half-way down the
precipice there is a course of water running towards the Ghor.

Few incidents in the Bible are so real to the eye and feelings as the
narrative of Jonathan and his office-bearers when read upon the spot of
the occurrence, or near it at Jeba'.

We passed _Jeba'_ at about a quarter of a mile to our right, and in
another quarter of an hour were at the strange old stone parallelograms
under _Hhizmeh_, which had been often before visited in afternoon rides
from Jerusalem.

These are piles of large squared stones of great antiquity, carefully
built into long parallel forms, and now deeply weather-eaten. No use of
them can be imagined. I have visited them at all seasons of the year,
and at different hours of the day, but they still remain unintelligible.
They are disposed in different directions, as will be seen in the
following drawing of them, carefully taken by measurement in my presence,
and given me by a friend now in England, the Rev. G. W. Dalton of
Wolverhampton.

[Picture: Stone constructions under Hhizmeh]

On one face of No. 4 is a kind of entrance, and on the top surface a
round hole about two feet in depth, but they lead to nothing, and are
probably the work of modern peasantry, removing stones from the entire
block; in the former case for the mere object of shade from the sun, and
the latter for the charitable purpose common among Moslems, who often cut
basins into solid rocks, to collect rain or dew for birds of the air or
beasts of the field.

Corroded monuments like these, in so pure and dry an atmosphere, bespeak
a far more hoary antiquity than the same amount of decay would do in an
English climate.

I know of a spot on the side of a wild hill upon the way between Ai (as I
believe the place called the _Tell_ to be) and Mukhmas, where there are
several huge slabs of stone, rather exceeding human size, laid upon the
ground side by side exactly parallel. These can be nothing else than
gravestones of early Israelitish period, but of which the memorial is now
gone for ever.

Crossing the torrent-bed from the parallelogram, and mounting the next
hill, we were at Hhizmeh; then leaving 'Anata on the left, we traversed
the Scopus near the Mount of Olives, and reached Jerusalem in four hours
and a half of easy riding from Remmoon.

One ought not to quit the mention of this land of Benjamin by omitting
the _Wadi Farah_.

This is a most delightsome valley, with a good str