s a peasant to walk with us as far as the _Boorj_,
(Tower,) with a letter of _our own_ handwriting in his name, addressed to
the guard there, directing them to escort us further.

Scrambling up a steep rough lane, due south from the tree, with vineyards
on either side richly laden with fruit, and occasional sumach-trees
bearing bright red berries, we were rewarded on the summit by a vast
prospect of country, hilly before us in the south, Moab and Edom
mountains to the left, and Philistia plains with the Mediterranean on the
right.

All nature was revived by the evening sea-breeze, and the sun in
undiminished grandeur was retiring towards his rest.

On a summit like this, with a wide expanse laid out for survey, there are
large and lively ideas to be conceived in matters of Scriptural
geography. Consider, for instance, on that spot Psalm cviii., with its
detail of territories one after another. That "psalm of David" declares
that God in His holiness had decreed the future dispensations of
_Shechem_, (there is its position, Nabloos, in the north of the circular
landscape;) then the _valley of Succoth_, (there it is, the Ghor, or vale
of the Jordan,) coasting between _Gilead_, _Manasseh_, and _Ephraim_;
also _Moab_, with its springs of water, where He would (speaking in human
poetic language) wash His feet, at the period of treading with His shoe
over _Edom_: that remarkable event paralleled in the Prophecy of Isaiah
lxiii., when, in apparel dyed red from Bozrah, the conqueror tramples
down the people in his anger. The Psalmist then has to triumph over
_Philistia_, that large Shephelah stretched between us and the
sea--concluding with the exclamation, "Who will bring me into the strong
city (Petra)? who will lead me into Edom?"

All this was accomplished by the providence of God in the history of
David, that shepherd boy of Bethlehem, at whose coronation all Israel was
gathered together at Hebron, just behind the spectator on this eminence.

To return, however, from the solemnity of these historical meditations to
the commonplace transactions of the journey, we had to carry on a
considerable amount of wrangling with the muleteers, who were continually
allowing their animals to stumble, and the ropes of the luggage to come
loose, so that the things fell to the ground; I sent them back, and we
proceeded without tents or bedding, only two blankets and our cloaks.
The true reason of the men's behaviour lay in their drea