CHAPTER XV.

HEBRON AND BEERSHEBA.

On the 20th of September, 1874, I once more landed in Palestine, having been absent for nearly five months, four of which were spent in England, where I was detained on account of my health. During this period the party had been engaged, under charge of Sergeant Black, in office work and survey, in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

On the 5th of October we camped at ’Ain Dhirweh, just by Hŭlhûl. This village stands on the watershed of the Hebron hills, 3300 feet above the sea, and only three miles north of Hebron itself. My object was to avoid camping at the latter town, and thus to escape the suspicion of wishing to attempt an entrance into the Hebron Haram.

The fountain of Dhirweh is traditionally that at which St. Philip baptised the Eunuch, and traces of an old chapel are visible above it; but it seems improbable that chariots could ever have travelled along these stony mountain paths, and the road to Gaza by which the Apostle was travelling on that occasion should rather be sought in the plain.

Opposite to our camp was Bethsur, famous in Maccabean times--a stony hill with a ruined tower on the top. To the north we discovered a ruin called Kueizîba, perhaps Chozeba, the home of Bar Cochebas; and near it we found the head of Pilate’s great aqueduct to Jerusalem, never before traced to its real commencement, which is thirteen miles from Jerusalem as the crow flies, and forty-one and a half by the aqueduct, the fall being 365 feet in that distance.

Riding on the 10th of October to the hill above Dûra, we obtained a glimpse of the extreme southern boundary of the Survey. The view was fine; to the east was the great ridge on which stands the traditional tomb of Lot; on the west the Philistine plain lying in a hot haze which towards Gaza hid it entirely; on the south were rolling hills, isolated mounds, and a broad plain, with a dark patch near the Beersheba wells; and yet farther were grey misty ridges, the land appearing to descend in steps towards the Desert of Wanderings.

In returning to camp we passed through the luxuriant vineyards of the supposed Vale of Eshcol, carefully enclosed between dry-stone walls. The grapes, mellowed by the autumn mists, were in full beauty; the rich amber-green foliage covered the whole of the open valley; beyond was a stone town, and a fortress gleaming with a recent coating of whitewash, having a tall minaret above. A barren hill and a few grey olives rose behind. Such was our first view of Hebron, the ancient city which, as the Bible tells us, “was built seven years before Zoan (or Tanis) in Egypt” (Num. xiii. 22).

The results of the fuller acquaintance which we gained with the town, in three subsequent visits of several days’ duration, may here be gathered up. Hebron is a long stone town on the western slope of a bare terraced hill; it extends along the valley, and the main part reaches about 700 yards north and south, including the Mosque Quarter, and the Quarter of the Gate of the Corner. On the north is a separate suburb, named from the mosque of ’Aly Bukka, who died in 670 A.H.; on the south also, and west of the road, is another small suburb. The Haram stands above the middle of the main Quarter. The Sultan’s Pool--a large well-built reservoir, occupies part of the valley. West of the city is an open green below the Quarantine, surrounded by hills which are covered with olives.

The contrast between Hebron and Bethlehem has been already noticed; the town has a dead-alive appearance, and the sullen looks of the Moslem fanatics contrast with the officious eagerness of the Bethlehem Christians. There are some 17,000 Moslems in Hebron, according to the Governor’s account; and about 600 Jews are tolerated in the Quarter of the Corner Gate. The town is the centre of commerce for the southern Arabs, who bring their wool and camel’s-hair to its market. It has also a sort of trade in glass ornaments and in leather water-buckets, but the bustle and stir of Bethlehem are not found in its streets; the inhabitants seem wrapped in contemplation of the tombs of their forefathers, and boast that no pagan Frank has yet desecrated the holy shrines with his presence, or built his house in the town.

The place of chief interest in Hebron is the Cave of Machpelah containing the tombs of the Patriarchs. There seems no reason to doubt the genuine character of the site now surrounded by the Haram, and here again we have that valuable consent of traditions--Jewish, Christian, and Moslem, which seems to distinguish the true sites, from those less genuine concerning which two or more discordant traditions have arisen.

