, I met, by appointment, at Jericho the Rev. A. A.
Isaacs, and my friend James Graham, who were going with photographic
apparatus to take views at the site called Wadi Gumran, near 'Ain
Feshkah, where a few years before M. de Saulcy, under the guidance of an
ardent imagination, believed he had found extensive and cyclopean remains
of the city Gomorrah, and had published an account of that interesting
discovery.

It was on Christmas eve that we rose early by starlight, and had our cups
of coffee in the open air, beside the _Kala'at er Reehha_, (Castle of
Jericho,) while the tents were being struck and rolled up for returning
to Jerusalem, where we were to meet them at night.

Only the artistic apparatus and a small canteen were to accompany us; but
the muleteer for these was even more dilatory in his preparations than is
usual with his professional brethren--and that is saying much; no doubt
he entertained a dread of visiting the Dead Sea at points out of the
beaten track for travellers; considerable time was also occupied in
getting a stone out of the mule's shoe; then just as that was
triumphantly effected, my mare happened to bolt off free into the
wilderness; when she was recovered, it was ascertained that my cloak was
lost from her back; during the search for this, the guide abandoned us,
and it was with much difficulty that we hired one from Jericho.

At length we commenced the march, leaving the kawwas to look for the
cloak, (which, however, he did not succeed in recovering; it would be a
prize for the thieves of the village, or even, if it should fall in their
way, for one of the Bashi-bozuk,) and got to _'Ain Feshkah_, much in need
of a real breakfast. There the water was found to be too brackish for
use--as unpalatable, probably, as the water of 'Ain es Sultan was before
being healed by the prophet Elisha; so we drank native wine instead of
coffee, while seated among tall reeds of the marshy ground, and not
pleased with the mephitic odour all around us.

Our photographers having ascertained the site for their researches by
means of the guide, and by the indications furnished in the work of De
Saulcy; they set themselves to work, during which they were frequently
uttering ejaculations at the exaggerations of size and quantity made by
my French friend. The cyclopean ruins seemed to us nothing but remnants
of water-courses for irrigation of plantations, such as may be seen in
the neighbourhood of Elisha's fou