The desert of Judah was no doubt as much a desert in David’s time as it is now. Here he wandered with his brigand companions as a “partridge on the mountains.” Here he may have learned that the coney makes its dwelling in the hard rock. Here, in earlier days, he tended the sheep, descending from Bethlehem, as the village shepherds of the present day still come down, by virtue of a compact with the lawless nomads, and just as Nabal’s sheep came down from the highlands under agreement with the wild followers of the outlaw born to be a king. I do not know any part of the Old Testament more instinct with life than are the early chapters of Samuel which recount the wanderings of David. His life should only be written by one who has followed those wanderings on the spot, and the critic who would embue himself with a right understanding of that ancient chronicle should first with his own eyes gaze on the “rocks of the wild goats” and the “junipers” of the desert.
North of the Dead Sea, the wide plain of Jericho lies beneath the wilderness where the Jordan Valley broadens between the Moab mountains and the western precipices. This region we first entered in the November of 1873, and pushed the survey rapidly over the plain. Our camp was by the clear spring of “Elisha’s Fountain,” well known to tourists; and here, emerging from the glaring chalk hills and barren precipices of Marsaba, we enjoyed greatly the greenness of the plain, the song of the bulbuls in the thorn trees, and the murmur of the stream. Unfortunately, this very greenness was a sign of deadly climate, especially in the autumn months. No sooner had the first thunderstorm swept over us, turning the Brook of Cherith (as it is traditionally called) into a torrent ten feet deep or more, than fever suddenly attacked the party, then numbering five Europeans and fifteen natives. Even the Nuseir Arabs, who were our guides, lay round the tents shaking with ague; and for a time the life of my companion, Mr. Tyrwhitt Drake, was in danger. In fact, though his zeal and fortitude prevented his leaving the work, he never really recovered from this terrible Jericho typhoid, and the hardships of the following spring, which we again passed in the Jordan Valley, proved too much for his shaken health. It is only after the soil in such malarious regions has been purified by a winter’s rain that it is safe to remain, even for a night, in the low ground or near water; and the premature visit to Jericho threatened at one time to bring our small party entirely to a standstill.