nightingale. At half past six a ruined village was on the left-hand hill. Five minutes later we left Wady er-Ruhaibeh running N. W. to join Wady el-Kurn; and passed up a small side-valley, Wady el-Futeis. We had overtaken a straggling family of the Haweitât, with three or four camels, travelling on our route; and as the man seemed acquainted with the country, having often been here, (as he said,) we engaged him as a guide as far as to the vicinity of Hebron.

Our path now led over a hill and down another small valley, running nearly E. N. E. towards a wide open country, which spread itself out on every side with swelling hills, but no mountains, almost as far as the eye could reach. Herbs were abundant; but the scanty grass was withered and parched. Crossing a tract of low hills extending along from the left, we came at 8h 20' to the bed of Wady el-Kurn. This is a valley or plain of some width, with a water-course in the middle, running here West, and then N. W. and joining the Ruhaibeh. As we approached its bed from the South, we perceived a wall of hewn stone, extending for some distance obliquely from the bed; and many small fragments of pottery were strewed over the soil. We halted on the northern bank at a fine well, surrounded with several drinking-troughs of stone for watering camels and flocks. The well is circular, eight or ten feet in diameter; and measured twenty-seven feet in depth to the surface of the water. It is very neatly stoned up with good masonry; but the bottom seemed to have been partly filled with rubbish. The water was slightly brackish, and was said never to fail. Adjacent to this well the ground was strewed with ruins, which our Arabs called elKhulasah; in which name we could not but recognise the ancient Elusa.

These ruins cover an area of fifteen or twenty

acres, throughout which the foundations and enclosures of houses are distinctly to be traced; and squared stones are everywhere thinly scattered. Toward the western side are two open places, perhaps open squares of the ancient city. Several large heaps of hewn stones in various parts probably mark the sites of public buildings; but they are thrown together in too much confusion to be easily made out. Occasional fragments of columns and entablatures were visible. We found no cisterns; the city having been apparently supplied with water from the public well. The space covered by the ruins is at least one third greater than that at Ruhaibeh; but the city was apparently less compactly built; and the masses of ruins are much less considerable. The limestone is here softer, and is much decayed from the influence of the weather; many of the blocks being eaten through and through like a honey-comb. In this way probably a large portion of the materials has perished. We judged that here must have been a city with room enough for a population of fifteen or twenty thousand souls.

The city of Elusa lay without the borders of Palestine; and its name is not found in the Bible. It is first mentioned by Ptolemy in the first half of the second century, among the cities of Idumea, West of the Dead Sea; and is marked in the Peutinger Tables as lying on the Roman road, seventy-one Roman miles southward from Jerusalem. This distance we afterwards travelled in twenty-six hours and a quarter, at a pace somewhat more rapid than our average rate; affording a coincidence near enough to determine the site, even if the name were not decisive.'

Profane history makes no further mention of Elusa; but from ecclesiastical writers we learn, that although there was here a Christian church with a bishop, yet 1) See Note XXIII, end of the volume. 38

VOL. I.

the city was chiefly inhabited by heathen, connected with the Saracens of the adjacent deserts. Jerome relates of St. Hilarion, that travelling with a company of monks into the desert of Kadesh, he came to Elusa just as an annual festival had collected all the people in the temple of Venus; whom they worshipped, like the Saracens, in conjunction with the morning star. The town itself, he says, was for the most part semibarbarous. As an episcopal city, Elusa was reckoned to the third Palestine. About A. D. 400, the son of Nilus was brought here as a prisoner from Mount Sinai, and redeemed by the bishop; as has been already related in speaking of the convent.' The names of four other bishops are found in the records of councils, as late as to A. D. 536. About A. D. 600, Antoninus Martyr appears to have passed from Palestine to Sinai by Elusa, which he calls Eulatia. The Notitiae of ecclesiastical writers, collected by Reland, refer to nearly the same period. From that time onward until now, an interval of more than eleven centuries, Elusa has remained unmentioned, and its place unknown; until we were thus permitted to rescue it again from this long oblivion.2

Leaving the well at a quarter past 9 o'clock, we proceeded on our way, on a course N. N. E. Of Wady el-Kurn, (sometimes called also Wady el-Khulasah,) we had two accounts. Tuweileb thought that after the junction of the Ruhaibeh with it, the two form Wady Khubarah, which enters the 'Arîsh. This Wady, the Khubarah, though without living water, is very fertile, and yields good crops of grain and also of

1) See above, p. 183.

