ne of
forty-five degrees,--not so steep as the Terabeh that we came to
afterwards, but longer and more perilous. Yet this is the only approach
to Jud_ae_a from the desert for many leagues around. Was it here that
King Amaziah destroyed his Edomite prisoners after his victory in the
"valley of salt?" (2 Chron. xxv. 12.)

Half way down, one of our barrels of water slipped off a camel, and
rolled into a chasm with noise and echoes like thunder. Wonderful to
relate, it was not broken, and we were thankful for its preservation.

At the bottom of the precipice, just beyond the shingle or debris of the
mountain, the captain and I rested, and drank some camels' milk. This
the Bedaween consider very strengthening. There were several
tul'hh-trees in a torrent-bed beside us, and some neb'k. With some twine
that we gave him, and a stout thorn of tul'hh, one of our Arabs mended
his sandal, which was in need of repair. We, having preceded the beasts
of burthen over the slippery rock, sat watching them and the men creeping
slowly down, in curved lines, like moving dots, towards us.

Upon the ground we found some dried palm-branches and slips of vine,
which must have belonged to some former travellers, passing from the
western towns to Ma'an, for neither palm nor vine grows in this
wilderness, of which it may be truly said, "It is no place of seed, or of
figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates," (Num. xx. 5;) and it is now
become like a past dream, that Virgil and Lucan mentioned the palm-trees
of Idumaea. {301}

So at length we were upon the great 'Arabah, or "wilderness of Zin," of
the Israelitish wanderings; and our path was to be diagonally across
this, pointed direct at Mount Hor in the south-east.

On crossing a shallow wadi named _Fik'r_, they told us of a spring of
water to be found in it, at a good distance to the north-east.

After some hours, we came to _Wadi Jaib_, sometimes styled the Jeshimon,
as well as its corresponding plain on the north of the Dead Sea, and in
Arabic both are called "the Ghor," in the shallow bed of which were
receptacles for water, concealed by canes and brushwood laid in the
utmost disorder, so as to produce the appearance of mere random drift of
winter storms. Without the Arabs, of course, we should never have
suspected the existence of such valuable stores. Probably also the
Bedaween from a distance would not be aware of such resources there. The
covering would, besides, serve to pr