Arrived at _'Ain Shems_, the Beth Shemesh of the Bible, (I Sam. vi. 9, _passim_,) where, instead of the large population of ancient times, we found nothing but a weli and some fragments of peasant houses. Due north from us as we rested, lay on the summit of a hill, _Sora'a_, which is Zorah, the birthplace of Samson, where the angel appeared to Manoah and his wife. The people told us of _Amooriah_ to the left, but we could not quite see it, and the same with respect to _Tibneh_, or _Dibneh_, the Timnath of Samson's history. All the plain and the low hills formed one waving sheet of corn, without divisions or trees; and often, as we had no tracks for guidance, we had to take sight of some object on the horizon, and work straight forward towards it. It was amid such a wonderful profusion that Samson let loose the foxes or jackals with firebrands, taking revenge on the Philistines, and he called it "doing them a displeasure!" I have seen from Jerusalem the smoke of corn burning, which had accidentally taken fire in that very district. On the summit of a hill, where were good square stones of old masonry, I got into a sheepfold of stone walls, looking for antiquities; but, alas! came out with my light-coloured clothes covered with fleas; fortunately the clothes were not woollen. Further on we had _Bait Ziz_, or _Jiz_, on the right, with _Dejajeh_, or _Edjajeh_, and _Na'ana_, or _Ra'ana_, on the left; _Khulda_ in the distance at N.W.; a vast expanse of growing grain in every direction. The population hereabouts are a fine race for stature, and paler in complexion than our peasantry on the hills; and it ought to be the reverse, unless, as is certainly the case, they are a distinct people. We traversed the plain to _'Akir_, which is Ekron of Scripture, one of the five principal cities of the Philistines, and chief place of the worship of Baal-zebub, (2 Kings i. 3.) All our inquiries had been in vain for any name that could possibly have been Gath. The utter extinction of that city is remarkable--the very name disappearing from the Bible after Micah, B.C. 730. Amos, B.C. 787, and Zephaniah, B.C. 630, mention the four other cities of the Philistines, omitting Gath. The name never occurs in the Apocrypha or the New Testament. 'Akir is now a very miserable village of unburnt brick; indeed, all the villages of this district are of that material, owing to the extreme rarity of stone. We saw women cutting bricks out of the viscous alluvial soil, and boys swimming luxuriously in the pool of rain water settled during winter in the excavation for bricks--quarry we might style it, if the material were stone. There was plenty of ploughing in progress for the summer crops of sesame, durrah, etc., and the people seemed rich in horned cattle.