Only two trustworthy witnesses--Dean Stanley and Mr. Fergusson--have had the opportunity of describing the interior of this sanctuary; and it seems very doubtful if any living being has ever descended into the mysterious cavern beneath the floor since the Moslem conquest of Palestine; nor will it be possible to explore this cave so long as the Moslems have possession of the place, unless unexpected changes occur in their religious feelings. One curious story was, however, told me. It is said that when Ibrahim Pacha threatened the town, the inhabitants carried their property to the cave for safety. If this be true the area must be considerable, and the iron door on the north-west, mentioned by Captain Warren, may perhaps be the same iron door mentioned by Benjamin of Tudela as leading into the cave in the twelfth century.

The surrounding wall is one of the mysteries of Palestine, and a monument inferior only to the Temple Enclosure, which it resembles in style. It measures about 112 feet east and west, by 198 feet north and south, and has eight pilasters on the short sides, and sixteen oh the long, resembling those which I found, as before noticed, at the north-west corner of the Jerusalem Haram. The stones also are scarcely inferior in dimensions, and one is said to be thirty-eight feet long, and three and a half feet high; they are all drafted with the real Jewish draft, broad, shallow, and beautifully cut, as at Jerusalem. Judging from the similarity of style, one is led to ascribe the building to the Herodian period--a view supported by Mr. Fergusson in his able paper on the subject, his opinion being based on historical grounds.

Josephus speaks of monuments of the Patriarchs as existing in his day (B. J. iv. 9, 7), but is silent as to the enclosure. Had it, however, existed in the Old Testament times, we should surely find some record of its origin in the Bible; nor does it seem likely that it was built later than Herod’s time, for the earliest Christian pilgrim in 333 A.D. found it already standing.

The great walls are surmounted by two high white minarets on the south-east and north-west. The southern portion of the area is occupied by a Gothic twelfth-century building, presumably a church; the nave has a pointed roof and clerestory windows, the aisles are lower and their roofs rest against the fortress wall. Within are the cenotaphs of Isaac and Rebecca, supposed to stand above their true graves in the cavern. Outside the building, in separate chambers, are the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, flanking the entrance. On the north side of the open court Jacob and Leah have similar cenotaphs, covered, like the rest, with richly embroidered green cloths. A modern building is erected against the western fortress wall on the exterior. This is called the Tomb of Joseph, whose bones are said, by Josephus, to have been removed hither from Shechem--a story no doubt due to Jewish jealousy of the shrine at Shechem, which was in the hands of the Samaritans.

Cenotaphs like those in the present building are mentioned as early as 700 A.D. Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela states, however, that Jews were able in his days to descend, through an iron door, into the cavern, which was in three compartments, and where the real tombs were shown. The twelfth-century writers, in describing the fortress, which they quaintly name the “Castle of St. Abraham,” also call the cavern Spelunca Duplex, “the double cave”--a title probably derived from the Hebrew Machpelah, signifying “the place divided”: Sir John Maundeville, in 1322, states that one chamber was above the other.

An idea appears to have existed at an early period that Hebron was not originally built on its present site, but on the hill north-west of the modern town. Arculphus mentions this in 700 A.D., and Marino Sanuto in the fourteenth century says the same, both apparently referring to ancient ruins then visible in the direction of the present site of Abraham’s Oak. There are traces of the same theory in the writings of many intermediate visitors, and the Bible narrative itself seems to require a position opposite the Haram, if the true Machpelah be beneath that enclosure, for the cave was not in Hebron, but in a field “before Mamre--the same is Hebron” (Gen. xxiii. 19). Thus, though a new city may have grown up around the sacred tombs, even in Jewish times, the original Hebron, Mamre, or Kirjath-Arba of Abraham, must have had a different site; and it may be noted, that the principal springs, and many of the rock-cut tombs dating from the Jewish period, are now found north-west of Hebron.

