Forty minutes from Ludd we passed the town of Jimzu,[419] and just beyond the road branched, one path diverging to the right, running through Wady Suleimân, and the other ascending the steep acclivities of Bethhoron the Nether. Though it is exceedingly rugged, yet, as it passes over one of the grandest battle-fields in sacred history, we chose the latter. Now began the toil of the journey. The verdure had disappeared, and the white limestone rocks protruded above the scanty soil, leaving only intervening patches of tillable land, which was being plowed as we passed. Disobeying the divine command, and disregarding the fitness of nature, a peasant was plowing with an ox and an ass,[420] and another with an ass and a camel. Passing Um Rush in two hours from Jimzu, we toiled up a mountain path, and at noon reached Lower Bethhoron. Memorable in Bible history as the second stage of the flight of the five kings of the Amorites, the roughness of the scene is in harmony with the horrors of war. The surface of the land is broken into circular rocky hills, around the base of which equally stony valleys wind. From the hill-sides the rocks protrude like terraces, rising with much regularity one above the other. The modern town is perched on a rocky ridge, and called by the Arabs Beit ’Ur et-Tahta. Amid its sterility a few half-naked peasants lay basking in the genial sunshine of spring, who greeted us as we passed with a lazy smile. Though located on the northwest border of Benjamin, the city belonged to Ephraim, and from that tribe it was taken and allotted to the Levites.[421] Passing over the roughest tract of land above the sea, in less than an hour we reached Upper Bethhoron. Bearing the Arabic name of Beit Ur el-Fôka, it is a small village, the huts of which are composed of large hewn stones once belonging to more pretentious buildings. Sturdy men sat smoking on the rocks, and near them women were playing with their children. Among the maidens were the sheikh’s daughters, who wore about the head a circlet of silver coins. These ornaments are a maiden’s dowry.