ered to come from a boy of about twelve years of age who had
concealed himself behind a bush of _ret'm_, (juniper of Scripture.) He
had never seen Europeans before, and, on perceiving the Hejjaz slave at
our head, was apprehensive that we should plunder him of his ass and her
foal. He was a peasant of _Dair Dewan_, {203} a village on the way
before us.

In half an hour more we came up to a cleanly-dressed and pleasant-looking
shepherd lad, who was not at all afraid of us. He conducted us to a well
of good water, named _Beer Mustafa_, a little off the road, at the
heading of the small wadi _Krishneh_; there we rested half an hour.

In another hour we reached the ruins of Abu Sabbakh, from which we had
_Remmoon_ visible on our right.

During all the day's journey we passed through a good deal of wheat and
barley cultivation, the crops ripening fast, it being at the beginning of
May.

In another half hour we arrived at Dair Dewan, the Beth-aven of
Scripture, {204} a flourishing village,--remarkably so, as evinced by its
buildings, its fruit orchards, and corn fields all around. Progress in
such affairs is a sure token of a village being peopled by Christians.
In the well-kept cemetery belonging to the place, it was pleasant to see
an enormous quantity of large blue iris flowers growing between the
graves, and often concealing them from view till nearly approached.

Turning abruptly westward, in twenty minutes we came to the hill of
stones called Tell-el-hajjar, which I had on a former occasion identified
as the site of Ai, lying as it does between Beth-aven and Bethel, (Josh.
viii.,) and having the deep valley alongside northwards. Here Vandevelde
took bearings, with his theodolite, of points within sight; and in a
quarter of an hour from this we reached Bethel, (now called Bait-een,)
that is in less than five hours, including an hour's stoppage at the Tell
from the 'Ain-es-Sultan by Jericho, where the Arabs had, for their own
reasons, tried to persuade us that the journey was impossible, or would
at least occupy two days.

Our tents and luggage arrived soon after we did. Bait-een has been so
often described, and its biblical events so often quoted by travellers,
that it is not necessary to do so while professedly dealing only with
byeways in Palestine; yet this may be said, that no distance of time can
entirely efface the exquisite pleasure of exploring ground and sites so
accurately corresponding as this did