CHAP. XIII.

EXCURSION TO JERICHO, THE JORDAN, THE DEAD SEA, BETHLEHEM, ETC.

ONE of my first excursions out of Jerusalem was to Jericho, the Jordan, and the Dead Sea; two of my former companions, Mr. H. and Mr. S., joined me, and the morning of the 24th of April found us crossing the valley of the Kedron, with mules, tents, and provisions, bound on the expedition. We had arranged preliminaries with Sheikh Mahmoud, the head and representative of the tribe through whose territory we were to pass, by paying him a black-mail or tribute of 100 piastres each (about a sovereign), in return for which he was to give us an escort of his Arabs to defend us from the robbers of the land. The number of this force varied during our journey, sometimes about a dozen were with us, and sometimes only three; but we knew that the only robbers we had to fear were the tribe of which they were a part, and that while we had one man of them to identify us, there was no fear of the remainder attacking. The Bedouins who formed

the escort were truly remarkable specimens of the human family; rather below the middle size, and thin to leanness, the smooth moulding of their swarthy limbs hid in part the muscular force which is the characteristic of the race. By this I do not mean that extraordinary and temporary power of physical effort, by which men of strength bear for a while huge burdens or lift great weights, but a less showy quality of enduring the most wonderful amount of exercise in the burning sun and the scorching rocks of their desert father-land. There were Arabs in our escort who this day ran with ease for seven hours in the most trying heat, and then, after sitting talking over their watch-fires nearly, if not quite, all the night, accompanied us next day through the most terrible burning rocky desert for eleven hours, and all this with a gun slung across their shoulders, and some with even a powder horn and sword in addition. And these men, to my eye, bore no singular appearance of strength, except their spareness, their smoothly moulded limbs, delicate hands and feet, and a fiery brilliant eye. There was nothing Michael Angelesque (if I may venture to use such a term) or strained in the appearance of their muscles; all was subdued and latent, like a marble or bronze statue of ancient Greece or Rome.

We passed round the southern declivity of the Mount of Olives, and skirted to the east a rich little vale full of apricot, carob, fig, and olive trees, and passing through the village of Lazarieh (the Bethany of old), we descended the last ridge of the Mount of Olives into a desert valley, at the commencement of which was a little fountain, with a Saracenic building over it. This spring is called the fountain of the Apostles, and if the fact of these holy men having quenched their thirst at this source of living water be all that is meant by the name, it is appropriate enough; the water is so near to Bethany, and so much on the way from Jerusalem to Jericho, Jordan, and the wilderness of Judæa, that our Lord and his followers most probably often drank of it. At two hours and a half from Jerusalem we lunched in a low cave, whose blackened roof showed it to have been often the resort of men; we then rode along a dry brook, where the transverse lines of volcanic strata were very evident. The sun was blazing away furiously all this while, without a breath of air. We now were fairly in the treeless barren wilderness of Judæa, where John the Baptist dwelt and taught repentance, and where our Lord himself was "led by the Spirit," before his great temptation by the prince of darkness. It is, I conclude, in a more deso

late and ruined state than ever it was, even in the days of the Saviour's earthly sojourn; indeed, now it is impossible to picture any thing more dreary and sterile than this region is. Hilly, almost mountainous, passable chiefly in the close valleys which are shut out from the influence of the air of heaven, the white glare of chalky cliffs increasing the intensity of the heat, not a tree, not a shady place to relieve, or a stream to refresh the parched wanderer, the wilderness of Judæa is indeed fearful and cheerless. We passed at last up the side of a deep precipitous valley*, where the scene, which had long been monotonous from the tame outline of the round hills, became bold and grand, and formed a rocky pass of vast height on either side of a little dry watercourse. This, which the Arabs called "Wady Kelt," is considered by Dr. Robinson to be the brook Cherith, where Elijah retired at the command of Jehovah, and was miraculously fed by And it was a very remarkable coincidence that, while I gazed into this grand though barren defile, two ravens, each soaring apart, swept down between the jagged and precipitous

ravens.

* In the dry bed of the stream of this valley I found a beautiful yellow orobanche; and Mr. S. caught a chamelion, which is not an uncommon reptile throughout the whole of Judæa.

rocks, and disappeared in the windings of the gorge, uttering at intervals their hoarse discordant croak. Hence we descended into the celebrated valley of "El Ghor," which now lay spread before us, with the Jordan marked out in all its windings by the fringe of dark vegetation on its banks, the nearer stream of the fountain of "Ain Sultan" also nourishing a rich luxurious jungle in its course; Jericho, or Riha, with its ruined tower; the mountains of Moab rising grandly like a wall from the opposite side of the valley, and the northern end of the Dead Sea, with its calm metallic looking waters. Just below us, almost in our road, stood a rude tumulus of earth, of whose origin and import no man knows, albeit it is clearly artificial.

We descend into that fine yet burning plain, cross the dry bed of the stream of Wady Kelt, and passing through a tract thick-set with bushes of the thorny nubk, whose sweet berries we often stopped to gather, we come upon a beautifully limpid gushing stream, which feeds on its further side rich groves of most lovely trees, and a rank jungle of reeds, and nubk, and shrubs, water and shade, in rich luxuriance. A little further on we find the source, the Ain Sultan itself, which bears the name among the Franks of "the foun