In half an hour more we came up to a cleanly-dressed and pleasant-looking shepherd lad, who was not at all afraid of us. He conducted us to a well of good water, named Beer Mustafa, a little off the road, at the heading of the small wadi Krishneh; there we rested half an hour.
In another hour we reached the ruins of Abu Sabbâkh, from which we had Remmoon visible on our right.
During all the day’s journey we passed through a good deal of wheat and barley cultivation, the crops ripening fast, it being at the beginning of May.
In another half hour we arrived at Dair Dewân, the Beth-aven of Scripture, [204] a flourishing village,—remarkably so, as evinced by its buildings, its fruit orchards, and corn fields all around. Progress in such affairs is a sure token of a village being peopled by Christians. In the well-kept cemetery belonging to the place, it was pleasant to see an enormous quantity of large blue iris flowers growing between the graves, and often concealing them from view till nearly approached.
Turning abruptly westward, in twenty minutes we came to the hill of stones called Tell-el-hajjar, which I had on a former occasion identified as the site of Ai, lying as it does between Beth-aven and Bethel, (Josh. viii.,) and having the deep valley alongside northwards. Here Vandevelde took bearings, with his theodolite, of points within sight; and in a quarter of an hour from this we reached Bethel, (now called Bait-een,) that is in less than five hours, including an hour’s stoppage at the Tell from the ’Ain-es-Sultân by Jericho, where the Arabs had, for their own reasons, tried to persuade us that the journey was impossible, or would at least occupy two days.
Our tents and luggage arrived soon after we did. Bait-een has been so often described, and its biblical events so often quoted by travellers, that it is not necessary to do so while professedly dealing only
with byeways in Palestine; yet this may be said, that no distance of time can entirely efface the exquisite pleasure of exploring ground and sites so accurately corresponding as this did to the topography of the Bible, and belonging to events of such antiquity as the acts of Abraham and Joshua.
In the morning I separated from my friends, who were preceding towards Damascus, and, accompanied by Sulimân and a kawwâs, went on my way to Remmoon, (the rock Rimmon.) Started at half-past seven in a thick shirocco atmosphere, keeping on the northern high road for about a quarter of an hour in the direction of Yebrood, then turned sharply eastwards over corn-fields, and descended into a deep hot valley. The flowers of the field were chiefly cistus, red or white, and hollyhocks four feet high. Then ascended to at least a corresponding height into terraces of fruit-trees well-cultivated; and still mounting, to a fine plain of wheat, at the end of which was Remmoon, one hour and a quarter from Bait-een.
The village is built upon a mass of calcareous rock, commanding magnificent views towards the south, including the Dead Sea and the line of the Jordan; higher hills bounded the north, on which was conspicuous the town of Tayibeh, near which is a weli or mezâr (pilgrimage station) named after St George, who is an object of veneration to both Moslems and Christians. The people of Tayibeh
are all or mostly Christians, and have a church with a resident priest.