, but from the depths of
some part of the Sheikh's under-garments an unsavoury cotton
rag was produced, knotted and twisted, at one end of which
was carefully folded the signet ring. A little ink being
rubbed over it, it was then impressed upon the documents.

0

194 NIGHT STORM.

As the chieftain could not write, we saw at onoe the reason
of the jealous precaution v/ith which the signet was guarded.
" To trust a man with your ring " is a Bedouin proverb
expressive of unbounded confidence, and indeed it would
practically amount to entrusting a friend in England with
blank signed cheques. The signature written with the pen
was no security in the Arab's eye, and w'e were requested,
after we had signed the deeds, to affix our seals, not with wax
but with ink ; nor till this ceremony was completed did
Sheikh Hamzi's deep-set eye twinkle on the pile of sovereigns
on the office-table as without doubt his own.

Our last evening in Jerusalem was spent at the Bishop's
house, in pleasant and profitable converse on the past, present,
and future of the Land of Promise. It was no ordinary
privilege to meet in several members of the Mission-staff
men of hi^hlv cultivated minds, and of much oriental and
antiquarian research, whose stores of experience and know-
ledge were all at the travellers' command. With strong faith
and untiring zeal they are patiently toilmg ; finding encourage-
ment in all difficulties from those prophecies which, studied
here on the scene of their past and future accomplishment,
impart the reality of confidence to the dimness of vague hope.
One might hesitate to yield assent to the geographical inter-
pretations of some predictions, yet we could not but feel, in
the animated discussion in which that delightful evening
passed, comparing Scripture with Scripture, that there is
much yet to be learnt from topogi-aphical research in illustra-
tion of the literal fulfilment of prophecy, and that, in more
senses than one, that land of the past is also the land of the
future, and the Land of Promise still.

By the Consul's order we were passed through the Jaffa
Gate, and arrived at our camp a little before midnight in, a
pitiless storm of rain which swept up from the south-west,
threatening to tear our tents to ribbons, as they reeled and
shook under the gusts. Everything was getting wet, and we
found Giacomo and the servants rushing to and fro, carrying
our bedding to the neighbouring cafe. It was pitch dark,

DHrAKTURE FOR JEiacilO, I'J",

aud oue tent had already given way. Xu porters were to be
had. There was nothing to be done but to put our own
shoulders to the work, aud in dress-boots and coats to trudge
backwards and forwards till we had deposited the whole of
our goods under tlie roof All was transported by two am.
and wet and weary w^e undressed and lay packed in a row
in our sheepskins at the end of the cafe, consoling ourselves
that our black suits would have three months' time to dry
before they would be required again. Our quarters were
shared by a party of Turks, who had arrived from Jaffa after
the closing of the gates, and whose presence necessitated on
the part of Giacomo a sharp look-out on our " petits effets."

December 30th. — After a very short night's rest, we were
roused by the fragrance of cups of hot coffee, presented under
our noses. Our bedding was quickly rolled up, we united in
prayer in the quiet corner, and, soon after daybreak, our boxes
lumbered up the access to the cafe, and our throng of animals
and attendants crowded the road. It is no easy matter to effect
an early start from a city, and hopeless to attempt to hurry
Orientals, wdio, with all their keen aj)preciation of the value
of money, have never yet learnt the value of time.

At length the signal for a start was given, the last mule
had been laden, and, with the weather promising well for our
journey, we crept round the city walls, outside the Damascus
Gate, and towards the gorge of the Kedron. We formed a
long cavalcade — thirty-two beasts, horses, mules, and asses ;
besides our guard of two mounted Bedouin, with their long
spears, and some dozen on foot.

As soon as the convoy had got so far that we needed not to
fear the return of one after another to the city on some
frivolous errand, we pushed ahead. The valley of the Kedron,
in the damp morning, looked gloomy enough, paved with
tombs as far as the eye could reach, and with its straggling-
olive-trees, all tenanted to-day by ravens croaking and shiver-
ing in the wet, as though they were mourners for the past
glories of Jerusalem, or the gloomy ghosts of the buried dead
beneath. For once, in the bottom of the wady, a little stream

o 2

196 OLIVET — BETHANY.

trickled after the rain — a sight rarely observed by travellers ;
nor does it seem probable that at any period the Kedron was
more than a winter 'torrent, fed not by springs, Ijnt by the
drainage of the short upper valley.

We reined in our steeds as, slowly and thoughtfully, we
passed the dark and solemn olive-trees of Gethsemane. Then
a pause, and one more gaze on Jerusalem, from that corner of
Olivet " undefiled or unhallowed by mosque or church, chapel
or tower," where the Redeemer stayed His onward march, and
tears burst forth as He beheld the beautiful but doomed city.
We rode on, and turned aside again to that lonely platform
above Bethany, shut out from the view, as well of the city
behind as of the village beneath, and opening only on the
waste of rolling hills and glens that reveal a narrow portion
of the deep Jordan valley, and its mysterious lake. To this
spot Dean Stanley has, with great probability, assigned the
scene of that most glorious pledge to mankind, the Ascension
of our Lord.

After a short halt here, we left the miserable village of
modern Bethany on our left, and rapidly descended, but on
foot, the rocky staircase which for several hundred feet senses
as a road. Here we had a glimpse of the Dead Sea, lying
3,600 feet below us, calm and blue, but without the gauzy
haze which overhangs it in fine weather. The sky cleared as
we wound down the ravine, and, taking our guns, we walked
on ahead of our mules all day. By the time we reached the
Bir-el-Khat (or Apostles' Well, as it is called), the tempera-
ture sensibly rose. By the side of a small ruined khan, an
unfailing spring of clear, sweet water, under a Saracenic arch,
pours into a trough. How many travellers have quenched
their thirst at this well, as they toiled up the steep ascent
from Jericho 1 Often must our Lord have paused here with
His disciples, as every pilgrim has since, " drinking of the
brook by the way." The spot has been identified as the
Enshemesh, or "Spring of the Sun" (Josh, xviii. 17), and is
on that high-road from the plain of Jordan to Jerusalem,
which can never have taken any other course.

BARENESS OF THE WILDERNESS OF .lUD.EA. 197

Not only the climate, but the products, began noM' to
change ; and here I shot one of tlie peculiar birds of Palestine,
a pretty black-and-white chat (Saxicola libanotica, H. and
Ehr.), For three hours we wound down the valleys — if valleys
they can be called : depressions of winter torrents, which rake
the sides of innumerable round-topped hills, crowded one
behind another — of the wilderness of Judaea. A true wilder-
ness it is, but no desert, with the sides of the limestone ranges
clad with no shrubs larger than a sage or a thyme — brown
and bare on all the southern and western faces, where the
late rains had not yet restored the life burnt out by the
summer's sun, but with a slight carpeting of tender green
already springing up on their northern sides. Not a human
habitation, not a sign of life, meets the eye for twenty miles ;
and yet there seems no reason why, for pasturage at least,
the countr}' might not be largely available. But there are no
traces of the terraces which furrow the hills of the rest of
Palestine ; and one small herd of long-eared^ black goats were
all we saw till we reached the plains of Jericho.

Water-worn limestone hills are generally devoid of the
picturesque, and about these there is a peculiar desolate
tameness. Tlie quality of the rock varies — sometimes a soft
white limestone, sometimes a yellow and harder one, and
occasionally a conglomerate. One feature we observed to-day,
which presented itself continually to our notice afterwards,
and has a very important bearing on the solution of the
problem, how the Jordan valley was first formed. The lower
strata appeared, as a general rule, to dip evenly to the east-
ward, as if the Ghor (or Jordan valley) had been, after the
secondary' geological period, gently and gradually let down.
The angle of depression, where I could measure it by my
clinometer, was about 5°.

Just west of the ruined khan, on the highest point of the
road leaving the Ain-el-Khat, is a long belt, running from
north to south, of very hard semi-(3alcined, and sometimes,

1 These long flapping; ears recall the expression of Amos, "as the shepherd
taketh out of the mouth of the lion .... a piece of an ear " (iii. 12).

198 XKW BIRDS.

perhaps, metamorpliic red limestone, veined with wliite. This
portion is so massed and contorted, that it is difficult to trace
its stratification; and all ronnd it the deposition is most
irregular and disturbed, pointing, I imagine, to some trap-
dyke, or extrusion of basalt or volcanic matter very near the
surfixce, running from the volcanic centre in the north-east of
Palestine, but not here exposed. Another geological feature,
on which T have elsewdiere remarked, was the presence of
interposed silex and chalcedony in thick layers or ribs among
the limestone, but in a position quite irrespective of its strati-
fication ; occurring in Avavy undulations and folds, which crop
out of the softer limestone on many of the hill-sides. These
veins are from a few inches to four or five feet thick, and
extend over miles of hills, in apparently detached masses, but
having no correlation with the deposition of the limestone
matrix. They are of various colours — black, clear brown, and
blue — and have been often taken for volcanic remains by
cursory tourists. (See De Saulcy, passim.)

We obtained several interesting and novel specimens as we
walked along, especially a new desert lark — a small bird of
rich russet-red plumage and varied note {Ainmomanes frater-
culus, Tristram), not imlike the Isabel lark of Spain and North
Africa ; a very graceful little bird, slate-coloured, with black
tail, of the size of our robin, and resembling the stone-chat in
his habits, which we named the black-tail. It had been found
by Itiippell, in Arabia, and called by him Pratincola meUmura.
We also found the beautiful little partridge of the Dead Sea
basin, rather smaller than ours, with bright orange legs and
beak, and its flanks strijied with black, white, and chestnut
(Caccahis heyii, Tem.)> the very bird that David must have
had before his eye when he compared himself to a partridge
hunted in the mountains.

At the ruined Khan el Ahmah — perhaps the inn alluded
to by our Lord in the parable of the good Samaritan, but
which has long ceased to have an host, though robbers are as
plentiful hereabouts as formerly — m'c halted till our mules
came up, and, after eating our bread and oranges, took a long

WADY KELT. 190

rest. And now the scenery changed rapidly to the grand and
savage. Instead of limping among the gravels and Ijoulders
of Aviuter torrents, with an occasional zizyphus-bush over-
hanging them, we skirted the tremendous gorge of the AVady
Kelt, which we could occasionally see by peering down the
giddy height, with its banks fringed by strips of cane and
oleander, the " willows by the water-courses." Here Eobinson
is inclined to place the brook Cherith, Tlie derivation of
the Arabic from the Hebrew name is, perhaps, far-fetched ;
and ]Mr. Grove has justly remarked, that thovigh the sacred
text merely implies that the Cherith ran into the Jordan,
yet that the probabilities are very strongly in favour of its
having been, according to the tradition of Jerome and Euse-
bius, on the east of that river, the native country of Elijah,
and a far more secure retreat than the frontiers of Benjamin.
The gorge opens suddenly at a turn of the path about two miles
before reaching the plain, where the traveller finds himself in
front of a precipice, perhaps 500 feet high, pierced by many
inaccessible anchorite caverns, and with a steep, rugged hill
above. AVe gaze down into the steep ravine, and see the
ravens, eagles, and CTifibn-ATiltures sailing beneath us. These
are now the sole inhabitants of these caves, the monarchs of
the waste — or more strictly, perhaps, the board of sanitary
commissioners, a business which would be ill executed in
this region, were it not for the beneficent natural provision of
the vulture, the raven, and other birds of prey.

When we reached the face of the hill down which the road
winds from the top of the gorge, we enjoyed one of the finest
views in Southern Palestine. At our feet lay stretched a
bright green forest. Beyond it a long brown expanse — the
desolate plain which divides it from the Jordan, whose course
we could just trace by the depression marked by a dark
gi-een line of trees. Beyond rose a little higher the plains of
Moab or Shittim (where Israel camped before crossing to the
Promised Land), green, rich and wooded as they retire from
the river; and above these stood out clear and sharp the
long even range of the hills of Moab, among which Pisgah

200 elisha's fouxtatx.

.stands iiudistiiiiTinslied. To tlio liulit was the calm Dead Sea,
while Mount Quarantania to the north, with the ruined chapel
at the top, the traditional site of our Lord's forty days' temp-
tation, was the only near object to interrupt the panorama.

An abrupt descent by a rugged path on the south spur of
the wady led us into the plain. Here it was, in the valley
of Achor, that Achan was stoned after the fall of Jericho.
We mounted our horses again, and rapidly rode down a
gravelly slope, till, turning to the north, we forded the swollen
Kelt, and skirting the bright green oasis of several miles
square, which marks the once rich and populous groves of
Jericho, we galloped along the plain, well wooded and
watered, — a strange and refreshing sensation after the bare
and stony wilderness.

It was quite dark when we reached our camping-ground,
about 200 yards from Ain Sultan, called by Europeans
Elisha's Fountain ; and as the only other fountain of any size,
Ain Duk, has always borne the same name (see 1 Mae. xvi. 15),
there can be but little doubt that this is the spring whose
waters were healed by Elisha, and that the stone-strewn
mounds and fragments of pottery which cover the soil are
the remains of ancient Israelitish Jericho. Our new home
was snugly sheltered from the north by one of the strange
gravel hills Avhich dot the district — left at some epoch of
past geologic history by the retiring torrent in some sweep
of the once mighty river that filled the Ghor. The bright
clear rivulet from the fountain gurgled between its turfv
sides three steps in front of our tents, which were over-
shadowed by well-grown trees of the zizj'jihus spina-Christi,
or dom tree. IMore we could not see to-night, as we had
enough to do to get our camp pitched, and the mules
picketed in a vride circle by their sides. Wood, however,
was plentiful. Two or three trees were soon felled, and three
bright fires kindled ; soup and chops were cooked, and till
midnight we stood warming ourselves at the blazimj locrs in
the centre of the group of tents, and gazing at the stars
which seemed to hang out of the deep black sky.

BIRDS. . 201

Dccnnhcr 3 Is/'. — After a "breakfast alfresco, and a delightful
sponge ill Elisha's Fountain hard by, the temperature of
which does not vary from' 72° Fahr. we sent a note by our
muleteer, with a horse and two mules, to Jerusalem, to M.
whom we had left at the hotel, urging him to come and recruit
in the tropics, instead of shivering on the windy heights of
Benjamin. This day and the two following I spent chiefly
in the tents, suffering from tic, and occupied in writing, while
the rest of the party used their guns incessantly, and brought
in far more than could possibly be preserved in this hot
climate, despite all B — t's perseverance. The soup-pot, however,
got the benefit, luit it is to be hoped that our boiled bulbuls
will not condemn us to be classed with the Eoman epicure
M-ho feasted on nightingale's brains. In zoology Jericho sur-
passed our most sanguine expectations. It added twenty-five
species to our list of birds collected in the tour, and nearly
every one of them rare and valuable kinds.

The luilbul, or Palestine nightingale (Ixos xantlicypygius),
positively swarms, almost every tree being inhabited by a pair,
and the thickets re-echoing with their music ; the comical and
grotesque-looking " hopping thrush," as we have named the
Cratcropns cJiali/hcus, jumps and s]ireads his long tail in
every glade; the gorgeous Indian blue kingfisher {Alcyon
smyrncnsis, L.) perches solemnly over tlie little rivulet ; the
Egyptian turtle-dove inhabits the taller trees ; and various
little warblers of Indian or Abyssinian affinity skidk in tlie
thickets. On the plain above are the desert larks and chats,
while half-an-hour's walk takes us to the Mount of Temp-
tation (]\[ons Quarantania), the home of the griffon, the
beautiful little Hey's partridge, Tristram's grakle, various
rare rock swallows and Galilrean swifts, and the wildest of
rock doves in swarms. But beyond all others, Jericho is the
home of the lovely little sunbird {Cinnyris osea, Bp.), hitherto
only known in Europe by Antinori's unique specimen, though
mentioned by Lynch, De Saulcy, and others as a humming-
bird, a genus exclusively confined to the new world. The
male of Hosea's sunbird is resplendent with all the colours

202 SHELLS AND PLANTS.

of the Innumiug-bird, and not luucli larger lliau most of that
tribo, measuring 4\ inches in leugtli. It lias a long, slender,
and very curved bill, all the back a brilliant metallic gi'een,
the throat metallic blue, and the breast metallic purple, with
a tuft of rich red, orange, and yellow feathers at each shoulder
(the axillary plume), which ho puffs out as he hops in the
trees, paying his addresses to his modestly-clad brown-green
mate.

Then the grave-looking grey shrike sits motionless on the
topmost boughs, lost in amazement at the proceedings of the
howadji in their tents below, or waiting for the passing of
some droning beetle ; and the merry little long-tailed wren
{Drymccca gracilis, Eiipp.), spreads its fan-like tail as it runs
up the twigs of the tamarisk. These are only a few of the
ornithological riches of Jericho. The little stream swarms
M-ith shells (a melania, two species of melanopsis, and a
neritina), which stud every pebble : two kinds of fish enjoy
the warmth of its water, besides enormous frogs and the
ugliest of toads. There are scorpions under every stone, now
and then a fine snake — one very decidedly poisonous {Echis
arenicola, Boie.), the cerastes of the Dead Sea ; but scarce any
lizards at this season.

In plants the place is equally rich, and even in mid-winter
L. obtained some seventy species in flower, including a beau-
tiful small pseony. The most conspicuous was a beautiful
parasite, Loranihus indicus, with graceful red blossoms stud-
ding its branches as it climbed up the topmost boughs of the
thorn-trees. The principal tree was the zizyphus s})ina-
Christi, growing twenty or thirty feet high, with its sub-
angular branches studded with long pointed and rather
reflex thorns, very strong, — a true " wait-a-bit " tree. No
one can approach it with impunity unless clad in leather,
and in three days the whole party were in rags, from
passing throui^li the thickets. The Apple of Sodom (Solamim
Meloiujena), witli its potato-blossom and its bright yellow
but poisonous fruit, covered the ground. The false balsam
{Balanites jEgyptiaca), a t\iorny tree, with large olive-like

PALl^r AND BALSAM.

203

tYjiit — the Zukkfmi of the natives — from which the false
balm of Gilead, a sort of oil, is extracted and sold to the
pilgrims ; the Agnus casti, and a large flowering bamboo, are
among the most obvious plants. Yet among all these, where
are the trees from which Jericho of old obtained its name,
its fame, and its wealth? Not one remains. There are no
stragglers in that wild and thorny tangle wdiich have sur-

TREE AT EMSHA S FOUNTAIN,

vived from the destniction of the gardens of Cleopatra ; not
one sorghum stem springs by the water-side as a relic of the
plantations which j'ielded vast revenues to the Knights of
Jerusalem, and which are attested by the ruined sugar-mills
behind us ; no balsam-tree lingers in the maze of shrubbery ;

204 A PLEASANT CAMP.

and, ahovo all, tlie last palm lias gone, and its oraceful
feathery crown waves lu. more over the plain, which once
gave to Jericho its name of the City of Palm Trees.

Our camp looks charming : we realize for the first time
true wild life utterly apart from man and civilization. The
gravel hill behind — the rivulet in front, with an impenetrable
thicket just across it, some large trees on either side — our
main tent, with the English ensign floating over it, in the
centre, with the logs of the great camp fire piled in front —
to the left the working tent — to the right S. and U.'s compact
little Iceland dwelling, transported from Hecla to the Jordan,
but still "the viking's icy home," as we called it — and the
servants' tent opposite. Beyond, on the left, are picketed
all the horses and mules of the party, with the muleteer's
camp on the other side ; and to the right are our guard,
with their horses and fire. Wood is plentiful, hands are
numerous, and the axe is plied unsparingly from morning
till night. It is vain to regret the waste of all that fine hard
red heart-wood, which we should have coveted for onr lathes
and carving at home ; the three blazing watch-fires at night
give half its charm to the scene.

Behind us towers the Mount of Temptation, with its pre-
cipitous face pierced in every direction by ancient cells and
chapels, and the ruined church on its topmost peak. Before
us extends the jungle, where the palm-trees once waved over
the balsam gardens of Herod ; while beyond we look at the
blue hills of j\Ioab, wonder where Nebo was, and enjoy a
peep of the blue calm lake to the south. The ruins and
shapeless heaps around us are old Jericho (not Herod's city),
and the arches and vaults just above, with their little broken
aqueducts, are the remains of the sugar-mills, which once
yielded 5,000/. sterling annually to the Knights of the Holy
Sepulchre, and were not altogether neglected in the days of
the early caliphs, but are now only the refuge of onr horses
in the heat of tlie day, and the retreat of the jackals at night.
Before us the land might he as the garden of Eden; behind
us is a desolate wilderness.

^'AT1VE UANCE. 205

January Ist, 1864. — Under a biiglit sun and a cloudless
sky, with a natural warm bath in the open air, we began the
new year. It was a day of thankful retrospect and sanguine
anticipation, and the happiness of the party was crowned
when M. appeared in the afternoon, tolerably well, though
tired : and our mystic seven being complete, we formed a
light-hearted and enthusiastic dinner party. In the evening
our p-uards took it into their heads to treat ns to a " fantasia,"
or native dance, in honour of ^I.'s arrival and the completion
of the party. It is hardly a dance, scarcely acting, but rude
it certainly is. One of them standing with his drawn sword,
and facing the others, gave the time as they commenced with
a series of deep guttural grunts in 2/4 time, accompanied
M-ith a clapping of the hands. Then came an extempore
song of endless verses in praise of the Howadjis, their success
in shooting, the style of their horsemanship, and of course a
prophetic intimation of their generosity in gifts. All this
long tale continued confined within three semitones, and also
in 2/4 time. Then the grunts and the ducking, and hideous
gasps, as they clapped their hands — then the song again,
and so on for nearly an hour, till we stopped them and
distributed a backshish for this Bedouin concert. Neither
the dance nor the measure were like those of the Zickars I
have often seen in Africa, although the monotonous chant
and the indescribable grunting or soughing recalled them.
"We could not but heartily enjoy the quickness which had
invented and applied an appropriate nickname, under which,
in this heroic poem, each member of the party figured and
was described : L. from his botany, was celebrated as Abou-
hashis, i.e. the father of herbs, IT. decidedly the best and
quickest shot in the camp was Abou-'eyn-t'nin, father of two
eyes, and so on.

All were busily employed during the whole of the next day
at our various avocations — writing, photographing, shooting,
collecting, skinning, and sketching ; and right welcome was
Sunday, the 3d, with its associations of home and its peaceful
services, a day of calm repose. "We were just assembled for

206 SUNDAY CALLERS.

our morning service when Ave were startled by a i)arty of
armed Bedouin, riding rapidly down to the camp. Some of
them carried broken spears, one had his arm bound, and
altogetJier they wore a decidedly irregular appearance, even
for irregular horse. They dismounted by our guard, baited
their horses at our expense, and ate with their friends. But
their words seemed few and their compliments short, and in
an hour they rode ofiP. As soon as they had departed we
learned that they were a party of warriors, out at elbow,
belonging to a small tribe at war with Abou Dahiik, our
future guide round the Dead Sea. They had lately made a
raid upon his tribe, the Jehalin, and driven off some of his
camels in the foray, but had been pursued and attacked by
him. They had lost not only all their booty, but their own
camels by way of reprisal : and now, with two of their party
wounded, they were on their way across Jordan, to take
shelter for the present among the fastnesses of the Beni
Hamedi, in the hills of Moab, as Abou Dahiik's men would
soon be in pursuit. In the same country had David placed
his parents and family, when pursued by Saul. We saw here
a perfect specimen of Arab warfare, and of the state of the
country. However, their battles are seldom bloody, and the
vanquished partly usually emigrates at once.

In the afternoon we were serenaded by another fantasia or
Zickar; this time by the women of Er Eiha, the village which
stands on the site of ancient Jericho. They came up and
formed in front of the tents with loud shouts, and the strange
" trill triU " with the tongue which we had often heard from
the women of Algiers. The dance consisted in the movement
of the body rather than of the limbs, and one woman in front
of the circle, with a scarf in both hands, gave the time grace-
fully enough to the twenty-three performers who made up
the party. They were a miserable and degraded-looking set,
scantily clad in blue cotton, all very fdthy ; and, excepting
two or three of the younger ones, most repulsive in feature.
I never saw such vacant, sensual, and debased features in any
group of human beings of the type and form of whites.

A EKIDAL TAHTY. 207

There was no trace of mind in the expression of any one of
these poor creatures, who scarcely know they have a soul, and
liave not an idea beyond the day. They are the despised
women of despised fellahin, who repay to their wives the
contempt they meet with from the Bedouin. The women of
the Ghor, unlike jNIoslems of the towns, do not veil, and truly
there is no need for them to do so. In vain we told them it
was our Sabbath, and that we did not wish for their perform-
ance. Still they persevered, till we left tlieni and dispersed,
in the hope of getting quit of them. But to no purpose. The
Amazons of the party rushed in pursuit, and caught L. whom
they forcibly dragged back. AVe saw resistance was useless,
and were glad to purchase quiot by a liberal backshish. We
now observed among them a little childish figure completely
covered, and an old red silk handkerchief tied over head
and face. It was discovered that this was a wedding celebra-
tion, and that the poor child was the bride, who was led
round with only one hand exposed, into which every one was
expected to put a piece of silver as a wedding gift. This
done, they retired, dancing and singing our praises ; while we
felt, as we looked after them, that if there is one thing more
trying than to witness pain which one cannot alleviate, it is
to behold degradation which one cannot elevate. And this
too on the very spot where tlie Eedeemer had taught and
healed.

"Wherever we have been among Scriptural scenes, we have
felt that the author of the " Christian Year" had been there
in spirit before us, and often on the very day to which his
hymn is appropriated — not least to-day, when, after we had
taken the subject of Zaccheus at our evening service, the
lines occurred —

" Ls not the pilgrim's toil o'er})aid
By the clear rill and jjaliuy shade ?"

January 4:th. — Being now quite recovered, I joined B., U.,
and S. in a long day's expedition to the northern part of the
plain, and the caves of Mount Quarantania or Kuruntil, as

208

MONS QUARANTANIA.

our guides called it, of wliicli but scant accounts are given by
most writers. First we skirted the foot of Jebel Kuruntil,
after leaving the ruins of the sugar mills, by the side of a
cane-shaded rill, "which conducts, almost to Ain Sultan, the
water from Ain T)uk, the other great source of life in this
marvellous oasis. It M-as an hour's walk from our camp.
The spring, clear as crystal, and not warm like Ain Sultan,
gushes forth in a copious volume from under the roots of
an enormous dom-tree, the sidr of Egypt {Zizyijhus lotus).
It was the largest and finest tree we had yet met wdth in
Palestine. The fresh-water shells (Mclanojosis j^rcerosa, Lam.)
here attain an enormous size, and the fountain seemed equally
favourable to the development of the frogs which revelled in
it. Even now, neglected as it is, Ain Diik fertilises a tract
of several miles square, but this area is much wasted by the

MONS QUARANTANIA, JERICHO.

indolence of the Arabs. They do not appear ever to cut
down the useless nubk or zizyphus-trees, but cultivate among
them, letting in the water upon the laud when required from
the little open channel we had followed. This is constructed
at the highest possible level under the hill, so that the

HEEMIfS' CAVES. 209

plenteous stream is available for all the plain below. So
light and rich is the warm soil, that large patches which had
been dry and hard on Saturday, had become, by only two
days' watering, so soft and pulpy, that we plunged through
them ankle-deep in wet adhesive mud, while the wheat was
abeady shooting forth.

We thence turned up the hillside, w^hen I obtained my first
specimen of the beautiful grakle {Amydrus tristrami, Sel.),
well known to all visitors of the Convent of Marsaba as the
orange-winged blackbird. It is a bird exclusively confined
to the rocky gorges round the Dead Sea, and the gorge of the
Kedron at Marsaba. It may, perhaps, also be found at Petra.
Geogi-aphically considered, the occurrence of this bird here
is very interesting, fur it belongs to an exclusively African
group, Avithout any representatives in Europe or Asia ; and
certainly no member of the genus occurs further north than
Abyssinia, save this isolated and restricted species. It is
considerably larger than our blackbird, with lustrous black
plumage and rich chestnut-coloured wings. Its note is of
wonderful compass, rich and sonorous — I think the most
powerful and melodious whistle I ever heard — as it re-echoes
from cliff to cliff. Wild and wary, it lives in small flocks of
five or six, and it requires no little perseverance to approach
it within shot.

After a quarter of an hour's scramble up the debris, which
slopes away at the bottom, we reached the foot of the cliffs of
the mountain, which is here a sheer face of perforated rock.
On this eastern face are some thirty or forty habitable caves
and chapels ; and probably there is a much larger number
on the south face in the gorge of the Kelt. In the days
when they were all tenanted, the anchorites must have formed
a large and sociable community. ]\Iany of the cells commu-
nicate with each other, and, in front of many, seats have been
scooped out in the face of the rock, where the inhabitants
could sit and enjoy one of the most lovely views the country
affords, of the plains of Jericho, the mouth of the Jordan, the
hills of Ajalon and INIoab, and the north end of the Salt Sea.

P

210 hermits'^ caves.

These caverns have all been approaclicd liy staircases and
paths hewn out of the face of the rock ; but time and water
have worn away many of these, and left the upper caverns
in some cases wholly inaccessible. The lowest range of caves
is close to the edge of the sloping debris, and they are still
tenanted by the Arabs, who use them for sheep-folds and
donkey-stables, and sometimes, as we discovered, for corn and
straw depots. The next tier is easily reached ; and generally
every spring a few devout Abyssinian Christians are in the
habit of coming and remaining here for forty days, to keep
their Lent on the spot where they suppose our Lord to have
fasted and been tempted.

This tier is easily accessible to any one with a clear head.
The way to it is by a niche hollowed in the side of the
precipice. The gTound-floor of these cells, if the expression
may apply to such aerial dwellings, appears to have been a
series of chambers, with recesses hollowed out for beds and
for cupboards. There are four of these apartments opening
into each other, the natural caverns having been artificially
enlarged behind. Below^ is a large, Vy'dl-plastered reservoir,
or tank, to which tlie water has formerly been conveyed,
through cement-lined stone tubes, from the waterfall, several
hundred feet to the right. These tubes are neatly concealed
in the rock, and were quite out of reach of any attack.

In the centre of the roof of the third chamber was a small
round hole, scooped out of the native rock. Standing on the
shoulders of a tall Arab, B. was just able to reach this and to
climb up. lie then let down a rope, and we followed, when
we found ourselves on the upper story, with a M-ell-arched
front of line dressed stone, and various arched doorways and
windows looking east. So diy is the climate, that the traces
of fresco-painting and fresh colouring still remained on the
outer faces. There were three consecutive chambers, all lined
with frescoes, of which the faces alone had been chi]iped out
by Moslem iconoclasts. The centre room was evidently a
chapel, covered with Byzantine paintings of saints, and had
an apse in the east front, with a small lancet window. The

hermits' caves. 211

dome of the apse was filled by a fresco of our Lord, witli the
inscription 'O nANTOKPATwP over it. On the south side
was another figure, encircled by a halo. The face was erased,
and the inscription read,

'o 'Anoc 'o
T ft) . . . n . . . o c.

The next chamber was artificially vaulted over one half, and
a gallery chamber thus contrived above it. In this there
were, below the large frescoes, small figures drawn on the
plaster, in a sort of chrome, qiiite unlike the others — not
figures of saints, but apparently lilcenesses executed by the
artist to gi'atify his own taste, and exhibiting much greater
power of shading and contour drawing than we usually see in
Byzantine art.

In the roof of this, again, Mas a small hole, athwart which
lay a stick. After many efforts, we got a string across it,
and so hauled up a rope, by which, finding the stick strong
enough, we climbed, and, with a short exercise of the chimney-
sweeper's art, found ourselves in a third tier of cells, similar
to the lower ones, and covered with the undisturbed dust of
ages. Behind the chapel was a dark cave, with an entrance
eighteen inches high. Ha\'ing lighted our lantern, we crept
in on our faces, and found the place full of human bones
and skulls, with dust several inches deep. We were in the
buiying-place of the anchorites. Their bones lay heaped,
but in undisturbed order, probably as the corpse had been
stretched soon after death ; and, as in the campo santo of
some Italian monasteries, had been desiccated, and in the
dry atmosphere had gradually pulverized. The skeletons
were laid west and east, awaiting the resurrection. After
capturing two or three long-tailed bats, of a new species {Rlii-
nopoma sp. ?), the only living occupants, w^e crept out, with
solemnized feelings, from this strange sepulchral cavern.

We then visited another set of hermits' dwellings, 100 feet
higher up, much of the same kind, but in worse repair, as
the Abyssinians inhabit them every spring ; and many names

V 2

212 hermits' caves.

were cut in Ethiopic characters on the walls, as well as a few
in Greek.

Higher up, .ngain, we fouuu winding galleries in the rock,
to another series ; but the foothold was hazardous, and the
height giddy. The difficulty was greatest when we came to a
spot where the path had been entirely worn away, and one
had to swing round a projecting ledge by the hands merely,
with the feet hangingover a perpendicular precipice 700 feet
above the gorge, and the vultures sailing beneath. Here my
courage failed ; but B. and S. went on, and returned with
such glowing accounts of the remains of cells and chapels
that I determined to make the effort. We sent back some of
our Arabs for a siipply of ropes, and, having screwed up my
nerves to the requisite pitch, with a rope round my waist, I
M'as easily passed round the corner by these Bedouin, who
climb with the agility of wild goats, and well was I rewarded
for the exertion. In fact, if one only can resolve not to look
down, but to keep the eye fixed on the objects close at hand,
half the difficulty of rock-climbing is overcome.

We crept through a little tunnel in the rock, climbed
several sets of broken stairs on the face of the cliff, and
rounded some projecting points, till we were nearly at the top
of Mons Quarantania. Clouds of rock doves dashed from the
caves as we passed the entrance of many of them, and in the
outer galleries were the empty nests of at least three species
of swifts and swallows (Hirundo rufula, Cotylc rupcstris, and
C//pselns galilceensis).

I need describe only one set of caves, as all were on the
same model. We entered a large open chamber. It sounded
hollow ; and under a slab was the entrance to a sepulchral
vault. Behind the cave, again, was another low dark cavern,
a chamber of still decay, deep with human dust, and covered
with bones and skulls. The old hermits had been laid here,
as if, even in deatli, they would still be within hearing of
theii- hourly chapel service.

We passed along the rock, and through a short tunnel, into
another chamber, nine yards by seven, and a long cave behind

HERMITS CAVES. 213

it ; ^^•lle^e, by the aid of our lanterns, wc captured several of
tlie long-tailed bats. The front cave was vaulted, and of good
masonry, faced ^\•ith dressed stone, and over one half of it
were two more gallery chambers. At the furtlier side were
two doorways, one arched, the other square-topped, with all
the plaster coloured and covered witli frescoes, now much de-
faced. These doorways led to the chapel, the apse of which
was built out into the face of the precipice, with a fresco of
the Virgin in. its concave, and a small pointed window below.
On each side of the apse was a little niche in the wall, as if
for a piscina or credence-table, but no drainage hole. Tlie
whole roof was vaulted. Behind this, again, was a l)urial
cave, and beyond it a good cemented cistern, hewn in the
rock, ten feet by six, and perhaps ten feet deep, witli a little
dormitory over it. The angel Gabriel and the Annunciation
seemed a favourite subject, and, in all the chapels, occupied
the right of the apse. But we observed that, with one excep-
tion, the figure of our Lord occupied the centre in every wall,
and that there was no trace of the favourite Romish symbol
of the Virgin and Child. There were several figures of saints,
St. Paul occurred frequently, and St. Andrew once. The
following are the other inscriptions over the various paintings,
some of which exhibited fair artistic sldll. 'O AFIOC

rPHropioc 'o ©EoAoroc. 'o Anoc w i

XPTCOCTOMOT. 'o Anoc baciAeioc 'o mefac. +.

'O Anoc A0ANACIOC AA AIAC

In another chapel was a still more interesting inscription
veiy legible, viz. 6 ayio<; A0avaaio<i ri?? aKr]Oeia<i fxapTV<;.

Having gone through as many of the chapels as was neces-
sary to have a good idea of them, and having considerably
exercised our climbing powers, we returned to camp in the
evening. I have described these hermits' caves at somewhat
tedious length, as we were disposed to believe that they had
not hitherto been thoroughly explored by any traveller, nor
described by any writer. Certainly neither Robinson, I'orter,
nor Thomson had entered them ; and ordinary tourists are
not likely to provide themselves here with torches and ropes,

214 ARIAN PERSECUTION.

nor ito trust themselves to the latter. It is true, they have
no bearing on the history of the land, whether Sacred,
Eoman, or Crusading; but they may help to elucidate a
dark and little-known period of the Eastern Church. When
we observe the type of the frescoes, and the prominence
given to the great fathers in the Arian controversy, Gregory
Theologus, Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Athanasius, all
contemporaries at the beginning of the fourth century, and
all owing their fame to the part they took in that contro-
versy, may we not ascribe the date of these structures to the
period when that fierce struggle was at its height, and pro-
bably, too, to the hands of those who fled for safety and
seclusion, from the Arian persecution, to these caves ? There
is no mention of St. Jerome among any of the inscriptions ;
and one would feel disposed, therefore, to assign them to his
followers during his lifetime, or before he was canonized, for
had they been of a later date, it seems scarcely probable that
one whose life and fame were so closely connected with this
locality, and whose traditions are linked with the ruins ^

which these cells overlook, should not have been celebrated
among his compeers.

Perhaps, too, the reverence in which these cells are held
by the Abyssinians, and their neglect by the Greeks, may
indicate a traditional connexion with Egypt, and that their
occupants were emigrants from, or afliliated with, the in-
numerable societies of ascetics on the banks of the Nile.

I

CHAPTEE X.

Ancient Jericho — Its Traces — Gilgal, probably Er Eiha — Wady Kelt — Herod's
Jericho — The Sycamore — A Native Katuralist— Capture of a Wild Boar —
Native horror of Pork— Geology of Jericho — Night Scenery — Climate — Ride
to the Jordan — Deir Hajla — Beth Hogla — Convent — Sulphur on the Plain —
Banks of the Jordan — Its annual Eisc — Kurn el Yehudi, St. Jerome's Monas-
tery— Formation of Terraces on the Plain — Effects of Rain and Floods —
Ruins — Rock Doves — A false Alarm — Native Ideas on Natural History —
Ride to Jerusalem in the Rain — Nebi Moussa — Liynestone and Chalk For-
mation— Tadmireh Camj) — Ruin of a Klian — An Italian Traveller — Return
by the Hills of Benjamin — Anathoth — Givttoes — Sheep and Goats — Sunday
Rest.

Elisha's Fountain, Jericho. — Januanj 5th. — This day was
devoted to a careful examination of the district immediately
adjoining our camp, and the traces of the various cities which

iif'.

AIN SUI.TAN, JERICHO.

have successively occupied it. Tliat Ain Sultcln marks the
site of old Jericho there can be no reasonable doul)t, though
the ruins are but desolate heaps, and the remains of the

216 WADY KELT.

masonry round the spring are of very modern date ; perhaps
Herodian, or contemporaneous with the sngar-mills just above.
The absence of masonry need not cause difficulty. AVe have
no reason to believe that the Israelitish cities possessed any
architectural features. All the relics on the hills of Ben-
jamin, or at Bethel or Shiloh, are, apart from the Herodian or
Roman works, absolutely undecipherable ; while the quantities
of fragments of pottery, and small, sharp, not rolled, pieces of
stone in the earth here, point to a long-continued occupation
by man. AVhatever masonry was available, we may be quite
certain would be carried up the slope by the Saracens or the
Crusaders, when they constructed the extensive sugar-mills
and aqueducts we have mentioned.

Nor does any trace remain, either in stone or in tradition,
of Gilgal. Josephus assigns it a position fifty stadia from the
Jordan, and ten from Jericho. Willebald, in the beginning
of the eighth century a.d. gives its ruins as five miles from
the Jordan, i.e. two from Jericho. These two indications
point pretty nearly to the modern Er Riha, and, as we know
that it was not the site of either Jericho, the conjecture seems
most probable that here was Gilgal. The position, with its
abundant supply of water, could scarcely have been un-
occupied ; and in such a soil, the absence of ruins, whose
stones would be so valuable for the erection of the Turkish
castle and the modern hovels, cannot have much weight.

From Er Eiha we walked up to the remains by the banks
of the Kelt, the Herodian and j^ew Testament Jericho,
attested by many lines of foundations and fine crumbling
aqueducts, by which all the flow of the AVady was once
intercepted. Two sets of arches still sjian tlie little dell,
beautifully overhung with dom and zuhkum trees. By the
side of the glen, the castor-oil plant (Ricimis ojicinalis)
flourishes as a perennial, and becomes a goodly shrub. The
Vitex agnus-castus unites with the oleander to form a perfect
tangle, the delight of scores of chiffchafi's and willow-wrens
in their winter quarters ; and on some bare gravelly mounds
above the banks, L., more fortunate or more persevering than

NATIVE NATURALIST. 217

his predecessors, from Hasselquist to Eobiuson, found the Rose
of Jericho {Anastcitica hicrochwidica) in some abundance.

But we could find no trace of the Hippodrome of Herod,
and the whole area has been stripped of every relic of sculp-
ture or architecture. Along the road which leads up to the
opening of the Wady Kelt our Lord must have walked, under
the shadow of the avenue of palms and sycamores ; and just
beyond the ruins He halted imder the sycamore-tree, and bade
the anxious Zacchteus receive Him at his house. No trees
now overhang that dusty and scorched track, and the syca-
more would seem, like the palm and the balsam, to have
perished from the plain. The tree into which the publican
climbed must not be confovmded with the Oriental plane
common by the streams .of Xorthern Galilee, but was the
sycamore fig {Ficus sycoviorus), already mentioned in the
Plain of Phcenicia, but never found in the central highlands.
We were gratified by the discovery that, though scarce, it is
not yet extinct in the Plain of Jericho, as we found two aged
trees in the little ravine just to the south of these ruins, in
illustration of the Gospel narrative.

Several of our guards became much interested in our col-
lections, or rather in the backshish which a good specimen
calls forth. One of them, Gemil, the brother of our Sheikh,
who after\\ ards became a confidential friend, assisted us
greatly, and showed acute powers of discernment. Seeing
my interest in land shells, he collected them in some quan-
tities, and recognised every species. This morning with great
delight he came and announced he had found a new species
in the rocks. I cast a cursory glance at his handful, and
told him I had the shell already ; upon which he replied I
was mistaken, and pointed out a minute but constant differ-
ence in the form of the lip between this Helix and the other
for which I had taken it, and in which I at once saw he was
perfectly correct. Gemil, with a little training, would soon
have made a first-rate collector.

Our pay for such services was not very magnificent, never
more than one charge of powder at a time, wliich liaving

218 GEOLOGY OF JERICHO.

obtained, the guards would start off with their long niatch-
loclcs, and presently return with a specimen. They had not
the slightest idea of shooting flying, but with a rest behind a
rock had an unerring aim. They brought in to-day a line
marmot {Psammomys obesns), three grakles, and some par-
tridges. But the event of the day was the capture of a large
wild boar, which one of them brought down in a jungle near
the Jordan. Of course no one would touch the unclean
beast, and when we heard of the fact, it was with the greatest
difficulty we could' obtain one of our mules to convey the
prize to camp. Hamoud at first was obstinate. The mule
would be defiled, the saddle must be burnt, the camp would
be polluted. It was only by a stern exercise of authority
that we despatched an animal with our Christian servants
alone for the -pig. It oozed out afterwards that the real
dread was lest we should feed upon pork ourselves, and our
following be thus debarred from their accustomed perquisites
from the kitchen. Our dinner testified to the value of the
"chasse," and our talile was varied by wild pig in every
shape for three days. It certainly was delicious eating,
bearing the same relation to pork as partridge to chicken.

After dinner we had an animated discussion on the geo-
logy of the district, on which all had been making observa-
tions. The absence of volcanic traces was indisputable, and
the evidence to our minds conclusive that only the Jordan, or
that ancient tongue of the Eed Sea which it represents, could
have formed the Ghor, and especially the strange gravel hills
around us, and that the Ghor is chiefly a fissure of erosion,
accelerated perhaps by the agency of depression during the
volcanic period of the Ledjah, at the end of the tertiary
epoch. These huge hillocks which fringe the plain are all
composed of conglomerate, quite unlike the sedimentary re-
mains lower down, and are very soft, with land shells inter-
mingled of existing species. The plain is generally covered
over with a coating of mud mingled with the existing fresh-
Avater shells of the Jordan and its tributary streams. But in
the case of the genus mclanopsis especially, there are three

CLIMATK. 219

species common, viz. M. iwccrosa, M. cosfafa, and M. Scadei/i.
Of these the former ahoinids everywhere in the Ghor ; the
second has been found in a living state only in the npper
waters of the Jordan and the Lake of Galilee ; and the third
only near Ain Sultan. Almost all the semi-fossil shells in
tlio deposit of the Jordan plain are of the second species,
and we could not discover any of the third. This seems to
point strongly to the supposition that all tliis mud has been
brought down and repeatedly overflowed from the upper
waters, unless the distril)ution of the species has become
changed. At any rate, the general inference appears irre-
sistible that, within a comparatively recent geological period,
the whole lower valley has been exposed to fresh-water flood-
ings from the upper Jordan, and tliat the great mounds and
hillocks which stud the sides of the valley under the hills
are the result of sudden freshets and torrents from the wadys
to the west, which have brought down enormous masses of
soil, in which the shells that lived on its surface have been
mingled.

We talked and speculated till long after ten o'clock, our
usual hour for prayers, and then the night was too lovely to
induce us to retire. Under the clear starlight we sat or stood
round the camp fire till midnight, M., no mean performer,
practising on his violin to the delight of the Bedouin, who
could not resist the temptation of getting up a " fantasia " for
an accompaniment. But they evidently did not appreciate
the sonatas of ]Mozart. Our fire was a huge one, and plea-
sant it was to stand with the back to it and the face to
the brilliantlj'-lit canopy overhead. The stars glitter witli
peculiar lustre down into this deep gorge, and it is not till
towards morning that any sharp cold is felt.
• The climate is much like that of Egypt, — the same dry,
hot days, and chilly mornings just before sunrise. Earely
the thermometer fell below 49°, its .average minimum in the
fifteen days from 30th December to 13tli January being 53° 5'
at 10 P.M., and 43° the average minimum registered during
the night, whilst during the day it ranged as high as 85°,

220 EIDE TO THE JORDAN.

averaging 72°, and with a radiancy of atmosphere wliich
converted the eastern mountains of Moab and the Dead Sea
into a fairy laud of glowing softness,

January 6. — All were out by daybreak for an excursion to
the Jordan and the ruins of the plain. A hasty breakfast
at our table under a tree, on wild boar chops and coffee, and
with a good supply of cold pig-cheek and bread for luncheon
we were off. Very like a squad of Bashi-bazouks we must
have looked in varied attire and armament. Seven of us
mounted with our fowling-pieces. Sheikh Alohamraed and two
of his esquires on horseback, with their long lances quivering
over their heads, and half a dozen guards besides on foot,
with their long matchlocks. It was a lovely morning, though
somewhat cold until the sun was well up. Our steeds, who
had been standing idle at their pickets for a week, were fat,
frisky, and in unbounded spirits, which exuberance resulted
in various summersaults on the part of the less experienced
riders during the day.

AVe had to ride carefully for a couple of miles through the
frightfully prickly tangle of jujube bush, which here grows
to be a fair-sized tree, until we reached the rubbish heap on
which the hovels of Er Eilia are thrown up round the old
castle, after the fashion of an Egyptian village of the lowest
class. On the slopes of the mound were a few unfenced
plots of tobacco j)iants, marked by circles of loose stones,
and below the villaoje some enclosures of fruit-trees. Here
the cultivation suddenly ceases, the jujube bushes become
more sparse, and gradually the oasis fades away into an open
bare plain, — looking much like a district which has not yet
recovered from a sudden inundation. But there is no reason
in the nature of the soil why the land should be barren, and
all that is required to restore fertility here is the utilization
of tlie abundant fountains above.

Turning to the south, we cantered across a wide plain of
alluvial soil, scantily covered with scrubs, from which were
started several hares, and which abounded in tracks and holes
of marmots and jerboas, until we came to the slight tree-

DEIR HAJLA. 221

fringed depression of tlie Wady Sidr, the next little streani-
"bed south of the Kelt, so called, doubtless, from the dom trees
which occasionally mark its course. We looked in vain for
the ruins of Moharfer, suggested as Gilgal by Van de Velde,
and our Ghawarineh seemed unacquainted with the existence
of any such hereabouts. Having dismounted, we walked
some way down the course of the AYady, and obtained a
hare (Lcpus sinaiticus), and a Greek partridge, welcome con-
tributions to the pot. U. also brought down, from a tlock
that passed overhead, our first specimen of the sandgrover, a
beautiful male example of the African species Ptcrocles sene-
galcnsis, Lath, which we should scarcely have looked for so
far east. Thence we struck across to Deir Hajla, called by
our Christian servant Deir INIar Yahanna — the convent of
St. John, a fine, well-built, Greek convent, of the Byzantine
style, with many of the walls, external and internal, still
standing, the outlines of the* chapel still entire, and the
frescoes remaining, defaced, but distinct on the walls. From
this place, to which we intended to devote more time on a
subsequent visit, we turned to the north-east, to visit a well,
which our Arabs declared the best in the country, Ain Hajla ;
no doubt, from the identity of name, the ancient Beth Hogla,
on the frontiers of Judah and Benjamin. It is in a slight
depression, unmarked by trees or ruins, and, without a guide,
certainly not easily to be discovered. In a little oasis of rich
green herbage, the neatly-constructed circular well is sunk,
not very deep, but perfectly clear to the gTavelly bottom, the
sides studded with little black neritina shells, and the water
standing at the level of a few inches below the edge of the
structure. At the south side it oozes out, and fertilizes a
pretty green strip towards the Jordan, till its powers are
exhausted. But no trace of ruins could we find. Perhaps
they were all carried off for the construction of the monastery,
since, though that shares its name, the ancient town must
have been planted by the unchanging spring, rather than on
the barren plain, two miles distant.

From Ain Hajla we hastened across the plain to the Jordan,

'2'2'2 lUNKS OF THE JORDAN.

our guards, meanwhile, amusing themselves with mock Arab
fights as tlK'y caracolled over the level expanse. The soil was
all diluvial recent deposit, with many blanched specimeus of
the common Jordan shells embedded in the dry earth, but no
trace of fossilised specimens. Here and there, especially as
we ai)proached the river, there was an incrustation of nitre,
and the soil had a saltish taste, yielding few plants, save
salsolas and salicornias. On some parts of the plain were con-
siderable superimpositions of impure sulphur, and occasional
fragments almost, pure, of which I collected some of several
ounces in weight. It seemed as though, by some chemical
process, the sulphur was at present in course of deposition ;
and this was corroborated by our guide, who stated that the
Kerak people come and collect it for the manufacture of their
gunpowder. We could not hear of any sulphur springs on'
the north end of the lake, though we foimd many further
south.

The atmosphere was very clear, and the mountains of Moab
stood out in grand relief above the placid, glistening surface
of the sea, mantled with a lovely purple hue, in pleasing con-
trast with the stern-looking, precipitous mountain behind us,
which frowned in a sombre russet dress.

The Jordan itself could not be seen, nor yet the belt of
green we had looked on from Ain Sultan ; but we could easily
trace its course by the bare banks opposite to us, furrowed
and ploughed by barren nullahs and thirsty ravines, since the
eastern bank is here very much higher than the western. Sud-
denly descending a slope of thirty feet, we found ourselves in
front of a belt of impenetrable jungle and trees, chiefly a sort
of poplar evergreen, a sycamore, and several deciduous trees
unknown to us ; while the undergrowth was principally
tamarisk and cane, and not, so fiir as we could observe, the
familiar oleander.

We were on the banks of the Jordan. After turning a
little way down, we came to an opening in the belt, and were
at once on the river-side, at the well-known pilgrims' bathing-
placa !Muddy, swollen, and turbid, the stream was far too

KUKN-EL-YEHUDI. 223

formidable and rapid for the most adventurous to attempt
their intended Lathe ; and we sat* and ate our luncheon under
the tree where I had breakfasted six years before. Had we
arrived a few days sooner, we could not have approached the
river at all ; for it had been overflowing its banks, and filling
the lower level, to which we had descended from the plain,
and which was still a deep slimy ooze. Under our tree, how-
ever, the drift had formed a sandbank, on which we could sit.
By measurement, we found that the river had lately been
fourteen feet higher than its present margin, and yet it was
still many feet above its ordinary level. Though there were
no oleanders in blossom, the tamarisk was putting forth its
graceful feathery plumes ; and the trees were green as summer,
while the air resounded with the music of the bulbul. Every-
Nvhere were traces of wild-boar, hytena, and jackal,— washed,
probably, out of their usual lairs, and taking refuge in the
higher grounds. The subject of this rise of the Jordan is of
some interest, as doubts have occasionally been raised on the
c|uestion. Eobinson, who remarks that no traveller had visited
its banks in November or December, does not appear to have
been aware of it. Probably, when we visited it just now, the
rains had been more copious than at any other period of the
year ; and, as T shall have occasion to mention subsequently,
this overflow was far more considerable than the second flood-
ins in tlie month of March.

Our guard insisted upon the horses being at once with-
drawn out of range from the river-bank, lest, if detected, they
should afford target-practice to their neighbours, the tribes on
the other side, with -whom they informed us they were at wav.
We then separated on our various errands — -ruins, plants,
ducks, or pig, — agreeing to meet at this spot in five hourti, for
our return together.

On the barren upper plain stood a pile of ruin, to which
I betook myself, the Kurn-el-Yehudi of the Arabs, i.e. Castle
of the Jews, but in reality a Greek monastery, of very early
date, probably contemporary with St. Jerome. Hither, local
tradition states, the father frequently came for seclusion and

224< KUINS.

study ; and lience, wc are told, tlie monks migrated to Marsaba,
wlieu the constant inroads of the Arabs rendered their frontier
position no longer tenable. It was pleasant to fancy the tra-
dition true, and to muse on the contrast between the desolate
home and the living -N-.-orks of the great father, Tlie scene
was barrenness itself. A large square pile of building had
been thrown into a mass of shapeless ruins, apparently by an
earthquake, many blocks of wall being heaped in overthrow
in all directions, but held together by the mortar. The view
stretched from the head of the Dead Sea at the south, all up
the dull flat Ghor to the bold headland of Kurn Surtabeh in
the n£)rth, Avitli a conical peak pushing out from the mountains
of Samaria, and intersecting the valley apparently almost to
the edge of the river. On eitlier side, before or behind, not a
tree or a blade of grass was visible, save the oasis of Jericho in
the rear, and the fringe of the Jordan in front. The ruin
stands just on the edge of the wide upper plain mentioned
above ; while the lower plain, which had been inundated
within the last few days, reached up to the foot of the bank of
debris on which the convent was planted.

Yet this barren desert had once been fertile by the irriga-
tion of the plenteous streams above, and nothing but neglect
has reduced the well-watered plain to such desolation. We
could detect the traces of the old watercourses for irrigation,
and the upper plateau must, within the last 2,000 years, have
extended far further towards the bed of the river. Sudden
winter floods are rapidly wrinkling its edges, and washing it
piecemeal into the guUey below. I can scarcely describe tlie
singular way in which the banks were scored, and, as it were,
large islands left, forming flat-topped mounds, the soft marl
of whose crumbling sides, encrusted slightly with natron,
without a particle of vegetation, are year by year restoring
to the Jordan its old deposit. From no point can a better
or clearer elucidation be obtained of the various plateaux
of which the lower Jordan valley (the Anion) is composed,
and which throw such light on the history of its formation.
First, gradually declining from the western hills, and formed

A FALSE ALARM. 22o

principally of their debris, is the \i]iper terrace on ^vhicii
stand the two great oases of Ain Duk and Ain Sultan; com-
mencing at a height of 750 feet above the level of the Dead
Sea, and sinking at Er Eiha to 500 feet. Hence a somewhat
steep slope descends nearly 200 feet to the second plateau.
This is now barren, but merely so from neglect, except in
the portion nearest the lake, where the soil is impregnated
with salt and covered with efflorescence of sulphur. Thirdly,
comes the extent of ground about 100 feet lower still, occa-
sionally overflowed by the river; and lastly, fringing the
stream, and very frequently under water, the narrow, depressed
belt ; which is a mere tangle of trees and cane, often only
a few yards in width, ^o person, I think, can carefully
study these various terraces without being convinced that on
them are engraved the past physical history of the country,
and how, step by step, the once mighty flood has dwindled
into the narrow but still impetuous stream.

While sitting among the ruins I was startled by a cloud of
rockdoves, rising by hundreds out of the earth beneath my
feet, and soon found a small hole, opening into extensive
subterranean caverns, the cellars and tanks of the old
monastery. I could see they were finely vaulted, but without
a rope quite inaccessible. Three very large arches could be
perceived below, and on firing down, the vaults resounded
like a rumbling earthquake, and another cloud of pigeons
dashed frantically in my face. Though, the upper building
is wholly ruined, the lower substructure, or crypt, above
these cellars remains, and here is a plain large chapel, with
its apse entire, but, unlike the ruins of Hajla, without a
trace of plaster or colouring. There was a small window at
the top of the apse, and traces of the altar. All was built of
good sandstone, which must have been brought from some
distance, as none is known in the neighbourhood.

From the ruins, I descended to the swamps above the river,
attracted by the flocks of duck which I had seen alight there,
and had two ineff'ectual shots at a wild boar. I had got a
coot and a pochard, and was trying to cross a piece of jungle,

Q

226 WEATHER OF THE GIIOR.

iu ^^■llil•l^ I liud stuck fast, when I heard signal guns and the
shrill whistle of my companions. Forcing my way out, I saw
the whole party mounted on the crest of the bank above. It
appeared that our Arabs, having seen a large company w^ith
camels on the other side, had taken fright, and insisted upon
our returning at once ; professing great alarm for my safety,
as, until they had heard my gun, they did not know the
direction I had taken. We soon saw that all this was a
devdce to get sooner back to camp, since no party could cross
in the present state of the river. Much to their discontent,
we told them w^e should not return till evening, and again dis-
persed on our several errands. AVe collected a few more birds ;
U., as usual, establishing his right to his Arab soubriquet,
and all returned safely to camp, a little after sunset, with
no worse mishap than an involuntary plunge overhead, which
I took in endeavouring to retrieve a duck in the swamps.

The curious haze which w^e had observed in the evening,
over the Dead Sea, explained itself after dinner, not, as we
had hoped, by a sirocco, but by a downpour of rain, which
continued during the night, from the south-west, but very ■
warm withal. Happily, our tents were well pitched, and we
suffered not the slightest inconvenience. A party of thieves
were detected prowling about, under cover of the storm, on
the look-out for a horse, mule, or anything else they could
lay hands on ; sentries w^ere accordingly posted at the door of
each tent, and a vigilant patrol maintained, who kept us, if
not the thieves, on the qui vive till morning by their shrill
cries.

January 7th. — A cloudy day, but with frequent gleams of
sunshine. It was rather a home-day, spent about camp — all
having letters to write, as we had arranged I should start
postman for Jerusalem to-morrow. Our success in collecting
had been so great, that we determined to remain a few days
longer, and to defer the meeting with our JehalJn guard at
Marsaba for another week. Our Ghawarineh evidently were
nothing loth to protect us, and eat of our stores, for as long a
time as we chose to stay iu their territory. We revisited the

A EIDE IX THE RAIN. 227

hillsides, and afterwards the thickets on the plain, hut ohtained
little among the inipenetrahle obstacles of the latter, except-
ing most ragged trousers. The grakle, however, several sun-
birds, Indbiils, and desert partridges increased our ornitho-
logical stores ; and the rain of the preceding night had
brought out some (to us) new species of shells.

AVe catechised our Sheikh on his knowledge of the upper
part of the Ghor. He told us, besides the ruins of F-usail (the
ancient Phasaelis), of some others, to which he promised to
conduct us, existing in the lower level of the plain, and
having, as he said, great caves, made by the Yehudi, beneath
them. These he called Es Sumrah, and declared they were
much larger than those of the Herodian city beyond. AVe
resolved to give them a day, though not attaching much
value to his description. Having, however, now satisfied
himself that we were not in search of such treasure as he
should value, he evinced no reluctance to impart all the
knowledge he possessed of the curiosities of the neighbour-
hood. He looked upon lis rather with reverence, as slightly
crazed (a sure title to respect with the Bedouin), for our pur-
suit of tilings good neither to eat nor to sell ; but apologised
once for having inadvertently intimated this, by adding,
that he supposed we had some spells, by which we should
restore all the birds to life when we got into our own country.
"But why," he inquiringly exclaimed, "should the Howadji
use witchcraft to bring scrjpetits into their country ? "

January 8th. — Daylight brought with it no very cheering
prospect for a six-hours' ride : the rising sun did not dispel
the black clouds as on the morning l)efore. The rain still
came down in torrents, and the hills were black. Even at
balmy Jericho, the postman, when there is one, will some-
times have a hard life of it. To climb through a shower-bath
from the tropics into a storm of jSTovember sleet is no trifle,
and such was my lot to-day. But the hope of letters made
the labour light. The ordinary road was sufficiently familiar,
and having heard of some ruins accessible by a route to the
southward, I determined to make the detour, chieily with the

q2

228 LIMESTOXE AND CHALK FOR.MATIOX.

view of noting the geology on the way. A southward track
leads along the foot of the hills, from the site of Herod's
Jericho to Nebi Mousa, a INIosleiu chapel on the top of a
conical hill, where their tradition has placed Pisgah and the
burial-place of jMoses, doubtless for the convenience of their
pilgrims from Jerusalem, who resort thither in great numbers
at the time of our Easter. Leaving the hill of Nebi Mousa
on the left, we now turned across an irregular and rather
rugged ^Yilderness, to the upper part of the Wady Dabur,
where were ruins of which our Arabs had spoken, called
Melaah. Nothing was distinguishable beyond the traces of
old foundations, and a few shallow caves, but the slopes were
green, and we found here an encampment of our friends,
the Ghawarineh, with their flocks. The women brought us
out liban, or sour curds, " in a lordly dish," but the men were
all absent. As we ascended the hills, I had an opportunity
of noticing the geology at my leisure, for there was no fear of
falling among thieves, and we were by this time personally
known to all the tribe. Two strata were generally exposed.
The lower, of hard, almost crystalline limestone, dipped the
whole way towards the east, as though the valley had been
depressed, rather than the hills elevated. But the upper
stratum, of a soft, chalky limestone, was rarely confOTmable
with these lower deposits, being frequently contorted ; and
where dislocations of the lower stratification were exposed,
the interstices and fractures had been filled in by the de-
position of the more recent chalk. The silex of this, where
the hillside had been washed bare into a cliff, presented,
by its wrinkled and crimped appearance, somewhat of the
effect of a frill round a cap.

Eiding westward, the character of the wilderfiess became
more tame ; steep cliffs gave place to grassy slopes, and the
whole country assumed the character of rolling downs, where
we could travel without track in almost every direction. As
we had observed on the way to Jericho, the north slopes
were ever}''where covered with a fine velvet herbage, while
the southern sides still retained the brown livery of summer.

RUIN OF A KHAN. 220

The Ta aniireh, a powerful tribe between Bethlehem and Engedi,
were pasturing their camels ; and we met several straggling
Arabs ; but tliey were all acquaintances of our protectors,
and did not even demand a backshish. It seems that they
were trespassers in the eyes of the Ghawarineh, who, being
too weak to assert their rights, were allowing them to lie dor-
mant for the present. The round-topped hills, with their wadys
encircling them, reminded one of the contour drawings of
mountains in ancient atlases. These wadys were by no
means dr}' to-day, and sometimes it was as n)ucli as we could
do to ford them without swimming. Partridges, of the large
Greek species, were abundant, and I was able to secure a
brace without dismounting. My favourite chestnut horse, a
thoroughl)red Arab, had by this time become perfectly trained
as a shooting-pony, and, with the docility which characterizes
his race, would im]:)licitly follow the commands of the voice,
and, without flinching, allow me to traverse my gun between
his ears. If I dismounted, " II Bey " would stand patiently,
untended, till my return, or follow at the word of command.

From el JNIelnah, we went on to another ruin, wliich con-
sisted merely of a large khan, with many arches and vaults
still entire. Apparently it was a very early Saracenic struc-
ture, half fortress, half hostelry, or perhaps a Crusading post,
adapted by their successors. The place had no special name
in the vocabulary of my companions, nor could I detect traces
f»f any earlier ruins in its immediate neighbourhood. It lies
on the direct road from Jerusalem to ISTebi Mousa, about
equidistant from each.

From the khan, we rode sharply on to Jerusalem, rejoining
the ordinary track a short distance before reaching the Apostles'
Well. It was not yet two o'clock when we arrived, and the
gates were locked. Every Friday, from noon till two P. Jr., the
time of prayer in the mosque, the gates are rigorously closed,
on account of a tradition that at that hour the Christians wiU
some day seize the city. I thought of " Patience on a monu-
ment, smiling at grief," and fancied she must have learnt her
lesson from a horseman, drenched and hungrj', sitting for an

230 AN ITALIAN TRAVELLER.

liour on liis dripping steed under tlie walls of Jerusalem. A
black-bearded jay tried this patience too much, when, with
the familiarity of a sparrow, it lighted under the Damascus
Gate, and secured its niche among the souvenirs of Jerusalem.
For once the post-office was open, a rare event, and our mails
were soon deposited and received.

Tliroiigh the kindness of Mr. Moore, I made the acquaint-
ance of an Italian gentleman, who had been spending some
months among the tribes to the north-east of Petra, and
beyond the Belka, for the sake of purchasing horses for the
King of Italy. Unfortunately, Signor Guerracio was neither
an antiquarian nor a naturalist ; for he had had opportunities
such as fall to the lot of few. He was a perfect Arab scholar,
and the object for which he travelled was a sufficient passpoi-t
everywhere. But he had never ventured to keep a journal,
lest he should excite suspicion. Living as an Arab, in their
costume, and without baggage, his mode of travelling was to
attach himself to some tribe so long as it suited his plans.
The Bedouin, firmly convinced that their horses were uu-
'equalled in the world, considered his errand most natural,
and accepted it as a compliment. Besides, he never quitted a
tribe without making a purchase. He stated that he had
travelled at least a hundred miles due east of Esli Sherah, the
ridge which runs down to Akabah ; and that in the interior
there was very little true desert, but that the whole of Northern
Arabia, east of the Hadj route, was more or less pastoral, and
capable of maintaining large herds of camels and goats ; and
that the population, though always nomad, seemed to increase
in the interior. Of cultivation beyond the Belka (the ancient
ISIoal)), there was little ; there were traces of many ancient
cities, and of artificial irrigation, with a few existing oases of
palm-groves, but no ruins of any beauty or magnitude, like
those of Petra. His description of these ruined towns
reminded me of what the oases of the Beni M'zab, in the
Sahara, would become, if deserted for a short time. Signor
Guerracio maintained that, except where the natives have been
corrupted by travellers, the requisite for penetrating Arabia

THE HILLS OF BENJAMIN. 231

is not money, hut a perfect knowledge of the languago, and
time. With patience and tact, he considered that a per-
severing explorer ouglit not to fail of success, if willing to
attach himself to such a tribe as the Beni Sakk'r, and to
travel along with them. He did not, however, hold out any
favourable prospect of our being able^ with baggage and a
retinue of our own, to explore the eastern border of the Dead
Sea, inhabited as it was, not by nomads, but by little tribes
of sedentary plunderers.

I remained for the night under the hospitable roof of the
Bishop — a sudden step into civilization from our gipsy life, —
and having finished our marketing, left early next morning,
along with my muleteers and a couple of guards. In de-
scending the hill from Bethany, we saw an illustration of the
wretched insecurity of the country, in a drove of donkeys,
laden with firewood for Jerusalem. Each ass was attended by
a man armed to the teeth with pistols, sword, and a long gun ;
and in one little valley — the only one beyond Bethany where
there was any cultivation — each ploughman was holding his
firelock in one liand, while lie guided the plough with the
other.

As I wished to explore the country to the north of the
route. Sheikh ^Moliammed offered to conduct me across the
ridge from this point, the foot of the hill below Bethany, to
the banks of the AVady Farah, where, he said, he could show
me many ruins, and we could then follow the course of the
wkdy till it joined the Kelt, and opened on the plain of
Jericho. I gladly embraced the offer, and off we scrambled
on our goat-like steeds, having despatched the mules by the
direct road. We were well repaid for the detour. As we
crossed the shoulder of the ridge, the village of Anata (the
ancient Anathoth) could be seen to the north-west, but too
far distant to pay it a visit. Descending into the valley, we
passed the squalid hamlet of Isawiyeh, where Van de Velde
places Nob; but we saw no ruins beyond the heaps of worn
and shapeless stones. Turning to the east as we rode across
a rugged and trackless, but not barren waste, we had several

232 GROTTOES.

grand landscapes of the Jordan valley, and the hills beyond ;
and, at len;:jtli, after crossing with difficulty some little gullies
which contained feeders of the Kelt, we reached the Farah.
On the other side of the ravine, our guide said, was once the
village of Farah ; Init I saw no remains, as we could not
cross. The place, I understood, had only recently become
deserted through the wars ; but what wars, I was unable to
discover.

Soon after we had reached the edge of the deep valley, another
stream joined it from the north, and it took the name of the
Kelt, Our route became worse, and the scenery wilder and
grander as we advanced. Before reaching the ruined town of
Kakon, on looking down the gorge, we saw a fine broken
aqueduct spanning the chasm, and lower down, another, from
which channels had conveyed the water to the plain. These
we could trace hewn out, or built on to the sides of the cliff,
far above the torrent, which was dashing and foaming beneath.
They appeared to have existed on both sides of the valley,
and to liave been repaired in several places in a very inferior
style, and with smaller masonry. Xow they were utterly
broken down. As we proceeded, various hermit chapels and
grottoes stood forth on the face of the cliff, wholly inaccessible
from the washing down of the niche-like paths by which they
had been once approached. Some of the upper grottoes are
still used as sheepfolds by the Bedouin shepherds ; and it
was a pretty sight to watch an Arab shepherd carefully
threading his way, apparently on the face of the opposite
cliff, calling loudly as he crej)t along, and followed by two
long lines, a black one of goats, who went in a continuous
thread straight after him, and a white one of sheep, M'ho
more cautiously took a parallel sinuous route above, till they
reached a little platform just over the cavern; down which
the goats leapt for themselves, and the sheep were carefully
handed down one after another by the shepherd. Once
within, they were safe for the night from jackals or thieves.

Night was now approaching, and I had only time to examine
one chapel on the south side, when we hastily descended, and

SUNDAY REST. 233

galloped oil to our snug camp, where there had been rain
enough, but neither cold nor wind. Dinner was ready, and
the Jericho mail was welcomed M'itli loud hurrahs. It would
liave been diflicult to have put any one of the party out of
temper, on that night at least, when " absent friends " were
drunk, and letters and newspapers busily scanned. My bag
contained also various items to us most interestin" — hed^ehoo-
moles, and other small quadrupeds, as well as snakes, collected
for us through the kindness of Mr. Barclay and Dr. Chaplin
at Jerusalem.

January lOtli. — ^^lio would not live in the Ghor in winter,
bathe in the M-arni fountain of Elisha, and dress under a
dom-tree in January ? That bath removed all remembrance
and sensation of the wet and cold of Jerusalem. Our Sundays
are most certainly days of rest ; and physically, as well as
mentally, do we need them. The day was fine, the barometer
rose to 31 '2, and everything promised settled weather. I was
sitting with my book on a stone, when a scorpion showed
himself to the sun, and tempted his fate, and even a viper,
allured by the warmth, came forth from the ruins to bask.
Our Arabs came incessantly for powder, and could not com-
prehend our objection to their shooting for us to-day, as it
was not their " yom khuds " (holy day), but quite appreciated
our practice of giving them a goat for dinner because it was
a "testa." In this they were supported by our Syrian cook,
who, in honour of its being a " grande festa " of the Greek
Church, produced a wonderfully elaborate dinner of four
courses, soup, fish from Elisha's fountain, wild pig, partridge,
and real plum-pudding. The dinner was not hurried, as the
plates and dishes had to be washed between each course.

CHAPTER XI.

Ride tijj tlu Ghor — Boar Huitt — Rviiicd Aqueducts — Victo of Shittim — Es
Sumrah, Zemaraim — Its Quarries — Mycena Caves — Formation of Bo)ie
Breccia— El Aujeh — Phasaelis, Ain Fusail — Kum Surtabch — Galilcean
Swift — Wolf ^Turtle Doves — Lyno: — Ride on the Desert Plain — Its Geology
and Formation — Departure from Ain Sultdn — Revisit the Jordan — Traces of
Leopard — Wild Animals — Bate Palms — Mouth of the Jordan — Dead Sea
Shore — Skeletons of Trees — Mimral Sx>ecimcns — Birds and Fishes — Tlie
Estuary — Island — Doubtful Ruins — Terraces on the Hills — Trap Dyke —
Gomorrah of De Saulcy — Ain Feshkhah — Conies — Warm Spring — Character
of tlie Shore — Ras Feshkhah — Bold IIeadla')id — Difficult Climbing — Coast
Li/i.e — Fine Bandscape — Sand Spits — Solitary Expedition — Bonfires.

Januaey 11th. — We made a yqtj early start to carry out the
proposed visit to Sumrali and Fusail, certainly not less than
fifteen miles distant. I was attended by onr Sheikh and
three other mounted guards. My companions remained to
sketch, or to pursue the wild boar, of which great numbers
liad been driven by the floods into the upper grounds of the
Ghor. My expedition also was interrupted by boar-hunting.
We had hardly passed the Fountain, when we saw half a
dozen dogs and as many Arabs rushing wildly across the
plain after a huge boar. Of course, my guards galloped on
with a wild shriek, and I after them. The dogs reached the
boar just as he was getting to the foot of the hills, and back
he turned. In the present state of the larders, a wild pig was
not to be despised, and I did my best, but " II Bey " had no
stomacli for close quarters. I had never before realized the
great size of a wild boar with his huge shoulders, as he
clumsily rushed across the plain at a speed equal to a horse's
gallop, with half a dozen dogs at his heels and sides. Just
before the beast reached the cover, as a last resource I dis-
mounted, and having dropped a wet bullet down my barrel,

I

EIDE UP THK GIIOK. 235

fired witliout avail. The others came up, hut too late to turn
him hack.

\Xe rode on, passing a perfect, but waterless aqueduct
across a ravine. The soil was rich, a vegetable mould, which
would grow anything if the copious streams from Ain Duk
were utilized. As we proceeded northward at a rapid pace,
the Ghor did not contract, but seemed slightly to expand.
YoY many miles up, the width of the plain cannot have been
less than ten miles, a desert, but only so by man's neglect.
On the other side of the river we could plainly see the low
woodlands of Moab, the plain of Shittim, where Israel camped
before entering the Promised Land. They seemed to retreat
far into the hills, especially at the south-east corner, where
the plain runs right under tlie steep hills, behind the front
ridoe of wliicli lie the ruins of Heshbon. Above us, to the
left, was the gap which leads up to Bethel, and we could
see, but not identify, the hills of Benjamin. Here and there
we rode over the foundations of walls and heaps of stone,
telling of ancient population, but not one human being did
we see, though the plain and the many little watercourses or
nullahs which we crossed were carpeted with plenteous
verdure. The chrysanthemum, an ornithogalum, hawkweeds,
several species of prickly centaurea, and especially a pale lilac-
coloured stock {Matthiola sinuata), scented like our garden
plant, covered the plain. Por the first time I noticed the
African bird, ^lenetries wheatear (Saxicola isahellina, Eiipp.),
which has a disagreeable habit of sitting on a bush out of
gunshot, and then, on the approach of danger, dropping down
into a burrow, with which the plain is full. One we marked
into its hole, apparently the deserted burrow of a jerboa, and
having stopped three exits, began to dig it out with our
spears. AVhen we had worked through about a yard of hard
soil, the bird made its escape by a fiftli. aperture four paces olf.

Just before reaching Es Sumrah, the Sheikh made a sudden
sign, and before I could say a word, his boots and burnous
were off, he had seized my gun, and handed me his long spear
in exchange. He crept forward, and fired at a huge boar

236 ES SUMRAH.

lying asleep under a rock, missed it, of course, and then all
galloped off towards the tliickets of the Jordan. Being the
best mounted I kept up with the game, but did not prove
myself an adept in my first essay at the use of the lance
sixteen feet long, while my wary horse, though he thoroughly
enjoyed the race, would not come to closer quarters than a
few yards alongside. Alas I for once I had left my revolver
behind, the only occasion on which I had been guilty of such
an omission. The cover gained, I had no little trouble in
persuading the reluctant Arabs to return, for they would
infinitely have preferred to waste the day in beating the
thickets, rather than press on to Fusail.

Es Sumrah stands on the very edge of the Ghor, close to
the rise of the hills. It has been with great probability iden-
tified by Mr. Grove w4tli the Zemaraim of Joshua xviii. 22,
one of the towns of Benjamin, between Beth-arabah and
Bethel. Though now only a collection of crumbling heaps,
it has been a place of considerable extent. Its most interest-
ing remains are beneath the surface. Furnished with a torch,
we easily descended into its quarries, w^hich are like small
catacombs. From these the city above, and perhaps also, as
Mr. Grove has suggested to me, Fusail and the Eoman Jericho
were built. Most probably, too, the sandstone, of which we
found a layer, supplied the material for the erection of St.
Jerome's monastery. All w^as fresh and clean, as though the
M'orkmen had left it but yesterday. Half-hewn blocks strewed
the floor, and the sides were scored with the niches cut for
fixing the wedges by which the stones were split. AVe wan-
dered through these subterranean halls, which had been ex-
cavated on the same system as the quarries of Jerusalem, and
were very like the forsaken workings of a coal-pit, but much
more lofty. We counted fifty-four irregularly-shaped square
pillars left, and there may have been many more, as it was
not easy to reckon them. The place afforded a good section
of the stratification of the plain. Underneath a bed of arti-
ficial mortar, probably a house-floor, on the surface, was a
gravel conglomerate of rolled pebbles three feet thick. Below

EL AUjEir. 237

this was a layer, two feet thick, of soft sandstone, then six feet
of chalky marl, which I believe to have Leon a fresh-water
deposit, not yet hardened into stone, but of such consistency
that it might be cut with a knife, and which was tolerably
indurated where exposed. Below this, again, twenty feet of
tlie quarried stone stratum was exposed, which may, and pro-
bably does, extend to a much greater depth. AVe collected
specimens of the different layers, but searched in vaiu for
any organic remains below the soft upper sandstone.

These caverns are now the den of wild beasts, and the
excrement of the hyaena covered the floor. Vast heaps of
bones of camels, oxen, and sheep had been collected by these
animals, in some places to the depth of two or three feet, and
on one spot I counted the skulls of seven camels. There
were no traces whatever of any human remains. AVe had
here a lieautiful recent illustration of the mode of formation
of the old bone caverns so valuable to the geologist. These
bones nnist all have been brought in by the hyaenas, as no
camel or sheep could possibly have entered the caverns alive,
nor could any floods have washed them in. Near the en-
trance, where the water percolates, they were already forming
a soft breccia. Having obtained half a dozen bats from the
roof, of the same species as those in the hermit's cells, we
scrambled up again.

No time was now to be lost if I wished to visit the ruins of
Phasaelis. "We cantered for perhaps ten miles up the Ghor
without once drawing rein. The direct distance could not
have been more than seven or eight miles ; but flat and even
as the plain appeared, there were many channels sunk deep
in its surface, which compelled us to make detours, and to
keep a course at some distance from the hills, about three or
four miles from the Jordan. By this route we unfortunately
missed the ruins of El Aujeh, which lie close under the hills.
The view of tlie expanse was fine and exhilarating, a wide
even plain, with Kurn Surtabeh and its symmetrical peak
completely intersecting the Ghor to the north ; and the bold
bluff of Jebel Osha (Mount Gilead) becoming conspicuous to

238 AIN FUSAIL.

tlie north-east, edged witli a dai'K green line, tlie forests of
AJalon, behind it. We crossed four or five principal water-
courses, hut only one of them, El Aujeli, contained any flow,
recent as had been the rains. Pools, however, were still to he
found here and there in several of them. For one only of
these, Er Rashash, had my guides any distinct name. Soon
after passing this, we swept up to the westward, a thicket of
trees seeming to fringe the next wady, which I took to he
the Fusail ; but we were now completely out of the territory
of the Ghawarinehj and the guard evinced the utmost terror
lest we should be detected by the Bedouin, whom they stated
to be encamped on the other side of the wady, and who, if
they caught us, would charge a handsome ransom.

As we approached a low spur of the hills, we could discern
a bright green streak running down from the steep side in
front, but not reaching to the plain — the Ain Fusail. Below
this, on a knoll, we could see a village of hovels perched
among ruins. AVe were riding up to it, when some of the
people came forth armed, and evidently prepared to treat us
as marauders. Our Sheikh said that these fellahin were tebaa
(protected) of the Schoor-el-Ghor, a tribe hostile to his own,
and that it would be impossible to hold communication with
them. Had we come upon them unobserved, we might have
thro\\Ti ourselves upon their hospitality, and reassured them.
As it was, nothing would induce him to enter the place. I
saw that parley was useless ; it was now afternoon, and a
long ride was before us — to be beniglited in this debateable
land would have been by no means safe, and without an in-
terpreter I could not have ventured into the village. Con-
soling myself with tlie belief that the ruins were only, as
Mohammed described them, " hadjera kussa," crumbling
stones, and that nothing of importance was visible, I turned
my horse's liead, and followed my terrified guards at the top
of my speed down the plain. The deep glen which led down
from the fountain promised to reward exploration, and is left
for future adventurers. AVe returned by a more direct course
than wc had taken in the morning, and passed some traces of

LYNX. 230

ruins on a spur stretching out into the phiin at a distance of
two or three miles north of the Aujeh. This account of the
ride to Sumrah and Fusail may seem tedious, hut the remains
of any kind in the Ghor being scanty, and not one of them
having yet been described, it seemed desirable to detail at
length all that we were able to learn of these unvisited sites,
I was delitrhted to recoo-nise as we rode on the beautiful little
GaHlean swift (Cjipsdus Ga/ilceensis, Antiu.), which we only
as yet knew^ by descriptions, and by its unmistakeable nest,
and of which no specimens had hitherto found their way into
collections. Even in the Ghor one scarcely expected to find a
swift in winter, and at first sight it might easily have been
mistaken for the window martin, with its white rump. But
the birds were far too wild and flying too high to give me a
chance to-dily of securing this prize, for which we had so
Ions; searched.

On our return to camp, we found that boar-hunting had
been the order of the day, but as unsuccessfully as with our-
selves. The beasts had been washed out of their lairs in the
thickets by the rise of the Jordan, and several had secreted
themselves close to our camp. U. too had come across a large
solitary wolf, of a dark tawny colour, which he thought ap-
peared a distinct variety from the wolf of Northern Europe.
The Syrian species has not yet been ascertained. Jackals had
been seen in alumdance, but no leopards. In birds an in-
teresting addition had been made to our list in the collared
turtle dove (Turtur risorius, L.), an Indian and Asiatic species,
which we should scarcely have expected to meet with here,
certainly not in mid-winter.

January 12th. — AVe were roused at sunrise by the news of
a lynx in one of our traps, and, rushing out, found a fine
specimen of the booted lynx {Fclis chaus, L.) fast by the foot.
In another trap was a curious little sand-mouse {Aconiys
dimidiatus), about half the size of a rat, pale tawny colour,
and its back covered with spines instead of hair — in fact, a
pigmy porcupine. This was to be our last day at A in
Sultan, and all were eager to make the most of it, except our

240 GEOLOGY.

guards, who considered their ride of yesterday sufficient, and
preferred to lie stretched before the camp fires, and to watch
the horses lazily flicking the flies at their pickets hard by. B.
was busied with his photographs, and sunbirds and grakles
were the pursuit of otliers. I was anxious to complete my
survey of the district we had traversed yesterday, and in spite
of the awful predictions of perils by robbers which our
Arabs had always on hand ready for use, B. and I compelled
them to accompany us towards El Aujeh. On the way
we obtained another species of wheatear {Saxicola deserti,
Eiipp.), a native of Nubia, wdio had wandered thus far north.
AVe pushed on due north from the termination of the oasis of
Ain Dilk, thus taking a course inside or west of that followed
on the preceding day. We could see the general position of
Fusail ,much more clearly than I liad done when close to it.
It seemed to be in a sort of recess of the Ghor, with Kurn
Surtabeh shutting it in on the north, and a loM-er, but still
steep spur, whose corner we had just rounded, forming its
southern wall. Protected in this retreating amphitheatre,
the place was doubtless less exposed to the scorching blasts of
summer than the more open valley.

Our ride gave us an opportunity of examining the geolo-
gical structure of the spurs at the foot of the western range
more closely than we had hitherto done. These, at a dis-
tance, bore the semblance of mere masses of debris gradually
worn down from the steeps. They are a regular conglo-
merate, in stratified form, of very soft pudding-stone ; com-
posed not of rounded pebbles, but of sharp angular frag-
ments, flints largely predominating, which show no signs of
ha\dng been river-worn, but were evidently deposited by
rapid floods and conglomerated in masses. Again we ob-
served, that as in the lower part of the valley, there were
many fragments of land shells, of the recent living species,
embedded in these soft rocks, while it was only lower
down on the plain that the river shells of the Jordan and its
tributaries occurred. All tended to confirm our first impres-
sion, that at a recent period the whole Ghor must have been

DEPARTURE FROM JERICHO. 241

under water, and covered by a sluggish frcsh-icatcr stream,
either flowing down to the Ked Sea, or, perhaps, stagnant
subsequently to the elevation of the ridge of Akabah.^ Even
here, several hundred feet above the Jordan, there were no
true fossils in the marl. I need not add that not the slightest
vestige of igneous action or volcanic traces could we perceive.

We held a long council with our Sheikh after dinner on
our future movements. "Wishing, no doubt, to impress us witli
a sense of his influence, he proposed that his friends in the
Safieh, at the south-east end of the Dead Sea, should conduct
us by Kerak to the Ford of Jordan, as they were of the same
tribe, Ghawarineh. He was too prudent, however, to volunteer
to risk his o^\^l person. We accepted his proposal so far as to
tell him to write to his allies, and that if they could satisfy us
of their ability to conduct us, we would meet them, and pay
them a liberal sum on our arrival at the banks of the river.

January ISth. — The barometer had been steadily falling for
three days, which we have found to be the certain precursor
of rain, while, from the moment the rain commences, the
mercury begins to rise. We were therefore the more Avilling
to start at once, and change our quarters for Ain Feshkhah, on
the western shore of the Dead Sea, where rain scarcely ever
falls. The morning was heavily overcast, and we had one
slight shower after starting, but the clouds soon lifted, and we
never saw rain on the still borders of the lake. We left our
quarters as we should have bid adieu to an old friend, for our
natural history researches had been most successful ; we had
not had a single contretemps, and I believe the whole party
look back upon their fortnight by the Prophet's Fountain as
the happiest portion of a most happy journey. Leaving the
muleteers to take the direct route, accompanied by M., who
wished to examine the Wady Dabur, we started at eight
o'clock, accompanied by Giacomo, our Sheikh, and the
mounted spearmen, to make a detour to the mouth of the

1 My own impression is. that the Akabah for ages formed a ridge, separating
the lake from the Dead Sea, at a period when the latter was a fresh-water
lake in the East- African series opened out to us by Speke and Livingstone.

B

242 WILD BEASTS OF THE GHOR.

Jordan, and thence to skirt the shore till we should reach our
new camp. This was calculated to be an eight hours' ride.
After passing through the thickets (in which U. shot another
specimen of the Indian collared turtle dove), to Er Riha, we
turned to the channel of the Wady Kelt, and followed its
winding banks for some time, beating the scrub for larger
game. The stream, which when we went to visit the Jordan
h§rd scarcely any flow above ground, was to-day a consider-
able torrent, and required care to ford. Then turning across
the plain to the south, we rode direct to Kuser Hajla (Beth
Hogla), and re\'isited the fine old monastery of St. John, and
then turning to the north, followed another little stream now
in full flow towards the Dead Sea.

In its gorge we found a fine clump of date palms — one old
tree, and several younger ones clustered round it, apparently
unknown to recent travellers, Avho state that the last palm
tree has lately perished from the plains of Jericho. Near
these palm trees in the thick cover we came upon the lair of
a leopard or cheetah, with a well-beaten path, and the broad,
round, unmistakeable footmarks quite fresh, and evidently not
more tlian a few hours old. However, the beast was not at
home for us. Doubtless it was one of these wliich M. de Saulcy
took for tiie footprint of the lion. But inasmuch as there is no
trace of the lion having occurred in modern times, while the
others are familiar and common, we must be quite content with
the leopard. Everywhere round us were the fresh traces of
beasts of every kind, for two days ago a great portion of the
plain had been overflowed. The wdld boar had been rooting
and treading on all sides ; the jackals had been hunting in
packs over the soft oozy slime ; the solitary wolf had been
prowling about, and many foxes had singly been beating the
district for game. The hysena, too, had taken his nocturnal
ramble in search of carcases. None of these, however, could
we see. One hare was shot, of a species quite distinct from
that obtained a few days before near the Jordan — the Lcpus
sinaiticm, and several otliers escaped. The black stork had
been treading over the mead, and the little footprints of

THE DEAD SEA SHORE. 243

jerboas and marmots crossed and recrossed those of redshanks
and sandpipers. But of birds there was a great variety.
Here and there an eagle or a raven passed overhead, and a
few warblers flitted about the thickets. Both tlie Greek
partridge and the little Hey's red-leg were here, and two or
three brace were secured fur dinner.

The descent during the ride was so gradual, that it was
difficult to believe we had come down 500 feet when we
reached the shore. On descending from the upper plateau of
tlic plain to the narrower and lower terrace, which has been
mentioned as occasionally overflowed, and which is in many
places becoming extended by the rapid washing away of the
upper terrace, we took the opj^ortunity of measuring the dif-
ference of elevation between the two, and found it to be fifty-
five feet. As we approached the sea, the whole of the upper
level was more or less incrusted with a tliin coating of salts,
apparently deposited from the atmosphere, with deposits of
g}^sum, and occasionally varied by thicker deposits of sulphur.
Beneath this crust the soil is a soapy marl. We dug down
two feet, and filled a small box with earth, which looked like
a very rich mould. It was, however, impregnated with some
mineral salt, for on water being poured over it, the drainage
had a nauseous bitter taste ; and two species of salsola and
an inula were the only plants growing on its surface. There
were, in the exposed sections where it is being Avashed away,
many thin layers of this salt, and also of gypsum, and in
places the marly deposit had become hardened into a sort of
crumbling friable limestone. In this we found many blanched
and almost calcined specimens of Jordan shells.

Leaving our horses to be led to the river-bank, we had a
weary walk through the ooze to the north end of the sea,
sinking ankle-deep at every step in adhesive mud. ?)ut once
arrived tliere, the fatigue was over. The beach is composed
of a pebble gravel, rising steeply, and covered for a breadth
of 150 yards from the shore with drift wood. Trunks of
trees lay tossed about in every possible position, utterly devoid
of bark; grim and gaunt, a long and disorderly array of

K 2

244. THE DEiU) SEA SHORE.

skeleton forms. There was great variety in the species of
timber, but a very large proportion of the trees were palms,
many with their roots entire. Tliese must have been tossed
for many years before they were washed up along this north
shore. The whole of the timber is, indeed, so saturated with
brine that it will scarcely burn ; and, when it is ignited, emits
only a pale blue flame. It is difficult to conceive whence
such vast numbers of palms can have been brought, unless
we imagine them to be the collected wrecks of many centuries.
Certainly, in the present state of the vegetation on its banks,
but few can have been brought down the Jordan, for there
is no place there where more than a rare straggler could be
found. The Zerka or the Arnon may supply more, but we
should scarcely expect their trees to be washed into the back-
water of the Jordan. It seems more reasonable to conjecture
them the wrecks of generations, perhaps of centuries, past,
accumulating here from the days when the City of Palm Trees
extended its groves to the edge of the river.

We were fortunate, so far as some questions respecting the
Dead Sea are concerned, in visiting it at this time of the
year, since no writer has observed it accurately during the
winter floods. We found the height of the crest of the
beach to be eighteen and a half feet above its present level,
and the line of drift-wood somewhat less. The line of sticks
and rubbish left by last week's flood was exactly five feet
above the water-line to-day, and from all appearance that had
been the highest point reached during tlie present season.
But the Jordan several miles above had risen at least fourteen
feet, and the plain through which we had just passed had
been inundated twenty feet above the actual water-line.

We came upon an interesting example of deposit in course
of formation. In one place the surface of last year was quite
hard and slaty, and upon it was a syrup of mud, several inches
thick, of the consistency of pea-soup, left by the floods. This,
under the broiling sun, will, in a few days, dry into hard clay,
and upon it will be formed an incrustation ready to resist the
soaking of the next overflow. We gathered several pieces of

THE ESTUAEY. 245

lava, and buoyant balls of pumice-stone, carried do-\vn by the
Jordan, and also a lump of bitumen, besides morsels of sulphur.
Among other examples of chemical action in progress was the
rapid deposition in some places of oxide of iron. Of this we
collected specimens quite soft, and apparently formed this year.

Among the rounded pebbles of the beach dead land-shells
were thickly strewn, and a few fluviatile, the castings of
the Jordan, chiefly Helix carthusianella and H. syriaca.
Quantities of very small dead iish, the fry of the common
Jordan species (Chromis niloticus, Hasselq.) lay on the gravel,
killed by the salt-water, and thrown up by the flood ; and on
these various birds were feeding. A fine brown-necked raven
(Corrus nnibrinus) came right across the lake towards us, and
fell to my gun. S. also shot a kingfisher, of the English
species {Alcedo ispida), actually sitting on a dead bough in
the water, and watching for the dying fish. There were many
gulls, and U. shot a beautiful specimen of Andouini's gull, as
it was fishing in the sea. Dunlins, redshanks, and wagtails
were running along the edge, and B. obtained another desert
wheatear (Saxicola deserti, Eiipp.). Several small flocks of
pochard ducks were passing to and fro, skimming the surface
at some distance out. These facts are enough to show how
utterly absurd are the stories about the sea being destitute of
birds. At the same time, it is quite certain that no form of
either vertebrate or molluscous life can exist for more than a
very short time in the sea itself, and that all that enter it are
almost immediately poisoned and salted down.

We walked eastward along the edge of the lake with some
difficulty, till we reached the mouth of the Jordan. Strange
indeed is the contrast between the romantic birth of that
mysterious stream, imder the beautiful cliffs of Banias, cradled
in the lovely recesses of Hermon, and its ignoble, sewer-like
exit into its final home. The volume of water it poured in was
at present very great, and its turbid flood might be distinctly
traced by its coffee-brown colour for a mile and a half into
the lake, the clearness and purity of whose waters — in colour,
at least — is unequalled. Standing on the highest ground near.

246 THE ESTUARY.

we fancied we conld trace the formation of a mud-ljank on the
left side of tlie river's mouth, some way into the sea.

The embouchure of the Jordan does not exhibit the usual
characteristics of the outfall of a southern stream. No rich
belt of trees or verdant tangle here fringes its bed. The river
rushes violently between its narrow banks, through a muddy,
naked plain, sparsely covered with salicornias, and here and
there bordered by stunted tamarisks to the very edge of the
sea. As we stood at its mouth on the right bank, we threw
stones easily across to the Ghor-es-Scisaban (the plains of
Moab) on the other side. The island which, when Lynch was
here, divided the channel is now joined to the plain on the
left bank. Beyond its mouth, the whole bay was covered
with trees and heaps of reeds and canes, with tangled masses
of roots and branches floating calmly on the surface. This
collection of " snags and sawyers " recalls the appearance of
the delta of an American river ; and there must be a very
rapid deposition of mud silting up the top of the basin. The
process is slow, owing to the enormous depth of the fissure at
this end ; but the operation is sufficiently palpable to explain
the formation of the whole lower Ghor, and how the older
terrace level has been gradually washed down, and then de-
posited, partly here, and partly at the southernmost extremity
of the lake.

The lowness and barrenness of the land bordering the
mouth of the river, and the bay into which it runs, are very
noticeable. On the snags, in the water itself, several cormo-
rants were sitting, herons were patiently fishing from them,
while gulls, from time to time, came sailing down the stream.
A fine golden eagle came pouncing in pursuit of them, and
I gave him a couple of cartridges, when he fell, provokingly • ^
enough, on the other side, to waste his carcase on the jackals
and vultures in the land of Moab.

We returned u]) the bank about a mile, to the place d
where our horses and food were awaiting us. The width of
the river, even now in its swollen state, was not more than,
perhaps, forty or fifty yards across. We made our bivouac on

TEKEACES ON THE HILLS. 247

a little desolate hillock by the water-side. While at luncheon,
we saw a large herd of camels, belonging, doubtless, to the
Adwan, feeding near us on the other side, and waited in the vain
hope of some herdsmen appearing, to whom we might have
entrusted a propitiatory message to Diab-el-Hamoud, and paved
the way for negotiating a visit. Oh with what longing eyes
did we gaze on those mountains, so near, yet so inaccessible !

The afternoon was far advanced before we mounted, and
struck across the plain to the point where we had first
reached the shore. Thence we proceeded to visit the well-
known promontory, or island, where alone most travellers touch
the Dead Sea, and where I had bathed six years previously.
Then it had been a peninsula, to be reached by stepping-
stones almost dry-shod. Now it was an island, and we tried to
ford across to it ; but the water soon became too deep to allow
of our reaching it without swimming our horses. M. de Saulcy
has imagined that he can discover ruins in the heaped rocks
which form the island. Those who can detect these will,
doubtless, be equally ready to recognise the foundations of
Gomorrah and Sodom, as revealed by the learned antiquarian.
To our unlearned eyes, there were no traces either of tools on
the stones or of design in their arrangement.

The effects of the western sun on the mountains of IMoab
were very rich, clothing them with a brilliant red ; while the
deep wadys of the Zerka, Main, and Mojib (Elver Arnon),
stood back in grand dark relief ]\Iore than half way up these
mountains, a long even terrace-line was clearly traceable, just
at the same elevation, so far as can be ascertained by the eye,
with the less interrupted terrace-line, or old raised beach,
scored on the face of the western range. These terraces in
the old secondary limestone must be about the present level of
the MediteiTanean ; for our barometrical measurement made
the western one 1,150 feet above the water-line of the Dead
Sea, and they seem to tell of a period long antecedent to the
tertiary terraces and deposits wliich have interested us -below ;
when the old Indian Ocean wore the rocks and scooped out
caverns as its unbroken tide swept up from the coasts of

248 GOMORRAH OF DE SAULCY.

Africa; or wln'ii the Salt Sea formed one in a chain of
African hikes.

As we turned oiir faces southward along the shore, the
parallelism of the two ranges of hills became very apparent ;
nor do the enclosing mountains at all expand to receive the
waters of the Dead Sea. I'or many miles north, the plain
was as wide as the sea, the mountains on each side running
due north and south. The sea merely fills the lower end of
an oblong depression.

On the sides of the western mountains, as we approached
them, we could distinctly trace a broad fringing belt of white
clinging to the lower slopes of the red limestone, and only
occasionally interrupted by the gullies and wadys which had
washed through it. Turning the eye northwards, this white
band gradually melted into the flat-topped maraelons of the
higher plateau of the Ghor, of which deposit it was in fact
merelv the continuance. No similar band could be observed
on the east side of the sea, owing doubtless to the precipitous
character of the cliffs.

A little to the south of the Wady Dabur a mass of porpliy-
ritic greenstone crops out of the hills like a dyke, in two or
three ridges, cutting through the gravel at an angle of 70° or
80°. The variety of rock at the foot of the ridge was very
perplexing. Stones of all colours and degrees of hardness
were scattered over the plain. Very few of these, except iu
the bottoms of the watercourses, showed any signs of fluviatile
action. Tliey are traceable to the cliffs above, from which
detached masses have been precipitated ; generally a sandy
limestone, but frequently mixed with coarse conglomerate, in
which iron is common, colouring the cliffs with its oxides ;
and stones of all sizes are embedded, from the smallest gravel
to large boulders, all angular or but slightly worn.

We took a course due west, rather than skirt the shores, in
order to investigate the ruins of M. de Saulcy's Gomorrah.
On the way we put up many birds in the marshy plain. The
Norfolk plover was very common, a flock of splendid black
storks rose before us, and a solitary crane {Griis cinerea), but

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ATN FESHKHAH.

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all of course out of shot. We reached tlie foot of the hills
very little helow the opening of the Wady Dabiir, hut could
find no trace of a Wady Goumran between it and Ain
Feshkhah. Nor were we more successful in discoverins the
remains of Gomorrah. We found at intervals many indistinct
rows of unhewn stones, which, if at all the remains of human
constructions, carry us back to a ruder period than the flints
of our gravel beds, and which were all classed by our Bedouin
under the expressive name of Eejum-el-Bahr — " castings of
the sea." The name of I^l Gumrah, or anything approaching
to it, seemed quite unknown to our guides, and we took care
not to suggest it, else we might have had the whole Pentapolis
of the plain identified for us at once. To the heap marked
by Van de Yelde as Hajar Lesbah, they gave the meaningless
name of Eejuni Feshkhah, and the same to the traces of a

.m^^

AIN FESHKHAH, WEST SIDE OF DEAD SEA.

square enclosure or ruin nearer the Fountain. This ruin
might have been an old fort, yet there were no traces of
foundations ; and more probably it has been an Arab post, or
a place of protection for camels or flocks.

Water was not scarce here, and we found a good spring under
the hills about a mile and a half before reaching Ain Feshkhah,

2r)0 CONIES.

called Aiu Tnnourih, but whicli, according to onr guides, is
not permanent in summer. Our own impression on these
liypotlietical remains, or Eejum-el-Bahr, was, that the Arabs
had accurately embodied their history in their name, and that
they are truly the " castings of the sea," the fragments which
have fallen from the clifl's above and have been formed by the
waves into a sort of shore-line.

We reached our camp a little after dark, and found it de-
lightfully situated, overhung by the hills just above a reedy
marsh which here fringed tlie shore, and close to the bright
hot fountain of Ain Feshkhah, which sends a steaming rivulet
through a dense strip of cane brake into the sea. The day
had been a prosperous one in natural history, B — t had
obtained, close to our tents, a specimen of a very small sand-
coloured night-jar, which turned out to be a new species, and
which we have since named Caprimulgus tamaricis. Another
new wheatear was added to our list ; and, more than all, the
cliff above supplied us this evening with our first specimen
of the coney {Hyrax syriacus) — the *\^*d/* shaphan of Scrip-
ture, the y.^ ' wabr ' of the Arab. It was an adult specimen,
about the size of a well-grown rabbit, with short ears, round
head, long plantigrade foot, no tail, and nails instead of claws.
With its weak teeth, and short incisors, there seem fcAV
animals so entirely without the means for self-defence. "The
conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in
the rocks." (Prov. xxx. 26.) But the stony rocks are a refuge
for the conies, and tolerably secure they are in such rocks as
these. No animal ever gave us so much trouble to secure.
They are far too wary to be taken in traps, and the only
chance of securing one is to be concealed patiently, about
sunset or before sunrise, on some overhanging cliff, taking
care not to let the shadow be cast below, and there to wait
till the little creatures cautiously peep forth from their holes.
They are said to be conmion by tliose who have not looked
for them, but are certainly not abundant in Palestine, and
few writers have ever had more than a single glimpse of one.
I had the good fortune to see one feeding in the gorge of the

FOUNTAIN AT ATN FESHKHAH. 251

Kedron, and then to watch it as it sat at the moiitli of" its
hole, ruminating, metaphorically if not literally, while waiting
for sunset. A childish difficulty has been lately raised on
account of the classification in Deuteronomy of the coney
among unclean animals, although it is said to chew the cud,
(iTI J n?j,*/ti) while it is well known that it has not a rumi-
nant's stomach. It is quite sufficient to watch the creature
working and moving its jaws, as it sits in a chink of the rocks,
to understand how any one writing as an ordinary observer,
and not as a comparative anatomist, would naturally thus
speak of it — and this apart from the question whether the
Hebrew word signifies anything more than " re-chew." Our
coney is distinct from the Abyssinian species, with which it
has been confounded, and may always be recognised by the
pale russet spot on the middle of its back, which alone diver-
sifies its tawny fur.

Our prospects at Ain Feshkhah seemed as bright as at
Jericho, and we were already prepared to pronounce the
Dead Sea shore to be the shore of charmed life. Water,
vegetation, birds and beasts, geolog}', and hot baths — every-
thing was in abundance. The poor fountain has had, me-
thinks, rather scui-vy treatment at the hands of its bio-
graphers. One remarks that " in the absence of better it may
be drunk, with such wry faces as we may." Another says,
" the water is clear and sparkling, but the taste abominable."
Even Dr. Robinson complains that " it is brackish, and has
a slight taste of sulphuretted hydrogen." Perhaps our tastes
were vitiated, or perhaps after the recent rains the mineral
element was unusually diluted ; but though the spring itself
had a temperature of 82^ Fahr. we found it tolerable. It
made good tea and coffee, though with a slight flavour of
soda, and we had no hesitation in determining to spend two
days by its reeds.

January \Aili. — The daybreak afforded us a splendid siglit.
As the thick mist which shrouded everything gradually lifted
l;efore the sun, we be^an to distinj^uish the cliffs which over-
hung our tents, at the height of more than 1,500 feet. The

252 CHARACTER OF THE SHORE.

red limestone was beautifully gilded with a metallic lustre.
Still no sun was visible to us, and a canopy of haze covered
the sea at our feet, so that we could scarcely distinguish any-
thing but a steaming vapour beyond the belt of reeds which
separated our camp from the shore. At length a little white
segm.ent of the sun pierced through the mantle. Ho was
just overtopping the tall mountains of ]Moab, and gradually
revealed the outline of the summit perhaps of Nebo, bringing
into sharp relief a dark line, the crest of the range, which
divided the mass of- clouds above and below.

