ntain, or heaps of boulders, etc., that
had been rolled down from the adjacent cliffs by natural causes during a
succession of ages.

Mr Isaacs has since published a book descriptive of this expedition,
containing illustrations from his photographs taken on the spot. In this
he has given the reasons for our differing from M. de Saulcy, and
considering his theories unfounded.

At the end of a strip of beach, which the discoverer calls "the plain,"
the cliffs have a narrow crevasse, down which water rushes in the season
when there is water to form a cascade. This is difficult to reach from
"the plain," and very narrow; and it is what our Arabs called the Wadi
Gumran. In front of this opening is a hill with some ruins upon it;
thither we mounted easily, and saw vestiges of some ancient fort with a
cistern.

When all the observations were taken upon points considered necessary, we
prepared to return home by way of Mar Saba, hardly expecting to arrive by
daylight at Jerusalem. We were, however, desirous of spending Christmas
day there rather than in the bleak wilderness.

On the way we fortunately got some camel's milk from a party passing near
us. The weather was hot, but exceedingly clear. The Salt mountain of
Sodom, (Khash'm Usdum,) showed itself well at the southern extremity of
the lake, thirty miles distant; and from a raised level near its northern
end we gained superb views of Mount Hermon (Jebel esh Shaikh) in the
Anti-Lebanon, capped with snow. This was entirely unexpected and
gratifying; but I could nowhere find a spot from which both Hermon and
Sodom could be seen at once. Perhaps such a view may be had somewhere on
the hills.

We turned aside through the _Wadi Dubber_, as the guide termed it, within
a circuitous winding, out of which, at a spot called 'Ain Merubba', I had
passed a night in the open air some years before.

Long, dreary, and tiresome was the journey; the two Bashi-bozuk men
complained of it as much as we did. At sunset we came to a well with
some water left in troughs near it, but not enough for all our horses,
and we had no means of getting more out of the well. This was in a wide,
treeless, trackless wilderness.

No one of our party felt quite sure of being on the true road, but we
followed slight tracks in the general direction in which the convent lay;
we guessed and went on. Occasionally we got sight of the summit of the
Frank mountain or lost it again, according to the ris