comfortable people. And now I was "in Jericho" myself. It is not surprising that I was rather impatient to get out of it. So we hastened on through the town, to some spot where we could enjoy the beauty of nature. This we found close under the cliffs which form a background for the plains, from the foot of which gushes what bears the suggestive name of the Fountain of Elisha. The fountain is a full one, discharging such a volume of water as keeps a stream flowing, which is carried through the gardens and orchards.
On the bank above this fountain we pitched our tents, glad to rest after a day of great fatigue, rendered more oppressive by the over-powering heat. It was a grateful change to sit in our tent door in the cool of the day, and listen to the murmur of the fountain under our feet. The sun had sunk behind the hills, and now the moon, which we had seen as a pale crescent hanging over the Moslem camp at Nukhl, had grown in fulness, and crept upward in the heavens till it hung directly over our heads. How it softened the outline of the mountains of Moab, and even threw a misty veil over the wretched town, slumbering under its dense foliage!
We had been told that one of the things to see, or rather to hear, at Jericho, was the peculiar music of the people, who had some rude native airs, to which they chanted a song and executed a kind of war dance. Not wishing to miss an opportunity to hear some real Arab music — a thing we had not heard in all our wanderings on the desert — we sent for these singers, and about eight o'clock some twenty of them, men and women and children, marched up to the front of our tent, and standing in a line, began their unique performance, which consisted of a quick motion of all together, swaying their bodies and swinging their arms up and down, keeping time to these
