As the autumn advanced, some slight sprinkling of rain fell--dews at night were heavy--mists rose from below--mornings and evenings became cooled--new flowers began to appear, such as the purple crocus, and certain yellow blossoms belonging to the season, the name of which I do not know. We therefore began to take farewell rides about the neighbourhood, as to places we were never to see again. One of these was to a very archaic pile of rude masonry, deeply weather-eaten, at a ruined site called _Bait Saweer_, through green woods and arbutus-trees, glowing with scarlet berries; a place which had only recently been brought to my notice, and of which no European had any knowledge. The old building, whose use we could not discover, was composed, not of ordinary blocks of stone, but of huge flat slabs, unchiselled at edges or corners, laid one over another, but forming decidedly an intentional edifice. It is well worth further examination. At the time we had with us no materials for sketching, and never had an opportunity of going thither afterwards. It lies among the wild green scene west from the Hebron road, near where, on the opposite, or east side, is the opening of the Wadi 'Aroob, with its copious springs. Then we went to _Marseea'_, beyond the _Dair el Benat_--equally unknown to Europeans--and, lastly, to the green slopes and precipices towards _Nahhaleen_, where, lingering till after sunset, we became in a few minutes enveloped in a cloud of mist tossed and rolled along by gusts of wind, and several large eagles rose screaming from perches among rocks below us into the misty air, as if rejoicing in the boisterous weather. Three months before, we had been on the same spot at the moment of sunset, and saw the whole Philistine plain hidden in a white mist in a single minute, but, of course, far below us; and this, we were told, was the usual state of things, and would remain so for another month, after which the plain would have no mist, but we should have it all on the mountains at sunset--so it was now found to be the case. From one spot on our own grounds we were able to point out as objects in the magnificent prospect--the Moab mountains, the crevasse of the Jabbok into the Ghor, that of Calirrhoe into the Dead Sea, Hhalhhool near Hebron, El Khud'r below us, Rachel's sepulchre, Bethlehem, Nebi Samwil, the Scopus, Jerusalem, and our house there, to which we were soon to remove.