It was by the advice of these experienced explorers that the survey of Palestine from Dan to Beersheba, and from the Jordan to the Great Sea, was undertaken, a work which commenced in 1872, was completed in the field in 1877, but not fully published till 1882. It is with this work that the present volume is chiefly concerned, since it was my good fortune to conduct the parties almost from the first, and to carry out the publication of the maps and memoirs. It had first been intended that Captain Stewart, R.E., should have commanded the party, but that officer was unfortunate in falling ill almost at once on reaching the field of work; and it was through the kindness of the late Major Anderson, R.E., the comrade of Sir Charles Wilson in Palestine, that my name was brought forward as one who had been deeply interested in the work of previous explorers, and who desired to act as Captain Stewart’s assistant. By the sudden illness of that officer, the non-commissioned officers were left in Palestine without a military superior; and as my military education at Chatham had just been completed, I was fortunate in being selected, at the age of not quite twenty-four years, to the command of the Survey Expedition.
Since the completion of the survey of Western Palestine, the survey of Moab, Gilead, and Bashan has been commenced. In 1881 I set out in charge of a small party, hoping to finish this new enterprise in about three years’ time. But alas! I found much change in Syria during the interval of my absence. The suspicions of the Sultan were aroused; the Turkish Government refused to believe in the genuineness of our desire to obtain antiquarian knowledge. Political intrigues were rife, and after struggling against these difficulties for fifteen months, after surveying secretly about five hundred square miles of the most interesting country east of the Dead Sea, and after vainly attempting to obtain the consent of the Sultan to further work, it became necessary to recall the party in the same year in which the researches of Mr. Rassam in Chaldea were suspended and a general veto placed on all systematic exploration.
Since that year, however, a little work has been done from time to time by residents in communication with the Home Society. Herr Schumacher, a young German colonist, has made some excellent maps of parts of Bashan, and Dr. Hull has explored the geology of the district south of the Dead Sea, while further discoveries have even been made in Jerusalem by Herr Konrad Schick, who has recovered part of the second wall and one of the important pools (the Piscina Interior) in the north-east corner of the city.