Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/302

288 The next morning we were early in the saddle, and after starting our baggage train northward in a direct course to Bethlehem, we struck across country to Beit Jebrin, which has some remarkable ruins, that date from the time of the Romans. From the remains of walls, it was evidently a fortified town, and was doubtless the site of a Roman camp, placed here to overawe Philistia. The Roman arch shows that these were built by the Imperial people, when they were masters of Palestine, as of ail the East. The country about is honeycombed with structures underground, some of which are natural caves, which were perhaps used for the storing of grain; while others are hollowed out of the rocks, with passages and galleries, which may have been designed for the retreats of hermits. Besides these, there are other structures, which have more distinctly an ecclesiastical design, in which the pointed arch shows that they were of a later time, built perhaps by the Crusaders.

From Beit Jebrin we took a guide, as indeed we had need, for the hills were more and more closing in upon us. The road in which we could ride side by side, dwindled to a narrow bridle path, in which we had to keep in single file, and this became more steep and stony till it required all the vigor of our little ponies to clamber over the rocks. All day long we were making our way over the hills, rugged and bare and wild, such as we were afterwards to traverse in a large part of Palestine. It was five o'clock when we reached the summit of the ridge, and turned to look back over the sea of mountains, and away southward to the Plain of Philistia, and westward to the Mediterranean. As we rose over this point, which from its height commands an extensive view to the north, the dragoman, pointing to a long white line on the crest of a mountain, which was suddenly lighted up by the descending sun, exclaimed