2) See in general, Reland Palaest. pp. 215, 218, 223; also p. 755, Le Quien Oriens Christ. III. p.735. Itin. Antonini Mart. xxxv.— M. Callier passed from Hebron to

seq.

Dhoheriyeh, and thence to Wady Khulasah; but he appears to have struck the valley at a point further East. Journal des Savans, Jan. 1836. p. 47. Nouv. Annales des Voyages, 1839. Tom. III. p. 274.

melons. On the other hand, our 'Amrân and Haweitât guides affirmed, that the united Wady receives the Mürtübeh further down, and thus forms Wady es-Suny, which joins the Sherî'ah near the sea not far South of Gaza. Of these accounts the former, from the construction of the map, seems the most probable.—Our path led for a time over sandy hills, called Rumeilet Hâmid, sprinkled with herbs and shrubs, but with little grass. The shrubs which we had met with throughout the desert still continued. One of the principal of these is the Retem already mentioned, a species of the broom-plant, Genista raetam of Forsåkl. This is the largest and most conspicuous shrub of these deserts, growing thickly in the water-courses and vallies. Our Arabs always selected the place of encampment (if possible) in a spot where it grew, in order to be sheltered by it at night from the wind; and during the day, when they often went on in advance of the camels, we found them not unfrequently sitting or sleeping under a bush of Retem to protect them from the sun. It was in this very desert, a day's journey from Beersheba, that the prophet Elijah lay down and slept beneath the same shrub.'

We came at 10 o'clock to a broad Wady, with a large tract of grass, called el-Khuza'y. As we advanced, the loose sand ceased, and the country exhibited more grass mingled with the herbs. At 11h 55' we crossed the bed of Wady el-Murtŭbeh, a wide tract bearing marks of much water. Just before reaching it a path had crossed ours, leading to water in the same Wady not far to the left, in pits called Themail. Low

1) 1 Kings xix. 4, 5. The Hebrew namen rothem is the same as the present Arabic name. The Vulgate, Luther, English Version, and others, translate it wrongly by juniper. The roots are very bit

ter; and are regarded by the Arabs as yielding the best charcoal. This illustrates Job xxx. 4, and Ps. cxx. 4. Comp. Burckhardt, p. 483.

er down, this Wady receives the Khuza'y, and afterwards unites with the Kurn, as above described.

Our road thus far had been among swelling hills of moderate height. We now began gradually to ascend others higher, but of the same general character. The herbs of the desert began to disappear, and the hills were thinly covered with grass, now dry and parched. The ascent was long and gradual. We reached the top at a quarter past 1 o'clock; and looked out before us over a broad lower tract; beyond which our eyes were greeted with the first sight of the mountains of Judah, South of Hebron, which skirted the open country and bounded the horizon in the East and North East. We now felt that the desert was at an end. Descending gradually, we came out at 2 o'clock upon an open undulating country; the shrubs ceased, or nearly so; green grass was seen along the lesser water-courses, and almost green sward; while the gentle hills, covered in ordinary seasons with grass and rich pasture, were now burnt over with drought. Arabs were pasturing their camels in various parts; but no trace of dwellings was anywhere visible. At 2 o'clock we reached Wady es-Seba', a wide watercourse, or bed of a torrent, running here W. S. W. towards Wady es-Suny. Upon its northern side, close upon the bank, are two deep wells, still called Bîr esSeba', the ancient Beersheba. We had entered the borders of Palestine !

These wells are some distance apart; they are circular, and stoned up very neatly with solid masonry, apparently much more ancient than that of the wells at 'Abdeh. The larger one is twelve and a half feet in diameter, and forty-four and a half feet deep to the surface of the water; sixteen feet of which at the bottom is excavated in the solid rock. The other well lies fifty-five rods W. S. W., and is five feet in