smooth rocks, upon which the hoofs of the horses could get no footing, so that they were liable to slip in an awkward manner, which was both more likely to happen and more dangerous when the rocks were inclined sideways, as they not unfrequently were. After a long descent we at length struck into the road which leads from Jerusalem to Jericho, at the place where it passes by the brook Cherith, another sacred locality of great interest; for here, in the reign of the wicked king Ahab, Elijah, the prophet of the Lord, was enjoined to hide himself. "And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there." And there he dwelt, fed with bread and flesh morning and evening, until the brook dried, because there had been no rain in the land (1 Kings xvii. 1-7). Beside this barren, sullen, and now waterless ravine we rode—a place well suited to the habits of the inauspicious raven, whose croak, however, we did not now hear, probably because the birds, no less than the prophet, required water for their existence.

We now have spread before us the broad valley of the Jordan, the Jordan itself being invisible; for the river is not seen until we are upon its very bank, owing to its running through a deep cutting, as it were, in its way to the Dead Sea. Its course may be traced, however, with some accuracy, from the dense thicket which accompanies it along the otherwise sparsely-wooded plain, ceasing near its embouchure. To our left are the plains of Jericho, dotted over with clumps of low thorny shrubs, the haunts of wild animals; while to the right is the broad expanse of the Dead Sea, brilliantly reflecting the sun's rays, and giving no indication at this distance of its remarkable characters, or that it differed from other seas, except in its extraordinary setting and surroundings. At the extreme right (southern) end were once the doomed cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah; and the whole landscape, now sweltering beneath the heavy air and the hot sun-barren, lifeless, dead-was nevertheless once a fertile, populous, and prosperous region, marked with important cities, rich in vegetation and the most productive fruits, grapes, and pomegranates, and figs, and olives-a land flowing with milk and honey. How great the change! how terrible the reverse! how significant the desolation, fallen upon a land which God had signally favoured, but which had slighted His favours, had set His truth at nought, had spurned His blessings, and turned them into an everlasting curse!

Backing up this scene was the noble range of heights of Moab, which rose up like a wall between Arabia and Canaan, and in which

were the possessions of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, on the other side Jordan; dotted too with points of Biblical interest, to which I shall presently refer.

Having at length reached the level plain, we made a short détour northward at the foot of the hills from which we had descended; and a ride of three-quarters of an hour brought us to our camp, which was pitched on the edge of the thorny scrub, and beside a clear and sparkling stream or brooklet. This was the water we had been promised, and a draught of it amply justified the character which had been given to it. It was truly delicious; the most refreshing and pleasant water we had tasted in Palestine. A few minutes' walk along this brook tracked it to its source among some rocks, from which it ran in a perennial stream, and we stood beside the Ain-es-Sultan, which is no other than the Fountain of Elisha, celebrated since the day when the prophet healed the waters 2773 years ago. For we read in 2 Kings ii. 19-22 that after Elisha had been an eyewitness of the taking up of Elijah, the men of the city said (for they tarried at Jericho), "Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord seeth: but the water is naught, and the ground barren." And the prophet cast salt upon the spring of the waters, and said, "Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters; so the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spake." Below the spring was a clear, though somewhat shallow, basin, and in this we were able to indulge in a cool and refreshing bath before dinner, which was very acceptable after our hot and somewhat arduous ride. When we had left it our Bedaween guide betook himself to it for his ablutions and devotions, which I was able to observe from a short distance without offence.

Climbing now up a mound beside the fountain, a most interesting scene was opened up to view, which I could examine and regale upon at leisure. I was in the midst of a wide plain, and sitting with my face turned towards the west, the rocky barren hills behind me were much nearer than the more lofty range of Moabite mountains in front. These hills behind, which formed the eastern barrier of the valley of the Jordan, stretched away from the Sea of Galilee, and with the Moabite mountains embrace the Dead Sea to the south. Immediately behind is that "wilderness" to which our Lord, after His baptism, betook Himself, and where He was tempted of the devil and fasted forty days. At least tradition assigns this district to that solemn event, and the place is called the Quantine Mountain. At its foot

