) But the shades of night had settled down upon the little town
where our Savior was born, and we again entered our carriages and drove
back to Jerusalem, having had a fine day of interesting sight-seeing. On
the Wednesday before I left Jerusalem, in the company of Mrs. Bates, I
again visited Bethlehem.

Thursday, October thirteenth, was the day we went down to Jericho, the
Dead Sea, and the Jordan. The party was made up of the writer, Mr.
Ahmed, Mr. Jennings, Mrs. Bates, four school teachers (three ladies and
a gentleman) returning from the Philippines, and the guides, Mr. Smith
and Ephraim Aboosh. We went in two carriages driven by natives. "A
certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among
robbers, who stripped him and beat him, and departed, leaving him half
dead" (Luke 10:30). This lonely road is still the scene of occasional
robberies, and the Turkish Government permits one of its soldiers to
accompany the tourist for a fee, but we did not want to take this
escort, as neither of the guides feared any danger. Accordingly we took
an early start without notifying the soldiers, and reached Jericho,
about twenty miles away, in time to visit Elisha's Fountain before
dinner. The road leads out past Bethany, down by the Apostles' Fountain,
on past the Khan of the Good Samaritan, and down the mountain to the
plain of the Jordan, this section of which is ten miles long and seven
miles wide. Before the road reaches the plain, it runs along a deep
gorge bearing the name Wady Kelt, the Brook Cherith, where the prophet
Elisha was fed by the ravens night and morning till the brook dried up.
(1 Kings 17:1-7.) We also saw the remains of an old aqueduct, and of a
reservoir which was originally over five hundred feet long and more than
four hundred feet wide. Elisha's Fountain is a beautiful spring some
distance from the present Jericho. Doubtless it is the very spring whose
waters Elisha healed with salt. (2 Kings 2:19-22.) The ground about
the Fountain has been altered some in modern times, and there is now a
beautiful pool of good, clear water, a delight both to the eye and to
the throat of the dusty traveler who has come down from Jerusalem seeing
only the brown earth and white, chalky rock, upon which the unveiled sun
has been pouring down his heat for hours. The water from the spring now
runs a little grist mill a short distance below it.

After dinner, eaten in front of the hotel in Jericho, we drove o