After an early sponge in the warm fountain, where vre
alarmed shoals of little fishes, and sent them to the cold
stream, we breakfasted on the plain in front of the camp, and
all set to work at their various avocations. B. got out his
camera, M. mounted the cliffs wdth his water-colours, L.
buckled on his tin box, S. and U. indefatigably set traps
among the reeds before starting with their guns, and B — t
had ample employment with the spoils of yesterday. I first
of all took to the water-side, and examined the shore for a
couple of miles. A narrow strip of shingle and conglomerate
separated the cane brake from the sea, and for several yards
out stood the gaunt skeletons of many tamarisk bushes, crys-
tallized and pickled, if not petrified, where they had once lived.
The sea had manifestly been gradually encroaching here, by
the shingle slowly forming a hard conglomerate, and driving-
back the pure waters of the spring, which oozed through soft
soil for several hundred yards north and south of the foun-
tain. I could find none of the sharp flints mentioned by
Lynch as characteristic of this place. The surface of the
beach was, like the north shore, a mass of small flat rounded
pebbles, without a trace of sand, and witli little drift-wood.
The warm stream, which runs for 300 yards to the sea, over-
hung with impenetrable caves, s\varmed, like the fountain,
with fish. AVith a butterfly-net I caught about fifty specimens
of two minute species (Ci/jninodon. cj/jvis, Heckel, and Ci/iyri-
nodon snphice, Heckel), and one of a larger species {Cohiiis in-
signia, Heckel). Of another common and larger species, six

in

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I

KAS FESIIKIIAH. 253

inches loug (Chromis niloticus, Hasselq.), I did not succeed in
obtaining a specimen, but U. during the day shot one swimming
about in the Dead Sea a few yards from the mouth of the
stream, and afterwards picked up another dead on the beach.

Lynch's sharp flints I think I afterwards discovered two
uiiles oft', at Kas el Feshkhah, where a quantity of debris had
slipped doM-n from the bold headland, and choked the beach
M'ith fragments, washed but not water-worn. That this is the
explanation of the phenomenon I think is plain, from the
face of the promontory being composed of exactly the same
sharp and broken flints bedded in soft conglomerate.

Ain Feshkhah is two miles north of this blufif, which is one
of the few spurs from the range ; the first one south of Kurn
Surtabeh, and which interrupts the view of the southern
hills. Just beyond it, the Kedron in the days of its abun-
dance has worked a tremendous chasm, a few feet wide,
through which it winds to the sea.

No traveller had yet made an accurate survey of the coast
from Ain Feshkhah to Ain Jidy ; and upon completing this
we had set our hearts. There is something indescribably
exciting and interesting in working through a new country,
be it ever so small a fragment of unknown ground. Every
phenomenon, the most trifling, is noted ; every incident is re-
membered ; and if the notes on these should be found dull or
prolix, I can only beg that allowance may be made for tlie
importance with which, at the moment, eveiy particular was
invested in our eyes.

Lynch had only passed in his boats from Ain Feshkliah to
Ain Terabeh ; Eobinson, De Saulcy, and all our predeces- .
sors by land had mounted the ridge, and descended inland to
the south. "We inquired of the Sheikh whether we could not
pass by the Eas (headland), and thence up the gorge to
Marsaba. He replied that it was quite impossible, and that
no one had ever been by that route. I told him that the
English for " impossible " was "we will try," and set off, with
my barometer, prismatic compass, and gun, to see what it
was, determined to round the headland and map five miles of

254 BOLD IIEADLAI^D,

coast for my day's work. Tke Sheikk's brother, Jemil,.
followed me, in duty bound, as my bodyguard. The cane
brake soon tapered off to a fine narrow edging, running for
a mile along the shore. Then we scrambled among huge
boulders, rolled down on to the narrowing beach from, the
hills above. Here we found a large vein of the bituminous
stone or shale, " stink-stone," from which many of the orna-
ments sold to pilgrims at Jerusalem are manufactured. The
substance seemed to have been partially ejected in a liquid
form, and to have streamed down the cliffs. It was generally
mixed with flints and pebbles, sometimes covering the
boiilders in large splashes, and then, in the sea itself, formed
the matrix of a very hard conglomerate of gi'avel and flints.
When thrown into the fire, it burnt with a sulphurous smell,
but would not ignite at the flame of a lamp.

After scrambling on for more than a mile, we found our
passage barred, and I took to the water. For some distance
there was no difficulty in w^ading, the sea not reaching to the
hips; but Jemil, with true national dislike of the element,
followed me no further. On coming to the point of the head-
land, I found the rocks went clear down, from a dizzy height,
to an unknown depth, and I had to give up my aquatic
excursion. ]>ut there was a way of scrambling up the cliff,
which I accomplished, sadly incommoded by my gun on my
back ; and crossing close over the water-line, I scrambled up
and down three narrow gullies— the two first, Wady Samaarah
and AVady Sakatah, not being named in the maps, and the
tliird being the main gorge of the Wady en Nar, or the
Kedron, running down from j\Iarsaba. The first of these is
flanked on the north side by a trap dyke, which runs boldly
out, and which appears to account for the projection of the
headland. Over the third, the hard crystalline limestone
cliffs stand perpendicular, cleft and cracked, looking at first
sight like columnar basalt. On crossing it, and getting to
the other side, I was astonished to find the clifl" standing
sheer out, not more than fifty yards thick, and a precipice
down to a wide plain on the Pouth side. It is strange that

COAST LINE. 255

the stream should have cut for itself this deep gorge through
the very edge of the rock, which forms merely a thin wall on
the south, and that it should never have burst through it to the
plain. I never saw so thin a wall of rock of so grand a height.

From the top, the view was magnificent. A wide plain,
pushing out in several gracefully sweeping sandspits into the
sea, was spread at my feet, and did not, at tliis distance, reveal
its barrenness. A strange, conical hill, like a colossal cairn,
stood about three miles off, isolated, nearly in the centre of
the plain, and the view of the low coast-line was uninterrupted
towards the south, for ten miles, till it reached Eas Mersed,
not far from Engedi. No map, excepting Lynch's, whose
accuracy I have since tested, gives the slightest indications of
the indentations and irregularities of the coast-line in this
quarter, where the contour is more embayed than in any other
part of the sea. The plain, though terminating in sandspits,
is l)y no means barren ; tamarisk, acacia, and rctem bushes
stud its surface ; and the camels of the Ta'umireh were browsing
on its herbage.

T had mounted, so far as I could judge by my barometer
(but I rather mistrust the obsen^ation, as unfortunately I had
not noted the instrument accurately), 1,500 feet above the
Dead Sea, and the general range of the mountains of the
wilderness of Juda?a could be distinctly traced running due
north and south. Exactly parallel to them, one could follow
the line of the eastern mountains from Jebel Ajlun to
Kerak, for I had now mounted above the sirocco haze, which
obscured everything below with a sandy mist. After wan-
dering some way on the south plain, and taking the bearings
at the edge of the spit for the coast line, it was time to return,
unless I wished to try the somewhat doubtful hospitality of
the Ta'amireh, who could not be far from their camels.
When I should have got back I know not, had I not lighted
on an Arab track a little furtlier west, near the crest, which I
followed as rapidly as I could, that I might cross the ravines
before nightfall. I was overcome with thirst, when I found
a little muddv rain-water in a hollow in a rock, which I

256 SOLITAUY EXPEDITION.

drank, thankful for the providential provision as Hagar must
have been foi- the well in the wilderness. About a mile from
camp I met an Arab sent in quest of me with a bag of
water, who told me that L. and several others were searching
for me on a path lower down, as they had become alarmed at
my absence. It was now dark, and I sent him on to recall
the friendly scouts, wdiile 1 returned thoroughly exhausted,
but with the ample reward of having accomplished a very
satisfactory piece of surveying.

All our party had been equally successful. S. had obtained
t\\'o other species of kingfisher, the beautiful Smyrnian red and
blue bii'd, and the large black and white kingfisher, fishing on
the shores of the sea. Three specimens of Tristram's grakle
had fallen to the guns of the party, two more coneys had
been brought in, one with three full-grown young, and the
traps set by U. had yielded a goodly return of strange rats
and porcupine mice. M. after completing his sketches, had
zealously assisted me in measuring the height of the alluvial
terrace above the sea level. The result of three different ob-
servations in as many places, at some distance apart, gave us
the elevation as from 221 to 235 feet. The sea was probably
five feet higher than its ordinary level. A broad strip of tliis
alluvial marl adhered all along the cliffs almost to the head-
land, and the evidence was unmistakeable that at its top had
been the old tertiary level of the sea, which has been washing
out again this deposit to silt up its lower extremity, and form
the peninsula of the Lisan.

Our party amused themselves at night by setting fire to the
canes and brushwood behind them, and making a magnificent
illumination, which sent our Arabs into wild ecstasies. No-
thing could be finer than the effect of the mountains thus lit
up, and the brilliant reflection cast on the surface of the
placid lake, while the weird-like figures of grey cloaks flitted
about among the flames. Not that we needed any fire for
warmth — tlie thermometer, which had reached 84° durmg the
day ; at 1 .\..M.^when we retired, stood at 62° Fahr.

CHAPTER XII.

Ascent to Marsaba—The Sheikh's Invilaiion to Dinner— A Bedouin Cam})-
Reception— Interpreter— Arab Girls— Carpets and Cushions— Cofee-making
—Dinner— Huge Dish— Arab Etiquette— Beloiu the Dais— Washing Hands
—Squaring Accounts— Mental Arithmetic— Princiijle of BacksMsh— Black-
mail— Sunday Morning— Convent Bell— Matins— Monks of Marsala—
Severe Rule— Contrast between Rotnan and Greek Monks— System of Rome
—Relics of Martyrs— Pet Wolf— Delays— Non-arrival of the Jehalin—Abou
DahUk—Tke Archimandrite of Marsaba — Library^ Deimrture-Wady
Ghitweir—Ta'dmireh— Fossils— Ain Ghuweir—Ain Terabeh—Its Oasis-
New Sparrow— Nciv Raven-Moonlight on the Dead Sea—Map-viaking—
Arab Talcs— Walk to Ain Jidy — Bitumen,

January I.jTH. — "We set off tins morning for the Convent
of Marsaba, and despatched the nmles and baggage by the
circuitous but more easy road to the north, while, with
our horses led before us, we climbed to the summit of
Ras Feshkhah, not to the projecting promontory, but to the
highest point of the ridge. AVlien we reached the top the
day was tolerably clear, and the whole Dead Sea basin lay
stretched at our feet, 2,000 feet below. This is undoubtedly
the route by which, for effect, travellers should be introduced
to the Dead Sea, and I should recommend those who can
afford a day, to ride from IMarsaba to Ras Feshkhah, and
thence to the Ain and along the shore to Jericho, camping
where we did, on good ground with abundance of water.

Nothing could be more dreary than the remainder of our
day's ride over a barren wilderness of rounded hills, with
scanty herbage, and little tufts of shrubs here and there, about
a foot high. It had all the desolation without the fine effects
of the Sahara. Soon after starting we obtained a specimen
of the white-headed black chat (Saxicola lencocejjhala), first
discovered by me in the Algerian Sahara. It was interesting
to find the. same species occurring again after so wide an

s

258

PASS OF FESHKHAH.

interval. There were three of these birds together, but we
never met with another specimen. One troop of gazelles came
across us, and once we started a fine ibex, the wild goat of
Engedi, or Bcclcn of the Arabs, which bounded off with a start
of 400 yards.

The geology was uninteresting, hard limestone, and we found
no fossils. One basaltic dyke crossed our path, running N.E.
and S.W. about 500 yards wide on the surface, but more ex-
panded further to the south. From its direction, we were led
to believe that this was a continuation of the same dyke
which I had observed yesterday near Eas Feshkhah. The

VIEW FROM TOP OV PASS ABOVE AIN FESHKHAH.

limestone strata all dipped to the southward and eastward.
Just midway the inclination was shown very clearly in two
sections, exposed by ravines formed by watercourses, where
the angle of depression was in the one case 4° 5' towards the
south, and in the other 12° towards S.E. These were probably
sections of the same stratum, showing the general depression
to be S.S.E. It is very possible that this dip may be a local

MARS ABA.

259

disturbance, caused by the trap dyke extended to the north of
it. At any rate, this appeared to have been extended before
the Ghor assumed its present form.

As we approached the convent of Marsaba and the gorge
of the Wady Mr, the prospect was less desolate, and the
scenery bolder ; but the rain began to descend in torrents, and
we were not sorry to use our letters of recommendation, and

MARSABA.

to claim the hospitality of the brethren, in preference to
pitcliing our tents outside ; and we found comfortable quarters
over Sunday in that well-known hospice.

Jamiary IGth. — We were to-day to be freed from the
guardianship of Sheikh Mohammed and the Ghawarineh,

s 2

260 INVITATION TO DINNER.

whose territory we had traversed to its utmost limits north
and south. The Sheikh had ah'eady intimated his hope that
he might entertain us under his own tent ; and this morning
we were bidden in due form, and told that the sheep was
slain, and that dinner would be ready at noon, at a camp
about an hour and a half distant. It was a day lost to
research, but even in the desert something must be sacrificed
to the claims of society, and its demands are neither frequent
nor numerous. Besides, if we partook of his hospitality, the
Sheikh miglit liave fewer scruples in receiving the handsome
fee wliich was due for his protection. Sending on our horses
to his camp, U. and I followed leisurely on foot, wishing to
trace, as far as possible, the trap formation which we had
noticed yesterday. On further examination, we found a few
boulders and fragments of basalt scattered over the plain to
the west of the narrow ridge we had crossed, but it was clear
that no more trap rises to the surface in any mass. There
seemed to be no continuous dyke, and the ridge which pro-
trudes at Eas Feshkhah has only been pushed up very near
the point of its termination. We suspected we had discovered
at the same time the source of De Saulcy's mistake about his
basaltic ridge, which Lynch's party could not find, in a sin-
gular line of flint, strongly impregnated with oxide of iron,
which covered the surface for some distance, running south-
east, and wliich a casual observer might easily have taken for
igneous rock.

We found, however, a rich fossiliferous bed in the gorge of
the Kedron, which we traced, both above and below the con-
vent, for more than a mile each way. It is a layer, averaging
seven feet thick, of very hard crystalline limestone — one mass
of organic remains, chiefly Hqypurites Liratus (?) ; while neither
above nor below this stratum could we detect any trace of
fossils. It is shown at both sides of the ravine, at the same
depth from the surface (eighty-two feet), till it is suddenly
lost by a fault in the stratification, and then it reappears ten
feet loM-er down. This is the only locality south of the
Lebanon where we have found a hippurites ; and here it is

A BEDOUIN CAMP. 261

the predominant, almost the exclusive, fossil. We picked up
a good horn of the ibex on the plain.

Arrived at the camp, which lay in a valley between the
barest and dreariest of hills, without a shruli or a tree in
sight, we recognised the Sheikh's tent, among a group of
twenty others of which the encampment consisted, by the tall
spear planted against it ; ^ and, after a halt, that our horses
and companions might come up, we mounted at a proper
distance, and rode forward — nine horsemen in all. To have
approached a Bedouin camp on foot would have been a breach
of decorum, and a degradation only to be paralleled by the
Queen proceeding to open Parliament in a hackney-cab.
Giacomo having gone to Jerusalem for provisions, we were
reduced to take our cook, Georgio, as our interpreter — our
medium of communication being our verv bad Italian, and his
worse. This compelled us to fall back on our scanty Arabic,
undiluted by his intervention ; and, mustering our common
stock of the language, we contrived, in spite of the difficulties,
to sustain a constant, if not a lively or varied, conversation
during our Aasit.

Leaving oiu' horses in charge of the various ragged retainers
who came rushing round us, we stepped across some tent
ropes, and under a large low black tent, open in front, found
an abundant display of cushions and Turkey rugs spread on
the ground. One-half of the tent was hermetically closed to
view, though through a slit there occasionally protruded the
noses and eyes of sundry secluded little girls ; but no women
appeared even at the chinks. The carpets were thickly folded,
and backed by cushions ; and, taking off our spurs and boots
we reclined in Arab fashion, having first, as etiquette required,
piled our anus against a pole in the outer corner. The
cushions were spread along two sides of a square, and the
Sheikh very carefully motioned us to our places, according to
what he considered our seniority, putting me in the angle, as
the place of honour, and S. next. Georgio sat behind — of
course off the carpets. Though the firstling had already been
^ " So Saiil had his spear stuck at his bolster." — 1 Sam. xxvi. 7.

262 RECEPTION.

killed, and the fine flour kneaded for tlie feast, we had an
oj)portunity of seeing the whole process of coffee-making,
with the serving of which our entertainment began. Over a
few hot embers and wood-ashes was placed a sort of perforated
ladle, and over this was held a second smaller one, on which
a few green coffee-berries were placed and roasted, each berry
being singly turned so soon as it was sufficiently toasted on
one side. They were then placed on a wooden block, scooped
into a shallow mortar at the top, and, wliile still quite hot,
were pounded by around-headed wooden mallet, and at once,
without furtlier grinding, put into the kettle of boiling water,
and simmered for a few minutes among the embers. Delicious
coffee, fragrant and strong, it was, though the supply of cups
was short. Pipes followed, till dinner was brought. This
consisted of a single course, served in a huge bowl about a
yard in diameter. The bottom was filled with thin flat cakes,
thinner than oat-cake, and which overhung the sides as gi'ace-
ful drapery. On them was heaped boiled rice, saturated with
butter and soup ; while the disjecta mcmhra of the sheep
which had been slain for the occasion were piled in a cone
over all.

The bowl having been placed in the corner, in front of us,
the Sheikh and his brother sat down opposite to us, but
without partaking ; and, turning up our sleeves, we prepared
for action. Knives and forks are, of course, unknown, and
we were expected, using oidy one hand, to make balls of the
greasy mess, and devour, chucking the morsels into the mouth
by a dexterous movement of the thumb. This, after a little
practice, we contrived to do. An important piece of etiquette
was for each to have his own digging in the dish, and to
keep his fingers to it alone. To have used the left hand
would have been as great a solecism as putting the knife into
the mouth at home. The meat had to be rent in strips from
the bones, and eaten, too, with the fingers. The mutton was
tender, and deliciously cooked; and equally good were the
rice-mess and the cakes below. As soon as the host was
quite satisfied that it was a physical impossibilty for us to eat

MENTAL ARITH.METIC. 263

more, the huge bowl was lifted by two attendants, and placed
a little further to the left, where the retainers of the better
class had been sitting, and watching us with eager eyes. All
the rest, the rabble of the camp, about twenty-five in number,
sat outside, motionless and silent. As soon as the second
table had been sufficiently gorged, which was a very rapid
process, the bowl was passed outside, and cleared in the
twinkling of an eye ; the monkey paws of sundry urchins
being inserted from behind their seniors, and extracting large
flaps of greasy cake wdth marv^ ellous dexterity. Finally, the
pack of poor hungry dogs had a scramble and a fight over
the well-picked bones. Meanwhile, water and soap had been
handed round to us, the water being poured from a silver"
ewer on to our hands, over a basin also of silver, and covered
with a perforated plate ; and we felt a little less like savages
than before. Cofi'ee again served, black and strong, Mnthout
sugar, in tiny cups, concluded the primitive feast. We had
not yet settled accounts, and proposed now to enter upon
the business of the day. But Mohammed had too fine a
sense of delicacy to receive money from his guests under the
curtain of his own tent, and evidently had no anxiety that
his people should know the extent of his charge for black-
mail. He preferred, he said, to escort us back to the convent,
and transact our affairs there.

Our ride home was as leisurely as our walk had been. Our
host rode on, while we lingered, but we were rewarded by
nothing better than a few rock pigeons ; and on our arrival at
IMarsaba we found him impatiently awaiting us. Sitting
down vis-d-vis on the ottomans in the convent-hall, we entered
upon the business without interpreter. Trying the Sheikh's
powers in mental arithmetic we began — 18 days w'ith 8 foot-
men at 10 piastres each per diem, and 2 horsemen at 25
piastres each, and 70 piastres head money for 7 howadji
to the Sheikh : how much will it come to ? A long pause,
and he remained wrapt in thought. At length, with a smile,
" The howadji are my brothers, let them speak, and it must
be right!" He preferred to leave the arithmetic to us, and

264 BLACK-MAIL.

professed himself satisfied with our reckoning. But then
came the counting. He must not appear puzzled, only con-
fiding. Turki.sh coinage is almost unknown in Syria, and
every other is cuiTCut. Our stock consisted of Austrian gold
ducats and Spanish pillar dollars ; and, though JNIohammed
might not be able to reckon how many Spanish dollars
beyond 41 Austrian ducats were needed to make up 2,830
piastres, a feat of arithmetic beyond his Bedouin education,
he must not confess ignorance. Again and again he counted
the pile, looked to his brother, wdio, with two favoured
retainers, had been admitted to the hall of audience, re-
examined every piece, and looked very wise. After a proper
interval he pronounced all " tayib," correct. Then came the
backshish, to which your true Bedouin seems to attach more
importance than to the principal of any payment, and wdiich
is always an indispensable part of every transaction. Unless
something, however small, over and above the stipulated sum
is paid for any service, it is presumed the employer is dis-
satisfied with the mode in which the contract has been ful-
filled. We handed the Sheikh an English sovereign for
himself, another for the cavalry, and a napoleon to his brother
for the infantry of the guard. We shook hands all round, and
they kissed our fingers ; we gave and received mutual assur-
ances that M'e were ' all brothers and fathers ; our guards
retired, and we found ourselves till Monday in the position of
unprotected females !

They were kindly, good-natured and obliging fellows, those
Gliawarineh. 80Z. seemed a heavy price to pay simply as a
fee for not being robbed for a fortnight, and that to the very
men who would have robbed us had we not paid it, for no
one else could have done so in their territory. Yet the
system is recognised and legalized by what pretends to be
the government of the country. It may be a very heavy
police-rate to pay, but it saves the autliorities from the ex-
posure of their utter powerlessness outside the walls of Jeru-
salem. We should not complain, for to us the plan was
certainly most convenient, insuring perfect safety, while for

MONK^; OF ^fAliSABA. 265.

the trifling gifts of a charge of powder or a pipe of tobacco the
guards were always ready to make themselves useful. We
became acquainted with their habits, we could study their
customs, and improved ourselves in their language, while
every ruin, cave, and fountain in the district were pointed out
to us as they never could have been by any other than the
tribe in possession.

January 11th. — Sunday. — We were all housed together on
ottomans in a long room built like a swallow's bed on the
cliff side. At 4 a.m. I was roused by a loud deep bell just
overhead, and, putting on dressing-gown and slippers, turned
out in the bright star-lit night. The sound of a chant rose
through the still air from the chapel below. I w^ent down
the steps, and, stealing into the richly-decked chapel, found
the monks at matins. They were chanting the psalms of
the day in old Greek, but in a tone whicli, without a book,
it would have been impossible to follow. Anything more
irreverent than their manner it is difficult to conceive. They
have indeed a round of services to perform — matins daily at
4 A.M. and 6 a.m. ; mass at 10 a.m. ; vespers at 6 p.m. and
8 P.M.; orisons at 10 p.m. and at midnight. At these services
there is much Scripture read in detached passages, and an
appointed Gospel is daily read aloud at dinner b}^ one of the
priest-brethren in turns. Only one-third of the forty monks
are in holy orders, and many of the lay brothers, even the
one who waited on strangers, are unable to read. They are
chiefly from the provinces of Jkiropean Turkey ; but some
were Greeks, and three or four liussians ; and modern Greek
is the language of the society. Scarcely any of the members
were acquainted with Araliic. On religious subjects those
of the priests wdth whom I conversed seemed for the most
part profoundly ignorant, and it is no wonder that there is
little either of devotion or understanding in the worship of*
the serving brethren. One of the priests, a Greek from the
Islands, who understood Italian, evinced both knowledge and
imderstanding of the Scripture, as well of the Old as of the
New Testament, and had a very clear comprehension of the

. 2G6 COXTll.VST BETWEEN ROMAN AND GREEK MONKS.

Christian system. He had studied the writings both of St,
Chiysostom and St. Jerome, and was imbued with the s])irit
of the Father of the Golden Mouth. The discipline of the
convent is most severe. All are under a vow never to taste
flesh meat, and their diet is both meagre and stinted in
quantity. I^^ggs are permitted on Sundays only. On other
davs the allowance is a small brown loaf, a dish of cabbage
broth, a plate of olives, an onion, half an orange, a quarter
of a lemon, six figs, and half a pint of wine for each brother
during the twenty-four hours. These rations are carefully
counted and distributed to the monks in the refectory. No
wonder that they are attenuated and meagre, most cadaverous
and pallid in feature, and without any sinew, wholly unfitted
for any physical exertion, which however is rarely required
from them. Several of them came to consult our doctor for
dyspepsia and stomach complaints, but he could only tell
them their diet was insufficient, and prescribe white bread
and flesh meat, at which they sadly smiled, and sighed forth
dSvvarov (impossible).

There is all the difference between the monks of the
Greek and Roman rites in Palestine that characterizes the
political and religious position of the two Churches. The
one is always on the aggressive, the other on the defensive.
In everything Greek there seems embodied a cold, dead
conservatism, tenacious it knows not why, and obstinate,
looking on every concession or relaxation of a rule as a
confession of weakness. Thus, though the rule of the
Carmelite may be as stringent as that of St. Jerome, there is
no fear of the former being enforced to the injury of health,
or the disadvantage of the order. "Eeculer pour mieux
sauter " is the motto of Eome, in small things as well as
great. She has shown this in her management of the Maro-
nites and of the Greek Catholics, lost to Constantinople
through obstinate mismanagement. The marriage of the
priests, the use of the Syrian language, the liturgy of St.
James, a different calendar of saints — all have been conceded,
since union could be had on no other terms. The Greek

RELICS OF MARTYRS. 2G7

never dreams of enlarging liis fold, nor of concessions which
might retain the waverers. In matters ecclesiastical, all the
proverbial astuteness of the Hellenic race seems to desert
him. A monastic life is chosen, as one of the monks here
told me, for the sake of peace, of eating the bread of idleness ;
and there is no training for their vows, nor any thonght of
applying the life of the religious to the advantage of the
Church. Thus, while every Latin monastery in Syria is the
centre of an aggressive mission, the Eastern Church does not
even adapt her battalions of celibates to man her defensive
works. Ages of Moslem oppression, and the dense ignorance
of the local priesthood, have done their work ; and while the
truth has been obscured, and the written "Word of God for-
gotten, she seems to have lost even the desire to discover or
understand it.

After our morning service, one of the monks called to take
us over the convent, and to call on the prior. The convent
has been too often described to render it necessary to give
here any details of the buildings and their extraordinary
position, perched, like a group of nests, on the precipitous
side of a deep glen, a collection of caves, staircases, turrets,
and chambers clustering one above another, surrounded on both
sides by a deep fosse, and strengthened by enormous buttresses.
We visited the strange cave-chapel, in which are piled a
museum of skulls of (they say) 10,000 martyrs. It is cer-
tainly a collection the Anthropological Society might envy,
and out of which they might select as many t}-pes as it suited
their fancy to create. I afterwards wandered down the glen,
and sat with my book in one of the old hermits' caves till
the descending sun reminded me it was time to return to
dinner, when I found Sheikh Mohammed waiting to tell me he
considered the backshish was insufficient, a point on which
we decidedly differed in opinion. The monks w^ere on the
roof near us, feeding their beautiful tame grakles, one of the
few solaces of their dreary life ; and one of them lower down
had a piece of bread ready for a pet wolf, which comes across
the ravine everv evening at six o'clock for his ration, and

268 MAKSABA.

tlion goes back again. Sometimes other wolves accompany
him, but he always chases them so soon as they arrive under
the convent wall. My friend, the Italian-speaking brotlier,
remained in the room during our evening service.

January \Wi. — We had expected this morning to resume
our tour of the Dead Sea under the guardianship of Abou
Dahuk, but, after all our goods were packed ready for the
start, we had to resign ourselves to wait another day, as the
guard did not appear. My new friend, the monk, volunteered
to accompany me in a ramble down the glen, as he could give
himself a dispensation from mass. I was very glad to em-
brace his offer, after allaying the alarm of several of his
brethren lest we should shoot any of their pets. We visited
several little ravines, in three of which we came upon the
same fossiliferous bed of hippurites we had found on Satur-
day, when I filled my pockets and used up my chisel against
the hard limestone. We obtained the solitary blue thrusli,
the Abyssinian rock martin (Cotyle palustris), the blackstart
(Pratincola mclanura), and some desert larks and chats, as
well as the Syrian hare. In returning, we had the pleasure
of seeing and meeting a wolf. He unexpectedly turned a
corner close to us, and quietly doubled and trotted off
among the rocks. He looked larger and was much redder in
colour than the European wolf. We also found the smallest
quadruped I ever met with, a shrew of a pale slate-colour
a))out half the size of our shrew mouse.

Late in the afternoon Giacomo and the mules returned
from Jerusalem, and witli them our friend Mr. Wood, of
H.B. M. Consulate, who had come to join our party for a
fortnight on our tour of the Dead Sea. The non-appearance
of Abou Dahuk was now explained. He had been suddenly
summoned to Jerusalem by the Pasha, to head some troops
against a rebel tribe ; but, through the energetic good offices
of Mr. Moore, the consul, interposed on our belialf, the expe-
dition was deferred till he had fulfilled his engagement with
ns — a matter, in our eyes, much more important than the
subjugation of the Bedouin malcontents.

ABOU D All UK. 2(iit

We made the acquaintance of some more of tlie strange
pets of the monks — three foxes, who come every evening to a
spot under the convent walls, apart fi'om the wolf's place of
call, and howl for their piece of bread, with which they quietly
return up the ravine. "We watched them coming for their
supper. Five appeared, but the two intruders were speedily
chased away by the others.

January Idth. — Soon after midnight Ave were roused by
loud cries outside the convent and thunderings at the iron
gate. Abou Dahuk and our Jehalin guard had arrived, and
demanded admittance. But the porter was inexorable, and
refused to open, so they had to bivouac outside till morning.
We pitied them, for the thermometer fell nearlj'' to the freez-
ing point, but they found a cave in which to shelter them-
selves. We had not dressed when, at daybreak, the old
chieftain paid us a visit, evidently desirous of an early start
from his inhospitable quarters. He was a venerable old man,
apparently about seventy years of age, but really long past
fourscore, very spare and thin, with prominent nose, good
features, keen, deep eyes, but his face much furrowed by time
and exposure. His dress was shabby and mean for a man of
such distinction, being in no wise different from that of the
most beggarly of his suite. His kafiyeh was of striped yellow
silk worn brown, with camel's hair agyle or band ; a ragged
saddle with a sheepskin thrown over it, and a sorry-looking
grey mare for his mount. The only distinction in his dress
was that he wore an under-dressing gown of new and clean
white calico. He evidently reserved all his display for the
cities, not for the Avilderuess.

Breakfast over, we were waited upon by the bursar of the
convent, who informed us that he expected 61. for our four
days' entertainment, besides a gratuity of 10s. each to the
attendant brother and the porter. As they had only pro-
vided us with bread, wine, and oil, this was not a very low
charge, but the convenience of the place had been great,
and we did not grudge the fee. The Greeks are business-
like, and he reminded us that nothing grew here, and all had

270 DEPAPiTUEE.

to be brought at great expense. INIr. Wood then kindly ac-
companied me as interpreter to pay a visit to the Archiman-
drite of the convent, a venerable old man, who has never left
the monastery for forty-eight years. He still retains by pre-
ference the little cell he had on his first entrance, and is only
distinguished from his subordinates by his coarser dress and
more severe austerities. His cell was about ten feet by six,
containing no furniture, but a broad shelf for sleeping on, a
cupboard, and bookshelves. He never uses a bed, and his old
and tattered folios were piled in the corners, in such confusion
that it was difficult to make out the contents of more than
one or two, editions of some Greek fathers. It was a pity
that dirt seemed to be a part of his self-denial most largely
imposed. We could not get beyond formal conversation with
him, for long disuse had rusted his communicative powers.
We had been anxious to explore the library, which has been
reputed to contain MSS. of St. Jerome of great value, but the
key is now kept by the Patriarch at Jerusalem, in conse-
quence of the abstraction of certain volumes by a visitor.
The books are shut up in a tower near the gateway, apart from
the monastery. We mounted the stairs, and looked through
a chink in the door. There \\\ne a few shelves, with old
folios and quartos scattered irregularly about, while dusty
manuscripts strewed the floor. As llussian scholars have had
free access to make researches, it is not probable that any
literary treasure remains undiscovered. But the last thing
thought of is that the monks should wish to use their own
library — the one resource, as we might have thought, of their
isolated life. The slumber of death seems to have fallen on
everything in the Greek Church ; and tlie nutriment of the
monks, intellectual or spiritual, is as dry as the bones in
theii' caves. " Can these dry bones live ? "

After seeing our boxes carried outside the convent, we took
our leave with Abou Dahuk, and directed the muleteers, ac-
companied by some guards, to take the best road they could
find to Ain Terabeh on the shore Avhere we proposed to
camp. Our course lay at first S.E. across the ridge of a rocky

WADY GnUWKIR. 271

desolate liill, wliere we found ice yet uiitliawed by the
morning's sun. As the day advanced and we descended, the
warmth rapidly increased, till, by the time we had reached
the beach, the air was sultry and the heat oppressive. After
threading our way for an hour among slippery rocks, we
struck upon the valley of the Wady Ghuweir, a dry water-
course, which we followed for several miles. It was a piece of
easy road in comparison with that to which we had lately been
accustomed, but as destitute of life, animal or vegetable, as
any other. U. brought down a fine red kite as he rode along,
the first specimen we had obtained, and at once established
himself by his prowess in the good opinion of the Sheikh ;
but, besides a few gazelles, and an eagle or two, we saw no-
thing else. We came upon a section of the bituminous lime-
stone, or stone-pitch of the natives, and also on a large bed
of fossils in the bottom of the wady, washed into relief on
the surface of the chalky limestone. They consisted of a
nerinaea sp. (?) a very pretty cuculloea {C. lintea, Conr.) in flint,
an astarte (^4. unclulosa {?) Conr.), but especially a cephalopod
(Baculitcs syriacvs, Conr.) in enormous quantity. The
scenery improved as we approached the crest of the hills.
Sage bushes and other obscure plants dotted the hollows,
which had assumed a pale green hue, and gazelles and camels
were browsing on the scant herbage. AVe passed two small
Bedouin camps of the Ta'amireh tribe, at present on good
terms with the Jehalin ; and beyond them, on the crest of the
hills, espied three men travelling with camels. At the ap-
proach of nine armed horsemen, the men left their charge, and
fled as if for dear life, nor could any signals of peace and
good-will avail to stay their flight.

In three hours and a half after leaving Marsaba, we
reached the crest of the precipitous rocks which, at a height
of 1,200 feet, overhang the Dead Sea. The view was very
grand — the hills being steep as a wall, and the day bright and
clear. From our dizzy height w-e looked down on a strip of
barren plain, with a rich dark belt of tall cane brake fringing
it from headland to headland ; and those red mountains of

272 WKSTEUN VIEW OK TlIK liKAl* SEA.

Moab, furrowed by the deep ravines of the Zerkii and tlie
INIojib, looked more fascinating every time we gazed on them.
Southward for the first time we obtained a "ood view of the
Lisan (tongue), that broad flat peninsula which half intersects
the southern part of the sea. From our position it appeared
to stretch right across, and to be simply a long sandspit,
which dovetailed in with the wavy outline of one low spit
after another running out to meet it from the western shore.
So far from there being here any approach to that long
straight line hj Avhich the western side is represented in our
maps, the eye could scarcely trace the continuity of the
water, as it seemed to meander, like the tortuous course of
some mighty but sluggish stream, amidst tidal sandbanks and
endless creeks. These white spits all sparkled and glittered
in the sunlight, like diamonds studded over a field of silver.
"We had to dismount and lead our horses down the ladder
pass, which might puzzle any animal but a goat. For mules
it is impracticable, and ours had to make a detour of four
hours.

At length we reached the shore, at a spot a mile noi'th
of Ain Ghuweir, on the flank of the plain which I had
visited from Eas Feshkhah. We at once turned to the south,
following the inland edge of the now contracting plain, till
we reached the Ain, a warm clear spring of the temperature
of 96° Fahr., bursting forth in the midst of a reed belt 100
yards from the shore, and completely concealed. Our guides
were by no means certain of its position, and found their way
to it by following the well-beaten tracks of the wild boar.
In the midst of the brake it forms a shallow basin of about
twenty yards square, before running down to the sea. The
pebbles and the bottom were covered with black neritinas,
and with the same species of melanopsis we had found at
Ain Sultan. We dismounted, and watered our horses. We
would have rested and refreshed oiu'selves, but the heat was
stifling, the air stagnant and fetid, and charged with gnats and
mosquitoes, which clogged every aperture of sense — eyes, nose,
mouth, and ears. We could only drink and lave, and, unre-

A IN TKKABEII. 273

freshed and irritated, were glad to rush out and sit under the
.qlarc of tlie open ground. We continued our course, sometimes
by the side of, sometimes througli, tlie tall cane brake, for a
mile and three-quarters, .as far as Ain Terabeh, where \ve
were to camp.

From Eas Feshkliuli the mountain-spur recedes at right
angles to the shore, leaving a scrubby plain between the pro-
jecting sandspit and the main range. This is three-quarters
of a mile wide at the north, exclusive of the projecting sand-
spit, and gradually contracts to the south, till, a mile beyond
Ain Terabeh, another headland juts out, the cliffs of which
descend sheer to the water's edge.

A few tamarisk trees are scattered in small clumps about
Ain Terabeh ; and the space T)etween the brake of canes,
twenty feet high, and the hills, is choked with bushes,
thick and dense, but not prickly, and about six feet high
{Atripkx halimus), through which many an over-arched path
has been beaten by the wild boar. Having fastened our
horses to stones, we set forth to discover the spring, of the
locality of which Abou Dahfdv was ignorant. In fact, the
district belonged to his friends, the Ta'amireh, and, excepting
when he had accompanied Lynch and De Saulcy, had never
been visited by him at all. Finding a track through the
canes to the shore, w^e followed it, in the hope of seeing a
stream trickling by its side, but in vain ; till at length Gia-
como's sharp eye detected water oozing through the gravel,
close to the water's edge, exactly two feet from the nauseous
brine, and Avith a ridge of gravel, about four inches high,
alone separating the two. We at once set to work to scoop a
basin in the beach, as our reservoir, and then proceeded to
explore the little oasis. It is full of life ; but birds are very
difficult to be seen in the bush, harder to shoot, and well-
nigh impossible to find when shot. We put up the pochard,
the common wild duck, the teal, and several desert hares,
disturbed the great crested grebe, and saw numberless tracks
of wild boar, of jackals, and foxes. We picked up the horn of
an ibex [Beclen), and the skull of a porcupine. The crateropus,

T

274 MOONLlCiUT ON THE DEAD SEA.

or hopping-tlu'ush, the bulbul, and most of our Jericho
acquaintances were here, and we saw and shot, but could not
iind, specimens of a bird we never saw before or since, and
wliich we take to be a species of sunbird, larger than the
common one, or some bird of the same character. One un-
questionably new species rewarded our search — a very small
and richly-marked sparrow, which 1 have described in the
Proceedings of the Zoological Society as Pctsser moabiticus,
about half the size of our domestic sparrow, with chestnut
wings, and a rich yellow patch on each side of the neck. The
female, of uniform russet plumage, also exhibits, but less
distinctly, the yellow patches. It is, indeed, strange and in-
teresting to discover, in this little restricted locality, a species
which seems absolutely confined to its narrow limits, and not
a straggler either from Africa or India.

There were no signs of the mules yet, and, though very
hungry, we continued our search along the shore, to the
southern headland, where we found the rocks near the water
covered with an incrustation of bitumen, in which gravel was
thickly imbedded, to the depth of from a foot to a yard. On
our return, we came across the fresh track of a leopard, which
evidently had its lair somewhere in the impenetrable cane
brake. We also observed several specimens of a raven, quite
new to us, but could not obtain one. It looked, when on the
wing, as large as the common raven, but had a short, very
broad tail, and much greater depth of wing, which reached
almost to the end of the tail. The note was a remarkably shrill
cry, almost musical, if an)'' raven throat ever did perpetrate
music, and very unlike the croak of its fellows, with wdiom it
was consorting. It proved afterwards to be the Corvus affinis
of Eiiitpell, who found it in Arabia.

It was dark before our baggage arrived, after its hazardous
descent; and we had long to wait, tired and hungry, for
dinner — a small price for so great a treat as we had enjoyed
to-day. The moon was nearly full, and there was a majestic
calm in the flood of silver light she poured on to our camp
from the east. The eastern hills, which had gleamed -with so

ARAB TALES. 2

l'<0

warm aglow in the nioniing, were now .shrouded in gloom ;
while the moon's radiance shot over the burnished surface of
the lake, and cast a pale reflection on our canij), which
strangely contrasted with the lurid glare of the watch-fires,
without extinguishing them. There was a stillness that
might be felt. We seemed to be the only living things down
in that mysterious chasm, save when, once or twice, the
distant wail of the hyteiia floated from above, or a cane-tuft
trembled with a shivering whisper as some bird stirred on his
perch. We could have sat in reverie for hours, and conjured
up the phantoms of Arabian tales from the other side, or
evoked the ruined Cities of the Plain.

But time was precious ; we were there to Mork, and post-
poned the dreams of fancy till our return to the upper world.
With map before us — and our map of the shore was, in size,
worthy of the ordnance scale, having been enlarged for us
from ^^au de Velde on a scale of an inch to the mile — we re-
clined round the watch-fire, discussing geography, and listening
to Abou Dahuk's stories of his former experiences. The coast-
line, as we had it, was evidently wide of the truth, being traced
as almost a straight line from Ain Feshkhah to Engedi. We
saw that the tracing to the south of us was as inaccurate as
that to the north of our position had proved, and that head-
lands, and bays, and sandspits were all unrecorded. But our
old guide was quite determined that no one could follow along
the shore. If the Frenchman could not do it, how could we ?
There was nothing to be seen ! it was all a worthless country,
" moush tayib ; " — not even a wild goat would go down there.
We did not argue the matter, but remained fixed in our
resolve to attempt it on the morrow. The old Sheikh began
to beguile the watch, by telling many a tale of Arab war and
peace — how he had driven some of his foes, in his youth,
over the precipice behind us, and liosv one man survived the
fall, and returned to his tribe ; how, after he had lost many
camels, but taken more, an armistice had been proposed, on
the basis of his paying blood-money for as many of his slain
foes as exceeded in number the slain of his friends ; how his

T 2

276 WALK TO A IX JIDY.

opponents tried to count among the dead men the crippled
victim over tlie cliff; and liow liostilities were, thereupon,
upon the point of being renewed. If the interpreter and the
listeners had not, one after another, dropped asleep, the old
warrior would fain hsive continued his tales till morning.

January 20th. — Our vigils did not prevent our being up at
sunrise, and all our chattels were hurried into bags and boxes
for an early start towards Engedi, our next proposed camp.
S. and IT. began the morning by each obtaining a male
specinjen of our -new sparrow, to give them an appetite for
breakfast. Mr. Wood, M. and B. then joined me in the
attempt to trace out the coast-line on foot, while the rest of
the party should take the higher route on hor-'back, accord-
ing to the track followed by De Saulcy and by Eobinson. It
was only eight miles direct to Ain Jidy, but the windings of
the coast and the headlands made it at least twelve or thirteen.
Abou Dahiik again reiterated his warnings ; but, as he had
already exhibited his ignorance of the topography, and as it
was his assurance which had sent former explorers up the
mountains, we were not shaken in our resolve. We were in
pretty heavy marching order, with guns and ammunition, re-
volvers and belts, barometer, surveying compass, maps, and
instruments. However, though with no guide but the sea
itself, we managed the wallv without much difficulty, beyond
doing occasionally some break-neck climbing along the ledges,
•where they shelved down into the sea ; and finally reached
Ain Jidy in seven hours and a half It Mas a lovely morn-
ing for a walk, thounh rather hot, and we all thorouG;hlv
enjoyed it. At all the projecting points we took observations
with the compass, and found the maps very erroneous, the
coast being embayed and trending inwards very deeply from
lias Teshkhah to lias Mersed ; and there are two Ion"
lamlspits and three bays not laid down. M. made outline
sketches as we proceeded. For a great part of the way we
had tair walking over the shingly beach and gravel diluvium,
the whole shore having the same ghost-like appearance as the
north end, strewn uninterruptedly witli the grim bark-stripped

r.TTUMEN. "^

I I

trunks of countless trees. Now and then the lower portions
of the cliffs pushed into tlie sea in broken masses, over which
wo had t(i climb. Close to the Wady Derejeh Me found
anotlier wady, a fork separating from it just at its embouchure,
forming a tremendous fissure of surpassing grandeur, but the
grandeur of terrific desolation, where the cliffs gape and open
upon the shore. At the spur of this wady, the Wady Sighet-
reh, there was a broad low diluvial spit, with scanty acacias
and tamarisk-trees, both of them of species new to us, and
a quantity of shrub and thicket which extended close to the
water's edge, tenanted b}' the birds peculiar to the Ghor, iden-
tical with the . inhabitants of the groves at Jericho. Tims,
wherever there is the slightest supply of fresh-water, however
occasional, the luxuriance of the climate stimulates a vegeta-
tion disproportionately exuberant.

Here again we could trace uninterruptedly the high diluvial
deposit of chalky limastone and gravel, mixed with shells of
existing species, at the same level (250 feet) as we had pre-
viously observed it. There were frequent layers of gypsum,
but we did not find any hardened to the consistency of stone.
AVhore there are wadys, as at Derejeh, running down to the
sea between high cliffs, this diluvium reaches up to perhaps
4( lU feet on the sides of the ravine. So also it does at Eugedi
in the Wady Sudeir. From this altitude it slopes away in
terraces to the present level of the sea, as if this had been
gradually evaporating, and liad left the mark of its receding
tides. The gravel conglomerate, which abuts on the foot of
the cliffs, seems due to the recent action of the water, for
wherever the rocks come down to the water's edge, a new
conglomerate is being rapidl}' formed of a similar nature, with
pebbles, boulders, and flints, partially waterworn, and aggluti-
nating by aqueous deposition. Above the white marly terrace,
three separate lines of terrace were visible in the secondary
cliffs, but the edges of the old beaches are generally lost by
the heaps of debris which have crumbled down, and encum-
bered the steps of these Titanic stairs. Just before reaching
Wady Derejeh, we found the shore lined with a mass of

278 .TEBFX SIIUKTF.

bitumen, in which pebbles of all kinds were thickly embedded.
At this place we could count on the shore no less than eight
low gravel terraces, the ledges of comparatively recent beaches
distinctly marked above the present water-mark. The highest
of these was forty-four feet above the present sea-level.

The next wady, Hasdsah, is faced by another spit, running
out into the sea, and the white chalky terrace is heaped in its
mouth to the height of 540 feet, clinging inside the opening
of the tremendous gorge.

In two places under Jebel Shukif, the highest peak in the
neighbourhood, the little wadys, just before reaching the .sea,
have hollowed out enormous circular basins or craters in the
cliffs, which are scooped perpendicularly from their summit
(1,500 feet) almost to their bases. Their terrific grandeur,
unrelieved by any sign of life or colour, strikes the beholder
with awe. This erosion and scooping out of the solid moun-
tain of rock must have been the work of some mighty extinct
waterfall. The mind is lost in tlie bewildering extent of
past geological eeras, when we try to conceive the length of
time that must have elapsed since the furious torrents of the
once watered hills tore down that ravine, and ploughed
through the flinty rocks. And yet the lowest of these rocks
is, in the eyes of the geologist, scarcely more than a modern
deposit.

CHAPTER XITT.

Dead Sea — Sulphur Siyrings— Description of Ain Jidij—Engedi — Hazezon-
Tainar — Plain— Trees — Apple of Sodom— Rashdyideh Arabs — Hungry
Bivouac on the Plain— Retreat to a Cave— Dreary Night — Meeting Friends—
Moonlight— Return— Want of Water— Diffi.cultics of the Caravan— Fountain
of Engedi — Arab Acquaintances — Wady Sudeir — Lovely Grotto — Palm Trees
— Ferns — Conflagration— Wady Areyeh — Ascent of Ras Sudeir — Height —
Ancient Vineyards— Reports of War— Salt-making — Wild Goats — Allusions
to Engedi in the Psalms of David — Canticles — Camphirc.

;More than one interesting discovery rewarded our long M-alk
from Ain Terabeli to Ain Jidy. In a little bay, just before
reaching the Wady Shukif, we were struck by a powerful
sulphurous odour, and, after some search, found hot water
liubliling through the gravel at a temperature of 95° Fahr.
only six inches from the sea. The smell of sulphur and
rotten eggs was very strong, and while scooping in the gravel,
my hands became quite black, and my boots were covered
with a yellow incrustation. Pebbles thrown in became en-
crusted with sulphur in a few minutes, and all the rocks in
the sea, which was here quite hot— of the temperature of
80° Fahr. — were covered with it, as well as in a less degree
the boulders on the shore, probably from its fumes. There
must be an enormous discharge of this mineral water Tinder
the sea, as the heat of the water extended for 200 yards, and
the odour to a much greater distance. The ordinary tempera-
ture of the sea elsewhere w-as 62°. I waded out for several
yards, and found the temperature fell from 80° to 75°, by
which we presumed that the principal source must be close
to the shore. No vegetable life could be detected in the
neighbourhood, and the hills all round were utterly naked
and bare, more scathed if possible than in any other part, —

280 SULPHUR SPUINGS.

without a blade, a leaf, or a bird. Elsewhere there liad been
birds in abundance, and we had several shots at ducks, sand-
piper, and Norfolk plover close to the shore, and had even
bagged, not the desert partridge, but the large Greek Perdix
saxatilis. The ducks and a great-crested grebe (Podiccjjs
cristatus, L.) were apparently feeding in the sea, and many
gulls passed over our heads. This spring, not hitlicrto
noticed, is exactly under the highest peak of Jebel Shukif,
bearing S.W. by W. M. secured three flasks of the water
for analysis.

As we turned and looked back on the mountains behind,
we noticed an appearance of ruins, as of ancient fortresses, on
two of their summits. These remains, for so they looked
even when examined by the glass, might well have deceived
any one who had not passed close under them on the north
side, and known that they were but crumbling peaks of lime-
stone, described as craters by some of our predecessors.

From the sulphur spring we rounded, by a difficult track,
or rather by forcing a way where there was no track, the
headland of Eas IMersed, where it appears, from his journal,
we had been preceded by the indefatigable Seetzen at the be-
ginning of this century. Thence we descended to the beach,
along which a walk of a mile and a half round a lesser head-
land brought us to the sloping plain of Engedi, across the
gravelly bed of the Wady Sudeir, "vs^hich forms its northern
boundary. Here the stream of the Sudeir sends down a
trickling rill of pure water, at which we gratefully slaked
our thirst, as it was our first fresh water since leaving Ain
Terabeh. The stream had not a continuous flow above
ground when it approached the shore, but was a chain of
little pools, with water oozing through the gravel between
them at a few inches below the surface.

The plain, or rather slope, of Eugedi is about a mile and
a half in extent from north to south, and is formed by the
Wadys Sudeir and Areyeh, both of Avhich, though occa-
sionally lost in the sand, are perennial. Between these the
mountain range, which pushes eastward in the tall crest of

DESCRIPTION OF ATX .TIDY. 281

.Tebel Sudeir, slightly recedes, forming a re-entering angle
at the north-east, and thence trending a little eastward of
south.

Several hundred feet up the slope, about a niilc and a half
back from the shore, is the true Ain -Tidy, midway between
the two wadys. Its little silver thread of a streamlet dashes
down lofty, but (in volume) pigmy, cataracts to the sea. Be-
low the falls, in the centre of the plain, is a group of ruins of
some extent, built of unbevelled squared stones of fair size,
but nothing megalithic, and all very nnich weathered. These
crumbled walls carry us with a mighty stride across the
history of man. They are all that remain to tell of a city as
old as the oldest in Syria, perhaps in the world, — Hazezon
Tamar (the Felling of the Palm Trees), which is Engedi, the
contemporary of Sodom and Gomorrah, an existing city when
Hebron first arose. Through it passed the Assyrian hordes
of Chedorlaomer, on the first great organized expedition re-
corded in history ; the type and the precursor of all those
invading inroads which, from tlie days of Tidal, king of
nations, to Saladin, have periodically ravaged the East.

The plain around is now as desolate as the old city of the
Amorites, though once a forest of palms. Not less deserted
of their fruitful vines are the slopes above, once the famed
vineyards of Judah, though the old terraces remain distinct,
from the foot of the hills to the pass above the fountain, and
also on the enclosing mountains beyond. The " cluster of
camphire in the vineyards of Engedi " ^ is withered and gone.
Not a palm or a vine remains ; their place is occupied by
scattered acacia-trees, a tamarisk (Tamariscus tenuifolins,
D.C.), the Nubk, and a few straggling bushes, with here and
there the Calotropis procera, the oshcr of the Arabs. This is
the strangest and most tropical-looking shrub we ever saw,
having hollow puff-balls by way of fruit, and is the true
Apple of Sodom. Eefreshing as is the sight of a tree
here, yet the dark gnarled acacias, with their imibrella-like
flattened tops, give the spot a gloomy aspect, and the real

* Cant. i. 14.

282

ENGEDI.

fertilitv of Eii^'odi lies only in the immediate neighbourhood
of the fountain, or is enclosed in the narrow gorges of the
two boundary streams, choked with canes and great fig-trees,
and so deep that they are not perceived until the traveller
has entered them.

ENGKDl.

We walked on to the middle of the plain and took a survey
of the land, looked up and down and everywhere, but saw no
trace of our mules or of the rest of the party, who, as they
were mounted and had taken the upper and regular road,
ought to have arrived long before us. Tt M-as four o'clock,
and we had been scrambling for eight hours, hungry and
tired. And now ensued one of the o]»isodes of travel, very

r!ABHAVTT»i:n A!;\i'.s. 2.S.".

amusing to recall, but often by nu means so pleasant at tlu'
time, though this was enjoyed on the whole very thoroughly
for its excitement and interest.

We wandered for some time about the stony, thirsty tract,
lighted by a glare such as can only be seen in this deep
clear atmosphere, and wondered at the scarcity of animal life
among the scattered trees, so many of which were strange
and new to us, but especially the osher, or Sodom apples
{Calotropis iiroccra, E. Br.) with its cork-like, thick, and light
bark, wrinkled and furrowed, its huge glossy leaves, rounder
than those of the laurel, and almost as large as the foliage of
the caoutchouc tree. We might have taken it for a species
of spurge {cui^liorhici) , from the abundance of acrid milk
it discharged when broken or punctured, but 1\[. at once
recognised it as an old acquaintance in Nubia. It was now
botli in flower and fruit. The blossoms were like those of
some species of caper, and the fruit like a very large apple in
shape and colour, golden yellow, and soft to the toiich, but, if
ripe, cracking like a puff-ball when slightly pressed, and con-
taining only a long thread of small seeds on a half open pod,
with long silky filaments, which the Bedouins prize highly,
and twist into matches for their firelocks. On its leaves we
gathered some enormous orthoptera, the females of which had
bodies larger than a locust, but black, with yellow spots, and
with red wings.

While we were thus occupied, three Arabs with their long
guns came down the hill from the Ain above, and talked with
us through Mr. AVood, who informed them we were v\nder the
protection of Abou Dahuk, and that he would arrive in the
evening with a strong guard. They were of the Ilashayideh
tribe, a very small and insignificant clan, almost stationary
near Engedi, and half fellahin, cultivating a portion of the
soil in the spring. Whether it was their fear of Abou Dahuk,
or the fact that we were four to three, and that they perhaps
held the only guns of their camp, they showed no disposition
to molest us, and only demanded backshish, which we pro-
mised to give them if they would go up the hill and keep

284 HUNnHY lUVOUAC.

a look-out to tell lis wlicii tliey saw the mules approacliiug.
They asked us it we were the same Franghi who had once
been there with boats and glasses, and had been their
brothers ; referring, jof course, to Lieutenant Lynch's party,
who were the only Westerns they had ever seen there, and
had evidently left a good name behind. Having at length
got rid of our friends, we wandered about till dusk, when it
began to grow chilly. We set about collecting some dry
shrubs and branches of zizyphus, and with these and a bundle
of camel's bones, the hottest of fuel, made an excellent fire,
at which we sat on the ground, and ate two pieces of bro^v'n
bread and some morsels of chocolate we had taken with us
for luncheon, but which we had been too busy to eat before.
We carefully divided our last crusts, for we were ravenously
hungry. One hour, two, passed, but no tidings of the mules,
or of any of our party. Ain Jidy was immediately behind us,
200 feet up the hill, and the light of an Arab encampment
glimmered on the heights above it, and another from a cave
below it. About eight o'clock w^e began to feel uncomfort-
able, especially as our friendly Rashayideh had warned us
that a little to the south of us, close to the shore, were camped
some Ta'amireh, hostile to the Jehalin.

We held a council, and though the fire was beginning to
buin well, and the camels' leg-bones were yielding a delight-
ful glow, we thought it prudent to leave our exposed position,
and to seek some snug quarters where — if we must pass the
night untented and alone — no hostile Bedouin could detect
us. Besides, we could not rely on the friendship of the Ras-
hayideh, who knew exactly our strength and our %veakness, if
they could take us at a disadvantage. Having heaped up all
the firing we could collect, to deceive any watchful foes, and
having put a note into a cleft stick on the top of a small
cairn hard by, to inform any of our party who might arrive
in search of us that we had gone back into the wady north-
wards, we cautiously crawled away on our faces, taking care
to put trees between ourselves and the hills, for the moon
was nearly at the full, and cast deep shadows on the pale

DREARY XlGilT. 285

glittering ground. When, after crossing the plain for nearly
a mile, we reached the gorge of the AVady Sudeir, a ]y.\]Q
light glimmered np the glen, and we crept cautiously forward
to reconnoitre, but, seeing only a party of Arabs sitting round
it, we stole back to the shore. We soon found a small, rough
valley running down to the shore, which seemed in the moon-
light to have caves in its side, and clambered up it, till we
found some ledges, and at length one into which we could
squeeze ourselves horizontally, with the overhanging brow, of
rather a loose conglomerate, nearly touching our faces. A
sloping cliff was just below us, down which we must roll
if we should incautiously turn in our sleep. It was not a
pleasant bedroom, but certainly a safe one, as all the Arabs of
the Ghor might have sought us in vain. The moon shone
brightly overhead, and Orion and Sirius travelled leisurely
(oh how leisurely for us !) to the westward. We solaced our-
selves, iinder the pangs of hunger, with a pipe, reserving just
enough tobacco for a whiff each for breakfast, and then joined
in prayer and lay down to sleep. I had a wisp of dried
grass in my pocket, collected for lighthig a fire, and found it
most useful as a warm pillow instead of a stone. After lying
quiet for a couple of liours, we felt the wind beginning to
sweep very coldly into our shelf, and B. and I started to recon-
noitre, leaving M. and Wood to await our return. AVe crept
along the desolate shore among the grim naked timbers Avhich
fringe it, and back again up the plain, but could see no signs
of our party. There was nothing to be done but to make tlie
best of our plight ; and fearing that J\I., who was far from well,
might suifer from cold, we sought out a large rock under
wiiicli there was good shelter, and dc^termined to run the risk
of Arabs and make a fire in front of it ; as the Bedouins, if
there were any on the look-out, must have been by this time,
(past midnight), quite off our scent. We were busily employed
in collecting fircAvood from the shore, when we saw in the
moonlight an Arab approaching, followed ])y three others.
Snatching up my gun, I called out to B. " Take your gun,
there are only four of them," and went to meet them. To

286 MEETIKG OF FRIENDS.

our great relief we found it was a EasliAyideh guide from
Eugedi, with Giaeomo, U. and S. behind him, who had ah'eady
been three hours out in search of us. We went up to the cave
for ;M. and Wood, brought them down, and learnt the history
of the mishaps of the day. The light we had noticed in the
Wady Sudeir was, after all, that of a look-out party sent after
us ; but, as our friends had donned the Arab abeyehs, we had
not recognised them.

It seemed that Abou Dahidc, fearing the hostility of the
Ta'amireh tribe on the heights, was afraid to trust our baggage-
mules on the ordinary road, and had tried a reported donkey-
track nearer the shore. The consequence was, that the baggage
had to be seven times unloaded, one horse was seriously
injured, some of the men much bruised, and, worse than all,
(Jeorgio, the cook, had fallen into a hole, with my mountain-
barometer on his back, and smashed it, and was half an hour
before he could be extricated. Finally, the whole party had
descended, and had come to a dead halt on the shore, three
niiles back, lyan and beast completely exhausted, and, worst
of all, without ^ (Irop of water, We were starving, they
suffering fi'om thirst. They h^d gt once sent out scouts to
tind us, who had fired signal-shots, which we had never heard,
but had fallen in with the Rashayideh, who had pointed out to
them our bivouac-fire, and were returning, after a weary recon-
naissance. We at once started back together : three rough
miles over rocks, by moonlight, seeming a trifle with supper
in prospect. North of the Eas ^lersed, we came upon the
camp, and were soon eating bread, cheese, and sardines ; and
washing them down, on the gravelly beach, with our last
three bottles of wine, having given up the little water our
party had been able to bring back, to our exhausted Moslem
attendants.. There was no pitching of tents — our baggage,
which lay piled on the shore, was not unpacked, save our
bedding — a blue-burning, sulphurous fire was kindled from
the driftwood, and, lying down in a circle round it, feet
inward.s, and covered with our rugs, we were soon sound
asleep. The poor beasts stood mournfully round, refusing

RETURN. 287

their parched provender, and without a drop of water after
their toilsome day.

Januanj 21st. — After a comfortable, but only too short,
repose by the edge of the sea, we were roiised as the first pale
bars of light penetrated the haze over the eastern mountains,
and felt well, and refreshed by our slumbers and our open
bivouac, but longed in vain for a cup of coffee or a draught of
water. The nine strongest mules were sent on at once to
Engedi, with very light loads, to get water, and to give them
a chance of getting over the rough headland of Eas Mersed,
leaving the remainder of the baggage for a second trip. "NVe
followed, leading our horses over ground hard enough for a
climbing footman — fit only, as the growling Giacorao remarked,
for goats and Englishmen. But our sagacious beasts were
persuaded, after a little reluctance, to step from rock to rock,
and get through a pile of boulders which no horse ever tra-
versed before, and such as, I trust, I shall never have to coax
a horse through again. Ultimately, by dint of lifting and
unloading, all our baggage — even the great boxes — were got
past the point with few breakages ; and certainly our bird-
boxes ought to go to the Museum, after making the tour of
the Dead Sea. Tents were soon up, and coffee boiling, at the
edge of the Wady Sudeir, and by mid day we were able to
have some breakfast.

AVe were all glad of a little extra rest after our night's work,
and did not do much beyond strolling near camp, and enjoying
the grand views of the lake and the stern mountains all around
us. "NVe again carefully examined the ruins in the plain, and
were satisfied that nothing was to be discovered there by such
excavations as we had time to make ; and thence we climbed
up to the Ain Jidy, where, on the hill-side, a warm, pure
stream, of temperature 79° Fahr., gushes forth from under
some stones — a sort of horizontal fissure in the rocks — and,
spreading itself at once over a little bed of gravelly sand, soon
turns down the hill, and nurtures a broad ribbon of verdure,
till it is lost in the sands below. It was full of shells, all
veiy diminutive of their kind — Neritina jordani, Mclanopsvi

288 ARAB ACQUAINTANCES.

2)rarosn, M. saiiJcyi, and a new species of inclania, resembling
the tuberculosa. These melanias were all buried in the sands ;
the others, of course, were on the surface. We also found
fresh-Avater crabs luxuriating in its warmth, but no iishes.
Some of the Rashayideh came about us, and were sadly per-
plexed at our occupation, but at once lent us a hand, and
assisted zealously in the tilling of pill-boxes, and, to our
satisfaction, set us down at once as hakeem. Soon various
ailments were exposed — scars of wounds, bleared eyes, were
pointed out. AVe looked wise as physicians, shook our heads,
and pointed to our tents. I should have mentioned that
Abou Dahiik had cautioned us against trusting ourselves with
these people, or mounting the hill without a guard ; but the
guard pleaded fatigue, and we knew that there could not be
danger from a weaker tribe in the presence of the Jehalin.
After all, we found the latter a poor exchange for our
Jericho friends, and much inferior in intelligence and zeal to
these despised Rashilyideh. Throughout the country, there
seems to be a stamp of almost nationality in each clan. Kelt
and Anglo-Saxon, Gaul and Teuton, are not more clearly
distinguishable at a glance than some of these petty tribes.
The quick-witted intelligence of the IJashayideh won upon
us, and tobacco-pouches produced soon made us good friends.
AVe sat down together by the warm spring, which leaps and
gambols forth like a kid ( Ain Jidy is " Fountain of the Kid "),
and began to question them on the neighbourhood ; while
they examined our guns with delight, and our revolvers with
awe. To them percussion-cap and revolver were alike mj'ste-
rious novelties. While sitting in friendly intercourse, a long
train of donkeys, laden with salt, came up, and halted to
drink of the spring ; and were soon afterwards followed by
their armed drivers, about a dozen very suspicious-looking
Ta'amireh, who li;ul licen to Jebel Usdum, with this little
caravan, for salt, and were c(»nveying it to Bethlehem for sale.
They did not seem very comfortable on hearing that Abou
Dahuk was below, and told us he had been taking us through
their territory, and that they should have backshish. We

WADY SUDEIK. 289

laugliingiy told them we "svcre, at any rate, not in tlieir ter-
ritory now, and that when they caught us there, they must
look for the backshisli ; and a little tobacco soon soothed the
trespass on their feelings.

Our Eashayideh afterwards took us to visit what they called
the tombs of the Yehudi, ancient sepulchres, probably Jewish,
since we could find no remains indicative of Eoman occupa-
tion. In the best of these tombs there was an inner as well
as an outer chamber hewn in the rock, with stone coffins for
the bodies lying alongside ; and the great stone, which had
been cut to fit as the door, lying on the ground ; while in the
doorway we could plainly trace the grooves into which the
slab had fitted. Everywhere through this barren wilderness
were the traces of the old terraces where once grew the vines
of Engedi. B. had discovered, meanwhile, a deep pool in the
"Wady Sudeir, near our tents, where we had a delicious cold
bath before dinner.

Januan/ 22d. — ]\[ost of the party went out with their
guns, while B. spent the morning successfully in photo-
graphing. There are abundance of wild goats {Ibex syriamis)
the Bedcn of the Arabs, and antelopes called by them Bekk'r
el Wash, probably the Antelope addan, but the pursuit of
them, except by a chamois hunter, would be as vain as the
chase of Saul and his 3,000 chosen men " when they went
to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats "
on these same hills. (1 Sam. xxiv.)

Mr. AVood went with me up the Wady Sudeir to trace its
source, when we soon came upon a fairy gTotto of vast
size imder a trickling waterfall, with a great flat ledge of
rock overhanging it, dripping with stalactites, and draped
with maiden-hair fern. Its luxuriance was wonderful. We
gathered many tresses of its fronds a yard long, and yet tlie
species is identical with our own. The sides of the cliffs, as
well as the edges of the gTotto, were clothed with great fig-
trees, hanging about and springing forth in every direc-
tion, covered with luxuriant foliage, and just now budding
into fruit. I\Iingled with these were occasional' bushes of

u

290 l.OVKLY GROTTO.

reteni {Genista rcetcm, Forsk.) with its lovely branches of
pendent pink blossoms waving their sweet perfume all
around. It is said that this M'ady is the home of the
leopard, but, though we had come upon his footprints at Ain
Terabeh, we saw none here. To reach the grotto we had to
foi'ce our way through an almost impenetrable cane-brake,
with bamboos from twenty to tlurty feet long, and close
together. No pen can give an adequate description of the
beauties of this hidden grot, which surpasses anything Claude
Lorraine ever dreamt. An amphitheatre in a deep glen where
the sun never penetrated, witli a warm stream perpetually
sprinkled over a vegetation of tropical luxuriance, where the
foot of civilised man for ages has never trod, was indeed in
bewildering contrast with all else around tliese desolate
shores. The water of the pool was deep, but of wonderful
clearness, and full of shells (the mclanopsis lyrceroscC), the
largest specimens we ever procured. The process of lime-
stone-making is here going on with great rapidity, and often"
one half of a tuft of maiden-hair fern or of cane might be
seen growing, while the other half was already petrified.
The place was still famed for its palms long after it had won
its early name of Hazazon Tamar from them in the days of
Abraham and Chedorlaomer, and they are mentioned by Pliny^
and Josephus, but not a palm-tree now remains ; yet we found
interesting proof of its former abundance in this wady in
great masses of palm leaves, quite perfect, beautifully petrified
in the rocks, and entu'e from the root of the stem to the last
])oint of the frond. In fact, the whole wady is faced with
limestone, a mass of the most recent petrifactions, and some
, of the caves have been so choked up with stalactite that they
have become simply a gTcat block of carbonate of lime.

When with our hammers w^e had broken away the front of
the cliff for the depth of several inches, and reached the ori-
ginal rock, we found large beds of chalk fossils, of the same
species as those on jNIount Carmel, but chiefiy the gryphsea
(Exofjyra dcnsata, Conr.), which Lynch's party appear to have

1 riiny, Hist. Nat. v. 17.

CONFLAGRATION. 291

found only in the mountains of Moab and tlie AVady Zurka
^lain. I may add, that our collection on the west side
of the sea contains every species which occurred only to
the American explorers on the east side ; and thus far we
have no evidence of any difference in the age of the two
ranges.

In returning from the grotto, we set fire to a dry piece of
cane-brake to clear a path, and in the hope that some large
game might be disturbed ; but we soon had to run from a
conflagration, which spread rapidly up the banks, and ran up
and down the valley. The noise was like the siinultaneous
rushing of half-a-dozeu trains into a station, as the flames
roared upwards, carrying by their draught many a cane into
the air before it was consumed, and dropping the blazing
brand at a distance. The effect was very grand, a bonfire on
a Titanic scale, and gave us some idea of the terrific progress
of a prairie on fire. The smoke ascended in volumes, till it
might have been seen, like that of the Cities of the Plain,
from the heights of Mamre, AVe had not hitherto observed
any vultures, but the conflagration soon brought a party of
griffons, whether allured by curiosity or by the hope of roast
meat, who soared round and round aloft, as wondering at the
sight below.

The sportsmen of the party had not been unsuccessful. S.
brought in several specimens of a very interesting bird to be
added to our list, the striolated bunting {Emhcriza striolata,
Tem.), an old Sahara acquaintance of mine, and found also in
the Nubian desert, but which has never yet been noted as
occurring in Asia. The little desert partridge {Caccabis heyi),
was very abundant and tame on the lower slopes, the hopping
thrush was in little flocks among the acacias, a few bulbuls
painted the rich foliage which fringed the fountain of the
Wady Sudeir, many little warblers — chiff-chaffs and black-
headed warblers — resorted to the rills, or hopped among the
retem bushes ; in short we found, albeit in scant numbers,
nearly all the peculiar inhabitants of the Jericho Ghor. The
various desert wheatcars were plentiful on the higher cliffs,

u2

292 WADY AREYEH.

but the characteristic bird of the place was the pretty little
blackstart {Pratincola mclanura, Ellpp.), of which we could
have obtained any number, and which nowhere else occurred
to us so plentifully. It was curious among the miscellaneous
produce of the collecting bags to find that B. had obtained a
solitary lapwing, our English species, which had certainly
wandered out of his latitude, in getting to Engedi, and was
almost destitute of flesh — well-nigh starved to death. L. had
been tolerably successful in plants and insects. One butterfly,
a species belonging to Nubia, and apparently connected with
the osher plant, we never found elsewhere. The colocynth
plant strewed the lower plain M'ith its pretty but dangerous
fruit, and the general type of the flora told of a drier and
hotter climate than that of Jericho.

January 2Srd. — U. and I started early after a bathe at
sunrise in the sweet pool below our camp,, to explore the
Wady Ai'eyeh. Here we found a perennial stream in a
romantic glen, but not a deep gorge like Sudeir, and with
cane-brakes, bulrushes, and a species of willow new to us,
whose leaves were larger than those of the oleander, growing
luxuriantly to some size. We obtained a single specimen of
a new bird, a species of drymoeca, or long-tailed warbler, very
like a species described by me from the Sahara in similar
localities, Drym. striaticeps, and which is described in Zool.
Proc. as Drymoeca engedcnsis. We also came across another
rich bed of fossil gryphteas, similar to that previously visited,
and composed of Exogyra densato, Conr. As we were re-
turning, we discovered, at a height of about 150 feet above
the present level of the sea, the diluvial deposit on the sides
of the valley, in thin lamina like the Alum Bay sand pictures,
quite soft, and of ever-varying colours, there being many
hundred of these lamina in the thickness of a few feet. This
deposit seemed, from its nature and position, to be more recent
than the post-tertiary marl higher up.

Mr. Wood and I afterwards set out, provided with our
barometers and instruments, to climb to the top of the moun-
tain north of our camp, which appeared to be the highest

ENGKDl. WITH SHTKir.

ASCENT OF RAS SIIUKIF. 293

peak in the wliole range. We soon found tlie relative posi-
tions of Sebbeli, tlie Lisan, and Jebel Usdum to be correctly
laid down only in Lyncli's map, and that the ontline of the
coast in other maps is more or less a fancy sketch. The
mountain itself is utterly bare — a pile of grim limestone
terraces one behind the other, probably the lines of the se-
condary beaches ; the upper portions hard crystalline rock,
and the lower covered with a much softer material. The
foot of each terrace is sloped down by an accumulation of
debris, which makes the ascent to a fairly good climber a
work rather of labour than of difficulty. Bare as are these
barren slopes, we were astonished to find the lower ones
covered by the remains of terraces, some quite perfect, where
once were the vineyards ; and above them large cisterns built
and plastered in the rock side, and formerly fed by neat little
aqueducts, which we could still trace, from the higher sources
of the Wady Sudeir. The ascent gave us a fine illustration
of the mountain range which encloses the sea east and west ;
and the view from the top was a grand panorama, showing
us every portion of the coast line of the Dead Sea, looking at
the east side in front, and the western shores beneath our
feet. All was stretched out as in a map. Balaam, when he
looked across from the opposite heights, and gazed at the
nests of the Kenites in the rocks of Engedi, could not have
had a more magnificent prospect. The sea itself looked any-
thing but dead. There were strange lines of foam across it
in the distance, and detached areas covered by ripple-marks,
which were probably caused by local wind-currents down
some of the opposite wadys, but which at first had almost
the appearance of islands studding the surface of the lake.
The haze of the heat overhung the basin in irregular patches,
but near the water, forming at times a mirage in which low
islands seemed most distinctly marked, glittering with crystal
shores.

The Jordan valley, wide and flat, could be traced till lost
in the haze of distance ; the unbroken, even line of the red
mountains of Moab, with their parallel terrace-lines, exactly

L

294

VIEW FROM STTITKTF.

corresponding with those on tliis side ; the bold crest, with
the town and great castle of Kerak clearly revealed through
the glass, with all its recollections of the haughty insolence
of its Duke, which lost the Holy Land to our fathers in the
last Crusade ; the low flat plains of the ])eninsula, scarcely
rising above the sea, but joined to the mainland 1)y the hump
of a white descending ridge. The Ghor-es-8afieli opens be-
yond, with its dark green recesses, fringed to the northward
by a pale green ribl)on, its belt of reeds and open glades;
with the mountains of Arabia stretcliing far away perhaps to
Petra ; the long mound-like hill of Usdum blocking up the
south end of the sea ; the rugged peaks of Masada (Sebbch)
to the right ; and an expanse of round bare hills rising like
the successive billows of an ocean behind us, and just con-
cealing Hebron from view — every feature is stereotyped in
the memory. Man was absent ; the walls Df Kerak in front,
and two of our Arabs engaged in the vain pursuit of a wild
ibex in the distance behind, were the only objects to remind
us of his existence.

_.^_-Bi«y^.;_- -"*::

FROM UNDER JEBEL SHUKIF, ENGEOI.

We carefully noted the barometric measurements of the
various terraces and heights of the mountain of Shukif, which
were from the level of the Dead Sea : —

HEIGHT. 295

Crest of the mountain, 1,992 feet.

Fourth terrace . . l,r)r)4 feet, crystalline limestone.
Second terrace . . 605 feet, hard limestone.
Alhivial terrace . . 322 feet, rnarl on limestone.
Our camp .... 69 feet, on the plain.

Barometer at sea level, 31 "75.

The dryness of Engedi is something extraordinary. The wet
and dry bulbs of our thermometer differ to a degree never
observed elsewhere, — often as much as 15°. A bird skinned
in the morning is perfectly stiff and hard at night, and plants
dry in paper in a single day. And yet it is by no means
oppressively hot. The maximum thermometer in the shade
in foiu^ days was 86°, the day average 72°, the minimum
at night as low as 45°. But we all felt an indescribable elas-
ticity and capacity for j^hysical work. The pressure of the
atmosphere at this depth must supply an extraordinary
quantity of oxygen, and one felt as if half a breath were
sutlicient. AYhat a sanatorium Engedi might be made, if it
were only accessible, and some enterprising speculator were
to establish a hydropathic establishment ! Hot water, cold
water, and decidedly salt water baths, all supplied by nature
on the spot, the hot sulphur springs only three miles off, and
some of the grandest scenery man ever enjoyed, in an atmo-
sphere where half a lung is sufticient for respiration !

We had despatched Sheikh Hamzi, our second in command,
yesterday to Hebron, to purchase sheep and some goatskins
for water-supply, which after Engedi we shall require for some
time to come.

AVe catechized Abou Dahiik on the possibility of fording
from Sebbeh to the Lisan ; but though the ford has been laid
down on his authority and statement to Dr. Eobinson, he
assured us he had only crossed it once, and that, when a boy,
on a camel, some seventy years since, and that the water
reached far above the camel's back, on which he had to stand,
holding on by its head, and that for horses it is impracticable.
It seems certain, however, from the testimony of Irby and

296 WILD GOATS.

INIangles, that when they passed in ISLS the ford was used.
It must have been either a remarkably dry season, or the true
place of passage has been lost by the present generation. Off
Point ^Nlolyneux, the narrowest part of the channel, Lynch's
party found it three fathoms deep in the centre in April.
Abou Dahiik considered the sea to be perceptibly lower in
October than at any other time of the year, yet it can scarcely
fall more than two fathoms between April and October. The
liashayideh told us that in summer Engedi is so hot that
they have all to leave the place and go up to the hills behind.

We busied ourselves this eveuing in getting various waters
bottled for chemical analysis, and in lioiling down specimens
to get rid of the bulk of the common salts. During this
process we astonished our Arabs by showing them how easily
salt could be obtained from the waters of the lake, and they
eagerly secured the residuum of our pans. They send to Jebel
Usdum at great risk, and with no little labour, for salt for
their own use, and to supply the markets of Hebron and
Jerusalem, and it was scarcely to be credited that they were
utterly ignorant of the simple process of obtaining it by
evaporation. They held up their hands at the experiment,
and exclaimed that Allah was great, and had given great
wisdom unto the Eoumi !

We could not find at Engedi any verification of Lynch's
remark, that there is a total absence of rounded pebbles on
the shore. His observation must have been made just after
the rains, when the three streams rush down and flood the
plain, carrying into the sea a great quantity of the broken
flints and small stones, with which the whole slope is strewn.
This must necessarily be the case, whenever there is any rush
of water from this loose and broken soil, so wholly without
any loam or other adhesive substance.

January 24:th. — Sunday. — Just as we were preparing for
service, one of our Arab guards came in with an ibex he had
killed yesterday in the mountains, the true wild goat of
Scripture. But, alas, he brought only the skinned body and
its skin, having cut off the head, and horns, and the legs, and

ALLUSIONS TO EXGEDI IX THE PSALMS. 297

tlirown them away to lightcu his load. "Wlien we expres.sed
our disappointment, he asked us what we could want more,
when we had the flesh to eat and the skin to make a water-
bottle, and intimated his very decided opinion of our bad
taste — our "fantasia," as he termed it— in appreciating the
v'enison less than the horns.

Sheikh Hamzi also arrived from Hebron with sheep and
some oil, besides sundry smaller groceries, so that our larder
was replenished for a few days. He also brought a stoiy to
show us we must not attempt to go further than Jebel Usdum,
where a party under his guardianship had been robbed last
year, as the Arabs of the Lisan were at war, and the son
of the Sheikh of Kerak, and also the chief of the Christians,
had both been murdered. On further inquiry, we found that
such an event had occurred, but that it had been behind
Kerak, in the ]\roab mountains, and that the Lisan warriors
from El ]\Iezraah had gone to assist the Kerak people to
avenge their loss. The real object of Hamsi was transparent,
viz. to deter us from going further, in order that he might
pocket his backshish and save himself from paying the fees
he must, by the terms of his contract, provide for the petty
Sheikhs on the other side. Finding our determination un-
shaken, and that old Abou Dahuk showed no symptoms of
wishing to evade the terms of his bargain, he quietly changed
his tone.

In the afternoon I enjoyed a few delightful hours and a
reverie wdth my books in the fairy grotto up the AVady Sudeir,
where one can imagine David, the hunted outlaw, often retiring
from the rough companionship of his motley followers, for
prayer and seclusion. Here, perchance, were breathed into
the imagination and the fancy of the poet king many of those
striking pictures of wild and romantic nature with which his
psalms abound. Perchance here, too, the Spirit of the Lord
may have breathed into his soul ; perhaps, here, in the calm
seclusion of his meditative hours, he was divinely inspired to
pour forth some of those heavenly utterings, which reflect
that Holy Spirit's image from the converted soul, and are the

298 ALLUSIONS TO ENGEDI IX THE PSALMS.

vehicle ill which the spiritual longings of every child of God,
in sorrow or in joy, have been carried npwards for near 3,000
j'ears.

I could not but fancy that there were many local allusions
in Ts. xliL which correspond remarkably with the features of
this glen and the surrounding country. Shut out from the
tabernacle, and in a dry and thirsty land, the Psalmist longs
for his restoration to the public ordinances of the sanctuary,
" as the hart panteth after the waterbrooks," — as the antelope
or ibex, hunted by his men above, longed for the streams
which were gushing around him, and perhaps was timidly
stealing forth to drink in the thicket below. And as the
sound of the water dashing dow^n the rocks in the narrow-
gorge above strikes on his ear, he exclaims, " Deep calleth
unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts." When he casts
his eye upon the cliffs to his right, those barriers which
were a wall to him against his enemies, he remembers that
God is his true rock, and resolves, " I wdll say unto God my
rock. Why hast thou forgotten me ? " It is true that this
psalm is generally ascribed to the time of David's flight from
Absalom across Jordan, and that the expression, " from the
land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites from the hill Mizar,"
strongly supports this view. Yet the shores of the lake were,
still in the land of Jordan, a part of the Ghor, at least as
much so as Bashan. Hermon was rather to the nortli of
Jordan than across it, and we have no record of David having
visited it; and may he not have applied the expression to
the range of lofty mountains generally, perhaps to the Her-
mon-like peak behind him, and Mizar "the little" to the
lesser liills below, in the caves of which he was secreting
himself? When he remembers God from "the hill Mizar"

('1>'VP)' ^^^^y ^^^ '^^^^ ^^^ comparing himself to Lot saved
among those very mountains," in his Zoar ? For, in the ori-
ginal, "]\rizar" is only the root "Zoar" with the prefix p.
The topographical argument may have weight on one side as
well as the other.

Other psalms of David also recall the associations of this

cvMniiKE. 209

spot, such as tlie 57th, probably uttered here when he felt his
soul among lions, like the lions which then inliabited these
dense brakes, as the leopards do still. Yet more the 18th
Psalm, with its imagery from the mighty rocks, and the re-
collections of the fate of Sodom, which the bitumen, and the
sulphur, and the salt of that sea would suggest — "the dark
waters " below, and the rent " channels " of the old world
waters above — the earthquakes, such as this region has often
experienced, dislodging the bitumen from the bottom of the
sea, and the sulphur on its shore, as when once " there went
a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth de-
voured." (Vs. xviii. 2—15.)

"We walked up, afterwards, to some ruins close to the
fountain of Engedi proper, which appear distinct from the
traces of the old Jewish city, and have been partly a mill and
partly a strong keep, or watch-tower, — built, probal)ly, as one
of that chain of posts, whether Saracenic or Crusading, which
can be traced along the whole route from the Jordan, round
by the south to Kerak. Here seems to have been situated
the village of En<i;edi, which existed in the time of Jerome.
The view from the fountain gives an impression of more
present fertility in the oasis than is conveyed by a walk across
it, in its wintry desolation, before the anxiously-expected
rains ; for we could trace, almost to the water's edge, the
large patches of barley-stubble, and the rough boundaries of
the various cucumber-plots, which constitute its staple.

The camphire of Engedi, mentioned in the Book of Can-
ticles, we identified in a pretty shrub, with bunches of
graceful pink-white blossoms, which was already in flower
in some sheltered nooks, and called El-Henna by the Arabs,
from which they procure the henna dye — the Lawsonia alba
of botanists. We also observed two species of acacia ; the
most common being the Seyill of the Arabs, from which
gum-arabic is obtained, and which, from Engedi southwards,
occurred sparsely in all the wadys. It does not, however,
bear a white blossom, as a recent traveller in these parts has
described it, having, doubtless, confused it from inemory with

300

ACACIA.

the falsely-nained American acacia of our shrubberies ; but,
with its dainty hairy tufts, is like all its congeners, exactly
described by tlie poet hy its one epithet, " the yellow-haired
acacia."

Georgio delighted in supplying us with a true Sunday
dinner of ibex venison, wliich, truth to say, was rather dry,
and slightly goaty in flavour ; and, after evening service, we
all turned in early, preparatory to a long day at Sebbeh. We
remarked two brilliant fires on the shoulder of the Lisan,
either near Mezraali or up the Wady Kerak, which we took to
be signal beacons, connected with the war on the other side.

CHAPTEll XIV.

Ride from Engedi to Masada — Sulphur Springs — Wady Khuderah — Wells dnj
— Halt under SebbeJi — Ascent to the Fortress — Its Height— Its Tragical
History — Access — Roman Causeicay — Description of the Ruins — Chapel —
Crusading Remains — Cisterns— Magnificent View — Roman Cam2is— Objec-
tion of our Arabs to proceed Eastwards— Cai)ture of Ibex — Wady Urn Bagkck
Water— Lovely Glen — Ruins — De Saulcy's Tluimara—Salt Springs— Cam}}
Zuiveirah — Plants — Absence of Volcanic Traces — Jcbel Usdum — Mountain of
Salt— Difficulty of Ascent— Extent of the Rock Salt Ridge — Theory— Geolo-
gical Speculations — Similarity to the Sahara — Destruction of Sodom.

Jaxuary 25th. — We had our last plunge iu tlie cool water of
Wady Sudeir at sunrise ; by seven a.m. the tents were struck ;
and by eight o'clock our long caravan of forty-three beasts had
started for Sebbeh. We had an easy day's journey along the
shore, only occasionally interrupted by the deep gullies of the
dry watercourses through the gravel and boulder deposit, which
caused detours and delays, but nothing worse. We were now
on the high road used, not for commerce, but by marauding
parties from the south and east, since the time when Chedor-
laomer and his confederates marched against El Paran. It
M-as a dreary, desolate, hungry ride, more truly reaching the
popular notions of the Dead Sea than anything we had yet
met with. All around us was utterly lifeless and brown, with
the cliffs and mountains glaring red in the sunshine, and the
soft alluvium below dazzling our eyes by its whiteness. About
an hour south of Engedi, just half an hour before reachmg
the Wady Khuderah, we were attracted by a powerfid sul-
phurous odour, and by the yellow coating of the rocks and
pebbles on the shore. The water bubbled through the gravel
at the very edge of the sea, and when we scooped holes we
found it black and foetid, the temperature 88° Eahr., and the
temperature of the lake at the spot G2°. On proceeding a

302 HIDE FllOM ENGEUl.

little further the smell was yet stron^fcr, and on digghig six
inches from the water the black liquid bubbled up at a tem-
perature of 93° Pahr., wliile the sea, quite warm from the
spring, had increased to 72". This temperature continued
for a space of fifty yards. The j)rincipal part of the supply
must evidently be forced up under tlie sea at this spot, and
higher up Ave could find no traces of sulphurous or other
water at a depth of two feet. The exlialations of these springs
seem abundantly sufficient to account for the crusts of sulphur
found on the shore. The large supply issued directly under
Has Kliuderah. We could find no trace of the Birket (or
pool) Khalil, marked by Van do Velde.

The plain along which we rode during the greater part of
our day's journey was from 150 to 250 feet above the present
sea-level, with here and there a scattered acacia or tamarisk
tree, very stunted, in the dry watercourses ; and varied in
width from one and a half to three miles. It pushes forward
from the straight range of mountains which rise immediately
behind it, like four great rows of eroded terraces one above
the other, and heaps of debris forming a slope at the foot of
each. Nearer the edge of the sea we could occasionally trace
tliree or four terraces, like tidal marks, as if very recently
left, wliich had washed into the post-tertiary marl, and left
tlieir marks at heights varying from fifteen to forty-five feet
above the actual water-line. These were the most recent
symptoms of a very modern diminution of the volume of the
lake wliich we had observed, and we carefully collected speci-
mens of the soft and crumbling sediment at different depths.

In the dry estuary of the Wady Khuderah, close to the
shore, a large fragment of the old diluvial terrace has been
left standing like an island, composed of saline and friable
marls of various colours, while the bed of the torrent, half a
mile wide, is a mass of rolled boulders fifty feet below it.
This fragment of terrace is quite unsolidified, and it was
impossible to scramble up its crumbling sides.

In llic rocks higher up we came upon the same fossils as
at Ain Jidy, and we crossed several of M. de Saulcy's lava

WELLS DllV. 303

torrents with volcanic balls, wliich turned out to be crystalline
limestones, with much black tiint, often studded with nodules
and lumps coated with oxide of iron. South of the Wady
Khalil M'e crossed the dry bed of the Wady Makheras, not
marked in the maps. In front of this ravine we were standing
due west of the north point of the Lisan, and a section of the
Moab hills was finely exposed up the AVady Kerak. So far
as we could use the clinometer by the help of the eye, we
traced very clearly the dip of the stratification to be 8-5°
towards S.E. If this observation bo correct, it is a very
interesting fact, the same inclination having been noted near
Marsaba on the west side of the sea, and seeming to denote
the disturbance of this lower formation prior to the erosion
or elevation which formed the Glior.

At half-past one p.m. we reached the foot of Scbbeh(j\Iasada),
and halted. Our guides had fully reckoned on finding a supply
of water in the Wady Seyill, the last but one before reaching
Sebbeh, but the pools and wells were alike dry. Our whole
store consisted of two goatskins full, brought from Ain- Jidy.
This was a blow to all our ]Dlans, for we had intended to spend
two days at Sebbeh for explorations, and there were many
questions of interest to be solved in the neighbourhood. But
\vith our caravan we must move at once to water. We may
have felt very angry with our Aralis, who ought to know, but
had been too lazy to ascertain, the state of the wells before-
hand, but wrath would have been an useless expenditure of
eneigy ; there was no time to be lost. We had to make the
best of it. B. promptly got out his photographic apparatus,
which was shouldered by an Arab, and at once we commenced
the ascent to i^ie fortress of Masada. Some of our Bedouin
had already been despatched up the adjacent Wady Nemriyeh
with goatskins to search for rain-pools, and very determinedly
we told the thirsty ])arty that we must remain here, water or
no water, until next morning.

The difficulty of the ascent to tlie fortress has been much
exaggerated by some writers. An English lady could ac-
complish it easily, and there is nothing peiilous or trying

304.

ASCENT TO THE FOKTKESS.

beyond wliat is of daily occurrence iu tlie rocky mountain
paths of tlie country. Excepting in three pLaces, any person
miglit walk up with his hands in his pockets. "We left the
can)]) and mounted on the north side of the ravine, which
isolates rhe citadel to the south of it ; and then, getting on
to the west side of the mountain across a narrow ravine,
clambered by an easy zigzag to the top, while our attendant
toiled after us with the camera on his back. In this we were
assisted by the enormous causeway, or rather embankment,
thrown up by Flavins Silva, in the celebrated siege. The

THE LISAN AND MOUNTAINS OF KERAK.

whole ascent occupied forty-eight minutes of very hard walk-
ing. Once on the top we were richly repaid by a view, the most
grand in its sternness and desolate magnificence I ever beheld.
A solitary imperial eagle was soaring close above us, and a
Lanner falcon was pursuing a small flock of rock-pigeons,
while a few rock marti-ns {Gotijlc palustris, Eiipp.), darted past
us, and swept round the corner of the cliff. These were the
onh'- signs of life on this mountain of rocks, sharp, angular,
and bare, without a green blade or leaf from its foot to its

ITS TEAGICAL HISTOllY. 305

crest, except a few stunted salsolas. Yet even among tlieni I
found, in great numbers, a new species of snail [Helix masadce,
Tristr.), something like a dwarfed and stunted H. ccesaricnsis,
but with a deeply-striated shell, hidden under the stones and
in the fissures.

AVe measured the height of the peak barometrically, and
found it exactly 2,200 feet above the level of the Dead Sea.
This is very much higher than the usual computation, which
gives it as from 1,200 to 1,500 feet. But as we found our
observations of the height of the bottom of the clift" from the
sea-level (554 feet) almost exactly to coincide with those of
Poole (563 feet), I feel disposed to confide in the accuracy of
our oljservations.

It is scarcely necessary to detail, tliough we may for a
moment recall, the tragical history of jNlasada, the last refuge
of Jewish independence, after tlie destruction of Jerusalem by
Titus. The fortress, which had been built by Jonatlian Mac-
cabseus, in the second century B.C., was strengthened and
beautified by Herod the Great, as a last place of refuge,
should he ever require it, either from his own subjects or
from Eome. On the fall of Jerusalem, Eliezer and a band of
upwards of a thousand of the so-called Sicarii seized Masada,
wliich was al)undantly stored with |)rovisions and arms, and,
from its position, as impregnable a fortress as could exist
against the military appliances of the period. Flavins Silva
was despatched with a Koman force to subdue it. After a long
siege, a stupendous causeway was erected against the western,
the only approachable, side, and the walls battered into a
breach. This was repaired by the erection of a framework of
massive and more elastic material, which the Eomans at length
succeeded in igniting. AVhen entering on the following morn-
ing, prepared for a final attack, they found Herod's palace
blazing in ruin, and apparently not a human being left alive,
till an old woman emerged from a vault, and told the tale of
horror, how two women and five children were the sole sur-
vivore of nine hundred and sixty-seven persons, who, rather
than submit, had first slain their own wives and children, and

X

30G ACCESS.

then drawn lots to decide who should be the executioners of
their brethren ; until the last who remained, after despatching
his brother-executioners, set fire to their gatliered treasures,
and, having examined the prostrate multitude to see that
not one breathed, fell on his own sword, — the last, as he
thou'dit, of the garrison of jNfasada. The two women and
their children had concealed themselves, and escaped alone
to tell the tale. The tragedy is recounted at great length by
Josejdius (Bell. Jud. viii. 8, 9). From that day the name
of Masada disap[)eared from history, until Dr. llobinson,
viewing Sebbeh througli his telescope, iVom the shore of
Eiigedi, conjecturally identitieil it with Masada ; and four
years later (in 1842), Messrs. Tipping and Wolcott explored
its ruins.

Josephus describes the only two modes of access to this
citadel ; one by a pathway hewn in the eastern face of the
cliff, and winding along its front with most perilous turns at
a dizzy height, called, from its shape, "The Serpent;" the
other, more accessiljle, on the west. It seems that some
foreign writers, in describing their ascent, must first have
read the description of the Jewish historian, and then endea-
voured to apply it to the western instead of the eastern
approach. The traces of this we could easily make out at
intervals, but the pathway itself is completely broken away ;
and it is probable that, for many ages, no unwinged creature
has ever reached the fort from the east. On the west side, by
which we ascended, the enormous causeway of the Koman
gene'-al remains as intact as when he mounted by it to the
walls, and without its aid the scaling of the fort would be
indeed a breakneck undertaking. The causeway is of so
stupendous a character, that it is difiicult at first to realize
that it was an artificial mound, hastily thrown up. Here we
could at once recognise the spur of the rock, called by Josephus
" the "White Promontory," and first seized by Silva, as the
" basis of his attack."

When Avc had reached the top of the causeway, we had a
little hard climbing to the edge of the crest, and over some

DESCRIPTION OF ITS RUINS. 307

Imll'-riiined Malls, Avlieii we found ourselves iii Masada. It is
a Hat platform, on the summit of a peak, isolated by tre-
mendous eliasms on all sides, of an oblong shape, widest at
the southern extremity. At the north end it tapers to a pro-
montory, only thirty-two yards wide. Here was placed the
strongest part of the fortification. About seventy feet below
(so far as we could judge), on a slight projecting ledge, was
built up a strong circular fort, with double walls, and a hollow
space of four feet between them. These walls were perfect ;
1 )ut we found it impossible, without ropes, to descend to them,
though we got down to Avithin twenty feet, and saw several
windows, or loopholes, in the solid rock, which we could not
reach, but which told us plainly of vast subterranean vaults
yet remaining to be explored. A lanner falcon was quietly
perched at the point, and calmly watched our ineffectual
attempts. About thirty or forty feet lower still, the rock runs
out into a fine point, and on this were the ruins of another
fort, quadrangular, and which had once reached up, as we
could see by the fragments of masonry, to the base of the
round bastion above. Below this the precipice was sheer for
a thousand feet. It was difficult to conceive for what strategic
purpose these ramparts could have been occupied, at such
enormous cost of labour, since they must have been wholly
untenable when the city was captured.

As I sat astride a projecting rock on the north peak, I
could look down from my giddy height, 1,500 feet, on both
sides and in front ; and yet so clear was the atmosphere, and
so extraordinary its power of conveying sound, that I could
carry on conversation with my friends in the camp below,
and compare barometers and observations.

The total length of the platform we made 620 paces, and
its width from east to west at the greatest breadth 210 paces.
This measurement is exclusive of a great space of broken
irregidar ground at the southern extremity. The wIkjIc of
the platform was enclosed by a wall rising on the edge of
the precipice, and affording no foothold outside it, and
which is everywhere partially, but nowhere entirely, ruined.

x2

308 CISTKKNS.

Several loopholed windows, with pointed tops, remained entii'e,
through which we could gaze out on the wondrous expanse
eastward.

Across the north end, immediately above the circular fort,
is a strong wall of rough masonry, south of which the plat-
form rapidly widens ; and from this wall, at right angles,
run twenty-one parallel walls, or heaps of rough masonry,
for the most part thrown down into ridges, and frequently
intersected by a diagonal network of other walls, not, how-
ever, continued in straight lines right across. These parallel
lieaps are five yards apart, and extend out thirty paces to tin-
south. To the west of them is a strong outer wall, where
the platform expands, while the north and east faces are a
terrific precipice. What this extraordinary accumulation of
masonry may have been, unless constructed as a breastwork
for the last desiderate defence foot by foot, I do not presume
to conjecture.

To the west of them, in the open space, is a large plastered
cistern, or reservoir, hewn out of the rock, now dry, about
twenty-six feet square and twenty feet deep. Eighty-five
yards further south is another large reservoir, sunk in the
rocky platform ; and forty yards furtlier again, in the centre
of the plateau, stands an isolated building, in a better state
of preservation than any other part of the fortress, and which
in any other place would be unhesitatingly put down as a
Byzantine church or chapel. It measures eighteen yards
from north to south, and sixteen from east to west. The
west porch is five yards square, the nave ten and a half
yards, with a semicircular apse and a circular arched light
at the east end, and is all very neatly plastered with fine
cement, and flat pebbles and fragments of potteiy in mosaic
patterns. There are also the remains of a marble mosaic
pavement. On the north side, high u]) in the wall, are two
small lights ; and on the south side a semicircular recess,
not a porch. The whole place reminded us somewhat of
the shape and arrangement of the Samaritan synagogue at
Nablous. Did we not know that Masada has no history

CliUSADlXO i; KM A INS.

309

after its capture liy Silva, tliis chapel would certainly have
been set down as a Crusading ruin.

Indeed I should feel strongly inclined to believe, notwitli-
standing the silence of chroniclers, that the hill had been
s(Mzed upon and occupied by those indefatigable constructors.
They held Kerak as a very important post, their frontier
towards Arabia. They took care to keep up their communi-
cations with it. The only access to Kerak from Jerusalem
was round the south end of the Dead Sea, and the road must
have passed along the shore below. In several of the wadys
we can trace their fortresses, in one continuous chain of

PLAN OF CHAPEL AT SEBBEH (mASADA).

posts, as in the Wady Um Bagkhek, Zuweirah, and the
Safieh ; but of none of these is there any record. It is scarcely
possible they should have overlooked so conspicuous and
commanding a position as Sebbeh, where they would find
material, cisterns, and some considerable fortifications ready
to their hand, and where a mere handful of men could main-
tain themselves against Arabs for months.

This conjecture is deepened into conviction, when after
leaving this chapel, and passing fifty-eight yards to the w^est

:',10

ARCH OF MAS.VDA.

of it, inniiodiately aliovi^ the causeway l>y wliicli wo IkuI*
enterctl, we revisit the archway which M. de Saiilcy has
described, standing alone, pointed on one side, and round on
tlie other Of this B. obtained two good photographs. The
annexed engraving Irom one of these snfhciently explains
the character of this gateway, wliich is of better and more
modern looking masonry than any other part of the ruins,

SKHHKII MASAOA

except the cliapel. It stands on a part of the ledge on tho
west, which is considerably lower than the northern fortifica-
tions. The photograph shows clearly the marks and figures,
like Greek letters and planetary signs, spoken of by M. de
Saulcy. They are evidently not contemporaneous with the
first erection, and some of them seem almost as little weather-
worn as the names of an English party who had visited
the place last year, and had scratched their record on tlic
inside of the arch. I suspect that some Arab in search
of Beden had been amusing his leisure by repeating the few
old marks.

Just nortli and west of this gateway are a long line of
ruins, probaldy those of Herod's ])alace, with many rooms,

CISTERNS. 311

corridors, and chambers, and some crypts entire. Tlie edifice
must have been of considerable size, but we conkl see no
traces of tlie preneral splendour nor yet of the porticoes wliich
Josephus describes. There are, however, a few fragments of
pillars. But the wliole has ratlier the appearance of a barrack
than a palace ; and, if our conjecture of a Crusading occupa-
tion be correct, it was probably a building erected out of the
old material for the shelter of the garrison.

For 120 yards south of the archway extend some dilapi-
dated walls, and 140 paces further still is an isolated ruin, of
very peculiar workmanship, evidently much older than the
arch or the buildings at the north-west. It has no traces of
plaster in the inside, and in the centre of each stone on the
inner face a square pigeon-hole is cut out.

For 1G3 paces further, the ruined city extends to the
southward, and ends at length over a tremendous gorge, at the
edge of which, a little way doAvn, we clambered into a great
plastered cistern, now dry, perhaps thirty feet deep, into which
cavern little cemented channels had once conveyed water from
the surface of the rock. The plaster was white, smooth, and
perfect, and a complete set of steps remains inside, which
were used for reaching the water when low. Water had re-
cently been in the bottom, which contained a thin deposit of
mud and dust, and was well paddled all over by recent foot-
prints of the ibex.

Above this we made use of some notches and hand-holes,
which had evidently been cut by recent explorers, and
clind)ed into a low cavern just above this cistern, to which it
opened by a fissure near the top. It was a natural cave arti-
ficially enlarged, and a window hewn in the rock looked out
on the opposite face of the gorge of the Wady Hafaf To the
east of these reservoirs were the remains of other ruined cis-
terns, all of them like the great cistern in the face of the cliff,
and outside the wall of circumvallation.

Eeturning again, we found many ruins clustered in the
south-east corner of the platform, and extending in line along
the east face, as though tlie garrison had lived under tlie

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MAGNIFICENT VIEW.

313

walls, and the whole of the centre space had lieen reserved
for cultivation and for the two public huildings which re-
main. We again carefully examined the second ruin, whose
walls are honeycombed outside, but could not conjecture its
use, nor had we elsewhere observed a building of similar
workmanship. I may mention that many of the walls are
built with little or no mortar, and with small stones and
rubble filling in the interstices of the courses.

w

-^^

PLAN OF ROMAN CAMP AT MASADA.

Looking down from the top, the whole of the Dead Sea
was spread out as in a map, with the low-lying Lisan,
Kerak, ]\Iezraah, and the Ghor es Safieh distinct in the dis-
tance. It was a picture of stern grandeur and desolate mag-
nificence, perhaps unequalled in the world. All round at our
feet we could trace the wall of circumvallation by which the
Eomans hopelessly enclosed the devoted garrison. In the
plain to the east beneath us, and on the opposite slopes to the
west, were the Eoman camps, with their outlines and walls
as distinct as on the day when they were left, one large and
two smaller square camps on the plain eastwards, and a long
series of encampments on the slopes facing us westward.

314 OBJECTION OF OUR AliAl'.S TO moCEED.

Apparently not a stone had Ixhmi removed. Built withont
mortar, they liad fallen from walls to sharp ridges, but all in
gentle, though desolate decay. The Praitorian, Decuman, and
other gateways, the Praitorium, Via Principalis, and all the
details of a IJoman camp, Avere here sketched out as ]-)lainly
as on the plates of a classical dictionary.

On our return to camp we found that 8., who had remained
below, had obtained at length a specimen of the wedge-tailed
desert raven {Corvus afinis), and had rescued from the talons
of a lanner the remains of a pochard duck taken on the
Dead Sea. As we descended, w,e observed various windows
and loopholes, or apertures, in the cliff-side, showing that the
whole fortress must have been w^ell supplied with vaults now
inaccessible.

We had some amusing difficulties with our thirsty people
in the evening, all of whom had caballed to resist our
further progress eastwards. Hamoud announced he had ex-
hausted his stock of barley, and that the mules could not
proceed : but when told he might go to Hebron and fetch it,
while we remained at Jebel Usdum till he returned, he
discovered it might be bought in the Safieh. Then the
Sheikhs declared they could not be responsible for our safety
beyond Jebel ITsdum, till they were reminded of the terms of
their contract, which we should enforce; and Giacomo clinched
the matter, by asking them if they had not shown him letters
from the Sheikhs of Safieh and jNFezraah, guaranteeing our
safety. They then assumed the whine of suppliants, and
hoped we would give them extra backshish, which we refused,
thinking 80/. quite enough ; and finally they recovered their
s]»iiits, and saw no difficulty in our proceeding further to-
morrow.

January 2^th. — We made an early start, though much dis-
inclined to obey Giacomo's relentless summons at six a.m.,
after less than four and a quarter hours' sleep. First I had a
run down to the sea through a labyrinth of nullahs, dry
wadys, and barren salt hills, which bailie description, almost
as much as they did my efforts to thread them. Put it was

WATEI^. 31.")

important to ascertain onr harometric levels, and nnless by
actual ex])eriment, we should have had little idea that the
base of Sebbeh was no less than 554 feet above the sea-level.
Again and again the question recurred without sohition,
how the garrison of the fortress of Masada could ever till
their cisterns, and, above all, whence the camp of the besiegers
could have obtained their supplies. There surely must have
l)een, even since the days of the Crusaders, a considerable
diminution in the rainfall of these regions. In taking leave
of Sebbeh, we must not forget the very strong similarity in
position and architectural arrangement between it and the
castle of Kulat-el-Kurn in the north, though this latter is on
a small scale. An inspection of the two must strengthen the
impression that el-Kurn is also originally a Jewish fortress
adapted by the Crusaders.