are considerable ruins of arches, remains of an aqueduct, etc., probably Roman; to the north the wild and uninhabited valley of the Jordan, given up to wild beasts, narrowed afar off by the closing in of the mountains; to the south the glowing surface of the Dead Sea seemed to widen and expand down to where once stood Sodom and Gomorrah, now buried beneath their bitter waters. But the chief interest of the view was in front. At our feet was a thinly-wooded district, on which stood probably the important city of Jericho, of which now nothing remains. I could see from where I sat wild animals running hither and thither among the prickly shrubs at some distance off, which the Arrocade Scheik, who was perched on a post of observation not far off, with some excitement declared to be wild boars. It may be borne in mind that it was from a ravine of Quarantania, behind us probably, that Elisha called the two she bears out of the wood which tare fortyand-two of the children who mocked him, saying, "Go up, thou bald head!" (2 Kings ii. 23.) A little on the right could be seen a mound surmounted by a ruined tower, which our dragoman assured us was believed to be the site of Gilgal, which the Israelites made their first camping-place in the Promised Land, and through which we should march next day. The meandering Jordan could be traced by its belt of trees and shrubs, which formed a denser thread among the irregular vegetation of the plain; and we could see what was not improbably near about the place where the children of Israel, coming from their long wandering in the desert, first crossed the river on their entry into the Promised Land, where they "set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood" (Josh. iv. 9). Again, near here was the ford Jabbok, which Jacob crossed by night in fear and trembling to meet his brother Esau, what time an angel wrestled with him till break of day (Gen. xxxii. 22-24). Higher up was that other miraculous ford which Elisha made with the mantle of Elijah, so that the sons of the prophets exclaimed, "The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha!" (2 Kings ii. 14, 15.) And, above all, there is that ford before us where the Forerunner attracted crowds to the baptism of repentance; and where our Lord Himself, as the first act of His ministry, stepped down into the water to be baptized of John, because it thus became Him to fulfil all righteousness. All these localities lay before our eyes within small compass, although we could not infallibly point to the exact spot which marked each one.

Again, raising our eyes to the mountains, that barren chain possessed

interest in my eyes of no ordinary character-interest going back to the very ancient days when the eager Israelites, after forty years of wandering in the desert, now began to feel their immediate proximity to the Land of Promise. Nearly opposite me, a little on the right, is a prominent peak which to this day bears the name of Neby Mosa, or the Mountain of Moses, and which may not improbably be that Nebo, or Pisgah, to which the great lawgiver ascended just before his death, in order that he might see with his eyes that land so long desired, which his feet were never to tread (Deut. xxxiv.). There his aged eyes perhaps scanned the rich country before him and foresaw the good and the evil in the future; and there he yielded up his great spirit, well content to exchange the heavenly Canaan for that earthly one which was but its shadow and type; and there, behind that peak, in a valley in the land of Moab, did God bury him, "but no man knoweth his sepulchre till this day." From there also, probably,. Balak looked down upon the Israelites and urged Balaam to curse them for him. "From the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him!" exclaimed Balaam. "How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed?" For Balak had taken Balaam to the top of Pisgah, and the princes of Moab with him, and to the top of Peor, with a like result, which led the disappointed king to complain, "I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast altogether blessed them these three times" (Numbers xxiii. xxiv.). Lower down, on the shoulder to the right, can be descried Mizpeh of Moab, the scene of that most touching episode of Old Testament history, where Jephtha, returning from his victory over the children of Ammon, came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child." Then did he rend his clothes, and said, "Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back" (Judges xi. 34, 35). On another shoulder, close by, another tragedy was enacted in later times; for there still stands, in ruins, the castle of Macharus, in which it is recorded by Josephus that John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod for plainly telling him an unpalatable truth. Here it was that Herod, entangled afterwards in a foolish oath, sent messengers with commands to behead the imprisoned prophet and to bring his gory head a present to the sanguinary woman who impelled him to the deed (Matt. xiv. 1-12). Once more, casting our eyes up the mountain-side to the left, they rest near the spot where another was

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taken by the Lord, like Moses, and his body buried in a sequestered and unknown vale. For here it was that Elijah, having cleft a way over Jordan with his mantle, and, accompanied by Elisha, ascended the mountain. "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more" (2 Kings ii. 11, 12).

All these scenes of wondrous interest combined to place this spot in a rank only second to that hill behind Nazareth which I have already described. I saw them all under a rich canopy lighted up and coloured by the setting sun, and in the cool of a refreshing evening, succeeding a hot and toilsome day. A flock of large wild birds which flew over my head in the curious V form, wending their way southwards, and the occasional appearance of wild animals in the scrub, were the only indications of life, beyond our tents and animals, which this now desolate region presented. All was peopled, however, with the shadows of the past. A majestic procession of patriarchs, lawgivers, prophets, kings, and warriors; of jubilant Israelites, of panic-struck citizens, of mourning maidens; of the sons of the prophets bewailing their head, of repentant Jews welcoming their Master, of blood-dyed executioners murdering the innocent,—all these marched before my imagination, as I gazed with my bodily eyes upon the earthly localities which had once been animated by them; while of the two extremes of the landscape, one blazed with the lurid flames and infernal lightnings of the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, the other shone clear and brilliant with celestial light from the fiery chariot of the faithful prophet Elijah.

As our camp was pitched close to the scrub, and the cook's tent, from which issued, doubtless, a savoury odour, faced that way, we thought it not improbable that we should be made aware of the vicinity of the wild animals which were, without doubt, not far off. Indeed, before dinner we had already heard the whine of the jackals; but the greater portion of the night passed in quietness. About four A.M., however, the whole camp was aroused by the most unearthly screams from close at hand, wild and horrid yells from some animals near the camp, the neighing of the alarmed horses which were picketed close to the bush, and the shouts of the disturbed muleteers, which formed altogether a most discordant chorus. I jumped up and looked out of the door of my tent, but it was still quite dark, and I could see nothing; but those