For an hour or two before starting on my way southwards, I lay on the beach contemplating the lovely scenery, and collecting my thoughts, both as to the past and for the future. The principal object of meditation was of course the placid lake itself—
“Dear with the thoughts of Him we love so well.”
Then the noble old mountain of Hermon, crowned with snow, now called Jebel esh Shaikh; which the Sidonians called Sirion; and the Amorites called Shenir, (Deut. iii. 9.)
Next the ever-celebrated Jordan, with its typical resemblance to the limit dividing this life from the purchased possession of heaven,—recalling so much of bright images of Christian poetry employed to cheer the weary pilgrim, in anticipation of the time when
“We’ll range the sweet fields on the banks of the river,
And sing of salvation for ever and ever!”
Gratefully acknowledging the providence which had brought us happily so far, the present writer then girded up his mental loins, and returned to
Jerusalem; but on the way occasionally glancing towards the eastward range of mountains,—the land of Gilead,—now called Belka and ’Ajloon, lately traversed; and with a feeling unknown since the verses were first echoed in childhood, the words involuntarily issue from the lips:
“Sihon, king of the Amorites,
For His mercy endureth for ever,
And Og the king of Bashan,
For His mercy endureth for ever!”
Having learned that ’Akeeli Aga el Hhâsi was encamped on the Jordan side, at no great distance, I resolved to visit this personage, who has since then become much more famous as a French protégé, being an Arab of Algeria, but at this time only noted as having been the guide of the United States Expedition to the Dead Sea in 1848, and as being at the moment commissioned by the Turks as a Kaimakam of the district, seeing that they could not hold even nominal rule there without him.
At my starting there came up from his post a messenger, Hhasan Aga, the Bosniac officer of Bashi Bozuk, to conduct me to the tents. The Aga was dressed in a crimson silk long coat, over which was a scarlet jacket embroidered in gold, and on his legs the Albanian full kilt, or fustinella, of white calico; his saddle cloth was of pea-green silk with a white border, and yellow worsted network protected the horse’s belly from flies, also a rich cloth with tassels lay over the horse’s loins.