Arrived at _Tayibeh_, and encamped there for the night. Among the first people who came up to us was an Algerine Jew, who held my horse as I dismounted. He was an itinerant working silversmith, gaining a livelihood by going from Tiberias among Arab villages and the Bedaween, repairing women's ornaments, etc. There are plenty of wells about this place, but none with good water. Wrangling and high words among the muleteers, and fighting of the animals for approach to the water-troughs. The day had been very fatiguing; and our Moslem attendants, as they had been involuntarily deprived of water during this the first day of Ramadan, deemed it not worth while at that hour to break the fast, as evening was rapidly coming on. Upon a journey, if it be a real journey on business, they are allowed to break the fast, on condition of making up for the number of days at some time before the year expires. Evening: beautiful colours on the western hills, and the new moon appearing--a thin silver streak in the roseate glow which remains in the heavens after sunset. The night very hot, and no air moving. _Friday_, 18_th_.--After a night of mosquito-plague, we rose at the first daybreak, with a glorious spectacle of Mount Hermon and its snowy summit to the north. Such evenings and mornings as travellers and residents enjoy in Asian climes are beyond all estimation, and can never be forgotten. We learned that there are Christians in this village of _Tayibeh_, as indeed there are some thinly scattered throughout the villages of _Jebel 'Ajloon_, _i.e._ from Jerash to near Tiberias; and in the corresponding villages on the western side of Jordan, as far as Nabloos. I always feel deeply concerned for those "sheep without a shepherd," dispersed among an overwhelming population of Mohammedans. They are indeed ignorant,--how can they be otherwise, while deprived of Christian fellowship, or opportunities of public worship, excepting when they carry their infants a long journey for baptism, or when the men repair occasionally to the towns of Nabloos or Nazareth for trading business; or, it may be, when rarely an itinerant priest pays them a visit?--still they are living representatives of the Gentile Church of the country in primitive days, down through continuous ages,--their families enduring martyrdom, and to this day persecution and oppression, for the name of Christ, in spite of every worldly inducement to renounce it. While we Europeans are reciting the Nicene Creed in our churches, they are suffering for it. They are living witnesses for the "Light of light, and very God of very God;" and although with this they mingle sundry superstitions, they are a people who salute each other at Easter with the words, "Christ is risen," and the invariable response, "He is risen indeed;" also in daily practice, when pronouncing the name of Jesus, they add the words, "Glory to His name."