The Crusaders had other traditions connected with this neighbourhood. The grave of Abner was then shown within a church in Hebron, probably the same place now found in the house of a Moslem. The grave of Esau was fixed in a suburb of the town, as also those of Adam and Judah, which have now disappeared. The open green, west of the town, was known as the “Field of Damascus,” apparently because owned by the Sultan of Damascus. The place where Cain killed Abel was a little farther south, and on the north was the cave in which Adam and Eve lived for a century, which appears to have been the modern rock-hewn spring called ’Ain-el-Judeideh, “the excavated fountain,” which is covered by an arch and reached by steps. Here Adam mourned for Abel, and hence the spot is called by some chroniclers the Vale of Tears; here also Adam was made of the red earth of the place. Hebron was considered to have obtained its name Kirjath-Arba, “city of four,” from the four patriarchs, including Adam--an explanation derived from the Rabbinical commentators, but not in accordance with the reason given in the Bible, “And the name of Hebron before was Kirjath-Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakim” (Josh. xiv. 15).

On our last visit to Hebron we were shown an ancient Jewish tomb with nine graves, or _kokim_, close to ’Ain-el-Judeideh, and to this we obtained the curious name Kabr Hebrûn, “the grave of Hebron.” We did not, however, learn the origin of the title, or the source of the tradition. A little higher up the hill is a ruined monastery, in a corner of which the tomb of Jesse is shown.

The Oak (or plain, as our version renders it) of Mamre has been shown at various times in different directions. Jerome places it at the modern Râmeh, where is a fine unfinished stone enclosure with a large well. The walls measure 162 feet north and south by 214 east and west, and one stone is fifteen feet long. A little farther east the remains of Constantine’s basilica are distinguishable, and the great enclosure may perhaps be the market where the Jews were sold by Hadrian, after the fall of Bether.

The present site of the Oak is farther south, and the magnificent tree stands among the vineyards north-west of Hebron. It is called Ballûtet Sebta, “the oak of rest,” and has branches fifty feet long, one of which was broken by the snow in 1857. This Oak is thought to be more than two hundred years old, but cannot be the one seen by Sir John Maundeville, for it is covered with leaves, whereas that which was shown to Sir John he calls “the dry tree.” “They say,” he continues, “that it has been there since the beginning of the world, and that it was once green, and bore leaves till the time that Our Lord died on the Cross, and then it dried, and so did all the trees that were then in the world.” Jerome, however, is more moderate in his assertions, and speaking of the northern site of Mamre at Râmeh, distant two miles from modern Hebron, and now called “Abraham’s House” by the Jews, he says that the Oak was still visible, and worshipped by the peasantry in the days of Hadrian, but disappeared during his own time. We have thus no certainty as to the position of Mamre or of the Oak, which Josephus places only six furlongs from Hebron (B. J. iv. 9, 7).

There are two other springs near Hebron which deserve notice; one is east of the “Oak of Rest,” and is called ’Ain Kheir ed Dîn, “Spring of the chosen of the faith,” perhaps in connection with Abraham’s history. The second is more important, because almost undoubtedly a Biblical site.

After his interview with David, Abner set out on his way to Jerusalem, and had gone as far as the Spring of Sirah, when Joab’s messengers overtook him and brought him back to Hebron, where he was murdered in the gate (2 Sam. iii. 26). Now on approaching the modern town by the old paved road to the north, the first spring beside the way is called Sârah. Like the Hebrew Sirah, the word means “withdrawn,” and the title is, no doubt, due to the fact that the spring is under a stone arch, at the end of a little alley with drystone walls, and is thus withdrawn from the high-road. This place may therefore be considered as one of the few genuine sites in the neighbourhood of Hebron.

On the 22nd of October we marched south, to camp at Yuttah, the ancient Levitical town of Juttah, five miles south of Hebron.

