The only other interesting building at Shefr Amr is the Greek church, which has been rebuilt on old foundations. The remains were evidently Byzantine work, dating probably from the fifth or sixth century. Many interesting tombs are to be found both north and south of the town. The most noteworthy has a handsome façade, covered with a design of a vine with grapes in bold relief, and with small figures of birds introduced. Each vine-plant grows out of a pot. On each side of the door is an effaced Greek inscription, with rosettes in lozenges below and birds above. Here, also, are fragments of Greek inscriptions, and on the left side-wall of the vestibule is a bas-relief of a lion and a small animal, perhaps a cub; on the right a lion, a cub, and a bird. The drawing is very primitive, and has a Byzantine appearance. Inside this tomb, which contains three loculi, there are mouldings round the principal arch, with tracery of vines and carvings of birds. These tombs are interesting because both the inscriptions and ornamentation belong to the Byzantine period, thus proving that the mode of sepulture practised by the Jews from the most remote date was continued by the Christians up to the fifth or sixth century after Christ. Our way from Shefr Amr led through the beautiful oak woods which belong to that town, but which seem doomed to destruction, for I observed that many of the handsomest trees were girdled near the base, while numerous stumps bore testimony to this lamentable work of denudation. In a country where wood is becoming so rare it was heartbreaking to ride through this beautiful, park-like scenery and witness the work of destruction going on in spite of the government prohibition against felling timber. Emerging from these grassy glades we descend into the magnificent plain of the Buttauf, now a sheet of emerald green, as the young crops extend before us as far as the eye can reach. Traversing this fertile country one is more and more impressed with the incorrectness of the judgment of the ordinary tourist, who, confining himself to the route prescribed by Cook, is taken through the barren hills of Judea, and to one or two holy places in Galilee, and then goes home and talks about the waste and desolation of Palestine. The trite saying recurred to my mind as I looked on this wealth of grain: “I pity the man who can go from Dan to Beersheba and say that all is barren;” or, as my travelling-companion, who was an American, more forcibly put it: “If ever I meet a tourist who tells me that Palestine is barren, I'll lick him.”