Following a long valley, we arrived at a broad undulating plain, grey and dry, like the muddy basin of a former sea. The hills end very suddenly, and the boundary is thus sharply defined between the lands of the settled population and the district of the Bedawîn, who, though nomadic, cultivate a little tobacco and barley round Beersheba. The scenery was tame and featureless, with a single dark Tell in front, and white marl peaks capped with flint to the west. The heat and glare were oppressive, and we were glad at noon to rest under a white chalk cliff, and were able to realise the force of the poetic language of Isaiah, “The shadow of a great rock in a weary land” (Isaiah xxxii. 2). We ascended the Tell or mound of Seb’a, which is two and a half miles east of the Wells of Beersheba, and thence we had a fine view of the great boundary valley which limited our work on the south, joining the long ravine which comes down from Hebron, and running west in a broad, flat, gravelly bed, between high walls of brown earth. The pebbles were white and dry, yet water-worn, for, as we found in the following spring, a river will occasionally flow for hours along the Wâdy bed. East of us there were remarkable white chalk hills called El Ghurrah, and on the west a low ridge shut out the maritime plain. To the north were the hills of Judah, dotted with lotus-trees, and to the south stretched the endless Desert of Wanderings. No mules appeared, and we therefore rode down towards the wells, passing by innumerable burrows of the jerboa, and by numerous herds of camels, with a distant view of black “houses of hair.” At length we spied a tent, and our servants talking with mounted Arabs near the principal well. At the same moment I saw a pigeon by one of the wells, and fired, killing it on the spot. I noticed that the Arabs rode away immediately after, and I found that they had been insolent, and had ordered the servants to take down the tent, but, seeing a well-armed party approaching, and conceiving a great respect for a gun that could kill at such a distance, with characteristic Bedawîn caution, they made off before we came up. The desert of Beersheba is a beautiful pasture-land in spring, when the grass and flowers cover the grey mud, as in the Jordan Valley; but in November it is very desolate; not a tree exists near the wells, and only the foundations of a flourishing fourth-century town remain.