We were now entering on a new district, differing in character from the rest of the Judean hills. In the neighbourhood of Yuttah, Dûra, and Yekîn, the country descends by a sudden step, and forms a kind of plateau, divided into two by the great valley which runs from north of Hebron to Beersheba, and thence west, to Gerar, and the sea. The plateau is about 2600 feet above sea-level, and 500 feet below the general level of the Hebron watershed. It consists of open wolds and arable land, the soil being a white soft chalk, geologically a later formation than the hard limestone of the hills. There are no springs in this region, but the water, where not contained in tanks and cisterns, sinks through the porous rocks, and runs in the valleys below the surface of the ground. On the south another step leads down to the white marl desert of Beersheba; on the west are the Philistine plains; on the east, 300 feet below, is the dreary Jeshimon, or “solitude.” The plateau has only two inhabited villages on it, but is covered with ruins. It is dry and treeless, but rich in flocks and herds. It seems to have been the country of the Horites, for the place is riddled with caves intended for habitations, and the name of this troglodytic race is preserved in the titles of two of the ruined towns.

The plateau formed part of the district called Negeb, or “dry land,” in the Bible; and here, in the southern part of the possessions of Caleb we should seek for Debir, which he gave to his daughter; for the Choresh Ziph, where David and Jonathan met; and for the hill of Hachilah, where David hid from Saul.

One is at once struck with the fitness which the plateau presents for the adventures of the fugitive bandit chief who was destined to become the king of Israel. The inhabitants, like Nabal of Carmel, are rich in sheep and oxen. The villagers of Yuttah owned 1700 sheep, of which 250 belonged to the Sheikh. All along the borders of the Jeshimon and Beersheba deserts there is fine pasturage, to which the peasants descend in spring-time, having made some sort of agreement with the neighbouring Bedawîn to protect them from other tribes. Thus we find perpetuated the old system under which David’s band protected the cattle of Nabal.

The story of David’s wanderings is one of the most interesting episodes of the Old Testament, and we have now so recovered its topography, that the various scenes seem as vivid as if they had occurred only yesterday. First we have the stronghold of Adullam, to be described later, guarding the rich corn valley of Elah; then Keilah, a few miles south, perched on its steep hill above the same valley. The forest of Hareth lay close by, on the edge of the mountain chain where Kharas now stands, surrounded by the “thickets” which properly represent the Hebrew “Yar,”--a word wrongly supposed to mean a woodland of timber trees.

Driven from all these lairs, David went yet farther south to the neighbourhood of Ziph (Tell Zîf); and here also our English version speaks of a forest--the “Wood (Choresh) of Ziph,” where David met with Jonathan. A moment’s reflection will, however, convince any traveller that as the dry, porous formation of the plateau must be unchanged since David’s time, no wood of trees could then have flourished over this unwatered and sun-scorched region. The true explanation seems to be that the word Choresh is a proper name with a different signification, and such is the view of the Greek version and of Josephus. We were able considerably to strengthen this theory by the discovery of the ruin of Khoreisa and the Valley of Hiresh (the same word under another form), close to Ziph, the first of which may well be thought to represent the Hebrew Choresh Ziph. Should this word appear as a proper name in the new English Version, a very marked improvement will be made in what might be called the orientalising of the Bible, substituting the actual language of the land, for that essentially English tone which has been imparted to the narrative by the expressions of translators to whom the East was less familiar than their own fair country.

The treachery of the inhabitants of Ziph, like that of the men of Keilah, appears to have driven David to a yet more desolate district, that of the Jeshimon, or “Solitude,” by which is apparently intended the great desert above the western shores of the Dead Sea, on which the Ziph plateau looks down. As a shepherd-boy at Bethlehem, David may probably have been already familiar with this part of the country, and the caves, still used as sheepcotes by the peasant herdsmen, extend all along the slopes at the edge of the desert.

East of Ziph is a prominent hill on which is the ruined town called Cain in the Bible; hence the eye ranges over the theatre of David’s wanderings.

