This page has been validated.
174
NARRATIVE OF AN EXPEDITION THROUGH ARABIA PETRÆA,
the fields, amongst which the brilliant scarlet anemone, and the delicately tinted dwarf iris, were the most conspicuous. We wound our way to the Jerusalem Hotel, amongst the orange and lemon groves, heavily laden with ripe fruit, which the rigorous enforcement of quarantine in the Mediterranean ports was causing to rot on the ground. For a few pence we purchased a small hamper of these delicious fruits for use on our voyage; but it was clear that, at this late period, it would be utterly impossible to send to market one half of the magnificent crop which was blooming on the trees, and bending with the weight of fruit their branches to the ground.
