Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/73

57 WADY GHUZZEH. 57

Negeb or " South Country " of Scripture on the other. How attractive that part of the Holy Land is to the student of the Bible, is amply attested by that admirable work, which the Eev. Edward Wilton, M.A., Oxon., has devoted to it,* That book alone yields abundant evidence of the desirability of extending the survey work of the Palestine Exploration Fund to the southward. No doubt it is an undertaking which must be approached with ample precautions, but there is sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that a good under- standing for the purpose, might be entered into with the chiefs of the tribes, whose goodwill it would be necessary to secure. They are able to appreciate reverence for the Sacred Writings. It would be possible to explain to them the desire of believers to recover such a knowledge of the sites of the holy places in the " South Country," as the Survey now supplies further north. Their objections and apprehensions may be ascertained and provided for. A conviction that the welfare and prosperity of these pastoral people would be studied and promoted by the supporters of the Survey, might be justly impressed upon them. Such are some of the notions that seem to encourage the confident expectation that the Survey of the " South Country " of the Holy Land, will soon be taken up with the same earnestness and ability, which has already brought so large a part of the Fund's work to a most successful issue.

The northern limit of the Wady Ghuzzeh (Gaza) basin, runs with that of el Hesy from the coast eastward to Kuweil- feh, and thence north-eastward to Ras Biain ; beyond which it runs in the same general direction nearly to Hulhul, on the north of Hebron, having in this part the basin of Nahr Sukereir on the west. Here it becomes attached to the basin of the Dead Sea, and runs southward along its margin through Beni Nairn, Tell ez Zif, el Kurmul, Tell Main, Khurbet el Kureitein, Khurbet Beiyud, and

Wilton, M.A. Oson., Macmillan & Co., 3863.
 * The Negeb or " South Country " of Scripture. By the Eev. Edward