WADY EN NAll. 107
Tala eastward to Mar Saba. Of these Wadys (1) the 'Alya rises in Umm et Tala, skirts the southern waterparting for more than three miles, when it bends to the north-east, receives the parallel valleys and turns eastward, till it enters the Nusb Umm Seibeh, and comes out as Wady Jerfan, when it bends round to the northward to join Wady en Nar. (2) Wady el Areis, begins between Bir en Nefis and Kh. Deir Ibn 'Obeid, or Deir Dosi, the remains of the very ancient convent of St. Theodosius (alt. 2,024 feet), from which Jeru- salem is visible at a distance of five miles, Guerin, " Jude'e," iii, 88. The Wady Areis becomes Wady Surah and finally Wady el Abd, when it joins (3) Wady Umm eth Theleithat, which rises on the east of Deir Ibn Obeid. Their junctions together and with Alya are about half a mile apart. It is the heads of el Areis and eth Theleithat that are crossed by the lower road to Mar Saba from Bethlehem. The most easterly wady crossed by the lower road to Mar Saba, rises on the hill-side where the road bends southward towards the convent. Two of its valleys are on either side of the spur which is crowned by Burj el Hanimar, a ruined fort in a commanding situation. The valleys join at the end of the spur ; and the wady, taking the names of el Makhrum and Hajr, runs to Wady en Nar not far below the convent.
Such an outline of the hydrography of the famous Brook Kidron, as the foregoing, could not have been written before the new Survey supplied the materials for it. Some of its most important features have been hitherto quite misunderstood. The wady Abu Dis of Dr. Smith's Atlas, called by Van de Velde, Wady el Kazir, is the Wady Abu Hindi of the New Survey, and actually turns from south-east to north-west to join el AJadowerah in the el Kueiserah basin. But in former maps it was continued into Wady Aksheibeh and so carried to Wady en Nar, out of its proper basin. The basin of Wady el Ghuweir, which is actually confined to the eastern slopes of Kurn el Hajr, within five miles of the Dead Sea, was extended back to the highland of Deir Ibn 'Obeid, and thus
confused with the heads of Wady Jerfan which goes to Wady
