nd precipices towards
_Nahhaleen_, where, lingering till after sunset, we became in a few
minutes enveloped in a cloud of mist tossed and rolled along by gusts of
wind, and several large eagles rose screaming from perches among rocks
below us into the misty air, as if rejoicing in the boisterous weather.

Three months before, we had been on the same spot at the moment of
sunset, and saw the whole Philistine plain hidden in a white mist in a
single minute, but, of course, far below us; and this, we were told, was
the usual state of things, and would remain so for another month, after
which the plain would have no mist, but we should have it all on the
mountains at sunset--so it was now found to be the case.

From one spot on our own grounds we were able to point out as objects in
the magnificent prospect--the Moab mountains, the crevasse of the Jabbok
into the Ghor, that of Calirrhoe into the Dead Sea, Hhalhhool near
Hebron, El Khud'r below us, Rachel's sepulchre, Bethlehem, Nebi Samwil,
the Scopus, Jerusalem, and our house there, to which we were soon to
remove.

Before, however, quitting this subject of the Bakoosh, I may refer to one
very special attraction that held us to the place, namely, an
agricultural undertaking in its neighbourhood. A friend, of whom I hope
to speak more in another time and place, superintended for me the
rebuilding of an ancient Biblical village that lay a heap and a
desolation, and cleared out its spring of water, which, by being choked
up with rubbish, made its way unseen under ground, it thus became nearly
as copious as that alongside of Solomon's Pools. I gathered people into
the village, vineyards were planted, crops were sown and reaped there,
taxes were paid to the government; and the vicinity, which previously had
been notorious for robberies on the Hebron road, became perfectly secure.

On one of my visits, a list was presented to me of ninety-eight
inhabitants, where a year and a half before there was not one.
Homesteads were rebuilt; the people possessed horned cattle and flocks of
sheep and goats, as well as beehives. I saw women grinding at the mill,
and at one of the doors a cat and a kitten. All was going on
prosperously.

Purer pleasure have I never experienced than when, in riding over
occasionally with our children, we saw the threshing of wheat and barley
in progress, and heard the women singing, or the little children shouting
at their games. Sixty cows used to b