Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/172

136 lip the desert-plants, which appeared as if sprinkled with snow. Along with these were a few specimens of a shell in form like a small Trochus, of a brown colour, and the whorls handsomely sculptured (H. tuberculosa). I presented the specimens to Mr. Hart for description. The plains are entirely treeless—neither tree nor shrub are to be seen for miles; nevertheless, the ground was green with herbs, small plants, and grass; and amongst them could be distinguished, even at this early season, cyclamens, a pretty little marigold, and a mallow in much esteem with the Arabs as a vegetable. Flocks of small birds, such as larks, wagtails, starlings, green plover, and pin-tailed grouse, abounded, and imparted somewhat of life to the otherwise desolate landscape. In the afternoon we pitched our tents at Tel-el-Milh, the Moladah of the Bible, where water is always to be found. From the reference to Moladah, Beersheba, and other cities with the villages thereof, it seems evident that the tract of country, through which our road towards Gaza lay, had been largely inhabited both before and after the Captivity;—but how great is now the change! Of the works of man little remain but a few wells, which fortunately preserve the names of the original sites, together with the foundations of stone walls, or small mounds of stone, bricks, and pottery. The physical features alone remain; the hills, valleys, river channels, and brook courses are probably much as they were in the time of the prophet Nehemiah, or even earlier. The patriarchs and prophets gazed on the same hills, valleys, and plains that we do now; and in reading the sacred records we recognise the careful accuracy of the references to these phenomena on every hand. There is, as it seems to me, some satisfaction in this reflection; and in surveying the landscape one is tempted to recall the pathetic lines of Sir Walter Scott, as applied by him to the natural scenery of his native land—

The wells of Tel-el-Milh are sunk about 60 yards from the river bank—one shallow and dry, the other deep and containing water. They are of excellent construction, built throughout of hewn blocks of limestone in regular courses; the depth to the water I estimated at 60 feet. The edge stones are deeply grooved by the ropes of men who have drawn water