Such was our “sweet home” and family life on the Byeways of Palestine.
But a time came when care and anxiety told heavily upon mine and my wife’s health. For some days I was confined to bed in the tent, unable to move up to the house; yet enjoying the reading of my chapters in Hebrew in the land of Israel, or ruminating over the huge emphasis of St Paul’s Greek in 2 Cor. iv. 17, καθ υπερβολην εις υπερβολην. κ.τ.λ. The curtains of the tent were thrown wide open at each side for the admission of air; the children were playing or reading on the shady side of another tent; muleteer and camel parties I could observe mounting or falling with the rises and dips of the Hebron road; and the jingle of bells or the singing of the men was audible or alternately lost according to the same circumstances. I lay watching the progress of
sunshine or shadow around the Frank mountain as the hours rolled on; then as evening approached the Egyptian groom took down the Egyptian mare to water at the spring, followed by the foal of pure Saklâwi race, that never till the preceding day had had even so much as a halter put across his head,—a Bashi-bozuk soldier with his pipe looking on,—the Abyssinian lad carrying pitchers of water to the several tents, and the pools of bright blue becoming darker blue when rippled by the evening air. All this was food for enjoyment of the picturesque, but at the same time God Almighty was leading us into deep trials of faith in Himself, and bringing out the value of that promise,—“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.”
As the autumn advanced, some slight sprinkling of rain fell—dews at night were heavy—mists rose from below—mornings and evenings became cooled—new flowers began to appear, such as the purple crocus, and certain yellow blossoms belonging to the season, the name of which I do not know. We therefore began to take farewell rides about the neighbourhood, as to places we were never to see again. One of these was to a very archaic pile of rude masonry, deeply weather-eaten, at a ruined site called Bait Saweer, through green woods and arbutus-trees, glowing with scarlet berries; a place which had only recently been
brought to my notice, and of which no European had any knowledge.
The old building, whose use we could not discover, was composed, not of ordinary blocks of stone, but of huge flat slabs, unchiselled at edges or corners, laid one over another, but forming decidedly an intentional edifice. It is well worth further examination. At the time we had with us no materials for sketching, and never had an opportunity of going thither afterwards.
It lies among the wild green scene west from the Hebron road, near where, on the opposite, or east side, is the opening of the Wadi ’Aroob, with its copious springs.
Then we went to Marseea’, beyond the Dair el Benât—equally unknown to Europeans—and, lastly, to the green slopes and precipices towards Nahhâleen, where, lingering till after sunset, we became in a few minutes enveloped in a cloud of mist tossed and rolled along by gusts of wind, and several large eagles rose screaming from perches among rocks below us into the misty air, as if rejoicing in the boisterous weather.
Three months before, we had been on the same spot at the moment of sunset, and saw the whole Philistine plain hidden in a white mist in a single minute, but, of course, far below us; and this, we were told, was the usual state of things, and would remain so for another month, after which the plain would have no mist, but we should have it all on