Bait Jibreen_. The
region there is lonely and silent, with some petty half-depopulated
villages in sight, but all far away; sometimes a couple or so of peasants
may be met upon the road driving an ass loaded with charcoal or broken
old roots of the evergreen oak. Evening excursions in that direction
were not infrequent for the purpose of seeing the sun set into the sea,
from which the breeze came up so refreshingly.

The home resources gave us among the fruit trees, goldfinches, bee-eaters
in blue or green and gold, and beccaficas, the latter for food, but so
tame that they would stay upon the branches while the gun was levelled at
them; in fact, little Alexander, returning one day with several of them
that he had shot, complained of want of sport, quoting the lines of his
namesake Selkirk in Cowper,--"Their tameness is shocking to me."

Occasionally we got water-hens or coots that had been shot upon the Pools
of Solomon; only sometimes it was not possible to fish them out as they
fell into the water, and so became entangled among the gigantic weeds
that grow up from the bottom to the level of the surface, and among which
the men were afraid to venture their swimming. Pelicans we did not see,
although one had been previously brought from thence to Jerusalem, and
was stuffed for the Museum. Then we had water-cresses from the aqueduct,
at a place where its side was partly broken between the upper and the
second pool. Often for a treat we had water particularly light for
drinking brought from the spring of Etam, (2 Chron. xi. 6.) Figs and
grapes were furnished from the ground itself, and at the end of August
the Shaikh Jad Allah sent us a present of fresh honeycomb, according to
the custom on opening a hive at the end of summer, (in that country the
bees are never destroyed for the sake of the honey;) presents thereof are
sent round to neighbours, and of course presents of some other produce
are given in return. Palestine is still a land abounding in honey.

Occasional incidents occurred on the plain at the foot of the hill,--such
as a long line of camels kneeling and growling upon the high road, while
their drivers were swimming during the blaze of noontide in the parts of
the large pool free from weeds; or military expeditions passing on to
Hebron during the night, and called up by bugle after resting a couple of
hours at the castle-gate; or camel-loads of pine-branches swinging in
stately procession from the sou