Our Arabs had brought in after midnight two skins of
water for ourselves, but none of our forty-three beasts nor
the horses of our guard had drunk since yesterday morning,
so there was no delay in the start, that they might enjoy a
draught at Wady Um Bagkhek, a little perennial stream, five
hours distant. By eight o'clock all were off, and we rode
through the old Iloman camps. It is here that we can best
realize the truly terrible barrenness of this shore. Elsewhere
the desolation is comparatively partial, here it reigns supreme.
Tlie two miles of rugged slope that lay between our path and
the sea are difficult to describe. They are formed of a soft
white and very salt deposit, torn and furrowed by winter
torrents in every direction, which have left fantastic ruins
and castles of olden shape, flat-topped mamelons, cairns, and
every imaginable form into which a wild fancy could have
moulded matter, standing in a labyrinth, north and south,
before and behind us.

When we reached the Wady Hafaf, we found in its bed
many seyals (acacia), gnarled old trees sunk in the depression,
and never rising above its top, but no trace of water. Here
we turned down to the shore, which we followed for about
two hours. The curious ripple lines which have been before

olC) Capture of ibex.

mentioned, we could clearly trace to-day running right across
the sea ; and perhaps caused here by the meeting of the north
and south currents from the Jordan and the Arabah. The
shore differed in character from that further north. There
was not so much drift-wood to mark the reach of the lake in
spring, and when the old terraces sink down to the water's
edge, the beach is merely soft shale, scarcely disintegrated.
In other places it is a very fine deep shingle, with no large
rounded pebbles, but small flat gravel and angular flints, all
very flne. In fact, now that we have readied the shallow
south portion of the lake, or backwater, the action of the sea
is very different from what it was north of the peninsula.
Yet there must be a considerable current, for while the ther-
mometer in the shade was 75", the temperature of the sea in
the shallow part, marked as a ford in the maps, was only 58°.
There were several birds, ducks and grebes, swimming about,
as if feeding, and swallows skimming on the surface in pursuit
of the myriads of water-flies and mosquitoes, which danced
over it. In several shallow lagoons the bottom was well
paddled by the footprints of the black storks, which we had
seen in the distance, and which had evidently been searching
for a scanty breakfast in the early morning. At the depth of
two feet, several yards in, we found crystals of salt formed in
a thick crust at the bottom, and of course not a trace of any
sliells.

At Jebel Hatrura, the path climbs up a low projecting
headland, and on the summit we found an Arab shouting and
signalling to us. He was one of our guard, who had been
for two days on the look-out, to watch that the coasts were
clear, that there were no raiders from the other side, nor any
hostile or suspicious tribes in the neighbourhood ; an employ-
ment which generally occupied more than a dozen of our
household troops. He had well employed his leisure in
shooting a fine ibex, witli which he was encumbered, and
which B — t soon threw in triumph across his saddle. I
bargained for the horns and skin for a sovereign, and all the
party rejoiced in tlio prospect of two days' dinner off venison,

LOVELY GLENS. 317

110 tritJing matter in ilie state of our larder, and M'itli all our
stock of eggs broken by the fall of a runaway mule.

On the hills we passed considerable quantities of a very
beautiful siliceous stone, vliich occurred in small irregular
patches, and which we took to be Oriental onyx. It was
evident that the Jehalin set some value upon it; but unfor-
tunately our specimens were lost during the march.

About one o'clock we reached the mouth of the Wady Um
Bagkhek, and turned up it in search of water. We soon found
a little trickling rill of sweet water, lost at intervals in the
sand, and reappearing as a moist ooze through the gravel.
Following up the gorge, the horses had a copious drink, and
we sat down to eat our bread and cheese. Presently up
rushed the caravan of laden mules, hinnyiug and sniffing as
thirsty beasts know how when they scent water on a scorching
day. Happ}' they looked as the halters were loosened, and
when, after their thirty hours' abstinence, they all plunged
their noses into the rivulet. After enjoying " the shadow of
a great rock in a weary land" for an hour, the rest of the
party followed the caravan, and I climbed alone up the ravine,
where I found the stream expanded as the gorge deepened
and contracted, till I reached a deep clear pool under a little
cascade, where the sun never penetrates, and, having laid
down my clothes on a soft cushion of maiden-hair fern,
enjoyed a delicious bath.

The contrast of these lovely glens, few and far between in
this rugged wilderness, is very enchanting, and one might
have expected an exuberance of animal life collected in such
a spot ; but beyond the traces of ibex, gazelle, and porcupine,
I saw no sign of living things. Plants, indeed, there were
in rich profusion — tall canes, acacias, oleanders, ferns, and
Avillows. I was also rewarded by the discovery of a new
fresh-water shell, a small brightly-coloured melanopsis, which
I collected in some quantity. It never occurred to us else-
where, and is very distinct from the other Syrian species. I
was retracing my steps when I saw an Arab perched on a
peak overhanging the valley, and then another on a second

318 DE saulcy's thajsiara.

height, signalling and yelling with frantic vehemence; and
in the opening of the wady two mounted Jehalin were in
waiting with my horse, pretending great danger from my
lonely ramble. AVe have learnt, however, that this affected
vigilance is part of their system, to convince all travellers of
the necessity of an enormous guard. There are the traces of
an old road up the glen, which appears to have led down
from the wilderness ; and at the mouth, but quite in the open
space in front, and doubtless connected with the road, are the
ruins, very perfect, of a square fortress, with corner bastions,
which cannot be referred, from its style, to an earlier period
than the Crusading or Saracenic epochs. It had no other
name, with our guards, than Kulat Um Bagkhek, given from
the ravine behind it.

I omitted to mention that, at the distance of an hour and
a half before this, we had discovered another hot sul[)hur
spring, close to the edge of the sea, nearly opposite the mouth
of the Wady llm-el-Bediin. At Um Bagkhek Abou Dahuk
informed us he had encamped with M. de Saulcy ; and had
we not been eager to get to the mysterious Hill of Salt, we
might well have followed his example, for a more delightful
camping ground it would be difficult to find. M. de Saulcy
has endeavoured to identify Um Bagkhek with the Eomau
station of Thamara ; but beyond the square fort, and a loose
circle of stones, apparently an outer breastwork of no great
strength, there is not a trace of other buildings, and had there
been any population besides a very small garrison — for the
building measures only twenty-five paces by eighteen — they
surely must have left more visible remains of their dwellings
than we could detect. Supposing M. de Saulcy's data to be
correct, Thamara would, with far better evidence from ruins,
be placed at the mouth of the Wady Zuweirah, where the
buildings have been of far more considerable extent ; but then
the learned antiquary had reserved these for his Zoar.

As T rode with my companion guards on a piece of level
ground, near tin; shore, the scenery rjipidly lost its des(»late
character. 1 shot a rare black wheatear (Saxicola Icuco-

^

CAMP. 310

ccphala, Br.), my first bird to-day ; and tlie strip between the
lulls and the shore "svas covered "with a dense carpet of a
salicornia (S. fruticosa, L.), growing in a marsh, fed by in-
numerable salt springs oozing out through the mud, and
having many little shallow pools, tenanted by myriads of a
very small fish {Cyprinodon sopkiw, Heckel), which I collected
in some number by the aid of my pocket-hantlkerchief.
None of these little fish attempt to go down to the sea —
or, at least, none were seen, dead or alive, in its shallow
waters ; and on trying the experiment, and leaving for
the night half a dozen in a basin of the salt-water of the
spring, and an equal number in a vessel of the sea-water, we
found the former all lively in the morning, while every one of
those in the brine of the lake had turned lifeless on their
backs. There were, besides, in these pools countless swarms
of the larvffi of mosquitoes, and a few very small white crus-
taceans, half an inch long. This salicornia is called by the
natives " kali," and they turn it to ashes, which they use as a
potash, instead of soap.

Our camp was pitched in front of the Wady Zuweirah,
with the northern end of Jebel Usdum (the " Mountain of
Salt") little more than a mile distant in front, and a wild
thicket of shrubs of various 'kinds, and many fine acacia-trees,
reaching down to the very shore. The plain of Zuweirah was
of considerable extent, and irregular in shape, furrowed in all
directions by the dry water-courses and gravel-beds, nowhere
deep enough to be gullies, and often very shallow, of the
many departed torrents which have issued from the gorges of
Zuweirah and jNIahawat.

I found, on my arrival, every one contented and in high
spirits. We had, at length, completed the whole tour of the
Dead Sea, on the western side, without one hiatus, and were
fairly at the south end. Contrary to the asseverations of the
Jehi'din, there was no water in the wady; but plentiful pools
bad been discovered two miles up the valley, accessible for
nudes, and the muleteers had already brought down a good
supply. The old warrior had the grim delight of seeing our

320 ABSENCE OF VOLCANIC TKACES.

tents pitcluxl uuJer tlio liilldck wlicre, lie told us, lay buried
eleven of his foes, slain by liini in battle. B. had already got
a photograph of Jebel UsJuni before I came up, and had shot
a hare for breakfast to-morrow. Ducks were swimming in
large flocks in the sea. U. had shot a water-rail and a coot in
the marsh by its edge; and L. had almost gone wild with
excitement at the quantity of new and tropical plants in
flower which carpet the southern shore. He had already,
within an hour, collected sixteen species, new to him, of Indian
or Nubian genera, and all in blossom. Even I, as I rode
along, could not resist the temptation to leave my horse, and
till both arms w4th bundles of strange plants, all in luxuriant
bloom. The air was delicious, elastic, dry, and warm (some
luight have called it hot) ; and at once we determined to
I'emain two days before moving on to the Ghor-es-Safieh, said
to be richer still in the i^rolific fertility of its soil.

Of M. de Saulcy's lava torrents and extinct craters, no one
had been able to detect a trace; though there was plenty
of silex and nodules of ironstone, which, perhaps, had been
taken for lava, and a few morsels of scorite evidently floated
down from the upper waters, and washed ashore. Here at
length we found life in the Dead Sea, the first and last we
ever detected, in the larvae of some small mosquito or gnat,
which were wriggling about in the shallow lagoon. Some
almost potable water oozes out in the bed of the Zuweirah,
\nidcr the shade of a thick scrub, where U. discovered the
drinking-place of the gazelles, paddled about by innumerable
feet.

The Sheikhs made no further difticulty about proceeding,
and had been put into good heart by a Kerak man, who, tra-
velling alone on his mule from Jerusalem, had overtaken us
eai'ly this morning, and attaclied himself to our party for
safety during several days. He informed us that the troubles
there were all over, and that we might go on without the
least difficulty ; and, moreover, that Europeans were now
certain of a friendly reception from the Sheikh of Kerak. It
is no easy matter to get at the truth of Arab stories on one side

MOUNTAIN OF SALT. 321

or the other, for these people seem to invent their tales merely
to keep their minds from ntter stagnation.

January 21th. — The day was entirely devoted to surveying
and geologizing on the glaring salt hills, with the thermometer
80° in the shade ; but in the bright wholesome air, thirst is the
severest inconvenience felt, even with a far higher tempera-
ture. In the first place, we examined the peak to the north
of the Zuweirah, where De Saulcy (who is followed by Van
de Velde on his authority,) professes to have discovered an
extinct crater and streams of lava. After a toilsome ascent
to the summit, we could discover no traces of volcanic
action, and had no doubt that the reported lava pebbles are
merely the rolled black flints with which the hill is strewn.
Some very fine casts of shells in clear silex were picked up.
There is no crater, but a flat-topped peak of secondary lime-
stone left after the erosion of the rest of the stratum Ijy
fluviatile action. The circular summit is certainly of very
remarkable shape, but is parallel to the remaining upper ter-
races on the neighbouring heights. On descending, we no-
ticed a dip in the stratification between the Wadys Zuweirah
and Mahawat of 7° S.S.E., thus corresponding to that ob-
served in several places further north. We afterwards went
down to the shore to correct accurately the position and
bearings of Jebel Usdum. The ridge makes an obtuse angle
about one-third of its length from the north end. The

'o^

northern limb of the hill is about three miles long, and bears
15° east of magnetic north. AVe were enabled to make out
very clearly the shape of the Lisan, and to correct several of
the outlines in Van de Velde's map. Subsequently, on com-
paring these with Lynch's map, which we had not with us,
we found ourselves borne out in every particular by his
survey, in which I believe the coast line is everywhere laid
down with admirable precision.

The temperature of the water at the edge of tlie sea under
Jebel Usdum was 66° at nine a.m., while that of the air, by
a thermometer in the shade four feet from the ground, was
64°. The shore is here all composed of fine sand, instead of

Y

322 DIFFICULTY OF ASCENT.

tlie pebbles wliicli we found on every point of tlie west
coast. "\Vo collected specimens of this, and also of the soil at
a depth of two feet fvoin the surface, where it is a rich,
greasy loam, but strongly impregnated with salt. The for-
mation of sulphur seems to be going on at the surface in
various places, though it is generally impure and mixed with
sand ; and the ground is covered with crystals of gypsum.

Jebel Usdum itself is a solid mass of rock salt of a
greenish white transparency, very mucli the colour of a
shallow sea, covered at the top w^th a loose crust of debris of
gravel, rolled flints, and gypsum, but chiefly with a chalky
marl. We walked for three miles along its eastern face, in the
hope of finding some means of ascending it, but it was quite
impracticable. Portions of the salt cliff are continually
splitting off and falling, leaving perpendicular faces, and when
this is not the case, the debris is far too loose and steep to
permit of any climbing. "Wide as the hill is, there is no
plateau on the top, but a forest of little peaks and ridges,
furrowed and scarped angularly in every direction ; and when
one pinnacle has been reached, it is only to see a deep fissure
forming an impassable gulf between it and the next peak
which shuts out the view. The salt has a stratified appear-
ance, with varying lines of cleavage, and the base of the de-
posit is far below the present surface, as may be seen from
the depth of some of the hollow caverns and subterranean
channels with which the rock is perforated, and which are
revealed by occasional holes and fissures exactly like the cre-
vasses of a glacier.

In several places we found the ground hollow, and echoing
under our feet as we walked by the shore, and in some the
crust has given way, and a laden camel has suddenly disap-
peared from the file of a caravan, and been salted to death
below. The layers of rock-salt are frequently contorted con-
formably with the overlying marl and gypsum.

After returning from our eastern survey of the hill, I im-
mediately set off alone to explore the western face, hoping to
be able to ascend from this side and ascertain the heicfht. At

EXTENT OF THE ROCK-S.VLT RIDGE. 323

the distance of about three miles from our camp, a sort of
spur seemed to run from the ridge close to the re-eutcriug
angle, about half way between its extremities ; and here it is
linked by a depressed shoulder to the alluvial terraces which
run on to the Wady ]\Iahawat. I had to skirt the mountain
to this place before t could find a practicable spot for scaling,
though the height is contemptible ; and after several hours of
weary toil I found myself, just before sunset, on a pinnacle,
but by no means, so far as I could judge by the eye, on the
highest peak. "With this, however, I had to be content, and
ha\ang jotted down the readings of the barometer, and the
bearings of the compass, had enough to do to tind my way out
of the labyrinths of the salt glacier before sunset, and crossed
the lonely plain in the dark, guided by the distant glinnner
of our watch-tire.

The height of the pinnacle which I climbed was by aneroid
347 feet above the level of the Dead Sea, and I have no doubt
there are points north of the shoulder fifty feet higher.

The view westwards, the only one I obtained on this
afternoon from the top of this ridge, was interesting. The
mountain range diminished to more insignificant hills than
those to wliich we had lately been looking up. It stood back
about four miles, leaving at the south-west corner of the sea
a large plain, the embouchure of the Zuweirah and ]\Iabawat,
wliich here combine their forces, when they have any ; and
then, splitting as in a miniature estuary, sweep over wide
gravelly beds, spotted with the dark green, weather-beaten
acacia (A. nilotica), and sparsely carpeted with a profuse
variety of tropical shrubs and flowers, which afford sustenance-
to some hares, and many coveys of the little Hey's partridge.
About a dozen beds are furrowed through the coarse gravelly
plain, each about five or six feet deep. In one of these I
surprised a herd of twenty-two gazelles, but was not provided
with the means of capturing any. Unfortunately none of the
sportsmen of the party were with me to secure a dish of
venison for next day's dinner. On Jebel Usdum, and there
alone, we obtained specimens of the large black and white

Y 2

324 PLANTS OF USDUM.

Nubian wheatear (Saxicola monacha, Riipp.), a few pair of
wliich were scattered about the edges of the hill ; but never
elsewhere did we meet with this rare species. Some of our
party also employed themselves in searching, but without
avail, for life in the Dead Sea, and especially for any traces
of the coral {Stijhphora j)istillaia), exhibited in the Museum
of Paris as from hence. No person who has examined the
southern portion of the lake can for one instant believe that
this specimen, or any other coral, ever came from it, unless
as a semi-fossil, though microscopic crustaceans may possibly
be found, as they live in the salt lagoons close to the shore,
but whicli are not so strongly impregnated with salt. In
this shallow part under Usdum, the water may be best
characterized as syrup of chloride of sodium. In the brakes
and by the edges the sportsmen and collectors were more
successful, since ducks, rails, coots, rufous and rock-sM^allows
all were found, besides many warblers, and all the peculiar
birds of the Glior.

"We had subsequently an opportunity of almost completing
the circuit of Jebel Usdum, having reached Ain Beida (the
White Well) at the south-eastern extremity, the water of
which may be white and clear, but is more than brackish.
As our time was limited we made no survey here, but satisfied
ourselves we had reached the limit of Usdum, properly so
called. Here, for the first time, were traces of vegetation, but
only tall cane-brakes, with a few tamarisks, and other stunted
shrubs. The water, certainly not drinkable, oozed out among
the canes much like the springs at Ain Terabeh. From this
line of cane-thicket the terraces began at once to rise to the
south-west, like those further north, and we could easily see
the opening of the Wady Fikreh, by which our Jehalin told
us there is a route direct to Wady Moussa (Petra), from which
we were only distant two days' journey. This spot, Ain Beida^
was the southern limit of our travels. The ride save us a s'ood
opportunity of noticing the shape of the ridge, and its complete
isolation from the surrounding mountain system. With a
breadth of from one to one and a half mile, it is simply a huge

EXTENT OF THE KUCK-aALT lUDGE. 325

rock of salt, extending from its northern end for three miles
north-east and south-west, and then for four miles further
due north and south (magnetic), covered with a coating of
marl fifty feet thick, which may be taken for a continuation
of the old diluvial terrace uplifted on the salt. Tt is pene-
trated by many drainage fissures, choked with glittering
stalactites of salt, though the general aspect of the mount is
anything but glittering until closely inspected. The sides
of the cliffs have been everywhere slightly affected and
scarped by the action of occasional rains ; and sand and dust
washing in and adhering to the soft material have concealed
all the native brilliancy of the salt.

Some of the caves are of considerable size. We entered
one on the east face, which had evidently formed the channel
of a drainage stream, and which is sufficiently capacious for
the use to which it is sometimes put as a place of conceal-
ment by predatory bands from the Wady INIoussa. The
cavern was narrow, but we were able tu follow it up foi' 200
or 300 yards. It is evident that it frequently changes in form
and extent, from the rocks beinc; undermined and fallinof
down, and being then gradually melted from beneath ; but
the sides were too much covered with dust and lime to afford
the beautiful reflections of a salt-mine. There were no traces
of robbers, but the hyaena had found for himself a cool and
comfortable home.

The only point of connexion witli the enclosing ranges is
at the south-west, and there only with the marly deposit,
which forms a depressed shoulder, from which the ridge
rapidly rises, like a long vista of Titanic tents, or colossal
ruins. But this forest of pinnacles is only perceived when
close to it. At a distance it would have been put down from
its shape, by the Greeks, as a " hog's back " {')(OLpd<=;).

Here, perhaps, we may find a key to the phenomena of
the Dead Sea. It is impossible, I think, after tracing the
Ghor from top to bottom, to suppose that any other action
than erosion and abrasion have scooped out those secondary
rocks in the first instance. However slight (comparatively

326 OKIGIN OF THE DEAD SEA.

speaking) might be the evidence for this in the upper part,
yet, when we come to the lower portion, the shores of the
Dead Sea, and notice the extinct waterfalls, the enormous
ravines, worked through hard crystalline rocks to the depth
sometimes of 1,200 feet, we see that at a remote period, long
prior to the marl deposits below, there must have been a
mighty fluviatile and aqueous force in operation for a period
almost inconceivable. The whole surrounding region must
have become dry land before the close of the eocene period,
there being no fossils of a subsequent date anywhere de-
tected in the country. Then the water probably flowed
uninterruptedly to the Eed Sea, or rather its waves laved the
shores of a narrow gulf; plenteous rains drenched the neigh-
bouring hills, and carried down the disintegrated rocks of their
channels to form the marls of the sea. But the great fissure
had probably been a submarine depression before the de-
siccation of the ocean. Then followed the great volcanic period
of the north, when the Lejah smoked Avith the fires of a
hundred boiling craters, and the liquid masses poured in red
torrents down the upper valley as far as the Lake of Gennesaret.
Meanwhile, the concomitant earthquakes rent and shook the
southern and central districts. The subterranean fires, which
poured forth their rivers of basalt over the north, drew their
fuel from beneath this gulf and at this period, possibly while
the ridge of Akabah was gradually rising by the same forces,
and interrupting the continuity of the sea: but it is more
probable that Akabah had been left bare by the receding
ocean, and that the Ghor formed one salt basin, and the Eed
Sea another : while the undulations of the earth's crust de-
pressed the enclosing ridges of the Ghor, and caused that
continuous synclinal stratification which we have frequently
observed. As Akabah slowly rose, by a compensating action
the Ghor ga-adually sank, until a vast oblong lake was formed,
stretching up the Arabah for twenty miles south of the present
shores of the Dead Sea, and extending northwards up the
Anion or Jordan plains, perhaps nearly to Kurn Surtabeh.
Over this sui-face the sun's rays soon produced an evaporation

ORIGIN OF THE DEAD SEA.

327

wliicli more than counterbalanced the supply from the feeders
of the basin ; and as the waters subsided, the clialky sedi-
ment registered on the hill-sides their gradual diminution,
from the terrace which at the south end rests against the
enclosing barriers at a heiglit of 320 feet in the Wady Malia-
wat, up to that chalk and marl in the Ghor above Jericho,
which is deposited a few feet deep on the surface of the iDlain.

But while the volume of water was steadily diminishing,
the residuum would retain the whole of the mineral salts, and
would, when saturated with chloride of sodium, begin to de-
posit its rock salt throughout the basin. Tlie deposit would
gradually augment hj the accretion of the superfluous salt,
until the equilibrium was restored. Then, as the waters
still continued to subside, they would accumulate a debris
of g}^psum, chalk, and marl upon the salt, until they finally
sank to their present level, at which the forces of the supply
from the streams and the evaporation are in equilibrium.

Subsequently to this, I conceive, the ridge of salt must
have been elevated, as indicated by its sustaining on its top
a similar deposit to that on the wadys around, but which,
elevated here, sinks, though the continuity is uninterrupted,
to a much lower elevation on the connecting shoulder.

Drainage and occasional rains have been for ages restoring
portions of the brine to its original source, so that as the sea
has decreased in bulk it has increased, and still is increasing,
in intensity of saltness.

One thing, I think, is clear, that the Jordan valley and
the Dead Sea have been formed quite independently of any
oceanic influences, and that they have never had any con-
nexion with the Mediterranean : the highest level of the water
not having been since the disappearance of the ocean of the
cretaceous period more than 320 feet above its present level.
The existence of this marl at the south end proves the lake at
a very early period to have been separated from the Eed Sea.

The only igneous traces near the lake are the streams
of basalt of inconsiderable size on the north-east, between
the wadys Zerka Main and Ghuweir, mentioned to me Ijy

328 SIMILARITY TO THE SAHARA.

M, Lartet. These were probably evolved at the same time as
the great eruptions of the Lejah, and though with the glacial
epoch, of which we find traces in the Lebanon, they may have
atfectcd the level of the waters, yet they have had nothing
Avhatever to do with the formation of the basin itself. Since
the volcanic epoch the extent of the water has probably not
appreciably varied.

There is a remarkable similarity, I had almost said identity,
of character between the phenomena of Jebel Usdum and of
the Sebkhas and salt hills of the African Sahara, several of
which I had some years before carefully examined and ex-
plored. There are the same general features in each : traces
of a tertiary or post-tertiary sea ; a plain occasionally over-
flowed and encrusted with salt and gypsum ; in several in-
stances a similar existence of sulphur springs in the neighbour-
hood ; and always the salt rock isolated from the mountain
range, and capped by a deep marly deposit. When I visited
the African salt hills, the mode of deposition of this super-
incumbent mass was to me a great difficulty, and I think the
position of Jebel Usdum assists us to the conclusion that in
each case there has been a subsequent uplifting of the salt
rock. Let this be admitted, and the debris is accounted for
as part of the surrounding deposit,^ elevated with the mass
beneath.

Other circumstances would lead me to infer that the reduc-
tion of the Dead Sea to its present limits was synchronous
with the desiccation of the post-tertiary ocean of the Sahara,
and with the increasing temperature M'hich marked the close of
the glacial epoch, and that it is in fact only one (the last) in
a chain of salt pools stretching across Xorth Africa ; and for
this there is very strong ichthyological evidence, in the genera
and species of fishes inhabiting the Jordan basin ; but this
will be mentioned elsewhere.

The question of the operation by which Divine Providence
destroyed Sodom and the Cities of the Plain is altogether
independent of the question of the formation of the Dead
* See " Great Sidiara, " clinp. iv. pp. 70, ct scq.

DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 329

Sea (of which latter event the Scriptures say nothing), and
belongs to a very much more recent period ; and it seems to
liave been an unhappy though not unnatural mistake which
has connected in the popular mind the overthrow of the
guilty cities with the eruption of an ordinary volcano. There
are, in reality no grounds for assuming the shower of fire and
brimstone to have been poured forth from an ordinary crater,
and it will be in vain to search for such in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Lake. There is evidence enough,
however, from which the probable occurrence of such a cata-
strophe might be inferred, apart from the direct testimony of
the Word of God.

At the north-east corner of Jebel Usdum, between it and
the shore, is a heap of stones and some indistinct ruins, very
much dilapidated, of a rudely-built tower, named by the
Arabs Um Zoghal, apparently a little outpost from the station
in AVady Zuweirah, but in which the antiquarian dreams of
]\I. de Saulcy have discovered the ruins of Sodom. It would
have been more reasonable philologically, from the striking
similarity of the names, to have identified it with the city of
Zoar, which, if these be its ruins, must indeed have been
" a little one."

Our friend Mr. Wood found himself in a perplexity this
evening. He had only a fortnight's leave from Jerusalem,
and did not wish to outstay it, but intended to return on
JMonday. This old Abou Dahuk says is impossible, and
that he must either go through with us or return from hence
at once. Any travellers or wandering Arabs who may pass
this way, on seeing the traces of so large a camp, will, the
Sheikh assures us, at once conclude that a war is going on
somewhere, and that a tribe has been bivouacking here ; and
they will therefore be afraid to proceed, but will ensconce
themselves in the wadys, and beguile their idle time by
pillaging any wayfarers. With so large a party as ours no
one would dare to meddle ; but he declares half a dozen men
would not be safe, and as he cannot spare a second large;
guard, he refuses to be responsible for Wood's safety. His

330 DESTRUCTION OF SODOM.

explanation is so consonant with the known habits of the
people, that j\Ir. W. feels he must yield to his remonstrances
and be content to return to-morrow with a couple of guards
— the utmost the Sheikh can spare him — from the very
threshold of the most interesting portion of our expedition.

As we stood round the watch-fires, the bright gleams of a
beacon-light from the other side shot across the dark water.
" There," said our guide, " is the village of Safieh ; to-morrow
we shall lie down on the other side,"

(

»l

■I

I

CHArTEE XV.

Departure from Zmocirali for tlic Safich — Jchel Usdum — Tlie Sehkha or Salt
Marsh — Its Rivers and Birds — False Alarm — Oasis of Feifch — Belt of Jleeds
— Capture of Prisoners — Vegetation and Luxuriance of the Ghor es Safich —
A Burning Village — General Pillage — Dead Bodies — huligo — Arab Ideas
of Morals — Council of War — Causes of Fertility — Streams — En Nimeirah —
Ruined Sugar Mills — Crusading Traces — Geology — Sa'ndstmie and Tra}) —
Determination to return — Sirocco Wind — Night Watches — Ravens — Camp at
Zutveirah — Aboit Dahilk — Hamz'i — Saul and David — Jeluilin Guards, an
inferior Caste — Method of Baking — Imlolence — Poor and Aged — Geology of
the Zmoeirah — Ruined Fortress aiui Archway— Cistern — Our Bath — Shrimps
— Wady Mahaicat — Singular Deposit — Sul2)hurand Bitumen— Method of the
Destruction of Sodom — Natural and Supernatural Agencies — Absence of Vol-
canic Traces — Tlic Cities of the Plain not submerged — Arguments for their
Portion at the South— At the North — Superiority of the Latter — Plain of
Jericho — Zoar — Moab and Ammon,

Jakuaky 28th. — At length, this morning, we leave Palestine
proper, on our long-anticipated visit to the east side and the
desolate Lisan, or Peninsula — we are to enter the land of
INIoab. Mr. Wood accompanied us round the north end of
the Salt jMountain, and as far as the long cavern on its eastern
face, and then, with his guards, cantered back along the wide,
flat plain, on his way to Hebron. Our day's journey was to
be very short in time, for the track was smooth ; no ravines
or rocks arrested the progress of horse or footman, and our
guides fully expected that we should be able to camp at Porj-
en-N'meirah in the afternoon. The first part of the road was
uninteresting, but very curious. The sky was cloudless, and
the sun's light brilliant and dazzling ; while a tremulous haze
peopled the horizon of the sea with islets set in a fringe of
diamonds ; yet, as we kept close under the hill to our right,
the heat of the day was relieved by the cool zephp-s which
breathed fresh from the tall cliffs. The ground echoed dull

332

JEBEL USDUM.

and liollow l)ciicatli our horses' hoofs, as they pranced and
cantered on the liard, clastic sand ; and we noticed several
holes on the sliore, where animals had fallen in through the
holloAV crust formed by the underground drainage to the sea.

For seven miles we skirted between the Jebel, or Khasm
("Nose") Usdum on the right; and the shallow sea, and,
latterly, the Sebklia, or salt flat, on the left. This is a large
flat of at least six by ten miles, from north to south, occa-
sionally flooded, but now diy. Taught by the experience

g"; «!<^*%je«S2.

JEBEL USDUM.

of ]\I. de Saulcy, we made no attempt to cross it to the
northwards, as the mud would have been far too deep and
treacherous for us to pass in safety. We rode up nearly
as far as Ain Beida, at the extremity of the salt hill, before we
turned due east across the Sebkha. The glare then became
very trying, and a line mirage floated before us. We were
not far from the southern end of the flats, and the old terrace
of diluvium which here arrests it (through which penetrates
the drainage of Arabia Petrrea, north of the watershed of
the Arabah), stood up like a wall in front, apparently about
300 feet high, and shone like molten silver

11 the dazzling

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SALT MAESIT. 333

sunlight ; while the true salt hill frowned brown and gloomy.
The ridge seemed, at first, an unbroken bar across from east
to west ; but we could soon perceive sundry irregular channels
and ravines rent through it, the various watercourses from
the south. Not a plant or a leaf could be seen, save just
under the hills, where the cane-brake seemed to stretch from
Ain Eeida, and to fringe the foot of tlie ridge with a narrow
belt of deep green.

The whole of this great flat is formed of fine sandy mud,
brought down by the Wadys Eikreh, Jeib, Ghurundol, and
Tufileh, which, with many smaller tributaries, discharge their
waters together here. The plain was furrowed by eight small
watercourses; but only the first and last (the Fikreh and
the Tufileh) had any supply of water worth mentioning. The
sea was evidently low at present ; for the line of driftwood
was half a mile from the water's edge, and under Jebel Usdum
six feet higher than the present water-line. Tlic Sebkha
itself is as nearly as possible a dead flat, about fifteen feet
above the sea-level at the time of our visit, but, doubtless,
overflowed every year. Nothing in the Sahara could be more
desolate ; every feature of this strange scene recalled some of
the characteristics of the North African deserts, and not least
in the brilliant and beautiful mirage which spread like a fairy
land before us. Having kept well to tlie south, we did not
meet witli any of the difiiculties so pathetically described by
M. de Saulcy, while we cheerily spurred our horses, and our
Arabs waved their spears and firelocks, dashing from water-
course to w^atercourse. Little as there seemed for the subsist-
ence of waterfowl, yet we made no inconsiderable addition to
our lists in these streamlets, which had not so much as a sprig
of salsola groMang at their edge. A pair of the ruddy shield-
rake {Casarca rutila) were swimming in the Wady Fikreh ;
and I obtained the common redshaidc, a pair of the little stint
(Tringa minuta, L.) — the only specimens obtained in our
tour — and several of the Asiatic and Kentish dotterels, before
we had crossed the Sebldia. The rare ash-coloured martin
{Cotyle iKilustris, Eiipp.) was skimming over every stream, and

I

334 OASIS OF FEIFim.

our bags were enriclicd by half a dozen specimens of this orni-
thological prize. During the pursuit, we had become scattered
over the plain ; on looking back, we could detect some little
black specks among the bright ridges behind us, and then the
occasional flash of spears or firelocks in the sunlight warned
us of a party of armed men gathering in our rear. With the
promptness of skirmishers falling back, we plied our spurs,
and, leaping many a furrow, galloped up to our mules, and
formed in line ; when our Jehalin soon pronounced the party
to be only a reinforcement of their own men, expected here
by Abou Dahuk. One after another had kept dropping in
during the morniug, till we found ourselves with a guard of
forty-eight footmen and fifteen mounted spearmen, besides
our own party ; so that we were now more numerous than
Jacob's family going down into Egypt — seventy-six armed
men in all. We were inclined at the time to attribute this
gTeat following to our Sheikh's love of military display in the
territory of liis neighbours ; but had afterwards no cause to
regret it.

The white terrace to the south now presented an even
ridge, running east and west, with a spur which rounded off
towards Jebel Usdum, and then joined the terrace at the
Wady Mahawat. But, to the south-east, a rich oasis evidently
extended for several miles behind the belt of canes which
fringes the whole Sebkha south and east. The strip of green
and forest gradvially contracts, till at the south-east corner
it disappears altogether from view. Behind it rise a series of
bluff, precipitous hills, the lower parts of which are here a
deep red, and, as we afterwards ascertained, a red sandstone.
From these hills an abundant supply of fresh water gushes
forth, and fertilizes all the land above the level of the Sebkha,
upon reaching which it is neutralized by the salt deposits.
This oasis, which bears to the Safieh the same relation
that that of Ain Duk does to Ain Sultan at Jericho, has a
village called Feifeh, inhabited by the same tribe of Ghawa-
rineh as the other, and stretches about eight miles south of
the sea.

CAPTURE OF PEISONEIIS. 335

It seems evident that the Sebklia is merely tlie scooped-out
basin, from which the streams have washed all the diluvial
marl, and then deposited the rich nmd which now covers it ;
hut it is too strongly impregnated with various salts from
the occasional overflows, or from the subterranean drainage,
to permit of any vegetation. At the depth of eighteen inches
in the plain, the soil was a fat, greasy loam. The furrowed
and slashed ridge in front records the power of the streams,
while the line of driftwood far inland marks the annual or
occasional rise of the sea.

Close to the hanks of the last stream, the Wady Tufileh,
(liaving a permanent flow, and the water of which, coming from
the Ghor of Feifeh, was only brackish instead of abominably
bitter,) the ground rises, and is covered by the narrow belt of
reeds, of his passage through which De Saulcy gives so for-
midable an account. Here we halted for the mules to come
up, and the guard to muster, while we picked up several very
good birds, A party of footmen were thrown forward as
sku-mishers, and soon came in with six armed men as
prisoners, whom they had found skulking in the bushes ; they
refused to give any account of themselves, or to state to wliat
tribe they belonged. All tliat was known of them was that
they were not Ghawarineh of the Safich, to whom we were
going ; and Abou Dahuk, who pronounced them to be Kaa-
biueh, and probably from Petra, ordered them into close cus-
tody, and informed them that if any one escaped the lives of
the others would be forfeited. We then, in military order,
with baggage in the middle, entered the Ghor. The reeds had
been lately cut, and afforded little cover, and the belt where
we crossed it was only sixty yards wide, up a gentle slope.
From this we entered immediately on the Ghor, a wild
thicket and oasis of trees of various kinds, with fertile glades
and opens of irregular shape, rising gradually to the moun-
tains of ]\Ioab ; and, here at its widest, extending three miles
.inland, about six miles to the north, and perhaps as many to
the south. As we advanced the trees became more open and
scattered, being chiefly retem, zizyphus, false balsam, and the

336 VEGETATION.

osher-tree ; and among these, the ground was tolerably culti-
vated for wlieat, barle}^, maize, and indigo, all of which were
now shooting up, and carefully watertid by innumerable little
rills brought down from the Wady Satieh. The thorns were
often impenetrable, and left their traces in our ragged dresses
and bleeding hands. The place positively swarmed with
birds in countless myriads, rising at every step with the in-
difference of strangership. There were doves by the score on
every bush, large and small {Ttcrtur risorius and T. a-gyptius),
bulbids, hopping thrush, shrikes, the gorgeous little sunbird,
resplendent in the light, and, once more, our new sparrow.
The Abyssinian lark, pipits, and wagtails luxuriated in the
moist rills at our feet, which were fringed by drooping tufts
of caper {Gapparis cegyptiaca) in full flower. All teemed
with a prodigality of life. It was, in fact, a reproduction of
the oasis of Jericho, in a far more tropical climate, and with
yet more lavish supply of water. The heat was even now
oppressive, and the atmosphere was close as in a moist stove-
house. "We were wild with excitement at the promise of a
rich harvest, but not a shot would our chieftain permit us to
fire till he had ascertained the history of our prisoners. For
three miles we rode through these rich groves, revelling in the
tropical verdure and swarming ornithology of its labyrinths.
But all the garden tillage was desolate — not a human being
did we meet, though w^e passed a little village about half a
mile from us on the right. A little ahead of us hundreds of
ravens, kites, and other birds of prey were soaring thick as
rooks over a newly-ploughed field. At length we reached the
head village of the tribe, where we were to camp, and from
whose Sheikh Abou Dahuk had a letter promising a good re-
ception. A reed wattled stockade enclosed it, and the hovels
were built of reed mats fixed to posts, and plastered witli
mud. A sudden turn brought us in front of the stockade.
It was a smouldering ruin, and the embers were yet hot and
smoking. Our guard ahead raised a yell, and made a rush
forward. We spurred our horses to follow them, and leaped
the charred and smoking embers. Scrambling through the

fJENEEAL PILLAGE. 337

burning fragments, T came upon the body of a man stripped
naked, with a bnllet-hole through his hip. A piteous scene
of ruin was around us. We were in the middle of an open
space of some size, whicli was surrounded by wattled houses
all within tlie palisade, some of them burnt, otliers still
standing. All order and discipline were lost in a moment.
Another hideous yell, and half our guard liad disappeared.
AVith the true Bedouin instinct, they were plundering and
searching for loot in all directions. The square was full of
"silos," the underground concealed granaries of the inhabit-
ants. These had been opened and left exposed, and to them
a rush was made, and each man leaped into the first he could
find. There might have been about fifty of these storehouses,
vacli rather more than six feet deep. One of the muleteers in
front of me, seizing a sack threw it down a hole, and jumped,
down after it. Heaps of millet, wheat, barley, and indigo
were being briskly thrown up from the granaries on all sides,
and had an enemy at that moment appeared, he would have
found the whole guard below gTound, and had to contend
with the Franks alone. Others were rushing into the yet
standing houses, and searching for plunder there. Meanwhile
we stood together, dismounted, in a group, silent with amaze-
ment and horror. In one house lay the naked body of a lad,
apparently about sixteen years of age, and across another
doorway was stretclied the body of a man — slain, no doubt, in
defending his wife and home. We turned sickened from the
fearful sight, and joined in conclave apart. It was in vain to
attempt to get an explanation, or to gain attention from anj^
one except Giacomo. Our baggage had all been discharged
from the mules, wliile the whole party were searching for
|)hnider and filling their sacks. What could it all mean ?
Wliat was the story of this horrid scene which they beheld
with such joyous excitement ? All we could make out
was, that there must have been a battle a day or two since —
that the villagers had been beaten and fled — and that the
victors, after sacking the place, had left with their plunder.
At length we got hold of the Sheikh, and asked him what we

z

338 COUNCIL OF WAIJ.

were to do. "Oh," said old Abou, " we have had notliing to
do with the fray. Of course we will cainp here to-night, and
you can go and search the Ghor." " Here ! " we exclaimed,
" among all these dead bodies I " " Yes ; it will be nearer for
onr men to get what is left. When God has provided ns a
dinner, should we not be foolish not to eat it ? " " But God
did not provide it for us, but for the Ghawarineh." " True ;
but they have left it, and if we do not take it, some one
else will. Besides, the Ghawarineh are our friends, and
would rather we than their enemies should have the good
things." In vain we all expostulated. "We were told it
Avas no affair of ours — that we should be protected — but they
would take what was theirs by Arab law and custom, which
was all riglit. Meanwhile, other pits had been discovered
inside the houses, under the women's apartments, filled with
indigo, which liad escaped the search of the original plun-
derers. Many of the barley sacks were speedily emptied, and
filled with an ample store of the more precious commodity,
while old Hamzi went smilingly round, feeling the weight of
the sacks, and encouragingly tapping the looters on the back,
exclaiming, " tayib, tayib," — " good, good."

At length we carried our point about the camp ; and, after
many threats and angry words, our baggage was got on to the
mules again, and we went up about a mile to a little open
ground by a rill, where we should have a tolerably clear space
to prevent a surprise ; and here we halted and took counsel on
our position. Were we to go on, or to return, was the question.
The Sheikh was ready to go on : we were a very strong party,
quite a match, he considered, for 150 men; and if the case
were, as he imagined, a war between two tribes, we should have
nothing to fear, but must merely take care to keep ourselves
neutral. But then he had heard of no wars in the neighbour-
hood, and the thing must have been very sudden, for rumour
flies fast in these regions. The Kerak man, who had been
with us for some days, opined it had only been a sudden raid,
but he would not venture to go on in the daylight. Could
we stay in the Safieh ? This we all decided in the negative,

CAUSES OF FERTILITY. 339

tempting as the spot was in every way for the naturalist,
for one party or tlie otlier was sure to return in tM^o or
three days, eitlier for phinder or war, and neither would be
in any humour to find strangers roaming about the place.
However, as we were so far, we determined to remain' for the
day, and see what Ave could, as it was not yet noon, and our
chieftain assured us he could answer with his head for our
personal safety. As to the movements of to-morrow, we agreed
to defer the consideration of them until after dinner, and
meanwhile to make the most of our time.

Leaving orders that the mules should be unloaded, and the
tents pitched in this place, B., U., and I hastily pushed on, in
the first instance, towards the north, accompanied by a small
picked guard, in order to ascertain the limits of the Ghor; not
without a shivering feeling that we might come on dead bodies
at any step. However, the ravens and eagles were all busied
nearer the sea to the left, so we rightly guessed we were safe
from this on the upper side. The fertile Ghor appears to
contract about a mile south of the spot at which we entered
it, and then to expand where the feeders of the Wady Tufileh
come down from the hills ; but it extends about six miles
to the northward. On pushing forwards, we found an endless
variety of shrubs and plants, many of them new to us, the
most conspicuous beside the cultivated indigo being the osher,
or Sodom apple, and a beautiful creeping caper. We soon
peached the Nahr-es-Safieh, a plentiful stream flowing down
from the Moab mountains, in a north-westerly direction, and
supplying the numberless artificial rills we had crossed. This
is the source of all the wealth of the Ghor. On its ritrlit
hank, which rises steeply, all was barren desolation, a mass
^f rugged debris heaped at the foot of the mountains ; on its
It'ft l)ank all was verdure and luxuriance, down to the very
' flge of the sea. At a little more than half an hour from the
I amp we crossed the river near its entrance into the lake, and
just afterwards another stream (apparently a fork of the Safieh),
the Khaderah. Here the Ghor contracts, and the hills push
<lose to the lake, alrao.st interrupting the belt of wood and

z 2

840 IinXED SUGAR MILLS.

cultivation. On adxiincing a little fuvther we Ibnnd ourselves
in the Glior-en-N'jneirali, and could see the course of tlie
river of that name, by the side of which are some ruins,
which we could not examine, as we dared not proceed without
our guard ; and they refused to advance a step further. The
Sheikh had told ns of ruins here, and most probably this is
the site of the ancient Nimrim, mentioned both by Isaiah
and Jeremiah in the burden of ^loab. " For the waters of
Nimrim shall be desolate, for the hay (herbage) is withered
away, the grass faileth, there is no green thing " (Is. xv. 6) ;
and " the \\'aters also of Nimrim shall be desolate" (Jer. xlviii.
JM). There is certainly a singular appropriateness, if this be
the locality, in the expression, " the waters of Nimrim," with
these plenteous brooks gushing from the lofty hills, and then
hugging them, loth to enter the sea until they have run far to
the northward, and done their work of fertilizing the shores
with their numberless streamlets. Let these supplies be cut
off, and the curse indeed has come upon Nimrim, the herbage
is all withered at once, the grass has failed, there is no
green thing, and the desolation is like that of the salt plain |d
opposite.

On returning to the south, but keeping as close to the
eastern edge of the oasis as we could, we found, about half a
mile to the east of the village of Safieh, a fine ruin, apparently
of the Crusading times, with a well-built pointed arch, quite
perfect, the old gateway of the building, of the same style as
that at Masada, and with the same astronomical (?) symbols
carved or scratched on its lintels. Tliere could be no doubt
of the former iLses of this building, from the aqueduct, and
frames for mill-wheels could be plainly identified, even if
we had not had the evidence of the Arabs, who called it the
" Tawahin-es-Sukkar," " sugar mills." ^

1 These are endentlj- tlie sugar mills mentioned by Burckhardt (Travels,
p. SOL) who after describing the Safieh and Mezraah, and identifying the
former with Zoar, adds also, from the information he obtained at Kerak,
" Abont the middle of the lake on the same eastern shore are some ruins of
an ancient city, called Towahein-el-Sukkar. Farther north the mountains

GEOLOGY. 34-1

The ruins exactly resembled those of the sugar mills at
Jericho, of which in all respects the Safieh is a striking coun-
terpart in art as well as nature. The village is of the same
style, composed of wattled huts, only seen by us in these two
places and on the plain of Acre, where they are used by
a colony of the same race ; and there is the same bare stony
spur between the mountains and the oasis, with similar ruins
ujion it. Just above this ruined mill are remains, apparently
of a coarsely-built old cliapel, or Crusaders' church. The
whole of these buildings probably belonged to the period of
the Crusades, and would form a natural link in the chain
of posts and settleiiients which connected Kerak with the
west side. Yet here, as at Jericho, the balsam, palm, and
sugar cane have utterly perished.

AVliile examining the ruins, we espied two horsemen and
five footmen reconnoitering us from a little distance, who on
being observed fled up the mountains. We obtained some
specimens of the sunbird, and a male of the pretty new
sparrow (Passer moabiticus, Tristr.), which, on being shot, fell
into a nest at the top of a tree, and delayed us long in
retrieving it. "We also secured abundance of doves and
partridges for dinner.

Hastily we hurried across the rugged belt of debris east
of the ruins, to examine the nature of the cliffs. These we
found in strong contrast with all we had seen on the other
side. A red sandstone of great thickness forms the face of
the mountains, topped, so far as we could see, by a calcareous
limestone in the upper part, corresponding doubtless to the
formations on the western side. Unless we were nmch de-
ceived, there is a hard crystalline and mctamorphic limestone

run down to this lake, and a steep cliff overhangs the sea for about an hour,
shutting out all passage along the shore." Burckhardt seems to have fancied
these ruins a little further to the north tlian they really are, and to have
heeu misinformed as to the i)racticability of the road under the clift', which
wjLs travei-sed by De Saulcy. Dr. Eobinson, who had no information on these
parts, is rather hard on Slicikh Ibrahim, and remarks (vol. i. 556), that he has,
on the random information of the Aralss, placed Tawahiucl-Sukkar on the
eastern shore of the Dead Sea, a most improbable site.

342 SANDSTONE AND TRAP.

beneath this red sandstoue. Quantities of trap boulders
strewed tJie foot of the mountains, and we picked up several
fragments of greenstone and of syenite, but could not trace
their origin. There was a dip of 8° in the sandstone stratum,
apparently S. by E. Tlie absence of the sandstone on the
western side is curious, and seems to point to the great anti-
quity of the gorge, as having been formed before the tertiary
period. How has it slipped out ? Has it been denuded on
the west, or has it been elevated, and the chalk denuded, on
the east ? Perhaps the depression commenced soon after the
deposition of the sandstone. "\Ve had no time to look for
fossils, nor to trace out the source of the igneous fragments
so abundant all round us. Among the specimens we pre-
served was a fine piece of hard red limestone, very like rosso
antico.

Our guard, who had all along been very uneasy, hastened
us back to camp, which we reached, Mdthout further adven-
ture, after sunset ; and we held a council of state with the
two Sheikhs and Giacomo. It was a sore trial to give up the
Lisan and Mezraah, and we had already paid the money for
safe conduct, which would be thrown away if we now turned
back. But if we went on, we should have no other means of
returning than by again traversing the Safieh, and we might
find ourselves embroiled in some Arab wars. To return in-
volved only one day's risk, to advance involved the uncer-
tain risk of a week. We were divided in opinion, B. as well
as myself being most anxious to complete the circuit of the
lake, which was not an object of special interest with some
of our friends. Old Abou Dahuk would give us no advice,
saying he had promised to conduct us safely, and as an old
warrior he would keep his word ; only adding that he had
heard nothing of this at'Aiir, and that evidently the country
was overturned. Giacomo meanwhile, who, though often
boasting of his courage, was a true Greek when it came to
the pinch, did his best to turn the scale on the safe side.

At length we agreed to return, and the Sheikh told us we
might sleep in peace ; for twenty-five men should be detailed

NIGHT WATCHES. 343

for patrols, and thirty-five remain awalvc round tlie watoli-
fires. Nine large fires were lighted in a circle, to give an
imposing appearance as of a very large force ; our horses and
mules stood picketed in iom's inside the watch-fires in front
of our tents ; a muster was made by the old Sheikh, each
man's piece was overhauled, and powder and ball served out
to him, and Abou Dahuk bade us go to bed and be happy,
Init at the same time added, that we had better not undress,
and must be sure to keep all our arms by our side. He had
good reason for this, as he informed us, after we were well
away, that he had wormed the truth out of our six prisoners,
who were Bedouin of the Kaabineh tribe, from the north of
the Wady Moussa (Petra), and who, having come 150 strong
on a secret marauding expedition, had fallen on the unhappy
\illage in the night ; that the inhabitants had fled towards
the Lisan ; wliile their own party had gone to the mountains
with as much plunder as they could carry, and were to return
in a few days for the rest. They said there were seven others
left with them, two horse and five foot, which corresponded
with the number we had seen run to the mountains, but
which we soon found to be an under statement made to put
the Jehalin off their guard — the real number left being nearer
fifty men. Such a band of Edomite brigands would have
been far more dangerous to us than Arab belligerents, as they
were restrained by no tribal laws of war. However, we were
ignorant of this at the time. After joining in prayer together
for protection and safety, we retired to our respective tents,
and I en\aed my tent-comrades, who were soon sound asleep
on their mats. Our Kerak companion had already started
under cover of the darkness, hoping to elude the brigands,
who might be on the look-out.

The wind was blowing hot and gusty, and swept choking
clouds of dust into every crevice of tent and clothing ; and
liour after hour I rose and visited the watchfires, which were
burning bright and still so near that, sickening scene of de-
struction. Every man was on tlie alert, and the qui vive
went hourly round, after which a stentorian voice roared out,

344 RAVENS.

" Hear, all men : this is the camp of the great warrior Abou
Dahiik, who is conducting Englishmen, friends of the Sultan,
and is at peace with all men. Touch him not, and on you be
peace." This friendly warning did not, however, prevent a
more than peaceful inquisitiveness on the part of sundry
strangers ; for no loss than twelve prisoners were captured
during the night, probably scouts sent to reconnoitre our
strength. It was, except for the gusts of the sirocco, a lovely
night ; and the moon, bright in a cloudless sky, favoured not
ambuscades, while she lit up the rich red mountains, which
towered in front, with a glowing flood of colour. That inex-
pressibly calm beauty in the works of God, and the hideous
scene so near us, the work of man, were in startling contrast.
I could fancy the human storm pictured in the volumes of
dust which swept along the ground, but never rose five feet
above it.

January 29th. — After a night of feverish anxiet}^, the hum
of preparation which began at five o'clock was indeed welcome ;
and, thankful for safety, we met again in our tent. All the
baggage was loaded, and everything ready for a start before
sunrise, as there was little packing to be accomplished. With
the dawn we began to look after the ornithology of the district,
and especially the ravens, who were rapidly coming in from
the south, and against whom we perpetrated a regular battue
on their way to their uncleanly feast. " Wheresoever the
carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together," was
unmistakeably illustrated here, and all the vultures and kites
of North Arabia seemed to be rushing to the banquet. We
brought do^^'n more specimens than we could carry of the
three species of raven — the common, the brown-necked, and
the new wedgetail (C. ajffinis) ; the vultures and raptors sailed
too high, out of reach of our shot. But our people were
impatient for the move, and we had to proceed onwards. Qur
guard, however imposing in numbers, could have been but of
little use in case of attack to-day, unless they had stripped,
for each man had turned his abeiyah into a sack, and trudged
heavily along, borne down under his weight of plunder. We

c.vMP AT zuweii;aii. :U5

started a little in advance of them, spreading ourselves ou
each side to search for skulkers, M'ho might not have been all
captured during the night, and we shot hard as we went,
securing, besides several rare birds, some thirty couple of
doves for the next two days' dinner.

By seven o'clock we reached the reed belt, where our
eighteen prisoners were dismissed, and went on their way
across the Sebkha towards Wady Moussa by the ravine of
the Wady Jeib ; while we rode westwards to our old quarters
outside the Wady Zuweirah, where we were in perfect safety,
our guard was reduced to twenty-five men, and the rest
were sent home by their chieftain. After dinner the Sheikhs

Vi^^YSjj^ •jj'teSasKiaiaj^

•im^^-

0.\SIS OF ZUWEIR.A.H.

came in, in high good humour ; for Hamzi, with his old craft,
had bought from the men all the indigo at a nominal rate,
allowing them to retain the corn as their share of the booty.
We arranged that, to console us for our loss and disappoint-
ment eastwards, we should be conducted across the wilderness
of Judtea to the south as far as Beersheba, and thence up
to Hebron.' Having now learnt the whble history of the
raid against the Safieli, we felt we had acted prudently in
retreating, and only hoped we might never again have to

346 ABOU DAH^TK.

witness so sickening a siglit as the smouldering village of
yesterday. Yet our Arabs laughed at it, and said it was
nothing.

Our tents were beautifully planted on a rising ground near
where the Zuweirah issues into the plain, with the sea and
Jebel Usduni facing us to the east. We looked down on the
delta, apparently fertile, but really gravelly and barren,
studded with trees, through which half a dozen torrents must
sometimes pour down mighty floods, though now quite dry.
The scattered trees, and bright salsolas, and many Indian
])lants now in flower, gave to the scrub an air of richness
which could not last long. In some places the rose of Jericho
{Anastatica Mcroclmntina) was in bloom in great abundance.
The patch of comparative verdure, reaching two miles from
west to east, became gradually more barren as it receded
towards the hills. The camp was a truly picturesque Oriental
scene, particularly at night, with all our animals picketed ; the
horses, mules, and asses apart, on various sides of the central
group of four tents under the shadow of the proud red ensign,
and six or seven watchfires around, with the swarthy guard
reclining by them in little knots — wild-looking Ishmaelites,
equally ready to guard or to rob, but all implicity devoted to
their aged chieftain. Old Abou Dahuk, though the hero of
a hundred Arab lights, has nothing of the savage about him,
but has a very mild expression of countenance. Like all his
followers, he is very dark — not so black as the commonalty,
but of a deep olive brown. This may partly arise from the
habit of these people, who never wash. They occasionally take
off their clothes, search them, slaughter their thousands, and
air themselves, but never apply water to their persons. The
consequence is, that when they perform their toilet, although
they are camped tentless under a clump of bushes ten yards
in the rear of our tent, the odour is unendurable. The old
chief is as filthy in his dress as in his person, his " kafiyah,"
or head-dress, having long lost its original red and yellow, and
all his outer garments of many colours having, with the ex-
ception of his red boots, sombred into a dingy uniform brown.

H.\Mzi. 347

But his white calico shui is bright and clean, and so are
his arms.

He is the most powerful Sheikh between Hebron and Petra,
being head of the Jehalin, who now roam from this corner
nearly to Gaza and up to Hebron. To the south he borders
upon the scoundrels of Petra, and thus occupies the whole
" Negeb," or south country of Judasa, with the country of the
Amalekites. The old man is fond of music of a sort, and
every evening a youth of the guard comes under the tree and
sits down before him. This youthful David will sometimes
play before his royal Saul on a long reed, wdth three notes in
a minor key, for hours together. ]\Iany of our customs perplex
the old man very much, especially our eating off separate
plates, wliicli he considers very unbrotherly ; and our using
forks, when God has given us so many fingers. INIy map-
making is not quite such a mystery to him, as he had watched
I)e Saulcy, Van de Velde, and Poole at the same work, and
is very fond of telling us long stories about our predecessors
and their adventures, scarcely half of which we can com-
prehend. They have all, however, left a very affectionate
remembrance in the memory of their old guide, who expatiates
largely on their virtues, and their follies in determining to see
places where he told them tliere was nothing to find but old
stones. ^I. de Saulcy evidently has the first niche in his
AValhalla of Western travellers, somewhat dearly purchased, I
fear, by over-liberal backshish. His adjutant Hamzi is an
aristocratic-looking old man, rather better dressed than his
chief, very fair and hght coloured, with a long pointed grey
beard, aquiline nose, eyes set close together, and a keen
avaricious expression of countenance, which his dealings with
us and his quiet glee at the looting of the burning village
fully bear out. He is cringingly and fawningly civil, while
the old Sheikh is dignified and even princely in h.is bearing.
For ever he pesters us by coming to our tent, and inquiring
in oily tones, " Enta mabsost? Ana mabsost;" "Are you
content ? Then I am content." The five or six men who sit
round the same w^atchfire (for none of them would condescend

348

JEHALIN GUAKD.

to a tent in travelling) are of noble families, and are remark-
ably distinct in feature, style, and even in colour, from the
commonalty. They are taller, much sharper in feature — so
much so as to susfgest a difference of race.

SHEIKH HAMZI.

The common herd of footmen are nearly black, with locks
of their black, coarse, and almost woolly hair carefully plaited
down in tails from their otherwise shaven crowns, and stick-
ing out from under a greasy brown woollen fez. All are
breechless and barelegged ; some barefooted, others with a
piece of hide for sandals, tied by a thong on to the toe ; and
none of th.eni wear more than a short ragged shirt, and a short
mantle over it, with a kafiyeh bound round^with a camel's-
hair rope. Over the mantle is usually thrown a sheepskin,
untanned, the woolly side in ; the outside being used every
evening as a kneading-trough, when each one takes his hand-
ful or two of grain, pounds it between two stones, then mixes
a little salt and water, and having kneaded the knotty flour
on the back of his jacket, thrusts it for half an hour into

• AX INFF.TIIOr. CASTE. 849

the hot embers. This rough hread seems to be their whole
sustenance, except a ha,ndl\il or two of parched peas in the
morning, and the wild sorrel and seeds they gather on the
march during the day. Our own bread is made for each meal
in the same fashion, always excepting the leathern kneading-
trough, and the grinding, which has been done beforehand ;
and we find these simple, unleavened barley-cakes very good
and wholesome.

The Sheikhs alone have coffee, which they look to us to
supply ; and a pipe of tobacco seems to be the only luxury of -
their followers. These have an abject, vacant look ; and we
quite agreed with Lynch that the Jehalin are among the
most degraded of the Bedouin. They are far inferior to the
Ghawarineh of Jericho, and even backshish will scarcely
rouse them to exertion. Eather than fetch water for them-
selves, they drove our muleteers and servants nearly to dis-
traction by their incessant demands on the water-skins. AVe
could not induce them to collect or look about for anything ;
and when out with us— for w^e were rarely allowed to move
alone — if we stopped to examine a fossil or a plant, the guards
would be down on their hams, and asleep in a moment. But
they are nocturnal animals, and keep up an uninterrupted
chatter all night round the watch-fires. One old man, how-
ever, was compelled by his necessities to collect : even among
the poverty-stricken, he was the poorest ; and a piteous tale
he related of his wife and three children having only the milk
of a couple of goats on which to sustain life ; for he was too
old to go to war for plunder, and had no friends to help him
at home. The reward of a piastre brought him to his knees,
with tears in his eyes. Debased as these poor wanderers were,
they w^ere all decidedly of the Semitic type, and, excepting
the colour and the smell, had nothing of the negro about
them. They must, however, be far inferior to the races they
have supplanted, and one can scarcely believe them to be of
the same Ishmaelite blood as the Sheikhs. The two classes
never intermarry, for the high-caste Arabs are the proudest
of aristocrats.

350

GEOLOGY OF THE ZUWEIRAH.

January ^Oth. — We were up hefore dawn, sensible of the
blessing of a quiet rcstini];-place, and thankful to the Pro-
vidence which had guarded us from all dangers. Even in
this strange corner of the world, we felt at home, after the
uncertainties of yesterday. U. and I started before sunrise
to get a bathe in the rain-pools, some two miles up the Wady
Zuweirah, whither we had to send for our scanty supply of

WADV ZfWKIk.VlI.

water. We first of all cut a cross A\ith a chisel on a solitary
rock, five feet above the present sea-level, as a record of its
height, and then measured the entrance of the Wady, 210 feet
above this, where we inscribed another cross. Like the other
wadys, it is edged by the white cliffs of the diluvial marl.

GEOLOGY OF THE ZUWEIRAH. 351

often streaked with stones and pebbles, and interspersed witli
boulders. We had here a good illustration of the two epochs
of the Glior — its original limestone basin, when it sank to its
present level, and its snbsequent tertiary elevation. May not
this deposit liave been formed in a shallow sea, the belts and
bands of pebbles being disposed as they woidd be in running-
water with pools in it ? Perhaps the bed was formed and
arranged rather by the advance of a sea as the Ghor slowly
sank, than by the deep water of a sea-bottom. The whole
deposit seems to be derived from the decomposition and re-
arrangement of the limestone barriers which enclose the lake,
sifted as they would be by the action of running water with
pools, where the finer particles would rest, enclosing any
boulders which mioht be washed in during floods of unusual
strencfth. As the land sank, the diluvium would be con-
sensed in a constantly-deepening sea, and levelled at the
actual water-line, as beach after beach disappeared beneath
the waves.

"We followed the windings and twistings of the valley,
which at times narrowed to a few feet, between enclosing
precipices of the hard secondary limestone, the cleft of which
existed long previous to the diluvial period, as evidenced by
a partial lining of the latter which rested against its sides
here and there, not quite obliterated by the torrents Avhich
had scooped it out a second time. The junction of the two
strata was beautifully exhibited in this valley, in a per}ien-
dicular section of 200 or 300 feet.

Tlie diluvial marl here reaches a height of at least 650 feet
above the sea. Numerous peaks and rocks of the limestone
cut through the diluvium, many of which w^ere never covered
by it, but must have existed as islands or peninsulas when
the lake was at this level. We found beds of fossils {Exogyra
densata, Conr.) in this older limestone.

Just before reaching the pools, in a widened bay of the
chasm, was a stack of the diluvium, crowned with a ruined
fort, and at the foot an enclosure, with a pointed-arch doorway
of fine masonry, the entrance of a dilapidated and now in-

352

RUINED FOKTEESS.

accessible pathway to the crow's-nest above, some eighty feet
high. The archway was exactly like that of Masada, and the
same rude signs have been subsequently cut on it as are there
visible. On. the south side of the valley, just opposite, was
a natural chamber, some fifty feet up, to which a stair of
masonry had been built, the fragments of which might be
traced, as well as a window cut in the rock. It was evidently,
with the citadel itself, a point of defence, and completely com-
manded the approaches both up and down the valley. But of
what epoch ? The ruin is scarcely mentioned by Dr. Eobinson,

^^^^^^:.

WADV (RIIN.-,; ZL WKiKAH.

who speaks of it as a modern Saracenic fort; while M. de
Saulcy fixes on the Zuweirah as having been the site of Zoar.
The latter theory has been amply disposed of by Mr. Grove's

CISTERN. 353

topogriiphical arguments, and by every writer who has visited
the spot ; and it is simply impossible that any city, however
small, beyond a merely military post, could ever have found
standing-gromid in this narrow gorge. But, while unwilling
to differ from so learned a topographer as Dr. Eobinson, I can
scarcely avoid the conviction, from the shape of the arch and
the masonry, that this, as well as Sebbeh, was a Crusaders'
post, perhaps afterwards repaired by the Saracens. While
Kerak was in Christian hands, the Zuweirah must not only
have been important as a connecting link to keep open the
conmiunication, but, as tlie strongest natural position in the
district, to check the inroads of marauders from the soutli-
west, who would naturally have passed through this defile,
still the hi<j;h-road to Hebron and Gaza. Zuweirah seems to
be another of the many instances which show that the grip of
the Crusaders upon the Holy Land was much firmer than we
are apt to imagine, and that they have left in all parts of it
the stamp of their architecture and their indefatigable building
energy.

Immediately above the ruins are the remains of a noble
cistern, which has been formed most naturally out of a great
liollow in the watercourse, by building up i^s sides, and roofing
it over with an arch. Tlie roof is destroyed, and the reservoir
filled witli mud. It must have been thirty feet deep. Did the
Bedouin but possess the forethought to preserve or adopt these
ancient appliances, they might have water everywhere round
these shores ; but, like true savages, with the sight and instinct
of the keenest red Indian, they are very babes in prevision or
prudence. A little above, as we scaled the polished rocks, we
came upon a long chain of pools, most of them dry, but some
twenty or thirty still containing a little rain-water, with a
thick deposit of mud below. Nature had provided us with
beautiful marble baths, and we each selected one. The water
was icy cold, for the sun cannot reach the deep fissure, and
not having as yet adopted the hydrophobic principles of our
hosts, we enjoyed a wash and a thorough soaping, whicli
effaced all remembrance of the feverish anxiety, the heat and

A A

354 AVAHY .MAIIAWAT.

the dust, of the last three days. There were many signs
near the pool of (hat exuheraui life M'hich the presence of
fresh water evokes in the most desolate of deserts — fine
acacias growing out of the clefts, many shrubs of a pretty
prickly astragalus^ in flower, salsolas, retem with its most
delicate of blossom^-, and a fine tall crimson ranunculus we
had not before seen. In some of the pools many small crus-
taceans of the shape of the common shrimp, and about three-
quarters of an inch long, were darting about, and were not
easily caught. How these little creatures preserve the con-
tinuity of their .species during the dry half of the year seems
a mystery, unless the larvae or eggs lie dormant at the bottom
of the muddy sediment. We shot a sunbird here, and a
fantail warbler ; but I also unfortunately signalised the morn-
ing by falling down a rock, and bruising not only mj^self, but
— what was of more consequence — my gun, an injury here
irreparable.

We returned to a very late breakfast, ravenous as wild In-
dians, and immediately after our meal set out to examine the
Wady Mahawat — a broad, deep, dry ravine, commencing two
miles to the south of us, and running up to the westward,
being the principal channel of the drainage of the wilder-
ness of Judnea south-east of Beersheba. Though not the
deepest, it was the finest gorge we had yet met with, from its
width and the bold sweep of many of its turns. It is similar
in character to the Wady Zuweirah, the same sharp cutting
through the old limestone, the same deposition of the post-
tertiary marl, and the same denudation of this latter. But
since the marl has been washed out there has been a second
filling in of -an extraordinary character, which is only now in
course of denudation. There are exposed on the sides of the
wady, and chiefly on the south, large masses of bitumen
mingled with gravel. These overlie a thin stratum of
sulphur, which again overlies a thicker stratum of sand, so
strongly impregnated with .sulphur, that it yields powerful
fumes on being sprinkled over a hot coal. j\Iany great
1 This species has not been ideutifietl at Kew.

SULFIIUR AND P.ITUMEN.

355

blocks of the l)ituiiu'i) luive been washed down tlie "orsie,
and lie scattered over the plain below, along with huge
boulders, and other traces of tremendous floods. The pheno-
menon commences about half a mile from where the wady
opens up on the plain, and may be traced at irregular intervals
for nearly a mile further up. The bitumen has many small
water-worn stones and pebbles embedded in it. We are at
once led to inquire what has been the probable origin of this
singular deposit. The first solution that suggests itself is
that the bitumen and sulphur may have been washed up when

GEOLOGICAL SECTION IN MAIIAWAT.
L. Sefoiidary limestone. D. Diluviniii, or marly deposit.

S. Suliilmidiis sand adhering to the side of the Wady.

the sea was at this level ; the next, that it may liave been
deposited by a spring on the spot. Of the latter we could
iind no traces, and all apyicarances are against it. Against the
former supposition are the objections — first, that the formation
is evidently subsequent to the scooping out of the marl, and
therefore to the subsidence of the lake ; secondly, that the
bitumen and sulphur are not deposited as they would have
been by a tide or stream, but at most irregular heights —
sometimes detached, sometimes in masses sliglitly and irre-
gularly connected with the next fragment by a thinner
stratum. The layer of sulphurous sand is generally evenly

A A 2

356 , DESTRUCTIOX OF RODOM.

distributed on the old limestone base, the sidpliur evenly
above it, and the bitumen in variable masses. In every way
it differs from the ordinary mode of deposit of these substances
as we have seen them elsewhere. Again, the bitumen, unlike
that which we pick up on the shore, is strongly impregnated
with sulphur, and yields an overpowering sulphurous odour;
above all, it is calcined, and bears the marks of having
been subjected to extreme heat. In weight and appearance
it diffi'rs from the bitumen of the shore as coke does from
ordinary coal. "Whether any other chemical action than heat
may account for this, I do not say. The pebbles and
boulders, which are far more numerous near the top than the
bottom of the deposit, have probably been simply dropped on
the surface by the stream, which must have flowed over the
bed for many ages before denuding it, and have gradually
penetrated more or less deeply as they lay there.

Here, so far as I can judge, we haA^e the only trace of any-
thing approaching to volcanic action which we have met with
in our careful examination of the northern, Avestern, and
southern shores. The only other solution of the problem, the
existence of a bituminous spring when the supply of Avater
was more abundant, would scarcely account for the regular
deposition of the sulphurous sand, and then of the sand with
the bitumen superimposed. I have a great dread of seeking
forced corroborations of Scriptural statements from question-
able physical evidence, for the sceptic is apt to imagine that
when he has refuted the wrong argument adduced in support
of a Scriptural statement, he has refuted the Scriptural state-
ment itself ; but, so far as I can understand this deposit, if
there be any physical evidence left of the catastrophe which
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, or of similar occurrences, we
have it here. The M'holc appearance points to a shoAver of
hot sulphur and an irruption of bitumen upon it, which would
naturally be calcined and impregnated by its fumes ; and this
at a geological period quite subsequent to all the diluvial and
alluvial action of which we have such abundant evidence.
The vestiges remain exactljr as the last relics of a snow-drift

NATUKAL AND SUrEllXATLKAL AGENCIES. :^)57

remain in spring — an atmospheric deposit. The catastrophe
must have been since the formation of the wady, since tlic
deposition t»f the marl, and while the water was at its pre-
sent level ; therefore, probably, during the historic period. The
traces are extremely local, not extending to the neighboming
wadys, nor very fiir up this one. Unfortunately, no previous
traveller has searched the wady, and we have no opinions of
competent observers to guide us, Eobinson and Van dc Velde
passed to the south of it ; De Saulcy, Wolcott, and Poole, all
went to the north of it.

Two questions here naturally occur to us ; — viz. the site of
the Cities of the Plain, and the means used to accomplish
their destruction. With regard to the latter, the inspired
writer simply says, "The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
tfOmorrah brimstone and lire from the Lord out of heaven "
(Gen. xix. 24) ; and though this passage has generally been
read as signifying destruction from the eruption of a volcano,
this is by no means necessarily imjdied. Nor can it be
admitted to be simply a question (depending on the date of
the basm of the Dead Sea, and on the existence of traces of
volcanic action in the neighbourhood of the lake within the
historic period,) whether the ordinary interpretation of Gen.
xix. is to be accepted, or whether one is to be sought " more
consonant with the conclusions of modern scientific know-
ledge." We shall find ourselves adrift in a sea of endless
l)erplexities if we endeavour to ascribe every instance in
which the Bible speaks of the interposition of Providence, to
the operation of natural causes : and we might as well expect
modern scientific knowledge to reveal to us the cause of the
miraculous supply of water in the wilderness, the provision of
tlie manna, the passage of the Eed Sea, and the crossing of
the Jordan, or the overthrow of the walls of Jericho, as the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If every occurrence in
Sacred History is to be thus tested and accounted for, the
whole question of miraculous intervention has Ijeen sur-
rendered to the enemy, and modern scientific knowledge, not
legitimate criticism, is made the test of Scriptural authenticity.

358 ABSENCE OF VOLCANIC TRACES.

If we are told in the Biljle that any special event was brought
about by the ordinary agencies of nature, like the thunder-
storm in wheat harvest (1 Sam. xii. 16 — 18), the extraordinary
droughts, or the rain in answer to Elijah's prayer on Carmel,
let us by all means accept the ex])lanation ; but when it is
declared to us that any visitation like those alluded to above,
like that under consideration, or like the fire from heaven
which consumed Elijah's sacrifice, was sent direct from God ;
and we are not told of any ordinary or so called natural
agency being employed ; if, in such cases, we are to suspend
our belief in the occurrences until we have dug in the earth
to find the records of natural causes, we may as well at once
refuse all credence to the miraculous as beyond our own
experience, and reduce the word, of God to the level of the
tales of Egyptian priests, or the traditions of Livy.

I think there can be no question but that the old notions of
volcanic agencies about the Dead Sea were erroneous, and
that many writers, like De Saulcy, have been misled by en-
deavouring to square their preconceived interpretation of
Scripture with the facts they saw around them. The pre-
ceding pages have shown, with perhaps a wearisome prolixity,
that such traces are not to be found ; that the whole region
has been slowly and gradually formed through a succession of
ages ; and that its peculiar phenomena are similar to those
of other salt lakes in Africa, or referable to its unique and
depressed position. But setting aside all preconceived notions,
and taking the simple record of Gen. xix. as we find it, let us
see whether the existing condition of the country throws any
light upon the Biblical narrative. Certainly we do observe
by the lake sulphur and bitumen in abundance. Sulphur
sjuings stud the shores, sulphur is strewn, Avhether in layers
or in fragments, over the desolate plains , and bitumen is
ejected in great floating masses from the bottom of the sea,
oozes through the fissures of the rocks, is deposited with gravel
on the beach, or, as in the Wady ^Nfahawat, appears with
sul})hur to have been precipitated during some convulsion.
We know that at the time of earthquakes in the north, the

THE CITIES OF THE PI.AIN NOT SUBMEKGED. 359

bitumen seems even in our own day to be detached from the
bottom of the lake, and that floating islets of that substance
have been evolved (see Ilobinson, Ees. i. 518), coincident with
the convulsions so frequent in north-eastern Palestine. Every-
tliing leads to the conclusion that the agency of fire was at
work, though not the overflowing of an ordinary volcano.
The materials were at hand, at whichever end of the lake we
place the doomed cities, and may probably have been accumu-
lated then to a much greater extent than at present. The
kindling of such a mass of combustible material, eitlier by
lightning from heaven, or by other electrical agency, combined
■with an earthquake ejecting the bitumen or sulphur from the
lake, would soon spread devastation over the plain, so that the
smoke of the country would go up as the smoke of a furnace.
There is no authority whatever in the Biblical record for the
popular notion that the site of tlie cities has been sub-
merged ; and INIr. Grove (in his able and exhaustive article in
the Bib. Diet., " Sodom,") has justly stated that "there is no
warrant for imagining that the catastrophe was a geological
one, and in any other case all traces of action must at this
distance of time have vanished." The simple and natural
explanation seems — when stripped of all the a\ ild tradition
and strange horrors with which the mysterious sea has been
invested — to be this : that during some earthquake, or without
its direct agency, showers of sulphur, and probably bitumen,
ejected from the lake, or thrown up from its shores, and
ignited perhaps by the liglitning which would accompany
such phenomena, fell upon the cities and destroyed them.
The history of tlie catastrophe has not only remained in tlic
inspired record, but is inscribed in tlie memory of the sur-
rounding tribes by many a local tradition and significant
name.

The question of the site of the Cities of the Plain has been
involved in much obscurity. It is, however, limited, since
they were not submerged, to two only possible localities, the
lower end of the lake and tlie upper. In favour of the former
position, generally adopted by recent writers, there are various

360 ARGUMENTS FOR TIIEIR POSITION.

consiilerations ; and Dr. Kobiiisoii luis assumed this view as
a iiuitter beyond question. First, there is the general tradi-
tionary evidence from the time of Josephus and Jerome, who
identify a Zoar at the south-east of the Dead Sea with the
Zoar of the Pentapolis. Secondly, there is the strong argument
from the existence of the names Avhich are applied to localities
at the southern extremity, as Usdum, Zoghal, and, though at
a considerable distance back from tlic lake, Wady 'Amrah.
Thirdly, there is the existence of the jNlountain of Salt at
that end, illustrative of tlie fate of Lot's wife : to which may
be added the presence there of the vast even plain of the
Sel)kha, and tlie shallow sea which forms its continuation.

But, examined in detail, these arguments are far from con-
clusive. The tradition of Josephus and Jerome seems contra-
dicted by the plain description of the localities in the earlier
record of Scripture. The argument from the names of the
places is not irresistible, for none of them are convertible
literatim \f\ih the Hebrew, and Dra'a, a^.d, the modern Zoar,
is further from the Hebrew "Ij/V than Zoghal (e)^.j), which
cannot possibly be the Zoar of the Pentateuch. There is no
difficulty in supposing either that there were two Zoars at
the same time, or that a new town sprung up in a different
locality, and assumed the name of the elder. How many
Kadeshes, Gilgals, or Shalems may we not find through the
country, like the Newtons or Suttons of England ? The
existence of the Salt Mountain of Usdum, of the plain of the
Sebkha, with its bitumen (slime-pits), and the deposition of the
sulphur and bitumen discovered by us in the Wady Mahawat,
do not invalidate the existence of similar phenomena on other
parts of the lake.

r>ut when we turn to the arguments for the position of
the cities at the north end, in the plain of Jordan, between
Jericho and the seas, though less popular, they carry with
them to the writer's mind a preponderating w^eight of evidence.
First, there is tlu; uniform expression, " the Cities of the
Plain," o\ plain of Jordan, "ciccar" ("133) i.e. the circle of
Jordan, an epithet most appr(ii>riate, as all those will know

POSITION OF SODOM. 3G1

who have gazed on that circle from tlio surrounding mountain-
tops, but wholly inapplicable, and one which never was or
could be, by any stretch of language, ap]^lied to the south end
of the sea, where the Jordan never flowed, or, if it ever did, it
must have been in a geologic epoch far remote from the
appearance of man on the earth. Abraham and Lot stood
together between Bethel and Hai, when " Lot lifted up his
eyes and beheld all the plain oi' Jordan, that it was well
watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and
Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of
Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all
the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east." (Gen. xiii. 10, IL)
Now from these hills it is impossible to gain a glin)pse of the
south end of the Dead Sea, shut off by distance and by lofty
intervening mountains, while the ])hiin of Jericho is spread
almost at the beholder's feet, and the bright green oasis of
-Ain Sultan shines like an emerald in the dreary waste. If
the two fountains of Sultan and Duk can produce such
amazing verdure by their waters, in their present neglected
exuberance, what must not the whole plain have been when
it was well watered everywhere, " even as the garden of the
Lord," seeing that its whole subsoil, to the very edge of the
sea, is, as has been before mentioned, a rich alluvial loam?

Again, after the destruction of the cities, we are told that
Abraham, then encamped at ]\Iamre, " looked toward Sodom
and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and
beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the
smoke of a furnace." (Gen. xix. 2(S.) It is not here stated —
and we mark the verbal accuracy of the Scripture text — that
Abraham sav:, but that he looked totoarcl, the Cities of the
Plain. From personal observation, we may add that while
from the hill aljove Mamre the plain itself is invisible, yet
the depression between the nearer hills and the distant tops
of Ajlun is plainly to be perceived, wliich is not the case
with the depression of tlio southern Glmr, ami tliat therefore
Abraham could have at once identified the locality whence
the smoke arose.

362 zoAR.

Again, in tlie account of the inroad of Cliedorlaomer, we are
told tliat the Assyrians smote the Horites in Mount Seir unto
El-Paran, and returned and smote the country of the Amale-
kites, and also the Amorites that dwelt in Hazezon Tamar.
(Gen. xiv. 7.) Hazezon Tamar, we know, is Engedi. It was
after this that the king of Sodom and his confederates met the
invaders in the vale of Siddim, and on their defeat Abraham
pursued the victors on their march home by Damascus, and
overtook them in Dan. Had Sodom and the other cities been
situated at the south end of the sea, it was certainly not after
smiting the Amalekites and the Amorites at Engedi that they
would have met the invader, but long before he reached
Hazezon Tamar. But when we place these cities in the plain
of the, Jordan, there is a topographical sequence in the whole
story, while Abraham and his allies hurriedly pursue the
plunderers up the Ghor without delay or impediment till they
overtake them at the sources of the Jordau.

Once more, in the view which was granted to Moses from
the top of Pisgah, he beheld " the south, and the plain of the
valley of Jericho, the" City of Palm Trees, unto Zoar." Now,
from the summit of Nebo it is utterly impossible to behold
the south-east of the Dead Sea, or the situation of the modern
Dra'a ; but if we place Zoar, as it naturally would be placed
according to the narrative of Lot's escape, at the foot of the
hill, between "Wady Dabur and lias Feshkhah, we see that
here was just the limit of jNIoses's view in accordance with
the record. As we gazed from the top of Nebo, the plain of
Jordan seemed to run on interruptedly till it was cut off by
the headland of Feshkhah, and the force and literalness of
the Scriptural description of the panorama came vividly home
to our minds.

We are told that Lot afterwards went up out of Zoar, and
dwelt in the mountain, in a cave. (Gen. xix. 30.) Zoar, we
know, must have been near Sodom, from the short time in
which Lot was able on foot to reach it ; and as his offspring
were the founders of jNIoab and Amnion, it may be argued
that his plac6 of refuge should have been on the eastern side,

MOAB AND AMMON. 363

Avbere those two nations afterwards settled. But apart from
the fact of a Zoar on the east being invisil»lc tVom Neho, the
steep faces of the mountains which overhang the western
])\dm are studded with caves, only a portion of which have
been adapted by the hermits for their troglodyte dwellings,
and in some of which may have been the safe refuge of Lot.
That Moab and Ben-ammi should have afterwards settled on
the opposite side of the Ghor is not surprising, when we
recollect that Western Canaan was thickly inhabited, that
"the Amorite was then in the land," and there could be no
diihculty in their crossing the river, as is continually done by
the inhabitants of the eastern side to the present day.

Of a population there prior to INIoab and Amnion we have
no record, and Heshbon, the original city of Moab (Num.
xxi. 26), and still more the land of Amnion, must have been
far more accessible from the caves above Jericho or Feshkhah
than from any locality near the Satieh or the south end of
the Lake. Mv. Grove has remarked (Bibl. Diet. iii. 1857)
that the Jerusalem Targum identities Zoar with Jericho, " the
plain of the valley of Jericho, the city which produces the
palm, that is Zeer." It is very possible that some of the cities
of Pentapolis may have been on the east side of the river,
in the plain of Shittim, which is quite as luxuriant and as
abundantly watered as the western plain of Jericho. On
that side, likewise, there is the broad belt of desolation, like
the sulphur-sprinkled expanse between Er Riha and the sea,
covered with layers of salt and gypsum, which overlie the
loamy subsoil, literally fulfilling the descriptions of Holy
AVrit, — " Brimstone, and salt, and Ijurning, . . . not sown, nor
beareth, nor any grass groweth therein." (Dent. xxix. 23.)
"A fruitful land turned into saltncss." (Ps. cvii. 34-.) " No man
shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it."
(Jer. xlix. 18.)

CHAPTEK XVI.

Departure from, the Dead Sea — Deserlption of the Llsan — The Negeh, or South
Country — Hadddah — Zuweirah el FGka — Srcdeid — Birds — Dotterel— Rujum
Sclamel {Shemn) — The Wolf — Wilderness of Judah — Ahou DahM's tevyding
Proposal — Offer of a Bedouin Wife— Mr. Wood lost in the Wilderness — El
MUdha {Moludah) — Wells— Muins— Cranes— Sand Grotise-Beersheba— Horned
Cottle Cultivation — The Wells — Insurgents — Their Chief, Mohammed Isa —
Rains — Turkish Foray — Flight into the Wilderness — Arab Warfare — Propo-
sals for the Pasha — Sudden colleetion of Warriors — Preeipitate Retreat from
Reersheba — Tell Hhora — Its Well — Ruins — Fugitives from Snfich — The Hill
Country ofjudah — Attir [Jattir) — Rafat — Scmua (Eshtema) — Turkish Officer
— Susieh — Yutta (Juttah) — Maon — Xunnul {Cccrm,el) — The Convoy lost —
Ride in the Darkness — Perils of the Way — Hebron at Night — Sheikh Hamzi's
House — Nocturnal Invasion — Hospitable Reception — Changes of Raiment.

January 31st, — Our last Smiday by the shores of the Dead
Sea, as we were to start the next day for the wilderness of
Beersheba. We returned hearty thanks for our preservation
from all perils through the week. The more we thought of
what had occurred, tlie more we felt how providentially all
had been timed. Had we not lingered longer than we had
intended at Ain Jidy, we should have been at Safieli the very
night of the attack, and must have been drawn in, either to
defend ourselves, or to help the villagers, who would have
been our hosts. Had we been two days later, we should
have come across the robbers from Petra returning for the
rest of their booty ; and had we gone on to the Lisan, we
should have come back in the thick of all the troubles. We
Avere glad to sit and read under " the shadow of a great rock,"
for tlie thermometer was 88° in the shade.

February 1st. — Farewell for the present to the Dead Sea,
and the balmy climate of its shores ! A winter sanatorium
at P^ngedi would surpass all that the Nile, Madeira, or Algiei's
can promise. It has l)een a month of intense interest ; and

DESCh'IPTIOX OF THE LISAN. 365

we cannot expect elsewhere the vivid enjoyments of this
lonely but not desolate shore. AVe finished our last eggs
and piece of meat on the table outside our tents, and then
ascended the Wady Zuweirah, where, after a rugged and
difhcult clamber to an elevation of 2,000 feet, we found
the temperature had fallen from 82" at eight a.m. to 60° at
eleven a.m.

We had here a complete panorama of the Lisan, the mys-
terious peninsula. Summing up our observations made from
different points, though we never set foot on it, it appears
altogether composed of the same chalky marl, salt and barren.
Its greatest height is from 250 to 300 feet, and the highest
point is a central ridge from north to south. Its sides are
steepest on the north face, but there is no regular angle of
inclination, as the edge is furrowed by countless little nullahs
a few feet apart, and the sides stand at such an angle as
tolerably hard mud will do when washed by water. On the
west face it slopes much to the shore, and is fringed by a low
strip of sand running out into a spit at the south-west angle.
The original margin is on this side at some little distance
inland, and it is evident that the land here is gaining on the
sea. The south face is not so high as the north, but higher
than the west, say 200 feet, and -\\'here it joins the mainland
on the east, the furrowed marl leans against the spur of the
mountains till it reaches an elevation of 500 or 600 feet.
The barrenness of the whole peninsula is self-evident.

For two hours the ascent was rocky and slippery, and
generally we had to lead our horses till we entered upon the
south wilderness of Judaea. Our course lay north-west, and
for another hour nothing could surpass the mountain range
in repulsive desolation. Eocks there were, great and small,
stones, loose and sharp, but no other existing thing. Occa-
sionally, in the depression of a small ravine, a few plants of
salsola or retem struggled up, but this w^as all ; and we only
saw one rock-chat and two desert larks. Almost sudden was
the transition to the upland wilderness, the " Negeb," or
south country — a series of rolling hills, clad with scanty

3G6 ZUWEIUAII-EL-FOKA,

herbage here and tliere, especially on their northern faces ;
and steadily rising till the harometer, falling three and a half
inches, told us that we had mounted 3,200 feet above our
cani]-> of the morning. Near the highest part of the pass of
the Zuwcirah, on a brow to the south-east of the wady, we
turned aside to examine the ruins of what must once have
been a strong watch-tower, on the edge of a bluff — a square
keep, called by our Arabs Hadadah, and very possibly the
Hazor Iladattah of Joshua (xv. 25), one of the cities of
Judah, The ruins were like those at Wady Um Bagkek, but
much more dilapidated, and we could not trace any remains
of more extensive buildings. We soon afterwards passed the
vestiges of Zuweirah-el-Foka, very insignihcant, and consist-
ing only of indistinct foundations spread over an area of some
extent. From the crest of the hills near this we had our
last, and almost our finest, view, though a distant one, of the
southern portion of the Dead Sea.

From this point we turned northwards, and crossed a low
rolling ridge, until, by a gentle slope, we descended into the
wide valley of Wady es R'mail, up the course of which we
follow^ed till we reached the spot where we were to have
camped ; but the wells were dry, and, after halting for lun-
cheon, we had to proceed. As we had filled our water skins,
and our animals had all drunk at the rain-pools of Zuweirah,
we w^ere not inconvenienced. At three o'clock water was
found in a pool near some caves and shapeless ruins, called
Sudeid, to wdiich we had turned a little to the south-east of
the Wady E'mail. The spot is unidentified with any ancient
site, but is a favourite camping-ground of the Jehalin, and
very attractive it is, — a long shallow basin of tender and
fresh verdure, in cheering contrast with the scant vegetation
of tlie highlands of our morning's ride. The whole district
is a fine upland pastin-e, and had l)een improving from the
time we left Zuweirah-el-F6ka. A Scottish moor is not
better stocked with game. Plover and sand-grouse abounded,
and we obtained thirteen brace of fat dotterel {Charadrhis
morinelhis), the rare sand-grou.^e {Pterodes gnttatiis), besides

WlLDliKNESS OF JUDAII. 307

many little- larks of species belonging to the Saharan group ;
so that we fared sumptuously iAY dotterel boiled and grilled,
from the former of which the skins had been removed.

As soon as the tents were pitched, I started for the ruins of
Iiujum Selameh, nearly three miles distant, a little knoll,
with a green basin of pasture, like that of Sudeid, within
smooth encircling hills ; but the ruins were mere foundations,
scattered irregularly over a considerable area, and affordinu'
no clue to their architecture or their period. The mention
of Shema just before Moladali in .losh. xv. 26 would lead us
to conjecture its identity witli the somewhat similar name of
Selameh, especially as the LXX. render it ^a\/j,da. On my
way back I met a fine solitary wolf, who watched me very
coolly, at the distance of sixty yards, while I drcM^ my charge
and dropped a bullet down the barrel. Though I sent the
ball into a rock between his legs as lie stood looking at me in
the wady, he was not sufficiently alarmed to do more than
move on a little more quickly, ever and anon turning to
look at me, while gradually increasing his distance. Dark-
ness compelled me to desist from the chase, when he quietly
turned, and followed me at a respectful distance. He was
a magnificent animal, larger than any P^uropean wolf, and
of a nnich lighter colour.

Nothing can be barer than the south country of Judah. It
is neither grand, desolate, nor wild, but utter barrenness — not
a tree nor a shrub, but scant, stunted herbage, covered with
myriads of white snails, of five or six species, which afford
abundant sustenance to the thousands of birds which inhabit
it. It is the very country for camel-browsing, quite unlike
any we had hitherto traversed, but sometimes reminding one
of the best parts of the Sahara. We were perplexed at first
to account for the sudden transition from the sharp rocky
peaks, without a blade of gTeen, to the verdure of the smooth,
rounded hills, till we noticed that we had come upon the soft
limestone, which here covers the hard crystalline, as it does
near Sidon.

Old Abou Dahilk, who at ninety sits his horse with the

368 EI- MIIILIIA.

case of a man of fifU', rode by my side for a groat part of the
day. AVe had become great friends, and lie pressed upon me
the tempting ofter, that if I would only come and stay with
the Jehrdin for as long as I liked, he would make me a
sheikh ; and that I should have a black tent of my own, if
I w^ould live like them. Moreover, he would give me one of
his granddaughters, a very pretty girl of only fifteen, for my
wife. I told him I had a wife and seven children in England ;
to which he replied, that I need stay but three months ^vith
him, to see how free was a Bedouin's life, and could divorce
the new wife when I wished to go home to the old one. I
told him this was not according to English custom, nor Chris-
tian laws, and tried to explain to him the nobler principles of
Christianity on the position of woman ; but the old gentleman
observed that our customs were very strange, and that if I
would only make trial of Bedouin ways, I should soon prefer
them !

During the evening, an Arab brought in a note from Mr.
Wood, written in pencil, to tell us he had lost his way, and
liad been two whole days wandering with his bewildered
guides in the wilderness, wdthout any food, save a single piece
of chocolate ; and that, exhausted and benumbed, he had
reached Hebron on the third day, wdiere he was being hospi-
tably nursed by Sheikh Hamzi's family. His guides liad
missed the pool of Sudeid, and had wandered over the wide
plain south-east of Hebron, afraid of falling in with the
Taamireh, and without any knowledge of this wdld and unex-
plored district.

February '2d. — On rising at dawn, w^e found the bleak wild
outside covered with hoar-frost, though we had not felt it
under our warm sheepskins. An Arab from a camp at Arad
biought in a very lean ewe, for which, having ascertained the
state of our larder, he demanded two pounds Turkish. Though
it was the first sheep we had seen for weeks, we preferred to
rely on the dotterel, knowing that now there was no fear of
starvation. We had but a short day's journey (twelve miles),
across a gently-undulating down, to El-Mihlha, and, in search

WKLL8. 3G9

of birds and shells, we walked behind the caravan for this
easy stage. The downs were peopled by myriads of larks,
of which we obtained seven species, besides twenty brace
of dotterel. We saw, also, many cranes and sand-grouse, and
I shot some specimens of the bush chat {Saxicola pliilo-
thamma), discovered by me in the Sahara, and never found by
US elsewhere in Palestine. A few camels were browsini^ here
and there ; and once, when far behind the convoy, I perceived
the vigilant Giacomo mounted on the top of a hill in front,
vehemently gesticulating. On turning round, I saw two
Bedouin with guns dogging me behind the rising ground.
Giacomo came up, and we turned in pursuit. We soon found
that we had been taken for Turkish Bashi-bazouks, in search
of plunder; and our suspected enemies were Arabs of the
district, the whole of which is now in revolt against the
conscription.

After walking for three hours, we detected a bright-green spot
in the far distance on the vast plain, strongly contrasted with
the dingy brown of the surrounding landscape. This was El-
Mihlha (anciently Moladah, the town of Simeon, Josh. xix. 2),
marked only by some shapeless rows of stones and founda-
tions, and two ancient wells — perhaps, according to the local
tradition, as old as the time of Abraham. We were now on
the Mediterranean side of the watershed, in a depression
which runs into the Wady Khulil, and passes Beersheba.
Before we reached our quarters, the tents were up, the ensign
flying, and our animals were luxuriating in the juicy, fresh
pasturage. Xot a human being could be seen within miles of
our camp. How vividly such a spot illustrates the priceless
value of wells in the desert ! These were seventy feet deep,
and their sides of hard marble, polished and deeply fluted all
round by the ropes of the water-drawers, perhaps for four
thousand years. The only other wells near them are those of
Ararah, eight miles south, and Beersheba, a day's journey
west ; and thus these supply the wants of an area of some
twenty miles square. Eight ancient water-troughs stand irre-
gularly round, some oblong, many cup-shaped, and others

B B

370

WELLS — liUINS.

apparently the scoopntl pedestals of ancient columns, which
have once supported a portico over the well. Into these our
juuleteers and guards were busily pouring water for the various
cattle. The whole scene was a vivid illustration of patriarchal
life. Flocks of birds hovered around, attracted by the moisture ;
a fox slunk away as we came up ; and we disturbed a huge
wild-boar, drawn many miles from his ordinary cover. Just
to the south of the two wells rises a small isolated " tell," or
hill, covered with ruins, and now used as a burying-ground,

WELLS UK MOLADAU.

heaped with the graves of the 'DuUam tribe. The hill seems
to have been the fortress of the city below, and w^e could
clearly trace the circuit of the wall which once surrounded it,
nearly square in shape, and still, in places, three or four feet
in height. The traces of buildings and fragments of walls
remain over an extensive area, to the south as well as to the
north of the citadel ; and near its foot, on the south-east, are
the outlines of a building, which was probably a Byzantine
church. The other ruins seem to belong to an earlier and
ruder period, and are probably the remains of the old town of
Simeon. All round the troughs of the well are traces of an
old rough pavement, like that of a stable-yard.

Our tents were pitched on a green patch of Malva marco-

CRANES — S.VND-GROUSE. 371

tica (?), and a pretty parterre from Nature's liand surrounded
us — asphodels {A. ramosus), the small "Star of Bethlehem"
(Pmitliogalum arahicum), a small hyacinth {Muscari race-
mosum), a small bright calendula, several cruciform flowers,
and especially a sweet-scented stock. The small white snail
(Helix scetzcni, and H. vestalis) clothed the asphodels and salsola
bushes in such multitudes, that, clustering on the twigs and
branches, they looked at a distance like a profusion of snow-
white bloom. The wild-boars had been rooting around us,
and searching for a pretty white crocus and an iris, the bulbs
of which seemed to form a special dainty with them. We found
a reo-ular roostino-place of the common crane — marked like
some resort of sea-fowl, a gently-sloping, isolated knoll, where
no ambush was possible, and where a good look-out could be
kept on all sides. Their whooping and trumpeting enlivened
the watches of the night, and all night long we could hear
flocks passing overhead, on their way to their quarters close
by. Cold as the temperature was, it was still and calm, and
every sound floated lightly through the air.

February M. — The night was bitterly cold, the minimum
thermometer having registered 25° Fahr. ; but, warm and com-
fortable in our woolly beds, w^e felt only the more fresh and
vigorous for work, as we started for our walk to Beershelia
over these downs, which would have been plains but for the
ancient watercourses which had scooped out the hollows — not
ravines, but wide, shallow valleys. The heat of the shadeless
noon made us more than once regret that we had sent on oui-
horses. It was indeed a wilderness. Miles and miles we
could see all round, without a bush or a tree to break the
monotony, and no marked feature in the outline of the distant
hills which melted into the horizon.

In our lonely walk, we were kept in sight by two mounted
Arabs of our guard, who could every now and then be seen on
the crest of some knoll ahead ; so that we had no difficulty in
finding our way.

U. distinguished himself by Ijringing down several spotted
sand-grouse, and also our first specimen of the Asiatic plover

i; i; 2

372 BEEUSIIEBA.

[Cli. n,siati(:i(^), wliieli Iroin this tiiiic continued to occur in
plenty. Flocks of the great ci-ane {Grus cincrea) continued
to pass overhead, and a few ruffed bustards {Otis Iwnhara)
were seen. Herds of gazelle were frequently dashing across
the plain, but at very safe distance, one herd of eleven being
the only one within reach of the wildest shot. As we neared
the Wady es Seba, large flocks of sheep and goats were being
pastured. Herds of camels and of horned cattle were grazing
all around, the first time for many a day that the spectacle of
neat cattle had greeted our eyes. JMole-hills covered the
ground in all directions ; lizards darted in and out of their
burrows at the root of every tuft ; but snails were much less
plentiful, probably from the absence of the low bushes, which
were rare in these parts.

About two o'clock we reached Beersheba, Mdiere the tents
were already pitched round one of Abraham's wells. Long
lines of foundations mark the ancient city, about half a mile
in extent, very much scattered, Ijut not a fragment of Avail
remains above the surface. Just in front is the wide gravel
bed of the Wady es Seba, checked from encroaching on the
north side by an ancient wall of strong masonry ; and in front ,
and behind is a vast uneven plateau, almost green, pastured
over by thousands of goats, horned cattle, and camels, while
several Arab encampments were in sight, drawn to this
favoured spot by the grateful wells and the comparatively
abundant herbage.

One feature in particular marks Beersheba as still the
Ijoundary between the desert and the uplands, though all else
has perished. This is the cultivation of large portions of un-
fenced land for corn by the Arabs. Here, for the first time
since leaving Jericho, we came upon arable land. The rich
low-lying flats by the Wady Seba are ploughed, or rather
scratched, for wheat and barley, each piece lying two years
fallow, and sown the third year. In riding across the wide
expanse, these occasional patches, the only evidence of man's
presence, arrest attention at once, strangely incongruous with
all else around. They are the lingering evidence of what

THE WELLS OF 15EERSIIEBA. 373

tlie laud once was, and may yet again become. The wells vary
from five to tliirteen feet in diameter. The one at which ^\■('
were camped was twelve and a half feet in diameter, thirty-four
feet till we reached the living rock ; and, as we were told by
the Arabs, twice that depth. At present the water stood at
thirty-eight feet from the surface ; but when Eobinson visited
it, it Avas much lower, and doubtless varies according to the
season. The native visitors to our camp pointed out, with all
the pride of race, that the wells were the work of Ibraliim-el-
Khulil, ' Abraham the friend.' The well above the rock was
built with finely-squared large stones, hard as marble ; and
the ropes of water-drawers for 4,000 years have worn the
edges of the hard limestone with no less than 143 tiutings,
the shallowest of them four inches deep. The ancient marble
troughs were arranged at convenient distances round the
mouth in an irregular circle, some oblong, most of them
rouml, for the convenience of the cattle. From their style
and material, they are probably coeval with the original well.
All day long, our men, or the Bedouin herdsmen and their
wives, were drawing water in skins, and filling these troughs
for the horses, camels, cattle, and sheep, recalling many a
scene in the lives of the patriarclis, of lieliecca, and of Zip-
porah. There are traces of the pillars of an ancient open
roof over the well. How delicious must have been its shade
in this treeless prairie !

"NVe had scarcely arrived, when we noticed some of our
muleteers dressed out in their best, and swaggering with pistols
and scimetars. Inquiring what it meant, we were told it was
by Abou Dahiik's order, and perceived it was a trick of his
to escape paying backshish to the tribes round, on the pretext
that we were a Government expedition. "We protested to no
purpose against the deception. Shortly afterwards we saw,
•m the long rolling plain to the south, one little figure after
another emerging, which, as they approached, we could make
out to be footmen, with here and there a horseman. The
wide gravel-bed of the Wady es Seba separated us from this
plain, and on the opposite bank llio scouts gradiially con-

.".74-

MOHAMMF.l) ISA.

verged. At'ter a consultation, two oi" the boldest, with guns
unslung, ventured across to demand, "Is it peace?" Our
Arabs, all exhibiting the most formidable arsenal of small
arms that could be mustered, replied that we were friends,
Inglez, brothers of the Sultan, who ha<l much powder and
lead, but little silver. The sight of the English flag waving
over the centre tent seemed to reassure them most ; they made
obeisance to it, and then, having carefully reconnoitered all

VIEW OF BEERSUEBA.

our party by twice passing and repassing, as if l)y mistake,
amontf the tents and horses, our interrogators retired. No
sooner had they reached the op])osite bank and repeated their
news, than the groups cpietly dispersed, and in a few minutes

RUINS. 375

more, the eye wandered in vain over the plain for any trace
of human inhabitants. These people are a collection from
various tribes, chiefly felklhin, or cultivators, who have re-
volted against the conscription, and have retired with their
flocks and herds into the wilderness to elude the troops. It
is against these very men that Abou Dahuk is ordered to lead
the Jelullin so soon as his trip with us is at an end ; and at
the same time, he is receiving a handsome backshish from
them for their pasturing on a part of his territory. In the
evening, many fellfdiiu dropped in by our camp, and sitting
motionless in a circle round the well, watched the howadjis,
and held conversation with our muleteers. Our whole guard
left us for the night, and retired for dinner and shelter to the
rebel camp — about an hour further south ; as we could get no
fuel, though the night was bitterly cold, and the thermometer
fell to 24°. Yet there was an elasticity in the still dry air
which invigorated us, and made us almost indifferent to the
temperature.

February ■Uli. — We rose at six, and after a cold sponge out
of ice, and a cup of hot coffee boiled on camel's dung, set out
to examine the other wells, and the ruins. AVe may observe
that the wells both of Moladah (Mihlha) and Ararah (Aroer)
are sunk in the beds of tributaries of the Seba, or Khulil
river, and though these wadys are dry for ten months of the
year, the patriarchs must have* understood, as well as we do,
that great supplies of moisture percolate through the gravel
bed, and rest on the hard limestone below. The Arabs in the
Sahara and the Touareg of Central Africa act on the same
principle, as in the artesian wells of the AVed 'Ilhir.^ In
other respects the position of Beersheba is different from that
of ^Moladah, and possesses no Tell or mound for a fortress
like the latter. Probably Beersheba was always open and un-
fortified— a village, as it is called by Eusebius " Km[iri fie'ylaTT]."
For two or three miles on the north l)ank are occasional
vestiges of buildings, merely levelled foundations. The Arabs
say there are seven wells, whence their name, I>ir-es-Sel>a ;

1 The Great Salmrn, p. 287, &c.

376 HOHXED CATTLE.

Imt I was only al)l(' to visit five, only two of wliich contained
water. Close to the easternmost is an interesting ruin, the
perfect foundation of a Greek Church, with apse, sacristy,
and aisles. Only a fragment of the apse remains above the
pavement. It was once the seat of a Greek bishopric. In
several of the ruins are traces of what may prove a hitherto
unnoticed peculiarity of the Jewish fortress ; a circular tower
or keep of double walls, each four feet thick, and with a lik(^
space between them. There are several such on the banks of
the Seba. but the most perfect specimen wi; liave seen is in
the north tower of the fortress of Masada. We have also
met with tlie same style in several of the desert cities.
There are no traces of trees anywdiere, and all that evei-
existed must long since have been extirpated for fuel, here as
precious as water. Abraham planted a grove at Beersheba,
and the shade of a clump of terebinth must indeed have been
a boon to every desert-wanderer ; nor can there be any doubt
but that, if permitted to grow, the terebinth would still
flourish in the fine sandy soil. The other wells, which have
not Abraham's name locally attached to them, are in the bed
of the wady itself, much lower down. The pale green mantle
of the southern plateau was beautifully spangled M'ith many
a bulbous flower — crocus, white and blue iris, and crimson
ranunculus abounded everywhere. I put up a fine eagle owl
{Otus ascctkqihus, Sav.), but coi^ld not secure it, and it took
refuge either in a Ijurrow or a fissure on the bank of the
valley ; and 1 saw eagles, cranes, and troops of gazelle in the
distance. It was too early to return to breakfast, for fuel
had to be collected, and our meal must be a noonday one ; so,
mounting a knoll, I gazed on Abraham's favourite pasture
ground. Only one group of tents was visible to the telescope
in the whole panorama, but black spots here and there indi-
cated the herds of goats and black cattle ; while flocks of
sheep or camels shone brown in the distance. The occurrence
of horned cattle here, for the first time, as well as the culti-
vation, made one realize not only many allusions in Genesis,
but the peculiar appropriateness of this spot as the southern

IXSURGENT!^. 377

frontier, where settled life gave place to pastoral. I hoard
strange sounds in the distance, like the rapid platoon-tiring
of mushetrv, hut fancied my ears mnst have deceived me, and
returned to camp.

