Into this well-mouth we thrust our heads, and the lamp was lowered almost to the floor. Here I saw clearly that in one wall of the chamber a small square door exists, just like those of rock-cut tombs all through Palestine. There is thus probably a real tomb under the mosque, and the chamber is apparently an outer porch to this tomb. The floor was covered to some depth with sheets of paper, evidently the accumulations of many years. These papers are petitions to Abraham, which the pious Moslems drop through the hole, and thus leave lying at the door of his sepulchre. Another opportunity of so thoroughly exploring this interesting site may not speedily occur; and so long as the mosque remains a mosque, it is doubtful if any one will succeed in entering the tomb itself, though it might perhaps be reached by the stairs said to exist on the south side of the building, if permission could be obtained to force up the flagstones.[32] As regards the identity of this sepulchre with that of the Patriarchs, all that can be said is that tradition is unvarying on the subject, and the site nowise improbable; but the Hebrews never appear to have embalmed the dead, and if any inscriptions existed (inscriptions of early date on Hebrew tombs being almost unknown), they would probably belong to a very recent period. [Illustration: THE PLAIN OF JERICHO, AS SEEN FROM AI. _To face page 35._] In an account like the present it is difficult to follow either a geographical or a chronological order. The geography of Palestine is, however, very generally understood, and the regions next to each other are here mentioned in order. The Survey was extended from a central band along the watershed, the reason being that the plains could only be visited, with due regard to the health and comfort of the party, in the spring and early summer, while the mountains were our refuge in the great heats of August and September, and in the sickly autumn, when the climate of the lower regions becomes almost pestilential. Only once was this system disregarded, and the result was an outbreak of virulent fever in the camp, which threatened for a time to put an end to the expedition. East of the Hebron and of the Jerusalem hills stretches the desert of Judah, a plateau broken by ridges and ravines reaching to the tall cliffs which rise from the shores of the Dead Sea. Beyond this desert the plains of Jericho, through which the Jordan flows, stretch along the north shores of the sea, and are about 1000 feet lower than the surface of the Mediterranean. On the west of the Judean mountains there are foot-hills (the region called Shephelah in the Bible), and west of these again the broad plains of Sharon and of Philistia extend to the sandhills of the Mediterranean coast, which presents no natural harbour south of Mount Carmel.