Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/300

286 pictures of it are found in the Psalms of David, who passed in it, or on its border, many of his early years. In yonder Hill Country he took refuge when he was pursued by Saul, and "hunted like a partridge on the mountains." From the recesses of those hills he looked out on the same rolling sea of green that glistened in the sunrise this morning, and here he found much of his imagery of flocks and herds and shepherds. From his eagle's nest he saw far below, stretching away to the horizon, the illimitable pastures, "the cattle on a thousand hills," and sang exultingly, "The hills are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." A knowledge of the methods of agriculture still pursued, and which have doubtless come down from that day, sometimes leads us to detect new beauties of expression, as when we observe that, while the fields are plowed, they are never harrowed, their levelling being left to the gentle rain: "Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou settlest the furrows thereof; Thou blessest the springing thereof."

Some of the signs of civilization are wanting: there are no roads and no fences; the fields are divided only by stones. But the divisions are as fixed and as sacred as if the fields were hemmed in by walls ten feet high. "Cursed," said the Hebrew law, "be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark"; and to this day, to touch one of these stones is an offence which is more likely than almost any other to lead to bloodshed.

Somewhere on this rolling country, between two swells of land, there flows a brook, beside which we sat down to rest, and found an interest in the rural scene, from the conjecture of Robinson, which seems not improbable, that this little stream was the very one in which Philip baptized the eunuch, who was riding in his chariot towards Gaza, and who went on his way rejoicing in his new-found