On Wednesday the 25th, we at length got a fine morning, and spite of the very boggy nature of the ground, we set out for Wâdy Mâleh, the only place at a suitable distance where water was reported. It was not a change for the better by any means. The Fâr'ah Valley is a most delightful place in early spring, when it does not rain, but Wâdy Mâleh was quite the worst camp we ever went into. Down the Fâr'ah a perennial stream flows from near Tullûza, in which stream we may perhaps recognise the "much waterâ between Salem and Ãnon. Part of the course is through a narrow gorge, between low precipitous cliffs of dark limestone, with iron-coloured bands of flint and many natural caverns. Lower down it broadens into an open vale a mile across, the whole of which was now knee-deep in beautiful flowers. The canes in the stream had been swept down, and piled in heaps, covered with mud, in consequence of the late floods. The oleander bushes grow all along the bed of the river in great luxuriance, and they were now in full flower.
Leaving this charming valley hidden among its rolling hills, we ascended northwards on to the Bukei'a, or plateau, on which the ruin 'Ainûn (Ãnon) stands. Here the flowers were also abundant; the pheasant's-eye was as large almost as an anemone; two beautiful species of bugloss formed patches of sky-blue, and the pink cistus (comparatively rare in Palestine) grew between the rocks; the veronicas, blue and red, with here and there a bunch of the dark iris (the "lily of the fieldâ), were interspersed with large maroon-coloured velvety arums. The plain is good corn-land, but seems to have a bad natural drainage; and our mules floundered in deep bogs, sometimes up to the girths.
Still farther north, we began to descend a long valley, and came on a different kind of country. A basaltic outbreak appeared, and cliffs tilted in every direction. The valley-bed was strewn with fragments of hard basalt. Passing over a bare ridge, where the beautiful white Retem broom (Elijah's juniper) abounded, we descended into a most desolate valley, where, between green rolling hills like those of the Judean desert, a muddy stream was flowing. We had ridden fifteen miles, and it now began to rain again. We found, to our dismay, that this was where we had to camp, as no other supply of water existed in a position central to the new work.