"We had just sat down to our eggs, barley cake, and grilled
plover, outside our tents, for the days were as hot as the
nights were cold, when we observed brown fimires emerging
from the downs in all directions. We ran up to a mound
behind, and lo, from tlie north, flocks and herds, camels and
cattle were hurrying towards us, urged on by boys and
women with frantic eagerness. Meanwhile, men were
gathering in from south, west, and east, and coming in the
opposite direction. 'Twas like Koderick Dhu's men starting
from the heather, and from behind each stone. By twos and
threes, singly, or in parties of a dozen or more, they seemed to
spring from the ground. Yet more magical was the gathering
of cattle of e^'crv kind, all hurrying towards the thirsty
wilderness. Soon a small party of horsemen, armed with
lances, scimitars, and pistols, galloped up to our tents, and all
was explained. The Government had sent out troops against
the rebels, and a brigade of 800 men, camped four hours to the
north of us, had that morning made a sudden raid, and
pounced upon a quantity of camels and cattle, after a short
skirmish with their guards, who had been speedily over-
powered. This was the firing I had heard in the distance.
The poor rebels were hastily driving everything to the south,
preferring that their animals should perish with drought
rather than fall into the hands of the Turks, The alarm had
been signalled far and wide, and all were hurrying to the
rescue, having made Bir es Seba their rendezvous. At the
head of the group of horsemen was Mohammed Isa, the
leader of the band, who, seeing the English flag, came to beg
our good offices, through the English consul, with the Pasha.
"NVe had a long interview with him, and the coffee-pot was
making an incessant circuit, with the tobacco bags, to soothe
and tranquillize the heated passions of our somewhat des-
perate and reckless guests. ]\Iohammed Isa was a noble-

378 TURKISH 1-OUAY.

looking, l)ra\viiy man, fair for an Arab, with a mild eye, and
very much more muscular in his limbs than the true Bedouin.
In dress and i)erson he was scru])ulously clean. His story was
soon told. His elder brother, Jellah, Sheikh of Beit Jibrin,
had been seized by the Pasha, as ]\[ohammcd said, to extort
money on a false accusation of treason, and under promise of
safe conduct had been banished to Cypnis ; where he had
been at once beheaded, and all his property confiscated.
^Fohammed, on hearing the news, had retired into the wilder-
ness; and the authorities had thereupon seized his family and
all his possessions. Once here, he had naturally become what
David in the very same region was after his breach with Saul,
the nucleus for all the disaffected, till the band he could
muster now reached to 4,000 men. There had been no open
or declared war, and the raid of this morning was a sudden
surprise by the Turks. The soldiers had fallen back with
their booty, and Mohammed was mustering his irregulars for
a pursuit. But he assured us of his earnest desire for peace,
and gave us a letter under his seal, undertaking, if the Govern-
ment would permit him to return to his home, and would
restore his family, giving him a promise, guaranteed hj the
Consul either of England or France, that his life should be safe,
that his followers would at once disband, and submit to the
rule of the Pasha of Jerusalem. As it was, the battle of the
morning had not been very bloody, only two of his men having
fallen. But before night 2,000 armed desperadoes would be on
foot. We did not know at the time the whole character of
IMohammed Isa, nor how many red-handed murders lay at his
door ; but our sympathies, as well as those of our men, were
certainly with these insurgents, for of all the robbers of this
down-trodden land, the Pashas are the greatest and the worst.
We promised to execute IMohammed's behests, and after
another cup of coffee he galloped off. And now one group after
another came hurrying by, chiefly footmen, each armed with
his long firelock. Fine stalwart fellows they looked. It was
the first time we had seen Arabs ready for the battle. They
were all stripped to the hips, that if they fell the enemy

FLIGHT INTO TIIK ^^'ILDE^v^•ESS. 379

should get as little as possible, and wore only sandals and a
ragged kilt or pair of bags, with powder horn, and a little
water skin strapped round their naked waist. Instead of the
kafiyeh, a ragged cloth formed the turban round the fez-cap.
They took but little notice of us as they hurried up to the
well, took a draught of water, and received instructions from
a group of immobile ancients squatted round it ; but, looking
up at our flag, would exclaim, " Tayib, tayib,"— (good, good) ;
and press onwards with elastic step, eager and snorting for
the fray ; ready, like every Arab, for battle at a moment's
notice, but quite understanding the rights of neutrals. Still,
our great wonder was whence they all came. ]\Ien in this
country are as hard to find as jackals, and conceal themselves
much in the same fashion. Meanwhile, from every point of
the northern horizon, eastwards and westwards, herds and
flocks came pouring past us, large or small, according to the
wealth of their possessors. Occasionally a man perched on
the hump of a tall camel accompanied them, but more gene-
rally only the women and boys on foot. Their tents and
other goods they had left or secreted in some of the caves
with which the district abounds. One poor Kttle lad, of
about ten years old, we met limping alone with bleeding feet,
carrj'ing a little kid too young to be driven, and its dam by
its side. He was crying bitterly. His father had gone to the
war, and his mother and brothers had gone on ahead with the
rest of the goats. The black cattle had now mostly passed,
but the sheep and goats could not be overdriven, and even up
to one o'clock many flocks were passing, while now long un-
gainly lines of camels brought up the rear, trotting clumsily
along with a few women and armed men on their backs, evi-
dently the rereward of the flight. The scene reminded us of
Jacob's arrangement of his caravan when about to meet his
brother Esau. We wished those who cannot comprehend
how the Israelites had such vast flocks and herds in the wil-
derness could have witnessed the gathering of to-day, and
how in a few hours thousands upon thousands of cattle could
be collected on a fdven track. Another hour, and still black

380 TELL llIKiKA.

masses of goats and strings of camels kept passing in one
direction, and armed men in the other. We seemed destined
to be in the midst of Arah frays.

Now came a ditticulty. Old Ahou DahiUc had too mucli to
h)se to risk the suspicion of his loyahy, and lie had heard say
that if the rebels were worsted they should take refuge under
the shelter of the English flag, for the Turks would not dare
to fire on it. This might be true, and toe had no cause for
alarm, but after our departure it might lead, we feared, to his
being despoiled, as having encouraged or harboured the in-
surgents. So he told us we must strike tents at once and
depart, or we might find ourselves nearer to a battle-fiehl than
we should like ; but he declined to inform us in what direc-
tion he should conduct us. Here was an end to all our hopes
of visiting Kadesh Barnea, or penetrating to the coast by
Gerar and Gaza. Teuts were struck, for the old man was
evidently not to be thwarted, and in half an hour we were off
in a N.E. direction. The mules Avere urged to their utmost
speed, and we hurried on till about sunset we reached Tell
Hhora — not the place of that name marked in the maps of
A'an de Yelde, but another noticed only by Zimmermann — a
ruined city of heaps, but with many A\alls standing, and a
natural cave full of sweet water, a little south of Es Semiia
(Eshtemoa). We followed the banks of the Wady El Khulil
the greater part of the way. The whole journey was across
low hills and rolling green plains, or downs, till we reached
the spur of the low ridge on which the ancient city stood,
and had left the Negeb, or "south country," and entered
u])on the " hill country " of Judah. On our way we saw many
gazelles, wild boars, one or two eagles, and shot Andouini's
gull, besides good bags of plover and dotterel. Gulls are
not rare on these plains, feeding on the snails which cover the
plants.

We met one fugitive alone on horseback. His lance had
been broken in a fray with the Turks, in which he said one
man had been kilkd. He coolly demanded a backshish, but
when informed the only Ijackshish we carried was powder

FUGITIVES FKOM SAFIKH. 381

and lead, and that of that we had enough, he became ci'in<T-
ingly civil, and Legged for a little tobacco, which was un-
grudgingly supplied. We determined to remain a whole day
here, and get over our disappointment at being hurried from
the south, since we were quite out of the reach of war, and
in the country of dependent allies of the Jehillin. Still, we
would not willingly have missed the interesting illustration
of Bedouin manners and life which the episode of this
morning had afforded, and which was scarcely needed to teach
us the blessing of good government and peace at home.

February oth. — Again the thermometer had touched the
freezing point in the night, but the hill country is not so cold
as the southern plateau. We were camped under a little
knoll, toleraljly sheltered, and close to a cistern of abundant
water. There were several Arab camps near, whose inhabit-
ants would come and sit silently for hours in front of our
tents, scrutinizing our proceedings. In the forenoon a party
of five most ill-looking scoundrels came for water to tlie
cistern, and on questioning them, we found they were
Ka'abineh, who had been among the plunderers of the Safieli,
and who, we had the satisfaction of hearing from themselves,
had been repulsed three days afterwards by the returned
villagers. A solitary horseman presently halted for a drink,
and reported another skirmish with the Turkish troops above
Beersheba yesterday afternoon, and that ten of Mohammed
Isa's men were missing.

The ruins were situated on a hill just above us, and though
not yet identified with any of the many towns of Judah
recounted in Joshua xv. are, doubtless, the remains of an
Israelitish city of the earlier period. They occupy in a
line the crest of three low hills overlooking the southern
plain, and the buildings have been extensive. Some of the
walls remain to the height of several feet, built of a flinty
conglomerate, which has almost the appearance of maible ;
and there are many wells, now dry, besides several well-
plastered subterranean granaries, the home of owls and
hundreds of rock-doves. The site is a very commanding

t^82 THE HILL COUNTRY (»F .ILDAII.

one. One cistern Lelow was partially hewn, an enlarf^ement
of a natural cave, to the month of which we descended by
broken steps, and on looking in we could see a double arched
tunnel hewn in the rock, but how far these parallel tunnels
extended we could not see. They are supplied merely by
surface drainage, but are so capacious that the supply very
rarely fails in the driest season. So secluded is the well, that
it would be impossible for a stranger to discover it, and the
circular mouth is half-concealed by dwarf bushy fig-trees,
which grow out of the fissures, and must in summer protect
the water from evaporation.

The soil of the plain is a rich alluvium, mixed with quan-
tities of sharp flints of various colours. The limestone shows
in the very few rocks which here and there crop out on the
hill-sides. In the plains below are the traces of occasional
and irregular cultivation.

February 6th. — We arranged to make a considerable circuit
on our way to Kurmel (Nabal's Carmel), where we were to
camp, in order to examine the ancient cities of the hill-
country, Jattir, Eshtemoa, Susieh, and Maon. Nor were we
sorry to depart early, for the Bedouin around us began to be
very surly in their demands, and told us plainly that, but for
the presence of Abou Daliiik, they would not have allowed
us to draw water. Moreover, the fellows from the Safieh had
remained here, and our guard was not a strong one. How-
ever, there was no attempt at plunder, except that B — t's
jackal-traps, which had been set, had disappeared in the night.
On our complaining of this, our Sheikh promised to get them
back, and asked for some small change to be judiciously ap-
plied in obtaining information, assuring us that, if he did not
find tlie traps, he should Ijring two men to Hebron as hostages
till their recovery. This Arab method of justice succeeded,
for the next day the traps were forwarded to Hebron.

AVe soon began to pass from the "south country" of Judah
to the " hill country," and marked indeed was the change,
from easy smooth tracks over gently rolling downs, to rocky
slippery paths up and down narrow valleys, between naked

'attir. ;383

rugged hills full of caves, dreary and now (in winter) barren,
save where a few patches of corn had been here and there
sown in the hollows. Full of meaning came home the question
of Amus, himself an inhabitant of the south country, "Shall
horses luu upon the rock? will one plough there with oxen?"
(Chap. vi. 12.) There is a wonderfid reality in many of these
apparently trifling expressions of Holy Scripture, which day
by day our journey brings home to the mind — " the Avilder-
ness," "the south country," "the hill country," all in Judah,
yet each so distinct, so characteristic in every feature.

All now was changed — the plants were different, the desert
bulbs and alliums had given way to species like those of
Southern Europe. The birds were changed ; no more desert-
larks, but the crested lark {Galcrida cristata) and the skylark
of England. The sand-grouse liad given place to the Greek
partridge, the dotterel and Asiatic plover to the lapwing of
our own country, and the crane no longer trumpeted overhead,
I had remained behind with S. and L. to disc some bulbs of
an iris new to us, and B — t had just shot our first red-tailed
buzzard {B. ferox), a rare and magnificent Eastern species,
and U. a red kite, when we quite lost the convoy, which was
to halt at Kurmel, but to which place Giacomo, who was with
us, knew the route.

And now the ruins of the ancient cities of Judah followed
fast and thick one after another, yet desolate without in-
habitant. They are very different from the levelled vestiges
of the southern cities ; a large portion of the houses remaining
intact, true troglodyte dwellings, chiefly long archways, either
the vaults of houses, or the roofing of the streets, just as to
this day many of the streets of Hebron are diirk tunnels, with
an occasional glimmer of light through openings in the arch-
ways. First we came upon 'Attir, the ancient Jattir (Josh.
xxi. 14), one of the cities of the priests in Judah, and to
which David used to send presents in his outlawed days. It
is situated on a green knoll, in an amphitheatre of brown
rocky hills, studded with natural caves. Perhaps this ■\\as
once part of the country of the Hofites, dwellers in caves, or

884

ATTIi;.

perhaps tlie men of Jiulali took their idea of domestic archi-
tecture from the suggestive caverns aroiind, for certainly it is
a most cavernous-looking place. We counted upwards of
thirty of these arched crypts remaining entire, some longer
and some shorter; hut most of them without end walls, and
having perhaps been merely passages or streets, with houses
over them. The ar(;iies are round, slightly domed, or some-
times a little pointed, built of well-dressed stones, generally
two or three feet square. Tliose which had tlie gable ends
intact had square bevelled doorways, at one end llat-headed,
about six feet high, and three and a half feet wide. The
tunnels are generally eighteen or twenty feet long, though I
measured one upwards of forty feet. Some ancient carvings
remain on the doorways. On one. doorhead, seven feet by
three, was a singular carving.

k

v.\

\

C^^^^;^x.p

DOOR-HEAD IN THE RUINS OF JATTIR.

I

There was one large square building, of which only four
tiers of well-dressed stones remained above ground, which
may have been a castle, or perhaps a Basilica in later times ;
and at the entrance of the town, and again on the side of tlie
hill, lay the under stone of a very large oil press,-— an un-
deniable evidence of the existence of olive-trees of old, where
neither trace of tree or shrub remains. In several places we

RAF AT. 385

could perceive the uncient terracing on the hills, and there
were many wells, all now dry and partially choked with
rubbisli. The eastern face of the knoll consisted chiefly of
natural caves once used as dwellings, enlarged, and with
outside extensions of arched crypts in IVout. We noticed
one very large cave, the only access to which .was by a hole
at the top, and which may have been a strong place or con-
cealed granary. There was one arched building roofless, but
with the side walls and gables remaining, which stood out
alone on the hills. The south door of this was square-built
outside, but with a flat arch of four stones on the inside. The
only modern building in sight was a little wely, or tomb of a
Moslem saint, on the crest of the hill.

Cultivation began to appear in the valleys as we left 'Attir,
the bottoms being generally scratched for corn, without fences,
while here and there small herds of goats browsed on the
hill sides. In another hour we reached Eafat, tlie ruins of a
city of some size, not yet identified, and very similar in its
architecture to 'Attir. Considering the universal use of the
arch in all these ruined cities, it would be interesting to dis-
cover at Avhat period it became common in Palestine. If
Eoman, it is remarkable as being unaccompanied by any
other Roman features, such as are found in other parts of
the country. Probably Eafat is one of the unidentified cities
of Judah mentioned in 1 Sam. xxx. 28 — 30, — Eachel, Chor-
ashan, or Athach ; and if the latter name be not a misreading
for Ethec perhaps this place represents Eachel. There is one
building here worthy of notice, about forty-five feet long, of
considerable height, with an arched roof flat on'the outside,
and apparently constructed from the fragments of a more
ancient edifice, as carved stones with mouldings have occa-
sionally been worked into the walls. The building runs east
and west. On the north side, in the centre, is a small door-
way, with a circular arched head inside and a flat lintel
outsifle. Opposite this, on the south side, is a niche or
recess in the wall, with a scallop-carved apse roof, buttressed
on the outside with fragments taken from an older building.

c c

386 TURKISH OFFICEI?.

Between tins and the east end is a small loop-holed window,
areliod inside and a mere oblong slit outside. The north and
south gables are nearly destroyed. It stands conspicuously
on the hill, and is either, I presume, a Greek church or
a more ancient structure adapted as a church. Here, again,
an ancient oil press remains.

Half an hour more brought us to Semua, the ancient Esh-
temoa, still inhabited, and the first occupied town which
occurs on the way from Egypt to Palestine. It stands, like the
others, on a low, round-topped hill, somewhat isolated, and
surrounded by small cultivated valleys. Here, for the first
time for weeks, our eyes were refreshed by the sight of a grove
of olive-trees, tenanted by a dozen or more of red kites. A
half-ruined old castle, evidently of Saracenic or Turkish work,
towers above the wretched town, and is at present the station
of a company of Turkish regulars, who crowded the walls
and gazed on us with much curiosity. The captain, seeing
us remain for some time on the opposite slope, poKtely sent a
mounted orderly to know if he could be of service to us. We
met him afterwards in the town, and strangely out of place
did his trim uniform and neat European style appear in the
midst of the ruined caves and archways which serve as
dwellings for the present degraded inhabitants. He was a
gentlemanly-maimered man, and asked for public news ; but
we could only tell him of what we had seen at Beersheba,
and he had evidently no desire to be ordered to seek glory
in the wilderness. Some news travels fast here, and he had
heard of an English party being out with the Jehrdin in the
south. Semua is a shrunken decrepit continuation of the
old Eshtemoa, with about 500 inhabitants ; but one descrip-
tion will serve for all these hill-country ruins in Judali,
which must once have been considerable towns. The officer
was anxious to do the honours of the place, and pointed out
the extensive remains of an early Greek church. There were
many pieces of ancient carving, and an inverted marble sar-
cophagus was built into a more modern wall, with the same
style of decoration which we had obsei-ved at Jezreel and Tyre.

SUSIEH — YUTTAH — MAON.

387

Carved doorways and fragments of columns abounded; Lut
nowhere in this part of the country tlid wo come on the
slitiihtest traces of Crusadiu" work.

DOORWAY IN THE RUINS UF SEMLJA.

We rode rapidly on through Susieh, a town of ruins, on a
grassy slope, quite as large as the others, and with an old
basilica, but less troglodyte than 'Attir. Many fragments of
columns strewed the ground, and in most respects it was a
repetition of Eafat. Still pressing on, we found we had missed
our way, and came in an hour to Yuttah (the ancient Juttah),
the remains of which were more perfect, but scarcely so
extensive as the last, though possessing no special features to
distinguish it from 'Attir or Semiia ; but, like the latter, it is
still inhabited.

The greater part of a long day had been passed among
these ruined cities, when the clouds began to lower, and a
drenching rain came down, the first we had had for a month.
Determined to have a glance at the hill of Maon, the pos-
session of Caleb, and the birthplace of Xabal, we turned back
to the south-east, and galloped over the rugged ground. An
hour's very hard riding brought us to Tell Main, or Muou, — a
hill more elevated than the rest, covered with luiiis less dis-
tinct, and perforated by caves as numerous, but with fewer
remains of vaults. The crest is said to afford a fine view, but
the storm of rain limited our horizon to t^o hundred yards
Down the hill, and up the next rise, we cantered to the
extensive ruins of Kurmul, the Carmel where Nabal sheared
his tlucks. It mu.st have been an important place in later

cc 2

388 THE COXVOy LOST.

times, to juil<;v rrom the extent of the ruins. A fine castle
suvnioimts them, Luilt by Herod, and repaired by Crusaders
and Saracens. The outer walls are built of large stones of
the later bevel ; but inside are many pointed arches, especially
in tlie upper parts ; and the first floor is easily accessible,
with only a few holes broken through the vaulting beneath it.
There were the remains of churches, and of a double round
tower, like those already mentioned ; and below, down the
hill, was a large open reservoir, now abundantly supplied with
water. Here, on the fresh grassy sward, we were to have
found our camp ; but no tents or mules could we see, so,
riding back to the castle, we fastened our horses for shelter
under its lee, and climbed vip into a niche in the upper part,
wliere we consoled ourselves as best we might, while Giacomo
rode off to a neighbouring hill to reconnoitre. In less than
an hour he returned, without success, but had seen' the tracks
of the mules on the road to Hebron. It was now nearly dark,
and Hebron was three hours distant ; but there was no help
for it, and, galloping as long as daylight served, we pressed
our horses to the uttermost, lest we should be lost among the
hills. By the time we had reached Ziph, it was pitch-dark,
and we could not see a trace of the ruins among which we
were stumblinc;:, but onlv knew we were in the vale of
Eshcol, and that, to reach our destination, we must keep
in it. Onward we stumbled for a weary hour and a half,
unable to see each other, but keeping together by our voices,
till we were hailed by B — t, who had lost the convoy, and
been left behind.

But now glimmering lights in the distance gladdened our
eyes. We were approaching the ancient city. But by what a
road ! Open wells on the right, then on the left ; unfenced
cliffs and slippery rocks, over which we staggered, leading our
weary steeds ; till, near the city, we overtook the mules, all in
bewildering confusion. To camp in the rain and dark was
impossible ; so getting ahead with Giacomo and a Beilouin
guard, we went on to demand hospitality of Sheikh Hanizi,
whose home was here, and who had returned to it from El

RIDK IX THE DARKNESS. ?,H0

^lilillifi. After escaping various pitfalls, we entered the town
througli a broken gate, and found ourselves in a cavernous
vault, among a ruck of mules, pushing, yelling, and jostling,
and not a glimmer of light. "NVe dared not proceed ; for, just
before, one of our servants, having in vain urged his steed,
dismounted to force him on ; but his volley of imprecations
had been cut short by his sudden descent into a tan-pit,
whither the cautious beast declined to follow him. Long
time in vain we shouted for a friendly "fanouil" — "sham'ar"
(light — candle) ; till, at length, a little hole in a wall opened,
and a kindly female arm stretched out a wax taper, which
was just enough to show us that we were in a vaulted street.
At least we were out of the rain ; and, after some delay, a
little mixture of bribery and intimidation induced the sentry
at the gate to find a lantern, and w itli it to precede us to the
mansion of Hamzi, close by the celebrated mosque, or Haram.
A low door, four feet high, opened upon an inclined plane
leading into a large cavern. Dismounting, we led our horses
within ; and then, returning to the door, the mules were
unloaded, one by one, and passed down ; a tally of the animals
being kept by one of the party, and a vigilant look-out on the
baggage by the rest, lanterns in hand. By some extraordinary
good fortune, and their own instinct, all the forty-three beasts
were forthcoming.

Through dark, ruined passages, and up broken staircases,
we then foUowed our guide : till, up the fourth flight of stone
steps, we found the Sheikh in bed, in a vaulted chamber. The
household, aroused by the untimely intrusion, swarmed forth
like bees from various crannies ; and, overcome by curiosity,
the elder ]Mrs. Hamzi and three younger Mrs. Hamzis came
forth, unveiled, from their different rooms, each followed by a
troop of sleepy, unwashed children. The junior wives of our
host soon retired ; but the elder, the wife of the old man's
youth, and evidently the mistress, remained, and while her
husband cleared away his wardrobe, busily carried cushions
and rugs for our reception in this room, which \vas to be
our quarters. Our host's wealth seemed, after Eastern

300 CIIANGKS OF KAIMENT.

fasliiim, to consist largely in changes of raiment. A dozen
new suits were speedily produced, and we were stripped of
our dripping garments, and clad, Arab fashion, in turbans,
kafiyelis, and striped abeiyehs, with red slippers. The inferior
members of tlic household were busied with our servants
in stowing the baggage ; while the muleteers contrived to
cram horses, mules, pud asses into the ontranco-hall of these
scramblinij ruins.

We had not till now had time to ask our friends how v.-e
had missed each other at Kiirmul. Not liking its appearance
as a camping ground for Sunday during the rain, and ignorant
of the true distance of Hebron, they liad pushed on, leaving
a note for us in a cleft stick by the pond, which in the dusk
we had not perceived. However, all is well that ends well ;
and we were thankful to be brought safely together under a
dry roof Coffee and pipes soon appeared, and, after some
delay, barley cakes and bunches of the delicious raisins of
Eshcol, followed in due course by a huge dish of rice stewed
with butter. We made a hearty meal, sitting round the bowl
on the floor, and after prayers lay down in a row in our
Bedouin disguise, on the comfortable Turkey mats, wearied
enough to have slept soundly in far less luxurious quarters.

CHAPTER XYII.

llchron — Abraham's Oak — The Ilaram — Cave of Machpclah — Antiquity of the
Wall — Manufactures — Glass — Leathern Bottles — Tlie Upper and Nether
Springs — Dura (Adoraini) — Rameh — Well — Mamre — View of the Ghor
— Bead — £1 Burak — Solomon's Pools — Ducks — Urtas (Ethan) — Gardens
of Solomon — A')u:ient Baths — Frank Mountain — Her odium — Tckoa —
Adullam—Giacomo Lost — A Night on the If ills — Bethleliem — Women —
Flourrs — Rachel's Tomb — Jerusalem — Settlement with JIamzi — Arab Ava-
rice and Cunning — Tombs— Entrance to Tombs of the Kings — Rolling aicay
the Stone — Ride to Jaffa — M.'s Departure — Ramleh — Fi-uit Trees — Persecu-
tion— Domestic Changes — Signs of Spring — Agriculture — Plain of Ephraim
(Mokhna) — Lepers — The Pasha's llarcm—Sanur — Jjuke — Women of Naza-
reth.

Hebron. — Fehruary 1th. — The rain had passed aMay, and the
beams of a bright Eastern sun peering in through the open
door found us still asleep. All the little Hanizis of the
various maternities had their gaze of wonder in turn at the
strange visitors, as with infantile curiosity they crowded
round the door, and then followed us down into the yard to
watch our ablutions.

After a little delay we got at our dry clothes, and mounted
the roof to have a look at the massive building which encloses
the Cave of Machpelah, so long hermetically sealed to Chris-
tians. AVe were not one hundred yards from it, and we were
looking round on one of the most ancient cities in the history
of the world. On the hill sides, and in the valleys below,
Abraham had walked and communed with God ; the dust of
the patriarchs mouldered in the caves beneath these huge
walls. We were in David's royal city, and by the pool below
us the monarch had taught a higher morality to Eastern
conquerors, and hanged up the murderers of his rival. Here,
above all, were many of those Psalms written ^\•hich still rise
heavenward in the daily worship of every land.

302

Ar>RAlIA:\I S OAK.

"\V(^ witli difficulty cloarod our looin of visitors, for senace,
after wliioli Ave strolled aliout a mile and a half from the
city to visit the so-called Abraham's Oak, no re]iresentative or
descendant of the famed oak of ^Nfamre, which was a tere-
binth [Pisfrieia U'irhinfhi's), but a mere substitute, and in a
dilfercnt direction from Hebron, west instead of north, a
noble holm oak, the finest tree in Southern Palestine, of the
species Qvcrciispseudo-coccifera, Desf. Arabice "Scindian." It

J

. OAK OK IIKHRON.

was not until we had lioen long, wandering in Northern
Galilee that we met with an oak-tree to surpass this one in
size. The tree is sound, measuring over twenty-two feet in
circumference, and stands close under the vineyards in a
grassy field, with some of its descendants not very far ofif, and
with a fine old well of sweet water just behind it. Under
its shaih', in quiet seclusion, we sat and spent our Sunday
afternoon in reading tlic liistory of Abraham, and the jiro-

THE HAK.VM. 3.')o

mises of blessing through him to all nations, pledged to him
in these valleys near (>.()(i() years ago, and fultilled now to
ourselves. The walk up the valley revealed to us for the
first time what Judah was everywhere else in the days of its
prosperity. Bare and stony as are the hill- sides, not an inch
of space is lost. Terraces, where the ground is not too
rocky, support the soil. Ancient vineyards cling to the lower
slopes, olive, mulberry, almond, fig, and pomegranate trees fill
every available cranny to the very crest, while the bottom of
the valley is carefully tilled for corn, carrots, and cauliflowers,
which will soon give place to melons and cucumbers.
Streamlets of fresh water trickled on each side of our path.
The production and fertility, as evidenced even in winter, is
extraordinary ; and the culture is equal to that of Malta.
That catacomb of perisdied cities, the hill country of Judah,
through whose labyrinths we yesterday wandered, is all ex-
plained by a walk up the Vale of E.shcol ; and those who
doubt the ancient records of the population, or the census of
David or his successors, have only to look at this valley, and
by the light of its commentary to read the story of those
cities.

On our return from the oak, we walked round the Haram ;
and, accompanied by Hamzi and one or two of his friends,
personages of importance in Hebron, had less cause to appre-
hend molestation than ordinary travellers. We were per-
mitted to ascend the staircase, which gently rises from the
south-east corner of the enclosure, having the massive stones
of the Haram wall at our left, smooth and polished like
marble. The enclosure tlius embraces not a level space, but
the side of a very steep hill, just such as would contain a
sepulchral cave. "We were not allowed, however, to turn
again to the left, or look in — the angry scowls of a few
loungers, and the noisy shouts of some mischievous boys,
warned us it was time to return ; and we beat a precipitate
retreat, without further molestation than some unpleasant
jostling at the foot of the stairs. We had, however, had
abundant time before to look through the little hole near the

394 ANTIQUITY OF THE WALL.

entrance, where the Jcm's are at times permitted to peep at the
sejHilehres of their fathers, hut we couhl make out only an
open space. I believe that, had we made a dart at first, we
might have had a glance at the mysterious area within, for
our visit was unexpected, and none were on guard against
us ; but, with Dean Stanley's full description in our minds, we
were well satistied l>y our external survey. "We afterwards
made the circuit of the Harani as closely as we could, and
from above on the upper side we climbed on to the roof of
the adjoining building, the Mosque of Jawali, and looked
down through a window in its little dome, but were unable
to discover anything of interest, though we were here not far
from the summit of the old megalithic wall, and had hoped to
find a point where we could peep down into the area. The
Haram wall is about 200 feet long, by about 115 wide, and
upwards of fifty feet high, without a single window or opening ■
of any kind except the doorways at the north, which are com- I
pletely concealed from view. The stones are sumptuous in
size and dressing, exactly like those of the substructure of the
temple area at Jerusalem. AVe had no opportunity of mea-
suring exactly the size of these enormous stones, but could
not doubt the statements that some reach the amazing size of
thirty-eight feet by three feet and a half, or, as we should say
of some, by four feet. The shallow pilasters, which, two feet
and a half wide and five feet apart, relieve the outer face and
run evenly to its top, have a very fine effect ; and there is a
simple and austere grandeur about the massive plainness
of the ancient wall, which not even the paltry Saracenic ad-
dition on its top and the two minarets at the corners can
affect. The design is unique and patriarchal in its magnifi-
cent simplicity. One can scarcely tolerate the theory of some
architectural writers, that this enclosure is of a period later
than the Jewish. It would have been strange if any of the
Herodian princes should here alone have raised, at enormous
cost, a building utterly differing from the countless products
of their architectural passion and lioman taste with which the
laud is strewn. Stranger still had any Byzantine architect

ANTIQUITY OF THE WALL.

?.95

here conceived a work of such impressive simplicity without
one single feature — either in design or execution — in common
with the elaborate decorations in which he everywliere
indulged. The only buildings ^\•ith which we can com-
pare it, to elucidate its date, are the substructures of the
Temple of Jerusalem, and the Castle of Hyrcanus at Arak el
Emir, the latter being but a small though perfect fragment.

MOSQUE OF HEBRON.

lioth these would carry us back to the ante-Eoman period,
and we must- at a glance assign a greater antiquity to the style
of the Hebron Haram, than to the similar but more elaborate
architecture in Gilead. Let the traveller gaze on these great
stones, and, unmoved by the remorseless attacks of critics, let
him feel satisfied tl.at for once he has m-ounds to believe in a

396 m-HA.

Jewish tradition, and that he has been permitted to survey
the one remaining work of the royal Solomon, or perhaps of
his greater father. The words of Jose] )h us will apply to the
existing structure, " Trdvu /caX?}? /jLap/xdpov nal (f>i\.oTi/xo)(; elp-
yao-fiii'a," and as Mr. Grove has observed, if Herod had been
the arcliitect, Josephus would not have forgotten to extol his
work.

Fibruari/ SfJi. — We sent a mounted messenger before sun-
rise to Jerusalem for our letters, wdiich w^e hope to find
awaiting us to-morrow at the Pools of Solomon, and one of
the sons of our host afterwards took us to see the two prin-
cipal industries of Hebron ; glass-works, chiefly of lamps and
ornaments, and the bracelets, of which quantities are hawked
about Jerusalem, — the process of manufacture exhibiting no
mean skill, though, of course, rude in comparison with ours.
The large tanneries, where water-skins are prepared, exhibit
the other staple employment of the town, and it was very in-
teresting to watch the several processes. The skins are half
tanned, then sewn up and filled with water, the sutures being
carefully pitched. They are then exposed on the gTound for
several days, covered wnth a strong decoction of tannin, and
water jDumped into them from time to time to keep them on
the stretch till sufficiently saturated. They are all prepared
with the hair on.

I afterwards set out w'itli, L. to walk to Dura, the ancient
Adoraim, and Dewir Dan, probably Debir, the fortress for the
storming of which Othniel won the daughter of Caleb as
his bride. It was a longer walk than we had anticipated —
sixteen miles there and back — but the country was very in-
teresting, and the views lovely, often reminding me of the walks
in the Sahel near Algiers. Dean Stanley's vivid picture of his
ride is certainly not exaggerated. The most interesting part
was the upper and the nether springs, the wedding portion of
Aclisah from her father Caleb. She pleads, " Thou hast given
me a sovth land," where there are no fountains, only wells
here and there ; give me also springs, "bubblings " (f/nllofh) of
water. (Judg. i. 15.) And sweetly do these two springs, the

HEBRON".

397

upper and the netlier, bubble and gurgle forth, and trickle
down, each from the top of a re-entering angle in the hillside,
forming a steep little dell, which, clad with vines and olives,
runs down into the main valley. A level path, half way up
the hillside, winds round the two valleys (they are not more
than half a mile apart), and we had some lovely peeps of the
Mediterranean and the plain of Philistia between openings
in the hills, as they shone in the distance. Night had fallen
before we returned, tired and hungry, to our quarters, where
we found our friends waiting for us and for dinner. B. had
successfully photographed Abraham's Oak and the great
stones of the mosque ; and many birds had been collected,
all of which were the same as those of Carmel and IVIount
Ephraim — jays, woodpeckers, owls, finches, telling us we had
got back to the central country, and need expect no more of
the rarities which had rewarded us in the south.

HKBRO.N.

Fchruary dth. — Accompanied by our host, whose prudent
hospitality we had taken care liberally to repay, we started
for Solomon's Pools. We are now so completely in the

398 MAMKK.

beaten track of travellers, that one feels disposed to shut up
journal writing, and refer to I'orter's Handlx)ok. Our route
lay through the lieart of Judah, once studded ■v\it]i its fenced
cities, towns, and villages, wliose desolate heaps stud every
knoll and encumber every valley. Aljout two miles north of
Hebron, just after quitting the garden-like vale of Eshcol,
■with its fiiir terraced vineyards and olive-trees, we turned a
little to the eastward to visit Kameh, the ancient Mamre,
now left without a tree, save one or two decrepit old olives,
and for the most part a heap of undistinguishable ruins,
scattered among barley-fields. There is one exception, in the
basement of the magnificent Basilica, erected by Constantino
on the spot where Abraham's Oak once stood, and which had
become an object of idolatrous worship. Of this massive
edifice a few courses of huge stones, many of them fifteen feet
long, alone remain, — the lower tiers of two of the enclosing
walls, 290 and 160 feet long respectively. Tn one corner of
the building is an ancient drop-well, carefully lined with hard
limestone, and still containing water ; probably far older than
the church, and perhaps reaching back to the time of Abra-
ham himself. What memories does this bleak desolate spot
recall, from the days when the father of the faithful sat there
iu his tent-door, looking out, not on bare stony fields, but on
green glades, beneath the ancient terebinths, to that time of
terrible retribution on his posterity, when the Eomans sold
the captive Jews by thousands beneath their own sacred oak !
Mamre is not a plain; indeed, the Hebrew word ]w^, "elon,"
oal', is mistranslated in our version throughout, and the oaks
of ]\Iamre stood in a slightly hollowed basin, surrounded by
low rocky hills. B. and I mounted to the top of tlie northern
slope, where Abraham probably stood, and there we noted
how he could easily have seen the smoke of the cities of the
plain in the circle " ciccar " of Jordan, as it rose like the
smoke of a furnace, though he could not see the plain itself.
Still the eastern hills were visible, and a gauzy cloud of blue
liaze intervened, overhanging the mysterious Ghor.

The rain, which luul kept oil" for (he last two days, ni»w

SOLOMON'S POOLS. 390

began to descend, and poured forth in torrents during the
remainder of our ride. The road was rough and hroktMi,
dilapidated like all else in this laud, since the days when the
chariots of Jewish royalty passed up the valleys. Yet there
were traces, here and there, of the work of lloman engineers,
although effectually undone by the hoofs of fourteen centuries
wearing and misplacing every stone of the ancient pavement.
English birds — goldfinches, buntings, woodlarks, and linnets,
together with the Greek partridge — seemed now the only in-
habitants of the hill-sides, restored to pristine barrenness, but
not to primaeval forest, and clad with dwarf oak, bay, lentisk,
and broom, instead of terraced vines, olive, and fig-trees. No
human habitation relieved the solitude, till we descended a
gentle slope to a strip of greensward by the El Burilk —
Solomon's Pools ; three vast reservoirs, which in line succes-
sively till the bottom of the valley, and supply Bethlehem, as
once they did Jerusalem. A great square Turkish castle
stands near the head of the upper })ool, inhabited by hall" a
dozen irregular troops, avIio act as police ; and under tlie
shelter of its walls our tents were pitched in front of the
reservoir. The pools are partially excavated in the bed of
the valley, and built of squared stone, the bottom of the
upper one being higher than the top of the next, and so with
the third. In length they vary from 380 to 580 feet, in
breadth from 236 (the two upper) to 207 feet (the lower,) and
in depth from 25 to 50 feet. The upper pool was quite full,
and the second nearly so, at the time of our visit ; but the
third leaked half-way up. They would do credit to the
engineering skill of modern times, and there seems no reason
whatever for doubting the correctness of the tradition which
ascribes them to Solomon. Elocks of wild duck — gadwall,
pochard, and shoveller — were enjoying themselves on their
surface, aud supply the guard witli many a supper during the
winter, though our camp and numbers so alarmed them that
we only obtained a single pochard. I received in Jerusalem
a fine wild swan (Cjjcnus musicus) ^\■hich was shot here.
We descended to the little chamiel above the cisterns.

400 GARDENS OF SOLOMON.

^vhicll, by an arched conduit, supplies them from a hidden
s]>rin^ ahove ; and then at once proceeded down the narrow
winiling gk'u, watered by the rill which trickles down its
centre, to visit Solomon's Gardens at Urtas. The steep rocky
sides are bare and brown, though once planted with all manner
of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop from the
desert. After passing the little village of Urtas, probably the
ancient Mam, perched on the rocky hill-side, we entered upon
the gardens, which run down for more than two miles in all,
but seldom containing more than 300 yards in width of level
ground. An attempt has here been made to induce the Jews
to cultivate once more their own land, and the grounds are
now the farm of Mr. Meshullam, a converted Jew, and an
excellent and intelligent man. He has had to contend with
many difficulties, and been exposed to constant petty depreda-
tions; but the place promises to become an useful rallying
point for the Protestant Jews, and has already shown the
capabilities of this neglected soil. Various travellers have
assisted the scheme by purchasing a little plot. One is held
by Lady Dufierin, and Prince Alfred has bought and terraced
a piece of the adjoining hill-side, which is already planted
Avith vines. The whole of the bottom is cultivated as a
market garden for Jerusalem, productive but unpicturesque,
and \vell stocked with standard apricot, peach, almond, fig,
and pomegranate trees. A good house has been built by the
tenant, and, among other improvements, he has introduced
the use of the wheelbarrow, supposed to be the first wheel
vehicle in the country since the Eomau days, and an object
of wonder to all the neighbourhood.

In the easternmost plot, which has only recently been taken
in, a very interesting discovery has been made. Portions of
Ituilding had been discovered while planting, and an English
traveller left a sum of money to pay for excavations. A
strongly-built reservoir of twenty yards square has been
cleared out in the centre of the narrow valley. It had once
been faced with marble, several slabs of which were found
among the rubbish, and two or three still remained attached

FRANK MOUNTAIN. 401

by clamps to the walls. Several broken shafts, and two quite
perfect, of pure white marble, had been also exhumed, and
■were lying on the surface, as well as three very richly carved
capitals, also white marble, of a stylo like those of the sub-
structure of the Temple, but more elaborate. The foliage and
pattern is partly palm-leaf, varying in each capital, and some-
what approaches Corinthian, but is heavier in design, though
very delicate in execution. Unfortunately, the weather pre-
vented B. from photographing them. Probably these shafts
and capitals supported a roof or canopy over the great centre
bath. From this a small channel conveyed the water into
another smaller private bath, to which there was a descent
from the garden by steps, and here the marble slabs which
lined it remain i7i dtu. Beyond it, another bath of interme-
diate size has been partially cleared, with a pipe connecting
it with the second. It is remarkable that the shape and
armngements of the private bath arc exactly such as are
required for the Jewish ceremonial purifications, and possibly
we have here the only remaining relic of the luxurious
splendour of the founder of Solomon's Gardens.

February 10th. — The rain still continued, but our tents were
dry ; and, determined not to lose a day, B., B — t, and I started
with Giacomo to visit Frank jMountain (Beth Haccerem,
llerodium), the burial-place of Herod the Great, and the
Cave of Adullam. The former object we accomplished, for
the cone, the only conspicuous peak among the hills of Judah,
cannot be mistaken. The peak has evidently been artificially
smoothed and rounded, but possesses no ruins, except the
remains of an enclosing wall, reminding us much of that of
Masada, with four round towers. In this enclosure was laid
the dishonoured body of the monster Herod. No other ruins
<an be seen, and the name of Frank Mountain, and the tradi-
tion that it was the last stronghold of the Crusaders, seem
utterly without foundation. We had hoped to enjoy the pano-
rama, of which many travellers have spoken with enthusiasm,
but the descending clouds concealed every feature of the
distant landscape.

D D

402 GIACOMO I,OST.

We were less successful in discoveviug David's liidiug-place,
if Khureitun be the true AduUum, for after wandering per-
severingly for five hours, we had to give up the search in
despair, haflHed as Saul was in his pursuit. Like him, we
turned into another cave, and, as we had brought our coffee-
pot and luncheon, we made ourselves comfortable with the
dry fuel collected within. Our ramble was not, however, un-
rewarded. AVe came upon Tekua, the ancient Tekoa, which
we had not included in our programme, and only recognised
it by the large Greek font of rose-coloured limestone, described
by Porter, standing among broken columns by the ruins of a
Greek church. Besides the church, we saw the remains of
a square tower, or fortress, and many of the Jewish so-called
"bevelled" stones. The remains covered several acres, and
we had here a more extensive view eastward than the weather
had permitted us to obtain from Jebel Fureidis. Bleak, indeed,
looked the home of the herdsman of Tekoa — savage and
severe the scenery which has clothed his denunciations with
their wild and stern imagerv.

In returning home, we were benighted about two miles
from camp, and arrived in single file as we straggled up the
valley. Giacomo, who had been behind, never appeared, and
then it was remembered that a gun had been heard just after
dark. We sent two of the soldiers from the fort, and a couple
of muleteers, to the village of Urtas ; but they returned
without intelligence, and we could only hope he had turned
off to Bethlehem, and found quarters there.

February Wtli. — I rode off, before sunrise, with a servant,
to Urtas, to search for our missing dragoman ; and having
enlisted the help of the manager of the farm, who mounted at
once and accompanied us, we were able, by a mark in his
boot, to identify his steps as far as the village, where we lost
the trace. Much alarmed, we rode across to Bethlehem ; but
could hear no tidings of him at the convent, or elsewhere.
On our return to camp, our Arabs agreed he must have been
murdered at Urtas, which has a very bad repute. We were
just about to despatch two horsemen to Jerusalem, when

BETHLEHEM. 403

Giacomo was discovered over the hills to the south. We rode
off to him, and found him utterly exhausted. After a little
brandy, he was able to explain, that, having followed us last
night nearly to the village, he had thought it safest, knowing
its character, to turn up the hill to his left, and descend, after
a few hundred yards, to camp. Confused in the rain and dark-
ness, he must have come down into the wrong wady, and
becoming bewildered, had wandered all night upon the moun-
tains, believing he was making for Jerusalem, when, at day-
break, he found himself near Hebron. lie had lost the sole
of one boot, and both his feet were lame and bleeding. We
conveyed him to camp on Hamoud's ass, where some hot coffee
soon restored him.

Having left orders that our tents should be pitched on our
old grounds outside Jerusalem, we rode to Betldehem, where
we spent the day, and reached the Holy City at sunset. We
lunched at the Latin Convent of Bethlehem ; and, amid the din
of rival purveyors at the door of the Greek church, laid in a
stock of Bethlehem ware — carved scallop-shells and olive-wood
beads. AVe once more admired the handsome faces of men and
women, and the wondrous beauty of the children, so fair and
European-like. Bethlehem is a Christian town, and doubtless
owes the beauty of its inhabitants to the Norman blood of
the Crusaders' colony. The dress of the women is peculiar
and striking, very much more becoming than that of their
Nazareth sisters ; consisting of a long blue under- garment
with sleeves, over which is a bright-red sleeveless jacket and
short skirt ; the head-dress consisting of a large piece of white
calico, drawn tightly over a frame, like a brimless hat, and
folded beneath the petticoat behind.

But I need say nothing of Bethlehem, with its hallowed
and hallowing associations and its holy places — the latter
having, perhaps, more authenticity than some in Jerusalem.
Tliey are known to every Eastern traveller, and to every
reader of Eastern travels. The turf of its olive-yards, the
well-tilled gardens and clean vineyards, bespeak at once
the industry of a Christian population. The lovely scarlet

D D 2

404 JERUSALEM.

anemone was coming into flower, and showing signs of spring ;
pretty little annuals — a pink lychnis {L. cceli-rosa), saponarias,
blue i»imperncls, and red valerians — carpeted with a sheet of
colour the soil under the olive-trees. These cheerful glades,
in the freshness of a balmy spring morning, seemed to breathe
of that ixjace, the proclamation of which to the world echoed
first over those hills and vales.

From Bethlehem we turned a little to the right, to visit the
sepulchre of liachel, a modern wely, with a little dome, but a
site which is unquestioned, and preserved b}^ unbroken tra-
dition. " They journeyed from Bethel, and there was but a
little way to come to Ephrath. . . . And liachel died, and was
buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem." (Gen.
XXXV. 16, 19.) Passing the tomb, and afterwards the grey
convent of Mar Elias, with its apocryphal traditions of
Elijah, another short hour brought us to the Jaffa Gate of
Jerusalem.

For the following ten days Jerusalem was our head-quarters,
and our tents remained constant on our old camping-ground,
watched over, as before, by the military dog of the guard-
house. Much of our time was occupied in business arrange-
ments, in packing our collections for England, and in re-
fitting. In fact, the old ship had to go into dock (not always
dry-dock, for it rained half the time), and undergo a regular
overhaul. Carpenters, shoemakers, tentmakers, tailors, tinkers,
gunsmiths, were all in request. There was scarcely a pair of
boots left amongst the party — our tents were tattered, so were
our coats — our kettles leaked, our guns were bulged or dented
— straps were broken or missing, bridles mended with twine,
and the commissariat nearly exhausted. We had returned to
civilization, and visits to and from our friends, and evening
parties, were a pleasant change, for a time, after our Bedouin
life.

Our Jehrdin friends appeared on the following day, and we
had some difficulty in settling all their demands on our purse.
Hamzi — a fine specimen of the Arab attorney — after receiving
the full backshish they were to have had if we had reached

SETTLEMENT WITH IIAMZI. 405

the Lisan, next submitted that, as the tour was to have
readied forty days, he should be paid for guards for the
whole of tliat period, instead of for the montli we had been
with them. "We pointed out that our stipulation had been
not to exceed forty days ; when the old man had the assiu'-
anee to argue, that they had laid in provisions and made an
outfit for the whole period, and for some time indignantly
spurned the 78/. we offered in full of all demands. Old
Abou Dahuk, who had a soul above backshish, declared
himself more than satisfied. The firmness of the Consul, at
length, battled Hamzi's ingenious roguery and unblushing
impudence, and we thought we were clear of him ; but we
flattered ourselves too soon. A few hours afterwards, Hamzi
came to our tents, fawning and kissing our hands, to tell
us there had been a mistake in our favour of 500 piastres
in countmc: out the monev. A second time he returned, to
tell us that the sum paid for the horsemen was 1,000 piastres
less than stipulated in the contract. On referring to this,
we found he was correct, but, at the same time, that we had
overpaid him 3,000 piastres for the footmen. He announced
his intention of going to law, when we threatened him with
a cross-action. For three successive dj^ys did he renew his
attempts ; but relinquished them, on being told by the Consul
he might bring his action, but must pay down his fees before-
hand ; when he finally departed, kissing our hands, but telling
us that no true Inglez would have been so mean to the
poor Bedouin, and that ]\I. de Saulcy was more like a real
prince !

We enjoyed two quiet Sundays in Jerusalem, and on the
14th I had the privilege of preaching at the opening of the
English evening service for the season, as I had also been
permitted to do on a similar occasion six years before. During
the autumn and early winter, when there are no visitors, the
service is conducted in the English language in the mornjng
only.

We occupied our spare time chiefly in visiting the tombs
in the neighbourhood, at INIar Elias and elsewhere; but

406 ENTKAJs'CE TO THE TOMBS.

especially the recent excavations of M. de Saulcy, in the so-
called Tombs of the Kings. They had been fully described
by every preceding writer ; but so much of the rubbish had
been cleared away, that the original plan was more clearly
exposed, and the stairs, long buried under the soil, which had
led down to the open courtyard in front of the sepulchre, were,
for the first time, brought into view. The slab which covered
the staircase, down to the new tomb opened by M. de Saulcy,
was laid in the corner of an inner tomb, and ingeniously con-
cealed, so as to appear a portion of the natural rock. No
M-onder it had eluded lionian and Saracen alike. The prin-
cipal sarcopliagus with its inscription and its contents we did
not see, as they had been promptly and secretly conveyed to
Paris just before our first visit; but one empty sarcophagus
had been left. The secret stairs led to a chamber hollowed
in the rock, with nine niches for full-sized coffins.

The excavations enabled us to see clearly, what we had not
so fully appreciated on our former visits — the ingenious con-
trivance for " sealing and making sure " the entrance to the
outer chamber, from which the labyrinth of tombs branches
in all directions.

The accompanying, plan will explain the access to the
tombs : —

ppp. The vestibule of the tombs, which extends over the
whole space represented in the plan, excepting the well-mouth,
marked A, bc, (fee, are all underground, covered by a pave-
ment level M'itli r. b, Passage, three feet high, leading to the
tombs, c. Continuation of the same. D, Block of native rock
in, situ. E, Continuation of passage, very narrow, ff, A
circidar slab like a millstone, fitting into a deep socket,
(I, and perfectly sealing the entrance. This stone is three
feet thick, and four feet in diameter. H, A massive stone door,
swinging on two pivots, opening into the chambers beyond.
Nqw, to enter under the slab which covers B, without being
drowned in cistern at A, required no little dexterity, for the
slab over-lapped part of A, and there was only a space of a
foot between the slab and the water. This gymnastic feat

KOLLING AWAY THE STONE.

407

being accomplished, the intruder must creep along c, then
turn into E, and then by levers roll back towards him ff from
its socket G, and then returning by c, he would find the door
H facinGf him. This door was so hung in its socket, that
though it could be pushed open after the removal of ff, yet
it swung back again, unless fastened open ; and there. was no
possibility of opening it from the inside. If it closed, the
fate of the explorer was sealed for ever.

PLAN OK ENTRANXK TO THE TOMB OF THE KINGS, JERUSALEM.

In this case, the whole of the labyrinthic apparatus is per-
fect ; but there are several other tombs in which the circular
stone remains, though mutilated. When we look at this
sepulchre, how simple, yet how full of meaning, is the expres-
sion, " The angel rolled back the stone

) >'

408 KIDE TO JAFFA.

We regretted to see that some curiosity-hunters had already-
begun to chip and carry away large fragments, and soon, it is
to be feared, it will be hopelessly mutilated.

On February 15th we started early on horseback for Jaffa,
to accompany on his way our good friend JVledlycott, who was
now to leave us, and make the first break in our delightful
party. A ride over ruined rocky paths, some of the worst in
the country, brought us to Kureit-el-Enab, the ancient Kirjath
Jearim, in a pleasant valley of olive-groves, abounding in jays
and haM'ks. AVe dismounted to visit the old gothic church,
said to have been built by the English Crusaders, and still
quite perfect, though desecrated by the Moslem villagers to
the uses of a cow-shed. Aisles, pillars, and some old frescoes
still remain, till Christianity shall have her own again. Soon
after passing this, we ascended a rounded ridge, when the
Mediterranean and the Plain of Sharon burst upon our view,
and we rapidly descended towards the plain, keeping at the
bottom of picturesque rocky ravines, clothed with dwarf oak,
arbutus, and other shrubs, and with many a plantation of
olive and carob-trees, the young foliage of which gave life
and lightness to the landscape. Flocks of goats were brows-
ing in the valleys and on the hill-sides, and altogether the
country had a civilized and homely look. About two p.m. we
had reached the plain, and on a bit of greensward, with a carpet
of flowers springing up, we lunched close to a small khan,
whence we were supplied with wine and coffee. Here we were
probably at the entrance of the Valley of Ajalon. Tlie plain
was fairly cultivated, and drained by periodical watercourses.
A drenching rain soon came on, and we reached Ramleli (Ari-
mathea) after dusk, through gardens and hedges of prickly
pear, and were hospitaljly received at the Franciscan Convent,
and treated to as good a dinner as Lenten rules would permit.
Having no other change of clothing than our saddle-bags
afforded, we were reduced to go to bed after dinner, that our
clothes might be dried by the morning. The wind howled
round tlie old convent all night ; next morning we were up
with the dawn, and, after a very frugal breakfast, started

RAMLEir. 409

in a pouring rain for Jaffa, wliich we reached, through the
greasy plunging mud of Sharon, by ten o'clock, in time to find
that the steamer had sailed, and that M. must wait several
days for the next.

After searching the custom-house in vain for a missing box,
but havino; rescued a case of meteorological instruments for
Dr. Chaplin, which had lain there eight months, we bid M,
farewell, and set off at two o'clock for Eamleh, as we knew of
old the sights of Jaffa. The sea was dashing over the walls,
auguring ill for the chance of a mail steamer to-morrow, and
tlie weather did not tempt us to remain.

The gardens which surround Jaffa have much extended
since my former visit, and it is evidently a thriving and in-
creasing towTi; with its broad belt of two or three miles of
date palms and orange groves, the latter now laden with
fruit. As we wound through the pleasant sandy lanes, the
rain had lifted and the air was almost oppressively perfumed
with the scent of the trees. I was fortunate enoucrh to
secure a fine specimen of the peregrine falcon, the first we
had obtained. The plain outside abounded with larks of four
species — calandra, sky, crested, and wood-larks ; quails,
common buntings, starlings, and the Sardinian black starling.
Eing and Kentish plovers were running round the pools, and
many herons, white egrets, and squacco herons, were feeding
in the more distant lagoons.

There is no clergyman now in Jaffa. At Eamleh, how-
ever, there are still thriving schools, and an encouraging con-
gregation under the Church Missionary Society, but they are
only ministered to by a schoolmaster catechist. Eeligious
antipathies seem to be early developed here, for some little
boys pelted me for a Christian dog as I quietly rode through
the narrow streets to the Convent, whereupon others cried
out, "T am Eoumi and Inglez," i.e. an English Protestant.
Upon this a general fight seemed likely to ensue, had I not
interfered, and aided in driving off the small Moslems. The
monks, less uncompromising in their antipathies, kindly over-
looked the rules of Lent on behalf of drenched heretics, and

410 AGIUCULTUIIE.

provided us with a good dinner of mutton broth and stewed
chicken.

Fcbriuiry Vlth. — It still continued to blow half a gale, and
we were agreeably surprised on our return to find our tents
standiufr, thoudi U. and S. had deserted Bedouin life in our
absence, and degraded themselves into mere fellahin by taking
refuge in Mauser's hotel. AVe stuck to our camp, and the
worst inconvenience we suffered was the difficulty of keeping
candles alight, and of dry socks and slippers ; but coffee and
wine removed all the ill effects of our three days' amphibious
life.

The same symptoms of improvement we observed in agi'i-
culture round Jaffa may also be seen round Jerusalem.
Villas, gardens, and young olive groves are spreading outside,
where six years ago there were only rubbish heaps ; and the
great Eussian hospice is drawing a suburb along the Jaffa
road. Lower down, below the pools of Gihon, on the Beth-
lehem road. Sir M. Montefiore has built a neat range of small
houses for poor Jews, and both Greeks and Jews have been
enclosing and cultivating largely on the slopes. The gardens,
which formerly were merely cabbage plots, on jNIount Zion,
straggling down to the Valley of Hinnom, now extend be-
yond. The vine and olive, the natural staple of the laud, are
being planted, and a quantity of barley and some wheat has
been sown. The almond-tree has now (Feb. 20) been in
blossom for a fortnight, the peach-tree for a week, and the
apricots are just budding into bloom. The pomegranate and
fig-trees show as yet no signs of summer being nigh. The
barley, wheat, and sesame were sown just after Christmas,
and after the rains are now four inches high. The cauli-
flowers are in season and of enormous size, the carrots are
small and coarse, and the turnips very small and poor. The
onions and garlic have been dibbled out for a fortnight, and
are strong. The oranges and lemons are, of course, the only
fruits yet in season. The curse is upon the land, but it is the
curse of poverty; not on its soil, but on its indolent, degradefl,
and oppressed inhabitants.

AIN IIAKAMIYEII. 411

Before leaving the Holy City we had to make various do-
mestic changes. Our Syrian cook found his place too liard,
our Jerusalem mideteers had no taste for further adventure,
and there was a geueral move and promotion in the esta-
blishment. One of our muleteer boys, and only one, was a
Christian, an orphan from Nazareth ; and several times we
liad had to interfere on his behalf when wantonly beaten and
cuffed as a Christian dog. Poor Yahoo (as he had been nick-
named from his grotesque features) was now, to protect him
from gross ill-usage, promoted to be scullery-boy, and found
himself installed in the servants' tent, rejoicing in shelter and
food, and, for the first time in his life, in an old pair of
trowsers. Our old Beyrout followers all remained with us,
and, with full confidence in their tried fidelity, we left it to
them to find substitutes both for the men and the beasts
whom we had to leave behind us in the city.

Fehruarij 22d. — At length our followers are dragged from
the enervating influences of the city, and we turn northwards
once more, prepared to cross to Gilead and Bashan from
Galilee or the upper Jordan. We retrace our steps by
Bethel, halting for luncheon under an old cave, once a reser-
voir, festooned with maidenhair fern, and pitch our tents at
Ain Haramiyeh, the Robber's Fountain. The landscape has
marvellously improved since we traversed the same road
before Christmas ; the then bare hills are now green with
young corn, the terraces no longer bands of brown and ochre,
. but stripes of darker or paler green. The vines and fig-trees
] are still bare, bilt when they are in leaf, these valleys will
j rival the park of Carmel. The ground is now carpeted with
anemone, lychnis, cyclamen, and other spring flowers, and
preserves, like the neighbourhood of Hebron, its ancient
character ; a fact best explained when we are told that the
villagers of the hills above are Christians.

February 2Sd. — Another cloudless day smiled on our ride
to Nablous, through a country yet more beautified by spring
than the vales of Benjamin yesterday. The flowers were
even more abundant ; the scarlet anemone, cyclamen, and,

412 PLAIN OF EPHRAIM.

above all, the little pink lyclmis, combined to spread a
red carpet over the land, while patches of blue pimpernel
and veronica, ^vitll tul'ts of yellow ranuncidus, prettily
variegated the pattern, and the green barley formed a rich turf
under the olive-trees. Through tlie length of the once bare
plain of !Moklina (Shechem), many a yoke of dwarf oxen
were lazily dragging the simple wooden ph)Ugh, guided by a
still more lazy Bedouin with one hand, while his other plied
the goad, and women Math assos were bringing sacks of
wheat from the hills for seed. Though the barley was four
inches high, the wheat was only just being sown. The
ground is scratched with a wooden plough to a depth of not
more than six inches, and so light is the soil, filled with small
stones, that no harrowing is required — the corn is scattered,
and at once raked roughly in. The earth is red, or red
brown, very friable, and having the appearance of great rich-
ness, which its produce does not belie ; for no manure is used
beyond the anemones and stubble which are ploughed in.
There is not a hedge or a tree along the open valleys, which
therefore even in spring look somewhat bare. Near Nablous
were some patches of beans already in full blossom, the
perfume of which reminded us all of home.

We visited the tomb of Joseph, and Jacob's Well, now full
of water, and then rode through the long narrow town of
Nablous to our camping-ground.

February 2Mh. — Profiting by our recollections of the Cave
of Adullam, I took a Samaritan guide to revisit Gerizim, with
U. and S. while the rest of the party went on to Jenin. The
artery between Northern and Southern I'alestine could to-day
be seen to full advantage, narrow, long, and well wooded,
watered by its gushing rills, with its orchards of orange,
palm, and fig ; but conspicuous above the rest were apricots,
almonds, and peaches, now one beautiful sheet of pink or
white blossom, creeping up the southern mountain's side,
while olive groves clad Ebal's lower slopes, and the smooth-
leaved cactus almost covered its rocky sides above.

On our return, we found Giacomo, with our horses, waiting

THE pasha's ladies. 413

under an olive-tree. Around him, but at a respectful distance,
sat upwards of thirty lepers, seeking alms. On the preceding
evening some of these unfortunates had beset our tents, when
we promised them that, if they would depart, we would re-
member them in the morning. Tliey had accordingly collected
the whole fraternity, and awaited the fulfilment of our word.
Giving Giacomo all the small change we could muster, for dis-
tribution, we mounted and rode up the valley. The lepers are
in many of the towns of Palestine a sort of corporation, and
here and at Jerusalem hold, in that capacity, property, the
bequest of the charitable, under regularly appointed trustees.
Some are reputed to be rich, but all live in the same abject
way, in kennels outside the walls, intermarrying and handing
down their curse, like Gehazi, from generation to generation.

As we had visited Samaria on our way south, we took a
shorter but much worse road right across the hills by Beit
Imrin, Jeba, Jerba, and Kubatiyeh. The country was bare,
but not uncultivated in the hollows, and frequently relieved
by large patches of olive groves trying to creep up the hills.
On the way we met a long train of laden camels, with horses
and mules, accompanied by a guard of soldiers ; the house-
hold and effects of the new Pasha of Jerusalem. Tliere were
several fair young ladies, with veils of the thinnest muslin,
ridincj cross-legged, three of them with babies in their arms,
and each followed by a very carefully-veiled negxess, riding
in the same fashion. All of them were smoking or twisting
cigarettes, in spite of their veils; and one set of jewelled
fingers was neatly manipulating the tobacco across the baby
rolled in swaddling clothes in front. Among the camel-
drivers behind were two men who came up to us and gave
me a cordial greeting. They were old acquaintances from El
Bussah, who had been unfortunate enough to be picked up
by the soldiers, and impressed, with their animals, to drive,
without payment, to Jerusalem, after the wretched system of
corvee, by which all men and animals are, without remunera-
tion, at the mercy of officials in this country. We ourselves
had one day been thus served at Jerusalem, when the soldiers

414 SANl^R.

seized oiiv mules to carry forage to Hebron, but not being
subjects of the Porte, we went instantly to the Consul, who
sent a summary message by his dragoman to the Pasha, when
the seizure was first denied, and then disowned ; but within
half an hour the mules were restored to their pickets.

We were now among the passes so often defended by the
horns of Joseph — by the ten thousands of Ephraim, and the
thousands of jManasseh ; in the rich land where Joseph en-
joyed "the chief things of the ancient mountains, and the
precious things of the lasting hills," and where his glory, un-
like that of the fierce lion of Judah in the rocky south, was
like the firstling of the peaceful bullock. -All the villages on
the route, Beit Imrin, Jeba (some ancient Geba), Jerba, and
Kubatiyeh, are pleasantly situated among luxuriant olive
groves, which swarm with jays, owls, and woodpeckers, but
are without ruins or ancient history, and not as yet identified
w'ith Scriptural localities. The hill fortress of Sanur, a little
north of Jeba, is an interesting spot, from its position on an
isolated rocky hill overlooking the entrance to a plain, and
from its having successfully resisted the attacks of the
notorious Jezzar Pasha. It was afterwards taken and de-
stroyed, and remained a ruin when Dr. Eobinson visited it,
but has since been rebuilt, though the olive gi-oves which the
Turks cut down are not yet restored. Its feudal sheikhs,
once the terror of the district, are now humbled and poverty-
stricken ; and the traveller need not fear to canter alone
among their valleys. From Saniir, w^e rode across the Merj
el Ghuruk, "meadow of sinking," a singular basin, of some
extent, without any exit for the drainage from the surrounding
hills, which collects in winter into a wide shallow lake, in which
we saw avocets and the elegant stilted plover {Ilimantopns
mclanoiJteriis) daintily stepping in the water ; S. obtained also
the marsh harrier, and several other birds, sweeping over the
lagoon. On revisiting the spot in April, I found the water
still remaining, and the stilt and other species of waders, as
the " ziczac," or spur-wing plover, and the little ringed dotterel,
breeding in the marsh.

CAMP AT JENTN.

415

It was sunset when we reached Jenin, and found our camp
all in order for our arrival. A stono's-throw off was another
little camp, where we met the first En,<;lisli travelers we had
encountered for three months, and had a pleasant chat with
an officer and his bride, who were on their wedding tour. It
was not the first time we had met, for he had been stationed
in Bermuda, where I had been with him sixteen years before.
It was an evening of meetings ; for ]\Ir. teller also appeared,
on liis way from Nazareth, to deposit jNIrs. Z. and their
children at Jerusalem, prior to joining us in our transjordanic

GIRL AT NAZARETH.

expedition. He gave us a letter to Agyle Agha ; and we
arranged to remain by the Lake of Galilee till the 8th of
Marcli, when we hoped to cross together into Bashan.

Fchrvanj 2bth. — We rode to-day quietly across the Plain of

41 G WOMEN OF XAZARETH.

Esdraclon, passing tlirougli Jezreel and Shunem, and thence
directly to Xazareth, by a track more suitable for the snipe
we disturbed than for wearied horses, and selected a camp by
the toM'n well, near the Greek Church of the Virgin. We
afterwards frequently rested at the same place, the one locality
in Nazareth of which there is no doubt that it has remained
unchanged from the days of our Lord. Often must He in
childhood have trodden the path down to that fountain with
His blessed mother, though the city itself was above its
present site. From morn to eve, troops of maidens and
matrons were wending their way from the town, with their
large narrow-bottomed water-jars on their heads, holding them
by the handle, and carrying them on the side when empty,
neatly poising them with the two hands when fuU. Many
of the mothers had their little children trotting by their sides,
who submitted to their morning ablutions at the fountain, or
paddled about, washing their feet and legs in the waste water. %
It was a pleasant sight ; and many of the women were clean
and intelligent-looking, with their rolls of silver coins fringing
their open smiling faces, for all were Christians here. (See
p, -iol.)

i

1

CHAPTER XVIII.

Departure from Nazareth— Ride by Mount Tahor — Beauties of Spring — Deer —
Agtjle Aglm's Camp — Courteous Reception— Invitation to Dinner — Basaltic
Ridges— Ard-el-IIamma — Bedouin Camps — First View of the Sea of Galilee
— Tiberias — Missionaries Tents— Jcicish Sabbath — Costumes — Gennesaret by
Moonlight — Mode of Fishing— Shoals of Fiih — Cinereous Vulture — Mission-
Work and Dijicultics — Rabbinical Learnimy —Jeivish University— Mineral
Hot Baths — Boat on tlu Lake — Entranec of the Jordan — Buffaloes — Birds —
Storm on the Lake— A Night at Sea — Frieiids at Tiberias— Midnight Walk
— Camp at Mejdel (Magdala)— Geological Formation of the District — Basalt
— View — Flowers— Butterflies — Shells — Ain M udauarah (the Round Foun-
tain)— Its Fishes — Suri'cy of the Shore — Ain Tin — Khan Minyeh — Papyrus
— .4 m Tabi(ihah — Tell ITiim — Naked Fishermen — Upper Ghor — Bcthsaida
or Julias — Feeding the Fire Thousand — Identification^ of Ancient Sites — Ain
Miidawarah the sajne as Capernaum — Reasons — Josephus — Fishes — Betlisaida
and Chorazin.

Februaey 26tli. — Accompanied by the Cluircli ^Miss^ionary
catechist at Nazareth, Mr. llohat, and by the native catechist,
Mr. Kawat, a very handsome and intellectual-looking young
man in full Turkish costume, but who did not know a word
of English, we left Nazareth for Tiberias, making a detour
on the way to present our letter to Agyle Agha, at his
camp. Oiir course lay at first along the ridge, and after-
wards at the base, of a range of hills skirting the north of
Mount Tabor, of which we had a fine view, clad with sparse,
hut always vigorous and green, wood, chiefly oak and ilex
{Qvcrcus ceijilops and Q. lificudo-coccifcra). From the crest of
the hill, after leaving Nazareth, we had the best view of the
place, as it lay on the slope facing us, underneath the brow of
the hill on which the old city was built. Returning spring
and fine weather had marvellously improved the appearance
both of hills and town since our last visit. Before us, on the
left, rose snowy Hermon, with a belt of fleecy clouds round

E E

lis liEKi;.

liis waist, a fine contrast to round green Tabor on the other
side ; and the vast phiin nl' Esdraeh)ij, treeless and green, lay
spread on onr right as far as distant Carniel, wliose l)rown
outline was very clear, w ith ^Nlegiddo standing on the further
edge of the jdain, and Zerin (Jezreel), under Mount Gilboa,
peejiing out on the other side of Tabor. It is not the size
of this mount which attracts, but its rounded shape, M'ooded
sides, and almost aTisolute isolation. Turning a little north-
wards, but still some miles to the south of the usual Tiberias
road, -we entered the glades of an open oak forest, the first we
had seen in Talestine. The trees were only budding, yet there
Avas a great charm in meeting at last with real timber. The
ground was "well clad with dwarf shrubs — lentisk, wild almond,
bay, and arbutus — and carpeted with l)rilliant patches of
anemone and other red flowers, bunches of lovely cyclamen,
composite flowers in endless variety, not omitting a blue iris
and a species of periwinkle [Vinca herhacca). AVe pleasantly
wandered for an hour or two through the forest, descending
always towards the east, having many a snap shot at
partridge or woodpecker, and catching buttei-flies which
now began to people the glades, {Parnassius a'pollinvs, Gon-
apteryx deopatrw, orange tips, and many south European
species), till we reached Kefr Jenir, where we lost the forest,
and found ourselves on a ridge of basalt, bare, but finely
turfed. The soil was now deep black instead of red, and
streams of basalt and trap ran down from the north in close
succession, overlying the limestone, which henceforth only
appeared in the hollows. The limestone strata about Nazareth
and here dipped generally from -1° to 8° S.E.

As we crossed a basaltic plateau near Shara (Agyle's camp-
ing place), covered with green corn and clumps of dead thistles,
we started a deer from its form not twenty yards ahead of us.
As usually happens in such cases, no one had a ball ready.
The animal had no horns, and we could not be certain of its
species, whether red or fallow, though we liad little doubt it
was the latter. Aye never obtained the fallow deer, but the
animal is well known to the natives.

AGVI.K AtillAb CAiSU'. 41}J

111 three hours and a half i'voin Nazareth we reached the
camp at Shara. LoDg, low bhick tents were irregularly
spread on the hill sides, not very close together ; brood mares
■were picketed here and there ; large herds of small black
cattle, camels, sheep, and goats were grazing in all directions
on luxuriant pasturage. We collected our baggage mules
with their tinkling bells in a group, and halted, when some
well-dressed young Arabs came up, and informed us the
Agha was asleep, but rec[uested us to dismount and enter
luider the tent. The tent of audience was a very long shed
of black camel's hair, open at the ends and sides, and thus
supplying a cool current of air as well as shade. Beneath it
were spread several small Turkey carpets, and many down
pillows covered with fine crimson cloth, well appreciated by
the heas. Having piled our arms at the corner outside, we
arranged ourselves on the carpets, feet out, as we could not
take ott' our boots. We had not sat long when Agyle, ac-
companied by a train of followers, made his appearance from
a tent at a little distance, plainly habited in the ordinary
dress of a Bedouin Sheikh, and playing constantly with a
string of ivory beads in his hand. He was a large, stoutly-
built man, over six feet high, with rather flat features, nose
not prominent, short, smooth, black beard, and a remarkably
placid and gentle expression of countenance. A quiet im-
passibility seemed stamped on his face. We rose to meet
him ; he touched and kissed hands ; and, signing to us to be
seated, sat down next us in the corner, his secretary with
inkhorn sitting just outside the carpet on his left. After the
customary compliments we heaid him order two sheep to be
killed. AVe then presented Mr. Zeller's letter. He took it,
looked at the address as though he could read, and handed it
to his secretary. This oflicial, an intelligent young man in
Bedouin dress, and a Christian (rather a remarkable proof of
Agj'le's liberality and confidence in Christians), opened and
lead the letter, and then, handing it to our catechist, requested
liim to read it aloud. This was strictly according to etiquette
with a letter of introduction, to show the conlidence that

E E 2

420 INVri'ATlOX TO DINNKK.

existed between tlie parties. The Aglia then inquired our
plans and wishes. "We explained all, intimating we desired
his protection and pationage on the other side Jordan and
Vdiind the lake; also, that if any of his people found any
wild animals we should be ulad to have them. At this he
quietly smiled, and, handing his and)er-mouthed jewelled
pipe to his secretary to keep alight for him, commenced the
most polite replies. Any number of guards were at our
service — five horsemen, he suggested ; and we were perfectly
safe in rambling about the lake. As to our trip on the
other side, he thought we might reach Heshl)an without
difficulty, but beyond that, towards Kerak, there were always
wars, and though he, the Agha, had many friends, he had no
power across Jordan. With respect to animals, his people
were not sportsmen — their powder was too valuable to use
except in war; but if any leopards or other animals were
found we should have them.

AVe ventured to suggest that two guards would be enough,
as his name would be a sufficient protection. To this he
assented, and gave some orders l.)ehind which we did not
overhear. He asked us to stay and dine, but we begged off,
as we were on our way to Tiberias and had much baggage.
Though he suggested our sending on the mules, and following
at night with a guard, yet he was too sincerely polite to press
it strongly, and merely extracted a promise that we woidd
not leave the district without returning to dine with him.
Excellent jNIocha coffee without sugar was continually handed iM
round, and we got into more general conversation between
the whiffs and sips. We told him of the birth of the Prince of
Wales's son. "Yes," he replied, " Priest Zeller wrote me word
that God had been good, and given good gifts to His childreu,
at which thy servant rejoiced." He spoke of the Prince having
dined with him, and of the pleasure he had had in conduct-
ing him through the country. His services would always be
at the command of Englishmen and of all Christians, for he
had not forgotten the kindness of Christians to him in his
youth, niid especially how they had aided his escape when

BASALTIC ]!IDGES. 421

unjustly imprisoned in Turkey, and how a Greek bishop liad
given him money to carry liim safely back to Syria.

We rose as soon as we thought m'c might with propriety
leave, and found that one horseman had already been sent on
with our convoy, and that the otlier was outside the camp,
mounted, and Avaiting for us. He was a Bedouin, with a
short carbine blunderbuss, and a long spear, and was very
well mounted. The other guard was a negro, armed with old
pistols and a long flint gun. Both were dressed in the brown,
and A\'liite striped abeyah, of the pattern of the Agha's tribe.
We were informed that their orders were simply to be in
attendance on us for so long a time as we should require
them, and we were requested to write and report their
conduct.

From Agyle's camp we turned northwards direct to Tiberias,
across a series of basaltic ridges, bare of trees, but covered
with fresh verdure. In an hour we descended from one of
these ridges into the Ard el Hamma, a wide basin enclosed by
hills running nortli-west and south-east, about two miles wide
and several miles long, Hat and fertile, laid- down to corn, hut
\\ithout a shrub or a bush in its whole extent. We here met
-I'veral women, wholly enveloped in enormous faggots of tall
thistle stems, carefuUy collected for fuel, a most precious
commodity in these parts. The surrounding slopes were
studded with the long black tents of the Bedouin, not col-
lected in canvas villages, but scattered singly, a strong proof
of security and peace; while countless flocks and herds
grazed the wide amphitheatre. Nothing tells more plainly of
the insecurity which has for ages cursed the land than the
utter absence of isolated habitations, or of any dwellings in
the plains. No matter how wide, how rich, how well cul-
tivated a plain may be, like Acre or Esdraelon, its tame
monotony is never relieved by a single village. These are all
hidden in the nooks of the mountains ; for no felhlhin or cul-
tivators would venture to dwell where any night they might
l»e harried by a party of Bedouin troopers, and to this risk
they gladly prefer an hour or two's weary climb added to their

422 riiJsT VIEW <»f the sea of cat.tt.ee.

daily toil : -while no traveller would dream of encamping even
for a ni^lil in tlic open ])lain.

Tlie walls of the hasin of Ard el Hamma were basalt, bnt
the bottom limestone, covered \\\\]\ fragments of lava and
])umice. The geological configuration of the district could
here be easily traced, a series of long ridges running from
north to south, onee liquid currents of volcanic matter, whicdi
had overrun the limestone hills, becoming smoother and slower
in their course as they cooled, and most of them exhausted
before reaching the shores of the lake. It was easy to see
wliere the current had finally ceased. In one place, a mile
south of Tiberius it suddenly broke off in a dyke about
a hundred feet high, on descending wliicli we came upon the
old limestone cliffs which enclose the plain that fringes the
lake. There is no indication whatever of the volcanic origin
of the lake itself. The whole of the surrounding rocks are
sedimentary, occasionally overflowed by lava streams from i
the north and north-east, which here and there, as at Tell
Hum, have toppled over into the water.

For nearly three hours we had ridden on, with Hermon in
front, sparkling through its light cloud mantle, but still no
sicfht of the Sea of Galilee. One ridge after another had been
surmounted ; when on a sudden the calm blue basin, slumber-
ing in placid sweetness beneath its surrounding wall of hills,
burst upon us, and we were looking down on the hallowed
scenes of our Lord's ministry. We were on the brow of a
very steep hill. Below us was a narrow plain, sloping to the
sea, whose beach we could ti'ace to its northern extremity.
At our feet lay the city of Tiberias, the only remaining town
on its shores, enclosed b}- crumbling fortifications with
shattered but once massive round bastions. Along that fringe,
could we have known where to find them, lay the remains
of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Opposite to us were
the heights of the country of the (Jadarenes, and the scene of
the feeding of the 5,000. On some one of the slopes beneatli
us the Sermon on the jNIount was delivered. The first gaze
on the Sea of Galilee, lighted nj) \\itli the bright sunshine of

TIBEKIAS.

423

a spring afternoon, was one of the moments of life not sodh
or easily forgotten. It was different from my ex])ect'ations
our view was so commanding. In some respects it recalled
in miniature the first view of the Lake of Geneva, from llic
crest of the Jura, as it is approached by the old Besan(;(iii
j'oad — llermon taking the place of Mont Blanc ; the plain
of Gennesaret recalling the Pays de Vaud; and the steep banks
opposite the bold coast of Savoy. All looked small for the
theatre of such "reat events, but all the incidents seemed

TIBERIAS.

brought together as in a diorama. There was a calm peace-
fulness in the look of these shores (ju the west, with the paths
by the water's edge, which made Ihcm tlic fitting theatre for
tlie delivery of the message of peace and reconciliation.

We soon descended the zigzag path to the city of Tiberias.
Tlie northern portion, once the Mohammedan quarter, is
almost whollv in ruins, having- been ovf^rtlnown in the grent

•424 J K WISH SAUliATII.

eartliquake of 1837. Within the walls there was here a large
open space, where we could descry our tents being erected,
and twi) other European tents standing near them. We
stepped across a prostrate marble column, forming the
threshold of the dilapidated and gateless portals, and arrived
at our camp. Tt faced the lake, with a sea-wall and a
crumblnig bastion luiilt into it in front of us, and a group of
fine palm-trees forming a foreground. Behind, in the arches
of the old castle, our horses had found good stabling, and
we were welcomed from the other tents by two Jewish
missionaries, a clergyman and medical man, un circuit from
Jerusalem to visit the Jews here. An hour or two of daylight
remained, and we hurried down for a stroll on the beach of
the sacred lake. Fish were leaping in the calm water, and
numbers of birds, chiefly grebes of three species, and many
gulls, were on its suvface. It was a promising ornithological
field.

U. and I tlieu walked across the city through the Jews'
quarter. The Sabbath had begun, for it was Friday evening,
and the sun had set. The synagogue services were going on.
Contrary to the usual state of things, the w^oinen's portion
was as well filled as the men's, and by the light of many
bright lamps the Psalms were being read with much dis-
cordant noise and incessant bowings. Tiberias is almost
exclusively a Jewish town. The houses, with their open
doors, looked clean and bright inside for the Sabbath ; the
people were dressed in their best, the women, somewhat like
the Jewesses of Algiers, with rich silk frocks and gold lace
fronts, but with elegant long sleeves, and a white keflyeh over
the head. Tliey were generally handsome, and some of the
girls very beautiful and fair. The men wore shabby broad-
brim hats, and long silk dressing-gowns with a girdle. The
dressing-gowns were all of the brightest colours, pea-green,
or yellow, with purple stripe, being the favourite fashions ; and
a long curl hung down on each side of the face.

I never beheld a more lovely picture than the rise of the
moon this evening exactly opposite us, over the cliffs of Fik

MODE ur FisiuMi. 425

(Apheca, the country of the Gadarenes ?), sending her soft
beams across the silver sea to the group of palm-trees in our
front, which formed a wondrous setting. Byron miglit have
been on tliis spot when lie ])eiin('(l tlH> linos —

'• And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea
Wlicn the bhn; wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."

Fchntari/ 'lltlt. — The sunrise was as majestic as the moon '
had been lovely, and liefore the morning rays had gilded the
lake, we set off to visit the plain of Germesaret, and n-con-
noitre for a camping-ground away from the town. It was a
delightful walk, as for three miles we kept along the narrow
strip of beach, sometimes receding into a sloping tielil, some-
times contracting into a mere rugged path, which unites the
slopes of Tiberias with the fertile El Ghuweir, the central
point of the life and works of our Eedeemer. Just before
reaching ]\Iejdi;l, we crossed a little o])en valley, the Ain-(d-
Barideh, with a few rich corn-fields and gardens straiiiiHiur
among the ruins of a village, and some large and more ancient
foundations by several copious fountains, and probably iden-
tified \\ith the Dalmanutha of the New Testament. (Mark
viii. 10.) The steep cliffs tlien come close down to tlie shore,
with a path over a low shoulder ; and thence recede, leaving
a wide marshy plain, at the corner of which, by the water's
edge, is the squalid and filthy collection of hovels called
Mejdel (Migdol or Magdala), with a cnniil)ling and not very
ancient watch-toM-er, once perhaps the key of the entrance
to the plain. This is all that remains of a spot, whence is
derived a name familiar and loved through Christendom.

We found it would not be safe to encamp in the low
swampy ground, but selected a little plateau about 500 feet
up, on the south side of the plain, where we should have
space and plentiful pasturage, far removed from the malaria of
the marsh. While walking along we had an opportunity of
watching tlie mode of fishing as it is now carried on. An old
Arab sat on a low cliff, and threw poisoned crumbs of bread
as far as he could reach, which the fish seized, and turning

42(l CINEKEOUR VULTURE.

over dead, were washed ashore, and collected for the market.
The shoals were marvellous — black masses of many hundred
yards lon^r, with (lie back fins projecting out of the water as
thickly as they could pack. No wonder that any net should
brenk which enclosed such a shoal. Yet, though the lake
swarms with fish — as 1 could not have believed water could
swarm — there are b^it two boats existing on its whole extent,
besides a ferry boat. AVe secured this morning specimens of
two species {CJiromis nUoticiis, Hasselq. and Ilcmicliromis saccr,
Gthr., the former already obtained by the Dead Sea), but saw
several other kinds. In every way we were repaid for our
excursion. Scenery, fish, birds, butterflies, flowers, shells — in
all we gathered a harvest, U. bore home a Bonelli's eagle in
triumph, and we secured several grebes and gulls, having had
to be our own retrievers, and to take no less than three swims
in the lake to fetcli out our game. But as the heat was
becoming oppressive, we found the occasional change of
element most grateful.

In the afternoon we returned in larger force to lay siege to
a vulture's eyrie we had descried near Ain el Barideh. We
were only ten feet below the cave when out flew a noble
cinereous vulture {Valtur monachus, L.), the first we had
seen. S. climbed up, and soon came forth exhibiting one
great egg, the first oological capture of the season, and the
only thoroughly identified egg of this king of the vultures
M'hich we obtained. The parent bird kept wheeling about us
for a quarter of an hour afterwards, and gave us every oppor-
tunity of carefully identifying the species.

I afterwards spent a cou])le of hours in the missionary
tent. It being their Sabbath, the Jews had leisure, and crowds
of them resorted thither, drawn chiefly by the opportunity of
ol)taining medicines (as there is not a single professor of the
liealing art at Tiberias), but partly also by curiosity. While
the doctor dispensed for ague and ophthalmia, Mv. Fleishaker
continued to address the people, sometimes in German, sonie-
tinjes in Arabic. The Polish Jews, very numerous here, were
willing to listen, and several of them brought money to pur-

JEWISH UNIVERSITY. 427

chase German New Testaments; l)nt tlic native Jews, witli
whom were minuled a few jNFoslems, were occasionally very
violent in their expressions. They wonld listen to a few sen-
tences, and then, so soon as Christ was declared to have borne
our sins, they would stop their ears, and shriek out, like their
fathers of old, " He hath spoken hlaspheniy, blasphemy."
jNIr. F. took it all very patiently, and from dawn to dusk, except
during a two hours' rest, continued his address, with occa-
sional discussions, standing at the tent door, while the doctor
sat within. Some half-dozen in(piirers were sitting reading
inside, while an ever-changing group stood without, some
interested, others mocking and jeering. The children kept
crying out, " This is our land, and shall be ours again : why
should Christians defile it?" The Eablns had taken the
alarm, and issued an anathema against any one who should
visit the tenl ; but, as the Jews are a stiff-necked race, and
will not be driven, the anathomn produced rather a favour-
aide effect.

Fehmarji 28///. — Both camps combined for English service,
after Mhich ^Iv. F. held a Hebrew service in his tent, to
which a crowd came and listened with interest. He after-
wards went to call on his anathematizer the Chief Eabbi,
liv whom he was received very politely, served with coffee
and apologies, and any personal intentions disclaimed, while
the Rabbi had no objection to receive Christian books written
in Hebrew. It is difficult to l)elieve that this shattered place
is the theological University of the Jews, that it has been
the depository of Eabl)inical learning ever since the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem, and that here the Talmud was completed.
Tiberias is, in truth, with all its surroundings, an ajit type
of the decayed and scattered people, with their musty and
crumbling learning. The schools of the Rabbis are held in
the various little synagogues, l)ut there are several private
houses where lectures are given ; and the whole University,
with its students gathered from north and west, and attaching
themselves to their several Rabbis, recalls the traditions of
the schools and halls of Oxford or Salamanca in the ^Middle

428 ]\iixi:i;al hot i'.aths.

Ages. "NVe should have liked to see the pupils sitting at tlie
feet of some of these uiodcni Gamaliels, Itut did not venture
to intrude so far on their ]irivacy.

We afterwards -walked along the shore towards the south,
and visited the old Konian haths (the Hainmath of Josh.
xix. 35), now sadly decayed, and patched with fragments of
IJonian niarl)le sculp^ares. Crowds of patients were enjoying
their ablutions ; and the hot sulphurous water, bursting from
four different springs at a temperature of 14U° Fahr., is highly
prized as a curative for the rheumatisms so common in the
l)ill country. Thence a walk of three miles brought us
nearly to the southern end of the lake, where we saw the
Jordan emerging quietly in the middle of a flat marshy plain,
left by the enclosing ridges, which still run parallel to each
other. On the west side, where we stood, were the indis-
tinct ruins of Kerak (Tarichea) ; while opposite, in tlie same
flat i^lain, we could see the still populous village of Semakh.
No feature marked the exit of the Jordan, as tame and
obscure here in its second birth as in its flnal entrance to
its grave beyond Jericho.

Fehrnary 29t]t. — We early visited the fish market, for the
fishermen here,- as elsewhere, toil all night ; but though they
reckon fourteen species of fishes as inhabiting the lake, they
reject most of them as uneatable. There had been but one
boat out, and the trays of fish were spread in the streets,
having been bought, by the retailers, in baskets-full. It was
cheap and abundant, but of only four species — the two we
had already obtained, and two barbels (Barbies longiceps, Cuv.
and Laheoharhus canis, Cuv.), very bony, and all of them poor
eating, even in comjiarison with jSIediterraneau fish. The
houses are placed without order or arrangement, as though
tliey had been pitched down from a sand cloud, but for the
most part looked clean within, as striving to falsify the
proverb that " the king of the fleas holds his court at
Tiberias."

Having secured our fishes, and seen the camp in motion
for the plain of Gennesaret, we bargained witli the fishermen

BOAT ON THE LAKE. 429

to take US in their boat for the day to survey the upper end of
the lake. The sun beat fiercely down, and one after another
of the party landed, umvilling to endure the heat, till I was
left the last. "We had just put B. ashore near Mejdel, when,
rounding the point, a fresh breeze sprang up from the western
shore. We spread sail, and ran to the north. Suddenly, as we
passed a slight opening in the hills, the breeze increased, and
the little boat dashed merrily up to the head of tlie lake.
1 put in for a few minutes to visit the pretty stream and mill
of Ain et Tabighah, conjectured by Dr. Eobinson to be Beth-
saida, and afterwards landed at the projecting point of Tell
Hum, strewn with fragments of capitals, friezes, and sarco-
phagi, and clainuid by some geographers for Capernaum, by
others for Chorazin. Thence we put across, and landed under
a clump of palm-trees, which on the east side mark the en-
trance of the Jordan into the lake. Its banks were low and
grassv, and the stream rapid and muddy in contrast with the
clear blue water below. In the marshy ground were some
herds of buffaloes, standing half-buried in the mud, the de-
scendants of the bulls of Bashan ; and near the shore were
the wattled huts and tents of large parties of Ghawarineh, wlio
have here a fine and fertile pasturage. Tobacco fields, and
patches of millet, cucumber, rice, maize, and sesame were
scattered unfenced over the plain. T found these Arabs civil
and obliging, and they conducted me to the ruins of two
villages near the shore, Mesadiyeh and Araj, at neitlier of
which were there any decipherable remains. We were very
near the scene of the miracle of the feeding the 5,000, which
was probably on the grassy slope about a mile behind ; but
1 did not like to trust myself alone so far from the boat. We
put out again for ]Mejdel, and I obtained two or three of the
great crested grebe, and a magnificent specimen of the royal
eagle gull {Lams ichfhi/aetos, Pall.), by far the most magni-
ficent species of its kind in the world. We touched at two
or three points on the eastern shore, where I saw there was
but a very narrow strip of beach below the limestone cliffs
which rise steeply behind. But nmv the wind continued

430 FHIKNDS AT TIHKKIAS.

t(» iiR'iease, ami the further wo were from a lee shore the
better. Tiie boat would not beat, and, with its latteen sail
elose to wind, made very little way. We were nearly in the
centre of the lake, so far as we could judge by the distant
lights on shore, for it was now pitch dark, and, finding
we made only leeway, had to take in the sail and ply the
oars. jNIy boatmen, two young Jews and a Moslem, wished
now tn run to the south, and wait at anchor for the morning,
rather than pull any linger. I insisted, however, on their
trying to make the western shore. Vividly now came home
to my mind, as I squatted down under the shelter of the
little poop, with the waves beating over our bows, the story
of the disciples all night "toiling in rowing, for the wind was
contrary." (Mark vi. 48.)

It was eleven o'clock before we reached Tiberias, hungry
and cold ; but I would not willingly have missed that prac-
tical Bible lesson, and that illustration of a triHing Scriptural
incident and expression. Seeing a light still burning in the
]\rission-tent, I called there, and was regaled on tea and
bread-and-butter, the latter now for months an untasted
dainty. My friends were rejoicing over their day's work.
Three young Jews, Nicodemus like, had come in the evening
to inquire and search the Scriptures, and had only just left;
M-hile the Chief llabbi had had several of his brethren to meet
Mr. y. in discussion, which had been carried on with good
t(^m[)er. The missionaries felt that their visit had not failed,
and that a s])irit of inquiry and goodwill had been evoked.
They would not allow me to walk alone to Gennesaret, as
Agyle Agha's name, though puissant by day, would be power-
less at night, and insisted on sending to the Governor for two
soldiers to accompany me. Soon two good-humoured Bashi-
bazouks appeared, and, heavily laden with my burden of gulls
and grebes, 1 had a weary walk over the rocky ground in the
dark, and, when we reached the plain, missed the path up to
niir tents, which we did not recover till our signal-guns were
heard and answered. My friends, who had seen us through
their glasses " toiling in rowing," did not expect me till the

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION OF THK lUSTHICT. 431

morning; but Giacoino — prudent soul! — had k('i)t back a
portion of soup, Avhicli was soon heated ; while I dismissed
my rajjged guard with a backshish, which made us popuhir
with the garrison of Tiberias ever after.

March 1 — 8. — These eight days were fully occupied iu
exploring the neighbourhood of the western coast of the Lake
of Galilee, chiefly with a view to its natural history. Other
objects were not neglected, for it would have been almost
sacrilege to devote a week about Gennesaret to fishino- nestinji",
and collecting, without remembering, comparing, and explor-
ing the many hallowed associations of this consecrated dis-
trict. The weather was fine, with only one or two showers ;
and it would be difficult to picture a more lovely position and
prospect than our "camp afforded. The sloping ledge on which
our tents were pitched rose 500 feet above the sea, projecting
northwards into the plain with a very steep descent ; while
beetling cliffs, 800 feet behind us, afforded a home to scores of
grilf'ons, to lanner falcons, and to ravens, and once — but that
was two thousand years ago — to the most formidable band of
robbers that ever infested the country. In front, spread out
at our feet, lay the green marshy plain of Gennesaret {VA
Ghuweir), with the mud hovels of Mejdel, the only remaining
dwellings on that once busy scene of industry. At the further
extremity, at the water's edge, we could just make out Khan
Miniyeh, supposed by many to be the site of Capernaum.

Over it, and over the basalt streams which form its back-
ground, towers the long face of snowy Hermon, in beautiful
relief against the deep-blue sky. To the north of the plain, in
front, the limestone is all covered with basalt and trap, which
has run down there into the sea, in a wide-spread, and pro-
bably shallow, stream, rather than in a stiff column; for it
slopes very gently, though ruggedly, down. There seem to
have been three principal streams of basalt here from the
north — this one of Tell Hum ; the third, wliich is arrested on
the plain of Hattin ; and the second, which has run between
them, and largely encroached on the plain before us, but
which is seamed and furrowed by several wadys, which pene-

432

VIEW.

trate the limestone Leneuth, and (tpcu out some fine rocky
Koriies. On our rif'ht we command a view of two-thirds of
the lake — i)ale hhio, with its glassy surface here aud there
"•eiitlv stirred bv some unseen o;ust from a mountain "orfre, on
both sides of which the waters repose in crystal-like cahnness,
niirrorinn; the great sea-birds, eagle-gulls and cormorants, which
lazily fia[) their heavy wings over it. Here and there one
may see a dark ]~>atch, revealing the presence of one of those
marvellous shoals of fish, the most striking phenomenon of

mee^

I'L.MN U1-- C.ENNESARET.

the lake. Ain Tabighah (Rethsaida) and Tell Hum can be
descried in front, embayed in tlie shore, which gently cui-ves
to the Jordan's mouth at the further extremity. On the
other side, rich green slojjes gradually rise, till lost in the

>.o.

FLOWERS. -loi

.distance towards the north-east, where the high plateau of
Bashan reveals only its steep front, from the AVady of File
(xA.phek), the conjectured scene of the destruction of the herd
of swine ; as it is the recorded site of the catastrophe which
buried a Syrian anny (1 Kings xx. 30.) ;^ and the furrowed
and wrinkled cliffs appear to descend sheer into the deep
water, till our view of the south end of the lake is cut short
by the corner of the mountain on which we are perched.

The acoustic properties of our enclosed position deserve to
be noticed. AVe could hear the voices of the women at
Mejdel 500 feet below us, and half a mile to the right. The
Sermon on the Mount was probably delivered in this imme-
diate neighbourhood, and it is ditficult, without actually visit-
ing the locality, to understand how many spots there are
which exactly suit the conditions of the histoiy. For in-
stance, had it been on tliis border of the plain, our Lord
might have climbed a few yards up the steep bank, and sat
down on one of the many roimd boulders which project on
its face, and then a vast multitude, ranged as in an amphi-
theatre below Him, could have heard every word, while His
disciples sat closer round at His feet on the slope. One loves
to draw such pictures of the imagination in these hallowed
spots.

The lilies of the field are all out, a few tulips {TuUim ycsne-
riana) cover the rocks, but the scarlet anemone {Anemone
coronaria, L.) now dominates everywhere, and a small blue
bulbous iris, almost rivalling it in abundance and brilliancy of
colour. There have been many claimants for the distinctive
honour of " the lilies of the field " ; but while it seems most
natm-al to view the term as a generic expression, yet if one
special flower was more likely than another to catch the eye
of the Lord as He spoke, no one familiar with the flora of
Palestine in spring-time can hesitate in assigning the place to
the anemone.

While the flowers of the plain, with the exception of the

1 "Aphek, which did furnish both death and gi-ave-stones to 27,000
Syrians." — FrLi.EJ;.

F F

434 AIN ]\[UDAWAKAH.

anemone, differed from tliose of the hills, the butterflies,
which now for the first time in our travels were abundant,
curiously enough were for the most part identical with those
of England, many of which re-appear here after being sup-
planted by cognate species in Eastern and Southern Europe.
Thus the Painted Lady {Oyniliia. carclui), the large and small
cabbage whites {Pmitia hrassica and P. rajJi), swallow-tail
{I^ipUlo machaon), clouded orange {CoHas cdusa), were
mingled with several Nubian and Egyptian species, and our
own orange tip (Anthocharis cardaminis), take the place of the
South European A. euphcno. The land shells were few, but
the fresh-water shells innumerable in individuals, though
limited in numbers of species. In fact, the gravel of the
whole beach is composed almost exclusively of fluviatile
shells, whole or comminuted, with a very trifling admixture
of sand. "We generally prefeiTcd to pursue our investigations
on foot, but found the clamber to our roost so ftitiguing after a
hard day's work in the heat, that we soon established a system
of signals, and a donkey station at the foot of the ridge,
where our asses were kept in waiting to carry us up-hill,
though our usual fate at first was to slip over their tails at
the steepest part.

Besides the tower at Mejdel, and some undistinguishable
heaps, and a few walls at Khan Miniyeh, the only noticeable
remains in the Ghuweir are those of the Fountain of Ain
jSludawarah, at its western extremity. But the plain is
watered and rendered very marshy by several streams ; AVady
ITamam, " TJavine of Pigeons " (well so named), draining from
Hattin and the east of the Buttauf, "\Vady jMudawarah, and
Wady el Amud, close to the mouth of which is Ain Miniyeh.
The first and last of these scoop deep savage gorges in the
limestone cliffs before entering the plain, and in their course
are the traces of ancient baths or reservoirs. The basin of Ain
IVIudawarah is unlike any other we have seen. In the centre
of a well-built circular reservoir, about thirty yards in dia-
meter, is a plenteous spring. The walls are about eight feet
liigh, and the water was now three feet deep, and occasionally a

SURVEY OF THE SHORE. 435

little more. The stream gushes through a little opening at the
east side, over stones covered with black melanopsis shells, and,
being immediately joined by several other streamlets, flows
down to the lake in a deep channel fringed with oleanders
and brambles. There are only the faintest traces of other ruins
near, and no local tradition to explain this elaborate relic of
antique civilization. We rode down every morning to take our
warm bath in this charming spot. The basin swarms with
fish of several sorts, and is the spawning-bed of the bream, or
Chromis nilotica. But its most remarkable inhabitants are
numbers of the cat-fish {Clarias macracanthns, Gthr.), the
" KopaKivo<i" of Josephus, which conceal themselves in the sand
and mud at the bottom, and reach, in some of the specimens
we obtained, the length of a yard. Several wild fig-trees
hung in fantastic shapes over the sides of the bath, and
slender oleanders bowed their pink tufts of blossom to the
treeze, while the gorgeous blue and red kingfisher (Halcyon
smyrncnsis, L.), sat motionless, watching for his prey, and
francolins and quails called incessantly in the marsh and
bean fields.

A little way above the fountain pushes down one of the
basaltic streams of which I have spoken. Its formation is
here admirably illustrated. The base of the low ridge is hard
crystalline limestone, with a dip of 4° 5' S.E. Upon the top
of this has been poured the columnar basalt, like the black
dorsal fin of a fish when viewed sideways. But the basalt
has not reached the end of the limestone ridge, and abruptly
stops in cracked and splintered fragments. The whole slope
in front of it is strewn with cinders, boulders, and lumps of
columnar basalt, which have gradually become detached from
the edge of the stream, and have rolled down.

I may mention here a little excursion which I made a
month later (on 31st March) from this spot, as it completes
our survey of the western shores of the lake. Taking with
me a mounted guide from Mejdel, I rode across to Khan
^liniyeh, the ruins at which spot are assigned by Dr. Eobin-
-on to Capernaum, but on which conjecture we may after-

FF 2

436 PAPYRUS.

wards say a few words. Tlie Khan, an eaily Saracenic
structure, though now in ruins, contains some perfect cham-
bers, which are used as cattle-sheds by the Arabs ; and in
some of these I found the nests and eggs of the common
kestrel, and of the pretty rufous swallow (Hirundo rufuJa,
Tern.). A few yards nearer the shore, a large fountain bursts
from the rocks, i)o\iriug forth a copious supply of the sweetest
water (strangely slandered by some writers, who can never
have tasted it) under the shade of three vigorous jBg-trees,''
from which it obtains its name.

Under the grateful shade of these fig-trees we halted, and
boiled our coffee for breakfast. The stream pours into the
plain about ninety-five feet lower down, where it forms a
luxuriant marsh, close to the edge of the shore, skirted with
oleanders, but composed almost entirely of the Egyptian
papyrus {Papyrus antiquorum, L.), which we here met wilh
for the first time, growing in the greatest luxuriance, and
attaining the length of sixteen feet, with its triangular stem
three inches in diameter, and crowned with its graceful
feathery tufts. This thicket was the home of (besides the
Smyrna kingfisher) the great white egret {Herodias alba), the
little egret, the bittern, the little bittern, and the purj)le
gallinule {Poiyliyrio hyacintlms), all of which I put up in a
few minutes. On the other side of it, near the water, are the
traces, rather than the remains, of an extensive collection
of buildings, an ancient city, now wholly ploughed over;
The place lost none of its interest to me from its disputed
identification. AVhatever it be, Chorazin or Capernaum, many,
times must our Eedeemer have trodden the path Ijy that
fountain, and probably often those walls below it re-echoed the
voice of Him \\\\o spake as never man spake. Beneath that
cliff He doubtless often read the law, and expounded it to
the crowds of a once busy city, the woe of which has indeed
been most literally fulfilled.

1 Dr. Bonar can surely never have visited the true locality, for he remarks,
" It gets the name of Ain ct Tin from some fig-trees which probably grew
near it, but have now disappeared." — Laiid of Promise, p. 437.

