be procured. At one time I thought of a gourd-shell, but there was not one dried in the town; so they told me. I might have lent them my drinking-cup, but then I wanted to prepare a large quantity to be left behind and to be used occasionally. I forget now what was the expedient adopted, but I think it was the last named-one, but of course only making sufficient for immediate use. I left a quantity behind me in powder, with directions to dilute it considerably whenever any vessel could be found; warning the people, however, of its poisonous nature if taken by mouth.
One man came imploring me to cure him of deafness, but I could not undertake his case. In any of those countries a medical missionary would be of incalculable benefit to the people.
There are ancient remains about the town, but not considerable in any respect. It is often taken for granted that this is the Ramoth-Gilead of Scripture, but I believe without any other reason than that, from the copious springs of water, there must always have been an important city there. The old name, however, would rather lead us north-eastwards to the hills of Jela’ad, where there are also springs and ruins.
On leaving the town we experienced a good deal of annoyance from the Moslem population, one of whom stole a gun from a gentleman of the party, and when detected, for a long time refused to give it up. Of course, in the end it was returned; but
I was told afterwards that the people had a notion that we ought to pay them something for visiting their town, just as we pay the wild Arabs for visiting Jerash. What a difference from the time of the strong Egyptian Government when Lord Lindsay was there!
At a distance of perhaps half or three-quarters of an hour there is a Weli called Nebi Osha; that is to say, a sepulchre, or commemorative station of the Prophet Joshua, celebrated all over the country for the exceeding magnificence of the prospect it commands in every direction. In order to reach this, we had to pass over hills and plains newly taken into cultivation for vineyards, mile after mile, in order to supply a recent call for the peculiar grapes of the district at Jerusalem to be sent to London as raisins.
Arrived at the Weli, we found no language sufficient to express the astonishment elicited by the view before us; and here it will be safest only to indicate the salient points of the extensive landscape, without indulging in the use of epithets vainly striving to portray our feelings. We were looking over the Ghôr, with the Jordan sparkling in the sunshine upon its winding course below. In direct front was Nabloos, lying between Ebal and Gerizim; while at the same time we could distinguish Neby Samwil near Jerusalem, the Mount Tabor, Mount Carmel, and part of the Lebanon all at once! On our own side of Jordan we saw the extensive remains
of Kala’at Rubbâd, and ruins of a town called Maisĕra. On such a spot what could we do but lie in the shade of the whitewashed Weli, under gigantic oak-trees, and gaze and ponder and wish in silence,—ay, and pray and praise too,—looking back through the vista of thirty-three centuries to the time of the longing of Moses, the “man of God,” expressed in these words “O Lord God, Thou hast begun to show Thy servant Thy greatness and Thy mighty hand: . . . I pray Thee let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.” The honoured leader of His people—the long-tried man “through good report and evil report,” who, during his second forty years which he spent as a shepherd in Midian, had been accustomed to the abstemious habits and keen eyesight of the desert; and, at the end of another forty years as the ruler of a whole nation, living in the desert, “his eye was not dim,”—added to which natural advantage, we are told that “the Lord showed him all the land,” highly cultivated as it was then by seven nations greater and mightier than Israel,—Moses must have beheld a spectacle from Pisgah and Nebo, surpassing even the glories of this landscape viewed by us from Nebi Osha.
Turning eastwards to our evening home, we passed a ruined site called Berga’an, where we had one more view of the Dead Sea, and traversed large plains of ripe corn, belonging, of course, to the people of Es-Salt. The people requested me to
pray to God that the locusts might not come there, since all that harvest was destined for Jerusalem.