On the south are the wolds of the Negeb plateau, with the plains of Beersheba beyond. On the east is the “Solitude,” with white peaks and cones of chalk, and deep, narrow watercourses, terminated by the great pointed cliff of Ziz, above Engedi, and by the precipices over the Dead Sea, two thousand feet high. Here, among the “rocks of the wild goats,” the herds of ibex may be seen bounding, and the partridge is still chased on the mountains, as David was followed by the stealthy hunter Saul. The blue sea is visible in its deep chasm, and is backed by the dark precipice of Kerak, “scarred with a hundred wintry watercourses.”

The great hump of rock on which Maon--the home of Nabal--stands, is seen to the south, and rather nearer is the Crusading castle at Carmel, where were Nabal’s possessions; the ruined mound of Ziph is to the west, and Juttah among its olives. Thus the whole scenery of the flight of David, and of Saul’s pursuit, can be viewed from this one hill.

The stronghold chosen by the fugitive was the hill Hachilah, in the wilderness of Ziph, south of Jeshimon. This I would propose to recognise in the long ridge called El Kôlah, running out of the Ziph plateau towards the Dead Sea desert, or Jeshimon--a district which, properly speaking, terminates about this line, melting into the Beersheba plains. On the north side of the hill are the “Caves of the Dreamers,” perhaps the actual scene of David’s descent on Saul’s sleeping guards.

Pursued even to Hachilah, David descended farther south, to a rock or cliff in the wilderness of Maon, which was named Sela Ham-mahlekoth, “Cliff of Divisions” (1 Sam. xxiii. 2-8). Here he is represented as being on one side of the mountain, while Saul was on the other.

Now between the ridge of El Kôlah and the neighbourhood of Maon there is a great gorge called “the Valley of Rocks,” a narrow but deep chasm, impassable except by a detour of many miles, so that Saul might have stood within sight of David, yet quite unable to overtake his enemy; and to this “Cliff of Division” the name Malâky now applies, a word closely approaching the Hebrew Mahlekoth. The neighbourhood is seamed with many torrent-beds, but there is no other place near Maon where cliffs, such as are to be inferred from the word Sela, can be found. It seems to me pretty safe, therefore, to look on this gorge as the scene of the wonderful escape of David, due to a sudden Philistine invasion, which terminated the history of his hair-breadth escapes in the South Country.

On the 5th of November we moved once more south, and encamped at Dhâherîyeh, a village which, there seems to me to be every reason for supposing to be the ancient Debir, a place not identified before the Survey. The name has the same meaning, derived from its situation on the “back” of a long ridge; and the position between Shochoh (Shuweikeh), Dannah (Idhnah), Anab (’Anâb), and Eshtemoa (Es Semû’a), seems very suitable (Josh. xv. 48). The place, moreover, is evidently an ancient site of importance, to which several old roads lead from all sides. The springs near Debir given to Achsah (Judg. i. 15) might well be the beautiful springs of Dilbeh, about seven miles north of the town, and the identification seems to me to be amongst the most valuable of those due to the Survey.

On the 10th of November I proceeded, accompanied by Sergeant Armstrong, to Beersheba, to complete the south boundary of the map. We had with us only one servant, one groom, the scribe, a guide, and the Sheikh of Dhâherîyeh, for whom I had a great liking. We took two tents, five mules, and three horses, carrying also provisions for three days and one theodolite. The rest of the expedition remained at the village.

Following a long valley, we arrived at a broad undulating plain, grey and dry, like the muddy basin of a former sea. The hills end very suddenly, and the boundary is thus sharply defined between the lands of the settled population and the district of the Bedawîn, who, though nomadic, cultivate a little tobacco and barley round Beersheba.

The scenery was tame and featureless, with a single dark Tell in front, and white marl peaks capped with flint to the west. The heat and glare were oppressive, and we were glad at noon to rest under a white chalk cliff, and were able to realise the force of the poetic language of Isaiah, “The shadow of a great rock in a weary land” (Isaiah xxxii. 2).

