e Fountain of the Salt-Works), the first source of the
sacred river. A stream of water, sufficient to turn half-a-dozen mills,
gushes and gurgles up at the foot of the mountain. There are the remains
of an ancient dam, by which a large pool was formed for the irrigation of
the valley. It still supplies a little Arab mill below the fountain. This
is a frontier post, between the jurisdictions of the Pashas of Jerusalem
and Damascus, and the _mukkairee_ of the Greek Caloyer, who left us at
Tiberias, was obliged to pay a duty of seven and a half piastres on
fifteen mats, which he had bought at Jerusalem for one and a half piastres
each. The poor man will perhaps make a dozen piastres (about half a
dollar) on these mats at Damascus, after carrying them on his mule for
more than two hundred miles.

We pitched our tents on the grassy meadow below the mill--a charming spot,
with Tell el-Khanzir (the hill of wild boars) just in front, over the
Waters of Merom, and the snow-streaked summit of Djebel esh-Shekh--the
great Mount Hermon--towering high above the valley. This is the loftiest
peak of the Anti-Lebanon, and is 10,000 feet above the sea. The next
morning, we rode for three hours before reaching the second spring of the
Jordan, at a place which Francois called Tell el-Kadi, but which did not
at all answer with the description given me by Dr. Robinson, at Jerusalem.
The upper part of the broad valley, whence the Jordan draws his waters, is
flat, moist, and but little cultivated. There are immense herds of sheep,
goats, and buffaloes wandering over it. The people are a dark Arab tribe,
and live in tents and miserable clay huts. Where the valley begins to
slope upward towards the hills, they plant wheat, barley, and lentils. The
soil is the fattest brown loam, and the harvests are wonderfully rich. I
saw many tracts of wheat, from half a mile to a mile in extent, which
would average forty bushels to the acre. Yet the ground is never manured,
and the Arab plough scratches up but a few inches of the surface. What a
paradise might be made of this country, were it in better hands!

The second spring is not quite so large as Ain el-Mellaha but, like it,
pours out a strong stream from a single source The pool was filled with
women, washing the heavy fleeces of their sheep, and beating the dirt out
of their striped camel's hair abas with long poles. We left it, and
entered on a slope of stony ground, forming the head of the valley. Th