It may be nine or ten miles from Jaffa to Rumla. The road is good; it is over a plain, and except a little waving of the surface, forming slight elevations and depressions, such as we often find on the sea-coasts, and on the flat districts which border large rivers, one would say it was level. These elevations suggest the idea that the water may have once covered this plain; and in retiring gradually from it, left those graceful elevations and depressions which give a beautiful variety to its surface. But a small part, after passing the gardens, was cultivated. From time to time we passed portions that had been sown with grain--none of it, after leaving the gardens, was enclosed--all lay open. We passed several places where there were a few trees; they formed, however, but little green spots on the face of this wide-spread and noble plain. The greater part was destitute of verdure; the burning heats of summer having burned up the grass; the crops, except an occasional cotton field, being all gathered in. I think I saw no Indian corn, although I had seen it on the Bokar, but of a very diminutive kind. The cotton fields were few and small, and held out the promise of but a light crop. The plain is highly fertile, and if under proper cultivation would yield largely. The soil is rich, deep, and very free from rock, at least sufficiently so for all purposes of cultivation. We do not, indeed, often meet with a finer district of land; but it is thinly inhabited. Rumla is a town of considerable size, and has some pretty good houses. It stands on a slight elevation, and commands a fine view of the plain out of which it rises. It is surrounded with gardens, many of which are protected by hedges of the Indian fig. There are some olive groves about the town; other fruit-trees, and the palm, are also to be seen. Around the present town are ruins, walls, cisterns, and other indications that the town was once spread over a much larger space than it now covers. It is supposed to be the ancient Arimathea mentioned in the New Testament, John xix. 38. The ancient Lydda lies within a short distance of Rumla, not above three or four miles; but I had not time to visit it, as my company were urgent to proceed. It is, I am told, a poor village, and has nothing to give it interest, unless it be the fact that is mentioned of it in Acts, ix. 32, 38. I ought to have mentioned respecting Rumla, that there is near the town a very remarkable tower, old, and of a singular structure, with some large apartments under ground connected with it. At what time it was built, by whom, and for what purpose, is not now known: probably, however, as a place of defence, and when built, the town extended to, if not beyond it. The history of many things in these regions is lost--irrecoverably lost--until that great day shall come when the whole history of man shall pass in review, and all shall be judged according to their works.