ide
a mare so that none of our enemies can possibly overtake him."

We left Bait Jibreen soon after 9 A.M., riding through a grove of olives,
and soon arrived alongside of _Dair Nahhaz_, {182} and afterwards
_Senabrah_. By noon we were quite off the plain, and entering a
beautiful green valley bounded by cliffs of rock sprinkled with dwarf
evergreen oak and pines, the spaces between them being filled up with
purple cistus, yellow salvia, and other flowers. This continued for an
hour, by which time we had gradually attained a considerable elevation,
where we had our last survey for that journey of the Philistine plain and
its glorious long limit, the Mediterranean Sea.

In another quarter of an hour we rested among the wreck of _Khirbet en
Nasara_, (ruins of the Christians,) not far from Hebron. Thence I
despatched a messenger to my old friend the Pakeed (agent in temporal
affairs) of the Sephardim Jews in the city, and he sent out provisions to
my halting-place under the great oak, above a mile distant from Hebron.

In regard to the researches after the lost site of Gath, I may mention
that on a later visit to Bait Jibreen, I got Shaikh Muslehh (the
government Nazir, and the head of his family) to tell me all the names of
deserted places he could recollect in his neighbourhood. I wrote from
his dictation as follows, but it does not seem that the object of inquiry
is among them. In Arabic the name would most probably be _Jett_ or
_Jatt_.

Merash. Munsoorah. Umm Saidet.
Sagheefah. Shemaniyeh. 'Arak Hala.
Lahh'm. Shaikh Aman. 'Attar.
Kobaibeh. Obeyah. St Anna.
Fort. Ghutt. Judaidah.
Martosiyah. Ahhsaniyeh. Ilmah.

CHAPTER IV. HEBRON TO BEERSHEBA, AND HEBRON TO JAFFA.

In August 1849 I left my large family encampment under the branches of
the great oak of Sibta, commonly called Abraham's oak by most people
except the Jews, who do not believe in any Abraham's oak there. The
great patriarch planted, indeed, a grove at Beersheba; but the "_Elone
Mamre_" they declare to have been "plains," not "oaks," (which would be
_Allone Mamre_,) and to have been situated northwards instead of
westwards from the present Hebron. With a couple of attendants I was
bound for Beersheba. The chief of the quarantine, not having a soldier
at home, gave u