3. FROM TIBERIAS TO ACRE.

_March_ 1850.

From _Hhatteen_ to _'Eilaboon_, a quiet and pretty village, after which
we had a long stretch of "merrie greenwood" with furze in golden blossom,
birds singing, and the clucking of partridges. At one place where the
old trees echoed the shouts of country children at their sports, there
rose above the summits a bold round tower, which on nearer approach we
found to be an outwork of the fortification of a venerable convent called
_Dair Hhanna_, which in comparatively recent times had been converted
into a castle, but convent, castle, and tower are now become a
picturesque ruin.

Near this we saw squatted on the ground a family of three generations,
almost entirely naked; they had a fire lighted, and the women were
washing clothes in the water heated by it, a great rarity in Palestine,
for they usually wash with cold water at the spring. Some Metawaleh
peasants ran away from our party when we wished to make some inquiries of
them.

From an eminence we saw before us a flat plain inundated like a lake,
left by the wintry floods. This occurs there yearly around the
flourishing village of _'Arabet el Battoof_, at which we soon arrived,
after which we galloped for miles over green pastures of grass
interspersed by trees.

In three quarters of an hour further we came to _Sukhneen_, a large
village with good cultivation extending far around. Still traversing
green undulations with wooded hills to the right and left, in another
hour we were at a small place called _Neab_, where the scenery suddenly
changed for stony hills and valleys. In a little short of another hour
we saw _Damooneh_ at half an hour's distance to the left. In twenty
minutes more we stopped to drink at the well _Berweh_, then pressed
forward in haste to arrive at Acre before the gates (being a
fortification) should be closed. We got there in fifty minutes' hard
riding from _'Ain Berweh_.

II. THE REVERSE WAY FROM WEST TO EAST.

1. ACRE TO TIBERIAS.

_March_ 1850.

Crossed the river Naaman, and paced slowly over the extensive marshes,
making for _Shefa 'Amer_.

Among these marshes was a herd of about two hundred horses at free
pasture upon the grass, weeds, and rushes, so succulent at that season of
the year; these were on their way from Northern Syria, and were inten