No one of our party felt quite sure of being on the true road, but we followed slight tracks in the general direction in which the convent lay; we guessed and went on. Occasionally we got sight of the summit of the Frank mountain or lost it again, according to the rise or fall of the ground. Conversation flagged; but at length we struck up a Christmas hymn to enliven us.
In the valley of Mar Saba we saw lights in the convent, but passed on. Saw an Arab encampment, with fire and lights glimmering, where the dogs came out to bark at us; another such in half an hour more; and a larger camp in another half-hour, where men were discussing matters with much vociferation in a cavern by a blazing fire; a scout called out, inquiring if we were friends or foes?
The night grew very cold, and I should have been glad had my cloak not been lost near Jericho. The temperature differed greatly from that of the Dead Sea—a keen wind was in keeping with the end of December. The stars were most brilliant: Venus richly lustrous; Sirius, dazzling; and the huge Orion showing to best advantage. The road was alternately rough in the valley, or over slippery ledges. At length, however, we got cheered by coming to known objects. Passed Beer Eyoob, (En Rogel,) and saw the battlemented walls of the Holy City sharply marked against the sky.
The key had been left by the authorities at the city gate, to allow of our admission; but the rusty lock required a long time for turning it, and the heavy hinges of the large gate moved very slowly, at least so it seemed in our impatience to reach home.
* * * * *
It is said above that I once spent a night at the ’Ain Merubba’—this was on the occasion of an attempt, which ended in failure, to reach ’Ain Jidi
(En-gaddi) from the ’Ain Feshkah in the common way of travelling. [419]
Hhamdan, Shaikh of the Ta’amra, with about a dozen of his men, escorted me and one kawwâs in that direction. Instead of proceeding to Jericho or Elisha’s fountain, we turned aside into the wildest of wildernesses for passing the night. Traversing the length of an extremely narrow ridge, something like the back of a knife, we descended to a great depth below; but the risk being judged too great for conveying the tent and bed over there by the mule, these were left spread upon the ground for the night under the canopy of heaven; while the men carried our food for us to make the evening meal. Crawling or sliding, and leading the horses gently, we got to the bottom, and then followed up a very narrow glen, winding in and out, and round about between extraordinary precipices rising to enormous heights, till all at once the men halted, shouted, and sang, and stripped themselves to bathe in small pools formed in holes of the rock by settlements of rain-water.
This was our halting-place, but the scene beggars all power of description. We were shut into a contracted glen by a maze of tortuous windings, between mountains of yellow marl on either side; but broken, rugged, naked of all vegetation,—referring one’s imagination to the period when the
earth was yet “without form and void,” or to the subsiding of the deluge from which Noah was delivered.