d of being
attacked by wild Arabs, and having their animals carried off.

It was about sunset, and our track lay over plains of arable land,
between hills clothed with the usual dwarf evergreens, of baloot,
arbutus, etc., then over eminences with tall fragrant pines, and the
evening breeze sighing among their branches, such as I had only once
heard since leaving Scotland, and that was in the Lebanon. Old stumps
and half trunks of large trees standing among myriads of infantile
sprouts of pines attested the devastation that was going on, by means of
the peasantry, for making of charcoal, and for supplying logs to the
furnaces of Hebron, where very rude manufactures of glass are carried on.

Along a glen which opened into an arable plain with stubble of millet
(durrah) remaining, but no village near. There we met a party of Arab
women, and after them a boy mounted on a camel, who informed us that he
was coming from _Merj-ed-Dom_, lying between us and _Samua'_, where there
are remains of antiquity, such as large doorways, cisterns, etc.

The country was all level enough for carriages; and it is probable that
all the way in the south is practicable in like manner, for we know that
Joseph sent carriages from Egypt to his father at Beersheba.

The _Boorj_ is simply a look-out tower, now used for quarantine purposes,
ridiculous as they may be in the pure air of the desert.

There are relics of a village about it; but as the people are living in
caverns rather than taking pains to rebuild their houses, we may infer
that they do not feel secure on the very last remnant of fixed
habitations towards the great southern wilderness, although under Turkish
government.

They are, however, kept in considerable awe of the petty officers
stationed there; for when one of our party was impatient at the intrusion
of a cat near our supper cloth, the people besought us not to injure the
animal, seeing that it was the property of the _Dowleh_ (Government.)
They furnished us with eggs and milk; and, after our meal, we lay down on
the leeward side of the town, to await the rising of the moon. We had a
fire burning near us, its red light flickering over the wild scene; the
sky with its milky-way over our heads, and the polar star in the
direction of England, fixed in its well-known place.

The villagers had their own chatting round the watchfire, discussing
local politics, chiefly, as to whether 'Abderrahhman the governor of
Hebron was l