dinner were
interrupted by the driving of a heavy shirocco, low, near the ground,
which soon became so strong that the tents began to tumble over, and we
took refuge in the house of 'Abdu'l 'Azeez; there was, however, no rain.

Here then I was lodged in a house of sun-baked bricks plastered inside
with mud, but as clean as such a house could possibly be. There were
cupboard recesses in the walls, a fireplace and chimney, wooden nails
driven into "sure places" in the walls, (see Isa. xxii. 23,) strange
scratches of blue and red painting in fancy scrolls, etc.; a raised
Mastabah or dais, and a lower part of course near the door, for guests to
leave their shoes there; the whole being roofed by a few strong beams
wattled between with faggot-wood. A piece of ancient marble lay across
the doorway.

The very rudely fabricated lamp was lighted from a huge clump of wood
taken burning from the hearth. Dinner as uncivilised but as hospitable
as could be expected at half-past nine. I should have had my own long
before but for the tempest outside.

News arrived that eighty people from _Kuriet el 'Aneb_ (the well-known
village of Abu Gosh on the Jerusalem road from Jaffa) were escaping to us
across the hills, on account of troubles at their home.

Then we very soon lay down to sleep.

_Tuesday_ 8_th_.--'Abdu'l 'Azeez and his two young sons escorted us in
looking over the ruins of old Eleutheropolis, as their town was called in
the period of early Christianity. These consist of a church near the
great well, another on a hill farther eastwards called St Anna, or, as
the Arabs pronounce it, _Sandanna_, and numerous extensive caverns,
probably enlargements by art from nature.

The former church has a roof remaining only over one of the aisles; the
ground plan of the whole edifice is, however, sufficiently marked out by
the fragments of columns _in situ_.

St Anna is larger and more perfect than this; the semicircular apse is
entire, and there are remains of other buildings attached to the church.
It stands on high ground, and commands a very fine prospect.

The caverns are formed in the substance of chalk hills, often in a
circular form, with a rounded roof, through which an aperture admits both
air and daylight. Antiquarians are puzzled to account for the origin of
these, as they are too numerous and capacious to be needed for supply of
water; besides that in common times the large well and aqueducts that
bring water from