it in December. We crossed it cautiously and in safety. Many a tree had been torn up by the roots by the Winter torrents. Large stone bowlders, which a short time before were firmly imbedded in the earth, had been undermined, and stood tottering on the hill-side, as if ready to fall on us. The rain-refreshed grass and trees and flowers glistened in the gleams of sunlight, and filled the air with sweet odors.
We left the Nazareth road and took a south-easterly direction, along the borders of the almost dry bed of a branch of the Kishon. We entered the "Wady-el-Milh," the Valley of Salt. Among other wild flowers on the way side, I recognized with strange delight patches of "crimson tipped" daisies. It was midday. We were beginning to feel hungry, and told the guide to pause at the nearest spring, that we might alight and eat. We met a few camels grazing on mallows and clover. They were branded with marks which told us that they did not belong to the peasantry. "These camels proclaim that Bedouins are in the neighborhood. We will seek them out, and take our dinner with them to-day, for wherever we find them, we shall also find a fountain of good water," said my brother. When we had rounded the next hill, we saw a number of square black tents, high up among the rocks and trees on the opposite side of the valley. We crossed the deep and stony river-bed, and scrambled up the pathless hill side, over the rocks and tangled brushwood. A group of Bedouins, in their large, heavy, white and brown cloaks, and red and yellow fringed shawl head -dresses, came leaping down to meet us, and to guide and welcome us to their encampment, in the midst of which we dismounted. There were fifteen tents altogether. We were led toward the sheikh's tent, which, like all the rest, was formed of very coarse black and brown "curtains of goats' hair,"[1] supported by slender trunks of trees and strong reeds from the banks of the Jordan. A rude palisading, of inter-
- ↑ See Exod. xxxv, 26; xxxvi, 14.
