s stood in two rows, forming a right angle.
They went through with various motions and hand-clapping, accompanied
by an indescribable noise at times. Some of the Bedouins were sitting
around a small fire at one side, and some of the children were having a
little entertainment of their own on another side of the dancing party.
We were soon satisfied, and made our way back to the hotel and laid down
to rest.

The first Jericho was a walled city about two miles from the present
village, perhaps at the spring already mentioned, and was the first city
taken in the conquest of the land under Joshua. The Jordan was crossed
at Gilgal (Joshua 4:19), where the people were circumcised with knives
of flint, and where the Jews made their first encampment west of the
river. (Joshua 5:2-10.) "Jericho was straitly shut up because of the
children of Israel," but by faithful compliance with the word of the
Lord the walls fell down. (Joshua 6:1-27.) "And Joshua charged them with
an oath at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before Jehovah,
that riseth up and buildeth this city Jericho: with the loss of his
first-born shall he lay the foundation thereof, and with the loss of his
youngest son shall he set up the gates of it." Regardless of this curse,
we read that in the days of Ahab, who "did more to provoke Jehovah, the
God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before
him, * * * did Hiel the Beth-elite build Jericho: he laid the foundation
thereof with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates
thereof with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word
of Jehovah, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun" (1 Kings 16:33,34).
"The Jericho * * * which was visited by Jesus occupied a still different
site," says Bro. McGarvey. The present Jericho is a small Arab village,
poorly built, with a few exceptions, and having nothing beautiful in or
around it but the large oleanders that grow in the ground made moist by
water from Elisha's Fountain. We had satisfactory accommodations at the
hotel, which is one of the few good houses there. Jericho in the time of
our Lord was the home of a rich publican named Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10),
and was an important and wealthy city, that had been fortified by Herod
the Great, who constructed splendid palaces here, and it was here that
"this infamous tyrant died." The original Jericho, the home of Rahab the
harlot, was called the "city of palm trees" (Deut. 34:3), but