fig-trees, dwarf oaks, and thorns, grew among the rocks, and thousands of larks, disturbed by our approach, rose high into the air, but they did not sing the sweet song of the larks of our cornfields.
We passed over steep hills, wild and rocky, with treacherous stones slipping from under the feet of the often stumbling horses. Sometimes the passes were so narrow that we had to ride singly, watching the leader carefully in his ins and outs among bushes and rocks. On the summits of many of the rounded hills there are ruins and large hewn stones, which have given rise to much discussion among Biblical topographists. We saw traces of terraces, and of former careful cultivation every-where, but the Winter torrents have been allowed to sweep away the protecting stones, and the rich, red loam is washed down, so that in many places large masses of bare limestone are exposed; but wherever the earth rests, however scantily, there is vegetation. Wild fruit-trees, shrubs, and aromatic herbs, thorns and thistles, prove the natural fertility of the soil. Even out of the small handfuls of earth washed into the holes and crevices of the rocks, tiny flowers spring, especially the wild pink and crane’s-bill. We took zigzag paths up the faces of hills which looked almost perpendicular. Sometimes we gained a hight commanding views of the Great Sea and the plain of Sharon on one side, and the hills which concealed the city of Jerusalem on the other; then again we were in a narrow valley, or closed in by a seemingly impassable amphitheater of hills. Here and there our road was along ledges, so narrow—with a rocky ravine below, and a hill rising abruptly like a wall above—that we took the precaution of sending our leader to the end of the pass, to see that the way was clear, and to keep it so till we could traverse it. Eagles and vultures swept through the air. The sky was intensely blue, and the sun very powerful. Sparrows and finches were twittering among the trees.
At about ten o'clock we dismounted by a little tell, or
