water-jug and placed in a depression in the rock so that they would be filled by the wash from the winter rains, which are usually very copious throughout Palestine. =Wilderness of Judea.= The eastern slope of the southern plateaus of Palestine is rightly called a wilderness. Like the Shephelah or lowland on the west it is a distinct physical division of the west-Jordan land. The cultivated fields extend only four or five miles east of the central watershed. Near Jerusalem the barren wilderness comes up and touches the fertile fields about Bethany.^{(24)} The descent on this eastern side of Judea to the low-lying Dead Sea is so precipitous that the water from the winter rains runs off rapidly and has cut deep channels through the soft clay and limestone cliffs so that irrigation is impossible.^{(25)} No important villages are found in this desolate region except at Engedi, where a beautiful spring bursts out of the cliffs overhanging the Dead Sea and transforms the barren desert into what seems by contrast a little paradise of trees and gardens. Otherwise it is a land of dry, rocky, rounded hills which descend in a series of three great terraces to the depths below. Some vegetation is found between the rocks on the higher uplands. It is the land of the shepherd and of the Arab invaders^{(26)} who here press in from the desert and contend, as they have for thousands of years, with the shepherds of the outlying villages for the possession of the barren land. The dominant features in the landscape are the rocky, rounded bluffs, the great gorge of the Dead Sea, usually enveloped in mists, and the dim outlines of the massive Moabite hills beyond. This wilderness of Judea exercised two powerful influences upon the life and thought of the people of the south: (1) it brought to their doors the atmosphere and peculiar customs and beliefs of the desert; and (2) it kept before them the might and destructive power of Jehovah, as exemplified by the Dead Sea and by the grim traditions that were associated with this remarkable natural phenomenon. =Western Judah.= In contrast to the barren wilderness of eastern Judah, the western hills slope gradually down to the Philistine plain. The chief characteristic of this western slope is the series of valleys which lead up from the lowlands, piercing almost to the watershed in the great central plateau of Judah. Most of these valleys are broad and fertile as they enter the hills, but become ever more tortuous and wild as they ascend the rocky heights. In the rainy season (December to February) they are frequently swept by rushing torrents, which, undeterred by soil or vegetation, soon run their course, leaving the stream, during the greater part of the year, dry and rocky. At many points the ascent is abrupt, between steep rocks, clad with low bushes and wild flowers. In some places the path is so narrow that it is impossible for a horse to turn with comfort.