Our first camp in the desert was fixed beside the Monastery of St. Saba, a famous settlement of Greek monks. We here entered into an entirely distinct region. The character of the rock was different from the stratified limestone of the mountains above; it is a white soft chalk, which is worn, by the winter rain, into long knife-edged ridges, separated by narrow ravines with stony beds. The sea breeze never visits this ghastly desert, which is fitly called in Scripture Jeshimon or “solitude.” Thus, though in spring the naked slopes are thinly covered with grass and flowers, it presents, throughout nearly the whole year, a long succession of glaring ridges, with fantastic knolls and peaks, and sharp ragged spurs, absolutely treeless and waterless. The fauna also changes; the tawny desert-partridge takes the place of the red-legged Greek species, common in other districts. The ibex succeeds the gazelle, and many birds unknown in other parts of Palestine are here abundant. The people also are a distinct race; their language is as different from that of the peasantry as is broad Scotch from Devonshire dialect; their habits, dress, dwellings and traditions are those of an entirely different people. Everything in this desert is of one colour--a tawny yellow. The rocks, the partridges, the camels, the foxes, the ibex, are all of this shade, and only the dark Bedawîn and their black tents are distinguishable in the general glare. The convent of Mar Saba stands on the south side of the huge fissure or gorge called the Valley of Fire, by which the water from Jerusalem comes down to the Dead Sea. East of it is a plateau between mountains on the west side and precipices rising eight hundred feet from the shores of the lake on the east. This plateau is also of waterworn marl with innumerable ridges, knolls, peaks, ravines, and iron crags around it. It was from a “Tubg” or terrace, east of the plateau, that we first looked down on that marvellous sea (1300 feet lower than the Mediterranean), which swallows up all Jordan and all the snows of Hermon, and yet has no outlet, but yearly gives off the surplus supply in the heavy steam of evaporating water, which in summer hides it in a hot haze.