Soon after sunrise the Arabs of the vicinity came to water their flocks and camels at the troughs. Young men stripping themselves nearly naked, two at each well, pulled up goat-skins of water by the same rope, hand over hand, and singing in loud merriment, with most uncivilised screams between the verse lines. These men were of very dark complexion--not quite black, but nearly so. There were linnets singing also, but in far more agreeable melody; but where they could be was more than I could discover--not a tree or a shrub was within sight-distance. After an hour we commenced our return by a different route from that of our arrival. Shaikh Ayan and Hadj 'Othman, of the quarantine, amusing themselves with jereed-playing and other mimic manoeuvres of warfare, which they performed very cleverly. The shaikh being dismissed with sufficient compliments on each side, we proceeded upon the main track from Egypt across the plain towards _Doheriyeh_, passing occasional parcels of durrah stubble rising out of mere scratches of the soil, varied by the wilderness plants of tamarisk, etc. When one remembers the fact of that same land in the days of Abraham and Isaac producing a hundredfold of corn, (Gen. xxvi. 12,) how deplorable it is to see it lying untilled for want of population, and serving only as so much space for wild tribes to roam over it! Surely it will not always remain so. Crossing a good road at right angles with ours, we met a large caravan of camels going eastwards. The people told us they were going to _Ma'an_, (beyond Petra,) one of the Hadj stations between Damascus and Mecca, where stores of provisions are always laid up by the Government for supply of the pilgrims at the appointed season of the year. Approaching the hills, we rested from the heat, which had become considerable, beneath a neb'k-tree, where all the roads between Egypt and Hebron meet at a point. At the entrance of a valley between the hills the quails were very numerous, and so tame as to come almost under the horses' feet. Unfortunately, just at the time when wanted, my fowling-piece was found to be unloaded, that is to say, not reloaded after having gone off yesterday by an accident. It was a relief from the great heat to mount the hills to Doheriyeh, although the road was tiresome, winding round and among the bases of almost circular hills in succession. At the village all the population was cheerfully employed in threshing or winnowing the harvest, and their flocks crouched in the shade of the trees. It was early in the afternoon, and we lay down to rest under the branches of a fig-tree growing out of a cavern, which cavern was so large that we placed all our horses in it.