n; and he could with difficulty be
persuaded to mount his donkey in presence of a train so majestic, in his
eyes, coming from the holy city of Jerusalem.

We passed an encampment of _Beni Hhasan_. These people are few in
number, and exist under the shadow of the 'Adwan.

There were plenty of locusts about the country; but we soon came to a
vast space of land covered with storks, so numerous as completely to hide
the face of the earth, all of them busily employed in feeding--of course
devouring the locusts. So great is the blessing derived from the visits
of storks, that the natives of these countries regard it as a sin to
destroy the birds. On our riding among them they rose in the air,
entirely obscuring he sky and the sun from our view. One of our party
attempted to fire among them with his revolver, but, by some heedlessness
or accident, the bunch of barrels, being not well screwed down flew off
the stock and was lost for a time; it took more than half an hour's
search by all of us to find it again, and the Arabs considered this a
just punishment for wishing to kill such useful creatures.

We traversed a meadow where Shaikh Faisel, with a detachment of the
'Anezeh, had encamped for pasture, and only left it thirty-five days
before. His flocks and herds were described to us as impossible to be
counted; but our friends were unanimous in stating that his camels were
1500 in number.

Came to _Khirbet es Sar_, (_Jazer_?) whence the Dead Sea was again
visible. Our Arabs declared that they could distinguish the Frank
mountain, and see into the streets of Bethlehem. Here there is a mere
heap of ruin, with cisterns, and fragments of arches, large columns, and
capitals; also a very rough cyclopean square building of brown striped
flint in huge masses.

This site is three hours due north of Na'oor, in a straight line, not
turning aside to Deab's camp or 'Amman. Northwards hence are the
well-wooded hills of _'Ajloon_. To my inquiries for any site with a name
resembling Nebo, I was referred to the _Neba_, half an hour south of
Heshbon, which is given in the list taken down by me at Heshbon.

Proceeding northwards, we had the hills of _Jebel Mahas_ parallel on our
right hand; and to our left, in a deep glen below, was the source of the
stream Se'eer, which had flowed past us at _Cuferain_, our first
encampment after crossing the Jordan.

Arrived at the ruined town (modern in appearance) of _Dabook_, from
whence th