DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10358#0195
i68
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
in," and so for ages it has been : the route taken alike by warriors and merchants, the gate of
the thoroughfare between Egypt and Assyria, the rival empires of the East. Before the
introduction of steamers lew travellers entered Palestine by any other road, save those who
undertook the long desert journey by Sinai and Petra. From the Nile to Wady el Arlsh is a
dreary desert journey of nine days, but now we have entered the boundary of Simeon, and a
few villages surrounded by palm and olive trees near the shore are gratefully refreshing to the
eye, while scanty verdure takes the place of sandy wastes. When we have reached the last of
these villages, Deir el Belah, the " convent of the dates," we are in the true pastoral country of
the patriarchs. The country is broken up by frequent wadys and rounded hills, few showing
any cliffs or rocks, but all covered with turf, chequered by wide unfenced tracts of cornland, and
dotted with many a black encampment of Bedawin. The common notion that this southern
region is desert is at once dispelled. But covered though it be with countless flocks, not a tree
relieves the monotony of the green expanse, and it is doubtful if this district was ever wooded
as the inland region east of Beersheba (see page 209) certainly was in early ages. Most of the
streams are dry in summer, and the dependence of the Arabs is on wells, always carefully
concealed, and seldom known except to the tribe which claims the pasturage. Three hours
south-east of Gaza (see page 175), and two hours to the east of the road from Egypt, is a
featureless low ridge, rising north of a shallow valley, and commanding a wide view on all sides,
which claims a visit from its historical associations. The Bedawin have no tradition respecting
it, but its name has come down unchanged for four thousand years, Jerar, the Gerar of Genesis,
the favourite camping-place of the patriarch Isaac. Four miles before reaching the Wady
Guzzeh, as the combined watercourses of the Wady es Seba, or Valley of Beersheba, and the
more northern Wady Sheriar are called, we leave the caravan road ten miles south of Gaza
and strike east over what seems a boundless expanse of rolling treeless downs. Crossing the
Wady es Seba and then the Sheriar, in both of which a copious stream was flowing at the
beginning of February, we rode on, sometimes on turf brilliant with a mass of scarlet anemones,
sometimes over plots of young wheat painted with various yellow flowers, till we reached the
flat-topped mound, or " tell," commanding a splendid view from Beersheba eastward, to the
sea on the west—Abu Jerar. W7ells are its only visible ruins. The turf is scarcely broken by
faint traces of foundations, and the soil is full of fragments of coarse pottery, certain indications
of a former extensive occupation. The wells stud the top and sides of the hill down to the
bottom of the valley. All are more or less filled in, some of them even with the surface—
perhaps the wells of Abraham, choked by Abimelech's herdsmen. Some were filled only up
to a depth of twelve or twenty feet, showing the lower part cut in the rock and the upper
portion cemented ; evidently later work, as the cement has many fragments of pottery in it.
Many were roofed with low cupolas of very small masonry with a hole in the centre. Only
two of them are perfect, the others being more or less broken in. We found water in two
only of nineteen wells which we examined. Many of them seem to have been purposely filled
in and utilised, after they were cemented, as storehouses by the Bedawin. The hill must have
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
in," and so for ages it has been : the route taken alike by warriors and merchants, the gate of
the thoroughfare between Egypt and Assyria, the rival empires of the East. Before the
introduction of steamers lew travellers entered Palestine by any other road, save those who
undertook the long desert journey by Sinai and Petra. From the Nile to Wady el Arlsh is a
dreary desert journey of nine days, but now we have entered the boundary of Simeon, and a
few villages surrounded by palm and olive trees near the shore are gratefully refreshing to the
eye, while scanty verdure takes the place of sandy wastes. When we have reached the last of
these villages, Deir el Belah, the " convent of the dates," we are in the true pastoral country of
the patriarchs. The country is broken up by frequent wadys and rounded hills, few showing
any cliffs or rocks, but all covered with turf, chequered by wide unfenced tracts of cornland, and
dotted with many a black encampment of Bedawin. The common notion that this southern
region is desert is at once dispelled. But covered though it be with countless flocks, not a tree
relieves the monotony of the green expanse, and it is doubtful if this district was ever wooded
as the inland region east of Beersheba (see page 209) certainly was in early ages. Most of the
streams are dry in summer, and the dependence of the Arabs is on wells, always carefully
concealed, and seldom known except to the tribe which claims the pasturage. Three hours
south-east of Gaza (see page 175), and two hours to the east of the road from Egypt, is a
featureless low ridge, rising north of a shallow valley, and commanding a wide view on all sides,
which claims a visit from its historical associations. The Bedawin have no tradition respecting
it, but its name has come down unchanged for four thousand years, Jerar, the Gerar of Genesis,
the favourite camping-place of the patriarch Isaac. Four miles before reaching the Wady
Guzzeh, as the combined watercourses of the Wady es Seba, or Valley of Beersheba, and the
more northern Wady Sheriar are called, we leave the caravan road ten miles south of Gaza
and strike east over what seems a boundless expanse of rolling treeless downs. Crossing the
Wady es Seba and then the Sheriar, in both of which a copious stream was flowing at the
beginning of February, we rode on, sometimes on turf brilliant with a mass of scarlet anemones,
sometimes over plots of young wheat painted with various yellow flowers, till we reached the
flat-topped mound, or " tell," commanding a splendid view from Beersheba eastward, to the
sea on the west—Abu Jerar. W7ells are its only visible ruins. The turf is scarcely broken by
faint traces of foundations, and the soil is full of fragments of coarse pottery, certain indications
of a former extensive occupation. The wells stud the top and sides of the hill down to the
bottom of the valley. All are more or less filled in, some of them even with the surface—
perhaps the wells of Abraham, choked by Abimelech's herdsmen. Some were filled only up
to a depth of twelve or twenty feet, showing the lower part cut in the rock and the upper
portion cemented ; evidently later work, as the cement has many fragments of pottery in it.
Many were roofed with low cupolas of very small masonry with a hole in the centre. Only
two of them are perfect, the others being more or less broken in. We found water in two
only of nineteen wells which we examined. Many of them seem to have been purposely filled
in and utilised, after they were cemented, as storehouses by the Bedawin. The hill must have