Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/183

Rh line of march we could see the great valley on either side of which were drawn up in martial array the armies of the Philistines and "the hosts of the Living God," and where the stripling laid the monster giant low with a stone from the sling. The road we were travelling had often felt the tramp of armies. Here the hosts of Assyria and of Egypt had passed and repassed. Later on, those of Alexander, of the Romans, the Crusaders, and last of all, of Napoleon Buonaparte. The country along which we wended our way was excellently cultivated, and often formed of rich brown loam many feet deep. Camels and oxen were busy in the fields, or passed us laden with agricultural produce, while large herds and flocks of cattle and sheep covered the pasture lands. The land is cultivated by the fellahin; and, if any of them are descended from the race of the giants, I can well believe it, as they are for the most part men of good stature, if not of gigantic proportions. All along our road to the left, the desolating sand-hills might be seen—sometimes at a distance rising in steep slopes, threatening to bury the country at their feet. In one spot, a short distance south of Yazûr, the sandy avalanche had descended the hillside, and had partially covered the gardens and park of some important householder (apparently in the position of a "country gentlemen" at home), and it seemed only a question of time when the house itself would be entombed; some fine trees, which had originally decorated the grassy slopes of the adjoining park, were now rising out of a surface of sand. At length, after passing the suburbs of Yazûr, we emerged towards evening on the high road from Jaffa to Jerusalem. It was a new experience to tread on a paved or "metalled" road, and to meet a waggonette carrying passengers. For two months we had been traversing pathless wastes, or following tracks of animals, sometimes scarcely perceptible; but we had not till now trod a carriage road, nor witnessed any vehicle in the form of a stage coach. We felt that we had now left the desert and its people behind, and were coming in contact with Western civilisation! This feeling was intensified when, after winding along lanes in the suburbs of Jaffa, bordered by groves of orange and lemon trees laden with fruit, we found ourselves within the four walls of "the Jerusalem Hotel," and were able to stretch our limbs on a bed under cover of a roof, and to rest after a ride of thirty English miles. Perhaps it was ungrateful not to feel in boisterous spirits at the change in our surroundings which we had experienced; but, truth to tell, camp life had become, not only familiar, but pleasant to us; and our feelings at changing