We ascended the Tell or mound of Seb’a, which is two and a half miles east of the Wells of Beersheba, and thence we had a fine view of the great boundary valley which limited our work on the south, joining the long ravine which comes down from Hebron, and running west in a broad, flat, gravelly bed, between high walls of brown earth. The pebbles were white and dry, yet water-worn, for, as we found in the following spring, a river will occasionally flow for hours along the Wâdy bed. East of us there were remarkable white chalk hills called El Ghurrah, and on the west a low ridge shut out the maritime plain. To the north were the hills of Judah, dotted with lotus-trees, and to the south stretched the endless Desert of Wanderings.

No mules appeared, and we therefore rode down towards the wells, passing by innumerable burrows of the jerboa, and by numerous herds of camels, with a distant view of black “houses of hair.” At length we spied a tent, and our servants talking with mounted Arabs near the principal well. At the same moment I saw a pigeon by one of the wells, and fired, killing it on the spot. I noticed that the Arabs rode away immediately after, and I found that they had been insolent, and had ordered the servants to take down the tent, but, seeing a well-armed party approaching, and conceiving a great respect for a gun that could kill at such a distance, with characteristic Bedawîn caution, they made off before we came up.

The desert of Beersheba is a beautiful pasture-land in spring, when the grass and flowers cover the grey mud, as in the Jordan Valley; but in November it is very desolate; not a tree exists near the wells, and only the foundations of a flourishing fourth-century town remain.

Our tents were by the principal well, which is twelve feet three inches in diameter, and over forty-five feet deep, lined with rings of masonry to a depth of twenty-eight feet. A second well, five feet in diameter, exists about 300 yards to the west, and on the east is a third, which is dry, twenty-three feet deep, and nine feet two inches in diameter. The sides of all the wells are furrowed by the ropes of the water-drawers; but we made one discovery which was rather disappointing, namely, that the masonry is not very ancient. Fifteen courses down, on the south side of the large well, there is a stone with an inscription in Arabic, on a tablet dated, as well as I could make out, 505 A.H., or in the twelfth century. This stone must be at least as old as those at the mouth, which are furrowed with more than a hundred channels by the ropes of seven centuries of water-drawers.

The wells have no parapets, and I nearly fell into the dry one, so little was it visible until quite near; round the two which contain water there are rude stone troughs, which may be of any age--nine at the larger, five at the lesser well.

The sun began to set, and we hurried back to observe the pole-star from the Tell, but were foiled by a rising bank of clouds. Returning to camp, we secured our horses with fetters and tethers, so that they could not be stolen, and then retired to sleep in peace.

We now found how useful dogs may be in camp. In the spring our colley had saved the horses at Sulem, and I had intended to take him on our rather risky visit to Beersheba, but somehow he was left behind, and thus not one of our faithful guards was with us. During the night a thief came into the tents: he ripped up the saddle-bag containing our provisions, and took them all with him, and he even came to the head of my bed and stole Bulwer’s “Disowned,” but only took it about a hundred yards from camp. It is evident that he must have crept on his stomach, since he only took what was near the ground and left my watch lying on the table, and (which was for the moment more important) he also left me my boots, though he removed the tin washing-basin. Our plates, bread, chickens, and some barley in a nosebag, he (or they) stole from the servants’ tent, all this being nearly accomplished in about ten minutes.

After taking some observations from near the well, we started for Tell el Mihl, fourteen miles east of Beersheba. Our faces were turned towards the road by which Rebecca had come to Beersheba: like Isaac we lifted up our eyes, and “behold the camels were coming.” As far as the view extended the plain was covered with hundreds of them, each moving alone towards the wells, each casting before it a long shadow in the light of the rising sun. Dusky, half-naked boys sat on the humps, and, arriving at the well, they stripped off what clothes they had on, and let down to the water the goat-skin bags which served them as buckets, drawing them up with great rapidity in time with a rude chant, and evidently vying in the rate of watering their herds; both the wells were besieged, and a thick crowd of camels had collected before we left.

