I passed forward to select a spot for pitching the tents when they and the food should arrive. The village shaikh of course tendered all the hospitality in his power to offer, but this was unnecessary beyond a supply of water, milk, and eggs. We waited, and waited: the sun was down; the stars came out, and the moon shone over us; but at length the mule bells became audible, and our dwellings and supplies came up. Supper and sleep are needless to mention. _Wednesday_ 2_d_.--The green hills around were enlivened by the clucking of partridges among the bushes, and the olive-trees by the cooing of doves. Leaving this position with its extensive prospect, and passing an enormous evergreen oak we crossed a noble valley, and soon reached the hill on which stands _Sh'weikeh_, (or _Shocoh_ in Hebrew.) This large valley runs east to west, and is the _Elah_ of Scripture, the scene of David's contest with Goliath--a wide and beautiful plain, confined within two ranges of hills, and having a brook (dry at this season) winding at half distance between them. The modern names for the vale of 'Elah are _Musurr_, from the N.E. to near Sh'weikeh, and _Sunt_ after that. The plain was waving with heavy crops of wheat and barley, and the bed of the stream, bordered by old trees of acacia, called Sunt, (in that district called Hharaz.) These are of a brilliant green in summer, but as there are no such trees elsewhere nearer than Egypt, or the Wadi 'Arabah, (for they require water,) the people relate a traditional account of their origin, and say that once upon a time the country was invaded by a king of Egypt, named Abu Zaid, bringing a prodigious army; but on the occurrence of a sudden alarm, they decamped in such haste that their tent-pegs were left in the ground, which, being made of Sunt wood, struck roots at the next rainy season, and sprung up as we see them. Can this be a confused tradition of the rout of the Philistines to Shaaraim on the fall of Goliath?