In another quarter of an hour we rested among the wreck of _Khirbet en Nasara_, (ruins of the Christians,) not far from Hebron. Thence I despatched a messenger to my old friend the Pakeed (agent in temporal affairs) of the Sephardim Jews in the city, and he sent out provisions to my halting-place under the great oak, above a mile distant from Hebron. In regard to the researches after the lost site of Gath, I may mention that on a later visit to Bait Jibreen, I got Shaikh Muslehh (the government Nazir, and the head of his family) to tell me all the names of deserted places he could recollect in his neighbourhood. I wrote from his dictation as follows, but it does not seem that the object of inquiry is among them. In Arabic the name would most probably be _Jett_ or _Jatt_. Merash. Munsoorah. Umm Saidet. Sagheefah. Shemaniyeh. 'Arak Hala. Lahh'm. Shaikh Aman. 'Attar. Kobaibeh. Obeyah. St Anna. Fort. Ghutt. Judaidah. Martosiyah. Ahhsaniyeh. Ilmah. CHAPTER IV. HEBRON TO BEERSHEBA, AND HEBRON TO JAFFA. In August 1849 I left my large family encampment under the branches of the great oak of Sibta, commonly called Abraham's oak by most people except the Jews, who do not believe in any Abraham's oak there. The great patriarch planted, indeed, a grove at Beersheba; but the "_Elone Mamre_" they declare to have been "plains," not "oaks," (which would be _Allone Mamre_,) and to have been situated northwards instead of westwards from the present Hebron. With a couple of attendants I was bound for Beersheba. The chief of the quarantine, not having a soldier at home, gave us a peasant to walk with us as far as the _Boorj_, (Tower,) with a letter of _our own_ handwriting in his name, addressed to the guard there, directing them to escort us further. Scrambling up a steep rough lane, due south from the tree, with vineyards on either side richly laden with fruit, and occasional sumach-trees bearing bright red berries, we were rewarded on the summit by a vast prospect of country, hilly before us in the south, Moab and Edom mountains to the left, and Philistia plains with the Mediterranean on the right. All nature was revived by the evening sea-breeze, and the sun in undiminished grandeur was retiring towards his rest.