Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/204

168 of freedom over the duties of the saddle. Several times he was driven up towards the tent by one of the muleteers, but no sooner was an attempt made to seize his halter or his mane than tossing his head he would turn round and bolt!

Having watched this manœuvring for a little, and having mounted on my own more tractable steed, I put him in pursuit of the runaway. After an exciting chase I managed to turn his head towards the tent, and to drive him up towards a long rope held at either end by the muleteers in readiness to throw round him; but just at the critical moment he would turn and be off again, I in hot pursuit. Others now joined, and for the space of about half-an-hour our steeds were galloping over the plain after the fugitive; and we thus gained some idea of the excitement of lassoing wild horses in the pampas of South America! Our young Sheikh also joined, and we soon left the chase to him. It was amusing to watch the display of horsemanship; and the graceful curves, windings, and retrogressions through which he put his Arabian, but he was no more successful than ourselves; the fugitive was not to be caught just yet; and as time was wearing on, and we had still a long ride before us, we left the horse to his fate; for we well knew that when we had all started he would rejoin his companions. And so it proved. We had not proceeded more than two or three miles when, on turning round, I perceived Heilpern cantering after us, and doubtless his steed had to pay dearly for his escapade.

The road to the entrance of the Kedron Valley was in some places difficult in the extreme, and with less trustworthy horses than ours would have been even dangerous. Rising at one moment over steep banks of broken rock it would then descend along slippery slopes, or skirt the sides of a precipice where a false step would result in precipitating horse and rider to the bottom. The hills were often formed of alternating beds of chert and limestone folded and waved; and there were interesting examples of the process of the formation of ridges and scarps by atmospheric agency. This was specially remarkable along the southern slopes of El Muntar, where the harder cherty strata form the crests and upper surfaces of the ridges, and from their dark hues contrast remarkably with the white chalky limestones which enclose them above and below. Towards evening we reached the road which winds along the deep gorge of the Kedron, and shortly afterwards our tents, which we found pitched in a rocky glen behind the Convent.

The remarkable gorge of the Kedron at Mar Saba has been often