Driven from all these lairs, David went yet farther south to the neighbourhood of Ziph (Tell Zîf); and here also our English version speaks of a forest--the “Wood (Choresh) of Ziph,” where David met with Jonathan. A moment’s reflection will, however, convince any traveller that as the dry, porous formation of the plateau must be unchanged since David’s time, no wood of trees could then have flourished over this unwatered and sun-scorched region. The true explanation seems to be that the word Choresh is a proper name with a different signification, and such is the view of the Greek version and of Josephus. We were able considerably to strengthen this theory by the discovery of the ruin of Khoreisa and the Valley of Hiresh (the same word under another form), close to Ziph, the first of which may well be thought to represent the Hebrew Choresh Ziph. Should this word appear as a proper name in the new English Version, a very marked improvement will be made in what might be called the orientalising of the Bible, substituting the actual language of the land, for that essentially English tone which has been imparted to the narrative by the expressions of translators to whom the East was less familiar than their own fair country. The treachery of the inhabitants of Ziph, like that of the men of Keilah, appears to have driven David to a yet more desolate district, that of the Jeshimon, or “Solitude,” by which is apparently intended the great desert above the western shores of the Dead Sea, on which the Ziph plateau looks down. As a shepherd-boy at Bethlehem, David may probably have been already familiar with this part of the country, and the caves, still used as sheepcotes by the peasant herdsmen, extend all along the slopes at the edge of the desert. East of Ziph is a prominent hill on which is the ruined town called Cain in the Bible; hence the eye ranges over the theatre of David’s wanderings. On the south are the wolds of the Negeb plateau, with the plains of Beersheba beyond. On the east is the “Solitude,” with white peaks and cones of chalk, and deep, narrow watercourses, terminated by the great pointed cliff of Ziz, above Engedi, and by the precipices over the Dead Sea, two thousand feet high. Here, among the “rocks of the wild goats,” the herds of ibex may be seen bounding, and the partridge is still chased on the mountains, as David was followed by the stealthy hunter Saul. The blue sea is visible in its deep chasm, and is backed by the dark precipice of Kerak, “scarred with a hundred wintry watercourses.” The great hump of rock on which Maon--the home of Nabal--stands, is seen to the south, and rather nearer is the Crusading castle at Carmel, where were Nabal’s possessions; the ruined mound of Ziph is to the west, and Juttah among its olives. Thus the whole scenery of the flight of David, and of Saul’s pursuit, can be viewed from this one hill.