Owing to a variety of causes, principally arising from a desire to find ruins where there were none, and to map certain wadys which are incorrectly laid down in the maps, we were about two hours later than we should have been when we reached the mouth of the wady. The clouds were lowering ominously, there had been no sun all day, and now that luminary seemed to have given up the attempt to shine upon us in despair, and to have made up his mind, in a fit of disgust, to retire permanently to rest. I felt, considering the journey up the unknown wady, which we still had to perform without a guide before I could hope to reach a resting-place (I did not look forward to its being much of a sleeping-place), that it had no business to get dark so early. However, it was still broad daylight, and we took our bearings by compass as carefully as was possible, and were encouraged by observing that the track we were on was a broad and well-beaten one, and which, as the formation was white limestone, would show plainly even when it got dark. The valley I knew to be about seven miles long. The village we were bound for, the only village in it or near it, was at its head. We had only to keep going straight up, and the path we were on would surely lead us to it.
This fond delusion I hugged to my soul as we pushed on as rapidly as our wearied steeds, which had been travelling since daybreak, would allow us. The breadth of the valley in a bee-line from one edge of the plateau above us to the other was not less than two miles. It was a broad valley, with many shoulders running into it from both sides, and terraces here and there of cultivated land, the crops the property of wandering Bedouins, who come here in winter to sow them, and come back in spring to gather them. Down the centre of the valley brawled, over a rocky bed, a mountain brook, even in the dryest season a respectable trout stream, and often after heavy rains an impassable torrent. On the present occasion, however, it was behaving itself respectably, and gave us no trouble. It was fringed with oleanders, and here and there received tiny tributaries, which all helped to produce more vegetation than is usual in Palestine valleys, and to enhance the beauty of scenery the natural features of which were strikingly picturesque. As long as it was light I could see natural terraces on the flanks of the valley, up which it would be easy to take the line. Then I saw where long curves must be taken, winding up lateral hollows, through which we could twist the line up the two thousand feet it had to ascend, and lengthen out the seven miles of the wady to a distance which would suffice for the required gradient.