stone, fallen columns, foundations of houses, and broken walls alone remain. A few wild Arabs of the Tàamari tribe haunt these ruins and the caverns in the limestone hills which rise behind them, attracted by the spring which gushes impetuously from a rock overgrown with mosses and ferns, and overshadowed with fine trees. The water falls in a large body, splashing and bubbling, into a square reservoir, where a group of little Bedouins stood enjoying shower-baths. A few men were bathing their feet and washing their hands, in preparation for prayer.
From this basin the water escapes into a lower and large reservoir, where a number of Urtâs women and girls were washing their white and purple linen shirts, and their tattered vails, in primitive style, folding them, and placing them on smooth slabs, just under the surface of the water at the margin of the pool, and then beating them with flat stones, which they held in their hands. Little naked, bronzed children were luxuriating there, and wriggling about like tadpoles. The girls called to me to come down into the reservoir, to bathe my feet. The rough stone walls inclosing these pools were tapestried with ferns, cresses, delicate creepers, and liverwort.
We followed the course of the stream, and, with it, descended into the valley between the low stone walls which inclose the plantations of olive, fig-trees, lemons, and pomegranates. We had to make our way cautiously, now on one side, and then on the other, of the rocky bed of the swiftly-flowing stream.
The pleasant sound of the rushing waters—the songs of the goldfinches—the sight of the blossoming and fruitful trees in the garden below, inclosed by steep hills, covered with aromatic herbs—the breezy air, laden with the heliotrope-like scent of the fig-trees, and tasting of the wild flowers and herbs around-delighted us. King Solomon could scarcely have enjoyed such scenes more completely, when he, long ago, went into the garden and invited his beloved to come and eat the pleasant fruits. "Awake, O