NAKED FISIIEKMAN. 437

Passing north from Ain et Tin, the path is cut through the
limestone-rock round the edge of the bhilf, Mhich here also
descends sheer to the water's edge, wliolhj interrupting any
passage hy the shore, and leaving no beach. We rode up this,
and immediately descended to the beach again, where, keeping
the water's edge, we reached Ain Tabighah in less than half
an hour ; marked by a bright purling stream, still iitilized
to turn the wheel of a corn-mill, which, covered with maiden-
hair fern, and shrubs growing in all directions out of its
dilapidated walls and arches, forms a most picturesque object.
There are a few Eoman traces here, perhaps in the aqueduct,
certainly in a circular reservoir behind. The water of the
numerous fountains here was warm and b^fickish. Here,
too, is a small fishing-boat, which supplies the market of
Safed — the only one, besides that of Tiberias, on the whole
lake. The miller came out as I Avas looking round, and I
inquired if he had any fish, hoping to find some new species
to add to my collection. He replied, " Yes," and ran towards
what looked to be a little stack of rushes, but which was in
reality the home of the fisherman, whose net was spread on
the shore to dry. Out of the rushes emerged a brawny, stark-
naked man, who began to prepare his net for a cast. This-
mode of fishing is by swimming out a little way with the net,
casting it, and then returning to shore to draw it in. The
Government taxes the boats so exorbitantly, that this is the
only way in which the poor can afford to fish. I explained
to him I had not time to wait for fish being caught, and rode
on to Tell HCim, two miles beyond, a desolate spot on a
projecting point, overgrown with rank nettles and thistles,
of enormous size, which covered the prostrate blocks, and
rendered it difficult to pass among them. My guide had a
superstitious dread of the place, and left me to wander alone.
Several sarcophagi, of white marble, fragments of marble
shafts — some of them double columns — friezes, pilasters,
capitals, and portions of elaborate carvings, most of them in
a debased style, strew the ground for three or four acres con-
tinuously, besides a few large fragments of walls, extending

438 uri'ER GiiOK.

to soiDG distance beyond ; yet, excepting one large piece of
an (.'ntiiWature, curionsly carved, tliere ^svas nothing to par-
ticnlarize, but quite enough to prove ancient wealth and im-
portance. Not a living thing could be seen near it. That
shore was swarming with fish as ever, but no boat disturbed
it. I sat under the shade of a wild fig-tree, on the only
portion of what may be called hcach, near the ruins, where
perhaps St. Peter and the sons of Zebedee may have also sat,
sorted their fish, and dried their nets. Perhaps I was on that
hallowed spot whence went forth the commission to those
fishermen to evangelize the whole earth. And, as if to teach
how entirely the Gospel is a spiritual and not a localized
worship, behold the utter desolation of its earthly cradle !
Thus musing, I was startled by the apparition of another
naked man, with only a white woollen skull-cap, emerging
from a thicket of oleanders, now in all the splendour of their
full bloom. He was a fisherman, passing along the shore ;
and the surprise was mutual. As I rode on afterwards, I
observed that all the men on this part of the coast were quite
naked, and wondered whether it were so of old, and whether
Peter was foiind thus when he girt his fisher's coat about him
(John xxi. 7). It is, perhaps, one of the hottest spots in the
world, and tliese naked fishermen move as naturally in the
water as on land ; but the custom bespeaks a barbarism which
can scarcely have been tolerated in former times.

Alter crossing several little rocky rills we soon reached the
upper Glior, or flat plain, about four miles' wide, of the richest
alluvial mud, where the Jordan enters the lake. The west
side was covered with fellfdiin huts, the east with Bedouin
tents ; the only object which breaks the dead level of the
prospect being the clunq) of palm-trees. "We rode through
several fields of tobacco, and patches of cucumbers and melons.
No oleanders or shrubs here mark tlie course of the Jordan,
which, turbid and muddy, rolls rapidly through low oozy
banks to the lake. More than a gunshot wide at its moutb,
it rapidly contracts higher up. "White storks, herons, spur-
wing plover, and gull-billed terns were abundant, and I shot

BETIISAIPA. 439

a specimen of the great crested grebe in full plumage, after
Avliieh an Arab boy swam out, and -wliicli he brought back
against stream with wonderful agility, bargaining all the while
as to the amount of his backshish. About two miles up was
the ford to the "tell" of the ancient Bethsaida, not very deep,
but across a rapid stream with muddy bottom. On a rising
ground, a mile back from the river, stood, at the edge of a low
spur from the northward, a miserable Ghawarineh village,
worse than that of Er liiha, among heaps of shapeless stones,
— the ancient Julias ; but no traces of sarcophagi or cai-ved
stones were to be seen, probably because the ancient buildings
had all been constructed of the hard black basalt (hammer-
dressed), of which the heaps were composed. There was
abundant grass, and abundant space here for the multitudes
to have sat down, while the disciples distributed the mira-
culously-supplied provision ; and doubtless it was by the ford
we had just used that they crossed over from the other side.
I could see that the eastern cliffs were composed, like the
western, of sedimentar}' rocks, covered in places by the basalt.
From Bethsaida wc had to ride quickly back, overtaken by
the darkness, for I had already spent twelve hours in this
lonely but deeply interesting excursion.

I had now repeatedly visited the sites on the western shores
of the lake, the identitication of which with the several cities
where most of our Lord's mighty works were done, is a question
of no little difliculty. Each writer has propounded a theory
of his own; and, reluctant as I always feel to differ from the
views very decidedly expressed by the learned and cautious
Dr. Eobinson, I must even foUow the example of my prede-
cessors, and, in so doing, endeavour to give my reasons for
my conclusions.

We have only two ancient authorities to guide us as to the
geographical position of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida
— the New Testament and Josephus. The land of Gennesaret,
according to both, was situated on the western side of the
lake,^ for thither our Lord passed over when He had been at

1 Matt. xiv. 34 ; Mark vi. 53.

440 C.VPERNAUM.

the east side. Joseplms describes it as tliirty fiirlongs in
length, and twenty in breadth, the exact extent of the Ghuweir,
so fruitful that all sorts of trees will grow upon it, and enjoy-
ing perpetual spring.^ Not the slightest question can arise
as to tlie identification of Gennesaret with the modern El
Ghuweir. Dr. Kobinson has clearly shown "^ that Capernaum
and Bethsaida were in, or close to, this plain. After the death
of Jolm the Baptist, our Lord withdrew by water to a solitary
place at the north-east end of the lake. Here He fed the
5,000, and then desired His disciples to pass over, according
to St. Mark/ to Bethsaida ; according to St. John,* they went
towards Capernaum. When our Lord entered the boat, im-
mediately, says St. John,^ it was at the land whither they
went ; while, according to SS. Matthew and Mark,^ they came
into the land of Gennesaret. The argument for the position
of Capernaum in the plain of Gennesaret has been summed
up very clearly by Lightfoot.'' Josephus, after describing in
glowdng language the fertility and climate of Gennesaret, goes
on to say — " It is watered by a most fertile fountain, which
the people of the country call Capharnaum. Some have
thought this a vein of the Nile, since it produces a fish like
the coracinus, in the lake near Alexandria." '^ Will Tell Hum
answer the conditions of the geographical indications of the
evangelists or Josephus ? I conceive it will not in any respect.
The great argument relied on by its advocates is philological,
Hum being supposed to be the contracted form for Tell-na-
hum, "Tell" being naturally substituted for "Kefr," when
the spot ceased to be an inhabited villa(je. The next argument
is founded on the extent of ruins at Tell Hum, not eqiialled

1 Jos. Bell. Jiul. iii. (ix. 8. ed. Hudson) ; x. 8. Whistou's Translat.

* Kobinsou, Res. iii. 349.

^ Mark vi. 45. Ei's r^ irepay irpi>s BTjeffaiSdi/.

* John vi. 17. Tlfpau rrjs da\d(T<Tr]s els KaTrtpvaovfj..

'^ John vi. 21. « Matt. xiv. 34 ; Mark vi. 53. -.

7 Lightfoot, Chorograph. Cent. ch. Ixxx.

^ Tlrj-f^ SidpSfTat yoi'tfiwrdTTj. KcKpapvaoiifj. avTrjv ol eTrixajptot KaKovat. Tav-
Tr)v <p\e0a tov NtiAou Tti/es (So^au, ^irtl yevva rqj Kard Trjv 'AKe^auSptoov Kifxvriv
KopaKLfCfi irapairKijafoi/. Jos. Bell. Jud. iii. 9, 8.

I

IDENTIFICATION OF ANCIENT SITES. 441

elsewhere near the lake. The philological argiiineut is
certainly entitled to great weight, so long as it does not
clash with historical geography. The existence of extensive
ruins cannot alone have much force, since Capernaum was
not the only city, nor do we know that its edifices were the
most important among the many lost cities which studded
these fertile shores, although it may have been the largest
place.^ The ruins may have been better preserved at Tell
Hum than elsewhere, from the hardness of the rock, which,
unlike the soft soil of the plain of Gennesaret, could never
bury the fragments of overthrown buildings, and also on
account of its greater distance from Tiberias, for the edifices
and fortifications of which the materials of the nearest ruins
would naturally be employed.

But, on the other hand. Tell Hum will not meet the con-
ditions of the evangelists, for it cannot be said to be in the
land of Gennesaret ; nor of Josephus, for there is no fountain
at Tell Hum, and to place, w^ith Dr. Thomson,- the inhabited
Capernaum at Tell Hum and the fountain Capharnaum of
Josephus at Ain Tabighah, two miles to the southward, would
be, as Dr. Eobinson remarks, an improbable and unnatural
conjecture. Even were it so, the fountain of Tabighah is
neither " yovifxtoTdTT} " nor " TrorifMayrdTr}," whichever reading
we adopt. It is close to the edge of the lake, away from the
plain, and by no possible metaphor can be said to water it, for
it is separated by two miles of distance, and by an intervening
spur of the hills.

Khan Miniyeh or Ain et Tin, the site selected by Dr.
Eobinson, better meets the requirements of the inspired
text, for it is in the land of Gennesaret, on its northern edge.
But I conceive that beyond this point the argument fails
entirely. The words of Josephus are clear: the plain is
watered through its course (BLcipSerac) by the fountain
Capharnaum. Dr. Eobinson evidently feels the difficulty,
and assumes that Josephus in mentioning the fountain could

^ Josephus rails it uriUage. Els Ku>tJ.t)v Ki<papv(ifA.-i)v \(yoiJ.ii>r)v. Jos. Vita. § 72.
- Thomson, Land and Book, p. 35 i.

442 IDENTIFICATION OF ANCIENT SITES.

hardly refer to it as the main source of fertility to the phiin ;
and, to relieve himself still further, selects the worse reading
iroriixwrdrr) for <yovifi(i)TdT7], while he pleads that Ain et Tin
" does occasion a luxuriajit verdure in its vicinity and along
the shore," which it certainly does for the space of a few
yards.

But when we come to the Itound Fountain of Ain INIuda-
warah, we find a spot in perfect harmony with the accounts
of the evangelists and of Josephus, and in fact the only
possible locality which will harmonize all the accounts. Here
is a fountain in the centre of the western boundary of the
plain, sending forth to this day a copious stream which
exactly bisects tlie Ghuweir on its way to the lake, and is the
most important source of fertility in the plain. The stream
from Wady Hamam waters the southern end, the Wady el
Amud the northern, while this supplies the central plain, and
is not less copious nor less permanent than the others. Its
waters are in high repute for their salubrity, and are resorted
to by invalids from a considerable distance. But the most
decisive argument in its favour is to my mind the statement
of Josephus, that Capharnaum produced the KopaKivo<;, a fish
like that of the lake near Alexandria. The fact is, that the
remarkable siluroid the catfish, or coracine, {KopaKlvoi)
{Clarias macracanthus, Gunthr.), identical with the catfish
of the ponds of Lower Egypt, does abound to a remarkable
degree in the Round Fountain to this day. As I mentioned
above, we obtained specimens a yard long, and some of them
are deposited in the British Museum. The loose sandy
bottom of this fountain is peculiarly adapted for this singular
fish, which buries itself in the sediment, leaving only its
feelers exposed.^ It is doubtless found elsewhere in the lake
itself, for I have a specimen obtained at the south end beyond
the baths of Tiberias, but it was not to be seen on the surface
like other fish ; while here in the clear shallow water it may,
when disturbed, be at once detected swimming in numbers

^ The KopaKivos was well known and distinguished by the ancients. Kopa-
kIvov iirwwiJLOv aWowi XP<"i'- '-^Pl'- Hid. i. 133.

josEi'iius. 443

along the botti)in. ])ut it is not found at Ain et Tin, wlicre
the fountain coukl neither supply it with cover nor food ; nor
could we discover it at Ain Tabighah, where the water is hot
and brackish. It is somewhat amusing to refer to the specula-
tions of various writers about the fountain and the coracine,
not one of whom seems ever to have thought of looking into
the facts of the case. Dr. Eobinson actually seizes upon the
statement of Josephus as an argument against the Round
Fountain. " ]\Iore decisive, however, is the circumstance that
the fountain Kapharnaum was held to be a vein of the Nile,
because it produced a fish like the coracinus of that river.
This might well be the j^opular belief as to a large fountain
on the very shore, to which the lake in some seasons sets quite
up " [1] " so that fish could pass and repass without difficulty.
Not so, however, with the Eound Fountain, which is a mile
and a half from the shore, and which could neither itself have
in it fish fit for use, nor could fish of any size pass between
it and the lake." — Robinson, Res. iii. 351.

If the worthy doctor's arguments be worth anything, wc
can only exclaim, So much the worse for the facts ! Dr.
Thomson follows suit in the same tone. Speaking of " the
fahlc about the fish coracinus," he proceeds : " We may
admit that this fish was actually found in the fountain of
Capernaum, and that this is a valid reason why the Hound
Fountain near the south end of Gennesaret could not be it ! "
— Land and Booh, p. 354. Dr. Bonar,^ in combating the
claims of Ain et Tin, assumes the coracine to be " a fish
quite different from any to be found in the lake," which does
not necessarily follow if it were a remarkable and abundant
production of the fountain, for Josephus could never mean to
imply that the fish could not or did not pass to the lake, when
evidence to the contrary must have been before his eyes.
Dr. Bonar's note, while demolishing most satisfactorily the
claims of Ain et Tin, supports in every particular the interpre-
tation here advanced, though- he does not seem to have been
aware of the existence of the I'ound Fountain. I conceive

^ Bonar, Laud of Pipniisc, p. 438.

•i44 BETHSAIDA AND CHOKAZIN.

that its claims to be the Capharnauiii of Josephus must now
be admitted, as being "prolific," "fertilizing," and "irrigating
the plain."

We may observe, in corroboration, that from ]\[att. xiv. 35
and INIark vi. 55, our Lord appears to have healed many on
His way from the shore to Capernaum. This would naturally
occur, when, after the boats had been run ashore on the beach
at the mouth of the Wady Mudawarali, Jesus walked across
the plain to His own city — Capernaum being placed at Ain
jNIudawarah.^ The positions of Bethsaida and Chorazin at
Ain Tabighah and Tell Hiim respectively would naturally
follow, as Dr. Eobinson has shown, Bethsaida being to the
north of Capernaum, and probably between it and Chorazin.-

AYherever the cities stood, the absence of remains and the
obliteration of their very names more utterly than of those
of Sodom and Gomorrah, testify to a fulfilment of that pro-
phetic woe, which, though not denounced against the walls
and stones, but against those who dwelt in them, is illustrated
by their erasure from the ftice of the earth — " cast down to
hell," lost, and forgotten, though consecrated by the presence
and mighty works of the Divine Saviour. Capernaum in its
oblivion preaches to Christendom a sermon more forcible
than the columns of Tyre or the stones of Jerusalem.

1 It was not till after I had come to this conclusion that I was aware
M. de Sanlcy had already suggested it. Though he has not given his reasons
at sufficient length, he scarcely deserves the summary dismissal of Dr. Robinson.
" M. de Saulcy icithout any personal examination \n-ono\iucQ^t]i3Xs\ioito]xa.\ii
been the site of Capernaum ! Credat Judisus." — Res. iii. 351.

* " Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever " at Capernaum. Country fever
is to this day very prevalent in this seething ])hiiu and on its borders, and
such a position as Ain Mudawarali would be i)eculiarly subject to it. The
dry elevated rocky ground of Tell Hum cannot be considered as a probable
fever locality.

CHAPTER XIX.

Plain of Gennesarct — Wadij Sdlamah — Wady LcimHn — Fine Gorge — Caves —
Birds — Wady Ifamdm — Bird-nesting — Ropc-dimhing — Wild Animals —
Kulat Ibn Madn — Robbers' Caves — Friendly Neighbourhood — Arab Fray
— Funeral — Hattin — Crusaders' Defeat — Cheerful Village — Children^
Departure of V. and S. — Our Dragoman deserts lis — Visit to Agyle Agha —
Arab Feast — Presentation Ceremonies — Wady Birch — Castle of Bel fort —
Geology of the Ghor — Bridge across tJie Jordan — Sinuosity of th^ River — The
Yarmuh {Hieromax) — Inundation of Basalt —Sulphurous Springs — Amatha
— Um Kcis — Ruins of Gadara — Field of Tombs — Stone Doors — Scene of the
Miracle of the Healing of the Demoniac, not Gadara, but Gergesa — Its
Situation — Route from Gadara — Loveliness of the Country — Oaks of Bashan
— Cultivation — Alarms of Ilusbandmeii, — Taiyibeh — Dinner with Village
Sh.eikh — Arrival at Tibneh.

Our excursions from our camp on Gennesaret were not con-
fined to the borders of the lake. Eounding the spur which
projects over Ain ^ludawarah, we one day rode up the AVady
Sellamah, which drains a large extent of country, the plain of
Eameh, and opens out close to the WadyAmud. Unlike the
others, it has no deep gorge. At its entrance, on a platform
above the plain, is a deserted Arab village, Shusheli, built
perhaps of the materials of old Capernaum, and below are the
ruins of a mill and of a bridge, the favourite resort of three
kinds of king-fishers. Hiding up its course (track there is
none), we found ourselves in what might have been an English
rural district. The impetuous brook ran between sandy banks
fringed by a thicket of oleander and a prickly genista, both in
full blossom, with luxuriant turf and corn patches gently
sloping down on both sides. All was green, all cultivated or
meadow. Yet no signs of human habitations. The Bedouin
alone cultivates it, sows his corn and leaves it till harvest
time, unless when he comes with some hundreds of cattle,
pitches his tent for a few days, and clears the pasture from

446 HIUD-XESTING.

some meadow palcli. A solitary Bedouin lying on the bank,
who warned us oir his corn, was tlie only human hcing we
met in oin- day's ramble.

Very different was the adjoining Wady Leimiin, tlirough
which Hows the Anuld from Safed southwards. A narrow
gorge with limestone cliffs from 500 to 700 feet high, into
which the sun never penetrates, walls the rapid brook on
each side so closely that we often had to ride in the bed
of the stream. The cliffs are perforated with caves at all
heights, wholly inaccessible to man, the secure resting-places
of hundreds of noble griffons, some lammergeyers, lanner
falcons, and several species of eagle. But no description can
give an adequate idea of the myriads of rock pigeons {Coluviba
scliinipcri,^^^). In absolute clouds they dashed to and fro in
the ravine, whirling round with a rush and a whirr that could
be felt like a gust of wind. It was amusing to watch them
upset the dignity and the equilibrium of the majestic griffon
as they swept past him. The enormous bird, quietly sailing
alone, was quite turned on his back by the sudden rush of
wings and wind. One tall isolated pillar stood out, an island
in the ravine, tenanted by griffons on all sides. Two pair of
them remained on the peak quietly scrutinizing us as we rode
below ; a fine subject for the pencil. Eich and rare plants,
gorgeous arums {Arum spcctahile), Onosma syriacum, and others,
grew on the rocks quite out of reach. The wall creeper
showed his crimson shoulders as he ran up the cliffs, far
above shot, while the Alpine and Galilean swifts screamed
overhead. Our day in this ravine well repaid us, though so
terrific were the precipices that it was quite impossible to
reach any of the nests with which it swarmed.

We were more successful, however, in the "Wady Ilamam,
at the south-west end of the plain, the entrance from Ilattin
and the Buttauf, where we spent three days in exploration.
The cliffs, though reaching the height of 1,500 feet, rise like
terraces, with enormous masses of debris, and the wady is
half a mile wide. ]>y the aid of Giacomo, M'ho proved him-

WILD ANIMALS. 447

self an expert rope-climber, we reaped a good harvest of
griffon's eggs : some of the party being let down by ropes,
while those above were guided in working them by signals
from others below in the valley. It required the aid of a
party of a dozen to capture these nests. The idea of scaling
these cliffs with ropes was quite new to some Arabs, who
were herding cattle above, and who could not, excepting one
little girl, be induced to render any assistance. She proved
herself most nimble and efficient in telegraphing. The child
had an ornament of a style I never saw before — instead of
nose-rings, a turquoise pin-head was fastened through the
flesh, flat to the nose, on each side of her nostrils.

We never met with so many wild animals as on one of
these days. First of all, a wild-boar got out of some scrub
close to us, as we were ascending the valley. U. sent a
ball into him, but he carried it off. Tlien a deer was started
below, ran up the cliff, and wound along the ledge, passing
close to us. Then a large ichneumon almost crossed my feet,
and ran into a cleft ; and, while endeavouring to trace him,
I was amazed to see a brown Syrian bear clumsily but
rapidly clamber dowTi the rocks and cross the ravine. He
was, however, far too cautious to get within hailing distance
of any of the riflemen. While working the ropes above, we
could see the gazelles tripping lightly at the bottom of the
valley, quite out of reach and sight of our companions at the
foot of the cliff. L., who was below, also saw an otter, which
came out of the water, and stood and looked at him for a
minut€ with surprise. Five great griffons were shot by S.
and U., the preparation of whose highly-scented skins was no
light task for the taxidermists.

"NMiile capturing the griffons' nests, we were re-enacting a
celebrated siege in Jewish history. Close to us, at the head
of the cliffs which form the limits of the celebrated Plain of
Hattin, were the ruins of Irbid, the ancient Arbela, marked
principally by the remains of a synagogue, of which some
marble shafts and fragments of entablature, like those at Tell

448 KOCK-GALLEiaES.

Hum, are still to be seen, and were afterwards visited by us.'
The lono; series of cliambcrs and naileries in the face of the
precipice are called by the Arabs Kulat Ibn Maan, and are
very fully described by Josephus. These cliffs were the home
of a set of bandits, who resided here with their families, and
for years set the power of Herod the Great at defiance.' At
length, when all other attempts at scaling the fortresis had
failed, he let down soldiers at this very spot in boxes, by
chains, who attacked the robbers with long hooks, and suc-
ceeded in rooting them all out.^ The exploit was familiar to
us by an engraving in the Penny Magazine of old ; and: little
did we then dream that we should one . day storm , these
very caves in a similar way ourselves. We could not but
regret that Herod had neglected to leave his chains and
grappling-irons for our use. The rock-galleries, though now
only tenanted by griffons, are very complete and perfect, and
beautifully built. Long galleries wind backwards and for-
wards in the cliff-side, their walls being built of dressed
stone, flush with the precipice, and often ojieniug into
spacious chambers. Tier after tier rise one after another,
with projecting windows, connected by narrow staircases,
carried sometimes upon arches, and in the upper portions
rarely broken away. In many of the upper chambers, to
which we were let down, the dust of ages had accumulated,
imdisturbed b}" any foot save that of the birds of the air ; and
here we rested during the heat of the day, with the plain
and lake set as in a frame before us.^ We obtained a full
oological harvest, as in three days we captured fourteen nests
of griffons. The lammergeyers escaped us, having already
reared their young ; and none of the other denizens had yet
begun to devote themselves to family cares. U. and S. here

, ' liosea mentions the place apparently as a strong fortress, "All thy
fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle."
Ho.sea X. 14. Possibly the prophet here refers to the refuges in the rocks
below.

2 Ant. Jud. xiv. 15, 4 ; Bell. .hul. i. 16, 2—4.

3 These caverns have been visited and described by Burckhardt, Irb}', and
Wilson, and seen by Rol)inson and Thoni.sr))i.

AKAB FUNERAL. 449

at lengtli obtained several specimens of the Galilean swift,
the prize which had so long eluded us, and which we rejoiced
in being the first to bring to Europe.

We found ourselves perfectly safe in tliis rather lawless
district, under the name and protection of Agyle Aglia. Our
guards were quite overpowered with the hospitality of the
neighbourhood, and dined out every evening at some camp or
village. It being Eamadan, when no true Moslem can touch
food or water from sunrise to sunset, late dinners were in
fishion ; and our valiant spearmen used to ride home, about
midnight, singing at the top of their voices, and then, picketing
their horses, would throw themselves down on the grass to
sleep, as neither they nor the muleteers ever dreamt of a tent.
The girls from Mejdel used to bring us milk, eggs, chickens,
and fish every morning ; so that, thougli we could get neither
mutton nor goats'-flesh, we were well supplied.

One day the doctor was called in hot haste to a case at the "
village. A man had desired another to take his cattle off
his wheat. The trespasser refused, and fired a bullet, which
missed its aim ; whereupon the aggrieved agriculturist took
his ploughsliare, and split open the head of the neatlierd. The
latter, however, on the hakeem's arrival, would not allow his
wound to be dressed, that it might, as he said, appear the
worse when he went before the Governor.

I watched, one morning, an Arab funeral just below us.
The body was brought outside the village, stripped, laid on a
board, and, while the women washed it, and stuffed the eyes,
ears, mouth, and nose with cotton-wool, the men dug a grave.
It was then buried, without further ceremony or covering,
and the whole party, having yelled two or three times,
" There is one God, and jSIoliammed is His prophet," filled
up the grave under a bush, and returned. Poor creatures !
dark and ignorant they live, and so they die. They seem to
have no fears, and little hope, for the future, beyond a notion
that all the Moslems wiU get to Paradise at last, and none
others.

March 9 th. — We had struck tents, and started for Tiberias,

G Ct

450

IIATTIN.

when an Aral), H.ulitly clad in sliirt, sandals, and heavy chib,
met ns on the liill-sidc, and produced a packet, addressed to
us. It was the monthly inail-l)a,L>;, forwarded from Nazareth
by ^Ir. Zcller, and containiiio- a note from himself, inviting ns
at once to start for the east side of Jordan. "We promptly
turned towards Nazareth, having an interesting though very
sultry ride up the savage chasm of Wady Hanulm, by the
lioLbers' Cave, the ruins of Arbela, and thence, leaving the
horns of Hattin on our left, to Hattin itself — a mud village,

HATTIN.

4

in a wide plain, its outskirts planted with olive and fig-yards,
and open jiatches of green corn ; the fig-tree just now pushing
its tender leaves, and telling us " that summer was nigh."
We could not but remember with a sigh, that on this plain,
between the village of Lubieh and the " horns "—two mounds,
scarcely peaks, side by side, with a slope between them— was
fought, in A.D, 1187, the battle of Hattin, the last blow that

CHEERFUL VILI^AGE. 451

crushed the army of the Crusaders, and finally extinguished
Cliristian rule in Palestine.

The people of Ilattin wore a marked contrast to those of
Mejdel — bright, and almost clean. Instead of the iiltliy,
undersized, haggard women, in uKMiotonous dark blue rags, to
be seen in iVrab villages, bright i'aces and bright colours met
us here. The costume was peculiar, all the women, girls, and
boys being dressed in long tight gowns, or cassocks, of scarlet
silk, with diagonal yellow stripes, and generally a bright red
and blue or yellow jacket over them ; while their cheeks were
encircled by dollars and piastres, after the Nazareth fashion,
and some of the more wealthy wore necklaces of gold coins,
with a doubloon for pendant in front. It \vas a holyday, and
the inhabitants were congregated in bootlis of oleander twigs
on the housetops ; while, outside the village, some score of
swings among the olive-trees were occupied and surrounded
by crowds of merry girls, like English schoolchildren let loose,
who salaamed us as we passed.

From Hattin we crossed over a bare hilly country, not so
rugged as Juda3a, but still, excepting in the olive-clad valleys,
■with more rock than soil, till we reached Kefr Kenna, the
monkish Cana, but eight miles S.E. of Dr. Robinson's Cana
of Galilee. On the way, the numerous wine-presses cut in
the rocks, as well as tlie occasional cisterns and chiselled
channels for collecting the rain-water, bore testimony to its
ancient cultivation. A short hour's walk hence brought us to
Nazareth, where we camped as before under the olive-trees
near the fountain.

March lOth. — A dissolution of partnership occupied us this
morning, for we were to lose S. and U., who were about to
return to Europe, and make an irreparable break in our little
band. In them we lost the most energetic collectors and
sportsmen of our party, Eor the last time their little trim
Iceland tent stood by the camp fire, and no longer was U. to
pay his morning visits to the traps, or S. to cheer us as he
dispensed soup and jokes at our dinner table. While in the
hopeless bewilderment of balancing accounts, kept in French,

G G 2

452 VISIT TO AOYLE AOIIA.

Austrian, Turkish, or English cuiTencies, as might happen, vre
were interrupted by Giaconio coming to inquire if we really
intended to proceed across Jordan with ^Ir. Zeller in the
morning. Finding we were determined to go on, he informed
us that, though brave, he did not choose to have his throat
cut, and should not accompany us. He was amazed when
we told liim he might stay at Tiberias, and wait our return.
We felt it was a bold step to dispense with a dragoman, but
it would have been worse to have let the Greek fancy him-
self indispensable ; and, with ]\Ir. Zeller and our trusty mule-
teers, we determined to make the experiment. Provisions for
three weeks had to be laid in ; and, as I^azareth is not a well-
stocked market, it was past noon before we started under a
broiling sun for Agyle's camp.

Our road lay round Mount Tabor, which we passed to the
north, skirting its base, cantering along the green carpet
of Esdraelon, till we reached the Wady Bireh, where on a
grassy slope, with a running brook just below it, we found
the chieftairi's camp.

It presented a lively scene as evening approached, shep-
herds and goatherds driving in their tlocks from pasture,
camels lazily chewing the cud, or winding in long single file
from the sides of Tabor, while Arab mares with their foals
stood picketed about. We were received in the usual open
tent, the Agha standing outside till we were seated on carpets
and cushions, and a large retinue of high and low degree
surrounding us. INIr. Zeller, of course, acted as chief, and
spokesman. We were invited to dinner, but no business
conversation ensued, though business was being carefully
transacted, as the Agha A'ouchsafed one half of his face with
a pleasant smile to us, and the other half with a keen glance
to his secretary on the other side, who was receiving rents
and counting dollars on a handkerchief at his elbow. Our
tents were being mounted on a slope across the brook, and as
soon as they were ready we withdrew, till about eight o'clock,
when a negro with a lantern came to summon us to dinner.
This was a single course, consisting of the sheep which had

WADY IJIREir, 453

been killed on our arrival, boiled in frngmcnts over rice satu-
rated with butter. The mess was served in an enormous
wooden bowl, which it required four men to cany, while the
host, according to etiquette, sat apjui, and did not pai'take.
It would have delighted a Rembrandt to paint the scene,
as we sat in a circle under the open black tent, in a moon-
less but clear night, tearing the meat and scooping up the rice
with our fingers ; while a tall Bedouin stood over us with a
little oil lamp, whose light just revealed the crowd of curious
taces peering at us through the darkness. Round another
huge bowl further on feasted the guests of lower degree.
When we had eaten, or rather gorged, and water had been
poured over our greasy hands, coffee was served, and the
business of the evening commenced. ]\Ir. Zeller's catechist
made a long speech, intended rather for the bystanders than
for Agyle, complimenting him on our parts, expressing our
desire he might never forget us, and to that end presenting him
with a gold watch and chain we had brought for liim. This
he received with a bow, and handed to his secretary, without
even casting a glance at it. Then Mr. Z. added a supplement,
pointing out the importance of a safe and secure road being
provided for travellers from the Hauran through Bashan, and
how, if he succeeded in ensuring this, he would have the good
will of the AVestern Powers, and their good offices at the Porte.
We soon afterwards retired, leaving Mr. Zeller to settle in
private the business of letters, guard, and safe conduct.

March 11th. — We rose before the sun, packed, breakfasted
on the grass while the tents were being struck, mounted, rode
across the brook to bid a short adieu to the Aglia, and then,
escorted by three of his mounted retainers — fine tall-looking
fellows, thorough Bedouin in type and figure — followed the
course of the Wady Bireh to the Ghor. It was three hours
and a half to the Jisr Mejamiah, the only existing bridge
south of the Lake of Galilee, and a very interesting ride.
The stream, though confined wdthin very narrow banks, and
descending rapidly, winds and zigzags three times the direct
length of its coui'se, making the sharpest possible angles, as

454 GEOLOGY OF THE GHOK.

it sways from side to side against the iiullalis with which the
steep hills are seamed, and which alternate like the teeth of
two cogwheels. The little stream swarms with fish {Scapliiodon
capoeta, Guldcnst.), and is almost hidden by thick rows of
oleander.

Ori a lofty grceu-clad hill to the south-east towers Koukab-
el-IIawa, the ruined Crusading castle of Belvoir, one of their
most renowned fortresses, and commanding the most exten-
sive panorama in Northern Palestine. "We regretted mncli
that time did not permit us to mount to this castle, which
JMr. Zeller, who has visited it, assures us is not only one of
the finest sites, but one of the finest ruins in the country,
with its deep excavated fosse quite perfect, and resembling
the Castle of Belfort, Kulat-es-Shukif, on the river Litany,

IMile after mile, as we wound down the valley, the verdure
was most luxuriant, and the soil of wondrous fertility, yet
neither cultivation, habitation, nor man was to be seen, save
once, when, in strange harmony with the desolation of the
region, we saw an Arab funeral procession winding over the
hill above us, slowly proceeding to some ancient place of
tribal sepulture. The body was borne on a bier, and followed
by men on camels, horseback, or foot, without order or any
outward signs of mourning. The Bedouin will carry their
dead great distances to their hereditary burying-places, which
are often far away from the present haunts of the tribe. Some
of the Sheikhs of the tribes of the Ghor preserve their family
tombs at the town of Nazareth, It is a strange mistake, into
which some tourists of our day have fallen, to fancy that the
Oriental attaches no reverence to his place of sepulture,
because he does not surround it with a trim fence.

The valley is all limestone, except just when it terminates
on the flat plain of the Ghor, where a very thin stream of
basalt covers the whole of the limestone on the north side, and
a portion of it on the south. The lava had evidently been
exhausted when it flowed thus far, and the stream had cut its
way again through it, leaving the fragment on the right. The
section of the limestone and basalt is well exposed in the face

BRIDGE ACROSS Til?: JORDAN.

455

towards the Glior, the former showing imieh iiertiirbation. mul
a dip south-east, while the basalt has more evenly covered llic
surface, and filled up the interstices, plainly showing that the
present formation of the valley was antecedent to the irrup-
tion of the volcanic matter.

The Ghor itself is here treeless, but fertile, an alluvial
deposit, barely six miles wide. Looking down it, we might
fancy we could see almost to Jericho, as nothing interrupted
the green expanse, till it melted in the distant horizon, shut
in by the mountains. The trilnitary streams, which dash
down the mountains on both sides till they reach the plain,
thence meander sluggishly between mud banks till they
join the Jordan. The portion of the plain across which we
rode to the bridges was cultivated in corn, now pushing fast

BRIDGE OVER JUKUAN.

into ear, by the felhlhin of the Sakk'r, who scratch it, sow the
seed, and then return for its harvest.

A\Tien we reached the Jisr ]Mejamiah (incorrectly stated by
I'orter to be ruined), we halted under the walls of a fine old
khan, on the west side, for luncheon. The bridge is evidently

456 SINUOSITY OF THE RIVEK.

later than tlio lloman era, and has happily escaped the ruin
of all the ancient bridges. On it we met two or three Beni
Sakk'r, a portion of whose tribe were camped to the east of
it, and who gave ns a friendly w^elcome, wdiile a group of
strolling gypsies forced themselves into the circle, and per-
formed their mountebank tricks, as at home, with a drum and
a sort of rude guitar. They were all men, with features like
the English gypsies, but almost black. I noticed that one of
them, who personified a woman, wore the female dress not of
the country, but of Ilindoostan.

The Jordan is here an inipetuous torrent, dashing over
basaltic boulders, and with a few shrubs on its banks. The
bridge has no parapet, and consists of a single pointed arch.
The whole ground was like a Turkey carpet in colour, the
flowers being mostly changed from those of Gennesaret. Tlie
anemone gave place to a very brilliant ranunculus, of exactly
the same colour, but a little smaller {R. asiaticus, L.) ; there
were many very fine red tulips ; and among the numberless
annuals the most conspicuous were the chrysanthemum of
our gardens, a large blue lupin, and several sorts of pheasants'
eye {Adonis), red and yellow, one of the red ones having
blossoms as large as the anemone.

AVe followed up the left bank of the Jordan for two miles,
putting up herons, spurwing plover, and quails continually,
while the noble eagle-gull and vultures sailed overhead. There
is no exaggeration in the sinuosity of the Jordan, as repre-
sented in the maps. It wriggles here, there, and everywhere ;
and it is difiicult to understand how so rapid a stream, with
low banks, and those chiefly a gravel alluvium, should be so
tortuous. On our way we rode through an encampment of
the Beni Sakk'r, one of whom brought us out a gi-eat bowl of
buttermilk, a delicious draught on this sultry day. "When
we reached the junction of the Yarmuk, the ancient Hieromax,
we turned up, keeping close to its gorge till we arrived at
Um Keis (Gadara).

We had been told that the Yarmuk was a geological puzzle,
dashing down a deep gorge, with limestone on one side, and a

INUNDATION OF BASALT. 457

wall of basalt ou the other, and these sometimes chaiisjinc:
sides. But, after following its course for several miles, and
viewing it from above, it does not appear very difficult. At
Um Keis we have gained the plateau of Bashan, a lofty table-
land of sedimentary rock, intersected by deep gullies and
watercourses everywhere, and bounded on the north and east
by a range of volcanic hills and extinct craters. Over the
limestone flow streams of volcanic origin. But the gorge of
the Hieromax had been formed, and the river had run in its
present course, or nearly so, long before the eruptions. The
liquid volcanic matter, as it poured forth, naturally found its
level, and choked the valley of the Hieromax, filling it, and
overflowing, but in much diminished streams, to .the plateau
on the south side. The inundation commenced about three
miles east of Um Keis, and above that point the ravine is
only limestone. In some places, above the hot springs, we
could detect the old course left scooped in the limestone,
before the basaltic irruptions compelled the river to work out
a new passage. This in time has been accomplished by the
persevering stream, working sometimes through the sedi-
mentary rocks, sometimes through the basalt, and revealing
the limestone cliffs once more, often with a thin coating of
basalt, and sometimes entirely denuded.

Xo sooner had we left the Ghor, and commenced the ascent
to the plateau, than the whole character of the scenery
changed. Gradually the dora and nubk-trees gave way to
terebinth, and these next to oaks, the oaks of Bashan, not here
in forest, but in straggling clumps, and isolated trees. They
relieved and gave a freshness to the landscape, and were the
first sii^ns we observed of that contrast between the east and
western sides, which forces itself upon the traveller's notice
at every step. The trees were inhabited by difterent birds
from those with which we had recently been familiar ; northern
and woodland acquaintances met our eyes, woodpeckers, ring-
doves and hoopoes cautiously retreated before us, and I shot
a martin on the edge of the ravine.

I had been anxious to visit the hot sulphurous springs, of

458 KUIJSS OF GAD AHA.

Nvliitli 110 less tliaii nine occur in the gorge of the Yariimk,
chieliy on its north side, and siniiUir in the character of the
water to the hot baths near Tiberias. AVith some ditticulty I
descended to the foot of the ravine, and found one of the
springs, to which I was guided by the rising cloud of steam
on tlie other side of the river. It was in a ruined circular
basin, and close behind it were the traces of Eoinau buildings,
doubtless the ancient baths, but no vestige of a town. I was
told by my guide that lower down there is a much finer
fountain, with the vaulted baths still remaining ; but we had
no time to visit it. The water was not so hot as in the
Hammam of Tiberias, and I could just endure to keep my
hand in it. The stones were covered with a whitish yellow
incrustation of sulphur. These are the Baths of Amatha
mentioned by Eusebius.

At length we have reached the ruins of desolate Gadara.
The panorama from the edge of the plateau is glorious. "We
look down on the sea of Galilee, with Tiberias and the plain
of Gennesaret distinctly visible, the Ghor in front of us
hedged by a bank of hills, and Tabor's round wooded top
peeping behind them, while tlie wliite Hermon on the side, a
ridge rather than a peak, fringes the north, with a low range
of crater-shaped hills to the right, and the plateau exteiidiug
from the deep gully of the Yarmuk beneath us to the dim
and distant Lejah.

The remains of Gadara are more than usually perfect, and
of great extent. First we came on a large square pool, and
a great heap of ruin just beyond it. "What it was it is im-
possible to say; but columns, pedestals, capitals, and especially
fine Ionic friezes lie piled in strange confu.sion. Extending
due east from this is a range of narrow ruins, 300 yards long,
consisting apparently of a series of beautifully built massive
arches or ciypt-like cells, perhaps a market or bazaar. To
the north of this from the reservoir, a street runs east, finely
paved with large blocks of basalt. Tt cannot be less than
half a mile long. The ruts worn by the chariot-wheels are dis-
tinctly visible, and it has been bordered by a long colonnade.

I

FIELD OF TOMBS. 459

The prostrate coliimus still lie at pretty regular intervals, and
many of "the bases are standing. Near the centre of this
colonnade is a large heap of ruin, with several fine Corinthian
capitals three feet and more in diameter. They form a sort
of knoll, and a group of oak-trees have risen among the i-uins.
This is supposed to mark the site of the Greek cathedral.
The street still continues till it reaches the amphitheatre, not
a very large one, but in a fine state of preser\-ation — vomi-
toria, stairs, dens for wild beasts, and staircases below, all
beautifully built of dressed stone. Truly those Romans " built
for immortality," though time has oft mocked their ambition.
There seems to have been no colonnade in front of the building.
We entered one of the doorways from the area, and passed
through the vaults quite round the structure.

From this amphitheatre the street continues, still perfect, in
a straight line, till it arrives at another theatre, in much less
perfect preservation, on the side of a rocky eminence, with the
tiers of seats overhanging with a perilous steepness, which must
have made a " rush " a very hazardous proceeding. The theatre
is small, yet the upper benches are forty feet above the area.

Beyond this we seem to reach the end of the Roman-
Jewish city, and find ourselves in a wide open space, with
a dell which I can only call a field of tombs. Their number
and presentation is marvellous. The latter they probably
owe to their material, hasalt. Several acres are thickly strewn
with sarcophagi and sarcophagus lids, most of them fairly
sculptured, and always Avith different designs — flowers, wreaths,
heads, himian figures, &c. But whence came they ? They
seem to have been all dragged out of the caves with which the
whole district is thickly perforated. At every step one comes
across either a natural limestone cavern or an artificial cave.
These are now used as dwellings or stables by the tribes who
live here for a part of the year, and who must have ejected
the sarcophagi, save where, as often ha^jpens, they have been
utilized in situ for mangers. AVe must have visited about
fifty of these caverns. One large oak-tree stands solitary in
this field of tombs. Just at its roots we descended by a flight

460 HEALING OF THE DEMONIAC.

of steps to a large cavern-tomb. i\t the foot of the steps is
the doorway, of tinely-dressed basalt. Over the door of one
tomb was the inscription, FAIOT ANNIOT TAATMj.

All the lids were alike in shape, — pyramidical, with two
sqnare holes at each side, by which they were wedged on to
the coffins. Immense nnmbers of tomb doors were strewn
about, broken or entire. Some were plam, but most of them
ornamented by panels, or by imitation iron cramps, bands,
and nail-heads, exactly like a modern church door, cut in the
basalt, with fashionable knockers and handles also carved.
AVe were delighted to find two caverns in which the doors

O

remained on their hinges, and which we could open and shut
at pleasure. The hinge is merely a pivot — part of the door
itself let into a socket cut at the top and bottom of the door-
way. These doors w^ere both panelled with such mouldings
as would be used 1)y a modern carpenter, with an orna-
mental band down the centre, knocker, handle, and keyhole.
In this branch of domestic architecture we have certainly
made no advance on the designs of our predecessors 2,000
years ago.

One of the guards gave me a brass coin of Herod the Great,
which he had found among the ruins of the theatre ; ^ auvl we
gathered many fragments of wdiat had once been elaborately-
worked pottery. We had intended to go on and camp at
Hebras, the principal village of the district ; but it was dark
before we had finished our explorations, and tents were
therefore pitclied on the slope looking down towards tlie
Hieromax, near a Bedouin camp of the S'choor el Ghor.
These people did not seem the fiends they are painted on tlie
other side. They offered themselves, and were accepted, as
guards for the night ; and milk and fresh butter from the
kine of Bashan was abundant and cheap.

Tlie field of the tombs at Gadara presents a vivid illustra-
tion of the circumstances connected with the healing of the
demoniac in the countiy of the Gadarenes, or Gergesenes.
A\'ith one exception, all the concomitant events of the miracle

^ A lacsiniile of this coin is iigiircd in Smith's Dictionary of Bible, " Herod."

NOT GADARA BUT GERGESA. 461

are exactly illustrated. We have beyond the city the field
of tombs, these tombs suited for the refuge of the demoniac
outcast/ occupied as dwellings to the present day ; we have
a plain suited for the feeding of swine, with its roots and
acorns ; and we have a steep place hard by, of several hun-
dred feet high, Kprj/xvov. But then it does not run down to
the sea, but to the little river. This objection is, 1 think,
fatal to the identification of Um Keis with the scene of the
miracle. St. Mark (v. 2) tells us our Lord was met imme-
diately on His coming out of the ship. Tliis place is three
and a half hours distant from its shores. It is important
also to observe that St. Matthew (viii. 28) reads, not Gada-
renes, but Gergcsenes, and St. Luke states that the country of
the Gadarenes Avas over against Galilee (viii. 26). I should
feel, therefore, disposed fully to endorse the suggestion of Dr.
Thomson,- that St. Matthew, writing for those intimately ac-
quainted with the topography of the country in detail, names
the obscure and exact locality, Gergcsa, while SS. Mark and
Luke, writing for those at a distance, simply name the
country of Gadara, as a place of importance, and acknow-
ledged as the capital of the district.^ Dr. Thomson visited,
at the mouth of the Wady Semakh, directly opposite Genne-
saret, some ruins, called by his guide, " Kerza," or " Gersa"
which he identifies with the Gergesa of St. Matthew-. The
discovery is most interesting and important. I visited the
spot myself, from a boat, and observed the remains of a vil-
lage and a khan ; but, unfortunately I was not aware at the
time of the interest attaching to the place, and did not ascer-
tain, or at least note down, the name given to it by my
boatmen.* In one important particular my memory corrobo-

1 I have often met in the outskirts of Caiffa a maniac -who dwells in
similar tombs. 2 l.„j^^ _^,jJ j^^^j.^ ^ 3-,.

3 This is borne out by the statement of Josephus, Bell. Jud. i. viii. 5.

* The statement of Origen exactly bears out the Discovery of Dr. Thomson.
After stating that Gadara was not the scene of the miracle, for there was thence
no steep place into the sea, he states that Gergesa is an ancient city on the
shores of the lake, by which is a steep place which runs down to it. Vol. i.
p. 239, ed. Lomm.

4■C^2 OADARA TO GERASH.

rates the statement of Dr. Thomson, viz. tliat wliile there is
here no precipice running sheer to the sea, hut a narrow
heU, of hoach, the hhiff behind is so steep, and the shore so
narrow, that a herd of swine, rushing frantically down, must
certainly have been overwhelmed in the sea before they could
recover themselves. AVhile the tombs at Gadara are pecu-
liarly iriteresting and remarkable, yet the whole region is so
perforated everywhere by these rock-chambers of the dead,
that we may be quite certain that a home for the demoniac
will not be wantmg, whatever locality be assigned for the
events recorded by the evangelists.

March 12th. — AVe made a very early start from Gadara,
but I had time to revisit the gorge and the tombs, and to
secure some swallows and hoopoes, who had just returned in
great numbers to their summer quarters, when a horseman
came to hurry us after the cavalcade ; and we rapidly de-
scended a steep ravine, a feeder of the Wady Arab, and
overtook the party. As I cannot find that any traveller has
described this route, I give the distances, in time : — Um Keis
to Et Taiyibeh, a small village, five hours, passing only one
small collection of mud huts, Fauara, on the way ; Taiyibeh
to the little village of Jentna, one hour ; Jenina to the town
of Tibneh, the capital of the district El Kilrah, two hours ;
Tibneh to Souf, five hours ; Souf to Gerash, one hour. The
geology of the whole region is limestone of the early cre-
taceous age, without a trace of igneous irruption, but exhibit-
ing much local and irregular disturbance and dislocation.

The places I have named all stand on the vast plateau of
Bashan, or of northern Gilead, if we are correct in extending
the limits of Gilead to the Yarmuk. But though, when viewed
from an eminence, the whole country seems a boundless
elevated plain, covered with forest, it was by no means over
a plateau that we had to ride. Eising, as the country does,
suddenly from the deep valley of the Jordan, it is naturally,
along its whole western border, deeply furrowed by the many
streams which drain the district ; and our ride was up and
down deep concealed glens, which we only perceived when on

OAKS OF BASHAN. 4(;:1

their brink, and nionnting from wliicli, on the other side, a
short canter soon brought us to the edge of the next.

The country was surpassingly beautiful in its verdant
richness and variety ; added to Avhich was the zest with
which we traversed untrodden ground in safety and security.
We first descended the ravine of a little streamlet, which soon
grew to a respectable size, its banks clothed with sparse oaks
and rich herbage. The cheery call of the cuckoo and tlic
hoopoe greeted us, for the first time this spring, and resounded
from side to side. Then our track meandered alon" the banks
of a brook, with a dense fringe of oleanders, " willows by the
water-courses" shading it from the sun, and preventing
sunmier evaporation, while they wasted their perfume on the
desert air, without a human inliabitant near. Lovely knolls
and dells, in their brightest robes of spring, opened out at
every turn, gently rising to the wooded plateau above. Then
we rose to the higher ground, and cantered through a noble
forest of oaks. Perhaps we were in the woods of Mahanaim.
Somewhere a little to the east of us was fought the battle
with rebellious Absalom, and by such an oak as these was he
caught. How we realized the statement, "The battle was
there scattered over the face of all the country, and the wood
devoured more people that day than the sword devoured"
(2 Sam. xviii. 8), in picturing the broken lines and a rout
through such an open forest. As I rode under a grand old
oak-tree, I too lost my hat and turban, which were caught by
a bough. The oaks were just now putting forth their catkins
and tender leaves.

Then we rode for a mile or two over luxuriant green corn,
of which this district exports considerable quantities. Long
rows of fellfdiin women were hoeing out the thistles as we
passed ; and parties of men were ploughing and preparing for
cotton-planting, while their long fire-locks were piled, military
fashion, in the centre of the field, to be rushed to on the
slightest alarm. As I turned aside after a bird, and approached
the little arsenal, I was promptly warned back by the husband-
men, alarmed lest I should rob them of their sole defence.

4(U TAIYIBEH.

Thence we would ride, fdV some time, through a rich forest of
scattered olive-trees, left untrained and uncared-for, but often
with corn in the open glades. Then we would cross another
little wady, and wind up its steep side, till we reached again
a rolling plain of thin forest, or a fertile expanse of corn.
This was repeated throughout the eight hours during which
we enjoyed the magnificent scenery. Ko one can fairly
judge of Israel's heritage who has not seen the luxuriant
exuberance of Gilead, as well as the hard rocks of Judfpa,
which only yield iJicir abundance to reward constant toil and
care. Yet to-day, as of old, the constant incursions of those
swarms of Midian, the Beni Sakk'r, the Beni Hassan, and the
other terrors of the desert, render all property and agricultural
labour a perilous and hazardous investment.

We met long trains of laden camels and asses, four caravans
in all, coming with wheat from the Hauran, to be shipped at
Acre for Europe, and obtained from them much information
as to the topography, and the present camping-grounds of the
different Bedouin tribes, with the disappointing intelligence
that Sheikh Ali, of the Beni Sakk'r, was far away in the
Belka.

At one o'clock we reached the wretched half-ruined village
of El Taiyibeli, to the Sheikh of which we had a letter from
Agyle. The inhabitants were all mustered on the house-tops
to see the strange arrival. Agyle' s horsemen led the way,
through tortuous, mudpaths and dunghills, to a courtyard,
larger, but not less dilapidated than the rest ; the boundaries
of which were ill-defined heaps of ruins and walls of earth,
curving in and out, the openings in wdiich alone revealed
them to be human liabitations. At the further end, however,
was a stone-built scpiare tower, the Sheikh's house, and a
broken staircase to its top. Here were gathered the ancients
of the place ; and mounting the steps, we found the Sheikh at
his devotions, which being concluded, the letter was pre-
sented. Half-a-dozen sacks were spread, on which we sat,
vainly seeking a little shade beneath the parapet. The view
from it was fine, revealing the descent of the Ghor to the

DixxKi: WITH vn.i.AOK f^iiriK'ii 4(j.l

west, auil tlu' lii^hlands of r>.i.slian apparently an nninter-
niptecl plateau on the novMi, east, and south, for the wadys
do not show. Six or seven villagers sat facing us, and for
lialf-an-h(»ur we scrutinized each other. Words were few,
and pipes many. We overheard one explaining to the others,
that the Inglez were very proper sort of people, and to be
respected, for whatever the Sultan wished they performed
"alia rax," "on their heads." After we had quenched our
thirst repeatedly from an earthen pitcher, coffee appeared,
the precursor of dinner, the preparation of which had caused
our weary waiting. But Mr. Zeller had all the patience of
an Arab diplomatist, and never moved too soon.

We could endure the vertical rays no longer, and begged to
be allowed to descend from the keep to the roof below, where
we were partially screened by the tower. The sacks were at
once brought down, and spread under the walls, thus saving
us. in some degree, from the filth and fleas. The faces of our
entertainers were a physiological study, none of tliem Bedouin,
yet not the degraded fellahin type of Western Palestine — pro-
bably the old Syrian — with good and rather aquiline noses ;
the Sheikh himself what we could picture a Philistine of old,
six feet three inches high, with broad and massive features, a
large hooked but flattened nose, high cheek-bones, deep-set,
small piercing eyes, that looked through and through one,
and a thick, gi-izzly black beard. A ferocious-looking fellow
he seemed as he scrutinized us ; but when he began to speak,
and to play tlie host, his repulsive expression relaxed into
that of the keen yet friendly savage. His dinner was, for the
place, sumptuous. A pile of thin hot barley-cakes was set
on a board in the midst, and, alongside, a fryingpan frdl of
effsrs, hissing hot ; a T)owl of buttermilk, and another of ex-
cellent fresh butter. We ate in proper fashion, making sops
of our barley-cakes, and catching up with tliem pieces of egg
or lumps of butter; the bread serving for knife and fork, as
well as food. When we had done ample justice to the good
cheer, our host and his retainers cleared off the fragments.
Coffee, the finest Mocha, without sugar, was served in the

H H

•i06 AIMMVAL AT TIl'.XF.II.

sinallcst ot" cups; dl' wliicli, tlic cstabli.slniu'nt only aflbrding
two, \vt' liad to make use by turns. AVlien ^ve vosq, the Slieikh
courteously escorted us some little way from the village,
explaining its luiiicd condition liy the I'act of the Beni Sakk'r
having sacked and destroyed it two years ago.

One hour's ride across glens as romantic as those of the
morning brought us to the village of Jenina, v/here we took
a guide, our horsemen being at fault; and, following a tall
fellow, clad only in short shirt and long gun, in two hours
more we were at Tibneh. Every\\here the road repeats itself
— one dell after another, and then a fine piece of flat riding
on the table-land, which extends as far as Jebel Ajlun.

I

CHAFTP:!! XX.

Description of Tibiifh—City Square— Princely ShtiUi—The Tvici Hull--
Reception — Coffee-malcing— Primitive Lamp— Politics and Wars of Tibneh—
El Kurch— Panorama from oiir Camp— Native Christians— The Sheikh's
House— Our Visit— Barbaric Splendour— Presents— Forest of AjlAn— Its
Beauty — Contrast of Eastern and Western Palestine — Reverend Gxiards — A
Bedouin Raid—Fclldhin Pursuers— Doubiah—'Abbin — Sdf— Sheikh Yusuf
— Certijicates of Character— Difficulties — Extortion and Insults— Position of
our Camp — Threatened Attack— Military Manceuvres — Diplomatic Skill of
Mr. Z. — Threats — Escape — Sheikh Ytisufour Guard — Alone in the Forest —
Detour to thf East— Fertile Plain — Bcni Hassan Freebooters — Mahneh,
the ancient Mahanaim — Its possible Site — Return to Taiyibeh — Descent to the
Ghor — Bedouin on the Move — Fishes — HUleh Lily — Arrival at Caiffa — J5.'s
Departure — Tribes of the Ghor — Hhau-arah — Ilinddch — S'hoor-cl-Ghor —
Sakk'r — Sardiych — 'Abba'at — Ghau-drineh — Ta'am ireh — Rashaytdeh —
Jehdlin — Beni Sakk'r — Beni Hassan — Adwdn — Be7ii Ham^di — Origin of
the Beni Sakk'r — Political Prospects of Palestine.

TiBXEH is really a town, and able to tuni out five hundred
fighting-men, ■well armed, who can hold their own against
Ad wan or Beni Sakk'r. A fine natural fortress, an isolated,
round, mamelon-shaped hill, rises a little above the plateau,
from which it is divided by deep A'alleys on three sides.
These valleys, sombre with olive-groves, are the wealth of the
place, whose half-ruined walls can be seen at a great distance.
We wound round the hill to find an access, followed by the
mules, and entered, over dunghills, through what might have
been the back premises of an ill-kept Irish farm-house. The
houses — all of mud, with fiat, mud-plastered, wattled roofs —
were thrown about broadcast. But, at length, we threaded
our way to the grand square, on the flat summit of the hill,
having buildings only on three sides. The Sheikh's house,
which occupied one side, was really a handsome stone edifice
"f two stories, witli a lofty arelicd gateway, and windov>'s

H II 2 ■

408 UKCErTlON.

arched and surrounded with ornaiiieulal carvings in both
stories. Sheikh Yusuf Sclireibeh is the greatest man south of
Damascus, and his house proclaims it. A liorseman had gone
in advance witli the letter, that we miglit be properly re-
ceived ; and, as we entered the square, a crowd were sitting
round it on the ground, many of whom instantly rose, took
our horses, relieved us of our guns, and led the way into the
public town-hall, a<ljoining the Sheikh's house.

AVc had been entertained before in village fashion ; now we
enjoyed the higher dignity and luxury of a town. I was re-
minded in many respects of our reception in the towns of the
Sahara. The spacious hall was spanned by three arches, across
wdiicli were thrown beams and the stout wattles which sup-
ported the mud roof. A very large arched doorway, and a fe\\'
small windows, afforded a dim liglit ; and the setting sun cast a
brilliant ray from one little window near the top, at the west,
to another facing it on the east. The spaces between the
arches formed recesses in which our arms and accoutrements
were placed, and carpets were spread for us in front. The floor
was of mud ; but in the centre was a low stone altar, five feet
square, the great public kitchen. Round it w'ere half a dozen
cooks, a faggot was blazing brightly, trays of little cups stood
by, and a huge mortar of black w-ood, square outside and
richly ornamented with brass, with a mighty pestle four feet
long, lay at one end. Men were roasting coffee, a few grains
at a time, in spoons with handles a yard long ; while behind,
at the other end of the hall, were arranged some fifty of the
principal men of the place, among wdiom our escort, judi-
ciously mingled, were recounting, in undertones, as became
the dignity of the place and occasion, our greatness and
importance, and thereby enhancing their own.

At length the Sheikh appeared, dressed like the others,
though in garments of richer materials. But it was needless
that he should be marked by his dress — the master of 500
warriors stalked forth every inch a king, llis royal step was
a study for an actor. He stood before us : we rose, begged In'ni
to be seated ; the usual compliments and inquiries passed ; and

I'lJl.MlTlVE LAMP. 469

then, tliou,L;li !lie coftee was nearly ready, lie went to the fire
be<j;an to i'an the sticks, boil the water, and go through the
form of preparing everything for his honoured guests with his
own hand. As soon as the berries were roasted, the great
pestle was wielded with masterly dexterity, and the coffee
M'as served first to us, and then to the local magnates, the
Sheikh handing us the first cup, and refusing to be seated.
Soon after, lemonade, in tumblers of coloured Bohemian glass,
was served to us ; and the cereniony ended by a procession to
our tents in the centre of the sriuarc, headed bv the ma<>iii-
ficently stepping Sheikh.

By this time it was dark, and we had watched with inte-
rest the lamplighting in the public hall. A tall pedestal set
on a tripod five feet high supported a shallow tin bowl, filled
with oil, round which strips of rag were arranged, a piece of
hot charcoal M-as ])ut in to \s-arm it, and then the wicks were
lighted with a brand fi-Dui the tire. It yielded a glaring yet
sombre light, and the whole surroundings of the scene were
such as miLiht have been in the davs of our Anglo-Saxon
forefathers, with their rude plenty, tiie thane and his earldom
in their hall.

Arrived at the tents, all pitched and arranged, we found a
fat sheep had been sent by the Sheikh, and barley for all our
animals, as well as abundance of milk and barley cakes for
our retinue. Supper was ready before nine o'clock, and as
we were sitting down our host appeared, followed by his
servants, with narghilehs for the use of all the party. He
consented to stay and eat with us. Though he had never
seen an European dinner, he followed suit with great tact
and shrewdness, never doing anything till he had watched
us, yet with a[)pareiit unconcern, and managing a knife and
fork far better than we could use our fingers.

As soon as he was released to sit (jii our carpet, business
began, as to the position of tribes, routes, &c. ; prefaced, of
course, by many inquiries on ^Iv. Zeller's part wiili rcsjiect to
the prosperity of the place itself.

Tibneh is inijioilant as being the only place east of .Jordan

470 TANOllAMA FKUM OUll CAiMT.

which still holds its own against the licihniin (except Es
Salt, which pays a handsome backshish to the Adwaii), and
which professes all(>giance to the Turl-cish Government. It
was once stron,uly fortitied, but it was thought i)rudent to de-
molish the walls in a great degree, lest the Turks should send
a gan-ison, which Sheikh Schreibeh observed \vould be much
worse than an occasional Bedouin raid. It has no antiquity,
but the natural position of the place is such that it must
always have been more or less inhabited ; and no cavalry can
attack it against the smallest bodv of defenders. About every
ten years Tibneh has to fight for its independence, and in the
last battle, eight years since, the Sheikh lost his eldest son, and
received three wounds. Since then they have been at peace.
Besides the town itself, a large numl^er of villages in the
country round — in fact, the whole district of Kurcli — owes
allegiance to Sheikh. Yusuf, and he is the head of a sort of
fellahiu (or agricultural) federation, who always combine to
defend each other against the surrounding hordes. We had
subsequent opportunities of becoming better acquainted with
this most interesting and isolated canton of industrious
fellahiu.

We found that our chief could give iis no assistance in
I'eaching Gerash, our great object, as he Mas not on friendly
terms with his southern neighbours ; but he [)romised that
the Sheikh of a neighbouring villaiie, \\\\o was a sort of
Moslem bisho]), should accompany us to Suf, an hour from
Gerash, and thought his religious influence nn'ght carry us
safely through.

March I'Sfh. Sundnij. — Fioni the brow close to our tent
we have a splendid panorama. The central Ghor is spread at
our feet. Sweeping the horizon with our glass, we can re-
cognise some ])eaks n(>ar flerusalem— Gerizim, Ebal, Carmel
beyond, Gilboa, and Jebel Duhy. Then the i)lain of Esdraelon
opens out, with Beisan (Bethshean) on one side, and Belvoir
on tlie other — Talior, a peep of the Sea of Galilee, Hermon's
snowy side, with Lebanon's white tops behind and beyond,
seventy miles off; then tho ]>latcnu of I he Lcjah, with its row

NATIVK CHKISTIAXS. 471

of volcanic peaks on the horizon, .slo))iny,- down to the vast
level of Bashan, and to the wooded hills over which Tibneh
nes^tles. The deep gorges can scarcely be detected even close
under us, and Ajlun, the highest point of Gilead, shuts in the
view to the south.

"We had service as usual, after which L. found full employ-
ment in the crowd of sick folk of all kinds who surrounded
tlie tent — blind, halt, and maimed, of all varieties, and of
many years' standing, as well as the niore manageable ail-
ments of whooping-cough, ringworm, and ojtlithalmia. IMr.
Zeller found some lone Christians, even here, of the Greek
Church, without a priest or any ordinances, who gladly wel-
comed a khassis (priest) liujhz, and to whom he read Psalms
and Gospels, and expounded truths they had never hoard.
Occasionally a travelling Greek priest might pass by ; but for
two years they had never seen one, nor had they the slightest
knowledge of their religion, though eager for instruction.
None of them could read, Ijut they recognised some expres-
sions in the Psalms used in the Greek ritual, and were clad to
have books, which the mollah miglit read to them.

In the afternoon Mr. Z. and 1 took a walk to a neiuhbourimi
hill, some of the native Christians insisting on accompanying
us and carrying our guns, without which, even here, Islr. Z.
did not deem it prudent to wander. The Sheikh continued as
pressingly attentive as ever ; but we had a hint that his friend
had confided to the friend of ^Mr. Z.'s dragoman that his lord
much admired a telescope, and that such an article was not
to be bought in the country. Eggs, milk, and corn, with
bread for all the muleteers, continued to be sent m itli profuse
liberality. In the course of the afternoon the Sheikh appeared
with all his retinue to invite us to a formal visit. He smoked
his narghileh in our tent till a servant announced that the
carpets were spread for us ; and in solemn state we marched
through the admiring crowd across the square, preceded by
all the otticials of the place, after the kingly steps of our
host. His magnificent gateway opened into the fold-yard of
his "oats and cattle. An inner vard was devoted to the

472 FOKEST OF AJLUX.

horses and children, and up tlie steps on its ontsitle he led
the way to his private reception room. Furniture there was
none, but piles of Turkey carpets, with silk cushions, on the
mud floor; the walls ^\•ere rudely coloured in a red and white
triangular pattern ; and there were a few shelves for garments.
Thi?re were some richly-carved wainscot chests, which would
have delighted an amateur of old oak ; and the unglazed
Minilows were hung with satin curtains, blue and red, on
great rusty nails and pegs of rough sticks. "We were seated
at once at the upper end, having pulled off our boots, the
Sheikh and his friends standing near the door, till at length
we succeeded in persuading him to be seated, but only on the
threshold. We were served with delicious cool sherbet and
pipes. The mouthpiece handed to me was the linest and
largest piece of amber I ever saw, set with a double circle
of diamonds in silver, and must have been of great value.
It was a fine illustration of barbaric wealth and splendour,
where the floor was mud and the dinner service a wooden
bowl I At length the tedious ceremony came to an end, the
conversation having somewhat flagged. In the course of it
Sheikh Yusuf remarked, that though the Bedouin did rob
field and fold, he liked them better than his friends the
Turks, for they sometimes kept an oath.

We were followed to our tents by a servant bearing a
present of three leopard skins, shot in the neighbourhood ;
and when the Sheikh asjain called in the eveninu', we made
him happy with the telescope, presented in due form, feeling
that we certainly had had the advantage in the compliments
of Tibneli.

March 1-ith. — Our course to-day lay over the highest tract
of Gilead, Jebel Ajlun, leaving the peak to our right, and
descending into the upper waters of the Jabbok. We had a
magnificent ride through forests of Turkey and evergreen oak,
interspersed with open glades here and there, and crowned
A\ith noble pine trees {Pinus carica, Don.) on the higher parts.
Everywhere the ground was covered with rich herbage and
lovely flowers ; wood pigeons (Columha iKihimhvs, L.) rose in

CONTKAST (.)F EASTHKX AND "WKSTKKX PALESTINE. 473

clouds fvoiii the oaks, and jays and woodpeckers screamed in
every glade. There seemed to l>e five varieties of oak, two
deciduous and three evergreen, l)Ut they may all be reduced
to two species {Querci(s pseudo-coccifer(( and Q. cvgilops). The
latter predominated, and generally tlie different species were
grouped in separate clumps, giving the whole the effect of
one vast park. The trees were often of great size, and in
the outskirts of the glades of noble proportions, with wide
spreading branches. Still, unlike the district of Kiireh, there
was here no trace of cultivation, only very rarely a few goats
and cattle pasturing in the open ground. To compare Western
with Eastern Palestine is to compare nakedness with luxu-
riance. Yet probably the present state of Bashau and Gilead
is just what Western Canaan was in the days of Abraham.
Subsequently the Canaanites must have extensively cleared
it, even before the occupation by the chosen people, and, while
the slopes and terraces wei'e clad with olive-groves, the
amount of rainfall was not affected. The terraces liave
crundjlcd away ; wars and neglect have destroyed the groves ;
until it would be dithcult to find any two neighbouring
districts more strangely contrasted tlian the east and west
of Jordan; and this difference is simply caused by the greater
amount of rainfall on the east side, attracted by the forests,
which have perished off the opposite hills. The area of
drainage is about the same on each side ; the ravines and
wadys as numerous ; but few of the streams are perennial on
the west, all are so on the east. Every stream draining from
Moab and Gilead is filled with fishes and fresh-water shells.
I never found livirig fresh-water shells but in two streams
on the west side. In other words, the brooks there are now
but winter torrents. This simple cause has made east and
Avest to differ, till Gilead, it has been remarked, as far sur-
passes Western Palestine as Devonshire surpasses Cornwall.
The whole is wonderfully diversified and impressive.^ Every

1 Biukiu,i,'ham observes that ]\Iv. Baiikcs fro(iiK'ntly remarked tliat in all
his travels he had secu nothing equal to it, except some nooks of Portugal,
and adds, "We \v6rG perpetually exclaiming at every turn, IIow rich ! how

474 EEVEHEND (JUAKDS.

crust atlordeil a Pisgali ; every nvIu'H' wonder increased at the
evidi'ut rrovidence M-liich drew Israel iioni these boiindless
parks and downs to the rocky defiles of Benjamin and Judah.
For, humanly speaking, on that step depended the future of
Israel, Avliether tlrey were to be roving Bedouin, or to be God's
channel of regeneration to tlie huniau race. It was here that
"The Lord had made him ride on tlie liigli }ilaces of the
earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields : and He
made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the
fiinty rock : butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of
Iambs and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the
fat of kidneys of wheat, and thou didst drink the pure blood
of the grape." (Deut. xxxii. 13, 14.)

AMnding our way in long file through tangled thicket, under
spreading oak, or across open glade, with many a lichen-clad
trunk, the hoary relics of the priraaival forest, the ride was
ever varying, ever lovely. Except the various oaks, and an
occasional arbutus, T noticed no other timber till we reached
the higher zone of the pine forests. "We were in the heart of
jNIount Ajlun, "the place of deer," but also the notorious
home of bandits. Yet we had no armed guard. Our worthy
host at Tibneh declined to send any horsemen, and we depended
solely on our episcopal guide and another Moslem cleric of
high degree, both unarmed. They were well-dressed, intel-
ligent-looking men, with the white puffed turban of the
Imaum. splendidly mounted on two of the finest Arab mares
I ever saw — dark bay, with long black tails and ex(|uisite
little heads. One of the priests boasted of being a lineal
descendant of the Khalif Omar. By way of arms, they
carried only long pipe-stems, Mdiicli, on any alarm of danger,
they would shoulder in most martial fashion, and no doubt
the weapon thus exhibited was as effective as any other. They
were almost the only natives with whom we had to do who
were too h'vAx bred to bargain for remuneration beforehand.

]>icturesque ! how magnificent ! how bpaiitiful 1 ami we both conceived the
scenery alone to he iiuite worth all the hazanl and jirivation of a journey to
the eastward of Junlan." — liiickiitj/iam's Travels, p. 408.

A BEDOUIN KAID. 475

I was rather sharply reniiuded of the nature of the couulry,
Mlieii, haviiif' dismounted, and wounded with a charge of
buckshot a gazelle of the larger species (Antelope coinnna), I
pursued it some little way, and was on the point of securing
the poor limping animal, one of our guard galloped up,
seized me by the shoulder, and gave me a rating in most
voluble Arabic, pushing me back to the convoy, and com-
pelling me to run my fleetest till I overtook my horse. Vexed
as I felt for the moment, I soon was grateful for his promp-
titude. A few minut8s aftenvards, we heard several shots in
rapid succession on a hill to our left. All arms were un-
sluuE^, the mules hurried together to the front, the holv men
shouldered their chibouks, and the armed party formed in
line behind. On reaching an open, we saw a squad of ten
horsemen driving off some goats. It Mas a paity of Beni
Hassan. Some of our men galloped ahead, shouting lustily.
Voices yelled replies from the dense forest to the right, and
soon two wild-looking fellahin, clad in shirts, -with long gims,
rushed breathless from the covert, and crossed our path in
]»ursuit, om- guard having proclaimed the course the freebootei-s
iiad taken. A few seconds after, two more emerged from the
wood in front, and others were heard behind us. We hoped
that, from the pace of the pursuers, the robbers must soon
leave their V»ooty, or fight for it, as no goats could be driven
long at the rate these wild fellahin were dashing across the
forest.

An hour and a half south of Tibneh, we came upon a ruined
villajre, Douhiah, destroved bv Ibrahim Pasha, and never since
reoccupied. On the slope below it was a fine undergi'ound
cistern, to which we descended by a sort of well-hole, and
found ourselves in a small cavern, with abundance of delicious
ice-cold water. Two hours and a half later we came upon an
open, with a fine natural and permanent pond, Birkct 'Ahhin,
where we watered our beasts and lunched. Some goatherds
were also here with their flocks, and it was hence the robbers
had carried off' the goats we had seen driven across the hills.
Abbin is marked in the maps as a village, but we could only

47(J DIFFICULTIKS.

find r.iint traci'.-i oi' niiiis on tlic ]iill-si(l(\ It is also iiiarketl
too far to the eastward in all the maps, but the whole eailo-
graphy of trans- Jordan ic Palestine is mere guess-work, and
misleads instead of direeting the traveller.

We kept in military order for the rest of the day, baggage
in the eentre, us several times the keen eyes of our men
detected skulkers in tlie forest, who, though they could not
have attacked so strong a party, would at once have snapped
up any straggling mule.

Arrived at Suf, we found its Sheikh was away, and in his
absence the people refused to give us either guide or guard to
Gerash ; so we had to camp on a ]iiece of fiat ground, just
outside the village, and consider our y)Ians. ()ur holv men
declined to accompany us any further, and local guides were
indispensable. Soon appeared the deputy of the village.
Sheikh Yusuf, one of the most unmitigated scoundrels of my
acquaintance, and offered his services as the recognised guide
to Gerash, tendering a bundle of certificates extending over
twenty-five years. These afforded us some amusement. Not
many visitors have been to Gerash, but among them had
been, at different times, two old Oxford friends of my own,
each of whom had certified that Yusuf was a rogue and an
extortioner, and warned their successors to beware of him.
The people began to get insolent, crowded r(jund our tents,
and had to be kept out by force. j\[r. Z., who understood
their language and their remarks, became uneasy, and at once
we sent off all the horses and mules to a house in the town
for security. When asked for our letter from Tibneh, we
handed it to the principal men, who, so soon as they had read
it, Hung it contemptuously on the ground, and trode on it. it
was plain we could not get to Gerash, and there might be
some difficulty in getting away at all, especially as B., who
was suffering from a slight sunstroke, had been very ill all
day, and had all tlie symptoms of incipient fever. How-
ever, we engaged six of tlie least villanous-looking of the
villagers to be guanls Inr the night, our own peo]tle keeping
watch also.

TIIltKATS. 477

We -wore planning li(»\v \v(^ mi^lit ]mis1i on lo Ms Salt
(Uiimotli (iilead) in tlic morning, and thence cross tlic Jdrdan,
wlion Ynsnl' a])i)eared again, late in the evening, and informed
us that, ^vh('ther we went for\\-ard or returned, we must pay
liim a backshisli, and also another large sum for the Adwan
We now discovered, to our great mortification, that the mes-
senger whom we had sent with a letter to the Sheikh 1 )ialj of
the Adwan, and also a second whom we had despatched to
Es Salt, to prepare for our faNonrahle reception, Iiad both
lieen stopped. It was jtlaiii, then, we must return towards
Tibneh at dawn; and, in no very easy frame of mind, we
retired to rest, trusting to a watchful Providence to guide us
safely through our difficulties.

March loth. — To get safely out of the wood, was the pro-
blem of to-day. Long before sunrise, we had left our uneas)^
couches, and the mules were ready. But with the dawn, a
large crowd of perhaps one hundred and fifty men and boys
had assemljled, a few of them armed, and we were plainly
told we should not leave the place, either to go or return,
without further payment. Our muleteers lost their heads
with fright at the threats and tumult, and spent two precious
hours in packing the tents and loading the mules. Even
jNIr. Z.'s national phlegm was tried to the uttermost ; but he
proved himself a cool and imperturbable diplomatist, while
the rest of the party were fully occupied in keeping the
baggage-animals together, and preventing the petty pilfering
attempted on all sides.

The village was situated on the steep side of a hill, running
down to the Wady Deir, an afiluent of the Zerka (Jabbok).
liehind it the hill rose steep and rocky, having only a narrow
roadway between the rocks and tin- mud walls of the place.
To the west of this little defile opened out immediately a
wide grassy platform, which sloped, without interrujjtion,
down to the brijok. But we had passed this platform, and
had camped on a similar but much smaller space at the east
end of the village, towards (ierash, the situation of which w(;
had seen from the top of the hill, on the ])r('\'ious afternoon.

47S lUI'I.OMATIC SKir.T. OF Mi;, z.

We were thus in a sort of trap; for to escape we must pass
through the narrow roadway before getting into the open
space.

We made a hasty breakfiist as we stood liolding our horses,
doing our utmost to repress tlie liot blood of our servants and
muleteers at the insults and ])ilf(n-ing to which they were
exi)Osed. We were drawn up near the opening of the narrow
dctih', our nniles in advance, while the horsemen protected
their rear. ]\[r. Z. sat, pistol in hand, on a stone behind, sur-
rounded by the chiefs of the place, and his trusty dragonran,
mounted and holding his master's horse, by his side. An
armed man coolly walked up, and seizing a laden mule, hurried
off with it. B. and one of our muleteers dashed after him.
He struck the muleteer, ^vho seized his beast. and returned
the blow ; when the thief drew his dagger, and made a plunge,
but providentially missed his ribs. Khadour, our man, sud-
denly wrested B.'s gun from him, and would have shot the
Siifian dead, had not B. and I grappled witli him, and forced
the gun from him. A woman, meanwhile., had picked a quarrel
with our servant-lad Isa, and a threatening crowd round him
compelled him to give up a Spanish dollar — all the money he
possessed in the world. Sheikh Yusuf had demanded 5^. as a
fee to let us go, which we paid ; then he demanded a further
backshish of 3/. 10.'?. for himself, and 20/. for his feudal chiefs,
the Adwan ; then he refused to let us go without supplying a
larse guard at 11. a-head. It was manifest he was determined
to extract our last piastre, and probably pillage us at the end.
jNIeanwhile, some of the ancients took aside our two reverend
guides, and told them, " You have brought these Franghi
here, and we do not intend to let them go without taking all
their money : we will fight for it, and you will be the very
first we shall shoot, for without you they cannot get out of
the forest."

Still Mr. Z. continued to temporize and parley with the
Sheikhs, while the populace were growing more and more
excited and eager for the fray and plunder. Guns were being
brougiit up fast IVoni the village, and tli(» people in front,

ESCAPE. 47i»

alongside the pass, were collecting stones. Four men very
near us got posted behind a rock, with tlieir long firelocks,
rt^sting on it, levelled at us, and themselves safe behind the
breastwork ; and to our dismay we saw the messenger whom
we had paid to take our letter to Es Salt among them. But
I was delighted at the steadiness of our party. Scarcely any
one was flurried, and most kept their heads as cool as if they
had been unaware of the long guns pointed at them on all
sides. Our German servant Wilhelm was admirable. He
quietly drew the shot from the double barrel he carried, and
dropped a conical l)ullet down one barrel, and five pistol balls
down the other ; Khadour, our second muleteer, rose to
the warrior at once ; Odi, ]\Ir. Z.'s dragoman, the Protestant
headman of Xazareth, seemed in a moment transformed into
the wild Bedouin, with his kefieh thrown back, liis right hand
holding his gun aloft, while his left rested on his pistols, as
he stood erect in his stirrups, \vatching every movement of
the enemy with an eagle glance, and ready, as he afterwards
said, to send a ball through the Sheikh's head the moment
the first shot was fired. I devoted myself to the four fellows
behind the rock ; and B. and young T> — t sat as quietly as
possible on their horses close to the mules, pipes in their
mouths, and their pieces ready for the foremost assailants.
We saw that, humanly speaking, all depended on our getting
through the narrow road to the other side of the village before
a trigger was drawn, and the M'ord was passed in Italian
to the muleteers in front, to let the mules go on as if un-
intentionally, a step or two at a time, while we backed up
to them till they got through the pass. This manceuvi-e was
not detected, and wliile it was goiug on, INIr. Z. continued
imperturbable, occasionally getting up in the warmth of con-
versation and backing a few paces, while his henchman w itii
his horse and myself kept backing just in liis rear. In this
fashion we had got half way abreast of the village, when I saw-
it must soon come to fighting our way through, and called
out to Mr. Z. to accede to their demands and make a dash
fur it, or we should have bloodshed in a lew minutes. Bv

4S() slIF.IKll VI-SIF OI'K (IIAKIi.

this time \\v had so inaiid'uvrcd that we luul interposed our-
selves between the mules and the greater part of our assail-
ants. Mr. Z. IhuiL^ down some gold — sprang on liis horse —
Vi. with a sudden charge and a sliout started the mules, and
in a few seconds we were on tlif (ijjen platform on the west.
The movement took the villagers by surprise, and as their
chiefs were close to us, and somewhat separated from them,
they did not dare to fire. But in a minute they all overtook
us — to have attempted flight would have been madness, and
we [)ulled up unconcernedly, as though the mov(! had been
nnintentional. AVe were now on open ground, where we
could have made a ruuninfj fight, and Mv. Z. contiuuino: the
conference, as though surprised at the interruption, agreed to
give 121. more to the sheikh, and lO.s. a head for a guard of
five horsemen to Tibrieh.

But now they implored us to turn and go to Gerash. " Why
should we pay so much money for nothing ?" "Surely when
we had come so far we would not turn back ?" "They ^^(luld
not ask us for another piastre," and much more to the same
effect. However we were not to b(^ led into the trap again,
and doubtless they w^ould have taken a favourable oppor-
tunity to strip and rol) us of all we had — money we had
none. Thankful were we to get the cavalcade pushed safely
through the cro\rd, wath the ruttian Yusuf and four of his
men now our guards instead of our plunderers. But it did
not escape us that various armed footmen were passing from
the village into the forest on the other side the dell, and we
carefully noted the route they took. Fortunately we had the
advantage of knowing the road, and were more than a match
for a df>zen of them, as we knew they would not willingly
shed blood in the forest for fear of consequences. It was
mortifying to turn our backs a second time on Gilead and
;Moab, but we had done all that prudent men could, and had
failed both from south and north.

Accompanied by our villanous guard, on whom we ke]>t
a sharp look-out, we ])ushed on through the lovely forest.
Sheikh Yusuf incessantly beseeching us to go back and visit

ALONE IN THE FOKEST. 481

Gerash. Had Ave Iteeii horsemen without baogaire, we mi'>lit
have made a detour, and done so ; but we had no wish to rif;k
our equipment and collections. AVhen we had got well into
the forest of Ajlun, our Suf friends left us, saying they had
passed the limits of their territory ; and, though they had
promised to conduct us to Tibneh, we were not sorry to be
rid of them. We watched them out of sight, and then took
counsel with the holy men, who were still with us, about our
course. It was agreed it would not do to return to Tibneh
and proclaim our failure : and, besides, the men of Suf had,
no doubt, prepared an ambush on the road, probably on the
western side, to which we had seen them betake themselves.
We therefore struck boldly to the eastward, leaving the
highest part of Jebel Ajlun on onr left, and hoping soon to
find a more open country.

If my aneroid was to be trusted, we were now 3,500 feet
above the Ghor, and yet by no means on the highest point of
the range. Pressed as we were, L. had time to dismount and
gather some cones of the pines, which seemed different from
those of Lebanon, and proved to be the Pin us carica, Don.
AVe got no birds, as our guns were charged M'ith shot unsuit-
able for collecting, and we had no wish to attract attention.
But I had discovered a curious piece of ornithology the night
before. Some one had brought to our tents, for sale, a live
wood-pigeon {Columba palui7iMs, L.), used as a decoy. The
bird was perched on a long stick, with its eyelids sewn
together with fine thread, which is loosened when the bird
is fed. Thus blinded, it dares not leave its perch, which is
placed on a high tree, but keej)S timidly flapping its wings.
The wild pigeons are attracted by it, and are shot down in
scores by the natives, in ambush, who, as the wood-pigeon
swarms in myriads through the forest, reap a rich harvest by
their cruel decoy.

All the strata here seem to dip more or less to the south-
west, generally five degrees.

We urged on our mules, and passing without a halt be-
tween Jebel Ajlun and Jebel Kafkaf ka, proceeded for several

I I

4'82 REM HASSAN FKHKBOOTEHS.

hours, north by compass, in the country of the Beni Olieid ;
then, making a sweep to the west, we succeeded in reaching
Et Taiyiheh just as tlie sun went down. The ride well repaid
us. AVo had magnificent views over the east as far as Jebel
Hauran. Great M'as our astonishment to find, as we turned
our glasses on Bozrah, that all the vast blank space on the
map Mliich lies between Gilead and Bozrah, instead of being
a desert, was one boundless corn or grass plain, covered with
crops. It is, in fact, the granary of North Arabia. Here was
the wealth of Eoman Syria, and the source of its population ;
and here the swarming Midianites, like the Beni Sakk'r of to-
day, pastured their thousands of camels.

►Still, though lovely and novel, the day was not without its
alarms, and bandits were too plentiful for our comfort. Once
we came across two of the Beni Hassan, making off with two
fine heifers and some goats, doubtless part of yesterday's
foray. They were astonished and alarmed to see us, and
hastily hid their guns in the grass, telling us they were only
felirdiin. After a little catechizing on the position of the
various tribes in the neighbourhood, we let them go by with
their cattle, to their evident relief. Ever and anon an alarm
would be raised. A distant shot would put all on the qui
vive, and eveiy one carried his gun erect from his saddle-bow,
that it might flash in the sunlight. Sometimes one, some-
times two or three, and once six men, were detected lurking
in the forest, and we would gallop ahead to some little rising
ground, till we saw the mules safely past. Jebel AjlAn is
the head quarters of freebooters, and no wonder. Eobin
Hood never had a territory more admirably adapted for his
purpose — miles of forest, with abundance of open glades ; yet
all a perfect labyrinth. It is very easy to understand why
the Turks have never subdued Ajlun, and why their dominion
stops at its northern limit. It would require an army to
force its passes without military roads, which are not within
the reach of the Ottoman genius.

Tlie whole country is well watered, and we passed five fine
^latural i)onds — "Birket," — surrounded by open ground stocked

MAHNEII. 48

M-itli horned cattle. By tlie side of one of these, called Ly
our guides MaJrneh, "vve sat down and lunched, resting our
cavalcade for half an hour. It struck me that this was pro-
bably the site of the ancient Mahanaim. Tlie highest point
of Jebel Ajlun bore hence S.E. by S. distant, perhaps, six or
seven miles. We searched for ruins, and though on the side
of the hill there were the traces of many buildings, yet all
were grass-grown and beneath the soil, excepting the mounds
of some decidedly modern Arab dwellings, the only style of
ruin we saw in this part of the country. The " birket " is at
the bottom of a sort of gently-sloping amphitheatre, and the
traces of buildings occupy several acres, pai-tly covered with
wood on the north and east sides. They are sufficiently ex-
tensive to have belonged to a considerable place ; but there is
no trace of a wall, such as must have been there when David
sat in the gate and wept for his son Absalom. Of any later
or Eoman buildings there is not a vestige. Still, considering
how very faint and insignificant are almost all the ante-Eoman
remains across Jordan, I should not feel any doubt about the
identity of this spot with Mahanaim, were it not that it is so
far north of the Jabbok, the boundary of Gad, within whose
limits jMahanaim lay (Josh. xxi. 38), and that from the history
of Jacob's journey in Gen. xxxi. xxxii., Mahanaim appears to
have been between Mount Gilead and the Jabbok.

On the other liand, Malmeh is on the borders of Bashan
(see Josh. xiii. 30), and though to the north, it is also to the
east of the Jabbok, and therefore outside of the line where the
river was the boundary of Gilead and Bashan. It is probable
also that in Genesis the " IVIount of Gilead " may be used in
a general signification — not confined to Jebel Osha, but in-
cluding also Ajlun, which was certainly a portion of Gilead.
Considering the geography of the region, it would have been
more natural for Jacob to take this course in his flight from
Laban, than to have gone south to Jebel Osha, and then
turned northwards again to cross the deep ravine of the
Jabbok. There is therefore, I conceive, every probability that
the name of ^Mahanaim has been preserved in Mahneh, and

I I 2 ■

484 DESCENT TO THE GTIOR.

that these grass-grown mounds represent all that is left of
the capital of Ishl)oshcth^ and the refuge of David.

About four o'clock we emerged from the evergreen oak
forest, and came upon the park-like scenery of Bashan,
open, and beautifully studded Avith deciduous oaks, singly or
in clumps. Here we were comparatively safe ; passing the
village of El Mesar, we turned due west, and arrived at Taiyi-
beh at 6-30, wdiere our friends received us kindly ; and, with
hcnrtfelt thanksgiving for preservation from dangers seen and
unseen throughout the day, we lay down for a sound and
peaceful sleep, with four of the villagers armed as guards
outside our tents.

March IG^/i.— ^We made good use of our time in securing
souvenirs of Gilead while the mules -svere being laden, and
obtained a pair of great spotted cuckoo [Oxyloplius glan-
darius), a new chat, and other birds. Our course was quite
different from the one we had taken in cominfj from Gadara.
Following a westerly route, we rapidly descended by an ex-
cellent path through an open country dotted with oak-trees
(all deciduous), and intersected by wadys, to the great plain
of the Ghor, by the Wady Taiyibeh, and then, crossing the
Kuseir and the Arab, rode up for several miles till we reached
the bridge, three hours and a half quick riding from Taiyibeh.

It was interesting to note the rapid change in the character
of the vegetation and the birds as we descended. First, we
lost tlie oaks, next the olives, while the Pistachia terebinthus
and ziz}-phus took their place. Then the latter alone re-
mained ; till, on fording the little stream Kuseir, we were on
the rich flat plain, treeless and tropical, with the rankest and
most luxuriant herbage, and a hot burning air gently moving
over it from the south.

On the slope close to the foot of the hill, we rode through
a camp of the S'hoor-el-Ghor, whose flocks and herds were
indeed in clover for the time. We had, shortly before, met a
party of Beni Sakk'r, with long strings of camels moving up
to the plateau of Um Keis for change of pasture ; and just

1 2 Sam. ii. 8.

IIULEH LILY. 485

before coming to the bridge we met another caravan of 266
camels in one string, with about as many asses and a few
horsemen, returning empty to Der'a {Edrci), in the Hauran,
after carrying corn to the coast. A few of the camels bore
planks of deal, a scarce commodity in those parts. Bedouin
and felirdiin were mingled in the motley convoy, as they
listlessly crept along, secure in their nimi])ers from attack.

At the bridge we rested. B — t and I got out our nets for
fishing, and B. took a photograph. Thence some of us rode
up the Wady Bireh, to try for the fishes we had seen in its
pools, and the others took the direct road to Xazareth. After
a successful haul of fish, we turned up from the wady, had a
bowl of milk and a uap under an Arab tent of the Hhawarah
tribe ; and then, briskly trotting on for two hours without
drawing rein, reached Nazareth before eight p.m., just after
our mules, having accomplished sixty-five miles, with heavy
baggage, in two days — very smart travelling for this roadless
countr}'-. Thus ingloriously ended the siege of Gerash, and
our second eastward expedition.

AYe had reaped a rich harvest during the day. An iris, the
most gorgeous I ever beheld, white and purple, unfolded its
glories under the bushes,^ and we had gatherpd the seyal
{Acacia scyal), with its golden-haired tufts of blossom, and
many other plants, a large serpent {Zamenis daJiIii, Schl.), a
creel of fine fish for dinner and for preservation, two additional
species of birds, and a game-bag full of partridge. These
spoils, and, far more, a packet of home letters awaiting us, in
some degree consoled us for our humiliating return.

March 17th was a day of in-door work, balancing and
settling accounts, for B. had to leave for a cooler climate by
the next steamer from Caiifa: and in the evening we dined

1 Dr. Thomson has somewhat capriciously named this iris "tlieHiileh lily,"
though it is very scarce there, and chiefly found on the hills. He has with-
out question assumed it to be the lily of our Lord's parable. It is a tuberous
iris, the very finest of its genus, purple violet, mottled with white. From
its habitat it might well be the " lily among thorns " of Cant. ii. 2. See Laud
and Book, p. 256.

48G TRIBES OF TlIK GIIOK.

with ^Ir. Z., faring sumptuously on our Jordan fish, and
partridges.

The next morning we rode to Caiffa, encamped under some
olive-trees to the west of the town, and had a hearty welcome
from Mr. Sandwitli, the Consul. The following day we saw
our friend B, safely on hoard the steamer, and returned to our
solitary tents with that sense of loneliness into which only
tliose can thoroughly enter, who in a strange land find them-
selves separated from the friend and comrade of months of
adventure. Four of our seven had departed westward, and we
looked to the land as henceforth but a scene of labour, unre-
liev^ed by the cheerful and happy companionship which had
made the last five months one continuous picnic party.

We still worked indefatigably in collecting, and with good
success. The next day was Sunday, and the sirocco brought
with it such a sensation of suffocating oppression, though we
scarcely moved from our tents, that we could not but rejoice,
for their own sakes, that U. and B. had escaped it.

XOTE.

Having now for a tune bid adieu to the Ghor, it may not "be
amiss to give here a summary of the different Bedouin tribes which
occupy that region, especially as the topography of the ta'ibes has
entirely changed since Eurckhardt and even Dr. liobinson wrote.

Taking first the west side of the Lake of Galilee, down to
Eeisan (Bethshean), are two quiet, but very numerous clans or
tribes, over which Agyle Aglia rules, the Hhawarah and Hinadeh.
These are in good fellowship with the felirdiin villages, protect them
from attacks, and receive a certain proportion of the crops, Agyle
often advancing money for cultivation and seed, from the return of
which he is computed to raise a private revenue of near 5,000/.
sterling i)er annum.

Then come the .Sakk'r, relations of the Beni Sakk'r, and almost
as warlike and restless. They are a numerous and very rich clan in

BENI SAKKK. 487

a narrow district, and have scarcely i^asturc enough for their herds,
which renders them always ready for a foray.

Next come the S'hoor-el-Ghor, (ys^) Avho extend on both sides
the river, higher up on the east side, and on the west into the rich
plain which drains the vale of Shechem. They are a very large
tribe in population, but not in wealth, and are not considered
formidable, owing to their want of organization, having several
independent sheikhs, and being divided by the Jordan. Notwith-
standing this, they are of ill repute, and lose no opportunity of
plunder which presents itself, being treacherous and vindictive even
for Arabs. South of them come in succession two unimportant
tribes, the Sardiyes and the 'Aba'at, Avho have little intercourse with
the fellahin or cultivators, and are influenced, the former by the
Sakk'r, and the latter by the Adwan, their neighbours across the
river.

Lastly come our old friends the Ghawarineh, at Jericho, a tribe
much mingled with the felklhin, and who, though fast friends of
mine, are in very bad odour, and sup])ly all the robbers from Jericho
to Jerusalem, i.e. they claim the legal right of robbing every one
who has not paid them blackmail. Their district is not large, but
their position is most important, as comprising the ford of Jordan,
from Jerusalem to Es Salt. The Ghawarineh are not found here
alone, as one section occupies the Safieh, and a third holds a con-
siderable portion of the plains of Acre. These two latter sections
dwell not in tents, but chiefly in huts, built of wattled matting, and
roofed in the same manner, meaner than an African kraal, and put
up and taken down in a few minutes. Their reed roofs, however,
aiford a better protection against the sun's heat than the black
cloth of a tent.

On the west side of the Dead Sea are the great tribe of the
Ta'amireh, extending inland to Bethlehem ; the Eashayideh, a small
insignificant tribe at Engedi and its neighbourhood ; and then our
old friends the Jehrdin, reaching as far as Jebel Usdum.

On the east side of Jordan, commencing with the country of
Gadara, from the Sea of Galilee, the Ghor is chiefly occupied by the
S'hoor-el-Ghor, extending further to the north than they do on the

west side.

Overlapping them, and extending from the plateau to the richer
portion of the river's bank, are that section of the Beni Sakk'r,
{not the Sakk'r, though related to them,) who are ruled by Sheikh
Gerouan-el-Melham. They are a fraction who seceded a lew years

488 ADWAX.

ixiio fnnn the iiuiin body of the tribe under Sheikhs Abdallah and
Ali, on account of want of pasturage and an indisposition to obey
the strict rule of those chiefs. Though but a fragment of that
immense clan, they can muster 1,000 cavalry, and always join their
bretliren when a raid or war is on the move. They have obtained
their present possessions gradually, and in great measure by driving
out the fellahin, destroying their villages, and reducing their rich
corn liolds to pasturage. Latterly, however, they have also en-
croached much on the S'hoor and Beni Hassan. Behind them are
the Beni Obeid, extending to the Hauran, and apjjarently a decay-
ing tribe.

The Beni Hassan adjoin them on the south, and were once the
most powerful trans-Jordanic clan after the Beni Sakk'r. But of
late years fortune has not smiled on them, and they have suffered
terribly in wars with the Beni Sakk'r and the Adwan, Last year,
too, the Turkish troops from Damascus fell on them, in vengeance
for offences committed by other tribes, and massacred a great
lunuber, besides carrying off nearly the whole of their camels and
herds. Consequently they have largely reinforced the robber-bands
of Jebel Ajliin, and many of them live by cattle-stealing whenever
they have the chance. Thus they are gradually wearing out the
few fellahin villages north of the Jabbok, and have lost much of
their old territory in the Ghor.

Xext to them come the Adwan, a small, but very haughty
and tenacious tribe, who hold the country about £s Salt (Kamoth
Gilead), Gerash, Amman (Eabbah), and Heshban. They are re-
puted to be of the noblest blood in Arabia, and can, trace their
descent for 1,600 years at least. Yet they can bring only 300
cavalry into the field, and of these scarcely more than one half are
of pure Adwan blood. Their policy has always been not to inter-
meddle in the feuds of their neighbours, but rigorously to hold to
their right of excluding every one from their own territory, making
even the peaceful transit of another tribe across their lands the
pretext for relentless war. Their country is a natural "quadri-
lateral," and of great defensive strength. They are very avaricious,
and considered the most perfidious, as the Beni Sakk'r are the
most truthful, of all the Bedouin. It is unfortunate for travellers
that their little territory comprises the four most interesting trans-
Jordanic sites. Formerly they were on good terms with our Consul
at Jerusalem, and used to give escorts on payment of from 500 to
1,000 piastres per head ; but after several cases of extortion, the

BENI sakk'k. 489

European Consulates were compelled to break Avitli tlieni, and their
charges have risen to from 80/. to 200/. for simple safe conduct
through their territory.

South of the Adwjin, occupying the east of the Dead Sea to the
Wady Kerak, are the Eeni llamOdi, a most ruffianly tribe, among
■whom no European before the Due de Luynes ever succeeded in
travelling, unless in disguise. The Ta'amirch alone have friendly
dealings with them, and through them only could a safe passage
be arranged, but this Avould require time and diplomacy, Avith a
thorough knowledge of Arabic. Behind the Eeni Hamedi, the
Adwan, and Eeni Hassan, and down the Belka beyond and behind
Kerak, lies the vast pasture ground of the Eeni Sakk'r, who also
claim and hold large tracts in the centre of JSTorth Arabia. They
completely tlank all these tribes as far as the llauran, in that vast
rich plain, none of which is desert, moving constantly with count-
less flocks, herds, and camels. They have for centuries been a very
strong tribe, but from some unexplained cause have increased in the
last fifty years to an unexampled pitch of prosperity and wealth,
both in population and cattle. They do not themselves know how
many thousand horsemen they can bring into action ; but their
restlessness is accounted for by the difficulty of finding pasturage.
" The land was not able to bear them, that they might dwell
together, for their substance was great, so that they could not
dwell together." (Clen. xiii. G.) If they were not well governed
intenially by their two great Sheikhs, they would be more of a terror
than even now to the felluhin of Syria. "When, in 18G3, they
encamped in the Ghor, just before their raid on the plain of Esdra-
clon, their tents, like the jSIidianites', covered the ground for miles,
far as the eye could reach from the Blount of Eeisan, and in a week
there was not a green blade to be seen, where before the arrival of
these locusts one stood knee-deep in the rank herbage.

There is a curious tradition relative to the Eeni Sakk'r (Sons of
the Falcon), that about 1,200 years since they left their cradle in
the centre of Arabia ; that their forefathers lived there in a district
very like that of the J\I'zab in the African Sahara, where there
were no springs, but where the water was collected into enormous
tanks by walls built across the wadys ; and by these means
gardens, palm gi-oves, and orange orchards Avere fertilized. A pro-
phet arose, and foretold that some unusual rains Avould burst the
walls of the reservoir's, and flood and destroy the oases. IMany
believed him, and fled northward to the Eelka, where the Eeni

490 I'DI.JTICAL I'HOSPIXTS OF PALESTINE.

Sakk'r now hokl tlieir chief position. The prophecy was fulfilled ;
the tanks hurst, anil tlie country was deHtroyed. But the Beni Sakk'r
claim, and still exercise once in evei-y two or three years, the right
of pasturage in that very district, passing through a vast extent of
country to reach it. An Italian, who has lately penetrated Central
Arabia in Bedouin guise, told me in Jerusalem that he had visited
this district, and found the ruins of enormous walls, and traces of
former po])ulation, while the system of irrigation could be distinctly
perceived, in a region 'iow utterly desolate, and where no trees can
possibly exist.

A few years ago the whole Ghor was in the hands of the fellahin,
and much of it cultivated for corn. Now the whole of it is in the
hands of the Bedouin, who eschew all agriculture, excepting in
a few spots cultivated here and there by their slaves ; and with
the Bedouin come lawlessness, and the uprooting of all Turkish
authority. Xo government is now acknowledged on the east side ;
and unless the Porte acts with greater firmness and caution than is
its wont, it will lose the last vestige of authoritj'^ on the right bank
also, and a wide strip of the most fertile land in all Palestine will be
desolated and given up to the Xomads. The same thing is now
going on over the jilain of Sharon, where, both in the north and
south, land is going out of cultivation, and whole villages rapidly
disappearing from the face of the earth. Since the year 1838, no
less than twenty villages there haA^e been thus erased from the
map, and the stationary population extirpated. Very rapidly the
Bedouin are encroaching wherever horse can be ridden ; and the
Government is utterly powerless to resist them or to defend its sub-
jects. As the Philistines swept the plains in the days of Saul, and
" the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in
rocks, and in high places, and in pits," so it is again. Either an
European protectorate or union with Eg}'pt seems requisite to save
Palestine from gradual dissolution ; unless, which seems hojieless,
the Arabs can be induced to cultivate the sod.

CHArXEPt XXT.

C'armel in Spring — Its Trees and Flowering Shrubs— Flov>ers and Birds —
Plain of Acre — The Sclwolmaster A broad — A Nomad School — Return to
Nazareth — Visit to the Governor — Tiberias — Camp at the Itound Fountain —
Spring Birds of Gennesaret — Dinner with Agyle Agha — Ascent of Tabor —
Objections to Descending the Ghor — Ride to Beimn (Bethshean) — Ruins —
Khan — Citadel — Theatre — Panoramic Vietv— Recollections of the Past —
Present Degradation of Beisan — Gilboa — Nablous — Samaritan Synagogue
Service — Ramallah — Misfortunes of Abou Dahak — SoUtarii Life at Jericho —
Nocturnal Visit of Adwdn — Summer Birds of Jericho — Gorge of the Wady
Kelt — Boat on the Dead Sea — Return to Jcnisalem — Departure of the Bishop
— Visits to the Synagogues — Expedition of the Due de Luynes — Adwdn
Sheiklis.

Makch 21 — 2G. — The -week was devoted to a thorougli ex-
ploration of all the nooks and dells of jMoiint Carmel and its
neij^hbourhood, in company with Mr. Sandwith, than whom
we could not have had a better guide. We wandered over
the sacred hill (free from tents, mules, and care), with horses,
servants, and saddle-bags following us. Two days we spent
in the neighbourhood of Esfia, the self-invited guests of the
Christian family with whom we had made acquaintance four
months previously. The coy young ladies of the house sur-
rendered to us their portion of the floor, and, when they had
done the honours of our frugal supper, retired to a neigh-
bour's for the night ; while fleas and mosquitoes made our
prostrate forms their pasture till morning.

We reaped a rich harvest in natural liistory, especially on
the southern and eastern sides of the Mount; visited bat-
caves, and climbed to vultures' and eagles' nests ; caught
snakes and lizards, now drawn from their crevices by return-
ing summer ; and, day after day, crammed our botany-boxes
ti) rei)letion.

402 i-i,owi;i;l\(; siikubs.

Carnicl in spring is very different from Carniel in December
rains. There is little, indeed, whicli we should call forest,
excepting in the pine district on the highest parts, and in a
few deep wadys on the north and north-east sides. But
though it is studded with the ruins of deserted vilUiges, and
with Jewish wine-presses and cisterns, there is no cultivation,
excepting the fine olive groves and terraced vineyards of Esfia
at the one end, and the scanty gardens of the monks at the
other. On the north side there are a few patches of olive
groves, but only close to the foot of the hill. The greater
portion is scrub and shrubbery ; rather bare near Caiffa, where
the wood has been all cleared for making charcoal, as also
round the convent, and on the sea face ; but elsewhere, dense
and impenetrable. Besides the pines, the timber-trees are
chiefly oak, evergreen and deciduous ; some of them noble
trees. There are also chestnuts, and a few relics of all the
native sylva of Palestine.

But the grand characteristic of the " excellency of Carmel "
is the wonderful profusion of flowering shrubs, which were
now in all their glory. I never saw such a mass of perfumed
blossom. The arbutus (Arbutus andrachnc, L.), with its bril-
liant red bark, gi'ew to the size of a respectable tree ; the
myrtle ; the scented bay (Laurus nohilis, L.) ; a kind of
guelder-rose ( Viburnu77i tinus, L.) ; a sort of sweet-scented
evergreen, like the laurustinus ; an elder ; the locust or carob-
tree (Ceratonia siUqiia, L.) ; the wild olive ; the terebinth ;
the Fistachia Icntiscus; a large tree-broom, with golden-yellow
blossom ; the Judas-tree [Cercis siliquastrum) , with its leaves
just budding, but the whole plant one mass of bunches of
brilliant red laburnum-shaped bloom ; a fine hoary-leafed
hawthorn {Crataegus azarohis, L.) ; the service apple {Sorhus
micuparia, L.) ; the Phijlh/rcra; and the storax-tree {Stijrax
officinalis), the most abundant of all, one sheet of pure white
blossom, rivalling the orange in its beauty and its perfume ; —
all these in flower together wafted their fragrance in volumes
through the air.

