ace, with magnificent
mountains in every direction around, but all frowning black with volcanic
basalt; and the people horribly ugly--black and ferocious in physiognomy.
They were just in the busiest time of the indigo harvest; but they had
herds of very fine cows brought home, as the sun in setting threw over us
the shadow of the mountains of Gilboa. My companion from Jerusalem
looked up with horror to these hills, and began quoting the poetic
malediction of David upon them on account of the death of Saul and
Jonathan: "Let there be no dew, neither rain upon you, nor fields of
offerings," etc.

It was indeed a notable event in one's life to have arrived at the place
where the body of the first king of Israel, with that of his son, the
dear friend of David, after being beheaded, were nailed to the walls of
the city. Jabesh-Gilead could not have been very far off across the
Jordan; for its "valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body
of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, from the walls of Bethshan, and came
to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones and buried
them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days," (1 Sam. xxxi. 12,
13). This respectful treatment was by way of grateful recompense for
Saul's past kindness, as the very first act of his royalty had been to
deliver them from danger when besieged by Nahash the Ammonite (I Sam.
xi.); and they kept his remains till king David removed them into the
ancestral sepulchre within the tribe of Benjamin (2 Sam. xxi. 14).

To return. The people of Beisan urged upon us their advice not to sleep
in our tents, for fear of Arabs, who were known to be about the
neighbourhood. I however preferred to remain as I was; and many of the
people slept around the tents upon heaps of indigo plant, making fires
for themselves from the straw. Before retiring to sleep, I several times
found the horseman at his prayers by moonlight. During the night the
roaring of the water-torrents re-echoed loudly from the rocky hills.

29_th_.--We learned that the indigo cultivation is not very laborious.
The seed is scattered over the ground, and then the people turn the
streams over the surface for inundation. There is no ploughing. This is
done directly after barley-harvest from the same ground. There is no
produce for two years, but after that period the same stalks successively
for five years produce about seventy-two-fold. I bought a timnah
(measure) of the