Upon the ground we found some dried palm-branches and slips of vine, which must have belonged to some former travellers, passing from the western towns to Ma’ân, for neither palm nor vine grows in this wilderness, of which it may be truly said, “It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates,” (Num. xx. 5;) and it is now become like a past dream, that Virgil and Lucan mentioned the palm-trees of Idumæa. [301]
So at length we were upon the great ’Arabah, or “wilderness of Zin,” of the Israelitish wanderings; and our path was to be diagonally across this, pointed direct at Mount Hor in the south-east.
On crossing a shallow wadi named Fik’r, they told us of a spring of water to be found in it, at a good distance to the north-east.
After some hours, we came to Wadi Jaib, sometimes styled the Jeshimon, as well as its corresponding plain on the north of the Dead Sea, and in Arabic both are called “the Ghôr,” in the shallow
bed of which were receptacles for water, concealed by canes and brushwood laid in the utmost disorder, so as to produce the appearance of mere random drift of winter storms. Without the Arabs, of course, we should never have suspected the existence of such valuable stores. Probably also the Bedaween from a distance would not be aware of such resources there. The covering would, besides, serve to prevent a speedy evaporation of the water by the sun’s heat. These spots were shaded likewise by tul’hh, sunt, and neb’k-trees. There we watered the cattle and filled our vessels. [302] In another half hour we rested for the night, having made a march of nearly twelve hours, over more tiring ground than that of yesterday.
’Ain Weibeh was to our right, which Robinson conjectured to be Kadesh Barnea.
We perceived footprints of gazelles and of hyenas.
April 5. Sunrise, Fahrenheit, 62¼°. Our Jerusalem bread being now exhausted, we took to that of the desert-baking, which is very good while fresh and hot from the stones on which the improvisation of baking is performed, but not otherwise for a European digestion: and our servants, with the Bedaween, had to chase the chickens
every morning. The survivors of those brought from Jerusalem being humanely let out of their cages for feeding every evening, the scene of running after them, or flinging cloaks in the air when they took short flights, not to mention the shouts of the men and the screams of the birds, was very ludicrous, but annoying, when time is precious. The merry little Salem enjoyed all this, as well as the amusements of our people, during the monotony of daily travelling: as, for instance, the captain rolling oranges along the ground, as prizes for running, or his mounting a camel himself, or riding backwards, etc.—anything for variety.
The desert may be described as a dried pudding of sand and pebbles, in different proportions in different places,—sometimes the sand predominating, and sometimes the pebbles,—with occasionally an abundance of very small fragments of flint, serving to give a firmer consistency to the sand. Round boulders are also met with on approaching the hill-sides. In one place large drifts of soft yellow sand were wrinkled by the wind, as a smooth sea-beach is by the ripples of a receding tide. These wrinkles, together with the glare of a burning sun upon them, affected the eyes, so as to make the head giddy in passing over them.