Then the ground, wherever there was a fi-agment of open

THE SCHOOOIASTER ABROAD. 4\^?>

space, was covered with tall red hollyhocks, pink convolvulus,
valerians, a beautiful large red linuni, a gladiolus, a gigantic
mottled arum, red tulips, ranunculuses (large and red) ; phea-
sant's-eye (Adonis), of endless varieties, as large and as abun-
dant as the anemone ; tufts of exquisite cyclamen, a mass of
bloom under every tree ; five species of orchis — the curious
Oxthrys atrata, with its bee-like lip, another like the spider-
orchis, and a third like the man-orchis ; while four species of
Onosma, and especially the brilliant yellow Omsma syriacum,,
hung from every rock. It was the garden of Eden run wild ;
yet all this beauty scarcely lasts a month.

The Inrds were not many in kind, except the great birds of
prey. A\iltures and eagles of all sorts, wood-pigeons, black-
headed jays, and shrikes of three species {Lanius cxcnUtor,
L. rufus, and L. jJcrsonahis), were the chief; and the butterflies
varied little from the ordinary South European type. We
obtained here the pallid harrier {Gircits pallidus, Tem.) ; and
I shot, to my great surprise, a pair of sunbirds, in a dell on
the south side.

On the 24th JMarch, ]Mr. Sandwith rode with me to a marsh
in the centre of the plain of Acre, in the hope of stirring up
the Ghawarineh camp there to collect snakes and francolin's
eggs for us. The men were all absent, and we declined the
pressing im-itation of the women to enter their mat-huts (not
having, as yet, forgotten the insects of Esfia), but tied up our
horses under the shade of a solitary fig-tree, while the dames
quickly brought out " leben," or soured milk, barley-cakes,
and delicious fresh butter. Getting some of the boys round
us, Mr. Sandwith harangued them on the great backshish they
would gain by finding eggs, and catching snakes and moles ;
but they did not seem awake to the attractions of such pur-
suits, till one of them suggested we should call the school-
master. To our surprise, we found him actually " abroad "
here, and sent for him.

He was a mild-looking man, with the white turban which
marked his semi-priestly office, and listened very gravely and
respectfully while we pointed out to him the duty of teach-

4'.J-4 A NO.MAU SCHOOL.

iiig his pupils snake-catcliing and bird-nestinfr. He soon
became conununicative on his profession. He was an nnder
priest from Zib, and came to this camp for several months at
a time to teach the youth. His pay was (in accordance with
the Ivevised Code of the Committee of Council), hj results, 150
piastres, about thirty shillings, for each finished scholar he
turned out, and the education was complete when a boy could
read the Koran and write Arabic ; so that these poor people
pay about as much as is paid in our national schools. Be-
sides his pay, the master is boarded gratis at the pupils'
houses in turn. His schoolroom, an oblong structure of
mats, with a flat roof of the same, about five feet high, and
measuring twenty feet by twelve, would not have satisfied the
stern conditions of ]\Ir. Lingen., and " My Lords." The roof
was supported by boughs of oleander, and two doorways
opposite each otlier in the centre of the building provided
ventilation. On one side of the door were huddled together
sixteen pupils, squatted on the ground, reading at the top of
their voices from MS. copies of the Koran, while the otlier
half of the room was occupied by the Dominie, stretched at
full length on his back, and a handkerchief over his face to
keep off the flies, from beneath which issued ominous
threats, whenever he detected a mistake amidst the din.
Strange mingling of barbarism and civilization in tlmt
wickerwork schoolhouse, with its breechless, naked pupils,
and their j\IS. Korans.

On our return, we found that a change of wind had shifted
the bar across the Kishon, and we had to swim our horses
where, in tlie morning, the sea had reached only to the girths.
Dining in the evening with Mr. S., we liad the pleasure of
eating a dish of quaintly-shaped cakes, sent in as a compli-
ment by a Jewish neighbour ; and so joined in commemo-
rating Queen Esther and the Feast of Purim, still kept to
recall the delivery of Israel from Haman's intended massacre
twenty-three centuries ago,

March 21th. — We had been keeping our lonely Easter at
the Consulate, and after service walked up towards the con-

VISIT TO THE GOVEKNOE. 495

vent. On the way we met an English party who had just
arrived — ]\Iessrs. Egerton-Warbiirtou, Coclirane, Barneby, and
Batenian. They turned back with us to their tents. For me
it was a fortunate meeting. We had many tastes and objects
in common ; and very soon it was proposed that we should
travel in society — an arrangement which enabled me to ac-
complish perhaps the most interesting and delightful portion
of the whole expedition.

The next morning we bade adieu to our excellent friend
Mr. Sandwith, strangled on that lonely spot, without a fellow
countryman, and scarcely an European to speak to ; and rode
leisurely to Nazareth, having sent on our baggage-train in ad-
vance. The ford of the Kishou under the ]VIohrakha was now
very shallow, and we soon entered the woods to the north-
west of Esdraelon, adding the honey-buzzard and many
summer birds to our list. I disturbed a large Syrian wild
cat, which stood and looked at me for a few seconds, while I
was too much occupied in watching it to think of firing till
too late. On arriving at our tents, we found two notes of
invitation, from ^Ir. Zeller, and from some ladies of our
acquaintance staying at the convent — an " endjan'as de
richesses " of civilization. The two parties idtimately com-
Ijined in Mr. Z.'s drawing-room, and after enjoying a delight-
ful evening, we retired to our tents, and stepped out of patent
leather boots into our sheepskins and barbarism.

March 2dtli. — We called early on the Muzellim (governor)
of Kazareth, a Turk from Constantinople, to obtain a guard,
without the delay of going round by Agyle's camp. We
were received in a room opening into a dilapidated yard,
where the mouldering walls of mud, broken floor, and rough
mastaba on one side, seemed an emblem of the crumbling
pOMer of the Turk in the land. The place would have dis-
credited the cart-shed of an impoverished English farm-house.
In one corner three ragged carpet rugs were spread, the sole
furniture. But the Governor's salary, when paid at all, is but
5/. per month, and, like all other Turkish officials, he has to
live by squeezing the pfople. He was dressed in fiock-coat

490

TIBERIAS.

and trousers, and received us very courteously. His language
Avas very diplomatic. AVe asked if we could descend the
Jordan A^xlley with safety. " How could he tell ? His dis-
trict only extended to Beisan, and so far it was safe enough.
He had no autliority to send guards beyond." " But did he
think Agyle Agha could secure our safety ? " " How could
he tt'U? Agyle Agha was an independent authority, and did
not report to him. He knew nothing of his power." But at
this moment two horsemen of the Agha's entered, and he
changed his tone. " AVherever Agyle sends a man, there you
are safe. He knows the country better than any one else."
He finally offered us a letter to the Governor of Tiberias, and
cofiee having been handed round, we took our leave.

TIBERIAS.

We afterwards rode for the third time from Nazareth to
Tiberias, taking the shortest and least interesting route, but
which we had not tried before — through Kefr Kenna and
Subieh ("beans"). We reached our destination in time to
enjoy our favourite walk to Mejdel, and a bathe in the lake,
which had fallen three feet since we left it only a month
before. Our friends the eagle gulls had all gone, only the
grebes remained, dotting here and there the calm surface of

CAMP AT THE ItorXD FOUNTAIX. 4'.)7

the glossy lake. The stork, however, " knowetli her ap-
pointed times," and on Easter Day we had for the first time
seen these birds in thousands passing over to the nortliward.
The next day the whole of the plain of Gennesaret was
covered with them in every direction, and in two days more
not one remained ; they had all moved to their more northern
nesting-places. The beautiful russet swallow [Hirundo rufula)
had also returned, and was skimming over lake and plain till
sunset.

The next morning we called on the ]Muzellim of Tiberias,
and found him little better housed than his brother of
Xazareth, but with a rather more respectable retinue — a
secretary sitting behind him, and several attendants not quite
in rags. He very politely assured us that no firman was
necessary to induce him to assist Englislimen in any way,
and that we should have guards as we required them ; adding,
that probably we should not object to make them a small
present. Unlike most other officials, he did not try to press
a large escort upon us, but said that a single horseman and a
niffht-guard from the nearest village would be all that we
required ; remarking that, though the country was quite safe,
it was better that our gims should be seen than well-filled
purses : doubtless a very wise precaution. He then com-
mitted us to the care of a good-looking Bashi-bazouk, whom
he placed at our command for the period of our stay.

We encamped just over the Eound Fountain (Ain Muda-
warah), but high enough on the basaltic ridge to escape the
malaria of the plain ; and the ornithology and botany of the
district gave us abundant employment for the next four days.
Again, for the fourth time, we came upon the large solitary
wolf, but were as unsuccessful in our chase as before. In
the robber caves of Kulat Ibn Maan, we reaped a rich
harvest, oological and ornithological, our greatest success
being the discovery of the nests and eggs of the sociable
Galilean swift {Cyi^selus galilcecnsis, Antin.), which approxi-
mates in many of its habits to the edible swallow of the East.
We also found the nest of the sunbird, and scaled several nests

K K

498 DINNEi; WITH A(;VLK ACIIA.

of the different vultures. The whole flora of the district had
changed in a month ; the flowers had nearly all passed away,
and rank green herbage had supplanted the Turkey-carpeting
of colour which had enchanted us before. Savi's warbler
{Lusciniojisis savii, Bp.), L. jluviatilis, Cetti's warbler {Ceitia
sericea, Bp.), and many other rare species, skulked by the
side of the streams and among the papyrus ; but, though
heard continually, were most difficult to obtain.

On April 4th wc determined to push to the south, and, if
possible, to descend the Ghor to Jericho, in company with
Mr. Zeller, who had arranged to meet us at Agyle's camp.
The road from Tiberias to "Wady Bireh, along the plateau of
Ard el Hamma, though a rich expanse of barley, just bursting
into ear, was one of the most uninteresting in Palestine, till
we touched the east of Tabor, and entered a lovely wild park,
with all the oaks now in full leaf, and many summer birds
enlivening the scene. Here we obtained the gorgeous roller
and bee-eater {Coracias gwn^ida, L. and Merops cipiaMer, L.),
just returning in numbers from the south. Agyle expected
us, and had prepared his dinner. It was a strange and
almost grotesque scene, that mingling of the Oriental, pastoral,
and savage, as we sat on brocaded damask cushions, spread
on the ground, with a circle of some fifty retainers reclining
outside, their long spears casting a faint shadow in the moon-
light. Tlie dinner was excellent — a sheep roasted whole in
the embers, stuffed with pine-seeds, raisins, and forcemeat,
laid on a great bowl of rice stewed in butter, and thin barley
cakes, folded like napkins, all round it. We expertly tore
the meat off" with our lingers, or plunged our hands into the
stuffing or the rice, and then retired early, to skin our birds
and blow our effjis.

The next morning we set off at daybreak, to climb to the
summit of Tabor, only 1,300 feet from its base, and 1,865 feet
from the sea-level, with its singular oblong platform at the
top, strewn with ruins, in the midst of which stands the new
convent, erected in accordance with the ecclesiastical tradi-
tion, -which has erroneoiisly fixed on this as the site of the

OBJECTIONS TO DESCENDING THE GHOI!. 499

Trausfinuration. Here Barak marshalled liis 10,000 men,
and looked down upon that vast plain, -which he was soon to
^\Test from the iron oppression of Jabin, king of Canaan.
The prospect well repaid us — limited towards the north-west,
but comprising the whole plain of Esdraelon, one unbroken
sheet of green — especially the upper part of the Jordan valley
— with the bold wall of the mountains of Gilead standing out
behind it, mantled with dark forests, and spreading into tlie
wider and paler plateau "of Bashan to the northwards, till,
over the depression of the Sea of Galilee, its northern end
just distinguishable, the eye rested on the peaks of Hermon.

"We returned in the evening laden with spoil of various
kinds, according to our tastes, and found Mr. Zeller and Mr.
Sandwith a^'aiting us, with whom we afterwards enjoyed the
patriarchal hospitality of the Agha. Mr. Z. remained behind
to negotiate our arrangements, and returned to tell us the
scheme of descending the Ghor was impracticable. Several
small tribes of evil repute were encamped below Beisan, who
would demand and enforce large black-mail, and Ag}'le declined
to guarantee our safety, or send an escort. He would only
give a guard as far as Beisan, whence we could descend into
the valley, and return , having thus, as he remarked, been " as
far as Kurn Surtabeh, with the subtraction of treading it with
our feet, for one part of it was exactly like another." Thence
we must turn to Jenin, and follow the ordinary route to
Jerusalem.

It w^as impossible to withstand these arguments, and hope-
less to attempt the passage without an escort ; I therefore
arrantred to leave L, and B — t for a month with the greater
part of our train, to work the natural history of Tabor and
Galilee, while I, with the smaller tent, Hadj Khadour, and
one boy, Elias, took only my horse, two mules, and an ass,
and accompanied my friends south, in the hope of further
exploring the eastern regions. Agyle Agha kindly promised
to protect and advise L. and B — t meanwhile, and to assist
them in canying out their objects.

April Qth. — At sunrise I bade farewell to my faithful

K K 2

'lOO BEISAN.

coadjutors and ^h. Saudwilli, and with INFr. Zeller accom-
l)aniod Mr. Egerton-AVarburton's party, for our eleven hours'
ride, by Beisan, sending the mules direct to Jenin. Our
course, for road there was none, lay across a long series of
rolling plains, reminding ns of the Sussex downs in their
general appearance, though the soil was rich and loamy. The
ride to Beisan (Bethshean of old, and the Scythopolis of later
antiquity) occupied four liours. We saw not a tree ; and the
rolling downs, as we inclined eastward, developed into wadys,
Mhich convey occasional streams to the Jordan. We came to
one inhabited and apparently flourishing village, Kefrah, with
some ancient ruins of large stones, bearing the so-called Jewish
bevel, one of these ruins having belonged to an edifice of some
size; also several ruined villages, whose grass-grown sites
were marked afar by a deeper green than clothes the rest
of the downs, one of them called Marusseh (?); and these
were all we passed till we reached Beisan.

The whole of the rocks are limestone, with many boulders
and fragments of basalt sprinkled over them, and in one place
we crossed a continuous basaltic dyke. Generally, however,
the igneous formation was extremely superficial.

Half a mile north of Beisan stand the ruins of a noble
Saracenic khan, with many of its arches, and its courtyard
perfect. Three, of the four columns which supported a
canopy over a marble fountain in its centre, are still standing.
The whole is built of large dressed blocks of black basalt and
white crystalline limestone alternating, and has a very beau-
tiful effect. After riding through these ruins, we descended
into a little valley, the Nahr Jalud, where a perennial stream
of sweet water was fringed with canes and oleanders in full
bloom. This we crossed by a fine Eoman bridge of a single
arch, much decayed. Constructed, however, of hard black
basalt, it has been able to withstand, in some degree, the
ravages of time, and the carelessness of jNIoslems. Higher up
the same stream we saw another bridge of three arches, and,
lower down, the buttresses and spring of the arch of a third,
these latter both built of limestone, and very finely worked.

PANOUAMIC VIEW. 501

Just beyond, and separated by a nan-ow ridge, is a second
stream, also perennial, and on the peninsula formed by these
two, with a bold steep brow overlooking the Ghor, stood the
citadel of ancient Bethshean — a sort of Gibraltar or Con-
stantine on a small scale — of remarkable natural strength,
and inaccessible to horsemen. No wonder that it was long
ere Israel could wrest it from the possession of the Canaanites.
The eastern face rises like a steep cone, most incorrectly stated
by Robinson to be " black, and apparently volcanic," and by
Porter, "probably once a crater." Certainly there are many
blocks of basalt lying about, Init if any person walks round
to the east side of the hill, he will see that it is simply a
limestone bluff'.

"We could easily recognise the spot where Burckhardt must
have stood, when he saw but one column standing, though
from other positions we could count more than twenty. But
Sheikh Ibrahim's visit was evidently a very hurried one.
Having tied our horses to some standing columns at the foot
of the Acropolis, we climl)ed to a mediaeval ruin, under the
shade of which we ate our luncheon, sheltered from the glare
of the noonday sun, and looking down on the extraordinary
bridge which, with its high peaked arch, seems once to have
carried a wall or a fortification across the ravine. A black
kite came down to share our meal, which we shot, as also the
ortolan bunting, being the first of either of these migi-ants
which we had seen.

Climbing to the summit, we enjoyed the finest panorama,
next to Gerizim, which Central Palestine affords, and spent
half an hour in examining it with delight. Spread at our
feet, yet far below us, the vast plain of Jordan stretched north
and south far as the eye could reach, and in its centre we
might trace the strangely tortuous course of the river, marked
by a ribbon of dark shrubs and oleanders, through the other-
wise treeless plain. Facing us, nearly ten miles to the north,
was the gorge of the Hieromax ; nearly opposite was a long
narrow plateau, raised a few hundred feet above the Ghor, on
the edge of which the glass enabled us to descry the ruins of

502 VIHW rUOM BEISAN.

Tuhaket Fahil, the ancient Pella. Ch-adually sloping back to
the crest of its lofty plateau, picturesquely dotted with oaks,
but nowhere in a forest mass, and scarred by the ravine of
the Yabis and the Seklab, stretched the whole front of Gilead;
to the south-cast the lofty Castle of Kefrenjy towered, and
behind it rose the higher sumniits of pine-clad Ajhm, the
Bcene of our well-remembered ride from Suf, until they sloped
down to the deep valley of the Jabbok. Beyond this, through
a thin haze, we could detect the blue outline of the supposed
Nebo, and the mountains of ]\Ioab in a long ridge fringing
the Dead Sea, the view of which was shut out by the spur of
Kurn Surtabeh, projecting from the west. I could thus
console myself, -that though baulked of my projected ride
down the Ghor, T had traversed most of it, and seen the
whole of it, excepting six miles to the north of Surtabeh, and
was quite satisfied I had lost nothing of the slightest interest.

The Ghor, clothed with a rich robe of clovers and lucernes,
was everywhere dotted with the black parallelogi-ams which
mark the Bedouin camps, the only habitations of man till the
wretched village of Jericho is reached. Turning again from
north to Avest, the noble Crusading ruin of Belvoir stood
beetling on the highest point overhanging the plain by Wady
Bireh ; and just behind it rose snow-streaked Hermon, then
Jebel Duhy (Little Hermon), between which and Gilboa the
plain of Esdraelon gently sloped toward us, showing the reach
along which Jehu drove his chariot from the ford in our front
up to Jezreel. To the south a range of sparsely wooded hills
embayed the valleys and the Ghor as far as Kurn Surtabeh.

How clearly the details of the sad end of Saul were recalled,
as we stood on this spot ! There was the slope of Gilboa, on
whicii his army was encamped before the battle. Round that
hill he slunk by night, conscience-stricken, to visit the witch of
Endor. Hither, as being a Canaanitish fortress, the Philistines
most naturally brought the trophies of the royal slain, and
hung them up just by this wall. Across the ford by the
Yabis, and across that plain below us, the gallant men of
Jabesh Gilead hurried on their long night's march to stop the

ANCIENT BETHSHEAX. 503

indignity offered to Israel, and to take down the bodies of
their king and his sons.

Descending from the ancient fortress, where tlie ruins of
the more modern citadel were, in large measure, composed of
beautiful marble columns, and some capitals built horizontally
in tiers or lying across the massive walls, we next came to the
remains of a very perfect amphitheatre, with all the vomi-
tories and corridors intact, though not of very large size. We
noticed the oval recesses half way up the galleries mentioned
by Irby and ]\rangles.

Then crossing the third stream (a very small one, with water
slightly sulphurous), we visited the ruins of a fine Greek
church, since perverted into a mosque, with a Cuphic inscrip-
tion inserted over an inner doorway, but now nearly roofless,
excepting two or three arches and a small tower. Here there
is a fourth little stream, and the modern village, a collection
of earth and stone built kennels, circular and flat-roofed,
about twelve feet iu diameter, and each having one aperture
about three feet square. They were the very w^orst among all
the miserable hovels of this wretched land. It is scarcely
conceivable how any human beings can inhabit such sties :
but such is the contrast, nowhere more startling than here,
between ancient civilization and modern degradation. These
people are Eg^'ptian immigrants, and are grievously oppressed
by the neighbouring Bedouin. To us they were civil and
obliging, no doubt in awe of Agyle's horsemen. I noticed
a clump of palms, the last lingering relics, and also a quantity
of the medicinal aloe [Gastcria farsaniana, H. and Ehr.),
growing wild on the slope, from the ruiiis to the Jordan
valley, another relic doubtless of past cultivation.

Beisan, though rarely visited by travellers, is well worth an
eflbrt to reach it, and no one wdll ever regret the two days it
will cost to make the detour from the ordinary route. Our
road thence to Jenin, our night's resting-place, was somewhat
circuitous, up the plain of Esdraelon, where we were often
nearly bogged in the sluggish streams which feed the Jalud, and
which are drawn artificially over the corn land. Innumerable

504

SA.MAIMTAX SYNAGOGUE SEltVlCE.

white storks were striding about in every direction, and the
spur-wing plover fretiuently rose from the rushes. We passed
many canijjs of the Sakk'r, who were, fortunately for us, on
good terms with the Agha.

At length, instead of doubling Gil boa by Zerin, we found
a steep patli which led us up by the village of Niiris to the
Dervish colony of Wezar on its highest peak. Storks in
thousands had settled for the night on the hill, resting during
their northward migration, and from fatigue, or confidence in
num, scarcely troubled themselves to fly off as we passed.
]Iere we had a magnificent view over the plain of Esdraelon,
tliough not comprising any features not previously observed
from other points. The path from Nuris to Wezar is most
precipitous, scarcely practicable for horses ; and the inhabit-
ants are exclusively Dervishes, \vho seem to have taken pos-
-session of the place, which is said to have formerly been
deserted. AYe descended by the village of Arubboneh, where
the black kites were already busily engaged in heaping their
huge nests on a few large trees to the south of the dwellings,
and reached our camp at Jenin long after sunset, the ride
having occupied twelve hours, exclusive of stoppages.

The next day we revisited Sebustiyeh, going over the ruins
of Samaria more carefully than before, and reached Nablous
in time to visit the Samaritan synagogue. It was the pre-
paration for the Passover, and we had the good fortune to be
present at the service, — very interesting, as doubtless more
like the ancient Jewish worship than any other now in use.
It was attended only by the men and boys, and every one, on
entering, vested himself in a sleeved white surplice, which
reached to the feet. These surplices were placed in rows
near the door. " Bring forth vestments for all the worship-
pers of Baal." (2 Kings x. 22.) Among the congregation was
the Chief Rabbi of the liussian Karaite Jews (the sect who
reject the traditions of the Talmud), who had come here to
study the Samaritan Pentateuch. He also wore a linen ephod,
but with a broad red velvet phylactery, on which were em-
broidered in gold, vei'ses in the modern Hebrew character.

HAM ALLAH. 505

The two priests alone stood ou the dais iu front of tlie
satin embroidered curtain, which veils the recess in which
the holy books are deposited. Each Samaritan, as soon as he
had vested himself, knelt with his face towards this, till his
forehead nearly touched the ground. For half an hour the
congi-egation, with their crimson turbans (the badge of their
sect), continued to drcip in, in the most irreverent manner,
chatting as they robed themselves, thouo-h the service was
proceeding. This consisted of alternate prayers by the priest,
with loud aniens and hallelujah responses chanted, and chap-
ters of the Pentateuch chanted by all the congregation, in a
minor key, with inconceivable rapidity, but far more musical
and harmonious than the Moslem chants. We could fancy
these were the old Temple strains, when all the people praised
the Lord with a loud voice. Ten chapters of Exodus M^ere
recited at this service.^

April 8fh. — I gladly embraced the opportunity of again
ascending Mount Gerizim in the company of my friends, and
feasting my eyes once more on the grand panorama. Curiously
enough, we found among the ruins the body of a large badger,
of the same species as our European, but of a paler colour.
It was too much decomposed to permit of our preserving it,
though we made a brave attempt at the expense of our olfactory
nerves. ^Ye were completely discomfited, and afforded E. W.
a subject for a laughable sketch. The beautiful rock thrush
(Fetrocincla saxatilis) was spread in small flocks over the
hills ; and the habits of these brilliant birds, as they hopped
from rock to rock, showing their bright red tails, gave them
the appearance of gigantic redstarts. We never found them
again till we ascended the hills of Galilee.

Pushing on past Bethel and Beeroth, we encamped at the
Christian village of Pamallah, where Mr. Z. hoped to find
work to do. The sun set as we reached it, but Mr. Z. soon
gathered a little congregation round him and addressed them.

^ For a full and most giapliic account of the Samaritan service on the Day
of Atonement, see the interesting paper of Mr. Grove in Vacation Tourists,
1S61, " l^ablous and the Samaritans."

506 MISFORTUNES OF ABOU DAHUK.

He found many inquirers. It was strange to see in the
group of Ori(Mital costumes a woman in European dress, with
wide straw hat, and her boy in a suit of uupicturesque cor-
duroy. They proved to be Spanish Jews, converts, who had
settled here out of the way of petty persecution, and spoke
English. There is in the village a very neat Greek church,
and a new Greek hospice. Christianity had here, as elsewhere,
stamped the place and its substantial houses with a neatness
and cleanliness to which the best of IMoslem villages are
strangers.

April 9ih. — We reached Jerusalem by a road new to me,
by El Jib (Gibeon) and Nebi Samw^il (Mizpeh), and found
that the annual throng of western visitors had just passed,
and among them the Due de Luynes and his party, on their
way across Jordan, the Editor and Publisher of " Good Words,"
MM. de Presseusee and Monod, and others of lesser note.
To 'M. de Pressensee had been entrusted our letters ; but we
had missed each other on the way, and the mails had gone ou
to Nazareth.

Sad calamities had overtaken our old friends the Jehalin.
Only a few days after our departure, Mohammed Isa and his
great band, whom we had met at Beersheba, had combined
with the Kaabineh, and fallen on Abou Dahuk in the dead
of night ; killed fifteen of his followers, among them the chief
of our guard, wounded thirty-eight, and carried off every
horse, sheep, camel, and tent the old warrior possessed. The
poor old man was wandering about Jerusalem, a hanger-on at
the gate of the Pasha, and with no property left in the world
save the rags which covered him. There was no possibility
now of reaching Engedi, wliich my friends had hoped to
accomplish, as the country east of Hebron was overrun by
brigands.

After spending a quiet Sunday in Jerusalem, where the
P>ishop of Victoria, probably the first English bishop who, as
such, had visited the Holy City since the Crusades, officiated,
I made provision, the next day, for a ten days' sojourn alone
at Ain Sultun, our old Jericho quarters, in order to compare

SOLITARY LIFE AT JKKICIIO. 507

the summer fauna and flora of the Ghor with that of winter.
1 had neither outfit nor servant; so, having left my money
and valuables in the care of my friends, T purchased a tin
pot, coffee-pot, plate and cup, laid in a store of biscuit and
cheese, ham, coffee, sugar, and figs, and set ofif, with my
muleteer Khadour, and boy Elias, accompanied by my old
friend Jemecl of the GhaAvarineh.

We had scarceh' got up our little tent, when some Arabs
brought in a young ibex they had caught. In the fond hope
of rearing it, I at once purchased it ; but the little creature
was very wild, and after having been carefully tended for ten
days, fared no better than my pet gazelle, which, so soon as it
had become tame and familiar, and given promise of surviving
the perils of travel, strangled itself, in a moment of fright,
among the tent cords.

My first night in solitude was not a veiy comfortable one.
My servants and guard had long since wrapped themselves in
their cloaks, and were asleep outside, while I sat witliin,
preparing my specimens by the light of a lamp, when I was
startled by the approaching tramp of men and camels. I
went out ; Jemeel started to his feet, and challenged the new
comers. " Who are you ? " " Adwan." " What do you want ?"
"We are haramiyeh" (robbers). This was not a very re-
assuring reply from four fellows armed to the teeth, while
our whole arsenal consisted of my fowling-piece and revolver.
However, we put the best face on the matter, and asked them
if they were going to rob us, meanwhile passing the tobacco-
bag liberally round. They bade us not be alarmed, as they
were going to camp by us, and proceed to Jerusalem in the
morning. At once they began to tie their camels, and sat
down in front of the tent. Khadour meantime busily blew
the embers, and plied the coffee-pot, determined that they
should not have cause to complain of our hospitality. They
were not nncommunicative, and presently informed us that
they had, during the day, stolen thirteen camels of the Beni
Sakk'r, with which, after nightfall, they had crossed the Jordan,
and should take them to Jerusalem for sale in the morning.

oOS Sl'MMEK lilliDS OV JEKRllO.

As I sat ami did the honours iu front of the tent, Jenieel con-
tinued to pass in and out, biinging me my gun four times to
be loaded and cai)ped, as though our armoury were well sup-
plied, and taking care to remove the caps each time. I did
not at first comprehend his ruse, till a look from him ex-
plained his object. At length I retired, in no very comfortable
frame of mind, leaving my retinue outside, and committed
myself to God's good keeping in that lonely wilderness. I
have often been further from civilization, but generally with a
companion. Here there was a painful intensity in the solitude,
enhanced by the beauty of the spot and my strange neighbours.
I was not rendered more comfortable when, through the canvas
walls, I heard the Adwan reckoning up that we had four
guns of two barrels each, besides my pistol, which would go
off for ever ; and then admiring the mules. Thankful indeed
was I, when, about four o'clock, I heard them unloose their
camels and move off without our animals, and I turned on
my side to continue my slumbers rather more soundly than
before.

April 12th — l^th. — The week was spent in laborious but
successful exploration of the " ciccar " of Jordan. All our
old haunts were revisited, the neighbouring Arabs were en-
listed, and a rich harvest of birds, ijlants, and especially of
eggs, rewarded my rambles. The nests of the bulbul {Ixos
xanthopygias), sunbird {Xedarinia oscce), fantail (Drpnteca
gracilis), Cratcropiis chalgheiis, and many others enriched my
collection in abundance, and repaid me for my scratches.
Any defence more formidable in their own line than the
thorns of a Jericho thicket it is impossible to conceive. My
clothes were literally torn to rags ; and delicious it was, when
scratched and bleeding, to return at sunset and lie down flat
in the clear brook from Elisha's fountain, to me a truly
" healing stream."

I observed, that while so many of the resident birds are
peculiar, the summer migrants of the Ghor are all identical
with those of the surrounding country ; a fact which points
to the extreme length of time during which the local climate

GORGE OF TIIF. WADY KELT. HOU

lias been exceptional and the deei"* depression existed, to
enable the establishment in it of so many peculiar or isolated
forms of life.

The Jordan was now fuller than usual, quite over its ordi-
nary banks, for it was " the time of barley harvest," and the
snows of Hermon were rapidly disappearing ; but still it was
not nearly so high as after the heavy rains of Decendier.
The bulbul's melody resounded on its banks, enriched now by
the notes of the nightingale, the same as our own {Philomela
luscinia), which had just returned from its winter quarters.
The salt plain, to the height of 250 or 300 feet above the
Dead Sea level, was as barren as ever, but all above that alti-
tude was now green, and covered with a variety of lucernes
and large astragalus, on which innumerable clouds of turtle-
doves were feeding. The common turtledove had just re-
turned, and stocked every tree and thicket. At every step
they fluttered up from the herbage in front — they perched on
every tree and bush — they had overspread the whole face of
the land. So universal, so simultaneous, so conspicuous their
migration, that the prophet might well place the turtle at the
head of those birds which " observe the time of their
coming." (Jer. viii. 7.) The barer portions of the plain were
now occupied by small bands of the Houbara Bustard (Hou-
hara undidata,, Jac), whose eggs I sought in vain, though
Jemeel, who knew them well, described them admirably ; nor
was I more successful in finding the nests of the sandgrouse.
We were probably too early for either of these birds.

My friends came down from Jerusalem, and on April 18th
C. and I devoted the day to an excursion up the gorge of the
Wady Kelt, into which we had so often looked down from
above. The day was intensely hot, the thermometer under
the hot blast of the sirocco rising to 102°, and we rode as far
as we could, but, when we reached the crumbling aqueduct
of Herod's Jericho, had to send back our horses. Here was a
fine old sycamore fig-tree, perhaps a lineal descendant, and
nearly the last, of that into which Zacchseus climbed. With
the decay of the aqueduct, desolation has resumed its sway,

510 WADY KK1,T.

and, except on the banks of the stream, the vegetation is
sparse and of a desert character. In the steep soft banks
flocks of lovely rollers [Coracias garriila, I*) were scooping
their nests, and expanding to the sun their bright blue wings
as they flew out, screaming at our approach.

The Sheikli who was with us objected to our proceeding
further, and assured us only one Frenchman had ever taken
the trouble to ascend the gorge. However, he actually so far
laid aside his dignity as to accompany us on foot. The dens
of the robbers are said to be in its sides, but we met onlv one
Bedouin, a Avild, lialf naked, Avell-armed savage, who turned
back with us, allured by backshish, to assist in bird-nesting.
The vegetation at the bottom of the gully was chiefly tall
cane, a few oleanders and the beautiful " retem," with its
bunches of delicate pink blossoms, scenting the air. Every
little pool was full of fish, and the bushes of birds, for
wherever there is water there is, too, a prodigality of life.
For several miles we traced the ancient aqueducts running on
both sides the gorge, by which all the sup[)ly had been carefully
iitilized for the irrigation of barren tracts several hundred feet
above the present bed of the torrent. Two ancient bridges had
carried the aqueducts across the valley, one with a single, the
other with a double set of arches. A deep pool under a thick
canopy of cane and retem tempted us to try a bath aud a swim ;
but I had a warning of the sun's power, for on coming out of
the water, though my head was only exposed for a minute or
two to the rays from above, I fell down dizzy, and for several
days afterwards suffered from severe headache. We returned
quite satisfied that the gorge of the Kelt ought to be included
in the tourist's route ; and could onlv rcOTet that Mr. Grove's
arguments would not allow us to identify it with the
Cherith, especially as we had taken two raven's nests with
eggs in its sides.

April 19th. — We rode across the plain to the end of the
Dead Sea, and thence to Ain Feshkhah. There was a strong
wind from the south, and off" the little island the sea was
three feet higher than when we visited the same spot in

i:et(i:n- to jkul'salem. fill

winter ; wliile, a few miles to tlie west, at Ain Feslikhah, the
level was two feet lower than at the former period, showing
the tremendous force of the wind ; for, no doubt, the sea was
really lower than in winter.

The boat of the Due de Luynes lay at anchor at the north
end — a broad, flat-bottomed iron vessel, about the size of a
coble, but of much greater beam, and pitching tremendously.
A little iron shallop, square at the ends, and flat-bottomed,
was drawn up on shore ; and some Arabs were there, in the
receipt of twenty francs a day for guarding the vessel. I
picked up two oars that were being dashed against the shingle,
and found that the guards were extracting all the copper
fittings, and selling them. They here also stole my opera-
glass — an irreparal)le loss in bird-nesting. Alas for future
e.xplorers ! The Duke, finding the manner in which his boat
had been treated by the natives, had it scuttled a few days
afterwards ; and, perha])s, never again for years may the oppor-
tunity of a sail on those silent waters recur.

At Ain Feslikhah I parted for three days from my friends,
who went up to ^Marsaba, and I returned alone with Jemeel
to my solitary tent ; not, however, without rich gatherings
in natural history, including two species of a beautiful little
porcupine-mouse (Acomys dimicliatus, and Acanthomys calii-
rinus. Gray), and some grakles, as well as a young gazelle.

Api'il 20th. — Eode up to Jerusalem by another course to
the northward of the ordinary road. The views of the wil-
derness were wild, vast, and desolate, — a dreariness most for-
bidding, without the grandeur of the Dead Sea mountains, and
with the herbage already nearly scorched and withered.

The next morning, the Bishop of Jerusalem, accompanied by
the Bishop of Victoria, was to leave for England, and a large
party, among wdiom were seven clergymen, accompanied them
as far as Enab (Kirjath Jearim), preceded by the English and
Prussian cavasses, with their swords and silver pokers. It was
interesting to see the Protestants run from their houses to kiss
the Bishop's hand as he passed, for he is dearly loved by all
his flock. About an hour from Jerusalem, at a turn in the

^)]2 VISIT TO THK SYNAGOriUKS.

road, all the boys of the Diocesan School were drawn up, with
their teachers, and sang very sweetly a farewell hymn for the
Bishop, who addressed them in a few touching and simple
words. It was a striking gathering — hoys, black and white,
European and Arab, Jew and Gentile, Christians from Abys-
sinia and Syrian orphans from the Lebanon, all gathered
into one fold. After having bid the episcopal party farewell,
we made a detour in returning by Ain Karim, and passed
several ruined villages. The Greek convents possess much
property here, and the monks are indefiitigalile in planting
and cultivating, a pleasing contrast with the neglect ordinarily
witnessed in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

April 22d was the first day of the Jewish Passover, and
we visited seven of the synagogues during their hours of
worship ; four of the Sephardim or Talmudic Jews, two of the
Ashkenaz or Polish, and one of the Karaites, who reject the
traditions, and hold simply to the law of Moses. The services
in all were much alike, consisting of prayers intoned with
many responses, psalms chanted, and Scripture read, — all, of
course, in Hebrew. Every worshipper, as he entered, threw
over his head and shoulders the light white scarf, with broad
blue or black ends (those of the Ptabbis having embroidered
phylacteries), the modern abridgment of the linen ephod, still
preserved in its entirety by the Samaritans.

There was a large elevated platform in the centre of each
synagogue, which accommodated eight or ten men, on the
desks of which lay copies of the law. Any who chose might
step up among the Eabbis, and read a passage — and, among
others, in one of the synagogues, the Jewish dragoman who
was taking us round seized a scarf, threw it over his shoulder,
and, stepping up, read a few lines, and then left the ])lace
with us. The women were, in all cases, confined to a thickly-
latticed compartment at one end, which was always insufficient
for their accommodation ; and the doors were crowded by
them, the aged women wearing enormous shawl turbans, but
none ever entering the area of the synagogue. Nothing could
be more painfully irreverent than the manner of gabbling the

SYNAGOGUES. • nl."

intoned prayers, thouu;h the often-repeated aniens, liallehijalis,
and hosannas, loudly shouted hy the congregation, had a
touching effect. In reading the psalms, which, like the
prayers, were chanted standing, all the people held books,
and swayed themselves from side to side in a manner almost
ludicrous. Though many besides the Eabbis read portions of
the law, we did not observe any attempting to expound. So
was it of old, when, in the synagogue of Xazareth, " as His
custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath-day,
and stood up for to read .... and He closed the book, and gave
it again to the minister, and sat doM'n." (Luke iv. IG, 20.)

In every svnagogue was the embroidered silk curtain,
behind which is kept the sacred roll, with the crown of Judah
carved and gilt above the clipboard ; but besides this, near
the door of each, was a large bookcase, containing a well-
supplied library of Hebrew literature, chiefly folios, for the
use of the congregation. Among the elders we recognised
several of the originals who have sat for their portraits in
Holnian Hunt's wonderful picture of " The Finding in the
Temple," The architecture of most of the buildings was of
the humblest character ; the four Sephardim synagogues all
opening into one courtyard, and being more like separate
rooms in one house than distinct places of worship.

In the evening some unknown friend among the Jews sent
me a dish of cakes of unleavened passover bread, thin and
flat, like thin water biscuits.

Ainil 1\tli was my last Sunday in Jerusalem. In the
afternoon, at the German service, a Swedish clergyman
preached. Earely since the Eeformation has any one in
Swedish orders had the opportunity of ofliciating in an Eng-
lish Church. He eloquently alluded to this in a sermon of
great power on Christian unity. The Due de Luynes returned
to-day from his expedition to the east side, accompanied by
the Adwan Sheikhs who had been his guides. Though a
price was set upon their heads by the Government, the
French Consulate had secured them safe conduct to arrange
their business with the Duke, and they were lodged at the

L L

514

ADWAX SHEiKIIS.

liotc'l. The next moruiiiL;, Aiuil 'lo, I received an invitation
to call on the Duke, and was delighted witli the courteous
urbanity no less than with the energy and antiquarian lore
of this rare old gentleman, a fine example of the true old
French noblesse. He had traversed, at the age of more than
seventy, a district never penetrated since the time of Irby
and Mangles. I afterwards spent a great part of the day
with ]M. Lartet fils, his geological companion, whose elaborate
report will soon be given to the world. He was most frank
and cordial, showed me his maps, and freely gave me all the
information I asked for respecting the district on the east
side of the Dead Sea. So far as we had time to compare
notes, I found that I had his valuable authority with me in

ADWaNS.

the general views I had formed respecting the geolog}' of tlie
country ; and that he too had found Lynch a faithful and
accurate observer.

In the afternoon I had an interview with the two Adwau
Sheiklis, Goblan and Abdel Asiz, the latter a grizzled old grey-

ADWAN SHEIKHS. 515

Leard with enL,4e e^'es, aiid a most sinister expressiou of coun-
tenance. Goblan, who has been much disfigured by a bullet
passing through his mouth and cheek, always keeps his mouth
covered ; and, though he is said to have more red-handed
murders to answer for than any man in the country, is by no
means so ferocious in expression. He is the warrior, as
Abdel Asiz is the jurist, of his tribe, and is much the younger
of the tw^o. Both were alike grimy and filthy in appearance.
I proposed to them that we should accompany them T)ack
to their mountains; but, though they evidently wished to have
a return party, we could not come to any terms. The Duke
had loaded them with magnificent presents, and they held
their services just now at no cheap rate. At length we
adjourned the conference, and agreed to meet at the Bishop's
at seven o'clock the next morning, when I relied upon the
skill and good offices of ^h. Zeller to bring about a satis-
factory arrangement.

LI. 2

CHAPTER XXII.

Kegotialions with IheAclwdn — Dqdomatic delays — Descent to thcGhor — Crossing
the Jordan — Nimrtn — Bethnimrah avxl Bethaharali — The Crossing of Elijah
and Elisha — Spot inhere Elijah vas taken tip — Keferein — Prohahhj identical
with Abel Shittim — Plains of Shittim — Cam]) of Israel — Beth Jcshimoth —
Faithfulness of the Adwdn — Nocturnal Visitors — Ride to Arah el Emir —
Views of the Western Side — Ravine of Seir — Oleanders — Wild Boars —
ArakelEmir — Ruins of ffyrcanus' Palace — Colossal Sculptures — Stables and
Halls in the Cliff' — BeaxUy and Richness of the Country — Tfic ancient Jazer
— Na^r — Wady Ilcshban — Saracenic Castle — Ruins of HAnah — Moitntains
of Moab — Abarim — A^cbo — Position of Pisgah not Jehcl Attarus — Glorious
Panorama from the Top of Pisgah — Ilcslibon — Ruiiis aivd Fishpools — Ma'in
— Elealali.

April 2Gtii. — The scene of this morning was not one to be
soon forgotten. There was a little delay in the amval of the
Adwan, who had been seized by the Turks, and only released
on the energetic interference of the French Consul, under
whose guarantee they had ventured to Jerusalem. Eeassured
by the guardianship of cavasses and their staves, they at
length ventured forth. We were gathered in a large room
opening into the Bishop's entrance hall, Mr. Zeller sitting at
a table in the centre, our party on the ottoman which ran
down one side, while in front sat six or seven Adwan chiefs ;
and a crowd of strange swarthy faces, who had probably
never been under a roof in their lives before, peered curiously
in from the hall which they thronged. After mutual salaams
we sat in silence, till coffee vv^as served, first to us, then to the
Adwan ; and, their i)ipcs having been lighted, business com-
menced. Sternly ]\Ir. Z. began : " You Adwan claim to be
a noble tribe, and yet, contrary to all the laws of true
IMoslems, you allowed my friend," pointing to me, " to be
robbed by the fellahin of Siif Either you pretend falsely
that you are the lords of Suf, or else you allow your slaves to
break the lawe of hospitality that you may share the gains."
" No," replied Sheikh Goblan, " we are ignorant of it. We

NEGOTIATIONS WITH TlIK AD WAN. ."i]7

heard that Fraughi were wishing to see Gerash, and we came
on fleet horses to do them honour, but they had ah-eady
departed. But if the father of tlie beard ^ti ^\ (Abou
Dok'u) will return to us he shall know the faith of the
Adwau, and behold the great stones of the old Eoumi."
" But how can you assure him he will not be robbed again ? "
" AMiat did he lose, and we will even now repay him. It is
his again, if he will come among us." Then came a dis-
cussion as to the places we were to visit : next as to how we
were to net out of their territorv northwards to their enemies
the Beni Sakk'r. The latter problem was easily solved.
Though chronic warfare is the normal state of all these
tribes, yet there are frequent and long interludes of truce,
during the continuance of which a representative of each
tribe is retained at the chief camp of the other, partly as a
hostage, partly as an ambassador, and through him repara-
tions are made, and intercourse carried on. They would send
a message by this functionary, and either by the eastern or
western route we should be passed to Tiberias.

So far, all was well. But then came the crux, the question
of the price. The Due de Luynes and M. de Saulcy had
paid like princes, and poured forth gifts with princely hands.
Mr. Z. remarked we were not emirs (princes), and that they
had better be content to take back with them ordinary
Howadji, than to wait twenty years for another emir. At
length they offered for 15,000 piastres (£150) to convoy
us for ten days, and a proportionate sum for each additional
day, besides a backshish of four double-barrels, and other
presents. Mr. Z. proposed 5,000 piastres. At this they held
up their hands in amazement, rose, saluted us, and departed.
All, as we supposed, was at an end. " Oh, not so," said
'Mr. Z. ; " we shall soon hear again." An hour had not
elapsed, when a messenger summoned us from our tents to
attend at the British Consulate. Here the same scene was
re-enacted before the Consul : but, meanwhile, I wrote out an
agreement as to places and route, and finally we closed for
8,000 piastres, two double-barrels, four sheep, with coffee and

518 AN ARAB CONTKACT.

tobacco to our guards ; half the iiiouey to be paid at once,
and half on our arrival at their further frontier : 1,500
piastres was to be returned to me at once as restitution in
part for the robbery at Suf. An Arabic translation was
made, and discussed clause by clause ; and at length the
agreement was signed by us, but the Adwan insisted on our
seals likewise. It was amusing to watch the jjroduction of
the seals of the two Sheikhs, carefully folded and knotted
in a corner of their innermost raiment. The seals were then
rubbed with ink, the paper wetted, and solemnly pressed.
The money was told out to the Consul in full. Next came
the refunding of my share. The old Sheikhs counted the
new sovereigns with trembling fingers and eager quivering
eyes, and could hardly bring themselves to surrender any of
the precious pieces. But Mr. Z. was firm. They offered to
deduct it at the end. At length the Consul dexterously
withdrew the sum, and all was right. We shook hands, and,
with all thanks to ]\Ir. Moore for his efficient aid, hastened
to prepare for our departure.

I forwarded my collections, pet eagle, and spare baggage,
to Nazareth with Elias, as well as a supply of provision for
L. and B — t, under convoy of another dragoman, taking only
Khadour, with portmanteau, bed, and tent, my horse, one
mule, and Haji's ass ; as my friends kindly quartered me on
their commissariat.

On April 27th, I turned round on the road to Bethany, and
cast a last lingering look at Jerusalem — my farewell to that
Sacred City and its suburbs, which, however often one re-
visits it, entwines itself with increasing firmness on the heart
and affections.

The road was full of Moslem pilgrims, returning from their
annual visit to the so-caUed Tomb of Moses (Nebi Moussa).
We met several very holy dervishes, distinguishable only by
rags and filth, bare-headed, dancing fantastically as they
went ; but each accompanied by a showy retinue, with large
green and red silk banners, embroidered with verses of the
Koran, carried behind them. Some dozen of drums and torn-

CKOSSING THE JOKDAX. 519

toms succeeded, and often two or three line led horses, the
property of tlie saint.

Several parties of Turkish ladies were also returning from
the pilgrimage, carried in large pannier cages, with huge
umbrellas, on camels or mules. Generally the opposite pannier
carried their negress slave. One young lady, of marvellous
beauty, probably a Circassian, removed her veil, under lier
umbrella, and, like the others, had a good stare at the J'ranghi.

On arriving at our old camping-ground, we found the
Adwan Sheikhs waiting for us and our coffee.

A2)ril 28fh, — It was a clear, cloudless morning, with a
light breeze from the north-east ; sultry indeed, but a great
relief after the oppressive sirocco of the previous week ;
when, after a breakfast at six a.m., we mounted for our trans-
Jordanic expedition. "We rode up the CUior, several miles
above the pilgrims' bathing- place, crossed the depression of
the Nawaimeh, and another wady, till we must have been
considerably above the place where Israel crossed to take
possession of the land ; and the oases of Jericho and of the
plains of Moab were someM'hat to the southward of us.

The Jordan here is nearly in the centre of its valley. After
crossing the lower plain, we descended some forty feet to the
narrow strip of depressed ground, the channel, in fact, of the
winter floods, a dense thicket of tamarisk, white poplar, wil-
low, and various other deciduous trees, with an undergrowth
of many species of smaller shrubs. This level had evidently
been overflowed within the last three months, and the lower
boughs of the trees were a complete tangle of straw and
rubbish. Doves and nightingales swarmed in the branches.
A winding path brought us down to the brink of the rapidly
rolling river, on which we came by a sudden turn. It is im-
j)0ssible ever to forget the strange scene which here burst
upon us. Above and below, an impenetrable tangle of forest
shut in the river on both sides, the limbs of the trees hanging
over, and their branches dipping into the water. Here a little
open glade was left, and a small clearing of a few yards on
the opposite side.

520 CROSSINO THE JOKDVX.

On botli sides the space was tlirongcd by about fifty tall
wild-looking- IJedouin, all stark naked, swimming and riding
a number of bare-backed horses. For a moment my heart beat
quick as two naked men seized my horse, and a third snatched
my gun from me. I felt as if set upon by naked savages.
C. was ahead of me, and I watched him and his horse led into
the water by a naked Bedouin, who had taken off the bridle,
and held his steed l>y the halter, while another hung on to his
tail, and a third kept on the leeside of the saddle. The stream,
rushing with tremendous force, was about fifteen feet deep.
j\Ieantime, my saddle-bags were carried off and placed on a
man's head ; and having taken off my outer garment, I com-
mitted myself and horse to the ton-ent, his halter being held
by a mounted guide. The ford was very difficult, and ol»li(pTe;
but the leader's horse was evidently experienced, while an
expert swimmer kept to leeward of my saddle, and held my leg
close to my horse. Following a little way with the stream, we
landed on the other side. In a trice the saddle was taken off,
and before I knew why, T saw another wild savage dashing
with the animal back into the stream. Soon we had all landed,
and now the scene was of the wildest and strangest beauty.
It was such as one might expect to see in a picture of Indians
crossing an American river, or of the war hi New Zealand,
graced by the accompaniments of almost tropical vegetation.
The baggage-mules were being discharged on the opposite
bank, and all small articles were seized by the naked iVdwan,
who placed them on their heads, dashed across on horseback,
pitched down their burdens, and plunged in again. Twenty
or thirty men, with their horses wildly neighing and snorting,
were thus dashing about, while we stood rather anxiously
watching the fate of bedding and portmanteaus, and Antonio,
the dragoman, carefully kept a tally on the op|50site bank.
We agreed that such a spectacle was sufficient to repay all
the negotiations and trouble of reaching the Jordan.

The most difficult business was getting the mules and
canteen-boxes over. Each mule had a box lashed on its
back, and was taken in low between two horses, and at length

■ ^^M

^-fS^t^r^i?.

y.

J.
■f.

NIMIliX. r)21

all were safely landed. But for some time the donkeys haflled
all efforts. They had to be pitched in, and then led and
pushed by expert s-\viramers. INIy ass broke away twice, uas
carried down stream, and landed again on the western bank.
At length the last man and donkey had crossed ; and we sat
ddwn under the tamarisk-trees till our bas;G;age was reloaded,
and the fifty chickens, which had broken from their coops,
were collected. Chickens, charcoal, corn, and all supplies
had been laid in for ten days' provision. The whole passage
of the Jordan occupied two hours and a half, and at last we
were again in the saddle, having meantime oljtained several
doves, and I with a little wild pig squeaking in my saddle-
bag, which had been just caught by one of our guards.

Our escort led the way, some thirty horsemen, most of them
armed with long spears, and a few rejoicing in showy French
guns, the parting gift of the Due de Luynes, at which they
were never tired of gazing. We found the thicket of trees
to be of much greater extent on the east than on the west
side, and passed for half a mile in single file by a narro^v
path, along which doubtless these Adwan had returned with
plunder from many a foray. AVe then mounted into the
second plateau, corresponding in elevation with that on the
west side, where we put up a fine bustard, while hundreds of
sand-grouse passed overhead out of shot.

AVith a few of our escort I here turned a little to the north-
ward, to the banks of the Wady Sha'ib, just below which
we had crossed, and in a quarter of an hour after leaving the
thicket of tri'os by the river Ijank, reached Nimrin (" the
panther"), doubtless the Beth-Nimrah of Numb, xxxii, 36,
and Josh. xiii. 27, built by the tribe of Gad, and lying " in
the valley," i.e. of the Jordan. In Num. xxxii. 3 it is called
simply Niun-ah. The stream was full of water, with fishes
and shells, and a spring bubbled forth wasted and untended,
making a luxuriant tangle of zizyphus, dom-trees, and a
beautiful caper {Capparis ccgyiitiaca ?), which ran along the
ground like a cotoneaster, and was covered with delicate white
blossoms. But cultivation there was none. The buiklings

522 CROSSING OF ELIJAH AND ELISHA.

may have been extensive, but the ruins are now shapeless,
and generally choked by the ])rickly vegetation, excepting
on the north side, M'here a few irregular lines of foundations
could be seen. There were no traces of Roman work, or of
bevelled stones. Could this place be the " Bethabara beyond
Jordan, where Jolin was baptizing" (John i. 28), and in the
neighbourliood where our Kedeemer vouchsafed to be baptized
of him in order to " fulfil all righteousness?" There is certainly
here abundance of water, and the place lies just opposite to
what must have been a well-frequented ford, that on the high-
way from Jerusalem and Jericho to Eamoth Gilead.

By this ford, too, did Elijah most probably pass, when he
had vainly endeavoured to prevent his faithful Elisha from
accompanying him, as for the last time he hastened towards
the mountains of his native Gilead, thence to be carried vip to
his eternal home. Up to that bold peak of Quarautania behind,
the sons of the prophets had climbed, and there " they stood
to view," and watch, as master and scholar walked across the
plain, till they descended to the wooded bank. There was no
delay, as the stricken waters made a path for tliem dryshod ;
and thence, talking as they went, they would naturally follow
the road towards the mountains. Xot long had they walked,
still absorbed in converse, when the chariot and horses of fire
appeared, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
Not long, for when Elisha returned, alone in the body, but
gifted wdth a double portion of the spirit, the sons of the
prophets had not yet relinquished their post of observation.
Still had they gazed on, waiting till their fother should return,
when soon they recognised Elisha, coming back in all the
power and spirit of Elijali. It could not therefore have been
far from this s])ot that heaven and earth were brought so near
together. (2 Kings ii.)

Is there not, too, a peculiar appropriateness in this identifi-
cation, if He who was to come " in the spirit and power of
Elias," appeared, completed His mission, and discharged His
function of herald of tlie Kingdom, by the baptism of Christ,
near the very spot where His prototype had disappeared ?

KEFEREIX. 523

I could have halted longer at the thicket of Nimrin, Init
the guards were anxious to rejoin the convoy, ^Yhich was
nearly out of sight. After riding in a S.E. direction for three
or four miles across a comparatively barren tiat, we entered on
a fertile well-watered plain, very little elevated above it, which
extends to the foot of the mountains of jNIoab, covered with
zizyphus, false balsam tree, and innumerable other shrubs,
and with many patches of barley, already waving their golden
heads ripe for the sickle. The whole district recalled the
Ghor of Safieh, swarming with turtle-doves of the three species,
Avith gorgeous rollers and lovely bee-eaters. The most cha-
racteristic plants were the caper mentioned above, and the
strange osher, or true Sodom apple {Calotropis j)roccm, K. B.),
which we had only hitherto met with at Engedi and Safieh,-
I know not why the vegetation should be more tropical than
at Jericho, but so it is.

After two antl a half miles' ride from the Jordan, we reached
some shapeless ruins called Keferein, a little to the south of
the ford ; and there, by the side of a little gushing rivulet, over-
hung M-ith prickly bushes, we encamped, with abundance of
luxuriant fodder for our animals.

Even Van de Yelde's map is, on this side of Jordan, hope-
lessly incorrect, and unfortunately I was unprovided with any
instruments except a common compass, so that I was unable
to take observations or accurate bearings. The heat was
intense, but, as we arrived early in the afternoon, we made
an effort to explore the immediate neighbourhood, which
abounded in rich birds and plants. Little artificial channels
conducted the water among the thickets. The cultivation
was in irregular patches like the Safieh, and a small party of
semi-nomad dependants of the Adwan had erected their huts
and were reaping and threshing their barley about half a mile
from our camp. The remains of Keferein, which has hitherto
been unidentified with any historical site, are very like those
of ancient Jericho, extending on to a gravelly rocky slope
above the watered oasis, and comprising a small isolated rock
or peak of insignificant size, which seems to have been the

524 PLAINS OF SHITTIM.

stronghold of tlic ancimit city. The traces of buihling were
like those of Simirah on the other side. Had it not been for
the name/ I shouhl have felt disposed to look for Bethabara
here, as the waters are far more abundant than at Ninnin,
and the ruins indicate a place of greater population and im-
portance. While attempting to penetrate the wilderness of
tliorns, we came every five minutes upon some little stream,
conveying plenty and fertility in its course.

AVe were, in fact, in the plain of Shittim, and on climbing
a little eminence near, we could see the rich wilderness of
garden, ext(>nding in unbroken verdure right into the corner
at the north-east end of the Dead Sea, under the angle formed
by the projection of the mountains of j\Ioab, where the Wady
. Suweimeh enters the lake. It is now called the Ghor es
Seisaban. Though we were not able to examine and traverse
its wdiole extent, yet after surveying it from Keferein, and
then looking down upon it from the hills near Heshban, 1 have
no hesitation in describing it as by far the largest and richest
oasis in the whole Ghor.^ Safieh may compete with it in
tropical luxuriance, but not in extent. Among the tangled
wilderness, chiefly near its western edge, still grow many of
the acacia trees, " shittim " {Acacia sayal), from which the
district derived its appropriate name of Abel-ha-Shittim,
" the meadow or moist place of the acacias." Here in these
sultry groves Israel was sedu.ced by the Moabites into the
licentious rites of Baal-Peor.^ Upon this rich plain Balaam
looked down from the top of Peor,'^ from Pisgah, •' from the
bare hill on the top of the rocks, and from the cidtivated
field of Zophim," " that looketh on the face of the waste."'

"He watched till morning's ray,

On lake and meadow lay,
And willow-shaded streams that silent sweep

Amid their bannered lines,

Where by their genial signs
The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep. "

1 The name Betliabnra seems to be clearly connected with Bethnimrali by
the LXX. version, wlii'li instead of Br)6vii.Lpa nads Baidava^pa. (Jusli. xiii. 27.)

2 On the Botanical liiehes of the Plains of Shittiin see also Hnrckliardt, p. 392.
■• Numb. XXV. 1. ■• Ibid, xxiii. 14—28.

Hri'i

y.

PL.VIXJ^ (")F SJIIITTIM. 525

" He saw in that vast encampment amongst the acacia groves,
' How goodly are thy tents, 0 Jacob, and tliy tabernacles, O
Israel.' Like the watercourses of the mountains, like gardens
by the side of his own great river Euphrates, with their
aromatic shrubs and their wide-spreading cedars, the lines
of the camp were spread out before him." Their tents were
pitched from Abel-Shittim^ in the north, that is, from Keferein,
" the meadow of the acacias," from this very spot, which with
its watered and marshy glades is the northern limits of the
rich Ghor, to Beth Jeslnmoth on the southern desert expanse
(nil'^i')- '(irhotli, Numb. xxii. 1. Beth Jeslnmoth probably is
represented by the ruins of Eameh, pointed out to us by
Goblan, a faint mound standing some distance out from the
rich oasis which shelters itself under the eastern hills.

Here not many months after did Moses give his last bless-
ing to the people he had led so long ; hence he ascended those
gi-ey heights that towered beyond, and gained at length a
glimpse of that land he was never himself to tread. Here
were those tribes marshalled by his successor. In front of
these green pastures their hosts were drawn out in the early
morning, just before their last halt at the river's brink.^

The situation of Keferein, at the northern margin of the
oasis, and its marshy verdure, seem unmistakeably to identify
it with the Abel-Shittim of Xumbers. I regretted that we
were not able to visit Er Eameh, in which I would recognise
Beth Jeshimoth, although we had afterwards a nearer view
of it from the hills. I could not ascertain from Sheikh
Goblan that he was aware of the existence of any ruins fur-
ther south than Eamah, such as the Beth Jisimuth named by
Swartz ; and there is so much danger of ruins being discovered
to oblige the traveller, bearing any name he inquires for, that
I was cautious not to seek after it by that name.

AVe found Sheikh Goblan an admirable cicerone. He w^as
far too enlightened to suspect us of treasure-hunting, and
with a keen appreciation himself of the beauties of a land-
scape, and a thorough knowledge of the country, he omitted

^ Numb, xxxiii. 49. * Josh. iii. 1.

o2(J NOCTURNAL VISITORS.

110 o])portuuity ol' pointing oul to u.s everything lie knew,
whotlier in the way of scenery, or ancient sites. I liad not
been an liour in liis coni[)any without feeling perfectly satis-
fied that I was under the guidance of one on wdiose fidelity
and intelligence I might implicitly rely.

The geology was all limestone (cretaceous), hut the dip all
along the mountains was unmistakeal»ly to the S.AV. In
proof of the temperature being higher than on the other side,
I may add that while the barley was scarcely ripe at Jericho,
it was here already thrashed out, and our muleteers purchased
from the neighl)Ouring felKdiin some sacks already in fine
order. One of our guards also brought me a cucumber, the
first of the season, and insisted on my eating it on the spot,
which civility, ratlier than prudence, compelled me to do.

It was a wild scene, as we looked out from our tents in the
starlight, and saw the tall spears struck all around, gleaming
faintly over the prostrate figures of our escort, and the many
groups of horses and mules dimly discernible in the distance.

April 29th. — A little past midnight, when the camp was
W' rapped in slumber, and I had just turned over to sleep, we
were startled by the tramp of horses rapidly approaching.
Looking out, I could just descry the glance of seven or eight
long spears, while the horsemen angrily intjuired who we
were. The reply was prompt, " sSheikh Goblan's camp."
" Where is he ? we must see him," shouted half a dozen voices
at once. The old man, who had lain down in our servant's
tent, was aroused, and a long colloquy in high tones ensued.

The band remained all night, and departed at daybreak.
We found they were the .son and horsemen of Diab el
Hamoud, the chief Sheikh of the Adwan, who, ill-pleased to
hear of the presents Goblan had got from the Due de Luynes,
had sent them to claim his share in the black-mail of the new
visitors. Knowing that we had pui'chased two giins as pre-
sents, Goblan requested he might have one now. This he
offered to Diab's son, who contem})tuously rejected it as not
of first quality ; and at length the youth was appeased by a
present of ten najx (Icons, with which he departed.

VIFWs OF TIIF. AVF>;TFRX f^TDF. 527

Ouv journey to-day was a very short one — to the ruins
called Arak el Emir, a fine castle, huilt by Hyrcanus, son of
Joseph Tobias,^ many of the sculptures of which still remain.
We rode up the valley of the Wady Keferein, and then crossed
a ridge .into tlie Wady Seir, making a ride of four hours and a
quarter. The geological formation was all limestone, with
many layers of flint. The dip of the strata everywhere was
at an angle of from five to fifteen degrees towards S.W.
But there were many dislocations and strangely-contorted
strata, more so than we had elsewhere seen, though all with
the same general inclination ; and with no trace of trap or
igneous rock, though the hills were often tilted up.

As we ascended from the oppressive atmosphere of the
Ghor, the character of the vegetation changed, but not so
rapidly as on the other side. The zizyphus and caper crept
higher up the hills, the false balsam was still found in the
wadys, and the sages, salvias, and other labiate plants did
not descend so low.

The ruins to the westward were very fine, for the atmo-
sphere M'as unusually clear ; and when we had risen some
height, and w'ere crossing a ridge, the northern lialf of the
Dead Sea, the plain of Jericho, and the Ghor up to Surtabeh,
. were spread like a map at our feet. Standing here, at the
end of the mountains of Moab, the hills of Judsea did not
look nearly so high as these eastern ones did when we gazed
on them from Judtea ; and probably there may be a difference
of near a thousand feet in their elevation. The hills of Judah
have the same pink hue so familiar to all travellers, and we
could distinguish the gorge of the Kelt and the road up to
•Temsalem. But, southwards of this, the west coast of the
Dead Sea looks very different from the east. At a glance we
could see the errors of the maps ; for, instead of the straight
tall line of mountain which forms the eastern wall, the shore
line was indented with bays and headlands, and the flats of
Ain Feshkhah, Aiu Terabeh, and Ain Jidy stood out clearly,
like fringes of green carpeting below.

1 Joseplius, Ant. .lud. xii. 4. 11.

~)2S WILD BOAni=!.

Tlie hills we inountcd were neither so rocky nor so barren
as those of the other side, and were much more in a state of
nature. They have evidently never been terraced, hut were
only pastured over by Eeuben and (rad; consequently the
soil has not been washed down, and the vegetation is abundant,
\vith frequent scattered shrubs and a few trees. The undula-
tiop.s of the hills were very beautiful ; and we followed for
miles the course of a bright, dashing stream, overshadowed by
a belt of tall canes and gorgeous oleanders — a vast sheet of
rosy bloom. The oleander here becomes almost a timber-tree,
as thick as a man's body, and sometimes twenty-five feet
high, with its tall, slim boughs borne down, like a weeping-
willow, by the weight of its blossom. It was a pretty sight,
as we Vv'ound up the Wady Seir, to see our numerous Bedouin
guard, with their spears or long guns, thrown out in skirmish-
ing order, galloping on all sides, peering into the thickets,
mounting every knoll, and keenly looking out for foes or
game, wasting their powder at every partridge they put up.
At Keferein, the little Caccahis Myi absolutely swarmed, arid
we ran many of the young ones down on foot. Here the
Greek partridge, undisturbed and unprotected by game laws,
was equally abundant, in spite of the swarms of hawks and
lalcons which hovered overhead, long since, by the ignorant
zeal of game preservers, extirpated in more civilized climes.

At one place four huge wild boars broke from the oleanders
below us, and rushed up the opposite hill, followed by two
families of over twenty little pigs, which ran with wonderfiU
speed. The escoii; were wild with excitement, and raised their
battle yell, as one after another dashed headlong down to
cross the brook. We had some difficulty in pushing through
the brake ; and soon afterwards C. brought down a pig in
triumph, while the rest escaped from our breathless horses
u]) the mountain side.

Some of our guard, having discovered our "fantasia" for
eggs, searched with success for nests; and altogether we
agreed we had fallen amongst a by no means disagreeable set
of savages.

ET^'''

%

y.

y.
y.

IIViaANUS CASTLK. o:)<)

Before crossing the ridge which separates the two wadys
that combine to form the Seir, we had a delicious bathe, and
on mounting had a fine view of Heshban in the mountains,
and Jebel Osha (]\Iount Gilead) at the other extremity of the
hmdscape.

A short day's work brouglit us to Arak el Emir. It stalids
in a small open area, surrounded by hills, Avith an oleander-
fringed stream running through the midst, and fine scarped
cliffs protecting it on two sides. H\Tcanus could not have
selected a better spot either for strength and security, or for
natural beauty. Passing by the ruin, we went on half a mile
to a level open space, where we chose our encampment, and
then descended to the stream for luncheon. We found our-
selves in a deeply shaded labyrinth of oleanders, mingled with
large oriental plane trees, much finer than any we had else-
where seen. No need for turbans here in the shade, as we
lay down by the water's edge, and luxuriated in the cool
freshness of the ground. Seeing swarms of fish, we extem-
porized hooks and lines with crooked pins, and the fishes being
unsophisticated we caught a great number, among which was
a species new to us {Dlscognatlius rufus, Heckel).
• We afterwards went to visit Hyrcanus' castle, a noble relic
of antiquity. The remains of a massive wall may be traced,
with a deep fosse, enclosing an enceinte of about twelve acres,
in the centre of which stands the castle. There is a very
large entrance gateway, with a raised causeway leading from
it direct to the fortress. This gateway is built of stones of
very large size with the Jewish bevel, and the face of each
stone rough ashlar dressed, with perpendicular headings
running up the courses. The frieze of this ])ortal is Ionic,
and is formed of enormous slabs of stone. One which we
measured was twenty feet by ten.

The castle itself has been about 150 feet by 60 feet in
rxteut, with a colonnade in front, and there are many frag-
ments of pillars, some fluted and others plain, strewn about.
Only a portion of the front wall has stood the test of more
than 2,000 years, but this is in wonderful preservation. It

530 STAI5LE8 AND HALLS IN THK CLIFF.

is compti.sed ut' great slabs. One in situ measiiivd fifteen
feet by ten feet liigli; another, prostrate, was twenty feet long.
These stones have been bound together, not by lime or clamps,
but by numerous square knobs or bolts left in the different
sides of the stone, which fitted tightly into corresponding
sockets cut to receive them in the next block. INfany loop-
holes for archery provided for the defence of the place. Some
of the stone is almost marble, other slabs are a mass of fossils,
ammonites and Exogyra dcnsata, Conr. About twenty feet
fi'oni the basement runs a beading of Doric ornaments, and
above this a colossal frieze some twelve feet high formed of
enormous slabs, with lions sculptured in alto relievo of colossal
size.- Josephus especially mentions the castle being built of
white stone to the very roof, and animals of prodigious magni-
tude engraven on it."-^ Over these has been a Doric entablature
and frieze, but this has been thrown down, as also have been
many of the lions. It seems probable that earthquakes alone
have caused their overthrow, for though the stones are only
twenty-two inches thick, and the wall consists but of single
slabs, yet they are so wedged and bound together by these
knobs and sockets, especially at the angles, that human
agency could scarcely have overturned without destroying
them. The building must have been a strange medley archi-
tecturally, for we noticed many Ionic cornices and Egyptian
capitals of the Ptolemaic order with the palm leaf.

Passing from this interesting record of Jewish history, we
went half a mile northwards, up to the rock-dwellings and
stables of Hyrcanus. The ancient road to these is marked by
a double row of square stones, three feet apart, and each
perforated, as if for a running bar or rail, ^^^len we had
reached the cliff, on the basement, among many other once
inhabited caves, we examined one, which had been a noble

' The artist has evidently copied, not from nature, but from sciilpture ; for
he has represented in relief the marble supports left in statues to support the
weight of the animals.

- OiKoS6/xTifff 5^ fiapiv }(TXvp^v, fK \l6i)v \(vKov KarcuTKiviaas airaffav fifXP*
Kol ttJs tTTtyr^s e-yyAi'ifov ZcDa irai.in(ye0i(rTaTa, Ufpiyyayt S« avTV svpiirov /.Uyav
Ka'i Hati/v. Ant. .Tnd. xii. 4, 11.

KUCK DWKl.l.LNGS. 531

square ball, with roof artificially liolloAved out, and a ])lain
cornice running round it. l>y the side of the square doorway,
outside, was a mutilated Hebrew inscription, in the old or
Samaritan character, which Ave coy)ied.

A zigzag slope, alxive this, leads to a long range of caves.
On the tirst floor, if I may so term it, is a great cave, with
staLling for a hundred horses, the mangers running round it,
all cut out of the solid rock. Passing in front of this, on a
narrow ledge, we came to a series of artificial chambers and
rock dwellings, several of them connected, and the interior
ones quite dark. One suite of dark apartments, in one of
which was a deep well, was only accessible by a trap-door,
the hole for which liad been hewn deeply through the rock
from above.

As we proceeded along the ledge, we had in two places to
creep along a bc^ading, of a few inches in depth, where the
rock has been artificially scarped, to prevent the passage of
horses or armed men. At the western end of the cliff are
some enormous slabs, cut down at right angles to it, and
deeply indented with square chequers, several score in number.
The use or meaning of these I leave to others to conjecture.
The caves are exactly described by Josephus. " He also
made caves, of many furlongs in length, by hollowing a rock
that was over against him, and then he made large rooms in
it, some for feasting, and some for sleeping and living in.
But still he made the (uitrances at the mouth of the caves so
narrow, that no more than one person could enter by them at
once." After all these elaborate devices, Hyrcanus lived not
long to enjoy his isolated palace. At the end of a seven
years' life of suspicions and alarms, he committed suicide, on
the approach of Antiochus Epiphanes, who seized his palace
and possessions.

Besides our antiquarian afternoon, we had a most success-
ful natural history exploration in these caverns, having taken,
amongst us, the nests of two vultures, the large Egyptian owl,
lesser kestrel, and our first nest of the russet swallow, besides
the bulbul's, in the castle. We also captured specimens of a

M M 2

o32 THE ANCIENT J\ZER.

(to us) new species of bat, a new lizard, and gathered some
curious plants, and three very line species of beetles {Buprcs-
tida). Altogether, as it was one of the longest, so it was, in
every respect, one of the most interesting days we had enjoyed
in our travels.

Ajjril 30th. — The greater portion of our escort liad quitted
us last night, since we were safe in the centre of their country,
and, leaving us with Abd el Asiz, promised to rejoin us at
Heshban, towards which we to-day directed our course. The
country was most interesting, though devoid of ruins of im-
portance, or of architectural remains of historical interest. As
we rode through this country, the richest and fairest portion
of the whole land, and comprising nearly one-half of its extent,
we wondered more and more how it was that the trans- Jordanic
tribes should have figured so little in Israelitish history.

Starting with the dawn from our camp at Arak el Emir, we
left the AVady Seir, with its oleanders, on our right, and
climbed tlie shoulder of a steep ridge, descending on the
other side, by a course south-east by east, into the head of
another branch of the Seir. In half an hour we reached the
ancient site of Seir, a favourite tenting-ground of the Adwan,
and where a party of the tribe were encamped, by whom we
had been supplied with milk on the preceding evening. We
were noM^ on the direct road from El Salt to Heshban ; but,
as we intended to turn further west to visit Nebo, we took a
more circuitous route, where indeed there was no track,
towards the Wady Eshteh. Here and there, but rarely, were
the traces of a few ancient terraces, probably vineyards ;^ but,
for the most part, the virgin soil seemed to have been undis-
turbed, held on the steep slopes, now as of old, by the roots
of the oaks which grow scattered over the hills. Full of the
recollections of Arak el Emir, and of the anticipations of
Nebo and Heshban, we cast but a passing glance at the site
which Abd el Asiz pointed out as the town of Seir (jus).
I have much regretted since tliat we did not examine the

1 '<!

will bewail witli the werpiiig of Jazur the vine of Sibinah," Isaiah

Rvi. 9 ; r.ee also Jer. xl\"iii. 32.

WADY HESIIRAX. nflM

locality more carefully, as I feel no doubt that, in these grass-
grown mounds, and rows df foundations at the head of the
valley, above the marshy spring, we have the traces of the
ancient Jaazer or Jazer. In the first place, Jaazer was
taken by Israel on their way from Heshban to I'asliau
(Xumb. xxi. 32), in which route Seir would naturally lie.
It was in the borders of Gad (Josh. xiii. 25), and was visited
by Joab on his way from the Jordan to Gilead, which would
correspond very well with the present site. There is a ditli-
culty in the expression, the sea (or pool) of Jazer (Jer. xlviii.
32). We saw no pool there ; but it is possible there may
have been a " birket," or artificial basin, of which more careful
investioation might reveal the traces.

At the bottom of the Wady Eshteh we crossed another
purling brook, shaded by fig-trees and oleanders of smaller
size, for we had now risen several hundred feet. The hills
here were bare, but scarcely bleak, and the vegetation soon
became precisely the same as on the hills of Samaria and
Judt^a. Having mounted another ridge by a very steep path,
we crossed it at a right angle, after following its crest eastward
for some way, and descended into the AVady Na'ur. These
hills were very fertile. Large patches of barley, rich and
green, no want of water or rain, and oaks of various kinds,
and terebinths, first scattered, then becoming thicker in park-
like groups, and at length quite a forest of fine timber. AVe
turned at a rapid pace to the westward, till we approached
the edge of the plateau of Gilead, and had a splendid view of
the Promised Land across Jordan. The indented, embayed
western shores of the Dead Sea stood out distinctly, in
striking contrast to the straight eastern mountain line at
which we had been accustomed to gaze. We were absolutely
looking do^vn on the hill country of Judsea, and the keen,
cool wind made us feel that we had risen several thousand
feet from the " ciccar." After we had descended from the
forest, we followed the course of the little perennial stream,
by the banks of which w^ere rich corn and pasture pieces, to
its junction with the Wady Heshban. Turning a few yiird.s

534 RUINS ol' FfrXAH.

\ip this, by some old ruiiu'tl watercourses, we liuUed, and our
servauts began to i)itcli the tents on a pretty slieltei-ed flat
three and a quarter hours from Arak el Emir. We were now
some twenty miles inland from the Jordan. The strata no
longer dipped S.W., but were ])orfectly horizontal, the hills
all rounded and water- worn, and the wadys gave no signs of
unconformable or contorted stratitication. Ac^ueous agency
seemed to have l)een the only power at work since the deposi-
tion of the limestone.

After breathing our horses, we lost no time in remounting
for Heshban, under the guidance of a trusty guard, to whom
Goblan, wlio, true to his word, had met us here, commended
us. Just below the junction of the Na'ur and the Heshban,
we turned up to the S.W. to examine the ruins of Es Hunah,
a place not marked in the maps. On the hill above it stands
a large fortified khan and fortress, probably of Saracenic
origin, somewhat resembling the great Castle of Kefrenjy,
and still used in times of war as a retreat for the cattle and a
place of safety for depositing corn. It commands an extensive
westward view, overlooking the Ghor and the little mound of
Er Eameh beneath it, while the Mount of Olives can be easily
seen by the naked eye. I recognised in this castle the build-
ing which I had observed from the roof of the parsonage on
jMount Zion, and which the people of Jerusalem took to be
close to Heshban, or a part of it. Hiinah is a little; lower
down, about half a mile to the S.E. Its ruins consist of a
fortified enceinte, loopholed^ with many arched chambers, and
a little citadel standing in the centre, all apparently of Sara-
cenic work, Init built out of the materials of more ancient
edifices, as is shown by large stones with curious sculptures
inserted in the walls. One of these over a doorway was covered
with grotesque fretwork, of no known order of architecture^
like the devices of some child's sampler. In rand)ling among
the ruins w^e found in one cavernous chamber the partially
decaved- bodies of two women, with their blue rajis hanuint;
about them. The poor creatures had evidently been lately
murdered and thrown in ; but " they were only women," and

POSITION (IF im>;(;aii. .':?;>

our escort looked with callous iudifference, as though they
were beneath the reganl of a warrior.

AVe were now just above the re-entering angle of the Ghor
es Seisaban, and thence turning to the S.E. we rode at a ra])id
pace for several miles, steadily ascending on to the bleak
plateau of the Mountains of Moab, the range of Xebo, in the
" Abarim " of the Pentateuch. Though the ascent was rapid
it was not rugged, and the prospect from the summit was
superb. Along the ridge we rode, or rather along a succes-
sion of bare turf-clad eminences, so linked together that the
depressions between them were mere hollows rather than
valleys; and to the most elevated of these, about three miles
S.W. of Heshban, and about a mile and a half due west of
Main (Baal ]\Ieon), our escort gave the name of " Nebbah."
T cannot forbear having some misgivings as to the appella-
tion, for j\I. de Saulcy and other travellers liave, as we found,
so constantly inquired after Nebo, that it is quite possible the
Adwan may have felt it their duty to ])rovide a locality,
while it would require an ingenuity not inferior to that of the
enthusiastic French savant to pitch upon the exact Pisgah with
certainty. Still we were undoubtedly on the range of Nebo,
among the highlands of Abarim, and in selecting this highest
point, the crest just w^est of ]\Iain, we might reasonably
flatter ourselves that we stood on Pisgah's top.

That Jebel Attarus, which with its rounded summit we
could distinctly see, can possibly represent the Pisgah of Moses,
I cannot for a moment conceive. It is certainly not " over
against Jericho." So far as one could judge, it would be scarcely
possible to look into the lower Ghor from it. It is much too
far to the eastward to command any view of the plains of
Shittim, and therefore Balaam could not have looked down
from it upon Israel, and it is too distant from those plains to
be the probable spot to wliich Moses would have gone up i'loni
the camp, even had it fulfilled the other conditions of the con-
text. The name of Pisgah, or "the height," occurs four times
in the Pentateuch : in Xumb. xxi. 20, it is described as "look-
ing toward Jeshinion;" in Deut. xxxiv. 1, as "over against

536 PANORAMA FROM THE TOP OF PISGAII.

Jeviclio," ill the former of wliicli pa^;sages Jeshiiiion is pro-
bal)ly used for the barren phiiii of the Glior, and connected
witli Betli-Jesliinioth (Numb, xxxiii. 49) ; but in Numb,
xxiii. 14, we find that " tlie field of Zophim " was on its top,
certainly signifying tolerably level and cultivated land. This
description will ap})ly to this brow, with its back gently
sloping eastward, at the N.E. end of the Dead Sea ; but so far
as an examination of Jebel Attarus with the glass at a dis-
tance of eight miles would permit us to judge, there can be
no space on its contracted top for a field of Zophim. This
opinion agrees with Burckhardt's passing notice: "The
highest point in the neighbourhood. On its summit is a heap
of stones overshaded by a very large wild pistachio tree."
{Travels, p. 370.) If it should be said that the ruins on its
top point out that it has been a " high place " of sacrifice, to
which Balak would naturally lead the Prophet, that he might
obtain the divine afHatus which he sought, it is sufficient to
answer that the whole country is full of these " high places,"
and that no conspicuous eminence seems to have been without
its altar to Baal Peor.

, But on these brows overlooking the mouth of the Jordan,
over against Jericho, every condition is met, both for the
Pisgah of Balaam and of Moses. Here we halted, and gazed
on a prospect on which it has been permitted to few
European eyes to feast. The day was clear, and revealed to
us, (whether or not we were standing on the exact spot,) at
least the very same landscape as that on which " Moses the
servant of the Lord " closed the eye of his mortality. Yet
the first feeling was that of admiration at the divine power
which drew Israel from the wondrously fertile country
eastward and northward, determinedly to force the ru»<Ted
hills of Palestine,^ not richer than the Gilead they had
already won.

We had not a barometer Mith us, and therefore cannot
even approximately give the altitude of this brow ; but it

1 This sentiment is magnificently expressed I)}' St.anley, " Sinai and Palestine."
].. 325.

VIEW FKO.M riSOAH. 537

cannot be less than 4,500 feet, so completely does it overlook
the heights of Hebron and of central Judaea. To the east-
ward, as we turned round, the ridge seemed gently to slope
for two or three miles, when a few small, ruin-clad " tells," or
hillocks, (Heshban, Main, and others,) broke the monotony
of the outline ; and then, sweeping forth, rolled in one vast
unbroken expanse the goodly Belka — one boundless plain,
stretcliing far into Arabia, till lost in the horizon — one waving
ocean of corn and grass. Well may the Arabs boast, " Thou
canst not find a country like the Belka." Well may such
illimitable wealth of soil pour forth its teeming myriads of
flocks and herds, the riches of that mighty sheepmaster,^ the
king of ^loab of old, as to-day of the Anezi and the Beni
Sakk'r. Who can say how much these vast plains, pastured
over during the latter years of the sojourn of Israel in the
wilderness, when they had come round ]\Iount Hor from
Kadesh, aided in the accomplishment of the blessing, that
" He suffered not their cattle to decrease " ? Food and water
for man required and called forth a miraculous provision ;
such was not needed here for their cattle.

Xot a tree nor a bush, not a house, could be seen ; but the
glass revealed the black tents of the Beni Sakk'r, dotted in
clusters, far and near, testifying that the population, though
nomad, and far short of the teeming multitudes of the Eoman
cities, must still be very great.

As the eye turned southwards towards the line of the ridge
on which we were clustered, the peak of Jebel Sliihan just stood
out behind Jebel Attarus, which opened to reveal to us the
situation of Kerak, though not its walls. Beyond and behind
these, sharply rose ^Mounts Hor and Seir, and the rosy granite
peaks of Arabia faded away into the distance towards Akabah.
Still turning westwards, in front of us, two or three lines of
terraces reduced the height of the plateau as it descended to
the Dead Sea, the western outline of which we could trace, in
its full extent, from Usdum to Feshkhah. It lay like a long
strip of molten metal, with the sun mirrored on its surface,

1 2 Kintrs iii. 4.

•"i:'''S (.l.oK'lors I'ANOKA.MA.

waving and uiululating in its furtlier edge, unseen in its
eastern limits, as tliougli poured from some deep cavern
beneatli our feet. There, almost in the centre of the line,
a break in the ridge, and a green spot below, marked Eugedi,
the nest once of the Kenite, now of the wild goat. The
fortress of ^SFasada and jagged Shukif rose above the moun-
tain-line, but still far below us, and lower, too, than the ridge
of Hebron, which we could trace, as it lifted gradually from
the south-west, as far as Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The
buildings of Jerusalem we could not see,^ though all the
familiar points in the neighbourhood were at once identified.
There was the Mount of Olives, with the church at its top,
the gap in the hills leading up from Jericho, and the rounded
heights of Benjamin on its other side. Still turning north-
^^'ar(l, the eye was riveted by the deep Ghor, with the rich
green islets of Ain Sultan and Ain Diik — bright twins,
nestling, as it were, under the wall of Quarantania. There —
closer still, beneath us — had Israel's last camp extended, in
front of the green fringe which peeped forth from under the
terraces in our foreground. The dark sinuous bed of Jordan,
clearly defined near its mouth, was soon lost in dim haze.
Then, looking over it, the eye rested on Gerizim's rounded
top ; and, further still, opened the plain of Esdraelon, the
shoulder of Carmel, or some other intervening height, just
showing to the right of Gerizim ; while the faint and distant
bluish haze bej^ond it told us that there was the sea, the
utmost sea. It seemed as if but a whiff were needed to
brush off the haze and reveal it clearly. Northwards, again,
rose the distinct outline of unmistakeable Tabor, aided by
which we could identify Gilboa and Jebel Duliy. Snowy
Hermon's top was mantled with cloud, and Lebanon's highest
range must have been exactly shut behind it ; but in front,
due north of us, stretched in long line the dark forests of
Ajlun, bold and undulating, with the steep sides of mountains

^ This must have been from a sli^lrt \\\\/.t\ or want of jiower in our glasses,
as the point whci'c we stood is cci-tainly visiliU' i'roni tlic itmiI' of tin- Englisli
C'lmrcli.

HKsiiBON. :,:v.)

here aud there whitened hy clifis ; terminating in Mount
Gilead, behind Es Salt. To the north-east, the vast Hainan
stretched beyond, filling in the horizon-line to the Belka,
between which and the Hanran (Bashan) there seems to be no
natural line of separation. The tall range of Jebel Hauran,
behind Bozrah, was distinctly visible.

AVe did indeed congratulate each other on the privilege of
having gazed on this su})erb panorama, which will live in
memory's eye. " And the Lord shewed him all the land of
Gilead, unto Dan, and all Xaphtali, and the land of Ephraim,
and IManasseh, and all the land t)f Judah, unto the utmost
sea, and the south, ami the plain of the valley of Jericho, the
city of palm trees, unto Zoar." (l)eut. xxxiv. 1 — 3.)

But our guide was growing impatient. Two miles behind
us was a green knoll, with rugged heaps of stones, rising above
the surrounding plateau, and a little retired from its brow.
" Heshban ! " cries our swarthy guard, brandishing his long
spear; and, spurring our horses, we gallop eagerly to the bourne
of our travels. In a gently sloping verdant depression to our
left Avas a camp of about fifty long tents ; and as the Bedouin
saw us gallop along the crest, they came crowding out, and
hurried on to reach us. " Who are they ? Adwan ? " " No !
Teba'a," is the reply, " and not a good set. Yallah, yallah ! "
(come on, come on.) We had just shot a stork, which Hassan,
one of the servants, was carrying, and as we looked round in
our stride, we saw him furiously urging his horse, and dash-
ing my luckless stork round his head against the crowd, who
evidently wished to detain him. However, there was no
time to be lost, thought our guard, and on we dashed, without
drawing rein, till we reached the knoll, the site of Sihon's
capital.

Moab is here a vast table land, on the brow of which, to
the west, the crest is a little elevated, and to the eastward of
it a slight depression of three or four miles in extent, beyond
which the rounded hills rise 200 feet, and gently slope away
to the east. In the centre of this depression is a small hill,
of perha]>s 200 fe(^t high, l)ut entirely isolated, with a little

540 RUINS AND FISH POOLS.

stream running past it on tlie east. This is Heshbon. The
hill is one heap of shapeless ruin, while all the neighbouring
slopes are full of caves, which have once been occupied,
turned into use as habitations. The citadel hill has also a
shoulder and a spur to the south, likewise covered with ruins.
The summit of the hill is flattened ; and here is a level plat-
form, svith Doric columns broken from their pedestals, and
the foundations of a forum, or public building of the Roman
period, arranged exactly like the Forum at PompeiL The
whole city must have had the circuit of about a mile. Some
portions of the walls are standing — a few tiers of worn stones,
and the space is thickly .strewn with i)iles of Doric shafts,
capitals of colunms, broken entablatures, and large stones
with the broad bevelled edge. In one edifice, of which a
large portion remains, near the foot of the hill, Jewish stones,
lioman arches, Doric pillars, and Saracenic arches, are all
strangely mingled.

Below the city, to the east, are the remains of water-
courses, and an enormous cistern, or fishpond, doubtless
alluded to in Canticles, " Thine eyes are like the fishpools in
Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim " (vii. 4) ; and the old
wells were so numerous, that we had to ride with great care
to avoid them.

We were lingering here, when the Bedouin from a camp
hard by began to crowd round us, and, our guard becoming
uneasy, bade us mount at once, and keeping close together,
ride off before the wild men could lay any plans for our
annoyance. Taking a sweep on the fine turf to the south-
east, we passed by the ruins of Ma'in (Baal-!Meon, Numb,
xxxii. 38), situated on a mamelon exactly like Heshbon, and
due east of JSTebbah, shapeless and featureless, at which a
cursory glance was sufficient.

We now turned northwards along a beautiful road (all the
roads oast of Jordan are good, for they are mere earthpaths
and little worn), till about a mile and a half north of Hesh-
ban we mounted another green ruin-clad knoll, Ejt A\d, the
Elealah of Scripture. It is truly desolate, and a place of

ELEAL.-VH. 541

alarm " The shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy
harvest is fallen." (Is. xvi. 9.) One solitar}^ Doric column
stands out ghost-like on its slope, the rest are all prostrate ;
but heaps of carved cornices and capitals tell of its prosperity
even so late as the Eoman times. Since then it appears to
have been utterly deserted, for there are no Saracenic traces,
and its sunnnit is used as a burial-place for the neigh-
bouring Sheikhs. Over a recent tomb black tufts of ostrich
feathers, extended on long strings, were fluttering in the
wind. Hard by was a rude enclosure of loosely-heaped
stones, inside of which about fifty wooden ploughs were
heaped — the graveyard being the depot for the agricultural
implements of the tribe, during their absence for months in
the interior. Water was plentiful, and old cisterns and wells
frequent. Strange that while springs are so scarce in the
west, and fed only by winter-torrents, here, even where wood
is absent, on these highlands of Moab it is still " a land of
brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of
valleys and hills."

We were now once more in the Ad wan territory, and our
guard lost the nervous feelings a man might have who
has been follo^\'ing his game on to his neighbour's preserves.
We had seen Heshbon, and looked down from Nebo, and felt
indeed rewarded. Night was approaching, but the route was
easy, and, turning westward, we galloped without a halt for an
hour. The day had closed when we descended into the snug
little open plot in the valley of the Na'ur, or rather the Hesli-
ban ; where, in the face of a cave out of which gushed a most
abundant spring, our welcome camp had been pitched. Too
excited to sleep, journal and letter-writing kept us up till
midnight.

I

CHArTEP. XXIII.

Ruined Vil/fKfs lirfwecn Ifi'shbon and Amman — 'Countless Flocks —Valley of
Amman {Rabbah) — Its Ruins — Description of the Site— The Ancient Citadel
— Cathedrals, Temples, Theatres — Perfect Byzantine Church — Fulfilment of
Prophecy — Es Salt — Ramoth Gil.ead. — Lovely Valley — Christiatis at Es Salt —
Rained. Castle — Independence of Es Salt — Mount Gilcad — Tomb of Ilosca —
Magnificent Viev) — Parklike Beauty of Qilead—The Jahhok— Its Ford —
Esau and Jacob — 'Gypsies — Rava/jcs of the Bedouin — Go-ash (Gerasa) — Its
Streets and Bicildings — Wonderful Perfection of its Remains — Restitution
from SAf — Adieu to the Adicdn — Ajlun — Kulat er Rubud — The Ydbis —
Jahcsh- Gilcad — El Fcchil (Pella) — Beit Idis — Christian Blacksmith — El
Kdrah — Isolated Agricultural District — Peaccfulness — .4 False Alarm —
General Panic — Fertility of the Eastern Ghor — Numerous Streams — Palvi
Tree — Birds — Arab Horsemen — Their Salutations — The Bridge of the
Jordan.

JNIay 1st. — Camp in Wady Heshban to Amman (liabbath
Amnion) four hours and a quarter steady riding, about eighteen
miles (and fifteen in a direct line). For the first time in om-
tour we travelled on Sunday, as the Adwan would not allow
us to sleep a second night in the same camp so near the
frontier.

The road was not dull, but comparatively uninteresting.
For the first half hour we rode up a narrow glen, rocky and
rouffh, with fine terebinth-trees, the laru;est we saw in Palestine,
stretching their gnarled and twisted boughs over the patli.
It was very like a Scottish glen, or a piece of Northumlirian
scenery. The Wady Heshban, up whose course we rode,
rapidly dwindled to nothing, being principally fed by the
copious spring which gushed from under the rocks by our last
night's camp. In the ravine Avas an old hermit's cave, with
an arched doorway in the side of the cliff, the steps to which
are worn away. The name given tn it by Sheikh Ool)lan was
M'Alagha. The cell was occupied by a pair of Egyptian

VALLEV OK A.M.MAN'. o43

vultures, whose eggs were brought us b}' Abd-el-Asiz's son.
Half an hour's ride brought us to the up})er end of the valley,
where was a ruined town, Na'iir. ^Xe now entered upon a
wide undulating plateau, the hollows of which were covered
with the richest grass, while the knolls M^ere clad with stunted
shrubs, chiefly Potcriuin sjjinosuin, L., in general appearance
very like heather.

About fifty minutes afterwards we turned to the right to
a green round knoll, covered with shapeless ruins, and the
remains of wells, now called Maghanafish. From the top of
this we had a fine view of the Belka and of the Ghor, with
the hills of Juda?a and Samaria, though not equal to the
panorama of yesterday. This site is erroneously fixed in
Van de Velde's map too far to the eastward.

Still continuing a north-east course over downs and pas-
tures, in one hour and a half we came to a narrow but shallow
valley, the commencement of the Wady Anmian, after passing
the corner of a pine-forest, the trees of which were a fir {Pinus
carica, Don.), a species very closely allied to P. halcpensis, on an
elevation composed of a soft red sandstone. From this point
we continued gradually to descend. No more trees relieved
the monotony of the route. The limestone strata were all
horizontal, irregularly contorted in places, but only for a short
distance, as by some local disturbance ; and both sides of the
valley were curiously streaked by long ridges of stoneheaps,
sloping down to the bottom at almost regular intervals, as if
they had marked the ebbings of some retreating tide. We
could not conjecture what action can have produced these
moraine-like ridges, which look like the ruins of some Titanic
parallels.

"We rode through five large Arab camps, and every hill-side
and valley was filled with thousands of sheep, goats, oxen,
asses, and camels, and many picketed horses. Never before
or since have I beheld such a collection of pastoral wealth.
The valley wound in a snake-like course, a dry torrent-bed
at first, but the oozy gravel gradually became a little stream, ^
till at Rabbah it formed a copious rivulet, swarming with

54i ITS KUINS.

shoals of large fish {Hcopliiodon cajjocta), which might have
amply supplied the lenten fare of a monastery.

After four hours we came upon a copious fountain, with
the remains of walls, and just beyond it a bridge of three
arches of solid Eoman work, but now useless, as the stream
has changed its course, and flows alongside of ii. Some
Bedouin were sitting listlessly on the wall, and, while we
watered our horses, } allied out from the corners of their shirts
vulture's and hawk's eggs for sale. The news of our ho])l)y
liad reached the wilds of Amman before us, and the men even
knew the exact prices we had been paying elsewhere. Telling
them to bring what they had to our camp afterwards, we rode
on, and in a quarter of an hour reached the ruins of Amman.
For the last three days we had reaped an amazing harvest of
eggs, and continued to do so while with the Adwan. Espe-
cially at Heshbon, and here, vultures, eagles, great spotted
cuckoos, and some dozen of other species were collected.
Our scouts found the nests, and pointing them out to us as
we rode, many a box was filled.

Just before reaching Amman, the gorge takes a sudden
turn to the north, and then swells into a narrow plain, covered
with luxuriant grass, and embosomed in low round hills. The
fish-stocked stream, with shells studding every stone and
pebble, winds in the midst, a narrow channel, receiving
occasional affluents in its course, and making Eabbath most
truly a " city of waters." It is paved at the bottom, and its
little quays of fine masonry run uninterruptedly on both
sides for a distance of about a mile and a half.

A beautiful Grecian temple, square outside, round within,
with massive walls of the most elaborate Corinthian archi-
tecture, and with richly carved cornices and mouldings, is the
first building on the left, as we turn into this level space.
The roof of the temple has been a dome of finely-dressed
stone, of which several tiers remain. One hundred and fifty
yards beyond we halted, and in the dense meadow by the
water side, a rich feast for our horses and mules, our tents
were pitched. Before noon we had lunched and set out to

y.

AMMAN CATHEDRAL. 545

examine the ruins. In number, iu beauty of situation, and in
isolation, they were by tnv the most striking and interesting I
had yet seen in Syria. W^t it was not old IJabbah, but Phila-
ilelphia, the Eoman city, among whose prostrate marbles we
groped our way. All is Roman or (rrock, and all, probably,
except the citadel, subsequent to the Christian era.

To explain the position of the "city of Avaters," and of the
citadel which held out against Joab so long after he had taken
the lower city, would require a plan ; and the only sketch we
were able to make in our hurried survey, though it marks the
relative position of the ruins, gives no idea of the projjortions
or of the intervening spaces. When the narrow valley had
suddenly turned the corner of a knoll, it expanded into a
smooth turfed plain for half a mile, completely shut in by
low hills on each side. The front was blocked by a round
and steep, but Hat -topped mamelon pushed forward, on which
was the fortress, and the stream flowed rapidly past it on the
east, through a valley contracted at once to a width of 500
paces. The citadel was faced by another little valley running
at a right angle into the main one, and was connected by a
narrow neck with the heights on the left. On the other side
of this neck another gully started, which deepened at once
into a steep ravine, and joined the main stream half a mile
beyond, thus almost isolating the citadeL

Close to the water's edge, a little way beyond our tents,
stood the walls of a large basilica, or Greek church. The
apse and side aisles are perfect, and the wall has been covered
with frescoes, of which the only traces are the holes for fixing
the plaster. The Ionic pillars of the aisles strew the area,
some of white marble, some of cipolino, and one of iiulished
granite. The elevation of the chancel is distinctly traceable.
The east end faces the river, and outwardly forms a bastion (if
great height and enormous strength, rising from the edge of
the stream. Almost adjoining this liasilica, but not facing east,
is another still larger church, the walls of which are intact,
as well as the narrow, tall tower at the north end, to tlie
top of which we mounted by the inside staircase. All muiid

N N

546 AMMAN THEATRE.

these churclies the ground is covered with masses of stone,
shafts, capitals, friezes, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, in bewil-
dering'confusion.

Just beyond the first basilica, and in a line with it, are the
ruins of an enormous public building, very difhcult to com-
prehend or to describe but by a photograph. Its river face
consists of two enormous round bastions with flat curtain
walls between them, built of large stones with the Judaeo-
Eoman bevel, and a deeply arched massive postern, with four
successive arches of different heights, one within the other,
opening to the edge of the paved stream.^ Inside, the only
portion of the building intact is the east wall, a portion of
which spans, by a semi-circular arch, the bed of a torrent
which joins the main stream, and drains the ravine in front
of the citadel. This inner wall is deeply embayed with niches,
and many pilasters and Corinthian friezes above them. There
is one large centre apse or niche, with a scalloped roof. Here
there seems to have been a great public walk or platform,
while statues must have occupied the niches. There is
no trace of a roof except an arcade supported by enor-
mous Ionic (?) columns, the shafts of four of which are still
standing.

Nowhere else had we seen the vestiges of public magni-
ficence and wealth in such marked contrast with the relapse
into savage desolation. On the top of the ruin the body of a
stork, which had been entangled by the leg and perished
miserably, swayed to and fro in the wind. Here and there
our Bedouin guard were lounging about or peering over
the top of a niche ; and the stream dashed rapidly over the
fragments of sculptured marble which strewed its artificial
bed.

In front of the upper platform or terrace, further from the
stream, has been a smaller promenade at a lower level, just
over the arch whose triple semi-circle of finely-dressed stone
spans the torrent bed, about fifty feet below the toj) of the

1 For a view of this niin see Mr. Tipping's admirable sketch in Dr. Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible, Art. " Kabbah."

AJDEAN THEATRE. 547

bastions. Aboiit fifty yards fiuther down, a neat semicircular
bridge, still perfect, spans the stream, and once united the
highway to the great theatre with the public promenade we
have described.

Beyond the bastions, the plain expands again between the
stream and the citadel, and on the left are the ruins of a
gorgeous Corinthian temple of very florid style, bearing traces
of Egyptian (Ptolemaic) design. The adytum of the temple
and the rich sculptured frieze are almost perfect, and on the
western outside face are three doorways, the centre one in the
later Egyptian style, most elaborately decorated. Several of
the columns remain inside, one partly composed of a broken
Doric shaft from some earlier edifice, while the others are
monoliths of great size.

Following down the valley a few yarils, we came upon a
few erect and many prostrate columns, which once enclosed a
large open square, perhaps the forum ; and then turning to
our right, and crossing the brook, while shoals of fish dashed
between the stepping-stones, we were in another large open
space, of the surrounding colonnade of which eleven gaunt
columns, eight of them still bearing their Corinthian capitals,
raise their lonely tops erect in the wilderness. At the further
end of this sumptuous fagade was the lofty scena, or back
wall, of the Odeum, or smaller theatre, the enceinte entire ;
but the interior choked with ruins and broken columns.
Still the tiers of seats, the stage, and the rich Corinthian de-
corations may be traced. In front of us, leaning on the
southern hill, into which it is partly excavated, rose the grand
theatre, one of the largest and most magnificent structures in
Syria. The arena was forty-five paces in diameter, and above
it rose a crescent of forty-three tiers of seats, with the lofty
portico behind them. The effect as we stood facing it was
truly grand ; nor was the impression weakened as we
climbed its many steps, noted the neatly carved elbows of the
benches, and then, standing under the sculptured roof of the
chamber at the top, gazed over the columns beneath us at the
ruined citadel opposite. Just in front of this theatre the

X N 2

548 PERFECT BYZANTINE CIIURCH.

Eonian paved street was quite perfect, witli the wlieel-ruts
distinctly visible.

As we pursued our way down the stream, the ruins be-
came smaller and more insignificant, probably for the most
part private dwellings, till we traced the remains of the city
wall across the valley. Yet, every here and there, a column
cropped out of the debris.

Having crossed the stream in front of the amphitheatre, we
now ascended the steep side of the citadel, still in most parts
inaccessible, and found it divided into two platforms. The
first was oblong, stretching to the northern extremity of the
hill, and having no ruins but those of its steep walls remain-
ing. The southern and much larger area was on a higher
level, several acres in extent, nearly square, quite flat, and
strewn with a hopeless mass of ruins of every age and cha-
racter except Jewish. There is one principal group of six
enormous columns, of which the bases only are standing,
while the prostrate shafts are five feet in diameter. Beyond
this is a circular stone-built open reservoir, about sixty feet in
diameter, with stone steps Avinding round it inside. Its
depth at present — for it is probably more than half filled with
rubbish — is from twenty-five to thirty feet.

Just to the south of this stands the most interesting; build-
ing we visited here, and which seems to have escaped the
notice of previous travellers. Outside it forms a large square
block of masonry, its sides heaped with debris, and the flat
covering of the arched roof still nearly entire, as if it were a
blockhouse or casemate. We climbed to the top, and found
the centre only roofless, and a perfect Greek church of the late
Byzantine type beneath us. By a broken inner staircase we
scrambled through a hole into the interior. Though square
outside, it is a perfect Greek cross within, measuring seventy
feet each way, and was probably intended to serve as a for-
tress in the last resort, for the corners are formed into laro-e
vaulted chambers, with hollow walls of great thickness, the
hollows forming secret passages. There have been two doors,
north and south, and the chambers of the north side may

AMMAN'. .")40

have been tlio vestries of the iliun li, ><\\n-v tht-y liavc door-
ways into th(! south transept ; hut tlie secret passages have
been carel'ully concealed. To tin- two ( haiubers on the north
there has been no access but by secret staircases from the
roofs, except a narrow concealed \vay into one of the hollow
walls by one of the niches, through wliirli only the thinnest
of men could squeeze, and which was peiliaiis intended I'm-
passing food to any one within, JUit the interior architecture
of the church, if not in tlie purest taste, is marvellously ela-
borate. It is faced with 120 small round-topped niches, each
shallow, and the panels filled with carvings of endless
variety. No two are alike, either in the sculpture of the
arch-heads or of the panels. Flowers, leaves, and fruits are
the predominant designs, forming quite a ])attern-book for
Gothic decoration. The upper story is tilliMl with niches of
similar plan, but much larger, extending to the roof. Eight
panels of leaves and pines, all in different patterns, occupy the
faces towards the centre, and many others the limbs of the
cross. The whole reminded us somewhat of the ancient
church at Athens, though that is much poorer and on a
smaller scale. The state of preservation of this building is
truly marvellous.

To the west of it are the remains of another laige ImiUling,
with ijointcd arches ; and just after this we come to the neck
of land, which, tliough much lower in level, unites in some
degree the citadel with the opposite hill. It has been deeply
scarped and strongly fortified, and is the only accessible point.
Here probably Uriah was slain, and here David made his final
assault against the citadel of Amnion. Near this spot, the
walls, whose revetment is the naked rock, still stand, from
twenty to tliirty-five feet in height ; and a little beyond was
the gate of the fortress. By this we climbed down, and at
the foot of the hill, close under the citadel, came to the
ancient reservoir of the lower city, still full of water, and
shaded by ancient fig-trees, laden with nearly ripe fruit.

