Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/177

Rh, Murex brandaris, and Columbella rustica are the most abundant forms. This sea-beach runs up the valleys, and occupies the plains, of Western Palestine along the sea-board to a level of about 200 feet, as in the valley below Tel Abu Hareireh.

On the last day of the year 1883 we parted with our colleague, Major. Kitchener, who had arranged to return to Cairo, and thus escape detention in quarantine at Gaza. His departure was greatly regretted by us all. He had proved a most agreeable companion during our journeyings of nearly two months, while his knowledge of the Arab customs and language, and his skill in dealing with the Bedawins, proved of much service to the Expedition. Assisted by Mr. Armstrong, Major Kitchener had worked unsparingly, and under many difficulties, owing to the necessary rapidity of our movements, in order to produce a correct outline map of the district we had traversed between Mount Sinai and Southern Palestine. The necessary observations had now been made; and there was, therefore, no necessity that he should accompany us further, much less that he should subject himself to the restrictions of a quarantine detention. He, therefore, made arrangements with the four Hawatat Arabs, who had arrived when we were camping in The Ghôr, to return with them to Cairo, though by a road probably never before traversed by an Englishman; and ere we struck our tents for the day's march into Gaza, Kitchener, mounted on his little horse, and accompanied by his four Arabs on their camels, crossed the Wâdy es Sheriah, and taking a south-westerly line of march, made for Ismailia, which he ultimately reached in safety.

Our march towards Gaza lay over an undulating country, generally covered deeply with loam, and extensively cultivated by the Terabîn Arabs, whose camps we frequently passed. Numerous small plants were unfolding their petals under the influence of the warm sunshine, and amongst others the scarlet anemone (Anemone coronaria, Lin.), so rich and beautiful in colour that on seeing it for the first time I involuntarily exclaimed, "Surely this is the 'lily of the field'!"—a view in which Mr. Hart concurred. Numerous bulbous plants overspread the ground,