We once more passed the Tell and found another smaller well near it. Marching east, we came on flocks of sheep, with a few goats among them, driven mostly by girls under twelve years of age--the age no doubt of Leah when Jacob first came to Haran. As is still the custom of the Bedawîn, the girls over fourteen were no doubt, in Jacob’s time, withdrawn to the privacy of the women’s apartments in the tents, and this seems to agree with the account of Jacob’s kissing his cousins, for if they were more than children such a salute would surely have been quite contrary to Eastern ideas of propriety. Small as the flocks appeared, from the great extent of the plain, the smallest contained at least twenty head, and the average was over one hundred, so that we came across at least eight hundred in all. This gives an idea of the immense number of the flocks which exist in this apparently sterile desert, where it seems impossible that they can find anything to eat in autumn.

We also saw large coveys of the sand-grouse or pintail, which is not found in the hills of Palestine, though in summer it comes up the Jordan Valley; the crops of those we shot were full of hard round seeds and of small pebbles.

The journey was tedious, and the scenery very monotonous. Ten miles from Beersheba we came upon another ruined town with two wells, also containing water. The place has lost its old name, and is now only known as El Meshâsh, “the water-pits.” It must have been a very important town, yet hitherto it has escaped notice, other travellers having gone by routes east and west of the place, and never across country; thus the discovery was left for us, and the utility of systematic survey once more exemplified.

After travelling for miles without seeing a living thing, we came suddenly on this site, with brown ruins, and a crowd of dusky naked men drawing water in a frenzied manner, and a few women in sweeping garments, driving diminutive donkeys laden with black water-skins.

Tell el Milh is a third site of character similar to the last; it is the Malatha of the fourth century, and possibly the “City of Salt” (as the modern name signifies) noticed in the Bible (Josh. xv. 62). There is here a great hillock with Arab graves on the top, ruins of an extensive town, and on the north two wells, just like those at Beersheba. Crowds of horses, goats, sheep, and camels surrounded them, and the song of the water-drawers was loud and wild.

We sat down under the steep bank of the valley, north of the wells, and very soon a crowd of naked savages collected above us. They demanded “bucksheesh,” and made rude remarks as to our being Christians. “Look at the big watch,” said one, observing our aneroid; “Look at the guns and pistols,” said another. Some of the chiefs (who wore clothes) came down to talk to our Sheikh, and, putting their foreheads against his, made a sound representing the kiss of peace. The Sheikh, though not a Bedawî, seemed not at all afraid of the crowd, and abused the wild Arabs roundly, telling them to be off. As for us, we turned our backs on them and smoked in peace.

I ordered all the provisions we had left to be served out to the party, for the natives had eaten no breakfast. Just as darkness came on we heard the song of the messenger from our main camp, and he came in dead tired, after trotting for eleven hours on a rough mule: with him came one of our soldiers on his mare, followed by its colt, which was also much fatigued.

We made great preparations in the shape of traps for thieves, but none came. That evening, the 11th of November, 1874, nearly proved the close of my existence, for I was seen, in the dusk, at some little distance, and my servant fired, mistaking me for a Bedawî robber, the ball passing very near my head. During the night we slept but little, being in constant fear of losing the horses, or of a night attack from the Arabs.

By seven next morning we had set off for the hills, and passed by the ruined towns of Ghurrah, S’awi (perhaps the ancient Jeshua), and Haura, which are noticeable for the walls of flint-conglomerate, possibly very ancient, surrounding their sites; in the afternoon we reached Dhâherîyeh, and found all well except Sergeant Black, who was suffering much from dysentery. Sheikh Hamzeh, the well-known guide from Hebron, and Abu Dahûk, chief of the Jâhalîn Arabs, were in camp. I had arranged with them to start for Beersheba on the 10th, and had gone without them as they did not come on that day. This lesson in punctuality was very useful when I again required their services.

On the 19th of December, Lieut. Kitchener joined the Survey party. The work was then interrupted by violent gales, and subsequently by illness in the party which wintered in Jerusalem, whence Sergeant Black was invalided home early in January.