and lusty strength wholly unknown in Italy. Judea cursed of
God! what a misconception, not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of
the actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, and it will again
flow with milk and honey. Except some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of
the Levant is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, wool,
fruits, oil, and wine. The great disadvantage under which the country
labors, is its frequent drouths, but were the soil more generally
cultivated, and the old orchards replanted, these would neither be so
frequent nor so severe.

We gradually ascended the hills, passing one or two villages, imbedded in
groves of olives. In the little valleys, slanting down to the plains, the
Arabs were still ploughing and sowing, singing the while an old love-song,
with its chorus of "_ya, ghazalee! ya, ghazalee!_" (oh, gazelle! oh,
gazelle!) The valley narrowed, the lowlands behind us spread out broader,
and in half an hour more we were threading a narrow pass, between stony
hills, overgrown with ilex, myrtle, and dwarf oak. The wild purple rose of
Palestine blossomed on all sides, and a fragrant white honeysuckle in some
places hung from the rocks. The path was terribly rough, and barely wide
enough for two persons on horseback to pass each other. We met a few
pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, and a straggling company of armed
Turks, who had such a piratical air, that without the solemn asseveration
of Francois that the road was quite safe, I should have felt uneasy about
our baggage. Most of the persons we passed were Mussulmen, few of whom
gave the customary "Peace be with you!" but once a Syrian Christian
saluted me with, "God go with you, O Pilgrim!" For two hours after
entering the mountains, there was scarcely a sign of cultivation. The rock
was limestone, or marble, lying in horizontal strata, the broken edges of
which rose like terraces to the summits. These shelves were so covered
with wild shrubs--in some places even with rows of olive trees---that to
me they had not the least appearance of that desolation so generally
ascribed to them.

In a little dell among the hills there is a small ruined mosque, or
chapel (I could not decide which), shaded by a group of magnificent
terebinth trees. Several Arabs were resting in its shade, and we hoped to
find there the water we were looking for, in order to make breakfast. But
it was not to be found, and we climbed nearly to the summit of