As at Heshban, so at Amman, the ruins, magnificent and
extensive though they be, reveal, if we except the walls of

550 ES SALT— R.\3I0TH GILEAD.

the citadel, nothing of Kabbah. It is only the Eomau Phila-
delphia that has left its stor\' in its stones, and nowhere else
have I seen any sculpture more elaborate or delicate. " Eabbali
of the Ammonites shall be a desolate heap."^ It has been " de-
livered into the hand of brutish men, and skilful to destroy." -
We remarked nothing of the filth and squalor, which has
been described by others. At this season the flocks and herds
were all on the surrounding wolds, and the spring was too
far advanced to drive them to seek shelter at night. Lonely
desolation in a rich country was the striking characteristic.

When I looked out about midnight, the gaunt ruins were
dimly reflected by the glimmering watchfires which flickered
round three sides of the camp, and the starlight just revealed
the sleeping forms, grouped under their spears by their
picketed horses, or crouching like little heaps of clothing
round the embers. All was silent, save the occasional snort-
ing of a horse, the tinkling of the mule-bells, and the ripple
of the stream. " I will deliver thee to the men of the east
for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and
make their dwellings in thee : thev shall eat thv fruit, and
they shall drink thy milk. And I will make Eabbah a stable
for camels, and the Ammonites a couching-place for flocks."
(Ezek. XXV. 4, 5.) AVhat pen, unguided by the foreknowledge
of Oumiscience, indited that ? I asked myself, as I closed the
book and extinguished the light.

May 2d. — Amman to Es Salt (Ramoth Gilead), five hours
and three quarters. Salt to Sihan, three hours and a half

The night had been cold, and for the first time since leaving
Beersheba on February 1st, we found ice in oui' basins in the
morning. But the sun soon dissipated the hoarfrost. "We
took care not to leave Eabbah without various interesting
souvenirs, in the shape of valuable additions to our egg-
cabinets. The ruins swarmed with jackdaws, not the race
(Corvus collaris, Drummond) wluch inliabits the Ghor, but
the common jackdaw of England, the same which we had
taken on Blount Gerizim; and the great spotted cuckoo

1 Jer. xlix. 2. * Ezek. xiL 31.

LOVELY VALLEY.

551

{Oxylophus fjlandarius, L.) Lad been depositing its eggs in
tiie nest of the hooded crow. But shooting and nesting -were
at an end when the mules were loaded, as we had a hard day's
travel before us. "We rode up the M'ady, having the citadel
to our right, and leaving the stream to find its way to the
Jabbok by a more circuitous route. Soon we rose into a bare
plateau without a tree, and with a wide prospect eastwards.
Bare, but not barren, for a large portion of it was laid down
for barley, and the rest was well peopled by flocks and herds.
Still not a house nor a sign of settled population, for in the
vast country between Kerak and Salt there remains not an
inhabited house, still less a village.

MOUNTED ADWaN.

Goblan, who appreciated a fine view with all the zest of
an artist, led us aside, two hours from Amman, to the top of
a green hill, that we might enjoy the prospect. We found
there the desolate heaps of some town of Gad, now forgotten,
and known by the name of Er Meshami. We next passed the

552 GILEAD.

mouuds of Jebeiyali. As we rode along the plain wo came
upon a solitary half-naked man, ploughing with a yoke of
oxen. Our escort halted, had a long council among them-
selves, and then a violent altercation with the man. It
seemed the sections of the tribe had agreed to divide this
plateau among them, and the slave, who belonged to iJiab-el-
Hamoud's section, Mas ploughing on the wrong side. The
dispute ended by their sending a message to Diab, that they
were escorting Franghi just now, but that when. they returned
they would settle with him.

"We passed various green sites of ancient towns — Vm Jauzeh,
with a copious spring, Safiit, and another, and in three hours
and a half reached the forest of Gilead. Trees, first in clumps,
then in masses, pushed towards the plain, which now became
an undulating plateau, with forest on the knolls, and green
corn in all the glades. But we were only skirting it, and
soon re-entered the green corn plains, still with the richest
soil, and not destitute of water. The ruins of villages were
thick and close, and still more numerous the wells and
fountains, all desolate and without inhabitant.

Soon after passing the traces of El Fuheis, where there is
much cultivation, not by the Adwan, but by the citizens of
Salt, we descended the gorge of the Ezrak, and at once all
was changed. We crossed another ridge ; the hill-sides were
terraced, and clad witli vineyards, which, lower down, gave
place to olive-groves ; while the bottom was filled with rich
gardens, thick with trees laden with green fruit — figs, apricots,
medlars, plums, peaches, and waliuits — and with pomegranates
covered with scarlet blossom. We were approaching Eamoth
Gilead, and bright springs gushed from the rocks on the side
of the steep path, clad with festoons of maiden-hair fern, and
which nourished beds of onions, melons, and cucumbers under
the shade of the fruit-trees. A turn in the valley brought us
in sight of the first town we had seen east of Jordan. Salt lies
on two sides of a narrow ravine, half-way up, crowned by a
ruined citadel, but otherwise featureless and unattractive, not
unlike a M'zab town in the Sahara.

ES SALT.

553

Haifa mile from the town we li.ilh^d under a <j;reat luLk l»y
the wayside, out of which trickUnl strings of water-drops,
which united in a copious fountain helow. AYe tied up the
horses, and, beneath the shade of a noble walnut, lunched
and filled our cups from the cool droppings of the living rock.
We had parted from our baggage an hour before, as it was to
go on to Sihan by a more direct route, under the charge of
Goblan ; while Abd el Asiz (the leopard) and another horse-
man accompanied us.

SHEIKH OF ES SALT.

As soon as we entered Salt, crowds came round us, and
a venerable old man pushed forward, said he was a Christian,
and hoped his brethren would accept his hospitality. This
time forbade. Another and another, in like manner, urged
their hospitality. Our dragoman had to go and buy pro-
visions, and three of the horses needed to be shod ; so C. and
I ^yere left in the street with our old Sheikh. Leopard though
he be in the forest, he was a very lamb in the city, and

554 CHRISTIANS AT ES SALT.

became very uneasy, and almost terrified, in his manner,
knowing, doubtless, how many a* grudge Avas owed him in
the town. He implored, urged, and even tln'eatened us, to
accompany him outside ; but we refused to leave without our
companions ; and, at length, the old Sheikh and his spearman
slunk on ahead alone. Meanwhile the curiosity of the popu-
lation became highly amusing. The boys pressed forward,
touched our boots, examined spurs, gaiters, guns ; and, had we
not been in tlic saddle. Mould doubtless have endeavoured to
carry their investigations further. Our accoutrements struck
them with amazement — above all, the percussion-caps, which
they could not make out. One pleasant-looking old Arab
drew me aside, and in a low voice told me he was a Tro-
testant, and incjuired if I knew Bishop Gobat. He then
asked me to take a letter to him, and hurried away to write
one. Another came forward, and claimed nie as an old ac-
quaintance, slipping my own card into my hand unseen. He
was the Bedouin I had met at service at Nablous, five months
before, and we greeted as old friends, and brethren in the
common faith. I wished we could have accepted his invita-
tion to liis house, but time pressed. However, we had a little
conversation, so far as my limited knowledge of Arabic would
carry me. AVe had been struck by the superior intelligence
of two boys in the crowd, and by their ingenuous, open coun-
tenances ; and my companion had observed that, had it not
been for their dress, we might have taken them for English
lads. They proved to be my friend's sons ; and so much had
religion and education elevated them, that they seemed of a
different race from those around them. They delighted in
exercising their small knowledge of the English tongue ; and
one of them, after scrutinizing a broken pi]ie in my holster,
ran off, and presently retiu'ued with a new one, of native
manufacture, of which he, with timid glee, begged my accept-
ance, I shall cherish it as a souvenir of the little Arab
Christian of Eamoth Gilead. Bishop Gobat once had a
school here ; but persecution closed it, and his arm, as he
says, is not long enough to stretch across Jordan.

INDEPENDENCE OF ES SALT. 555

Several times we liad to mo\e to avoid the crowd, till the
horses were shod ; and, accompanied by my Protestant friend,
we wound np the steep hill, and visited the ruined fortress on
its top. Eamoth Gilead must always have been the key of
Qilead — at the head of the only easy road from the Jordan,
opening immediately on to the rich plateau- of the interior,
and witli this isolated cone rising close above it, fortified,
from very early times, by art as well as by nature. Of the
fortress, only a tall fragment of wall remains, and a pointed
archway, with a sort of large dial-plate, carved deeply in
stone, above it, surrounded by a rose-work decoration. It
appears to be all modern Turkish work. From this we passed
on to the plateau, over which the road from the Jordan valley
passes ; and, here, probably, was the battle fought where Ahab
fell ; for nowhere else could chariots have come into play.

Salt appears to be a flourishing place. There were several
shops containing native and Manchester cottons, and articles
of native woollen manufacture ; others seemed well supplied
with groceries, herbs, greens, and a rude assortment of iron-
mongery. It is, and has been for several generations, per-
fectly independent of the Sultan, and is governed by a
council, in which the native Christians have representatives.
These are chiefly of the Greek Church. With the neighbour-
incf Bedouin the relations of Salt are somewhat defiant, but
they pay at present a heavy annual tribute to the Adwan,
to secure them from molestation from the Beni Sakk'r and
others, though they do not allow even their protectors to
remain a night in the town, or to enter it armed. Tnere
are several guest-houses, one of which faced the square in
which we stood, and where all strangers are entertained at the
public charge. Their whole municipal economy is fashioned
on the model of that of the M'zab republic in the Sahara.
AYe did not see any remains of antiquity except a large
foundation of massive stones south of the market-place. The
mosque looked old, but we deemed it prudent not to ask to
visit it.

From Salt an liour and a quarter brought us by a lovely

55G MOUNT GILF.AD.

ride up a forest liill tn tlic pi-ak calli'd Ji'bt'l Oslia, the
ancient Mount Cilead, said to be Hosea's tf)ni1i. .lust behind
the brow is the wdy covering the traditional sepulchre. The
guardian invited us to enter, as Christians as well as Moslems
pray tlieie. 'J'he tomb was railed off from the rest of the
mosque, and was onlji thirty-six feet long, as the Moslems
l>elieve ;dl {he old proplicts to liave lieen giants. Before the
building was a large cistern and a magnificent evergreen oak.
From a projecting platform of rock in front, there burst on our
view what is justly held to be the most magnificent prospect
in Palestine. It is not so extensive as the panorama from
Nebo, but more beautiful in detail in the foreground, though
wanting entirely the background of the Hauran and Belka,
which are shut out by the forests behind.

"We stood on a little table of rock pushed forward into the
Ghor, and Central Palestine lay stretched as on a map before
us. To the south the view was limited by the oasis of Jericho
and the jNIount of Temptation. The grey hills of Jerusalem
and Gibeah peered dindy over it. Immediately beneath us
the corn-fields cultivated by the people of Salt sloped gently
and gradiially away, on a middle terrace, into a lower wooded
range which descended to the Ghor. The. whole plain of
Jordan stretched from left to right, from Jericho to Beisan,
and nearly to Tiberias, with the meandering line of the river
in its centre, wliose waters could be seen at some of their
windings, sparkling like studded diamonds in the sunlight.
Its green fringe of trees was everywhere traceable ; and here
and there a wider oasis, still unexplored by Europeans, spread
from its banks. Almost opposite, in the distance, were the
round tops of Ebal and Gerizim. To the northwards we
could see Gilboa and Tabor, with Beisan below the former,
pressing on its projected headland into the valley, while
snow-streaked Ilermon bounded our northern horizon. The
loveliness and verdure of the foreground, the rich red and
grey of the background, could not be surpassed. Long did
we gaze, going leisurely through every detail with maps and
glasses.

MOUNT GILEAD. a;'.?

C. and I then Avent down to examine the face of tlie clifl",
and discovered three hirge and partly ai'tificial caves im-
mediately heloAv ns. A portion of the rock was one mass
ot fossils, of which we secured some fine specimens, chiefly
ammonites {Am. sijriacus, Conr. and A. sp.T)\ and then, M'hile
exploring a cave, two Alpine swifts {Cj/jJselus nielha, L.) flew
out, and we found their nest in a crevice. It is, as every
collector knows, a rare nest to take, and, working at the
aperture, we could j'ust fetd the two eggs with our fingers,
when we found tliat our companions were out of sight, and
we were obliged to tdllow them and leave the treasure.

We rapidly descended the north-east side of Mount Gilead,
past the green mounds of Jilad, said to be the birthplace of
Elijah, and where we saw some rock tombs, which I have
since regretted we did not stay to examine. An hour and a
half brought us to the ruins of Allan, and another short liour
to the likewise deserted village of Shiluln, where was our camp.
No words can convey an adequate idea of the beauty of this
ride, unequalled in Syria. A lovely natural park, all the
glades of which were covered with rich ci'ops of wheat and
barley, and trees and shrubs grouped in graceful variety,
charmed us into entire forgetfulness of time and distance.
The dark forests of Ajlun across the Jabbok, the glades, the
I'eep every now and then at a turn of the Ghor beneath us,
and Palestine beyond, the occasional glimpses of the Hauran,
formed a diorama of })erfect loveliIu^ss. The sun had set
w hen we reached our camp, snugly ensconced behind tlie ruins
of a once flourishing but now desolate town, and under the
shade of a group of wild olives, by the side of a copious
-pring. Our guards, who had been nesting all day, brought in
a rich harvest of eggs ; and, wearied and delighted, we tin^ned
in at midnight.

May ?>rd. — Shihrm to Reiniun, five hours and three qiiarters.
The ride, though not equal in richness of park-like scenery to
tliat of yesterday, was still very beautiful. Eiding from our
i-anq), stundjling f»ver broken oil-presses and mill-stones, we
came to the villnue fountain, wasting its freshness on the

558

THE JABBOK.

dpsevted soil, and tlion bognn to mount the ridge which sepa-
rated ns from the Jabhok. Our guard formed a picturesque
foreground, as they scattered themselves in skirmishing order,
some twenty horsemen, to look out, not for foes, but for vul-
tures' nests, in which they were pretty successful. Crossing
the sparsely-wooded ridge, we descended tlie very steep
ravine, often with lines of cliff, at the foot of which dashes
the Jabbok, com])letely hidden by the dense mass of oleander
which fringes its banks. By a winding path, leading our
horses, we reached the ford, the only practicable one for some
distance, and even here the strong current reached the horses

girths.

t;K()UP OF AbWA.NS AND HORSES.

We turned when a little way up, and the opposite side was |
in view far above and l)elow us. Here Jacob wrestled with I
the Lord in prayer. Here he stood and saw on those hills
the 400 spearmen of Esau, and watched his family and cattle
climbing in groups before him — Esau's band, not less wild |
than those fierce horsemen of ours, who, armed and clad like

EAVAGES OF THE BEDOUIN. 559

tliPin, were sportively brandishing their spears, and curvetting
in mock fight. AVlien we reached the opposite crest, we found
ourselves again in the forest, with its glades and hollows. "We
Avere now in Ajlun, but the character of the country was still
like Gilead, save that we had lost the false balsam and wild
olive {Balanites cpcjyptiaca and Elcaynus angustifoliiis) , and
on the higher tops the pine predominated over holm oak and
arbutus. The crest of the ridge was sandstone, of which we
had hitherto seen only a fragment near Amman.

In the midst of the oak forests we often came upon a slight
basin with the richest alhivial soil, studded with ancient
olive trees and patches of green barley. Still no settled habi-
tations could be seen, till suddenly we came upon a copious
fountain gushing from the hill-side, with patches of onions
and tobacco near it ; and then, having rounded a knoll which
screened it from view, found the village of Burmeh, the first
inhabited place since Es Salt. As we entered we met a
group of genuine gypsies with drums and tomtoms, on which
they discoursed loud and hideous music, until silenced by
backshish.

Ee-entering the forest we rode through the ruins of Dibbin,
said to be a Christian village, but now a desolate heap of
mouldering walls. " "What has destroyed this place ?" we
asked. " Oh, we sacked it • " " But where are the people V
" God knows — dead probably." And so the Bedouin are
laying waste village after village. AVe drank of its pretty
spring and then descended through a lovely piece of forest to
one of the atfiuents of the Jabbok, which we crossed amidst
a thicket of oleander, under the shade of a magnificent old
M'alnut-tree that spanned the brook. Up the hill-side through
the olive gi'oves, we rode to the village of Reimun, a wretched
collection of mud hovels, just an hour west of Gerash, and
divided by another ridge from Siif. Our camp was pitched in
an olive grove, a few yards from the village, and a little rill
meandered through the grass between the tents. There was
a ruined mosque on one side, and a large spreading walnut-
tree on the other. "We gave our escort a goat for supper, and

560 GF.RASH.

they kindled a large fire under the -sval nut-tree. It was a
picture for a Eemhrandt to have seen, that group under the
tree, the watchtire just revealing their SM'arthy faces as they
tore the fragments of the goat, or sleepily smoked their long
pipes. The finest timber tree in this district is the Ccltis
australis of India.

May 4th. — We started early, to spend the day at Gerash,
riding by two ruined villages. El Jittah and Tekitty, through
forest and corn-patches, tilled by cultivators from a great
distance, who come for a few weeks to sow and to reap,
camping out for the time. On all sides, we were surrounded
by distant tiers of sparsely-wooded hills ; but the country
became barren as we approached Gerash, which occupies a
portion of both banks of a little stream, in (he centre of a
wide open valley.

The labyrinth of ruins burst upon us at once, as we rose
over a little slope, the features which first caught the eye
being the great amphitheatre on one side, and the Temple of
the Sun on the other. We could not have had a finer day
for ruins. The deep blue sky brought out the rich golden
hue of the gaunt columns in the wilderness with grand effect.
We occupied the whole day in exploring them ; and, fine as
we had thought Amman, Gerash far exceeds it in the number
and splendour of its remains, and is, probaljly, the most
perfect Eoman city left above ground, l^aalbec and Palmyra
surpass it in the size, but not in the number and perfection,
of their buildings. The walls are distinctly visible in many
places, almost of their original height, inclosing a square of
about a mile, with the little stream, buried in oleanders,
running through the centre. The .streets remain, the principal
one simjjly a double row of columns, a mile in length, richly
carved, fronting temple and palace in rapid succession. Tlie
long colonnades of Corinthian shafts mark the lines on each
side of the pavement, and side streets cross at right angles.
For one thousand years it has been a silent wilderness, yet all
can be traced. Even the sockets for the gates still remain in
the arches of the gateways. But earthquakes have shattered

ITS STREETS AND RUILDIXGS. 561

and overthrown many of the columns, lea\ang, however,
hundreds still standing, while the hand of- the destroyer has
utterly laid waste the private dwellings, which were in the
east part of the city. There are upwards of twenty principal
niins ; and it is marvellous that, while every one is familiar
with Baalbec and Palmyra, so little is known of Gerash,
except by eastern travellers. If a provincial city of Imperial
Rome could exhibit such magnificence, what must the great
cities themselves have been in their glory ?

Goblan accompanied us, with a mounted escort of more
than twenty men, for, as we were on debateable land, and on
the frontier of three great tribes, it was needful to be on the
watch; and his men were thrown out on all sides, as we
rambled unmolested through temple, theatre, and arch.
Gerash has been so fuUy described by Burckhardt and Buck-
ingham, that it is needless here to go into details of the
various buildings, all essentially Roman in their character,
with some of the edifices Ionic, but the principal and finest
Corinthian in their design. The road, skirted by occasional
tombs and monuments, could be traced both to the north and
south, the ancient highway from Damascus. Perhaps the
most curious relic was the great circus between the triumphal
arch and the southern gate, with its conduits stiU remaining,
which conveyed water into it from the stream for the per-
formance of mock sea-fights. Besides the baths, the Christian
cathedral is the only important building east of the river,
, as if the Christians had purposely withdrawn their worship
from the neighbourhood of the gorgeous temples which they
had suffered to remain, without, as elsewhere, appropriating
them. A nearer examination of these ruins would probably
jnot enchant an architectural critic. He would say at once
;that most of the fa9ades were debased in style, and that
I unity of design was absent in the grand colonnade. But the
varied and unequal columns do not mar the general effect.
, However, the great Temple of the Sim, at the north-west end
pf the city, is surely above criticism, with its noble fa9ade
ind gateway, and the magnificent group of eleven columns,

0 0

o»

562 RESTITUTIO!? FROM SflF.

which are all that nnnaiii entire together. The cloistered
convt round this temple, with the same general ground
plan as the temple at Jerusalem, is easily to be traced. The
stones of the shafts assume in the sunlight the same rich
pink which adds such a cliarm to the columns of Baalbec
and Palmyra.

THE LEOPARD — ABD EL ASIZ.

Goblau, ever vigilant, allowed us to remain undisturbed
till the sun got low, when we rode quickly back.

We found Abd el Asiz in high glee. He had been to Sdf
with a strong party, and had recovered our money, as well as
a little trifle for costs to himself as my attorney. He had also
levied, as a fine, the Sheikh's best cow, and ludicrous it was
to see the black cow driven to camp as a trophy in advance
of the troop of cavalry. But he had carried his grim joke
further, and brought Sheikh Yusuf and his friends, under com-
pulsion, to be our guards to Pella, whither the Adwan could
not themselves accompany us. Among them, Hadj Khadoin
recognised the very man who had drawn a knife on him.

ADIEU TO THE ADAVAX. 563

We found also a levee of unhappy villagers seeking medical
relief. Sulphate of zinc we had for ophthalmia, but beyond
that our medicine chest did not extend, and objects piteous
with dropsy, and pining infants were brought round us, with
vain entreaties for help. One poor woman, with a skeleton
baby dying of disease of the mesenteric gland, clung to me,
and would not be refused. At least, if w^e had no medicine,
surely I could give her a charm — all Franghi could use incan-
tations ! Strange to say, she was a Christian, of whom there
were many in tlie village, though in the deepest ignorance,
for all they know is from the visit of a Greek priest once a
year to baptize and marr}-. Our hearts bled for these poor
oppressed fellahin, for whom we could do nothing to help
either body or soul, as my Arabic did not reach so far as to
talk on religion.

In the evening we heard a political discussion round the
watchfire on the Danish war, and were much amused at being
interrogated by these wild savages, as to whether England
and France were likely to join in resisting Austria, and
whether Eussia would be drawn in. They learn European
politics from Mecca, and were anxiously speculating on the
probability of an European war, which would leave them at
liberty to expel the Turks from Syria, and set up Abd el Kader
as Khalif of Arabia, their favourite dream at present. AVe
suggested to them that if they relied on the French against
Turkey they might find themselves in the position of the
horse who enlisted the man to help him against the stag — a
fable Avhich they well understood.

May 5th. — Eeimim (Ajlun) to Beit Idis, above Pella, eight
hours.

The morning was a stirring one, for we were to bid adieu
to our Adwan hosts, and arrange for safe conduct through
Ajlun of evil renown. After breakfast, at six o'clock, the
settlement began. The table was removed in my friend's
large tent, a carpet spread, and we sat on one side, the
Sheikhs and their chief followers on the other. £35, the
second stipulated half of the black- mail, was told out on

o o 2

564 ADIEU TO THE ADWAK.

the cai'pet in sovereigns, the two guns laid by the side of the
money, and sundry powder-flasks, boxes of caps, canisters of
gunpowder, and other presents for the underlings, were heaped
up. AVithout a word or gesture, either of approval or dissatis-
faction, the money was told again, and the presents examined,
and tlic party rose and went through an universal hand-
shaking. C. had given GoblaTi an opera-glass as a special
gift ; 1)iit the Sheikh, taking him aside, told him the glass
would be more useful to an European than an Arab, and that
he had better commute it for a money present.

It was then explained that we were to be escorted through
the forest by five Siif horsemen, and one man from the Kurah
(the district of Tibneh) ; but that, arrived at the Yabis (Jabesh)
the Sufians must retire, and the Kurah man would take us to
Pella, and find an escort of natives to the bridge. This was
as good an arrangement as could be made, for the latter part
of the journey was safe enough, and the country open.

It was a wild scene when the sixty or seventy horses,
which had been picketed here and there under the olive-
trees, were gathered together, and the party mustered to
accompany us to the edge of the forest, the limits of their
territory. All armed to the teeth, and dressed like them, we
must ourselves have looked as Bedouin as the rest. After an
hour's ride we came to a halt, and our spearmen bade us a
second adieu. But now the Kurah man, the missing link
between us and civilisation, was not forthcoming, and when
found he declined to escort us for 2/., the stipulated sum.
" Then," cried Goblan, " I will do it myself ; " and we all
entered the forest, the territory of the Beni Hassan. Our
Kurah friend now came to reason, and we had a third and
final adieu. We parted from the Adwan with regret. They
had fulfilled their contract to the letter, had shown them-
selves thoroughly to be trusted, had never raised a question
about terms or backshish, had taken pains to show us every-
thing on the route, had assisted us to collect, and had proved
themselves in every respect what they claim to be — the
nobles of the desert.

THE YABIS. 565

After an affectionate farewell, we took a course much to
tlie westward of either of my former routes, less picturesque,
but less dangerous and more open, passing through several
villages. Our second hour was through real forest, by wind-
ing paths and under spreading oaks, where many a turljan
was knocked off, or mule's burden dislodged. "We left the
village of Ain Jenneli M'ith its tine olive gi'oves to our right,
and then by a zigzag path descended into a more open valley,
riding through the decaying town or village of Ajhm, with
abundant water, the only object of interest being a ruined
mosque, with a fine old tower built by Saladin. The people
were civil, and allowed us to inspect the mosque, into the
walls of which were built several Rofnan sculptures and
fragments of inscriptions.

As the valley winds down, the Castle of Kulat er Rubud
forms a fine object in front. We took a rather circuitous
route, as some of the escort wished to call at the flourishing
village of Anjara, where again the olive-groves were very
rich. After riding through this, we came close to the town
of Kefrenjy, but did not enter it, though we were pressed to
partake of its hospitality. We then climbed the opposite side
of the valley, where tow^ers Kulat er Kubud, also built by
Saladin, and a landmark visible far and wide on the other
side. It is uninhabited, though in fair repair, and surrounded
by a deep moat cut out of the solid rock. There were
several Arabic inscriptions in the walls. In many respects it
seemed a counterpart of the castle near Heshban. The view
was magnificent, much the same as that from Moimt Gilead,
but not quite so extensive.

Descending again (for our whole day's journey was across
deep ravines), we crossed the Wady el Hemar, and in three
hours more, another steep climb and steeper descent brought
us to the Yabis (Jabesh). Tliis was a lovely valley, not infe-
rior in its way to the magnificent forest scenery through which
we had been winding. Straggling old olives, patches of
barley, and rich pasture filled the glen, but no other trace of
man, save old ruins, featureless and shapeless.

566 JABESH GILEAD.

On the southern brow we came on a knoll of indistinct
ruins with no hewn stones distinguishable, which was called
by our Kiirah man Er Maklub, " the overthrown." Anxious
to visit the site of Jabesh Gilead, we inquired particularly for
the Ed Deir of Dr. Robinson, but he did not know the name.
Determined, however, to ascertain the site, we trusted to
Robinson's description of which we had a faint recollection ; and
fortunately, proceeding on the south side of the wady, came
upon an isolated round-topped hill, just such an one as is ordi-
narily seized upon for a Gilead village, w^hose top was strewn
with ruins, much larger than those of jNIaklub, and with some
broken columns among them. This was the spot conjecturally
identified as Jabesh Gilead. It stands where Jabesh ought
to do, and full in sight of Bethshean. There were, however,
no traces of walls, or of any important Roman station. But if
this be not Jabesh Gilead, w^here else could it have been ?

"We forded the little stream close to the ruins of two an-
cient mills, whose little aqueducts still pour forth their
wasted supply. Beyond this point the Suf people could not
go, and bade us good-bye. Considering that they had before
tried to rob and murder us, they had behaved very well ; and
T could not but laugh at Sheikh Yusuf, when at parting he
kissed my hand and said, "Ah, Howadji, your coming back
has cost Suf a mighty sum of money ; but still I am glad to
see you ! " It is to be hoped he has learnt a lesson, and will
not rob Englishmen in future.

We were now with our guides on our own resources, in an
open country. We climbed the next steep ascent, winding to
the right close to Judeita and Kefr Awan, neither of M'hich
would meet the conditions of Jabesh. Thence we struck
across for a mile or two to Kefr Abil, another suggested site,
which has some dressed stones, and an ancient oil-press, but
does not appear to have been a place of importance during the
Roman epoch. On the whole, I should incline to Dr. Robin-
son's conjecture of Ed Deir in preference to this. The inha-
bitants w^ere civil, but the appearance of the place did not
temi)t us to camp.

CHRISTIAN BLACKSMITH. 567

"We had intended to camp at Fahil (Pella), but our guide
objected, telling us tliere was no water, which was untrue,
his real objection being fear of the Arabs of the Ghor, who
were prowling about in its vicinity. We consequently turned
up again a little to the north-east, about two miles, and after
a very heavy day, halted at the village of Beit Idis, where the
tents were raised by a " birket " of dirty water in an olive-
grove. The ])eople had never seen Europeans before, but were
civil and well-behaved. The bovs were at once set to work
to find us rollers' and woodpeckers' eggs, and boasted of the
numbers they would produce in the morning. The village
farrier was also in requisition. He was a Syrian Christian,
the only one in the village, and a noble intelligent-looking
greybeard. In most of the Gilead villages the smith is a
Christian ; and, as we know that trades here are generally
hereditary, it seems probable that on the occupation of the
country, when conversion or death was often the alternative
proposed to the conquered, the smitli, being almost the only
artificer indispensable to the Bedouin, was more leniently
treated, and allowed to retain his faith.

One scarcely realizes the contrast between the Bedouin and
the fellahin, unless when suddenly passing, as we have been
doing, from a purely nomad to a pUrely agricultural district.
This part of northern Gilead, the foreground of the plateau,
with Tibneli for its metropolis, is hemmed in on all sides by
Arabs, the Ad wan and Beni Hassan on the south, the Beni
Sakk'r to the north and east, and the whole. Ghor frontage
occupied by the 8'hoor ; yet by combination and courage the
people so far hold their own, and have baffled the encroaching
attempts of their restless neighbours. The whole is studded
with villages, containing from 500 to 1,000 inhabitants eacli,
few of which are marked in the maps, and which are utterly
unknown beyond their own neighbourhood. In each there
are generally a few Christians — ignorant indeed, but willing to
learn, while the Moslems have not the bigotry of the towns.
Tliis district is called El Kurah, and I conceive, from the
marked difference in physiognomy and the much fairer com-

568 EL KtJKAH.

plcxioii of the people, that they have no Bedouin blood, and
are prohably lineal descendants of the ancient Syrians.

The villages all look to Sheikh Yusuf Schreibeh, of Tibneh,
as their feudal head and superior. They are, for security
against cavalry raids, invariably situated on the knoll of a
hill-top ; and the contiguration of the country is admirably
adapted for defence. It is a flat plateau, furrowed and scarred
by deep ravines, the crests of these never precipitous, but
gently rounded, and the sides often furrowed by smaller
nullahs ; with little wood, and that generally scrub, or open
olive-groves. There are many brows, or isolated hillocks,
where a village can be planted safe from predatory horsemen,
or at least from surprise. The villages are almost as thick as
in the south of England, but how unpicturesque ! — the houses,
of mud and stone, huddled close together, never more than
six feet high, with flat roofs, and little crooked lanes between
the hovels, which are crushed together in a square mass, with
a low wall or bank surrounding the whole, and the accumu-
lated filth of generations pitched down the slope just outside,
except where the village well, generally on the hill-side,
below the wall, has an open clean space about it. Such is a
Kurah village. How naturally would an Old Testament
writer have spoken of " Tibneh and her towns," and how well
such a district illustrates the expression !

May Gfh. — We had ten hours' ride before us, and started
early, "We turned due west on the high plateau, to look
doAvn upon Faliil, but had no time to descend to the ruins of
Pella, which we could distinctly see close below us, on the
foreground of a lower platform, rising close to the Ghor, and
facing Beisan. Turning then north, we got up and down
several wadys, and passed through several villages unknown
to fame, M'liile the top of the plateau and the bottoms of the
valleys were alike covered w4th crops of ripe barley or green
wheat, and the sides clad with olive or carob-trees. We had
•no guard with us, but the guide who had accompanied us
from Ci crash, and an old man from Beit Idi.s, a venerable
mt^llah, whose dress consisted only of a dirty white woollen

GENERAL PANIC. 56f>

turljan, bound with green to show his claim as a shereef, and
a short cotton shirt, barely covering his hips. Shoes or
trousers he had none ; and in his hand he carried a small
wand. Old as he was, he had not lost his youthful sportive-
ness, but indulged us with various capers and dervish dances
as he preceded our cavalcade.

On the brow of the third wady, we saw across the ravine
a large village, Kefr ]\Ieyah, on the opposite crest, and soon
after pcu'ceived a strange commotion in the place. A few
horsemen w^ere galloping frantically round and round, with
long spears; women and children were running screaming
aw^ay to the hill beyond ; flocks and herds were being driven
by boys in all directions ; while crowds of men, with the
barrels of their long guns flashing in the sunlight, were
grouped on the tops of the houses. Others Avere hurrying in
from all directions. Our dervish ran on ahead, crossed the
valley, and mounted, waving his hand, and crying, " Tayib,
tayib." Presently two horsemen s})urred down, with their
lances set, spoke a few words with him, and galloped up
again. It seemed we had been taken at a distance for a band
of Adwan, coming to make a raid on the village. In our
Bedouin dress, with our arms, mustering some twenty horses,
it was no wonder that w^e had been taken for rovers. Only
two months previously, our friend Goblan, and a party of his
freebooters, had made a descent, and carried off many of the
cows of the village, escaping unharmed with their booty.
No wonder that no Adwan dare come peacefully into the
Kurah, and that they did not pass the frontier.

The panic had scarcely subsided when we got up to the
place. The men were still grimly clutching their long fire-
locks, which every one, down to the boy of twelve years old,
possessed, and even some of the women were valiantly holding
their guns, and taking their place in the line of defence. I
rode in amongst the foremost. " So you take us for Adwan ?
Did you ever see an Adwan with a red beard, or these
boots?" \Ye had a hearty laugh, and the old Sheikh came
forward with a formal invitation on the part of the village

\

570 FERTILITY OF THE EASTERN GIIOR.

that we would halt aud take coffee with them. Time pressed,
and we were obliged to be discourteous enough to decline.
As we rode down the other side, the men, with their reaping-
hooks or ploughshares — but of course with their guns slung
on their shoulders — were hurrying back to their peaceful
avocations in the fields. AVhat a country to live in, with the
plough in one hand and the firelock in the other ! In the
valley below we were looking in a tree for a bird we had
shot, when a man rushed up in frantic haste, and, angrily
warning us off, climbed up and took his belt and purse from
a branch. The poor fellow had hid it there during the alarm
of the morning, and thought we had espied it. Others in the
same field were disinterring their sickles and shoes, which
they had hidden in the earth.

We gradually descended into the Ghor by the south side of
the Wady Taiyibeh, and passed the ruins of Merkib and the
village of Arbain, the only inhabited place left in the whole
eastern Ghor, after fording several little fresh streams buried
in oleanders, with here and there a palm-tree, and swarming
with fish and fresh-water shells. The dull sultry atmosphere
of the Jordan valley was indeed a change from the cool
morning breeze of the highlands.

For two hours and a half we rode up the Ghor, through a
maze of zizyphus bush, which encumbers a soil of almost
incredible richness, watered every mile by some little perennial
brook, but without trace of inhabitant or cultivation. Now
and then we saw a clump of palm-trees, the ruined heap of
some old village, or a piece of a broken watercourse, to tell
us that once the hand of civilization was here. Myriads of
turtledoves, chiefly Ttirtur ambitus, peopled these thickets.
We put them up absolutely by scores from every bush. The
nests of the marsh sparrow {Passer salicarius, Temm.) bore
down the branches by their weight, and the chirping of the
sparrows was literally deafening. It is scarcely conceivable
how such multitudes can be fed, but the bushes and weeds
were laden with berries and seeds.

.\t length, by the ruined village of Arad, we emerged from

THE BRIDGE OF THE JORDAN'. 571

the bush into the open phiiii which fringes the river. When
we crossed it in March, it had been knee-deep in clover and
lucerne, now it was one sheet of a beautiful but most prickly
centaurea. The tents which then had studded the plain were
all gone, and we met not an Arab till, about half an hour
from the bridge, a party of wild horsemen emerged from the
river's bank, one with a sword, the others with long spears,
and rode madly down on " us. Pulling np their horses on
their haunches witliin half a spear s length, they demanded
our business. Our dragoman replied that we were Franghi,
travelling on our own aftairs. They then said they had taken
us for Hawara (a hostile tribe), and saluted us courteously.
After performing sundry warlike evolutions, to try our nerves,
galloping among us, with their spears quivering a few feet
from our faces, yelling and prancing round us, they retired,
and in a few minutes disappeared among the oleanders of the
Jordan.

It was two o'clock when we reached the bridge, and we
felt, as we crossed it, that we had re-entered upon civilization.
It seemed a step homewards, such as we had not taken since
we left England.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Halt at Agylc's Camp — Return to Nazareth — Greek Christian Wedding —
Gennesaret in Suinmcr — Arab Natural History — Fish of tlie Lake — Cori'
nexion with Africa — Safed — Jews — Small Pa2)er Currency — Geology —
Kedes (Kedesh Naphtali) — Natural Riches of the Country — Beth-Rehoh—The
Upper Jordan — Tell Kady (Dan) — Sources of the Jordan, tcpper and lower —
Banias (Cmsarea Philippi) — Booths on the Houses — Sacred Reminiscences
{Castle of Banias)— Birket er Ram {Lake Phiala) — Marshes of the Hulch—
Ghaiodrineh — -Cotton Cultivation — Sukeik {Seleucia) — Herons — Impev-
trable Swamp— Water Lily— Papyrus— Druse Labourers— Buffaloes — The
Lake of Huleh {Waters of Mero)n) — Harvest Time — Parched Corn — Note on
Palestine Agriculture, and Crops.

At tlie bridge Mejainia wc met a guard of Agyle's, who told iis
the Agha was camped to the south-east of Tabor ; and, having
bid good-bye to my friends, who were going on to Tiberias for
a day, and having desired Hadj to follow me with the mule
on the way to Nazareth, I trotted on alone towards Agyle's
camp. Strange seemed the liberty of being able to ride alone,
and take a course across country in safety. By dint of many
inquiries, I reached the encampment about dark, and invited
myself as a guest. In broken Arabic I recounted my eastern
adventures, and then learnt to my dismay that L. and B — t
had left Tabor " two-thirds of a moon " since, nor was it
known where they were. After enjoying the primitive hospi-
tality of the Agha, I rode off next morning alone, before
sunrise, to Nazareth, wending my way through the woods on
the north of Tabor, and shooting several birds. By the old
familiar hills I descended to Nazareth before breakfast, and
met the hearty welcome of my excellent friends, ]\Ir. and
Mrs. Zeller. Hadj arrived, and erected my tent in the after-
noon, and our party also returned from Tiberias to spend the
Sunday here. L. and B — t had gone on to Banias, under
INIount llermon, and thitherward we nmst travel on Monday.

GREEK CHRISTIAN WEDDING. 573

May StJi. — Aoyle mustered all his nioii, ami joined the
Muzellini of Nazareth tlii.s morning on an expedition to eject
the Sakk'r, who had come up like Midianites on to the plain
of Esdraelon, and pitched their camps among the green corn
of the unhappy villagers.

We saw a Greek Christian wedding this morning, after
leaving the church near the Fountain. The bridegToom came
first, surrounded by twenty or thirty of his male friends,
dressed in their best, who kept singing and clapping hands
in a circle round him, as they conducted him to the town.
Immediately behind followed the bride, mounted crosslegged
on a mule, with a boy seated behind her, apparently to keep
her in the saddle, for she was closely and completely veiled,
with an enormous coronet-like . head-dress beneath the veil.
She, too, was surrounded by about twenty young women un-
veiled, in the holiday costume, who sang responsive verses
alternately with the male party in front, clapping time with
their hands, while two or three tambours in the rear gave the
tune. Probably this simple procession was much like the
Jewish weddings of old, the virgins accompanying the bride
behind the bridegroom to his house. So Mary and Joseph
may have been conducted along this very path.

After our own service, where we had quite a congregation
of English, American, and Prussian travellers, we went to
Mr. Z.'s Arabic service, in his oratory. It was well attended,
and Arabic hymns were heartily sung to familiar English
tuues, in the neatly-fitted chapel. Among the congregation
were well-dressed tradesmen in gaudy colours, swarthy Be-
douin, and the poorest of felUlhin, all seated on the ground,
listening in wrapt attention, as ^Mr. Z. explained the uses of
the approaching "Whitsuntide, and urged preparation for the
reception of the Holy Spirit.

The next three weeks were devoted to the exploration of
the district between the Sea of Galilee and the southern
spurs of Hermon. In company with my friends, Messrs.
E.-W., C., and party, I proceeded leisurely to Banias (C^esarea
Philippi), where we found L. and B — t hard at w^ork.

574 AlUB NATURAL HISTORY.

Having rejoined my old comrades, we took another route by
the Huleh to Gennesaret, and then returned to Banias by a
third, thus leaving no part of the country uninvestigated.
Our notes, though very copious, were too exclusively devoted
to natural history to be of much interest here. I shall there-
fore endeavour to ccmpress into a few pages the general
results of our observations.

Taking the upper road from Nazareth to Gennesaret, we
had fine illustrations of the geology of the district. Tlie
hollow between Lubieh and Kurn Hattin had been partially
filled by a stream of basalt, the spent droppings of which
had exhausted themselves on the plain, Avhile the main cur-
rent had wound round the saddleback of Kurn Hattin,
leaving the limestone cap untouched. The fountain of all
these igneous streams appears in a bold mass of basalt, three
miles east of Safed.

The plain of Gennesaret at the end of May is very dif-
ferent from the Gennesaret of early spring. Huge thistles
and tall prickly centaureas, with every other vegetable engine
for the conversion of clothes into rags, have taken the place
of the lovely floral carpet of February. The oleander, in its
full blaze of glorious beauty, must be excepted, and a magni-
ficent lilac-coloured convolvulus {fyomcea 'pahnafM, Forsk.),
which hangs in long festoons of blossom from the prickly
shrubs of the plain.

We here met with some original Arab views of natural
history. Hadj, onr muleteer, had heard us expressing our
wonder as to what had become of the ducks, grebes, and
gulls, which had all disappeared from the lake; and one
morning he came with radiant face to tell us he had dis-
covered all about them, and that a friend of his was coming
with a basket of 100 grebes' eggs. We were on the tiptoe of
expectation, when the basket was opened, and disclosed a
quantity of large fresh-water mussels {JJnio terminalis, Bourg.).
The surrounding crowd all united in testifying these to be the
eggs of " T)aht," and on our exliibiting signs of incredulity,
appealed to our ignorance. " If these are not ' baht's ' eggs.

SAFED. 575

where are the eggs ? You cannot find them. Do }'ou not
see the ' bahts ' "go down under water, and what else do they
go for than to lay their eggs ? " We found this belief uni-
versal, and that the Norwegian fable of the barnacle goose
has been reproduced almost in the same form in Sj^ria.

We added a few more specimens to our collection of the
fish of the lake. Of the ten species obtained by us all were
African ; three were new to science, no less than four be-
longed to the genus Chromis, an African tropical genus, and
of which the Sea of Galilee is by far the most northerly
known limit. It is most unusual to find any genus so richly
represented in its most outlying provinces. Again, one {He-
michromis sacer, Gunthr.) belongs to a genus first established
on a species from the Gaboon, and of which seven species
have been brought by Dr. Kirk, Dr. Livingstone's companion,
from South-eastern Africa. No geographically intermediate
species are known. Do not these most interesting and unex-
pected discoveries point to some ancient geological epoch,
when the long chain of fresh-water lakes extended from Her-
mon to the Zambesi, and the Jordan was an African river
flowing into the Dead Sea, then a lake connected with the
African lakes by the Eed Sea, also a lake ?

Further explorations of the Wady Leimun leading up to-
wards Safed, but without any practicable road, revealed to us
long series of ancient cave-dwellings, as extensive as those
of the robbers in the Wady Hamam, but far more difficult of
access, and of no architectural pretensions. They are un-
known, and without history, and probably date from a remote
antiquity, like the caves of the Horites,

On one occasion we rode up to Safed from Tell Hum, by
way of Bir Kerazeh and Khan Jubb Yusuf, — the former a
spring, with an insignificant ruin of a few stones above it,
and nothing but the name to associate it with Chorazin ; ^ the
other strangely selected by tradition, in the teeth of geo-

May not the inhabitants of Chorazin, like those of Zarephath, liave
migrated for security to the hills in after time, and carried the name of their
old town with them ?

576 SAFEP.

graphy, as tlie well into which Joseph was cast by his
brethren. There is here a ruined khan, and a deep but
narrow well close by it in a courtyard.

Proceeding towards Safed, said to be alluded to by our
Lord, as " the city set upon a hill, wliich cannot be hid," — and
certainly, if it had then existed, visible from the shores of the
lake, — we very soon lost the basalt, and crossed a limestone
district, bare, but well cultivated wherever there was soil.
Safed is clustered, all round the sides of a limestone peak,
3,335 feet above the lake. On the summit of the hill are the
ruins of a large fortress, with deep moat and a triple line of
walls, utterly destroyed by the earthquake of January 1, 1837,
and separated from the town by a narrow belt of gardens and
orchards. On the west face of the hill rises the Jewish quarter
(a set of terraces), and on the east and south faces are the
Moslem quarters. From the top of the ruins we enjoyed a
glorious view, especially to the north-east, unfolding to us the
plateau of Bashan, from the distinctly-marked gorge of the
Yarmak, with the outline of the Lejah (Trachonitis), and its
many extinct craters showing their black cones against the
horizon. At our feet was spread out the Lake of Galilee,
looking so near, that it seemed one might almost have leaped
into it, yet ten miles distant ; Tiberias was distinctly seen
beyond the plain of Gennesaret, and to the south we com-
manded a sight of Hattin, Tabor, Gilboa, and even Carmel.

Safed is a sacred Jewish city, and once a seat of Eabbinical
learning. I was the bearer of despatches for the Austrian,
Prussian, and English consular agents (all Jews), and thus
had an opportunity of seeing the interior of their houses.
Though all outside was squalid and filthy, yet the cleanliness
of these German-Jewish houses was absolutely Dutch. The
trim old dames, in their antique costume, disused in Germany
for more than a century, sitting knitting in the courtyard.s,
with their blue stockings and quaint caps, were a painter's
study. There is here what is probably the smallest paper
currency in the world. 1 collected bank-notes, printed en-
tirely in Hebrew, and circulating only among the Jews of

KEDES. 577

Tiberias and Safed, of the value of twopence, a penny, tliree-
fartliings, a halfpenny, and even a farthing respectively.

In passing from Safed northwards, the traveller bids adieu
to tlie hallowed Sea of Galilee, calmly sleeping in its moun-
tain nest. Here, too, the first view is gained of Lake Huleh
(Merom) — a Sea of Galilee in miniature, corresponding with
it in its distant, but by no means in its nearer, features.
Between the villages of Delata and Alma there is a large
basaltic dyke, the first plutonic trace after leaving the neigh-
bourhood of the lake. Two or three miles further north is a
large patch of basalt, two miles in diameter ; and a smaller
dyke, a mile or two to the eastward. None of these forma-
tions reach nearlv to the height of the surrounding stratified
hnls, but have partially filled old valleys or depressed plains,
and are of no great depth. We searched in vain for traces of
craters. There are, indeed, two deep pools, or basins ; but,
neither by shape or position can they be taken for craters.
Only at Tell Khureibeh is the stratification much disturbed,
dipping there 7° west.

We frequently made Kedes (Kedesh Naphtali) ^ our head-
quarters for a day or two. The ruins of the home of Barak
are fully described by Porter, and are very interesting. We
observed four double sarcophagi, for two bodies, with a single
lid, hewn out of one stone — a form we did not elsewhere
meet wnth. There are some fine old tombs, and the remains
of ancient buildings ; a synagogue, and large family-tombs ;
sarcophagi, placed not in caves, but on a pedestal of massive
masonry. They were probably Jewish ; for, though covered
with wreaths, we could not make out any figures. But, oh !
the wTetchedness of the nights at Kedes, at the end of May,
with a hot sirocco, thermometer 93° in the shade, and clouds
of hot, penetrating dust ! Tlie air was thick with mosquitoes ;
our faces were swollen, our ankles and wrists in torture,
so that we thought nothing of the minor miseries of ear-
wigs and horse-flies crawling all over our bodies under our
shirts, and lively fleas hopping by scores out of the dust on to

^ See Josh. xxii. 22 ; Judges iv. 6, 10, 11.
P P

o78 NATURAL RICHES OF THK COUNTRY.

the table, and up our sleeves. There was little inducement
to remain on our beds, and our nights were short as our days
were long.

Kedesh Naphtali, when freed by Barak I'roni foreign foes,
must have comprised within its borders everything that could
make it a flourishing town. Situated on an eastern slope,
belli nd it rise the bare but herbage-clad hills, where flocks
and herds camped for the greater part of the year. The town
stood on a knoll, where it could not easily be surprised. Just
below it gushed forth a copious spring, caught in various
ancient reservoirs, for the use of man and beast. Then, down
a gentle slope, there were several hundred acres of olive-
groves ; and beyond these, a rich alluvial plain, of perhf^ps
2,000 acres, which supplied abundance of corn and vegetables.
This plain extends to the rugged brow of the steep hill which
descends to the marshes of Huleh ; and, doubtless, Kedesh of
old, like Kedes to-day, possessed there its strip of marsh land
of incomparable fertility, which was tilled by the townsmen
for barley and lentils, though never inhabited by permanent
residents. Thus they had every kind of produce at their
very doors ; and this would be the case with all that long
string of towns which studded the goodly heritage of Naphtali,
" satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord,"
(Dent, xxxiii. 23), from Chinnereth northward to Dan.

As we rode along the plain which has been mentioned,
east of the olive-yards, we were struck by the use of the
landmarks. About 200 acres were laid down to cucumbers,
an important summer crop here ; and as hedges or walls are
unknown, the allotments are marked by stones set up, every
villager thus knowing his own freehold. How needful, witli
this simple system, that there should have been a curse on
the man that removed his neighbour's landmark !

The next village to Kedes, Mais, is a favourite camping
place for travellers, delightful for its freshness and careful
cultivation, and its mulberry-trees and vineyards, more like
Leoanon than Palestine. The inhabitants are Metiiwileh, in
type very different from their neighbours, and more like

BETII-KEH015. 579

the Osinanlis. On the way there is stuck on a steep hill
a wretched villaiie of lints M'ith sloping roofs ; a colony
of Algerian Arabs, refugees, who still wear the Algerian
burnous, and build the " gourbis " of Mount Atlas. They
cordially responded to me when addressed in the patois of
North Africa.

Eiding thence across a narrow and richly cultivated valley,
we soon entered a rocky wilderness of hills, bare perhaps in
winter, but now Ijright and charming. For the first time we
met with the roebuck, which twice started off so close to us
that it could not be mistaken. The trees were festooned with
woodbine {Lonicera implcxa), and the bees hummed busily in
the Oriental plane-trees ; we were entering another botanical
zone. The old castle of Tibnin, the Crusaders' Toron, and
doubtless a sister fortress to those of Kurn and Shukif, rose
grandly on a peak to the left ; and on emerging from the forest
glades, a noble prospect burst upon the sight. The whole of
Lake Huleh, the rich plain and marsh to its north, and the
upper plain of Jordan (the Hasbany), were spread before us,
backed by Hermon, with Banias, Tell Kady pan), and many
places of lesser note nestled at its foot or on its sides. Be-
neath us was the great battle-field where Joshua defeated
Jabin and his mighty host of confederates, and won the
northern inheritance of Israel.

Continuing along the heights we came to Hunin, con-
• jectured by Dr. Eobinson to be the site of Beth-reliob (Judges
xviii. 28) ; the castle has once been of great strength, with its
moat hewn out of the rock, and exhibits traces of every kind
of work, from the old bevelled stones downwards ; but it
is now a complete ruin, patched up into cow-sheds by the
villagers. Then leaving Abil (Abel-Bethmaachah) on our
left,^ we descended into the upper plain of the Jordan.

Here we were ' on the basaltic current again, which has
poured in, filled the northern end of the plain, and gradually
expanded, till exhausted near the great marsh. It has been

1 "We aftonvauls visited Abil, which is an exclusively Christian village,
without fmding any ancient remains.

p p 2

580 TELL KADY.

of great service in raising this portion of the tihor, which is
well -watered and covered l>y crops of wheat which were ripe
on May 12th. A bridge (Jisrel Ghujar) spans the Jordan, or
rather the Hashany, here a turbulent mountain torrent of the
brightest blue, as it dashes among great volcanic boulders,
liemnieil ih by walls of basalt, very different from the brown
steady volunie tlfet rolls between mud banks below. It is a
lovely spot ; the banks overhung with oleanders, honeysuckle,
clematis, wild rose, and Oriental plane. Their perfume charged
the atmosphere, and the bulbul and nightingale vied in rival
song in the branches above, audible over the noise of the
torrent below.

A ride of three miles from the Ijridge brought us to Tell
Kady ("the mound of the judge"), which thus in the signi-
ficance of its name, still preserves the ancient Dan ("judge").
On the higher part of the mound to the south, tradition places
the temple of the golden calf, and ruined foundations can
still be traced. Nature's gifts are here poured forth in lavish
profusion, but man has deserted it. Yet it would be difficult
to find a more lovely situation than this, where " the men of
Laish dwelt quiet and secure." " We have seen the land, and

behold it is very good A place where there is no want

of anything that is in the earth." (Judg. xviii. 9, 10.) At the
edge of the wide plain, below a long succession of olive-
yards and oak-glades which slope down from Banias, rises an
artificial looking mound of limestone rock, flat-topped, eighty-
feet high, and half a mile in diameter. Its western side
is covered with an almost impenetrable thicket of reeds,
oaks, and oleanders, which entirely conceal the shapeless
ruins, and are nurtured by " the lower springs " of Jordan ;
a wonderful fountain like a large bubbling basin, the largest
spring in Syria, and said to be the largest single fountain in
the world, where the drainage of the southern side of
Hermon, pent up between a soft and a hard stratum, seems to
have found a collective exit. Full-grown at birth, at once
larger than the Hasbany which it joins, the river dashes
through an oleander thicket.

BANIAS. 581

On llie eastern side of the mound, ovorliangiug another
bright feeder of tlie Jordan, are a hohn oak and a terebinth
side by side, two noble trees, which shade the graves of Arab
saints and the hmcheons of European travellers. This tere-
binth is, I believe, the largest of its kind in Sp'ia, and the
other tree is more comely than the so-called Abraham's Oak
at Hebron. Their branches are hung with rags, and votive .
offerings of all sorts of rubbish, as Israel of old set up their
altars under the great trees and in the groves of the high
places. Such is all that remains of Dan. The curse of
Bethel seems to rest equally on the sister site of Egyptian
idolatry.

A very short ascent through fine olive-groves and groups of
noble oaks brought us to Banias. The situation is indeed
magnificent. AVitli tall limestone cliffs to the north and east,
a rufr<Ted torrent of basalt to the south, and a gentle \vooded
slope for its western front, Banias is almost hidden till the
traveller is among the ruins. These are not remarkable, the
best preserved being the old Roman bridge over the impetuous
stream which has hewn out its channel in the black basalt to
the south. Everywhere there is a wild medley of cascades,
mulberry-trees, fig-trees, dashing torrents, festoons of vines,
bubbling fountains, reeds, and ruins, and the mingled music of
birds and waters.

Dean Stanley calls it a Syrian Tivoli, and certainly there is
much in the rocks, caverns, cascades, and the natural beauty
of the scenery to recall the Roman Tibur. Behind the
villao-e, in front of a o-reat natural cavern, a river bursts forth
from the earth, the " upper source " of the Jordan. Inscrip-
tions and niches in the face of the cliff tell of the old idol
worship of Baal and of Pan.

The village itself is squalid enough, like all Syrian villages,
hxit at present its inhabitants seemed to be keeping the feast
of tabernacles after an aerial fashion. On the top of each
house was erected a sort of wicker-work cage of oleandp.r
boughs, thick enough to l^e a screen from the rays of the sun
and from obsei^vation. These booths are in universal use

582 BANiAS— c^SAREA niiLipn.

tlirmi.^h the country for sleeping in during summer ; but liere
they (lid not rest, as elsewhere, upon the flat roof, but were
erected on a fragile scaffolding some six feet above it, and
■were reached l)y climbing up a pole and entering through a
trap-door in the floor. At a distance they look more like airy
dove-cots than baskets full of human beings.

Lovely as is the situation, the inhabitants of Banias look
wretched, pallid, and yellow, and the very infant at the breast
lias ague stamped on its face. Many of the women have fine
features, but are haggard and worn from the effects of the
deadly miasma which rises in autumn from the marshes of
Huleli. The people are a quiet harmless set, neither carrying
arms, nor inflicting on others the necessity for carrying them.
Law and order reign. There is actually a village policeman,
and a Kadi from Damascus, from whom we had a visit, as
well as from the village sheikh, and tlie proprietor of the
olive-grove in which Ave camped, and who invited us to stay
under his shade as long as Ave pleased.

L. and B — t had been here for some time, and we made
Banias our head quarters for a few days longer, being Avell
rewarded by a harvest of specimens both of fauna and flora,
in the collection of which we were heartily assisted by the
villagers.

But there is one thing that impresses Banias more deeply
on the heart than its beauty, its ruins, or its natural history.
Into the coasts of Csesarea Philippi our Eedeemer came.
Among these rocks St. Peter confessed His divinity — that
confession Avhich was the " Eock of the Church." Six days at
least did He sojourn here. From hence He took the chosen
three up into that mountain of Hermon behind, and was
transfigured before them. Here was set that wondrous seal
to the resurrection of the; body, as well as to His Godhead.
Here His work of teaching was nearly finished. Hence He
set His face for the last time to go up to Jerusalem, and here
unfolded His coming ])assion. Perhaps it Avas on the open
space in the patliAvay that leads up to the mountain (the only
one up from Banias) that He healed the demoniac boy, and

LAKK PHIALA. 583

taught His disciples the power of faith. We loved to think
so, when we walked up that hilly path on Sunday, and there
read the Gospel story.

]\Iore than once w^e visited Kulat es Subeibeh, the noble
castle of Banias. We were at once struck by its strong re-
semblance, both in situation, in ])lan, and in actual style, to
the castles of Kurn and Shukif. The latter can be distinctly
seen from it. Here, as in Kidat Kurn, we have the rock-
hewn fosse, and the ancient Phoenician substructure of
bevelled stones, with Eonian arches, and Crusading or Sara-
cenic chambers and arches over all.* These castles are almost
in a line, protecting the northern frontier, and were probably
origmally Phcenician strongholds, then Jewish frontier for-
tresses, and made nse of for the like purpose in after ages by
the successive rulers of the land. The castle is difficult of
access, and is in many parts in admirable preservation. Some
Doble cisterns still contain a large sujjply of water, and several
Saracenic halls and long corridors are quite perfect. The build-
ing is over 1,0U0 feet long, and about 200 wide, having at the
east end, like Kurn, a separate and inner citadel, strongly
fortiiied, and which still remains in good preservation.

May 16th was devoted to a most interesting excursion to
Birket er Eani, the Lake Phiala of Josej)hus, east of Banias.
Our track lay up the north side of a deep glen. The hills
on the left were lofty, but, excepting the massive ruin of the
castle, not picturesque ; and we had occasional glimpses of
Hermon, ribbed down all the ravines with snow, while the
liigher and exposed portions were already bare. The nearer
view in its present transition state was by no means striking
or grand, like its distant majesty in winter. The absence of all
bold peaks or granite points, as well as of timber (except of
the smallest size low down), renders Hermon far inferior in
grandeur to mountains of equal height in the Alps or Pyrenees.
And yet it rises from its base nearly 10,000 feet. We passed
the flourishing village of Ain Kunyeh. Our course was on
limestone rocks, comparatively bare, though relieved by many
patches of mulberry and olive groves. Close to us, on our

584 EXTINCT CRATER.

right, a iiioimtain torrent tore down on a nigged bed, while
the opx'iosite side of the ravine was a mighty lava current,
black and rugged, l)ut ^\ illi s.iil of great fertility, clad with a
mass of trees antl brushwood.

In about three hours we came upon a bare but well-
watered plateau, all basalt. We here crossed the stream, up
the gorge of which w^e had crept, and passed a wretched
Bedouin village — Mezra'ah. From this we immediately de-
scended into a wide shallow basin, in the centre of which was
a deep oval lake — Phiala. We walked round it in twenty
minutes. The enclosing hills were bare, except on the south,
which was clad with large flov/ering shrubs and small trees.
There was no marsh, but rich verdure, with many lumps of
black scoria onr it, fringed it to the water's edge. We were in
the centre of an enormous extinct volcano, and the problem
of the lava stream was solved at once. To the east side of
this basin the limestone hills rose bold and lofty, but on the
other tln-ee sides a mass of scoria, lava, and basaltic blocks
had partially decomposed into a rich black earth. From this
crater the liquid diad poured forth, long subsequent to the
deposition of the sedimentary rocks, and, unable to spread
except to the west, had rolled down the valley by the side
of which we had ascended, and finding its level, had worked
its way into the plain of Huleh, as far as the other side of
the channel of the Jordan, which, like its feeder here, had
again scooped out its path through the mass. Standing on a
neighbouring point, whence we could overlook the Huleh, the
deposit was as easily traced as would be the flow of a cup of
viscous fluid upset on an uneven surface. This crater not
only explains the lava currents, but also the frequent volcanic
cinders, and large masses of sponge-like scoria, which strew
the ground for many miles round.

However satisfactory the geological solutions, in natural
history we were not so successful. Not a new plant, not a
waterfowl did we see. Frogs {Rana esevknta, L.) by thousands
upon thousands swarmed in and round the lake, and tlieir
croak was deafening. On every stone and along the edge

COTTON CULTIVATION. 585

they sat in serried ranks, bolting into tlic ^vater before lis as
we stepped, -vvliile hundreds of water snakes {Tropidonotus
hydrus, PaU.) wriggled from under them, but not a stork or
heron to rule them. A fringe of rushes and water- weeds lined
the slimy pool, which was shallow for a few feet, and then
became suddenly deep. The water was icy cold, and swarmed
with leeches, which were adhering in numbers to every stone.
Immense numbers of warblers and red-backed shrikes were
breeding on the southern slopes, and in three or four hours
we obtained about twenty nests, chiefly the Orphean warbler,
and lesser whitethroat {Sylvia orpliea and S. curruca), as well
as Emhcriza ecesia, Cretzs.

From Banias we also explored the east side of the Huleh,
for a distance of four hours down, keeping as close to the
marsh as we could, till we reached the ruins of Sukeik.
Track there was none, as we rode through a rich park -like
corn district, where the holm oaks, though standing singly,
were close enough to give at a distance the impression of forest.
But soon we had to cross the Nahr Banias by a scarcely prac-
ticable ford, and then floundered for several miles over the
swampy plain. It was studded with temporary villages, col-
lections of mat-huts, such as are used by the Ghawarineh on
the plain of Acre, less costly, but infinitely more filthy, than
the black tent, and not so frequently moved. The site of an
old encampment consequently preserves for days that peculiar
smell of Arab dirt, which is never forgotten by those who
have once been offended by it. We rode for miles through
patches of nearly ripe wheat, alternathig with larger tracts in
which the cotton-plants were just peeping above ground. The
effects of the gTcat struggle in America have reached even to
distant Syria. The Jews of Damascus have advanced con-
siderable sums to the feUahin on mortgage of the anticipated
crop ; and so great has been the impulse given to cultivation,
that land, which has remained untilled probably since the
Saracen inroads, is being broken up ; and scores of wooden
ploughs were at work, drawn by ungainly buffaloes, on land
so swampy that it was scarcely possible to w^alk over it.

586 HULEH.

We sto})pcd at one of the basket villages, and seeing large
herds of cows, rode up to the only black tent (the Sheikh's),
and asked for a drink of " lebcn." He snrlily refused, much
to the chagrin, as we could see, of his girl-wife, the only pretty
woman we met among the felluliin Arabs. However, an old
man came forward and offered us some, though, unlike a true
Bedouin, he had no objection to take a piastre for it. The
Bedouin will sell fresh milk, " haleeb," but not "leben," or
soured curds. These people were almost black, stunted, and
dwarfed by the unwholesome heat of the plain, yet their
children looked less fever-stricken than those of Banias.

As we proceeded we saw many herons, grey, purple, white,
buff-backed, and squacco, and shot numbers of pratincoles, as
well as both species of cuckoo, and the bright golden oriole
(Oriolus galhula, L.). "When we had ridden for three hours, a
low spur projecting into the plain afforded us a good halting-
spot, under the shade of some fine old oak-trees, peopled by
clouds of turtledoves ; and while resting there a young Arab
from a neighbouring camp brought us, unasked, a great iron
pot full of rich new buffalo's milk, for which he would accept
no payment, but sat down and joined us in eating our barley-
cakes and hard boiled eggs. There were some traces of ruins,
faint, but extensive, on this platform, to which he gave the
name of Sukeik, and which may very possibly be the remains
of Seleucia, a town on the borders of the Huleh on the east,
mentioned by Josephus (Bell. Jud. iv. 1, 1), and not yet iden-
tified. These remains are insignificant for those of a place of
importance, but they are the only ones we found on the east
side, though I must confess our search was not exhaustive.

Several Arabs joined us here, and were very civil, though
we were quite alone. "We could not agree v.-itli Porter's
remark, that the Arabs of the Huleh are, " in expression, as
sinister as the buffaloes they tend." It was, indeed, delightful
to enjoy the luxury of being free from guards, and from the
necessity for carrying arms. As one of our visitors remarked,.
" There are no robbers here, only, what is worse, buffaloes,
that run at strangers and do not mind guns."

IMPENETRABLE SWAMP. f)87

Tlie western side of tlie marsh and lake we examined at
our leisure, day after day, from our camp at Kedes, as the
pestilential character of the plain was too evident to permit
us to pitch tents in the lower ground. Fading across the
well-cultivated plateau east of Kedes, we descended daily by
the steep and perilous path which leads down from Nebi
Tusha, where Moslem tradition says Joseph was sold by his
brethren to the ]Midianites, and where there is a khan for the
use of the few travellers who pass this way. In one hour
and a half from our camp we could reach the bottom, and
then half an hour's canter brought us to the edge of the
marsh, three miles north of the lake. Birds there were in
abundance — herons, white and grey, purple and buff-backed,
bitterns great and little {Botaurus stellaris and Ardeola minuta),
purple gallinules, {Por^jhyrio hyacintlms), marbled ducks by
hundreds [Anas angustirostrisjlevirm) , and whatever else loves
a jungle and a swamp, with frogs for dinner.

The whole marsh is marked in the maps as impassable, and
most truly it is so. I never anywhere else have met with a
swamp so vast and so utterly impenetrable, llrst there is an
ordinary bog, which takes one up to the knees in water, then,
, after half a mile, a belt of deeper swamp, where the yellow
1 water-lily {Xvjyhar lutea, D. C.) flourishes. Then a belt of tall
reeds ; the open water covered with white water-lily {Nymphcea
1 alba, L.), and beyond again an impenetrable wilderness of
papyrus {Pcqiyrus antiquoimm), in the beautiful forest of which
Dr. Thomson has not recognised the celebrated material of
Eg}'pt, though he has well described it under its Arabic name,
"babeer." [Land and Book, 259.) The papyrus extends right
across to the east side. A false step off its roots will take the
intruder over head in suffocating peat mud. "We spent a long
time in attempting to effect an entrance, and at last gave it
up, satisfied that the marsh birds were not to be had. In fact
the whole is simply a floating bog of several miles square — a
very thin crust of vegetation over an unknown depth of
water, and if the weight of the explorer breaks through this,
suffocation is imminent. Some of the Arabs, who were tilling

588 AIX MELLAIIEII.

the plain for cotton, assnred ns that even a wild boar never
got through it. We shot two T)itterns, but, in endeavouring
to retrieve them, I slipped from the root r)n which I was
standing, and was drawn down in a moment, only saving
myself from drowning by my gun, which had providentially
caught across a papyrus stem.

As we sat down to rest in the plain, some of the labourers
came and joined us. Among them were several Druses, who
informed us the English were much more like Druses than
Christians. This is a j)i'evalent idea in this country, and no
doubt arises in a great measure from the unhappy fact that
Christianity is, in their minds, inseparably connected with
image and picture worship. Added to this, the Jesuits, in
order to thwart our missionaries, take good care to represent
lis to the native Christians as mere Deists, which the Druses
are. We tried to explain that we were '' Christians of the
book," but they incredulously shook their heads, rubbing
their forefingers together, and exclaimed, " sowa sowa" (all
alike).

In order to reach the open water of the lake, we had to
make a circuit, and ride round to the head water of a stream,
a deep, sluggish feeder of the swamp — Ain Mellaheh, a
picturesque spot, a deep pool fringed with tamarisk, papyrus,
and reeds, with a ruin at the end, where the stream bursts
forth, overhung by luxuriant fig-trees, which afforded a dense
and delicious shade. This was our favourite noonday halt.

Here we were delighted to find myriads of the two fresh-
water shells {Mela7io2ms costata and Neretina jordani), which
form the shingle of the Sea of Galilee, but were not found
there alive. They adhered to the under surface of the water-
lilies, and to the stems of the papyrus. Herds of ill-looking
buffaloes were wallowing in the mud, or standing with only
their noses out of water. The buffalo, probably the bull of
Bashan, takes the place of all other cattle in the Ghor. It is
exclusively used for the plough, and its milk is rich and de-
licious, as we often tested in the great iron bowls we quaffetl,
which were brought to us day after day from the encampment.

I

MEKOM. 589

Doubling round Ain INrellaheh, we followed the western
edge of the lake to the exit of the Jordan. Tlie nearer view
of the lake disenchants it of many of its more distant charms.
Unlike Galilee, it is fringed with helts of lilies, pap}Tus, and
water-weeds of all sorts. Without its sacred associations, it
wants the clear beauty of " deep Galilee," though in many
respects a miniature of it. A large, triangular sheet of water,
at the lower end of the vast swampy plain, it has neither the
bold outlines nor the deep colouring of the holy lake. The
base of the triangle is at the north end, Mdiere the impene-
trable mass of reed and papyrus suddenly Ijreaks into a lake.
This edge is wholly inaccessible, but it would well repay the
trouble of carrying a boat for its examination. The course of
the Jordan can be clearly traced from the heights by the open
water down its centre, and on many open pools we could
make out flocks of duck, great white egret, and all other
rarities, hopelessly out of reach.

• The western edge is fringed for the most part by a bank
about six feet high, below which is a narrow strip of deep
shingle formed chiefly of the debris of shells, and the bank
waving with wheat to its very edge. The lake had been five
feet deeper in winter, and its ordinary height might be told by
the fringe of oleanders, which grow stilted like mangroves,
with several feet of root at present liigh in the air. The water
was shallow at this side, for acres of yellow water-lilies floated
on the surface, and a few patches of the white nympha^a grew
behind papyrus tufts.

On three mounds near the banks are ruins situated exactly
like Egyptian villages, Hurraweh, Almaniyeh, and Marutiyeh,
but it may be doubted whether the Huleh was ever perma-
nently inhabited to any great extent. More probably it was
cultivated, as at present, by the inhabitants of the thickset
towns on the healthier heights above.

The lake at the south end contracts to a point, and concen-
trates its waters in a didl heavy rush into the narrow bed of
the Jordan, which rapidly pours a deep impetuous stream
between green treeless banks to the Sea of Galilee. But the

590 I'AllCHKD COKN.

whole plain, the Avestern side of M'hich is here four miles
wide, is fully tilled, and this was the height of the harvest
season. Long rows of black tents and many groups of huts
afforded shelter to the reapers, camped out like Boaz and his
people in the fields of Bethlehem, who all loudly, but good-
humouredly, demanded backshish for the good luck of tlie
harvest, according to the custom of our own harvest fields in
England.

Many fires were lighted on the shingle by the shores of the
lake, fed by the clumps of papyrus roots torn np and washed
ashore ; and groups of Arabs, who had laid aside their sickles,
for the sun was setting, were clustered round them. We
watched with interest the preparation of their evening meal.
A few sheaves of wheat had been brought down from the
fields above ; these were tossed on the fire, and as soon as the
straw was consumed, the charred heads were dexterously
swept from the embers on to a cloak spread on the ground.
The women of the party then beat the ears and tossed them '
into the air, until they were thoroughly winnowed, when the
wheat was eaten without further preparation. We were in-
vited to partake, and found the dish by no means unpalatable.
The green ears had become half-charred by the roasting, and
there was a pleasant mingling of milky wheat and a fresh
crust flavour, as we chewed the paxched corn. We were
delighted to have seen the preparation, and to have par-
taken parched corn, so often mentioned in the Old Testament
Scrintures.

These Huleh Arabs seemed an industrious race. Some were
true Bedouin, others Ghawarineh, and more were from the
villages on the hills, living here in mat huts for two or three
weeks, till they had gathered in their harvest.

We observed that, a little to the south of the Huleh, a low
spur of limestone hills projects nearly across the Ghor from
the westward, just as also south of Lake Gennesaret. Per-
haps these projections may have some connexion with the
formation of the basins above them, as the waters receded
from their ancient level.

^"UTE UN AGIUCULTUKF. 501

NOTE.

The principal grain crops of Palestine are barley, wheat, lentils,
maize, and millet. Of the latter there is very little, and it is all
gathered ill hy the end of May. The maize is then only just be-
ginning to shoot. In the hotter parts of the Jordan valley the
barley harvest is over" by the end of IMarch, and throughout the
country the wheat harvest is at its height at the end of May, ex-
cepting m the highlands of Galilee, where it is about a fortnight
later.

There seems to be but one variety of barley grown. Of wheat
we noticed three, all bearded : one with a very short beard ; a
second, the most generally cultivated, with very long beard, as long
as our barley, short and thick set in the ear, and very short in the
straw, rarely over eighteen inches or two feet in length. A third
variety, longer and coarser in the straw, has a black beard, and
black or brown husk. It is a coarse sample, much thicker in the
bran than the other varieties, but a better yield. The barley crops
are fair, sometimes heavy, and the samples beautifully bright, and
superior to many of our best malting qualities. I>ut tlie wheat
crops are very poor and light, and would disgust an English
farmer. One may ride and walk through the standing corn with-
out the slightest objection made, or harm done. 'No wonder it is
thin, when white crojis are raised from the same soil year after
year, and no sort of manure ever put into the ground. From ten to
fifteen bushels per acre is, so far as we could calculate from tlie
Arab measures, considered a very good yield. Lentils {Ervnm
lens), are a very general crop, grown especially under the olives, and
on the pooc stony soils, yielding but a small return. Its cultivation
dates back to the time of tlie early patriarchs (Gen. xxv. 34). It is
everywhere off the ground by the end of May, and in the warmer
districts in April. Horse-beans are grown to some extent in the
heavier soils, and are ground down to mix with barley meal for
bread, but the yield is very light when compared with English
crops.

Besides these crops, many of the richer plots of land are planted
■with tobacco, which is dibbled in from seed beds in the beginning
of May, and is about six inches high by the 1st of June. Tliu
plants are set about a yard apart each way. The cucumber is also

592 AGKICULTUKE AND CROPS.

■an itoin in :igriculture, and is carefully tended, the neglect of
manure being in some degree compensated by liberal supplies of
muddy -water, let in by trenches every two or three days. The
cucumbers are not dibbled, but sown in ridges four feet apart, each
pinch of seed sending up six or eight plants, at distances of three
feet in the trench.

Cotton, too, is becoming a A'cry important item in all the rich,
low, alluvial lands ; and, like the cucumber, is sown in ridges, but
closer ; both these crops being set at the beginning of May, and on
land off which barley has been taken, the cotton may be sown as
late as the end of May.

Of artificial grasses there are none, and haymaking is unknoAvn
in the country ; but vast quantities of rich herbage are utterly
wasted, as in INIarch there is far more than the cattle can consume,
wbile by the end of May huge thistles and several species of great
prickly centaureas have completely choked the scorched and
withered blades.

Is it matter for surprise, that under such a wretched system, or
rather absence of system, the land should have gone back from its
ancient fertility 1

('■■'

CHAPTER XXV.

From thellulch to the Litany (Leontcs) — Watering the Cattle — Bridge Klmrdcli
— Kulat es Skukif {Bel fort) — Jedeideh — Beauty of the Leontcs Gorge — Burghite
— Italian Scenery — Hasheiya — Christian Schools — Needleivomcn — El KHurh
— Natural Bridge of the Litany — Wild Ravine — Birds of the Rocks — Gigantic
Tree — The Oak of Libhciya — Thelthathah — Ionic Temide — Rasliciya — Goats
— The Deiv of Hennon — Ascent of the Mountain — The ^'Aj^ple" of Scrip-
ture not the Aj)ple, Orange, or Citron, 2}rohably the Apricot — Vineyards of
Ilermon — Plants and Birds — Subarctic Forms accounted for — View from the
top of Her man — Rtiined Temple of Baal — Costumes of Rasheiya — Temple at
Rukleh — Thunderstorm — Damascus — Gardens — Interiors — Mosque.

On the 2Stli of iMay we left the swamps of the Huleh, and
began to turn our faces northwards, making our first day's
journey to Kulat es Shukif, the old Crusading castle of Belfort,
overhanging the chasm of the Litany (Leontes). The heights
to the west of Al)il afforded a fine prospect as we looked
down on the upper plain of the Huleh, the origin of that long
valley which had been the axis of our six months' wanderings.
Hermon, in naked, massive grandeur, stood beyond it, with
woods and villages nestled round its base ; while right across,
to the north of us, stretched a low saddle-back ridge — a link
uniting Hermon, the extremity of the anti-Lebanon, with the
Lebanon range. The southern crests of Lebanon rose still
ribbed with snow, and diverging to the north-west ; while the
other range expanded to the north-east : the two embracing
the widening plain of the Bukaa, or Ccele Syria, as far as " the
entering in of Hamath." We w^ere standing exactly where
the watersheds of the Mediterranean and the Jordan separate ;
and the little rills, right and left, ran respectively to the east
and the west. Then the openings of the Lebanon here and
there revealed cultivation, with its many-chequered shades of
green, stretching far up into the recesses of the mountains.

y Q

594 KULAT ES SHUKIF.

The chasm of the Leontes M'as cninj)letely liidden, though the
stronghold of Bel fort, perched on beetling cliffs on the other
side, seemed close to us.

Tlie day was oppressively hot, and in a little valley we
came upon a hinely well, round which wert; gathered some
twenty or thirty herds of goats, each two or three hundred in
number, waiting to be watered in turn, and tended by boys
and women. The animals lay round their respective guardians
in good order, panting Avith heat, and eagerly watching till
their turn should come for the cooling draught. The water
was slowly drawn in skin buckets, and poured into a row of
ancient sarcophagi, which served as troughs. As soon as his
turn came, each shepherd started np, and liis goats made
a rush round him, speedily emptied tiie slowly-filled troughs,
and then passed to the other side ; while those who had
watered their cattle, sat and chatted, smoked, flirted, or
wrangled, as the case might be. " The places for drawing
water " are still the rendezvous for the gossips and youngsters
of the neighbourhood.

Having sent on our convoy, and relying on our maps and
instincts to find the way, we wandered some six miles beyond
the bridge that leads to Shukif, and did not discover our
mistake till set right by a Druse, M'hom we met with liis
plovigh. We had no cause to regret our long circuit, for we
enjoyed many an Alpine peep. It was pleasant to see the
brightly-clad, fair-complexioned Syrians, Druse or Christian,
at work in their fields, without- arms ; and to be greeted with
a curtsey and a cheerful salaam by the clean-looking, unveiled
damsels and matrons, with their children and water-jars, so
different from the bundles of filthy dark blue rags which pass
for women among the Bedouin. And then the torrent roared
in the gorge 1,500 feet below us, milk-w'hite and swollen
with the melting snow, overhung with semi-tropical oleanders,
fig-trees, and Oriental planes ; while the upper cliffs were
clad with northern vegetation — two zones of climate being
thus visible at once.

From the bridge (Jisr Khardeli), an old, dilapidated struc-

BURGHUZ. 595

lure of tliree arches, without a parapet, m'g asceuded, on the
■first made- road we had trodden in Syria, up a zigza<T course,
till, at the height of 1,600 feet, we reached our camp, under the
shadow of the ancient castle of Shuki. Here we had the srood
fortune to be joined by two fellow-countrymen, Messrs. Young
and Prance, who had come, like ourselves, to spend a quiet
Sunday here, and whose continued society heightened the
enjoyment of the subsequent part of our tour. "We remained
t\vo days at this spot, and enjoyed the extensive views which
the castle affords, and M'hich have been described by many
travellers. But no description can convey nn adequate idea
of the grandeur of position of the castle itself, on the brink of
a cliff 1,500 feet high, running sheer down to the river, which
soon makes a sudden turn from a due-south to a due-west
course, but everywhere has to thread its way at the bottom of a
stupendous fissure. The castle, though repaired and enlarged
by the Crusaders, was evidently not built by them, and, like
Kuru and Subeibeh, exhibits remains of the stone-work of
long previous epochs. Subeibeh and Tibneh, its sister for-
tresses, were in view, as well as a long reach of the ]\Iediter-
ranean from Tyre almost to Sidon, which reminded us more
of home, and the approaching end of our rambles, than any
glimpse we had had for months. We searched the deep glen,
in the recesses of which we found many a Lebanon and
northern plant unknown to the south ; while not anly the
bracken fern and the oleander, side by side, but many incon-
gruous birds, marked this as the dividing line between the
liighlands and the lowlands. The heat was overpowering,
and the thermometer rose to 105° in the shade.

Moi/ 31st. — From Khardeli we endeavoured to follow up
by the course of the Leontes as far as Burghuz. To keep the
line of the deep channel of the river, or even to keep it in
sight, we found impracticable, from the rugged nature of the
ground. We turned eastward, and climbed a steep hill,
crowned by the Christian village of Jedeideh. The houses,
though flat-roofed, like those of the south, were substantially
built, and much larger than the ordinary hovels of the

Q Q 2 •

5 9(1 GORGE OF THE LITANY.

countiy. They all rejoiced in nnglazed windows, and some
wc^'e two stories liif;li. Stone took the place of mud in their
coustruction — neatly hammer-dressed mountain limestone,
from a quarry close by. This was the first occurrence we had
noticed of the mountain limestone, and it marked our approach
to the Lebanon. It was intersected by many veins of crystal-
line carbonate of lime. The people were fair, and almost Gre-
cian in tiieir type of face. There seemed to be a sprinkling
of a richer class, and some houses boasted door-handles, with
brass ornaments, and at one was suspended a thin flat bar of
iron by way of door-bell. A substantially-built church, with
bell-turret, stood at the end of the village ; and its outskirts
were stocked with white mulberry and apricot trees, as well
as the usual olives.

Near the village of Dibljin we came again to the edge of
the chasm, and three hours more brought us to the bridge of
Burghuz. • The channel, though 1,000 feet deep, was so nar-
row, that the opposite ridge was w^ithin gunshot. Looking
down the giddy abyss, we could see the cliff on our side
partially clothed v^ihli myrtle, bay, and caper hanging from
the fissures, while the opposite side was perforated with many
shallow caves, the inaccessible eyries of vultures, eagles, and
lanner falcons, which were sailing in multitudes around. The
lower part had many ledges clad with shrubs, the strong-
holds of the Syrian bear, though inaccessible even to goats.
Far beneath dashed the milk-white river, a silver line in a
ruby sotting of oleander, roaring, doubtless, fiercely, but too
distant to be heard at the height on which we stood. This
cleft of the Leontes was the only truly Alpine scenery we
had met with in Palestine, and in any country, and amidst
any mountains, would attract admiration.

As we neared the bridge, the wall of rock on our side
suddenly broke down into an open space, down which wound
a road, half-buried in old Oriental plane trees, festooned with
wild vines. A very sweet and snow-white multitlora rose
covered the banks with a sheet of blossom, and the white
scented clematis wove many a garland round the branches of

ITAI-IAX SCENEliY. 507

the bay and mp-tle trees above the oleander fringe. The
bank above the bridge on the other side rapidly rose, till it
became as steep and precipitous as ever, and the chamiel Avas
narrowed to a tremendous cleft, splitting the slope of tlie
mountain through whicli it cut. On this steep was ])erclied
the romantic-looking village of Burghuz, one tier of houses
overlianging and threatening another, — a site selected for
security rather than for convenience.

After a short repose during the noonday heat, we struck,
by a rocky and difficult path, across the low spur of hills
which separated us from the upper Jordan valley, called here
the Hasbany. For months past we had been looking from
the south on the compact and rounded front of Hermon.
Now for the first time we had a side view, and saw a range
rather tliau a single peak. It is, in fact, the southern group
of the anti-Lebanon, the culminating, though the extreme,
point, while the Lebanon range seemed almost linked with its
western spurs.

Very soon we seemed to have descended from the Alps
into Italy. There was the quiet repose and all the charac-
teristics of one of Poussin's pictures. The level valley was
a forest of fruit-trees, the pale green of the .mulberry con-
trasting sweetly with the dark blue foliage of the olive; and
groups of tall poplars marked the course of the Ilasbany.
The vine straggled luxuriantly wherever there was space for
it among the trees ; and a busy population in picturesque
costume \vas everywhere employed, — the men with their
mattocks, or their ploughs and oxen, tlie women and children
gathering mulberry-leaves for their silkworms. It was Lom-
bardy rather than Palestine. But we are now on the borders
of the land, and the curse whicli seems to rest on most of it
extends not to these Christian valleys.

From the castle of Shukif to the bridge of Burglmz, and
again on the higher parts of the lower hills, and up tlie valley
above Hasbeiya, a thin stratum of sandstone overlies the
limestone, extending as far north as Libbeiya, but denuded in
the lower ground. The Lebanon range, as exposed in the

598 NEEDLEWOMEN.

gorge of the Litany, dipped from 5° to 9° west. This was, of
course, on the IMeditcrrnnoan watershed ; and, near its crest,
some of the exposed sections were ahnost vertical, and much
contorted. If the dip continue regularly (which I am not
able to aflirm), may it not be that we have here the axis of
elevation ? Supposing an elevating force to have acted along
the partition of the watershed, it would account for the dip
towards the west, and also for the eastward dii* of the Ghor.

The little town of llasbeiya is planted on the side of a sort
of amphitheatre, almost buried in the luxuriance of its olive-
yards, orchards, and vineyards ; which run, terrace upon ter-
race, far up the mountain, on both sides of the steep valley.
In what sad contrast with the quiet beauty of nature around
us were the harrowinf-; memories of the friohtful massacre
not many months before • The great palace of the Emir is
now half ruined, and occupied by a Turkish Governor. The
Christian population has returned, and many houses have
been rebuilt, together with a large Greek church, with side
aisles. Among all the picturesque buildings, the flat roofs
of which rise terrace over terrace, a large American Pro-
testant church has just been finished, with a tall gable roof;
and, in the hugeness of its deformity, it can only be com-
pared to a chimney-pot hat making its appearance amidst the
graceful variety of Oriental head-dresses.

We found a group of neatly-dressed women and girls
awaiting our arrival at our tents, with white quilted caps for
sale, the staple of the place. The fair, intelligent-looking
girls told of the North, and of Christian influences. Most of
them were Protestants, and had been educated at the En^dish
school here, an offshoot of Mrs. Thompson's, at Beyrout, though
they do n(jt k^arn the English language, which here would be
useless. We produced our dilapidated wardrobes, and half a
dozen of them at once set to work, under the lee of the tente,
to repair our tattered outfit, after a rough and ready fashion,
at the cost of a few pence and some packets of needles, wdiich
afforded great delight.

June 1st. — From Hasbeiya we proceeded north, by a rather

WILD RAVINE. 590

uninteresting road across the Teini (the name given to the
Jordan, or Hasbany, in its upper part), to visit El Kuweh, the
( tlcbrated natural bridge over the Litany, six niik'S above
Buighuz. Dean Stanley has described the remarkable geo-
graphical view which this ride affords of the Lebanon and
anti-Lebanon, and the valley between them, as far as the
Lake of Gennesaret.

As we approached El Kuweh, we looked over the liidden
chasm unsuspectingly, but, on a sudden, found ourselves on
the brink of a very steep descent, when we had to dismount
and warily lead our horses. It was not till we were on the
bridge itself that we recognised the grandeur of the scene —
called magnificent by even the impassive Dr. Kobinson. Tlie
bridge itself is formed by a number of huge rocks, Mhich
Jiave rolled down from the narrow chasm above, leaving a
channel for the stream a hundred feet below them. ]\Iany
other masses of cliff are jambed in the gorge, in every pos-
sible position ; among them fig-trees, plane-trees, and many
shrubs shoot forth, rather like trees practising gymnastics,
tlian quietly holding up their heads in their proper place in
nature. As I hung over, and looked down through the tliick
l)0Ughs of a fig-tree, a group of rock-doves were enjoying their
noonday rest on a crag fifty feet below, little suspecting a
liuman eye was on them, till I dropped figs upon their backs.
The blue thrush {Pctrocinclct cyanud) hopped from corner to
corner, equally unconscious of my presence ; and long files of
rock-swallows {Cotyle rupestris) were skimming backwards
and forwards under the bridge, and threading the maze of
labyrinth below me, like skilled performers in some intri-
cate dance. Every chink was fresh with iems—Filix mas,
Asplcnium triehomanes and A dianium nirjrum, Gymnofjramma
Ipptophylla, Cheilanthes fragrans, Pteris longifolia, Aiipidivm
(Ulitatiim. The maidenhair graced the rocks, and combined
with the cool fi-eshness to carry the fancy back to scenes
where wood, water, and ferns are less rare than in Palestine.
Above the narrow cleft, which is two hundred feet deep, the
gorge expands a little, leaving a sloping ledge of green turf,

(JOO GIGANTIC TliEE.

broken by detached fragments of rock. Here the Syrian and
the chestnut-breasted nuthatches flitted, in small parties, from
side to side ; and the crimson-shouldered wall-creeper ran
busily up the face of the precipice.

AVlien we mounted again, the castle of Belfort was the
central object in the S(^uthward view. Northwards, the Le-
banon looked bare, though Sunnin, furrowed with broad
snow-tracks down its side, gave an idea of height, which the
unrelieved bareness of the range would not otherwise have
suggested. The deep chasm of the Leontes cuts through the
Lebanon in a manner for which the physical configuration of
the country will not account, slicing through the mountains,
instead of rounding them, while the divided portions cling
closely together over the furious but secluded stream. Still
it pursues an obstinate course through the mightiest obstacles,
like some canal engineered by a bold Brunei of the Titanic
world.

From Eb Kuweh, half an hour brought us to Yahmur, a
village surrounded by vineyards, and where there is a shaft
sunk through the rock, and a bitumen-pit worked by a wind-
lass. The bitumen here is very soft, of the consistency of
stiff coal-tar, and is a monopoly farmed from the Government
at Damascus. It is doubtless the "jntch " of Scripture, and
seems to be a sort of congealed petroleum. The Arabs tell us
it grows ; and doubtless these wells, of which there are also
many near Hasbeiya, act as taps, and drain it gradually from
the subterranean fissures in which it is compressed. It solidi-
fies on exposure to the atmosphere. The rock which overlies
it is the ordinary cretaceous limestone of the country.

From Yahmur we crossed a difficult ridge, the Jebel ed
Buhar, the starting point of the Jordan valley, and the link
between Hermon and Lebanon, which hence diverge N.E. and
N.^Y. respectively. Crossing the head of the valley, with a
fine vista down the Huleh, we approached the village of
Libbeiya, On the little plateau in front of it, stood what
seemed to be a dome-like grouj) of holm oak. "That cannot
be a single tree," Me exclaimed, and as the branches swept tu

IO^UC TEMPLE. ()01

tlie ground, a tnft of brushwood in front seemed to divide the
trunk into two or three. However, on reaching it, we found
ourselves under the most magnificent tree I remember ever to
have seen. Abraham's and the Penshanger Oaks are shaliliy
in comparison. It is one symmetrical tree in the heyday of
its prime, its wide-spreading roots gather together into a pe-
destal, which at the height of six feet sends forth more than a
dozen lateral branches, each a fine piece of timber in itself At
four feet from the ground, the narrowest part, where its waist
is tightly and most fasliionably compressed, it measured
thirty-seven feet in circumference. The branches extend
with perfect symmetry, forming a true circle and a dome
without flaAv or break, covering a circumference of ninety-
one yards, everywhere reaching down to Avithin five feet of
the gTound, as though trimmed artificially to that height by
the browsing of the cattle. It has neither history nor legend,
and is known to the villagers simply as the oak of Libbeiya,
and seems to have escaped the notice of travellers. Under its
shade we sat and wondered.

The next village was Thelthathah, witli the remarkble
ruined temple called Nebi Sufa, one wall of which still stands
erect. It was one of the grand circle of temples of Baal, all
facinsj Hermon, this one looking due east towards it. Its
architecture is Ionic, of the oldest and severest tj^ie,^ the
frieze simple, adorned with the figures of a ram's head and
bull's head alternately. The whole of the noiih wall is
standing, tall and desolate, without a fragment of the others.
We fomid under the ruins some interesting crypt corridors,
very low and massive, apparently a series of sepulcliral gal-
leries, six feet high and fifteen feet wide, opening into each
other.

We next crossed a long basaltic stream, which for several
miles forms a rounded elevation running from north to south,
rugged, and covered Mith boulders, but nourishing many fine
vineyards. It is about a mile and a half wide. At a dis-

1 Porter, by some unaecouutable mistake, calls it " Corintliian, light and
graceful, though not in the best style."— fP. r>70.

602

GOATS.

tance it looks like a lower ridge parallel to Jclicl ed Duhar,
running down the AVady Teim, but closer examination soon
shows that it has been a subseq[uent irruption, partially filling
in the more ancient valley.

As we approached Easheiya, the sunset hues of Hermon
were magniticent, i-ecalling the familiar evening glow on
!Mont Blanc or Monte Rosa, the lovely blush, the death-like
pallor, and the darkness relieved by the snow, in quick suc-
cession. The last half-hour was a steep ascent up a rocky
path amidst vineyards, till we reached Easheiya, perched on a
spur of Hermon projecting to the north ; the palace of the
Druse Emir, the hereditary feudal lord, occupying the brow,
and the straggling flat-roofed houses, the slopes and depres-
sions on the irregular site, bearing a rude resemblance to the
city of Durham.

RASUKIVA.

Below the castle is a wide- open market-place. Tn it hun-
dreds of goats were gathered for the night, and it was no easy
matter to thread our way among them, as they had no idea of
]novin£f for such belated intruders on their rest. All the she-
goats of the neighbouring hills are driven in every evening,

THE DEW OF HEREON. CiO;^

and remain for their morning milking, after wliicli they set
forth on their day's excursion. Each honso possesses several,
and all know their owners. The evening milking is a pic-
turesque scene. Every street and open space is filled with the
goats, and women, girls, and boys are everywhere milking
with their small pewter pots, the goats anxiously waiting their
turn, and lying down to chew the cud as soon as it is over.
As no kids or he-goats are admitted, the scene is very orderly,
and there is none of the deafening bleating which usually
characterizes large llocks. They are a solemn set, these black
mountain goats, and by the gravity of their demeanour excite
a suspicion that they have had no youth — that they never were
kids. Tlie ears of the Lebanon goats are not so long as in
the Syrian breed, nor do they curl up, and the horns are
generally larger, and often diverge horizontally instead of
lying back over the ears. The hair is longer, and more silky,
and the build of the animal more compact. Any other colour
than black is rare.

Sheep here are few and far between, and of a very different
breed from the Palestine sheep with its broad, flat tail, long
Eoman nose, and hornless head. There are some broad-tailed
sheep here, but more of the merino shape, short-wooled, and
larger in the barrel, while their mutton is much better, owing
perhaps to their not running to tail.

At Easheiya, which we made our head-quarters for five
days, the morning air w-as keen and frosty, and the moimtain
atmosphere a truly refreshing change. We were now, for the
first time since we had been in the country, above the line of
the olive, which no longer added its silvery blue to the varied
shade of the landscape, but its place was abundantly supplied
by fine walnut-trees, apricots, figs, and almonds.

We could not here but recall the Psalmist's expression, " As
the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended ujjon
the mountains of Zion" (Ps. cxxxiii. :'), (in which passage Zion
is evidently a synonym for Hermon, as in Deut. iv. 48,
where we read that the limits of the land were " even unto
Mount Sion, which is Hermon,") for more copious dew we

G04 THE APPLE OF SCllIPTUllE.

never experienced. Everything- was drcnclied witli it, and
the tents were small protection. The nnder sides of our
macintosh sheets were in water, our guns were rusted, dew-
drops were hanging everywhere. The copiousness of the
dew is easily accounted for by the geographical configuration.
The hot air in the dayiime comes steaming up the Ghor from
the Huleh, while Hermon arrests all the moisture, and de-
posits it congealed at nights.

Though Hermon is 9,400 feet above the jMediterranean, and
nearly 11,000 above the Ghor on which it looks down, I never
experienced an easier mountain ascent. There was no abso-
lute necessity ever to dismount till we gained the top. For
the first hour we wound among vine-clad hills in all the
beauty of early summer, the young shoots hanging from
every rock, and climbing up the rough stoneheaps ; and the
vineyards, especially in the lower valleys, being well stocked
with mulberry, apricot, and fig-trees. Then having crossed a
well-watered plain, where the wheat was still green, for we
were now on the cold uplands, the real ascent began. From
its commencemeiit vineyards supplanted cornfields, not
studded, like those of Easheiya, with fig-trees, but with pear-
trees, here one of the most abundant fruits, and wdiich we
had often found wild in the woods of Northern Galilee.

It is a question, what is the "apple" of Scripture, niSn
(tappuach). Dr. Thomson {The Land and the Booh, p. 546)
argues for our apple, which he states to be found in great abun-
dance at Askelon. I have not visited Askelon, but I scarcely
ever saw the apple-tree in Palestine, nor till we reached
Damascus, except on a few very high situations in Lebanon.
I have searched in vain in the gardens of Jaffa, a situation
and climate precisely like Askelon, for any decent apples, and
never found any, though there w^ere plenty of quinces, and
some few miserable apple-trees, which, owing to the heat,
neither thrive nor yield. Perhaps Dr. Thomson mistook the
quince for the apple. He objects to the acceptance of the
citron, wliich is generally ])nt forward as the representa-
tion of " tai)puach," on llie ground that it is a "small tender

VINEYARDS OF IIKRMOX. (105

tree," "too small and straggling to make a sliado." But he
surely can never have noticed the citron-trees of Jenin, Caifia,
Sidon, or a dozen other i)laces, quite as large as the orange,
and affording a dense shade. The pear and the quince are, I
conceive, too local, and not sufliciently valued, to stand for the
favourite fruit of the Canticles. The orange is most probaldy
a later introduction into the country. For my own part I
have no hesitation in expressing my conviction that the cqjricot
iJLo,^ {miislimiLshali) alone is the apple of Scripture. It
is true we found no wild apricot-trees, while we found
wild pears; but neither is the apple, quince, or citron wild
in Palestine, and the apricot is known to be a native of the
neighbouring country of Armenia, and, therefore, introduced
probably as early as the vine, which is originally from tlie
same regions, and is certainly not a native of Palestine. But
everywhere the apricot is common ; perhaps it is, with tlie
single exception of the fig, the most abundant fruit of the
country. In highlands and lowlands alike, by the shores of
the Mediterranean and on tlie banks of the Jordan, in tlio
nooks of Judffia, under the heights of Lebanon, in the recesses
of Galilee, and in the glades of Gilead, the apricot flourishes,
and yields a crop of prodigious abimdance. Its characteristics
meet every condition of the " tappuach " of Scripture. " I sat
down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was
sweet to my taste." (Cant. ii. 3.) Near Damascus, and on
the banks of the Barada, we have pitched our tents under
its shade, and spread our carpets secure from the rays of the
sun. "The smell of thy nose (shall be) like tappiiach."
(Cant. vii. 8.) There can scarcely be a more deliciously-per-
fumed fruit than the apricot ; and what fruit can better fit the
epithet of Solomon, "Apples oi gold in pictures of silver,".
(Prov. XXV. 11) than this golden fruit, as its branches bend
under the weight in their setting of bright yet pale foliage ?

The vineyards under Hermon are more picturesque than
those of Southern Europe. AVherever the soil admits, the
long aged branches trail on the ground, and the fruit-bearing
shoots are raised on short forked sticks. But in many jdaces

606 PLANTS AND BIRDS.

tlie soil is invisible, and the whole liill-side looks like the
debris of a stone-qiuiny. Here an ingenious method is
adopted. The lai'ger stones are gathered np into dry Avails,
three feet apart, and about the same height. The vines are
allowed to trail and hang over these little walls, by which
means a very large surface is exposed to the sun, and the
crops are enormous.

In these vineyards we obtained no less than three new
species of birds — a very beautiful little lincli, allied to our
canary, and described by me {Proceedinr/s of Zool. Soc, Nov.
1864) as Serinus aurifrons ; a new warbler, named by me
JTippolais upclieri {Ibid.) ; and a very beautiful and remark-
able bini, Bcssonornis alhigularis [Ibid.). All these three
we obtained during two days, and some of them in consi-
derable plenty ; and of all we discovered the nests and eggs.
All were songsters of no ordinary power and compass. Who
can say there is nothing left to be discovered in natural his-
tory, when on hackneyed Hermon, in a single spot, three new
species could reward our search ?

From the vineyards we rose over old " moraines," into a
slope of oak coppice, which gradually dwindled to a bare
rocky ravine, the sides of which afforded yet clearer evidence
of glacial action, for the ice scratches of the old glaciers
could plainly be traced on the rounded face of many a rock
and boulder. The surface of tlie soil was dotted with numbers
of dwarf shrubs, Rosa spinosissima, Prunus syriacus, a most
exquisite little shrub, far surpassing the cotoneaster, which it
resembles in manner of growth, many clumps of a lovely
pink astragalus, and other plants too many to recount, strange
to our eyes, but kept down by the constant browsing of the
goats.

The ascent graduall}'. became steeper, yet we could still
keep the saddle, for there were no peaks, no granite "aiguilles."
The hard crystalline limestone was much upheaved, and dipped
almost vertically south-west, but was rounded and worn by
aqueous or glacial action. At length we crossed the first
ridge of snow, after which, turfy banks, gravelly slopes, and

SUBARCTIC rOI{JIS ACCOUNTED FOR. G07

broad sno\v-})atches, alternated till -we reached the summit,
the ascent having occupied five hours.

Porter describes the sides and top of Hcrmon as the acme
of barren desolation. Much must depend on the time of
year. To us they were rich indeed. "We obtained a littk^
short-tailed marmot, of a species new to us, near the top. The
Alpine yellow-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax aljnmis, L.) perched
near us, and kept hovering in small bands about us. The
raven and the common swift were incessantly wheeling,
croaking, and screaming round us. The griffon, and the
Eg}'ptian vulture, with an eagle or two, soared majestically
far above our heads. The snow was covered with the fresh
tracks of bears, though none of these were visible. Of smaller
birds, the English brown linnet [Linofa cannabina, L.), the
common wheatear {Saxicola (enanthe, L.), the snow finch [Mon-
tifringilla nivalis, L.), and the Persian horned lark (Otocoris
penicillata, Gould) were living and breeding abundantly. Of
all of these we found nests, but with young instead of eggs.
It was a strange surprise to discover on this isolated Arctic
patch two English winter birds, with the horned lark of
Persia, the chough of the Alps, and just below, a finch,
related to the Himalayan birds, and a warbler related to the
Central African Bessonornis.

The occurrence of these boreal forms of life, both in fauna
and flora, on Hermon, may perhaps throw some light on the
parallel fact of the occurrence of tropical or semi-tropical
birds and plants in the Jordan valley and the basin of the
Dead Sea. The traces of glacial action are evident both on
Hermon and Lebanon. On the latter range we found evi-
dence (p. 11) of the existence in prehistoric times of animals
nov/ existing only in more northern regions. The occurrence
of an epoch of great cold in the northern hemisphere subse-
quent to the later pleioceue period, called the glacial epoch, is
now admitted by all geologists. But beyond this, we have
much evidence to show that in the pre-glacial later pleiocene
times, there was a more equable and genial temperature in
the northern regions than at present rules there. Tropical, as

608 VIEW FROM THF. 'i'dl' OP IIEUMON.

■svell as temperate forms of life, would consequently have a
consideral)l3^ further northward range ; and we can suppose
that the tropical birds and plants which now scarcely pene-
trate into lower Egypt would and could then exist quite up
to the shores of the jMediterranean, and probably further
north, into Asia Minor. The effect of the supervening glacial
period would naturally be to cause a general exodus from the
north ; the more tender species would be the first to suffer,
and the only survivors of those which had not withdrawn
would be the few which had found such warm nooks as the
Jordan valley for their place of refuge.

When the temperature modified again, shortly before the
creation of man, the retreating cold would naturally leave the
hills occupied by resident nor.thern birds and animals, and
subarctic plants, exactly as we find is the case .on Hermon
and Lebanon. These forms would be confined to their narrow
limits just as the tropical forms to theirs, because Palestine is
out of the range of the uniform temperature of the tropics ;
and is, excepting in the Ghor, subject to considerable changes
of temperature between winter and summer.^

The top of Hermon was quite free from snow, only broad
glacier-like streaks running down the sides, expanding as they
descended towards the valleys. Though rocky, the mountain
was well earthed to the very summit, not indeed for the last
500 feet with a carpet, but with dwarf clumps, which seldom
left a square yard without a plant. And miniature gems all
the flowers were — numbers of a kind of tulip in full bloom, a
delicate blue sort of iris, a crocus, a ranunculus (R. demissus),
three species of androsaee, a sort of primula, a charming /;77-
tilaria, Draha vesicaria and D. villosa, and a rue. These latter
were the plants of the top. Five hundred feet below the
crest plants began to be countless, but we saw no mosses and
no saxifrages. Altogether Hermon added fifty species to our
catalogue of plants.

