le reaping their harvest. This belongs
to two or three scattered villages about there, under the immediate
protection of the Deab 'Adwan. The Arabs, however, in this part of the
world, do condescend to countenance and even to profit by agriculture,
for they buy slaves to sow and reap for them.

In two hours and a half from the Jordan we came to our halting-place, at
a spot called _Cuferain_, ("two villages")--the Kiriathaim of Jer.
xlviii. 23--at the foot of the mountain, with a strong stream of water
rushing past us. No sign, however, of habitations: only, at a little
distance to the south, were ruins of a village called _Er Ram_, (a very
common name in Palestine; but this is not Ramoth-Gilead;) and at half an
hour to the north was an inhabited village called _Nimrin_, from which
the stream flowed to us.--See Jer. xlviii. 34: "The waters of Nimrin
shall be desolate."

We had a refreshing breeze from the north which is justly counted a
luxury in summer time. The shaikhs came and had coffee with me. They
said that on the high summits we shall have cooler temperature than in
Jerusalem, which is very probable.

After dinner I sat at my tent-door, by the rivulet side, looking
southwards over the Dead Sea, and to the west over the line of the
promised land of Canaan, which I had never before had an opportunity of
seeing in that manner, although the well-known verse had been often
repeated in England--

"Oh could I stand where Moses stood,
And view the landscape o'er,
Not Death's cold stream nor Jordan's flood
Should fright me from the shore."

I then read over to myself in Arabic, the Psalms for the evening
service--namely, liii., liv., and lv.

About sunset there was an alarm that a lad who had accompanied us as a
servant from Jerusalem was missing ever since we left the Jordan.
Horse-men were sent in every direction in search of him. It was
afterwards discovered that he had returned to Jericho.

At about a hundred yards south of us was a valley called _Se'eer_, (its
brook, however, comes down from the north)--abounding in fine rosy
oleander shrubs.

During the night the water near us seemed alive with croaking frogs.
Last night we had the sand-flies to keep us awake.

_Friday_, 11_th_.--Thermometer 66 degrees before sunrise. My earliest
looks were towards Canaan, "that goodly land"--"the hills, from which
cometh my help." How keen must have been the feeling of his state of
exile w