he put a high value on his services. Twelve dollars to take a letter to the agent of Messrs. T. Cook and Sou were offered and refused. He demanded fourteen, to which we assented. After this he said he was afraid to go lest he should be killed. We began to suspect that our Sheikh was tampering with him, as it was the interest of the former to detain us as long as possible in The Ghôr. Under this view I sent a polite message to Sheikh Ali to inform him that, if he attempted to detain our messenger, we should dismiss him and his men right off, and march down into The Ghôr, and place ourselves under the protection of the Ghawarneh. This had the desired effect; the messenger no longer demurred, but required a companion. To this reasonable proposition we agreed, and also to divide sixteen dollars between them both. It was a splendid moonlit night when our Arabs started off on their long and somewhat perilous journey; for it was just possible they might be captured by the Arabs of Palestine, and be taken for spies or robbers. Nor would this have been surprising, for a more villainous-looking savage was not, I feel sure, to be found in all the Desert of Arabia than was our messenger, Hassam. He was armed with a club which he said he carried to keep off "robbers." This being a term of wide application might be considered to include all who made themselves obnoxious to its owner. He was induced to part with it for a small sum; and it is now in the possession of my son. One of the Sheikhs of the Hawatha, who "happened to drop in" at this time, gave them advice how to proceed, and soon they were off towards the western shore of the Bahr Lut,[1] each bearing a missive in duplicate to the Agent at Jerusalem.
On the following day some of our party made an excursion into the mountains to the east. We entered the Wâdy Suweireh, and ascending up its western side, crossed a remarkable gap (or nagb) into the Wâdy el Weibeh. Just at this spot is the junction of the red sandstone formation with the older rocks. The sandstone rising in a grand cliff on the left of the gap, and the granitic rocks on the right. Just as I was engaged in making a drawing of this remarkable geological feature, Sheikh Ali had reached the crest of the gap mounted on his camel. It was probably the first time he had looked down into the Wâdy el Weibeh, of which one day he might possibly be the lord. Whatever might have been his reflections, there he stood motionless as a statue, surveying the scene—certainly a grand one—in front of him. The opportunity was not to be lost. In a
- ↑ Lot's Sea, the name by which the Salt Sea, or Dead Sea, is known amongst the Arabs.
