It was ten o’clock A.M. when the caravan moved. Happily for the social amenities their society afforded and the smiles of joy their presence never failed to impart, we were joined by the talented and amiable wife and daughter of a distinguished New Yorker,[245] who was making the tour of Palestine. Mounted on their swift Arabian horses, and tilting their long burnished spears, the Arab guard led the way, followed by the ladies on gentler horses, while the heavy-laden mules, carrying tents, baggage, and cuisine, brought up the rear. On our right lay the Valley of Jehoshaphat, with its monumental tombs; on our left were the terraced slopes of Olivet, green with verdure and bright with flowers; while before us rose the rugged Hill of Offense. Crossing the shoulder of the Mount of Olives, the path sweeps abruptly to the east, and, after winding round the head of the small valley that furrows the hill-side, descends eastward past the place where the Redeemer paused to weep over Jerusalem, and just beyond skirts the town of Bethany. Descending between rough and barren hills, we entered a rocky glen, and in half an hour came to the fountain of El-Haud, the “waters of Enshemesh,”[246] marking the boundary-line between Judah and Benjamin. It is the halting-place of caravans, and its cool, sweet water, flowing into a stone trough beneath a Saracenic arch, is alike refreshing to man and beast in a region so waste and arid. Continuing down the glen for more than an hour, we turned to the left, and soon began the ascent of a wild ravine, the sides of which are limestone, streaked in graceful curves with dikes of porphyry. As the farewells of cultivation, and half rebuking Nature for her general sterility, a stray flower peeped above the rocks, and a stunted tree stood in silent desolation on the hill above. Gradually ascending over chalky hills, our path lay through the bleak Wilderness of Judea. At noon we reached the summit of the central ridge between Enshemesh and Jericho. Neither pen can describe nor pencil sketch the forbidding aspect of this dreary spot. The hills are broken into a thousand rugged, barren peaks, and in color are a mixture of yellow and of a dull red and white. The intervening valleys are dry and stony, and on all that blighted soil there is neither shrub, flower, blade of grass, nor any living thing to relieve the dreariness of the accursed scene. Fit abode for the devil and his angels, the counterpart of Pandemonium, it was hither the Spirit led the suffering Son of God to encounter the Evil One.[247]