he watercourse that winds down the middle of it is
dry: nothing but a tumbled bed of gray rocks,--the bare bones of a
little river. But as we ascend slowly the flowers increase; wild
hollyhocks, and morning-glories, and clumps of blue anchusa, and scarlet
adonis, and tall wands of white asphodel.

The morning grows hotter and hotter as we plod along. Presently we come
up with three mounted Arabs, riding leisurely. Salutations are exchanged
with gravity. Then the Arabs whisper something to each other and spur
away at a great pace ahead of us--laughing. Why did they laugh?

Ah, now we know. For here is a lofty cliff on one side of the valley,
hanging over just far enough to make a strip of cool shade at its base,
with ferns and deep grass and a glimmer of dripping water. And here our
wise Arabs are sitting at their ease to eat their mid-day meal under
"the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."

Vainly we search the valley for another rock like that. It is the only
one; and the Arabs laughed because they knew it. We must content
ourselves with this little hill where a few hawthorn bushes offer us
tiny islets of shade, beset with thorns, and separated by straits of
intolerable glare. Here we eat a little, but without comfort; and sleep
a little, but without refreshment; and talk a little, but restlessly. As
soon as we dare, we get into the saddle again and toil up through the
valley, now narrowing into a rugged gorge, crammed with ardent heat. The
sprinkling of trees and bushes, the multitude of flowers, assure us that
there must be moisture underground, along the bed of the stream; but
above ground there is not a drop, and not a breath of wind to break the
dead calm of the smothering air. Why did we come into this heat-trap?

But presently the ravine leads us, by steep stairs of rock, up to a
high, green table-land. A heavenly breeze from the west is blowing here.
The fields are full of flowers--red anemones, white and yellow daisies,
pink flax, little blue bell-flowers--a hundred kinds. One knoll is
covered with cyclamens; another with splendid purple iris, immense
blossoms, so dark that they look almost black against the grass; but
hold them up to the sun and you will see the imperial colour. We have
never found such wild flowers, not even on the Plain of Sharon; the
hills around Jerusalem were but sparsely adorned in comparison with
these highlands of bloom.

And here are oak-trees, broad-limbed and friendly, clo