Such was the work which occupied us in the end of November, 1873. The Arabs round us were willing and intelligent; they made good guides, and shot for us, not only birds, but also a fine "bedn,â or ibex. The Sheikh Jemîl, an old friend of Dr. Tristram's, accompanied me day after day, and often inquired after the Doctor, whom he called "the father of the beard.â He rode an elegant little dromedary, which was extremely tame. The great speed which could be got out of the animal was surprising, but the rider seemed regularly shaken to pieces by the pace, when keeping up with my horse at a canter. He was a good shot, and one of the best fellows I ever met among the Bedawîn, though avaricious, as are all Arabs who come much in contact with Europeans.
The autumn rains commenced in 1873 with a great thunderstorm on the 24th of November; and now the face of the country suddenly changed, and the cool, clear, delightful autumn weather set in--most treacherous of all the seasons in Palestine, as the sun then draws out the reeking miasma from the softened ground. The plains became green with tender grass, the great cloud-banks rose behind the hills, and I awoke one morning to hear, to my dismay, the croaking of frogs close to the camp. With the experience of one more year, we should at once have moved to higher ground. We stayed however where we were, and suffered in consequence.
The climate of Jericho must have altered greatly since Josephus described the place as "a region fit for gods.â Thrice we visited the Jordan Valley; three times the terrible remittent fever of Jericho threatened valuable lives in our party, and once it proved fatal. The change of climate is due, I imagine, to the decay of cultivation. Herod planted palm-groves, and watered them by aqueducts still remaining. The groves existed in the seventh, and even in the twelfth century; but now only two trees can be found. The Crusaders also undertook cultivation, and made sugar at the ruined mills under Quarantania, still called the "sugar mills.â At the present day the land is quite as productive as ever; but the Arabs disdain agriculture, and the inhabitants of Erîha are so enervated, by the climate, that they bring men down from the hills to reap their scanty crops. Every kind of vegetable will grow here--tomatoes, vegetable marrows, grapes and indigo; yet the beautiful streams of Kelt and of Elisha's Fountain ('Ain es Sultân) are allowed to run to waste, or to form malarious pools, and thus the unfilled lands in the plain reek with miasma.