e noise of
people busy at Bethlehem's chief industry, the cutting and polishing of
mother-of-pearl for mementoes. The jingling bells of our pack-train,
passing the open door, reminded us that our camp was to be pitched miles
away on the road to Hebron.

We called for the horses and rode on through the town. Very beautiful
and peaceful was the view from the southern hill, looking down upon the
pastures of Bethlehem where "shepherds watched their flocks by night,"
and the field of Boaz where Ruth followed the reapers among the corn.

Down dale and up hill we journeyed; bright green of almond-trees, dark
green of carob-trees, snowy blossoms of apricot-trees, rosy blossoms of
peach-trees, argent verdure of olive-trees, adorning the valleys. Then
out over the wilder, rockier heights; and past the great empty Pools of
Solomon, lying at the head of the Wadi Artas, watched by a square ruined
castle; and up the winding road and along the lofty flower-sprinkled
ridges; and at last we came to our tents, pitched in the wide, green
Wadi el-'Arrub, beside the bridge.

Springs gushed out of the hillside here and ran down in a little
laughing brook through lawns full of tiny pink and white daisies, and
broad fields of tangled weeds and flowers, red anemones, blue iris,
purple mallows, scarlet adonis, with here and there a strip of
cultivated ground shimmering with silky leeks or dotted with young
cucumbers. There was a broken aqueduct cut in the rock at the side of
the valley, and the brook slipped by a large ruined reservoir.

"George," said I to the Bethlehemite, as he sat meditating on the edge
of the dry pool, "what do you think of this valley?"

"I think," said George, "that if I had a few thousand dollars to buy the
land, with all this runaway water I could make it blossom like a
peach-tree."

The cold, green sunset behind the western hills darkened into night. The
air grew chilly, dropping nearly to the point of frost. We missed the
blazing camp-fire of the Canadian forests, and went to bed early,
tucking in the hot-water bags at our feet and piling on the blankets and
rugs. All through the night we could hear the passers-by shouting and
singing along the Hebron road. There was one unknown traveller whose
high-pitched, quavering Arab song rose far away, and grew louder as he
approached, and passed us in a whirlwind of lugubrious music, and
tapered slowly off into distance and silence--a chant a mile long.

The morning br