d
towards it. It was amid such a wonderful profusion that Samson let loose
the foxes or jackals with firebrands, taking revenge on the Philistines,
and he called it "doing them a displeasure!" I have seen from Jerusalem
the smoke of corn burning, which had accidentally taken fire in that very
district.

On the summit of a hill, where were good square stones of old masonry, I
got into a sheepfold of stone walls, looking for antiquities; but, alas!
came out with my light-coloured clothes covered with fleas; fortunately
the clothes were not woollen.

Further on we had _Bait Ziz_, or _Jiz_, on the right, with _Dejajeh_, or
_Edjajeh_, and _Na'ana_, or _Ra'ana_, on the left; _Khulda_ in the
distance at N.W.; a vast expanse of growing grain in every direction.

The population hereabouts are a fine race for stature, and paler in
complexion than our peasantry on the hills; and it ought to be the
reverse, unless, as is certainly the case, they are a distinct people.

We traversed the plain to _'Akir_, which is Ekron of Scripture, one of
the five principal cities of the Philistines, and chief place of the
worship of Baal-zebub, (2 Kings i. 3.) All our inquiries had been in
vain for any name that could possibly have been Gath. The utter
extinction of that city is remarkable--the very name disappearing from
the Bible after Micah, B.C. 730. Amos, B.C. 787, and Zephaniah, B.C.
630, mention the four other cities of the Philistines, omitting Gath.
The name never occurs in the Apocrypha or the New Testament.

'Akir is now a very miserable village of unburnt brick; indeed, all the
villages of this district are of that material, owing to the extreme
rarity of stone. We saw women cutting bricks out of the viscous alluvial
soil, and boys swimming luxuriously in the pool of rain water settled
during winter in the excavation for bricks--quarry we might style it, if
the material were stone. There was plenty of ploughing in progress for
the summer crops of sesame, durrah, etc., and the people seemed rich in
horned cattle.

This last feature constitutes another difference between them and the
hill country. In the mountains, where the Bedaween forays are almost
unknown, the cattle bred are principally sheep and goats. On the plains,
flocks of sheep might be easily swept off by those marauders, oxen not so
easily; the people, therefore, principally breed this species of cattle,
and instead of idle shepherd boys amusing themselves wit