appears to have driven David to a yet more desolate district, that of the Jeshimon, or "Solitude," by which is apparently intended the great desert above the western shores of the Dead Sea, on which the Ziph plateau looks down. As a shepherd-boy at Bethlehem, David may probably have been already familiar with this part of the country, and the caves, still used as sheep-cotes by the peasant herdsmen, extend all along the slopes at the edge of the desert.
East of Ziph is a prominent hill on which is the ruined town called Cain in the Bible. Hence the eye ranges over the theatre of David's wanderings: the whole scenery of the flight of David, and of Saul's pursuit, can be viewed from this one hill.
The stronghold chosen by the fugitive was the hill Hachilah, in the wilderness of Ziph, south of Jeshimon. "This, I would propose" (says Conder) "to recognise in the long ridge called El Kôlah. . . . On the north side of the hill are the 'Caves of the Dreamers,' perhaps the actual scene of David's descent on Saul's sleeping guards."
Pursued even to Hachilah, David descended farther south, to a rock or cliff in the wilderness of Maon, which was named "Cliff of Division" (1 Sam. xxiii. 2-8). Here he is represented as being on one side of the mountain, while Saul was on the other. Now, between the ridge of El Kôlah and the neighbourhood of Maon there is a great gorge called "the Valley of Rocks," a narrow, but deep chasm, impassable except by a detour of many miles, so that Saul might have stood within sight of David, yet quite unable to overtake his enemy; and to this "Cliff of Division" the name Malâky now applies, a word closely approaching the Hebrew Mahlekoth. The neighbourhood is seamed with many torrent-beds, but there is no other place near Maon where cliffs, such as are to be inferred from the word Sela, can be found. "It seems to me pretty