We were highly favoured in the day and atmosphere. We

1 I am indebted to my friend Osbert Salvin, Esq. for the hints whicli suggested
this solution.

KUINED TEMPLE OF BAAL. ^U'J

were at last on Ilermon, whose snowy head liad been a s(trt
of pole-star for the last six months. We had looked at hini
from Sidon, from Tyre, from Carmel, from Gerizim, fidin llic
hills about Jerusalem, from tlie Dead Sea, from (lik-ad, ami
from Nebo ; and now we were looking down on tliem all, as
they stood out from the embossed map that lay spread at <Mn-
feet. The only drawback was a light tleecy cloud wliich
stretched from Carmel's top all along the Lebanon, lill it
rested upon Jebel Sunnin, close to Baalbec. But it lilted
sufficiently to give us a peep of the Mediterranean in tliivc.
places, and amongst tliem of Tyre. There was a haze, too,
over the Ghor; so that we could only see as far as JcIr'I
Ajlun and Gilead, but Lakes Hulch and (icnnesaret, sunk in
the depths beneath us, and reflecting the sunlight, were mag-
nificent. We could scarcely realise that at one glance we
were taking in the whole of the land through which for more
than six months we had been incessantly wandering. Not
less striking were the views to the north and east, with the
head waters of the Awaj (Pharpar) rising beneath us, and
the Barada (Abana), in the far distance, both rivers marking
the courses of their fertilizing streams by the deep green lines
I if verdure, till the eye rested on the brightness of Damascus,
and then turned up the wide o])ening of Ccele Syria, until
shut in by Lebanon.

A ruined temple of Baal, constructed of squared stones
arranged nearly in a circle, crowns the highest of the
three peaks of Hermon, all very close together. We spent
a great part of the day on the summit, but were before
long painfully affected by the rarity of the atmosphere.
Th(3 sun had sunk behind Lebanon before we descended to
our tents, but long after we had lost him he continued \o
paint and gild Hermon with a beautiful mingling of Alpine
and desert hues.

On our return tlie third evening to our tents, which were
close to the pond or cistern of the town, we found sentries in
charffe, and ourselves d(;barred from usinf^- the water. This is
here a precious commodity, and, as there were symptoms of a

i; u

610 TEMPLE AT RQKLEH.

drought, tlif Emir had issued an edict, limiting the supply of
each household to a pitcher daily ; and restricting its use by
strangers to a single day. Great was the wrangling, loud the
clamour, of the disappointed women with their long jars.
For our own part we despatched a messenger to the Emir,
who speedily returned wdth a bimbashi (corporal) authorised
to permit us to take what we required.

The dress of the women of Kasheiya is peculiar, but very
becoming, though extremely simple. Being all Druses or
Christians, they do not veil, but over a small fez cap wear a
white cotton handkerchief, which hangs down behind, below
the waist. In front, the married women wear another white
handkerchief, from the chin to the waist, the unmarried a
rather open frock, with their long plaited hair hanging down
in front. All have loose coloured trousers tied tight at the
ankles, and over these an open skirt of cotton print rather
full ; they have no stockings, but neat red slippers, often
embroidered, and turned up at the toes.

On the Sunday we had a visit from the native Protestant
pastor, connected, I believe, with the American Presbyterian
Mission, who was dressed in a fez and suit of purple, probably
as being the most clerical colour Oriental wardrobes would
allow. He spoke no English, but seemed a very intelligent as
well as devoted man, and gave us some interesting informa-
tion on the progress of his schools and mission work.

On June 6th we left Kasheiya for Damascus, making a
circuit on the way to visit some of the old Syrian temples
which encircle Hermon, towards the " high place " of wliich
they all face. On one of them, at Eukleh, in a wild desolate
ravine, there still remains built into the wall fronting the
mountain a huge medallion face in a border, supposed to be
of Baal, three feet four by two feet four inches in extent, and,
including the border, five feet by four feet.

At Deir el Ashayer was another veiy fine ruin, an Ionic
temple very like that of Thalthathah, and near it a small lake,
which we visited in hope of finding the birds with which
Porter saw it swarmiug, but where we could discover nothing

THUNDEKSTORM. (Ill

but a few storks and vultures. Soon after, we struck the
carriage-road engineered by the French from Beyrout to Da-
mascus, and the telegraph wires by its side. The road is a
valuable legacy of the occupation, the only road for wheel-
carriages in all Syria. "We gazed with all tlie wonder of
novelty at some stage waggons M'hich passed us. Crossing
the road, we camped at the wretched village of Dimas.

The next morning we traversed the barren rocky plain of
Es Sahra, more dreary than its namesake, but inhabited by
numbers of sand grouse, and occasionally enlivened by
glimpses of the green glen of the Barada (Abana), " the
golden-flowing."

At length we came upon the crest of the hill overlooking tlie
wide oasis of Damascus, and an Arabian Nights' vision was
before us. It was our unusual fortune to have our first view
of the city under what is looked on as a phenomenon at this
time of year — a tremendous thunder-storm. We were out of
it ourselves, as it burst over half the city, leaving the other
half gleaming and flashing light from its gilded minarets and
cupolas, the whole embosomed in a forest of fruit-trees
covering many square miles.

As we descended the storm cleared off, and when we were
at a slight elevation above the oasis, the sudden gush of per-
fume, chiefly of orange blossom, wafted through the air was
almost overpowering. It seemed as though a cloud of scent
were floating at a certain height in the atmosphere, for when
we were below it was not nearly so strong. The change from
the rocky desert to the ^\ilderness of gardens was instanta-
neous. Tall mud waUs extended in every direction under
the trees, and rich flowing streams of water from the Barada
everywhere bubbled through the orchards, while all was alive
with the song of birds, and the hum of bees. The great apricot-
trees were laden and bent down under strings of ripe golden
fruit. The lanes were strewn with apricots. Asses, mules,
and camels in long strings carried lieaped panniers of these
"golden apples." Walnut, peach, plum, pomegranate, pear,
olive, orange, and even apple-trees crowded the maze through

R K 2

612 DAMASCUS.

which for an hour -we wound, till we found our camping
ground in a garden, one tent shaded by an apricot, the other
by a walnut-tree, surrounded by pomegranates in full
blossom, while a rill from the Barada ran past to cool our
water bottles.

It is not within my limits to describe Damascus after a
four days' sojourn. It has scarcely been exhausted by one who
spent five years in it. Yot, after the first dazzling effect had
Avorn off, it was rather a disappointing place. Much filth,
endless tortuous streets, miserable exteriors, sumptuous
palaces, bustling, shabby, but rich bazaars, repulsive smells,
and piteous ruins, — these make up the Damascus of to-day.
Outside, the gardens w^ere very charming, but were too
well cultivated to afford many wild flowers, or much of
interest in natural history, abounding chiefly in Syrian
squirrels and woodpeckers. We experienced nothing of the
reputed ill manners of the Damascenes towards strangers,
our only difficulty being to avoid a surfeit from tlie apricots
and mvilberries pressed upon us wherever we went.

In the city we were taken to visit one of the wealthiest
houses. After picking our way over heaps of offal, stepping
over dead dogs, and kicking aside living ones, through a
loathsome dark lane, we turned up a narrow entry, and were
admitted at a small door. This led into a crypt-like, vaulted
antechamber, through which we passed, and turning round,
found ourselves on a sudden in a marble open court, in the
centre of which was a fountain, surrounded by exotic trees.
All round the court were rooms ; and in the centre of each
side an open chamber, or large alcove, up two or three steps,
with a little marble fountain playing in front, and silk otto-
mans, work-tables, and easy chairs behind. The roofing of
these alcoves and the walls were marvellous in their elaborate
workmanship and colouring, — the whole one mass of carved
and gilded arabesque. The flooring was marble, the walls up
to the wainscot marble, in elaborate mosaic patterns. Each
room had a fountain in its centre, and was furnished with silk
ottomans all round, lavishly strewn with brocade and silken

MOSQUE. G13

cushions. A gallery ran round above, in front of the u[i-
stairs rooms, Avliich were similarly arranged. Such was pio-
bably a Jewish house in the palmy days of the monarchy.
Yet in all tliis lavish decoration, this Oriental splendour
and luxury, there was nothing to feed or occupy the nnnd,
nothing to assist social intercourse — neither books, nor nuisic,
nor paintings — nothing, in fact, beyond good taste and polished
barbarism.

Under the guidance of the Consular cavasse we visited the
great cathedral, in " the street that is called Straight," and
several of the mosqnes. The great mosque, once the Chris-
tian cathedral, and in yet earlier ages a heathen temple, is a
noble structure, though, of course, M'ithout the interest or the
splendour of the Mosque of Omar. We looked in at one
magnificent portal, over which still remains engraven the
inscription in Greek, " Thy kingdom, 0 Christ, is an ever-
lasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all
generations." There stand the words, unread by the jMoslem.
We will take them as a silent prophecy that the day is
coming when this dark land shall be Christ's once more, and
He shall reign for ever and ever. Even so, come. Lord Jesus 1

CHAPTER XXYT.

Damri.icus — The Barada {Ahana) — The A rl of Sit/inij — The Sahra — J in Fijeh —
Woiu/crful Full atain — Noble Mountaineers — Bludan — ZeMdny — Surghaya —
Bacilhec — Moonlight in the Temples — Nocturnal Fox-himt — TIic Bukda (Coele-
Syria) — Ascent of Lebanon — Shrubs on the Loirer Slopes — Aindt — Ascent of
Jebtl Arz — First View of the Cedars — Birds of the Crest, and of the Grove —
Scnpture Allusions to the Cedars — Cedars near Ehden — Vale of the KadisJm —
IlazrUn— Cedars of El Hadith — Cedars of the Duweir, of Ain Zahalteh —
Traces of the Cedar elsewhere — Abundance of the Cedar in Ancient Times —
Jchcil (GebaT) — Shepherds' Camps on the Mountains — AkHrah — The Adonii-
Afka — Meiruha — Natural Bridge — A Funeral in Lebanon — Descent to the
Shore— Our Trarels ended.

June 11th. — Farewell, Damascus, mother of cities I a city
when Abram was yet in Ur of the Chaldees ; pearl of the
East ; emerald of the desert, with thy gorgeous colourings
and reeking dunghills ; paradise of perfumes and of stinks ;
the realization of all that Arabian dreams have painted ;
Dives at his table, but Eazarus and the dogs at his gate !
We have wandered at will among thy fairy gardens, the air
laden with odours, the trees weighted wdth golden fruits ; we
have picked our steps amidst offal in the streets, and saun-
tered through the quaint bazaars. We have emptied our
pockets over the silks of the East ; and as we stepped from
the stall have been upset by a loaded camel from Bagdad
into the pannier of a scavenger's ass. We have walked over
the marble mosaics of Damascene palaces, where fountains in
every room lull to sleep with their gentle murmur, and cool
the heats of June ; and then we have scrambled among the
choking dust of ruined heaps, wdiich mark where once was
the Christian quarter, and which tell us that the Islam of
1864 is as fanatical and as l)loodtliirsty as when it swept
away the Eastern empire, or when Tanuu-lane, d Wahsh, " tlie

THE BAR ADA. (J15

^vikl lieast," made Damascus a heap of blood and ashes. Lot
politicians talk of improvement, or tell us the Turk will ad-
,vauce with the times. Islam advance ! Yes, when " the
Avolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie
down with the kid," when " the earth shall Ije full of the
knowledge of the Lord," when the demon of a sensuous
deism shall be exorcised, and the Cross shall supplant the
Crescent.

From Damascus we leisurely directed our steps towards
Baalbec, resting over the Sunday at Ain Fijeh. To reach the
Baalbec road we made the circuit of the city, delayed long
by our collision with a caravan of camels, arriving from
Bagdad, laden w^ith Persian silks and Indian rice — a living
picture of the commerce and manners of 3,0U0 or 4,000 years
ago. For nearly an hour we wound under the grateful shade
of walnut trees, or gathered melting apricots, plums, or mul-
berries at pleasure from the overhanging boughs. There was
no orchard-robbing in this, — the lanes were strewn with fallen
fruit, and apricots were selling at about 2d. per peck, in
many of the gardens we observed the preparation of " nnish-
mush." The apricots were collected in large quantities,
squeezed in a light press, and then rolled out into long thin
strips of gummy paste, which were spread on the ground to
dry in the sun. They were then folded, and ]\acked in boxes
for exportation to Arabia and Egypt.

Once and again we crossed the Barada by low bridges ; and
as we beheld its fertilizing powers, and recalled the barren
sides of Jordan, we could not but sympathize with the natural
feeling of Naaman — " Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of
Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ? " Towards
the southern outskirts of the oasis are many open farms, and
fields of corn-land, mingling among the orchards. Here we
saw many of the people sitting at their work. But no Moslem
will move when he can stand, or stand when he can sit. We
observed three men in a farrier's shop, devoting their c<mii-
bined energies to the shoeing of a little mule. One sat under
the mule's nose, and held it down with the halter ; another

616 THE ART OF SITTING.

sat with its foot turned up in liis lap, and a third sat along-
side while he fitted and nailed the shoe. Even the masons'
lal)0urers must sit on tlieir haunches to fill their panniers,,
with lime ; and a little further on, where some new pavement
was actually being laid down, all the paviors sat at their
work, from the boys lulling on their hams, wlio passed the
stones from the heap, to the two men who sat vis-a-vis with a
great mallet between them, and in that posture lazily poised
it, and let it fall. But the acme of the art of sitting seemed
to have been reached by a party of reapers in a wheat-field
through which we rode. All in a long row, men and women,
sat to reap, and jerked themselves forwards or sideways as
their work progressed. We watched them for some ten
minutes, and during all that time not one of the twenty-five
ever found it necessary to rise.

When we had passed the large suburb of Sillahiyeh, itself a
considerable town, in a moment we stepped from an Eden to
a desolate wilderness. Not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a
dwelling, not a sign of life, relieved the drear monotony of
the glaring clialk hills, as they glittered and fretted in the
sunlight. At the brow of the hill, under the little wely, we
halted, and looked back on that fairy view of Damascus,
quivering in the sunbeams, so often described by travellei's,
and could scarcely tear ourselves away, or turn to the scorch-
ing three hours' ride across the Sahra, which lay before us.
It was not, however, so desolate of life as might have been
expected from its scorched condition in the month of June.
Among the brown and scrubby plants, abundance of game — ■
bustard, sand-grouse, and gazelle — beguiled the journey.

But our last hour's ride made up for all. Every now and
then M-e had had glimpses of the deep green zone in the
hollow which marked the life-giving course of the Barada,
and now we descended into it, and followed up its side. The
little river roared and dashed away, buried from sight in the
foliage of a forest of fruit trees — apricot, fig, and orange —
overshadowed, in turn, by long lines of tall poplars and
spreading walnuts. Among and under these we wound.

AiN riji:ii. G17

sometimes climbing a rocky projection by a winding path, or
riding along the bed of an ancient disused aqueduct ; then
emerging on a bit of velvet turf, where a wider space than
ordinary was left between the walls of rock, which rose on
one side to the height of 2,000 feet, on the other to over 1,000
feet. Vineyards, straggling, but never terraced, climbed high
up their sides. Then again we found ourselves inider the
apricot-trees in the orchards, with cows tethered below them ;
and the women and chiklren gathering the fruit in the
branches, or running to us, and insisting on our tasting all,
till we had reason to fear the results of the struggle between
politeness and moderation.

A sudden turn brought ns to Ain Fijeh, where, under the
shade of three noble w^alnut-trees, we encamped for two days,
on a narrow terrace, overhanging the blue stream, close to the
fountain. It is the largest spring in Syria, next to the lower
fountain of the Jordan, leaping from the mouth of a cave
thirty yards above us, where it instantly forms a torrent five
feet deep, and thirty feet wide, and, dashing doAvn the glen
for a few hundred yards, it forms rather than joins tlie
Barada. Over the cave and round it are the remains of a
massive though small temple, of cyclopean stones, anterior to
Greek or Eoman architecture, and without a name or tradition.
What a home for a poet's dream of nymphs ! At niglit tlic
reflections of the blue and white torrent, lit up by the moon,
gleamed through the trees ; while the sound of the rushing
water drowned even the voices in the adjoining tent. We
had a bathe in a deep pool formed by the reflux of the
fountain. As we swam about, we could have seen a needle
at the bottom ; and the little water-ouzel {Cinclus aqnaticus,
Beclist.), the " dipper" of my Northumbrian boyhood, sat on a
stone, vainly essaying to raise his little cheery notes above the
din of waters, bobbing time and jerking his tail, as on Cheviot
side. 'Wliat a bird contrast ! A few hours before we had shot
the African sand-grouse ; here we were watching the ouzel of
Northumberland !

We strolled tlie next day up the river-side tlirough a

618 NOBLE MOUXTAIXEERS.

succession of orchards, chiefly of cherry and apricot. Every
orchard had its cottage, and each owner accosted us, and
pressed us to partake of buttermilk and cherries, while no
thought of backshish affected their hospitality. They are a
noble race, these Lebanon mountaineers ; large built, muscular
and very fair, while the women are robust and handsome,
dressed in a sort of Swiss costume and bodice, and only to
be told ii-om Yorkshire lasses by the large lustrous black eyes
of Syria. They are very cleanly, and the children, who
merrily crowd round our tents in their red frocks and blue
trousers, are bright arch little creatures. Their famiUes are
much larger than among the polygamist Bedouin. The woman
from whom we bought our milk and ecjgs brought her knittins,
and spent the day in front of the camp, with her baby three
weeks old bv her side. She told us it was her eleventh, and
that not one of her family had ever had a day's illness. She
did not look more than thirty-five, and was sprightly as a
girl. Certainly all over the world there is a wonderfid. supe-
riority in mountain races.

June loth. — A ride of eight hours brought us to Surghaya,
through very varied scenery, mountain glen, rocky bare hills,
cidtivated and monotonous plain, with great variety of wild
flowers, rich garden and orchard slopes, watered valleys,
teeming with verdm-e and fertility, and, in short, ever}-thing
that mountain landscape could afford, excepting forest. We
followed up the Barada under the anti-Lebanon range, visiting
on the way the Eoman ruins of Suk Wadv Barada, the ancient
Aoila, the capital of the tetrarchy of Abilene (Luke iii. 1),
with a few inscriptions. We then passed the romantic village
of Bludan, which is the fashionable summer retreat of the
Damascenes. There are here remains of an old temple of
Baal ; and the grove of aged oaks on the slope beneath it is
stiU a place held in supei-stitious veneration by the villagers.
The town of Zebdany stands in the plain below it. Soon
we were at Ain Hawar, the highest sources of the Barada,
where there seems to have been another Syrian temple ; and
then, crossing a low ridge, we found ourselves on the water-

SUKGHAYA — BA.VLl'.EC. Ill})

shed of the ^Mediterranean, and descended to SurghAya. The
whole route has been described by many travellers, but espe-
cially by Porter. We met with many interesting birds on the
way. The rock sparrow {Pctronia stidta, Bp.), with its yellow
breast, was very common on the open ground, as was also tlii3
rare and scarcely known Arabian Pf^7'0?MV? hmcJn/dactyla, iJp.,
whose nest and eggs we obtained twice during the day. The
golden oriole abounded in the cherry-orchards, and the hobby
{Hypotriorchis subhuteo, L.), and the beautiful Eleonora falcon
(Falco eleonorce, G^ne.), often swept over the trees. The
thickets by the water-side were the Imiiu' of Cetti's warbler
(Cettia sericia, Bp.), which would burst forth in a wild
refrain for a few seconds, and then drop down unseen among
the reeds.

June lAth. — Five hours and a half brought us from Sur-
ghuya to Baalbec, perhaps the Baal Gad, (Gathering of I^aal,)
of Josh. xi. 17, " in the valley of Lebanon under ]\rount
Hermon," anil possibly synonymous with the Baalath of
1 Kings ix. 18, though Dr. liolnnson has advanced weighty
reasons against either, and inclines to its identification with
"the plain of Aven," (Amos i. 5,) (]ljji r^i/pn) Bckatk
{=Buka'a) Aven.

"We took neither the shortest nor the most picturesque route.
But it was interesting to ride up the course of one of the
feeders of the Leontes, by a wild though often bleak glen,
and to notice how the change of vegetation registered our
increasing elevation. We had long since lost the olive. Now
the apricot became scarce, and the apple took its place. The
ripe corn and bare stubbles were exchanged for green wheat,
and the mulljeriy became stunted in its growth, cankered,
and dying back in the young wood, as it does in the north of
England. On inquiring of a peasant, who was pruning the
trees, the remedy ibr this, he told us that it Avas caused by
the early frosts, and that the dead wood must be cut out
without wounding the sound bark, or allowing it to bleed.

After crossing a ridge of bare chalky limestone, we reached
the little isolated spur on which Baalbec overlooks the long

620 MOONLIGHT IN THE TEMPLES.

plain of the Buka'a. We passed l)y the quarry whence the
great stones of the temple have been hewn, and where one
remains, nearly ready for transport, sixty-eight feet long and
about fourteen feet in breadth and depth.

It is beyond my province to give any description of Baalbec,
ilhistrated and exhausted by so many pens, and familiar to
every Eastern traveller. Surpassed in size only by Thebes, in
beauty by Athens, our first glimpse was nevertheless somewhat
disappointing. One could not realize the vastness of the
ruins without some standard at hand to which to refer. But a
nearer view, and a ride round the place, soon changed the first
impressions to those of bewildered amazement at the stupen-
dous conception of the Great Temple, which at first absorbs
all attention from the other remains. Then, indeed, we felt
•that we stood under one of the wonders of the world. We
rode up the dark-arched vault, decorated with mutilated busts,
which runs under the platform of the Great Temple for 150
yards ; and then, mounting over prostrate columns, found a
camping-place in the area under the shadow of those wondrous
shafts of the peristyle amidst the wilderness of ruins. Ee-
luctant, indeed, were our muleteers to pitch here, and they
almost broke into open rebellion. The Moslem believe these
stupendous buildings to have been the work of evil spirits,
and that they are haunted. " Who but a devil," asked Hadj
Khadour, pointing to one of the great stones in the west
wall, sixty-four feet by fourteen feet, "could have planted
that rock there?" And certainly the cpiestion was hard to
answer.

We spent hours in gazing at the varying effects of sunlight,
shade, and moonlight, as they alternately gilded, darkened,
and again lit up those marvellous pink columns. During the
nioht I turned out more than once to stroll again amonffst
the ruins, and feast my eyes on those records of a perished
race and a perished civilization, or rather of a perished super-
stition, for to Baal (or the Suu-God) were those shrines
erected. Some prowling pariah dogs started a fox close to
mC; and round and round they gave chase in full cry for a

ASCENT OF LEBANON. 621

quarter of an lioiir, till at last Eeynard eliulod them anion.','
a pile of broken columns at my feet. The owls hooted and
the bats flitted overhead. Such wore the occupants of the
temple of Heliopolis.

The distant firing of musketry also broke the stillness of
the night, and M^e learned afterwards that there had been
a battle between the retainers of two rival feudal seigneurs
(of whom there are many in this part of Syria, with the
habits and lawlessness of mediaeval barons), but that no one
had been killed, and only three or four wounded. "With woe-
begone faces our people told us in the morning that they had
never closed their eyes. We had no difficulty in guessing
whether the ghosts or the guns had been the cause of their
restlessness.

Jime loth. — We had wished to extend our travels to
the "entering in of Hamath," the border of the Land of
Promise ; but time and heat deterred us, and we were content
to turn our steps direct to the "Cedars." After another
morning among the ruins, we crossed the plain of Coele S}Tia,
as fertile and as uninteresting as such tracts generally are,
and passed once more from the anti-Lebanon to the Lebanon.
A few larks, and a fine white hollyhock (Alfhcea acaulis) tlie
common corn w'eed of the district, were the only varieties in
the wheaten sea, save one tall Corinthian column, standing
solitary in the centre of the plain, witliout inscription,
history, or tradition.

But as soon as, after riding ten miles, we began to ascend
the Lebanon, all was changed — the roads and the crops for
the worse, everything else for the better. This east side of
Lebanon is rather bare, the lower portion was scantily clothed
with deciduous oak, for the most part stunted, and with small
scrub of juniper and barberry, {Berheris mdgaris, L.) for tlie
elevation is too great to encourage the fragrant shrubs of
Carmel and Tabor. Neither of these most abundant slu-ubs
had we found on Hermon.

After surmounting what we may term the lower platform
of Lebanon, we crossed a tolerably flat and ratlier bare plain,

022 ainat.

-well watered, with soft turf in many parts, and tlie plants
chiefly of an English character, though Avith some very pretty
dwarf astragali in addition. On the slopes near it numbers
of plants new to us, the true Lebanon flora, deliglited L.,
especially a beautiful little jasmine, (?) covered with fragrant
white blossoms. We obtained many rare birds, among them
for the first time, the Syrian redstart, {Ruticilla scmirufa, H.
and E.) not hitherto known in English collections.

We lingered till near sunset, and then rode sharply across
the plain, where, on the edge of a deep ravine, with the
shoulder of Lebanon rising steeply on the other side, stood
the bleak village of Ainat, with its stone-built, low-roofed
houses. From the village we descended at once into a
charming glen, carefully cultivated, and with clumps of fine
walnut trees here and there. Close under the cliff, sheltered
by these, was our camp. The little stream at our feet wound
southwards for four miles, till it emptied itself into the Lake
Lemone, a mountain tarn without exit, and of which our ride
had afforded many pretty peeps. About two hundred yards
across the valley began the steep ascent of Jebel Erz, and
just in front the stream was dashing down the mountain, and
formed a series of little cascades as it bounded from rock to
rock.

We soon saw why the village was built on the edge of the
bleak plateau and not in the lovely glen, for the snow has an
uninterrupted slide of 2,000 or 3,000 feet, and would soon
engulf any buildings in the valley. Yet the walnut-trees
flourish under their hybernation, as they enjoy extreme heat
in summer.

The whole village came down in the evening, to sit under
the trees and gossip with our camp by moonlight, the young
ladies not scrupling to beg tobacco, and enjoying cigarettes
and coffee. The parties that had visited the i)lace during
the season were recounted and described by the names of
their dragomans (while we sank somewhat in their estima-
tion by travelling without one), and the number of chickens
each had consumed was reckoned up, — so great that the

CKEST OF LEBANON. G'2'S

village was cleared of all save the most elderly hens, as we
found to the cost of our teeth. They made no secret of their
liking for the French, and expressed an earnest hope they
would come back and occupy the country permanently. ^Ye
had now entered the Christian district, and never met a
Moslem again till we reached Beyrout.

June I6th. — The snow had been so far melted by the
summer's sun, that we were able to ascend by the highest
pass, very close to the simimit of Lebanon, 10,000 feet high,
and descend almost directly upon the cedars. For nearly
two hours we wound up the steep mountain side, looking
down upon our camping-ground of the last night so perpen-
dicularly that it seemed as if a sudden leap might have sent
a horse upon the top of the walnut-trees. We kept Ain^t in
sight till we reached the summit, and at many a turn had a
fine view of Lake Lemone, of the wide plain of Coele Syria,
and of the green and brown spot which marked the site of
Baalbec, pushing forward from the distant range of Jebel es
Shurky.

The snow we had to cross was hard, compact, and crisp
under the horses' feet ; and the cool air was most grateful,
though afterwards we all suffered from violent headaches
and pain in the eyes. The same birds and plants which
had delighted us on Hermon were, for the most part, also
here, with several scented shrubs and l)eautiful flowers in
addition.

Xo sooner had we surmounted the pass, than one of those
sudden panoramas which only such an elevation could afford
burst upon us by surprise. For many miles the ^lediterranean
coast was stretched from Beyrout northwards. Tripoli, with
its little harbour and protruding rocks, formed the centre,
and rugged terraces shelved down to the sea for 10,000 feet.
In the nearer foreground was a sort of hollow, or basin, open-
ing out to the west, the origin of the romantic Kadisha. It
was bare and rocky, and its sites were fringed here and there
with the rough knolls which marked the deposits of ancient
glaciers, the "moraines" of the Lebanon. All was brown

G24 BIRDS OF THE CREST AND OF THE GROVE.

and bare, save on one dark spot, where stood a clump of trees,
the famous cedar-grove. Viewed from above, the effect of
that grove is much more remarkable tlian when, as is
generally the case, it is approached from below. Insignificant,
perhaps, in itself, it here becomes the one noticeable feature
in a landscape otherwise peculiarly bare and monotonous.
As we looked down upon the trees, we could just discern
beyond them a thread of cultivation, which gradually expands
as it descends, and links them, standing on " the edge of
Lebanon," with man and with civilization. A few separate
trees stood out from the mass, but the general appearance of
the grove was of a thick clump, as though it hud been a
fragment of some ancient forest.

From the top of the pass, it seemed as though in a few
minutes we might reach the cedars ; but we had to wind for
two hours down the rocky slope. The Persian horned lark,
the wheatcar, and the brown linnet, vied in giving us a
musical welcome to their dreary home, as we gathered the
Alpine plants on the edge of the melting snow. The grove
itself Was vocal with life. The cicad?e hissed and grilled in
every tree ; and many a note, some strange, and others
familiar, caught our ear from the branches. The chaffinch,
which had left the lowlands since the winter, gave forth its
home-like chirrup on every tree. Little flocks of the cole tit
{Parus ater], and a few of the Russian sombre tit (P. lugubris,
Natt.) hopped nimbly up and down the boughs, both of them
birds not before obtained in Syria ; my new little siskin
{Scrinus aurifrons), in company with the bright Lebanon red-
start [Ruticilla scmirvfa, H. and E.) sang blithely on the
lower sprays, or sent forth a nuthatch-like note, as it stealthily
glided from trunk to trunk.

But the charm of solitude was no longer here, for a rude
Maronite chapel has been erected in the centre of the grove,
and the priest has collected around him many of the goat-
herds of the neighbouring villages, who si)end the summer
under the rude shelter of the huts. We picketed our horses
under one of the ancient patriarchs of the forest, and shook

SCKIPTUKE .VLLUSIONS TO THE CKD.Vl^S.

(ij,»

off the priest by a donation of a dollar f..r his chapel roof
with an exhortation to protect the trees from the wantc.ii
damage which is fost destroying thein ; hut the idle loungers
were not so easily disposed of, and were determined tiTlio
beforehand with us in climbing for cones, vociferously ile-
manding backshish for their vexatious elibrts. Findin«4 "^^
determined to collect for ourselves, they clustered round us,
abusing the English and praising the French, till we left the
place.

The trees are not too close, nor are they entirely confined to
the grove. Though the patriarchs are of enormous girth, they
are no higher than the younger trees, many of which reach
a circumference of eighteen feet. In the topmost bouglis,
ravens, hooded crows, kestrels, hobbys, and wood-owls were
secreted in abundance, but so lofty are the trees that the birds
were out of reach of ordinary shot. But before leavin<' we
added many interesting specimens to our collection. The
breeze, as it soughed through the dark boughs, seemed to
breathe sounds of solemnity and awe, and to proclaim these Ut
be " the trees of the Lord," " the cedars of Lel)anon which
He hath planted." In such a spot we could M'ell comprehend
that feeling of superstition which seduced the chosen people
to erect altars and high places " on every high hill and under
every green tree." " The cedar in Lebanon (was) with fair
branches, and with a shadowy shroud, and of a high stature ;
the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and the che,stimt-trees
were not like his branches, nor any tree in the garden of the
Lord was like unto him in his beauty." (Ezek. xxxi.)

"We had a long ride from the cedars to Hazriin, whither our
convoy had preceded us. For the first hour we hastened
down a barren ravine with narrow corn strips in its bottom,
till almost abruptly the wondrous cultivation of the Kadisha
valley burst upon us near the village of B'sherreh. To the
right we made a short detour towards the town of KIkIcii, on
the Tripoli-road. Just above the fountain of Ehden, toward.s
B'sherreh, stands another clump of ancient cedars, whii h,
though fine old trees, have, from their comparatively smaller

a a

r.26 VALE OF THE KADISHA.

size, been neither noticed nor recorded l)y travellers. They
are probably a relic of the ancient forests, which may have
extended along the edge of the valley.

Turning back just above B'sherreh, we descended a tre-
mendous chasm. Tlu; l)are amphitheatre of the upper basin
contracted into a deep valky of about 2,000 feet, which was
rent at its bottom into a cleft 1,000 feet deeper still, down
whicli dashed the Kadisha, buried between these stupendous
walls of rock. All above the chasm was terraced far as the
eye could reach, with indefatigable industry. Tiny streamlets
bounded and leaped from terrace to terrace, fertilizing them as
they rushed to join the torrent in the abyss, Some of these
waterfalls were of great height, and of considerable volume.
From one spot we could count no less than seven of these
chains of cascades, now dashing in white spray over a cliff,
now lost under the mulberry-trees, soon to reappear over the
next shelving rock. The mulberry was the predominant tree,
but many an apple and apricot varied the orchards ; whil(%
wherever a handful of earth could be scraped together, in
shade or sunshine, it nourished its bunch of corn, its stem of
maize, or straggling melon or cucumber plant.

The villages followed each other in rapid succession- — no
bare compact collection of hovels, like those of the plains, but
scattered, straggling houses, peering from their garden.s, and
spreading irregularly from the village church, which marked
the centre of each little parish. The valley was studded witli
churches, and little chapels and monasteries, distinguished ex-
ternally by no architectural ornament, save the open bell
turret, as often in the middle as at either end. The churches
of the Lebanon are large oblong buildings, having their flat
roofs covered with turf, and with but few windows, always
very small, square or round headed.

]\Iany a hermit chapel was perched in the deepest recesses
of the glen below, where the foot of goat could hardly climb,
yet even there, not a scrap of surface where root could hold or
cling was left without its plant.

HAZItfX.

r.27

Hazrim was but a mile west of B'sliendi, Liit on the otliov
sitle ; and down a path trying and rugox'd even for Syria, we
liad to lead our stumbling horses. The descent and the climb
on the opposite side occupied tM'o hours, and the bridge, many
yards above the stream, was but two trees thrown across with
a little earth and turf spread over them. Nothing could be
more lovelv than the scenery. All mountain ranges seem to

-.-s?

;^^..

liAZKl'N.

have a type of scenery peculiar to themselves ; the Alps, the
Pyrenees, the Dovrefjeld have theirs ; nor is that of tlie
Lebanon inferior to others, consisting of a peculiar combina-
tion of grand precipices with delicate cultivation. One
waterfall in particular arrested our attention, as it dashed
down the mountain, and was lost to sight behind a wall «i
rock 1,000 feet high. At the bottom was a natural archway

s s 2

(328 CEDAKS OF THE DUWEIU.

througli wliic'li the stream reappeared to join the Kadisha,

ha^'ing worked its hidden chauncl behind the frontage of

cliff.

Kiglit had faHen ere we reached our tents at Hazrun,

erected in a garden nnder an ancient wahiut-tree, in front of a
rustic booth, where the silk-worms of our landlord were
spread en shallow stages, and tended by his wife and
children. Our servants had announced om* taste for natural
history, and a crowd of urchins were awaiting our arrival,
with squirrels, birds, and some score of nests, to give us em-
ployment after a day of fourteen hours' exciting traveh

June 17th. — ^We sent on our mules direct to Akiirah, but
determined to make a slight detour ourselves in order to visit
a district marked by Van de Valde as not examined. We had
hardly left Hazrun when we had to turn our backs on the
romantic Kadisha, and climb the bare shoulder of Lebanon,
which projects to the S.W., in order to reach El Hadith. As
we were riding up the steep we met two men carrying fire-
wood, and L.'s quick eye at once detected some boughs of
cedar. We eagerly inquired where they found arz (. \). They
pointed to some scattered trees on a bare hill side be-
tween El Hadith and Niha, which they said were all arz.
On examination we found they were quite right. The nearer
slopes were scattered very sparsely with old riven and half
decayed junipers, and a few aged pines {Pinits halepensis),
while the cedars were all collected on this hill.

An hour afterwards, as we crossed the next ridge and came
to one of the feeders of the Duweir, we noticed that the wild
gorge to our right was clad from top to bottom with a scattered
forest of trees, which, when examined through the glass, ap-
peared too spreading and Hat-topped for pines. In spite of
llamoud's angry remonstrance against our wandering we knew
not whither, we pushed on for the ravine. It was too elevated
as well as too rugged to encourage any attempt at cultivation,
even by the mountaineers of the Lebanon, and has remained
untouched by man, one of the last refuges of the Syrian bear.

CEDARS OF AIX ZAIIALTEII. G29

The trees were all cedars, grouped in clusters, or scattered in
every variety of situation, some clinging to the stec}) slopes
or gnarled and twisted on the bare hill-tops, others slieltered
in the recesses of the dell. L. climbed one of the larger trees,
and brought down some cones in triumph. The largest trees
might be fifteen or eighteen feet in circumference, but none
that we saw approached tlie patriarchs of the grove, either in
size or magnificence. Still there was cedar enounh here to
have rebuilt Solomon's Temple. We ha\e now discovered it
in two mountain valleys, growing, too, in every variety of
situation.

'Not are the four places I have referred to the only spots
where the cedar of Lebanon still linc;ers. T have u'ood
authority for stating that it is also found abundantly scattered
about Duma, a place five hours south-west of Hadith. j\Iore
interesting still is its existence in a far distant part of the
mountains. In one of the glens to the north of Deir el Kamar,
the ancient stronghold of the Druses up the course of the
Nahr el Baruk, south-east of B'hamdun, near the village of
Ain Zahalteh, are many scattered trees and small clumps.
Probably a careful search among the ivesiern roots of the
Lebanon would result in the discoveiy of many more relics
of the primi3eval forest.

Interesting as was our discovery, we cannot lay claim to
priority, for some of these trees must have been visited liy
Hemprich and Ehrenberg, who, so long ago as 1823, mentioned
in their report the existence of cednrs betAveen Tripoli and
Beyrout, but without specifying the exact locality.^ Dr.
Thomson, too, seems to have been informed of their existence,
but erroneously asserts (Land and Book, p. 197) that those tra-
vellers who speak of them " are simply mistaken in the tree ! "

1 From the statement of Dr. Eobinson (Eesearchcs, iii. 592, 593) it seeni.s
probable tliat the cetUir may yet be found in far greater alnindance than I have
ventured to suggest. Two of the gi-oves which Seetzen heard of, but did not
visit, seem to be those discovered by us. The one lie visited at Ktnuh,
with thousands of trees, we did not see, as it was to the north of our route.
Dr. Paulding is clearly mistaken in his botany or his topogra])]iy.

630 SCRIPTUR.VL ALLUSIONS.

The suV)ject is not without consideraLlc interest in its bear-
ings on the illustration of Scriptural language and imagery.
It is quite possible that the Hebrew word T'^^^ {crcz) trans-
lated " cedar " in our version, and which is identical with the
modern Arabic . | arz (or witli the article cl arz), may be
sometimes used — without the additional " of Lebanon " — to
express generally the tribe of fir, or cone-bearing trees (of
which the cedar of Lebanon is one) ; and in one passage
(Lev. xiv. 6) it must be so interpreted, for the eedctv of Lebanon
never could have grown in the wilderness of Sinai ; still the
constant allusions to the cedars of Lebanon in the Psalms and
the prophets seem to point to the true cedar peculiarly and
exclusively. " The cedars of Lebanon wdiich He hath planted"
— ■" The trees of the Lord " — " The cedars of Lebanon that are
high and lifted up." — " The voice of the Lord breaketh the
cedars, yea, the Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon." — " The
Amorite, whose height was like the height of the cedars." —
" The Assyrian was a cedar in Lelianon with fair branches." —
" Open thy doors, 0 Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy
cedars : howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen," where the
lesser fir-tree is especially contrasted with the great cedar, as
the humble flower bewailing the fall of its mighty chief. And
it was the cutting down of these cedars, which Sennacherib
is represented as making the special topic of his mighty boast.
And though Linnaeus had not yet arranged his system of
nature, we may be very certain that the wise man, whose
botanical knowledge extended downwards from the cedar that
was in Lebanon, had clearly noted the difference between the
proud cedar, with which the thistle had the monstrous pre-
sumption to propose to ally itself (2 Kings xiv. 9), and the
ordinary fir'tree, which then existed throughout the whole of
Palestine.

The name has been handed down on the spot intact
throughout all the changes of language, and the name . ] arz,
is never applied by the natives to any tree but the true cedar ;
while, according to one interpretation, (Stanley, Sinai and

FOKMER ABUNDANCE OF THE CEDAI!. (VM

Pill. -i 14 d) by ail interesting pliiloloujcal journey, we luive
derived froni the Spaniards, and they Iroin tlie Moors of North
Africa, who, in their turn, drew the appelhition from their
brethren in Syria, the name " hirch," a contracticjn of " el ar'z,"
wliich we have almost unconsciously applied to the larch, the
tree of all our familiar firs most unlike in appearance, but
most closely allied in reality, to the true cedar of Lebanon.^

We cannot, then, study all the passages in the Okl Testa-
ment, Nvhich so refer to the cedar, without feeling certain tliat
in ancient times it was a far more conspicuous feature in tlic
landscape tlian it is now. It was not merely a few groups,
and scattered trees hidden in the most inaccessible recesses,
which could have so frequently suggested that glorious and
majestic imagery of the prophets. They spoke to men to
whom the splendour of those monarchs of the forest was
familiar. In the cedars of the famous grove we have living
evidence handed down to us that that imagery was no exag-
geration. The scattered relics which we have traced on other
parts of the mountain are a living evidence that the range of
the cedar was wide spread, and, therefore, that illustrations
drawn from it were familiar and forcible. Its gradual de-
struction has been the necessary consequence of the dense
population of the Lebanon, the only portion of the va.st
country of Syria whose population has multiplied, because
the only Christian portion. The population has increased
most where the soil is poorest, because that part is least ex-
posed to invaders and plunderers, and every scrap of ground
that could be rendered available for the growth of the mul-
berry-tree has been so appropriated, the wealth of these
mountaineers depending on silkworms, which they rear for
the Damascus market. Again, fuel here is most precious ami
scarce. Thus every possible cause has operated for the extir-
pation of the primitive forest; and it is only when above
the line of elevation up to which the soil can be profitably
cultivated, or mIk^u in ravines too steep and poor to tempt

^ Larch is moiv generally derived from Lari.c—ot Pliny and Vitriiv.

632 siiepiikkd's camp on the mountains.

agTieuIlure, tiiat the ct'dur lias Lccn aLlc lo luuid down the
living proofs of its ancient empire.

In concludin<T this notice of Lebanon and its cedars, we
may remark that one of tlie ravines, whose sides we dis-
covered clad with tlie cedar, is many miles long, and opens
n])on the sea at the port of Jebeil, the ancient Gebal. The
ruins and walls of Gelml attest its great importance in ancient
times. Ezekiel speaks of its inhabitants as ship-builders, at
least as pre-eminent as caulkers ; and from 1 Kings v. 18, &c.
(marginal reading) we learn that they were celebrated as
the most renowned artificers, and were employed by Hiram
in preparing the materials for the Temple. Probably they cut
their cedars from this very valley (which would be far more
accessible to them than those on the moraines many miles
inland), and on snow-covered heights, and thence launched
them at their own port. Perhaps the cedars of that valley
beyond El Hadith are seedlings whose ancestors supplied
the timber for the building of the House of the Lord at
Jerusalem.

The rest of the day was spent in crossing one shoulder of
Lebanon after another, often over the snow. The scenery at such
an. elevation — from 5,000 to 8,000 feet — was bleak and bare,
but with grand views of the Mediterranean, and the ports of
Tripoli and El Batrun {Botrys) beneath us. But on many of
the highest ridges there were little depressions carpeted with
the freshest and softest mountain herbage, though far above
human habitations. Here the shepherds had often contrived
for themselves sleeping-places, which were simply a number
of oblong circles of stones, inside of which rushes were col-
lected for bedding, according to the Bedouin fashion in the
desert. These simple beds were arranged in a circle, and
sticks and roots were collected in the centre for a fire ; a few
pots and pans stood by them, and the shepherds' sheepskins,
cloaks, and old rugs, were left in their places, under the
guardianship of three or four faithful watchdogs, whose vigi-
lance in this peaceful region was sufficient protection, while

MEIRUBA. G33

their masters wandered during the day with their flocks. AVe
visited several of these camps, and often met the shepherds
miles away from their stations. This is their ordinary summer
habit, just as the shepherds of Bethlehem kept watch over
their flocks by night, away from the town. (Luke ii. 8.)

These sheep seem to have the attachment of a dog to their
guardian. "We observed a shepherd playing Avith his Hock.
He pretended to run away, the sheep ran after him and sur-
rounded him ; then to climb the rocks, the goats pursued
him. Finally, all the flocks formed in a circle gambolliug
round him, the leaders being dignilied, as in Switz(>rland,
with little bells.

We camped at Akurah, a prettily situated mountain vilhige
with magnificent walnut-trees, and in a valley abounding
with butterflies of all kinds, but the inhabitants of which were
insolent and extortionate beyond measure, and have certainly
not improved since Burckhardt denounced them for their
avarice and inhospitality.

June ISfh. — AVe made a long day from Akurah to jNIeiruba
over some of the highest spurs of Lebanon. The princi})al
object of interest on the route was the magnificent fountain
of Nahr Ibrahim, the ancient Adonis, a spot of strange
wildness and beauty ; a terrific precipice overhanging a
maze of wood and water. Just below are the ruins of th(!
temple of Venus, destroyed by Constantino on account of the
infamous licentiousness of the place. A fine granite column
still remains though prostrate, and a few yards beyond is the
modern village of Afka {Aphcca): We halted for some time
at the temple, gathered a beautiful C ijstoijteris, and then
ascended a crest of the mountain, for the last time, as far as
the snow line, where we shot a pair of the yellow-billed Al])ine
chough. Four hours more brought ns to the Jisr el llajr,
the natural bridge across the Nahr el Leben, a far more
symmetrical and artificial-looking freak of nature than the
Kiiweh, though by no means so useful. Lower down on the
other side, at the uninteresting village of jMeiruba, buried in

634 A FUNERAL IN LEBANON.

stunted mulberry groves, we encamped ; glad to look forward
to tlie rest of Sunday, for indeed we needed a sabbath after
a week of the hardest work \\e had gone through since
leaving Gilead.

The geology of the Lebanon would require months of study.
"While the bulk of the mountain and all the higher ranges are,
without exception, limestone of the early cretaceous period,
the valleys and gorges are filled with formations of every
possible variety — sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous.
Down many of them are long streams of trap and basalt, occa-
sionally dykes of porphyry and gi-eenstone, and then patches
of sandstone before the limestone and flint recur. The slope
down to Meiruba was all soft sandstone ; and there was some-
thing almost startling in the gritty crunch of the sandstone
under the horses' feet, after months of hard greasy, or at best,
powdery limestone. Scarcely less strange was the clinking
sound of the trap and porphyry as we crossed the patches.

After our day of rest, we descended by the most difficult
of mule paths to the mouth of the Xahr el Kelb. The
barreii rocks were densely peopled by a quick succession of
villages. Before reaching Ajeltun we overtook a country
funeral. From a farm cottage on the hills above, cro^^■ds
were issuing as we approached. First came about a dozen
]\laronite priests, chanting. Then the coflin, open at the
end, with the best attire of the deceased on the top. Crowds
of men followed in their ordinary costume, (funerals here
follow too quickly upon death to admit of the preparation of
any badge of mourning). They uttered a wailing chant quite
irrespective of the chant of the clergy. Each one pressed
forward and put his hand, stretched palm upwards, under the
coffin for a few paces, till relieved by another, as is practised
at Irish funerals ; and thus the body was borne along, not on
the shoulders but on the upraised palms of the bearers.
Behind followed a crowd of women. "When the}' reached the
church, the bell of which, as well as those of several neighbour-
ing chapels, had been tolling all the time, the bearers paused

Orii TKAVHLS ENDED. 035

at the north door, ami then rapidly carried the bier threes
times round the clnireh, which stood in the graveyard, alter
which they entered, and we saw no more of the ceremony.

The scenery hence, as far as the shore, was very wild. We
wound through a wilderness of fantastic limestone rocks,
peaked and honeycombed, till, lower down, silk factories, witli
the tricolour flag from tlieir windows, and the busy hum of
machinery within, reminded us how nearly we were approach-
ing Western civilization. We reached the shore two miles to
the north of the mouth of the Dog Eiver ; and there, witliin
a few feet of the spray, our tents were pitched for the last
time in Syria.

Next morning, f*rune 21st, I mounted early, and, accompanied
by Hamoud, my faithful henchman, left my sleeping com-
panions to follow at their leisure, forded the stream, passed
the famous tablets of the Pharaohs, of the Assyrian conquerors,
and of Xapol(;on III., and rode rapidly round St. George's
Bay. At ten o'clock we dismounted at the door of Con-
stantino's Hotel, in Beyrout ; and my wanderings in the Holy
Land were ended.

The primary object of our journey was the investigation of
physical and natural history, not, however, to the exclusion
of other objects of interest. We passed tln'ough the land
with our Bibles in our hands, — with, T trust, an unbiassed
determination to investigate facts, and their independent
bearing on sacred history. While on matters of science Ww
inspired writers speak in the ordinary language of their
times (the only language vrhich could have been understood),
I can bear testimony to the minute truth of innumerable
incidental allusions in Holy Writ to the facts of nature, of
climate, of geographical position, — corroborations of Scrip-
ture, which, though trifling in themselves, reach to minute
details that prove the writers to have lived when and where
they are asserted to have lived ; which attpst their scrupulous

636

OUR TRAVELS .ENDED.

accuracy in recording what tlioy saw and observed around
tliein ; and which, therefore, must increase our confidence in
their veracity, M'here we cannot have the like means of testing
it. I can find no discrepancies between their geographical
or physical statements and the evidence of present facts. I
can find no standpoint here for the keenest advocate against
the full inspiration of the scriptural record. The Holy Land
not only elucidates but Ijears witness to the truth of the
Holy Book.

EL MOHRAKAH (ELIJAH'S SACRIFICE),
See p. 116.

INDEX OF NATUEAL HISTORY

Compiled chiefly tcilh a viae to the Geographical dislribulimi of (lie Sitccies

occurring in the Jouriud.

ArACiA, 281, 299, 319. "

nilotica, 323.

seyal, 485, 524.
Jranthomys cahirinus, 511.
Atomys dimidiatus, 239, 256, 511.
A'Uantum nigrum, 599.
.lifonis, 456, 493.
^Ikcdo ispida, 245.
AJciion smyrncnsis, 201, 435.
Almonil, 410, 418.
Aloe, 503.
.4 Itliea acaulis, 621.
^l iiuiiom a ncs fraferculus, ] 98.
Ammonites, 186, 557.
^Imydrus trlstraiai, 209.
Anastatica hierochiindica, 217, 346.
Anemone coronaria, 411, 418, 433.
Angnilla microptera, 103.
Antelope, 289.
Antelope Corinna, 475.
Anthocharis cnrdaininin, 434.
Autinhinum, 92.

Apis liyusfica, 86 ; A. mcllifica, 86.
Apple, 604, 611, 619, 626.
Apricot, 552, 605, 611, 615, 626.
Aquila heliaca, 133 ; A. na;violdes, 75.
Arbutus and rachne, 82, 418, 492
Ardcola minuta, 587.
Arum, 446, 492.
■ Asphodclus raccniosus, 371.
Aspidium dilatatum, 599.
Asjdcnium trichomanes, 599.
Astragalus, 354, 509.
Atliene mcridionalis, 67, 68, 184.
Atriplex halimus, 273.

Baculites syriacus, 271.
Badger, 186, 505.

Balanites u-gyptiara, 202, 559.
Balsam, false, 202, 523, 559.
Barhus lonfficeps, 428.
Basalt, 129, 258, 431, 435, 454, 457,

501, 577, 579.
Bats, 88, 186, 211, 237, 491, 532.
Bay, 418, 492.
Bear (Syrian), 447, 607.
Bees, 86, 87.
Bee-eater, 498, 523.
Berberis ridgaris, 621.
Bcssoiwrnis albigularis, 606.
Bison, 11.
Bittera, 436, 587.
Bitumen, 253, 354.
Bituminous shale, 254, 271.
Blenniv.s lupulus, 103.
Boar, wild, 218, 225, 234, 370, 4 47.
Boring shcll.s, 43.
Botaurus stcllaris, 587.
Broom, 492.

Bubo ascalaphus, 68, 88, 131.
Bufl'alo, 429.

Bullml, 14, 201, 508, 531, 580.
Bunting, 115, 409.

striolated, 291.
Buprestidw, 532.

Bustard-Houl.ara, 372, 509, 521, 616.
Butco fcrox, 383 ; B. vulgaris, 92.
Butterflies, 418, 434.

Caccabis hcyi, 198, 291, 528; C. saxa-

tilis, 83.
Calendula, 371.

Calolrnpis proccra, 281, 283, 523.
Canipliire, 281, 299.
Cappa.ris a'gyptiacn, 336, 521.
Capriiiiulgus lamarici.i, 250.
Carduelis elcgans, 183.

G38

INDEX OF NATUIiAL IIISTOUY.

Carouba or caroli-tvcp, IG, 88, 492.
Casarca ratila, 33:j.
Castor-oil-tree, 38.
Cat-fish, 435, 440.
Cedar (Cednts libani), 624—632.
Cc/tis aiisfra/is, 560.
Ceutaurea, 235, 571, 574.
Ceratonia siliqun, 16, 88, 492.
Ccrithium mcditerraneum, 94.
Ccttia !>p.ricea, 498, 619.
Ciiaffinch, 624.

ChariidriiL'i aaiaticus, 92. 372 ; mori-
ncllus, 366 ; pluviali.t, 92, 333 ;
jJi/rrhoUwrax, 92, 333.
Chcilanthes fracjrans, 599.
Cliitfeliaft", 35, 291.
Choujfli, al;)iiie, 607.
Ch7-oriHs ntlotii'us, 245, 426, 435.
CluTsaiitlicmuin, 92, 235, 456.
Cicadce, 624.
Cuiclics aqunticus, 617.
Cinnyrvi osca, 201, 340, 493, 508.
Circaetos galUcus, 37.
Circis siliquastrum, 492.
Circus jKiJUdus, 493.
Citron, 604.

Clarias macracanthiis, 435, 442.
Clausilia, 9, 36.
Clematis, 580.
Cohitis i}isigni$, 252.
Colias cdusa, 434.
Colocyiith, 292.
Columha palumhus, 118, 472, 481; C.

schimperi, 446.
Coney, 84, 250, 256.
Conovulus hidcntatus and C. firminii,

103.
Convohiiliis, 493, 574.
Coot, 320.

Coracias (jarrula, 498, 510.
Coi-acine {KopaKluos), 440, 442.
Coral, 324.
Corbiila syriaen, 112.
Cormorant, 245.

pigmy, 41.
Corvm affinis, 274, 314, 344.

agricola, 184.

collarif, 550.

coirtx, 184.

comix, 184.

mmiedula, 184.

umhrinus, 184, 185, 245.
Cotyle imlmtris, 268, 304, 333.

rupcstris, 212, 599.
Crab, 288.
Crane, 369, 371.
Craiccgn.') uzarolus, 492.
Crateropus chaJybeus, 201, 508.

Crocodile, 103.
Crocus, 58, 370.
Crow, 131, 184.
Crustaceans, 319.
Cuckoo, 463.

great spotted, 484, 551.
CucuUcca, 271.
Cucumher, 526, 552.
Cyclamen, 82, 411, 418, 493.
Cygnus nuisicns, 185, 399.

olor, 185.
Cynthia cardui, 434.
Cyprinodon cypris, 153, 252.
Cyprinodon sophioc, 252, 319.
Cypselus galilceensis, 212, 239, 446,

497.

nnelba, 557.
Cystopteris, 633.

Dahoia xanthina, 57.
Deer, 418, 447.
J)iscog7iathus rufus, 529.
Dom-tree, 200, 208, 457, 521.
Donax trunculus, 94.
Dotterel, 366. -
' Asiatic, 92.

red-throated, 92.

ring, 414.
Drymoeca gracilis, 14, 202, 508.
Drymceca striaticcjis, 292.
Duck, wild, 273, 589.
Dunlin, 245.

Eagle, Bonelli's, 76.

golden, 83.

imperial, 133, 304.

short-toed, 37.

tawny, 75.
Echinus syriacus, 162.
Echis arcnicola, 202.
Egret, 409, 436.
Elanus melanox>tcrus, 59.
Eleagnus angustif alius, 559.
Elder-tree, 492.
Enibcriza cia, 115.

striolata, 291 ; ccvsia, 585.
Erinim lens, 591.
Exogyra dcnsata, 290, 292, 351, 530.

Falcon, lanner, 304, 307 ; Elconnro',
619.

peregrine, 125, 409.
Fantail, Egyptian, 14, 202, 354, 508,
Fclis chaus, 239.
Ferns, 164.

Fern, maiden-hair, 289, 552.
Ficus sycornorus, 31, 217.
Fig-tree, 549.

INDEX OF XATUIt.U. IIISTolIY.

r>:\'.)

Filiv mas, 599.

Fishes, of Sea of Galilee, 426 ; of

Jonlan, 245, 4S5 ; of Dead Sea,

252 ; of Wady Kuril, 7(J ; of Jabbok

and Gilead, 529, 544.
Flamingo, 185.
Fossils, 36, 112, 260, 302, 321, 351,

530.
Fox, 269.
Francolin {Francolinus vulgaris), 91,

435.
Frogs, 584.

Gahrida cristata, 383.

Galliimle, purple, 436, 587.

Garridus m.clanocq)halus, 118, 228.

Gastcria farsaniana, 503.

Gazelle, 258, 323, 372, 447, 475, 511,

G16.
Genista, 445.

retem, 289.
Gcrbillus, 115.
Gladiolus, 493.
Goat, wild, 258.
Goldfinch, 183.
Gonoptcnix Cleopatra, 418.
Gourd, 39.

Graculus ]n/gmccii9, 41.
Grakle, 2oi, 209, 256, 267, 511.
Grebe, 273, 280, 424, 439, 574.
Greenstone, porphvrilic, 248.
Griflbu vulture, 125, 446, 447.
Gri(s cincrca, 248, 371, 372.
Gri/pha:n capiiloidrs. 111, 162.
Gull, Adriatic, 13.

Audouini's, 13, 102, 245, 280,
426.

eagle, 429, 456.

herrincc, 13.
Gypsum, 242, 322.

H.vuE, 83, 220, 323.

Harrier, 414, 493.

Hawkweed, 234.

Hawthorn, 492.

Hedgehog, 185.

Helix carthusianella, 245 ; mnsadcr,

305 ; sectzeni, 371 ; s)/riaca, 245 ;

vest alls, 371.
Hcmichrorais sacer, 426, 575.
Hci'odias alba, 436.
Heron, 456, 587.
Hcrpcsfes ichneumon, 89, 91, 108.
Himantojnis m^lonojytcrus, 133, 414.
Hippolais upcheri, 606.
Hippuritcs liratus, 260 ; siiriacus, 36.
Jlirundo cahirica, 105, 118.

Ilirundo rufula, 104, 212, 436. 4'.t7,

531.
Holibv, 619.
HollylKHk, 493, 621.
Honeysuckle, 580.
Hoopoe, 457, 463.
Jlouhara undulnta, 509.
Hviuna, 241, 275, 325.
Hypiilriorcltis suhbuteo, 619.
Ihjrax syriacus, 84, 250.

lantJdna fragilui, I. glohosa, 94.

Ibex, 258, 273, 289, 296, 316, 507.

Ichneumon, 89, 91, 108, 447.

Indigo, 338.

//((//(/, 243.

Ipomea palmatn, 574.

Iris, 371, 376, 383, 433, 485.

Ixos xanthopiigius, 14, 201, 508.

Jackdaw, 137, 184, 550.

Jav, blackheaded, 118, 133, 137, 230,

397, 493.
Jerboa, 220.

Jericho, Rose of, 217, 346.
Judas-tree, 492.
Juniper, 628.

Kksti:kt,, 183, 436.

Kestrel, lesser, 121, 183, 531.

Kcfupa cryloncnsis, 88.

Kingfisher, blue, 245, black and white,

256, Smyrnian, 201, 256, 435.
Kite, l)lack-shouldercd, 59.

black,

red, 271, 383.

Lahcobarbus cavis, 428.

Lamniergcyer, 446.

Lanius excubitor, 67, 493 ; L. rufus,

493 ; L. pcfsonatus, 493.
Laiiner, the, 304, 307.
Lapwing, 292.
Lark, calandra, 409 ; created, 383 ;

isabelline, 197, 364 ; sky, 383 ; wood,

409.
Larus audoiiini, 13, 102, 244.

ichthyai-tos, 10], 429 ; L. mfln-
noccphalus, 13.
Lnuru.i nobilis, 492.
Laicsonia alba, 299.
Lentils, 591.
Lentisk, 418.
Leopard, 242, 274.

Lrpussinaiticus, 221, 2i2,S!/riiinis, 83.
Linnet {Linota cannnhina), 607.
Linum, 493.
Lizards, 372, 491, 532.

\

6-iO

INDEX OP NATUKAL HISTORY.

Loniccra implcxa, 579.

Loranlhufi imlicus, 202.

Lusriniopsis fluviatilis, 498 ; L. savii,

498.
L)ichnis coili-rosa, 404, 410.
Lynx, 239.

Malva mareotica, 370.

Mandrake, 102.

ManiKit, 218, 607.

Martin, 457 ; Rock martin, 212, 268,

••it) 4.
Mfiffhiola sinuata, 235.
Mt'dlar, 552.

Mclanojysis costata, 219, 588 ; ^?ra';v),s'«,
76, 208, 219, 288, 317.
saulcyi, 219, 288.
Merganser, 102.
Meropt: apitister, 498.
Mole, 186, .572.
Moiitifrbujilla nivalis, 607.
Mouse-porcnpiue, 239.
Mulberry, 583, 604, 61.'5, 619, 626.
Murcxbrandaris, 51 ; M. truncuhts, 51.
Mtiscari moschatum, 58 ; M.racemosum,

58, 371.
Myrtle, 492.

Nectarinia osea, 201, 341, 354, 493, 508.
Ncritina jordani, 76, 272, 287, 588 ;

N. michonii, 118.
Nightingale, 509, 519, 580.
Nightingale of Palestine, 14.
Nightjar, 250.
Nubk-tree, 281, 457.
Nuphar lutca, 587, 589.
Nymphcea alba, 587, 589.

Oak, 117, &c.

Oak, Al)raham's, 392.

Oleander. 223, 43.5, 445, 463, 528.

Olive-tree, 464, 467, 611.

Olive, wild, 492, 559.

Onosma si/riacum, 446, 493.

Onyx, oriental, 317.

Ojihrijs atrata, 493.

Orange, 409, 60.5, 611.

Orchis, 493.

Oriolus galhula, 586.

Ornithocjalum, 235, 371.

Orphean warbler, 585.

Orthoptf-ra, 283.

Osher, 2H1, 283, 336, 523.

Osprey, 111.

Otis houhara, 372.

Otocoris penicillata, 607.

Otils asailaphus, 68, 131, 876, 531.

Owl, fish-eating, 88.

Owl, little, 67, 68, 183 ; great horned,

68, 131 ; scops-cared, 68.
Oxi/loj)hus glandarius, 484, 551.

Palms, 244, 281, 290, 409, 425, 429,

503, 570.
Papilio mncJiaon, 434.
Papyru.s, 436, 587.
Parnassius apollinus, 418.
Partridge, deseii, 197, 291, 323, 528.

Greek, 83, 280.
Parus major, 183 ; P. atcr, P. lugu-

bris, 624.
Passer cisalpinus, 182 ; P. moabiticus,

274, 276, 341; P. salicarius, 570.
Peach, 410, 552, 611.
Pear, 604, 611.
Peduncnlus ghjcimeris, 94.
Peregrine falcon, 125, 409.
Periwinkle, 418.
Petrocincia cijanea, 35, 183, 268, 599 ;

P. suxatilis, 505.
Pctronia stulta, P. brachydactyla, 619.
Philomela hisciiiia, 509.
Pholadcs, 43.
Phylhjrca, 492.
Picus syriaeus, 118.
Pimpernel, 404.
Pine, 492, 543.
Pinus carica, 481, 543 ; P. halepensis,

16, 111, 628.
Pistaehia lentiscus, 492 ; P. terebinthus,

392, 484.
Plane, oriental, 580, 596.
Plover, 92, 409 ; P. Norfolk, 248, 280 ;

P. spurwing, 414, 438, 456.
Plum, 611.
Pochard, 225, 245.
Pudiecps cristatus, 280, 424, 438.
Pomegranate, 410, 611.
Pontia brassica, P. rapi, 434.
Poplar, 519.
Porcupine, 273, 317.
Porcupine-mouse, 239, 511.
Porphyria liyacinthus, 436, 587.
Porphyritic greenstone, 248.
Poterium spinosuin, 106, 160, 543.
Pratincola melaiiura, 198, 268, 292.
Primus syriaeus, 606.
Psammomys ohesus, 218.
Ptcris lour/i/olin, 599.
P/froclesguUatus, 366; P. senegalensis,
' 221.

Pieropus, 89.
Pyrrhocorax aljnnns, 607.

Ql'Aii,, 409, 435, 456.

INDEX OF XATUHAL HISTOHY.

tin

QuercKS arjifnps, 1l>4, 417, 473; Q.

l)scudococcifcra, 392, 417, 473.
Quiuce, 605.

Kail, water, 320.

Rana esctilcntn, 584.

Ranunculus, 35.S, 456, 493.

Kaven, 184. 185, 245, 274, 314, 344.

Kedsliank, 98, 245, 333.

Redstart, Syrian, 622, 624.

Retem, 290', 354, 365, 510.

Rhinopoma, 211.

Ricinus coinrmuus, 38, 216.

Ring-dove, 457.

Rock-dove, 224, 446.

Roller, 498, 510, 523.

Rosa spiiwsissima, 606.

Rose, wild, 580.

Ruticilla semirufa, 622, 624.

Salicorxia, 222, 246.

Snlix, 292.

Salsola, 222, 243, 354, 365.

Sandgrouse, 221, 366, 369, 521, 616.

Saponaria, 404.

Savi's warbler, 498.

Saxicola descrti, 240, 245, 364 ; S. iia-
bellina, 235 ; S. IciicocepJmla, 257,
318 ; -S'. Hbanotica., 29, 197 ; -S. mo-
nacJui, 324 ; S. ofnani/ir, 607 ; S.2)hiIo-
thamna, 369 ; S. xanthomrlama, 160.

Scaphiodmi capoela, 76, 103, 544.

Scops aldrovandi, 68.

Seriniis aurifrons, 606, 624.

Ser^nce apple, 492.

Seyal-tn-e, 315.

Shearwater, ilanx, 98.

Sheep, 603.

Shellfish, fluviatile, 76.

Shieldrake, ruddy, 333.

Shrew, 267.

Shrike, gi-eat gi'cy, 67.

Sidr-tree, 208.

Snakes, water, 585.

Sodom, apple of, 201, 281, 523.

Solaniun mdongena, 202.

Sorbiis aitcuparia, 492.

Spahuv typhlus, 186.

Sparrow,"^ 182, 274, 570 ; S. rock, 619.
■Starling, 409 ; S. black, 409.

Sterna aarjlka, 13.

Stilt, 13.3, 413.

Stint, little, 333.

Stock, 234, 370.

Storax-tree, 492.

Stork, black, 241, 247, 316.
white, 438, 539.

Stylophora pistiUala, 324.

Slyrax offi.cina,lis, 492.

Sulpluir springs, 279, 301, 354, 458.
Suul>inl, 201. 341, 354, 493.
Swallow, 104, 105, 436, 497, 531.

rock, 201.
Swan, 18.5, 399.
Swift, 446, 497, 557, 607.
Sycamine fig-tree, 31, 217, 509.
Sycamore, 34, 509.
Sylvia orphca, S. curnica, 585.

Tamari.sk, 223, 246, 255, 281, 519.
Tclliim casta, 94 ; T. p/anata, 94.
Terebinth, 392, 457, 492, 542, 581.
Thrush, blue, 3.5, 183, 268 ; T. hopping,

201 ; T. rock, 505.
TinnunculHs alaudarius, 183 ; T. cen-

c/in.s, 121.
Titmouse, 183.
Trinqa ininuta, 333.
Tropidonoluji /ii/dnis, 585.
Tti/ipa, 433, 456, 493.
Turtle-dove, 183, 509, 519, 523, 570.
Tartur auritus, 183, 509, 570 ; T. ri-

smnu.1, 239, 336 ; T. Simyalensis

{ = a;gyi^tius), 183, 200, 336.

Unicorn, or bi.son, 11.
Unio terminalis, 574.

Valerian, 493.

VancUns cristatus, 92, 292 ; V. spino-
siis, 413.

Vil>H7'>ii(m timis, 492.

Vinca hcrbacca, 418.

Vine, 605, 617.

Vitex agnits-castus, 216.

Vultur monachus, 426.

Vultures, 199, 446, 493, 531 ; V. Egyp-
tian, 542.

"Wagtails, 245.

Walnut-tree, 552, 611.

"\Varl)lers, 291.

AViieatear, 29, 291, 318, 607 ; W.

Menetries, 235.
"Whitethroat, 585.
Willow, 292, 519.
Wolf, 267, 268, 367.
Woodbine, 580.

Woodpecker, 118, 133, 137, 397, 457.
Woodpigeon, 118, 457, 481, 493.

Xantharpyia cegyptiaca, 89.

Zameiiis dahlit, 485.

Zizijphus sinna-Christi, 200, 202, 336.

484, 521, 570.
Zukkum-tree, 203.

I

T T

INDEX

TO PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE ILLUSTRATED.

Genesis . . . xiii. 3, 4, 10

— xiii. 6 . .

— xiii. 10, 11 .

— xiv. 7-

— xix. 24

— xix. 28

— xix. 30

— xxii. 4

— XXV. 84

— XXX. 14

— xxxi.

— xxxii.

— xxxiii.

— xxxiii. 18 .

— XXXV. 16, 19

— xxxvii. 17 .

— xlix. 20
Leviticus . . xiv. 6
Numbers . . xxi. 20

— xxi. 26

— xxi. 32
xxii. 1

— xxiii. 14

— xxiii. 14—28

XXV. 1 .

— xxxii. 3, 30

— xxxii. 38

— xxxiii. 49 .
Deuteronomy, iv. 48 . .

— xiv. 7 . .

— xxix. 23 .

— xxxii. 13, 14

— xxxiii. 23 .

— xxxiii. 2

— xxxiv. 1

— xxxiv. 1 — 3
Joshua. . . . iii. 1 .

— viii. 4

— viii. 33

— xi. 8 .

— xi. 17

— xiii. 2.')

PAGE

167
489
361
362
857
361
362
152
591
103
483
483
144
147
404
132

92
630
535
363
533
525
536
524
524
521
540
525, 536
603
250
363
474
578

92
585
539
525
167
149

65
619
533

PAGE

Jo.sliua. . . .

xiii. 27 . . . . 521

—

xiii. 30 .

483

—

XV. 25 .
XV. 26 .

366

367

—

xviii. 17

196

—

xix. 12, 18

124

—

xix. 28 .

58

—

xix. 35 .

428

—

xxi. 14 .
xxi. 88 .

383

483

—

xxii. 22 .

577

—

xxiv. 32

148

Judges. . .

iv. 6, 10. 1

577

—

V. 7 . .
ix. 7 . .

65
149

—

xvii. 8 .

. 40

—

xviii. 9, 10

586

—

xviii. 28

579

—

xxi. 19 .

160

1 Samuel .

xiii. 6 .

490

—

xiii. 15 .

168

—

xxiv. 2 .

289

—

xxvi. 7 .

. 261

—

XXX. 28—3

1

385

2 Samuel .

i. 21 . .
ii. 8 . .

117

484

—

v. 8 . .
viii. 8. .

189
2

1 Kings . .

V. 18 .

632

—

ix. 18 .

619

—

xviii. 38

11

6, 118

—

xviii. 43

116

—

XX. 30 .

433

2 Kings , .

ii. . .

522

—

iii. 4 . .

537

—

ix. 27 .

130

—

X. 22 .

504

—

xiv. 9 .

630

2 Kings. . .

xix. 23 .

110

1 Clii'onicles

xxvii. 28

35

2 C'lirouiclcs .

i. 15 . .

35

—

ix. 27 .

35

INDEX TO PASSAGES OF

SCRIPTURE

ILLUSTRATED.

G43

PACE

PAGE

Neheiniali

. . iii. 15, 10 . . 189

Ezckiel . .

. -xxi. 31 ... . 550

—

iv. 17 .

. 125

—

XXV. 4, 5

550

Esther . .

. . ix. 21, 22

. 494

—

xxvi. 4—12

53

Job . . .

. . xxxix. 9 — 1;

I . 12

—

xxvii. 9 .

632

Psalms .

. . xviii. 2 — 15

. 299

—

xxix. 18

53

—

xxii. 21 .

11 n.

—

xxxi. 3, &c.

625

—

xxix. 6 .

. 11 n.

—

xlvii. 17

2

—

xlii. 1, 7, 9,

6 . 298

Hosea . . .

. X. 14. .

448

Ivil. 4 .

. 298

Amos . . .

. i. 5 .

619

—

Ixviii. 14

. 126

—

iii. 12

197

_

Ixxviii. 47

. 35

—

vi. 12

383

—

Ixxxiv. 3

. 182

—

vii. 14

34

— .

Ixxxix. 12

. 127

Jonah . . .

. \'i. 5 .

38

—

xcii. 10 .

. 11 n.

I\lic;ili . . .

. i. 6 .

136

cvii. 34 .

. 363

Matthew. .

. ii. 22

101

.

ex. 7 . .

. 196

—

viii. 28

401

—

cxxxiii. 3

. 603

—

xiv. 34

43

9, 440

—

cxxxvii. 5

. 171

—

xiv. 35

444

Proverbs .

. . XXV. 11 .

. 605

—

xxiv. 28

343

—

XXX. 26 .

. 250

—

xxiv. 32

450

Canticles

. . i. 14 . .

. 281

—

xxviii. 2

406

ii. 2 . .

. 485

Mark . . .

. V. 2 . .

461

ii. 3 . .

. 605

—

vi. 45

440

vii. 4 . .

. 540

—

vi. 48 .

430

vii. 8 . .

. 605

—

vi. 53 .

43

9, 440

vii. 13 .

. 103

Luke . . .

. ii. 7 . .

72

Isaiah . .

. . ii. 20 . .

. 186

—

ii. 8 . .

632

XV. 6 . .

. 340

■ —

iv. 16, 20

513

xvi. 9 . n5Z2, 541

—

iv. 29 .

121

—

xxxvii. 24, 25 . 9

—

iv. 31, 38

444

Ix. 8 . . . . 183

—

viii. 26 .

461

Ixiii. 3 .

. . 106

—

xix. 4

3

1, 216

Jeremiah

. . vii. 12 .

. . 162

—

xix. 41 .

172

viii. 7

497, 509

John . . . .

. i. 28 . .

. 522

ix. 17, IS

. . 36

- -

i. 46 . .

. 122

xxiv. 2 .

. . 34

—

iv. 9 . .

. 137

»

xli. 8 . .

. . 107

—

jv. 35 .

. 145

xlviii. 34

. . 340

—

vi. 17, 21

. 440

. _

xlix. 18

. . 363

T T 2

INDEX OP SUBJECTS AND GEOGRAPHY.

Aca'at, trilic of, 487.

Abana (I'.aiadu), 609, (515.

Aharim, 535.

Alibin, 475.

Abtl el Asiz, Sheikh, 515.

Abel SMttim, iflo.

AhiJa, 618.

Abou Dahi'tk. 192 ; his physiqm; ami
dres.s, 269 ; Arabian Nights' enter-
tainment, 275 ; his notions of jus-
tice, 329 ; personal appearance, 346 ;
per]>lexing customs, 346, 367 ;
vigour of, 367 ; sharp trick of,
373.

Abiaham's Oak, description of, 392.

Achor, valley of, 200.

Achzib, 64.

Acre (Accho), plain of, 91, 421, 493 ;
city of, 92 ; bay, 105.

Adoraim, 396.

Advvan, 247, 467, 477, 488, 507, 516,
517, 563, 564.

Afka (Apheca), 633.

Agi-iculture of Palestine, 591, 592.

Agyle Ag;ha, 112, 120 ; his cam]), 419 ;
invitation to dinner, 420, 449 ; visit
to, 452, 49S.

Ahmah, Khan el, 198.

Ai, 166, 167.

Ainat, village of, 622.

Ain el Barideh, 425, 426.
Beida, 324.
Duk, 200.
F.'slikhah, 249, 253, 510, 511,

Fijch, spring of, 617.
Fiisail, 238, 240.
Hajla, 221.
Haramiyeh, 163, 411.
Jenneli, 565.
.Tidv, 253, 527.
Kunveh, 583.
iMellalieh, 588.
Jlesclierfi, 65.
Miniyeh, 434.

Ain, Jlundawarah, 434.

Sultan, 200, 215 ; geology of, 239,

240 ; exploration of, 506.
et Tabighah, 429, 432.
Terabeh, 253, 273, 527.
etTin, 441.

AjaJon, valley of, 408 ; hill of, 472.

Ajiltun, 634.

Ajlun, 559, 565.

Jebel, 472, 474.

Akurali, village of, 633.

Algeria, 59.

'AlMn, 557.

Ahna and Delata, basaltic dyke be-
tween, 577.

Amman (Rabbath Amnion), 544 ; noble
ruins, 544 — 550.

Amram the priest, 154.

Amfid, Wady el, 434, 442.

Aiiata, 231.

Anatha, baf/is of, 458.

Anathoth, 231.

Antoninus Pius, 9.

Aplir.k, Fik, 433.

Arabs, 3, 18, 57, 138 ; ruse, 318 ;
camps, 340 ; funeral, 449, 454.

Arad, ruined village of, 570.

Araj, 429.

Ara'k el Emir, 529.

Arbain, village of, 570.

Arhcla, 447.

Areyeh, Wady, 292.

Anion, river, 247.

Arubljoneh, 504.

A.shavcr, I)eir-el, ruins of, 610.

Asher, 2, 64, 73.'

'Attir, Jattir, 383 ; description of its
caves, 384.

Auwaly Xahr, 36.

B.VAL, ruined temple of, 609.
Baalbec, 615, 619 qicrhaps Baat-fifia),

va.stness of ruins of, 620.
Baal -Gad, 619.

I

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND OEOnKArHY.

G45

Baal-lianaii, 35.

Baal-Meon, 540.

Babila, 16 ; palace at, 18.

Banias, Ccvsarca Philippi, 574, 580 —
582 ; village, 583.

Baiada (Ahana), 609, 615.

Barclay, Mr. 233.

Bashan, oaks of, 463 ; highlands of,
465.

Iktnin, El, 632.

Bedouiu, little hope of civilizing, 26 ;
camp, 261 ; liaiupict, 262 ; illustra-
tion of manners, 380, 483 ; law-
lessness of, 490, 559.

Bccrsheba, 372 ; cnomious wells at,
373 ; ruins of a Greek Church, 376.

Beida, Ain, 324.

Beisan { Iktiui/iean, Scythopolis), 499,
500, 5U3.

Beit Idis, village of, 567.

Beit Imrin, village of, 413.

Beitini (Bcfhcl), 164.

Beffort, 81.

Belka, 464, 489 ; exceeding fertility of,
537.

Belus, river, 93.

Benjamin, hill of, 161.

Bcrothah or Bcrothai, 2.

Bcthabara, 522.

Bethany, 196.

Bethel, its fountains and ruins, 164 ;
incident at, 165.

Beth Haccerem, 401.

Bethlehem, 403.

Bethmaachah AMI, 579.

Beth-rehob, 579.

Bctlisaida, 422, 429, 439.

Betlishean (Beisan), 55, 499 ; citadel
of, 501 ; fine view from, 80.

Beyi-out, harbour of, 1 ; city essentially
Turkish, 2 — 7 ; mission schools, 24 ;
American mission, 24.

Bir el Khat, 196.

Birch, Wady, 453, 485.

Birch, iloslcin village of, Beeroth, 168.

Birket er Ram, Phiala, 583 ; extinct
volcano, 584.

Bison (probably unicorn of Job xxxix.
9—12), 11.

Bitumen, 278, 354, 355, 356.

Bludan, 618.

Bonar, Dr., 436, 443. "

Bone Breccia, 10.
I Bones and Hints, 10, 11.
\Bostrcnus, river, 36.
iBowen, John, 140.

B'sherreh, 626.

[Buckingham, J. S., 473, 561.
JBukaa, Ccele-Syria, 83, 619.

Burckhardt quoted, 340, 486, 524, 536,
5til.

Burghuz, bridge over the Leontes, 599.

Busrah and Gilead, country between,
482.

Bussah, village of, 65 ; camp at, 68 ;
head-dress of the women, 69 ; Greek
service at, 70, 71 ; demands on the
doctor, 73, 84 ; sheikh of, 72 ; ba-
chelor's difficulties, 74 ; Turkish
officials, 74 ; interior of homes, 85 ;
women of, 85, 86, 87.

Cccsarca Philippi (Banias), 574.
Caiffa, 93, 95, 486.
Camp, Roman, ruins of a, 313.
Cana, 65. 451.
Capernaum, 422, 429, 440.
Carmel, lirst view of, 64 ; winepresses
of, 98 ; convent of, 99 ; view from,
100, 105; tombs of, 110; summit,
111.
Capharnaum, fountains of, 441 — 443.
Castles, Arak el Emir, 527 — 529.
Beth,shean, 503.
es Hunah, near Hesliban, 534.
llunin, 579.
Kefrenjy, 502.
Koukab el Hawa, 454.
Kulat el Kurn, 76.
Kulat er Rubnd, 565.
Kulat es Subeiben in the

Banias, 583.
Kulat es Shukif, 81.
Kurmel, 388.
Rabbath Amraon, 549.
Til)nin, 579.
Zuwcirah, ruined, 351.
Chaplin, Dr. 185, 233.
Chrrith, lirook, 199.
ChesuUolh, 124.
Chisloth (Tabor), 124.
Chorazin, 422, 429, 444.
Church, Greek, 265 ; contrast between
Greek and Roman Churches, 265, 266.
Cisterns, 164, 309, 311, 353, 540.
Coastline from Ain Feshkhah toEngedi,

275.
Column, solitary (plain of Acre), 83.
Convent of Cannel, 99.
Convent of Deir Hajla, 221.
Convent of Marsaba, 265.
Crusader fortresses, 81, 229, 309, 340,
341, 352, 353, 454, 579; of Bel voir,
502.

Daberath, 124.

Dalu'ir Wady, geology of, 228, 248.

Daliiumnilut, 425.

64G

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND GEOGRArHY.

Damascus, 611, 61C ; Mosque of Omar,
613.

Damur Nalir, 29,

Dan. Tell Kady, 579.

Daoucl Paslia, visit to, 15 ; descripticm
of, 19 ; his administration, 19, 20 ;
business at the Pasha's iesi(U^noe, 21 ;
liiskiiowU'djfeof Knj^lisli, 19 ; literary
corres|)t>nik'Uce of, I'i ; his aenuaint-
anee with early English history,
Anglo-Saxon, &c., 23, 24.

Dawkins, Mr. 11.

Dead Sea, shores of, 210, 245, 252 ;
view of from Ras Feshkhah, 257 ;
from Eas Sudcir, 293 ; measurement
of terraces and heights, 295 ; tem-
perature of the water, 321 ; origin
of, 326, 327 ; volcanic traces, 327 ;
west coast of, 527 — 533.

Dehnrich, 124.

Debir, 396.

Dcir Duwan, 166.

Deir el Kamar, 629.

Deir, Wady, 477.

Der'a (Edrei), 485.

Dcrojah, Wady, 277.

Dewir-Dan, probably Dcbir, 396.

Dial), Sheikh, 477.

Dor (see Josh. xvii. 11), 105.

Dothan, 132.

Druses, 18 '; their number, 19 ; charac-
ter of, 21, 23 ; their manners, 21 ;
education amongst, 22, 26, 588, 610.

Dufferin, Lord, 19.

Duma, 629.

Dura, 396.

Ebal, Mount, 144, 149.
Egerton-Warburton, ]\Ir. and partv,

'495, 500.
Ehrenberg, 629.
El A'al {Eknlah), 540.
EMridg^, Mr. 4, 15.
Elijah's Sacrifice, place of, 115 — 117.
Elisha's Fountain, 200—204.
Enab {Kirjath Jearim), 407, 511.
Endor, village of, 127.
Engannini (.Jenin), 65, 130.
Emfcdi, 280, 538 ; anciently Hazezon

Tamar, now Ain Jidy, 281 ; plain

of, 282 ; dryness of, 296.
Eiishemcsh, 196.
Ephraim, plain of, 14.5.
Er i;iha (Oihiali), 206, 216.
Esdraelon, plain of, 65, 123, 418, 421,

502, r,m.

Esfia, village of, 112.

Eshcol, vale of, 388 ; richness of, 393.

Eshtemoa, 386.

Es Salt {Bamoth Gilead), 552.
Euscbius, 458.
Ezrak, gorge of, 552.

Eaiiil (Eella), 502, 567.

Farah Wady, 230.

Fanara, 462.

Fcifeh, oasis of, 334.

Fcllahin, contrasted with Bedouin, 490,

567.
Fergusson, IVIr. 80.
Feshkhah, Ain, 248 ; fountain of, 250.

Ras, view from, 257.
Fik (Aphcca, Country of Gadarenes),

425.
Fik, Wady, 433.
Fikreh, Wad}', 324.
Fortresses, ruined (see castles), 229,

309, 340, 352.
Frank Mountain (Ilerodium), 401.
Fukeis, el, 552.
Fusail, Ain, 238.

Gadara, 456 ; ruins of, 458 — 460.

Gadarenes, country of, 425.

Galilee, 65 ; first view of, 105.

Galilee, Sea of, first view of, 422 ; west
coast, 431, 576, 577.

Geha (Jiba), 168.

Gcnnesarct, lake of, 122 ; jilain of, 574.

George, St. Bay of, 8, 15, 635.

Gerash, 462, 470, 476 ; nolde ruins of,
560—563.

Gcrgesa, 461.

Gerizim, Mount, 145, 152; grand view
from, 151 ; temple, 145, 151 ; re-
visited, 505.

Gctlisemane, 196.

Ghawarineh, tribe of, 226, 264, 487,
493.

Gihcah, 169.

GUboa, 502.

Gilead and Busrah, country between,
482.

Gilead, Jabcsh, 566 ; Mount, 151, 237,
471, 472 ; grand view from, 556 ;
Eamoth (Es Salt), 552, 553.

Gihjal, 168.

Ghor, the (Jordan valley), 197 ; women
of, 207 ; banks of 222 ; rise of the
water.s, 223 ; terraces and plateaux,
224, 225 ; views of from Ras Sudeir,
293, 438, 502; the " ciccar," 508,
509, 570.

Ghor es Safieh, 334 ; swarms of birds,
336 ; exceeding fertility of, 339.

Ghor es Seisaban, 245, 524.

Ghuweir, el, 425.

Ghuweir, Wady, 271.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND GEOGRAPHY.

647

Ghuruk, merj al, 414.

Glass, inventor of, 93.

Gobat, Bishop, 189.

Goblan, Sheikh, 515, 525.

Gcmiorrak, 328 ; destruction of, 355.

Greeks at Beyrout, 25.

Greek Monastery, 223 ; Convent at
Itlarsaba, 2»)5 ; Temple at Eabbath
Amnion, 544 ; Church, contrast be-
tween, ami Church of Rome, 265, 266 ;
remains of, 385, 503.

Grove, Mr. 156, 199, 236, 352, 505.

Guerracio, Signor, 230.

Hapith, el, 628.

Hafaf, Wadv, 315.

Hajla, Ain,'221.
Hamath, 2, 621.

Hamam, AVady, 434.

Hamedi, Beni, tribe of, 489.

Hamma, Ard el, 421, 498.

Hammath, 428.

Hamoud, 218.

Hamsin, cl ^column), 83.

Hamzi, Sheikh, 192, 194, 297 ; de-
scription of, 345 ; visit to, 388 ; the
Mrs. Hamzis, 389 ; hospitable recep-
tion, 389 ; changes of raiment, 390.

Haram, at Jerusalem, 181 ; at Hebron,
393.

Hasbei\-a, 6, 25, 597, 598.

Hassan, Beni, tribe of, 488.

Hatrura, Jebel, 316.

Hattin, plain of, 431, 434 ; battle of,
450 ; people of, 451.

Ilazar JEnan, 2.

JIazczon Tamar (Engedi), 290, 362.

Hazor Hadattah, 366.

Hchron, 388; unromantic entrance into,
388 ; ignoble descent, 388 ; Sheikh
Hamzi's house at, 389 : description
of Haram, 393.

Heldua, 29.

Herdawil, Xahr, 81.

Ilermon, Jebel Sheikh, 55, 61, 126,
502, 602 ; dew of, 603, 604, 605 ;
geology of, 607 ; view from, 60S.

Hermon, Little, geology of, 129.

Herodotus, 9.

Heshban, 533, 534 ; Wady, 533, 540,
544.

Heshhon, ruins of, 539, 540.

Hhawarah, tribe of, 485, 486.

Hhora, 380.

Hiram's tomb, 56.

Hieromnx, gorge of, 501.

Hinadeh, tribe of, 486.

Horites, 383.

Hor, Mount, 537.

Hiileh, Lake (Merom\ fii-st view of,
577 — 579 ; phun of, 584 ; east side
of, 585 ; unhealthy, 586 ; west side,
586 ; swamp, 587, 588, 589 ; Arabs
of, 590.

Hum, Tell, 437.

Hyrcanus, castle of, 79, 529.

InnAniM, Xahr, fountain of, 633.

Iksal, ancient fortress, 124.

Indian fauna in Palestine, 88.

Indigo, 337, 338.

Irbid, ruins of, 447.

Irby and SLmgles referred to, 295, 503.

Isawiyeh hamlet, 231.

Iskanderiyeh, 62.

IssacJiar, 94.

Ja.\zer (ancient), 533.
Jahhok, 472, 558.
Jahcsh Gilcad, 566.
Jafla, 3.

Jattir (see Attir), 389.
Jebel Ajlun, 472, 479, 481, 482.
Hauran, 482.
Hatrura, 316.
Kuruntel, 207.
l\lushakka, 62, 64.
Osha {Mount Gilead), 237 ; view

from, 556.
Sheikh {Hermon) 55, 61.
Sunnin, 7, 55, 61.
Usdum, 293, 320 ; geology of,
322 ; height of, 323 ; cave of,
325 ; comi>ared with Sahara,
329 ; view of, 332.
Jehalin, 284, 288, 347 ; dress, food,

features, 317, 506.
Jenin, 130.
Jenina, 462, 466.
Jem'r Keft-, 418.
Jerba, 413.

Jericho, 206, 215, 502.
Jerusalem, first view, 171 ; Russian
Consulate, 172 ; Tombs of Kings, 173 ;
camp at, 174; Prussian con.sul (Dr.
Rosen), 175 ; Bishop's schools, 176 ;
mo.sque of Omar, 177 ; Sakhra, 178 ;
site of Temide, 180 ; mos(iues of El
Aksa and Lssa, 180 ; Mount of Olives,
187 ; Golden Gate of Temjde, 182 ;
Quarries, 187 ; Missionaries, 194 ;
return to, 404 ; synagogue, 512 ;
final departure, 518.
Jeshimmi, 535.
Jessup, Rev. H. H. 10.
JezrccI, 130, 418.
Jezzar Pasha, 41 4.
Jiba, 168.

G48

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND GEOGRAPHY.

Jidy, Ain (Engcdi), 253.

Jilfid, 5.57.

Jisr ("1 Ilajr, iinliirnl IjridgP, G33.

Jisr Mc'jainiiili, biidgo of, 455.

JokHCiDii, lis.

Jordan, valley, 197 ; Viaiiks, 222 ; iLsiiif;

of, 223 ; terraces and plateau, 235 ;

nioiith of, 245 ; view of, fioiu Ka
'P\^ Suileir, 293 ; upper banks, 438, 456,

501 ; i-iccar, 508 ; crossing, 519,

523, 570.
Josejiluis, 216, 306, 440, 527, 530.
Judah, hill country of, 380 ; ruins on,

383, 384 ; south country, 366.
Judeita, 566.

Judsea, wilderness of, 197.
Jxdtah, ruins of, 387.

Kadisiia, 626.

Kady, Tell {I)an\ 579.

Kaneh, 58.

Kainiun, Tell, 118.

Kasimiyeh, Nahr, 47.

Kedes {Kcdesh NaxjUtall), 577.

Kcdron, 195, 253.

Kefereiu, 523, 525, 528.

Kefr Aw an, 566.

Kenna, 451, 496.

Meyah, 569.
Kcfrenjy, 565.
Kefr Jein'r, 418.
Kelb, Nahr el, 2, 8, 12.
Kern, Wady, QQ.

geolog}'' of Wadv, 90.
Kelt, Wady, 199 ; gorge of, 509.
Kerak, 294.
Kerazah Bir, 575.
Khud.'vah, Wadv, 302.
Khal)ineh, tribe'of, 335, 343.
Kliulda, 29.
Khulil, Wady, 380.
Koukab (d Hawa, 454.
Kirjath Jcuriin, 408.
Kirjath (Enab), 511.
Kishon, 65 ; mouth of, 95, 102, 118,

494.
Kulat es Shukif, 81.
Kfirah, el, 462, 567 ; district of, 478.
Kureit el Enab, 408.
Kurnnil, 388.
Kurn, Kulat el, 76, &c.
Knrn Snrtalx'h, 224, 240.
Kurn el Yelmdi, 223.
Kuweh, el, 599.
Kulat (? Keilah) Maon, 497.

Laish (Dan), 580.
Lartet, Mons. 328, 514.
Layard, 8.

"Ladder of Tyre," 61.

Lebanon, 7, 17 ; distant view of, 470 ;
mountaineers of, 618 ; ascent of,
621 ; summit of, 623 ; panorama
fidin, 623 ; cedars of, 624, 631 ; geo-
logy of, 633.

Lebanon, Anti-, 597.

Lebonah, 160.

Leimun, Wady, 446.

Lciliieh, village of, 574.

Lcjah, 3, 458," 470.

licmone. Lake, 623.

Leontcs (Litaii}^) river, 47, 48, 593.

Lepsius, 8.

Lihbeiyah, village of, 600.

Lisan, 272, 293 ; view of from Wady
Zuweireh, 365.

Litany [Leontcs), 593.

Lubban, 160.

Luynes, Due dc, 506, 514.

Lycus, flum. 2.

Lynch," 201, 252, 514.

Maasv n, ruins of, 73.

MacpelaJi, cave of, 391.

Magda/a, 425.

Maghanalish, 543.

Mahanahn, 463 ; probably ^lahneh.

See 483.
Mahawat, Wady, description of, 354.
i\Iahneli 483 ; probal)lv Mnkanalin.
Ma'iu (Baal-Mcon), 540.
Main, Wady, 247.

Mais, pleasant valley of, 578. L

Makheras, AVady, 303. I

Mamrc, 398.
Manger, position of, illustrating our

Lord's Inrth, 72.
Maps, 275, 276 ; of Van de Velde and

Lynch, 321.
Marsaba, view of, 257 ; convent, 265 ;

service, 265 ; state of learning, 265 ;

discipline, 266 ; cave chajiel, 267 ;

the Archimandrite, 270 ; lilirary, 270.
Maronites, 19; number of, 19 ; manners,

21 ; funeral, 34.
Masada (Sebbeh), 293 ; fortress of, 303

—307 ; height of the j)eak, 305.
Maundrell, lienrv, 8, 133.
Meade, Hon. Mr.' 19.
Mejdel, 425, 429, 436.
Mcgiddo, 65.

Meiruba, village of, 633, 634.
Mejamiah, Jisr, bridge, 455.
Merkili, ruins of, 570.
Merj al (iharah, 414.
Merom (waters of), first vimv of, 577 —

579. See Hiileh.
Mersed, Ras, 276.

INDEX OK SUBJECTS AND GEOGRAPHY.

649

ilesar, Kl, 484.

Jletawileh, sect of, 107.

Mezia'ah, Bedoniit village of, 584.

3fichmash, 167.

Midianifes, the, 482.

Migilol (Mej(lel) (Mogdala), 425.

Miiu'ych, Khau, 441.

Missiou-scliools at Beyrout, 24 ; varied
character and races of the pupils,
25 ; extinction of caste, 25 ; gratify-
ing success of, 25, 26.

Mi.irephoth-main, 65.

Mizar, the liill, 298.

Moab, plains of, 246 ; mountains of,
247, 272, 502, 535.

Mohammed, Sheikh, 192, 2-31 ; rustic
entertainment, 260, 262 ; his sense
of delicacy, 262 ; rule of three, 263 ;
black mail, 264.

Mohammed lsa,374; foray andfight,377.

Mohrakah, el, 115 ; grand view from,
116, 117, 495.

Mojib, Wady, 247, 272.

Mo'khna, place of (Shechem),_ 412.

Monasteries, Greek, 222, 265.

Moore, Mr. W. T., H.B.iM. Consul,
173, 230.

Mountain of Salt, 321.

Mudawarah, Wady, 434, 497.

ilukatta {KisJwn), 95.

Muzellim (or Governor) of Nazareth,
495, 573 ; of Tiberias, 497.

Nabloits, town of, 139 ; trade and
population, 140 ; (Shechem) Arabic
service, 141 ; interesting stranger,
143; Jacob's Well, 143; 145 ; Josejdi's
Tomb, 147 ; Samaritan Pentateuch,
156.
Nahr el Auwaly, 36.

el Baruk, 629.

el Damur, 29.

Herdawil, 81.

Ibrahim, fountains of, 633.

Jalud, 500.

el Kasimiyeh, 47. , ^
J^l Kelb (Lycus) 2,/8/l2,
/ ol T pIiatv ^33.

634. <

el Leben, 633.
Namau, 93.
es Safieh, 339.
Senick, 44.
Wady, 254.
es Zaherany, 44.
Nain, present condition, 128.
Haphtali, Kedesh (Kedes), 577.
Nazareth, 65, 119 ; description of,
120 ; neighbourhood, 121 ; customs
and costume, 121 ; women of, 415 ;
Turkish governor of, 495, 496.

Ncbo, Mount, 151 ; glorious view from,

537—539.
Nebi Mousa, 228.
Nebi Samuel, 169.
Nebi Yunas, 31.

" Negel>,"the (south country), 365,366.
Niha, 628..
Nimral), Beth, 521.
Nimrin, 521.
Nob, 231.

Oasis of Feifeh, 334.
Obeid Beni, tribe of, 488.
Oil press, 384.
Olive-trees, 17, 159, 384.
Origen, 461.

Palcstyrus, probable site of, 61.

Palestine,marked peculiarity of, 15 ; con-
trast between Eastern and Western,
473 ; p<anoramas of Central, 151'
501 ; view of, from across Jordan,
533 ; from Nebo, 537 ; green crops
of, 591, 592.

Pclla (Fahil), 502, 567.

Pentateuch, Samaritan, 156.

Phi((ht, Lake (Birkct er Kam), 583, 584.

Pisgah, Mount, 535 ; magnificent view
from, 537, 538.

Plains of Acre and Esdraelon, absence
of inhabitants in, 421.

Poole, 305.

Porter, IMr. 213, 501.

Precipitation, Mount of, 123.

Ptolemais, 93.

QuARANTANiA, Moimt, 207 ; caves of,
208 — 214 ; yearly visit of Abyssinian
Christians, 210 ; Greek insiTi])tions,
213 ; ])eak of, 522.

Quarterly Pcvicu; No. 237, p. 53,
quoted, 12.

Rabbath Amnion (Amman), 544 ; mag-
nificent ruins of a Greek temple,
theatres, churches, &c., 550.

Kachel, sepulchre of, 404.

Kafat, 385.

Ramah, 169.

Eamallah, village of, 505, 506.

Eameses, 9, 10.

Painlch, 409.

Rdiiioth Gilcad (Es Salt), 477 ; visit to,
552 ; Christians at, 554 ; trade, 555.

Reiniun, 559.

Kiha, Er, 206, 216.

Kobinson, Dr. 43, 96, 106, 213, 223,
251, 253, 429, 439, 441, 443, 486,

rm, 629.

650

INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND GEOGRArHV.

Roman canip, ruin of, 313.
Romc.Cliiucli of, contrast between, ami

Greek Chureli, 265, 266.
Kukleh, temple of, GIO.
liujiim Selunuh, view of, 367.

Safkd, 437, 575, 576.

Satieh, Glior es, 335 ; village on fire,

336 ; fertility of, 338 ; geology of

341 ; sentries ami watehfires at the

eanip, 3 42.
Safieh, Nahr cs, 339.
Safut, 552.

Sahra, es, ]ilain of, 611.
Sakatah, Wadv, 254.
Sakk'r, Beni, 231, 487, 489.
Salt, es (Kamotli GHead), 477, 550,

552, 553 ; Christians at, 554 ; cotton

and trade, 555.
Samaarah, Wady, 254.
Samaritan P'.'ntateneh, 155 — 157.
Sani'ir, hill-fortress of, 414.
Saracenic khan, 500.
Sardiyes, tribe of, 487.
Sauley, M. de, his discoveries, 169, 172,

253, 318.
Schreibeh, Yusuf, Sheikh, 468.
ScylhojwUs (Beisan, Bethshean), 500.
Seba, Wady es, 372.
Sebbeh (Masada), grand view from the

fortress of; description of the ruins,

3()4.
Seir, ancient site of Jauzer, 533 ; Wady,

532 ; Mount, 537. .
Seisaban, Gohr es, 246.
Sellamah, Wady, 445.
Semakh, Wady, 461.
Semiia {Eshtemoa), 387.
Sheisheh, deserted Arab village of, 445.
Shihan, deserted village of, 557.
Shitiim, Plain of, 524.
S'hoor-el-Ghor, tribe of, 487.
Shukif, Kulat es, 81.
Sidon, 36 ; ruins of, 43.
Sidn Wady, 221.

Sighetreh, Wady, geology of, 277.
Socloin, 329.

Sodom, destruction of, 355.
Souf, 462.
Suliieh, 496.
Sudcir, AVady, 280 ; grotto of, 290 ;

petrifoctions, 290.
Siif, 476, 566.

Sugar-mill, ancient ruins of, 340.
Suliihur springs, 279, 301, 458.
Sumrah, es, 2-35 ; ruins of geologj', 236.
Surtabeh, Knrn, 224, 240.
Susieh, ruins of, 387.
Sycaminnm (CaifTa), 96.

Sychar {sec Nablous), 139.

Svria, contrast between East and West,

■^473.
Syrian Christian.s, 70, 71.
Syrians and Greeks, contrast between,

25.
Syrians and Bedouin, 594.

Ta AMiREH, tribe of, 255, 288, 487.

Ta'baun, village of, 119.

Tabighah, Ain, 429, 432.

Tabor, Mount, 123, 127, 418 ; summit
of, 498, 499.

Taiyibeh, 462, 464, 485.

7'ainyras, flum. 29.

Tekua (Tefcoa), 402.

Tell Hum, 437, 441.

Temptation, Mount of, 204.

Terabeh, Ain, 253, 273, 527.

Thamara, Roman Camp at, 318.

Thelthathah, village of, 601.

Thompson, Mrs. (Schools), 25, 26.

Thomson, Dr. 26, 76, 213, 441, 485.

Tiberias, city of, 422, 424, 496.

Tibneh, 462, 466—468.

Tibuin Castle, 81, 579. |

Tin, Ain et, 441. f

Tipi)ing, Mr. 306.

Tombs of the Kings, 406 ; of the Yehudi,
289.

Tril)es of the Ghor, 486— 490 (Aba'at,
Adwan, Bcni Hamedi, Beni Hassan,
Beni Obeid, Beni Sakk'r, (Jhawari-
iieh, Hhawarah, Hinadeh, Jehalin,
Rasliayideh, Sakk'r, Sartiiyes, Ta'a-
mireh, S'horr el Ghor).

Tri}wli (Tarablous), 623, 632.

Tufileh, Wady, 335.

Tyre, 48 ; description of, 49 ; cathe-
dral, 49 ; ancient trade, 51 ; wells,
52 ; harbour, 52 ; Hiram's Tomb, 56.

Um Bagkek, Wad}', 317.
Um Jauzeh, 552.
Um Keis (Gadara), 456, 457.
Urtas (Etain), 400, 402.
Usdum, Jebel, 293, &c.

Van de Velde, 65, 148, 221, 628.
Volcano, extinct {Phiala), 584.

Wady Amman, 543.

el Am lid, 434, 442.
Arab, 462, 484.
Areyeh, 292.
um Bagkek, 317.
um ed Bediim, 31 s.
Birch, 45.3, 485.
Derejeh, 277.

INDEX. OF SUBJECTS AND GEOGltAPIIY.

651

"Wady Deir, 477.

Eshteli, 533.
Farah, 239.
Fik, 433.
Fikieh, 324.
Ghuweir, 271.
Hataf, 315.
Hainam, 434.
He.shbau, 533.
Kelt, 199, 509.
Kiiin, 6t), 75.
Kluulerah, 302.
el Kluilil, 3S0.
Kiiseir, 484.
Leimun, 446.
Maluuvat, 354.
Makheras, 303.
iluihnvavah, 434.
en Nar, 254.
Samaai'ah, 254.
Sakatah, 254.
es Seba, 372.
Seir, 532.
Sellamah, 445.
Seniakli, 4<)].
Sha'ib, 521.
Shiikif, 279.
Siglietreh, 277.
Sidr, 221.
Sudeir, 280, 289.
Suweinieli, 524.
Tufileh, 335.
Zerka, 103.
Zuweirah, 319, 350.
Watercourses, 223, 540.

"Wedding, Greek Christian, 573.

"Wells, their value, 146, 369 ; at Beer-
shcha, 374.

"Wezar, 504.

William of Tyre, 50.

Wine-presses, 106.

AVolcott, Mr. 306.

Women, contrast of Moslem and Chris-
tian, 85.

Wood, Mr. H.B.M.'s Consul, 268, 270,
292.

Wrench, IMr. 4.

Yaius (Jabbok), 565.

Yahmur, 600.

Yarmuk, 457.

Ychudi Kurn el, 223 ; tombs of, 289.

Yusha-Nebi, 587.

Yusuf-Khan Lubb, 575.

Yusuf, Sheikh of Suf, 476, 480, 566.

Yusuf Schreibeh, Sheikh, 468, 568.

Yuttah, 387.

Zarephath, 46.

Zaherany, Nahr, 44.

Zerin {JczrccI), 418.

Zcmaraim, 236.

Zib, 64, 75.

Zqyh, 388.

Zoar, position of, 360, 362.

Zoghal, Urn, 329.

Zuweirah, Wady, plain of, 319 ; our

camp at, 345 — 348 ; ruined fortress

at, 351.
Zuweireh el Foka, 366.

THE END.

LONDON :
PRINTED BY R. CLAV, SON, ANd' TAYLOR,
BREAD STREET HILL.

V

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4

BINDING SlICT. JUN 2 3 1967

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Tristram, Henry Baker
The land of Israel

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