be an element of age; for new
ruins are painful, disquieting, intolerable; they speak of violence and
disorder; it is not until the bloom of antiquity gathers upon them that
the relics of vast and splendid edifices attract us and subdue us with a
spell, breathing tranquillity and noble thoughts. There must also be an
element of magnificence in decay, of symmetry broken but not destroyed,
a touch of delicate art and workmanship, to quicken the imagination and
evoke the ghost of beauty haunting her ancient habitations. And beyond
these things I think there must be two more qualities in a ruin that
satisfies us: a clear connection with the greatness and glory of the
past, with some fine human achievement, with some heroism of men dead
and gone; and last of all, a spirit of mystery, the secret of some
unexplained catastrophe, the lost link of a story never to be fully
told.

This, or something like it, was what the Archaeologist's phrase seemed to
promise me as we watched the glowing embers on the hearth of Avalon. And
it is this promise that has drawn me, with my three friends, on this
April day into the Land of Gilead, riding to Jerash.

The grotesque and rickety bridge by which we have crossed the Jordan
soon disappears behind us, as we trot along the winding bridle-path
through the river-jungle, in the stifling heat. Coming out on the open
plain, which rises gently toward the east, we startle great flocks of
storks into the air, and they swing away in languid circles, dappling
the blaze of morning with their black-tipped wings. Grotesque, ungainly,
gothic birds, they do not seem to belong to the Orient, but rather to
have drifted hither out of some quaint, familiar fairy tale of the
North; and indeed they are only transient visitors here, and will soon
be on their way to build their nests on the roofs of German villages and
clapper their long, yellow bills over the joy of houses full of little
children.

The rains of spring have spread a thin bloom of green over the plain.
Tender herbs and light grasses partly veil the gray and stony ground.
There is a month of scattered feeding for the flocks and herds. Away to
the south, where the foot-hills begin to roll up suddenly from the
Jordan, we can see a black line of Bedouin tents quivering through the
heat.

Now the trail divides, and we take the northern fork, turning soon into
the open mouth of the Wadi Shaib, a broad, grassy valley between high
and treeless hills. T