In the afternoon of the 26th of February, 1875, we reached Wâdy Hasâseh, “the valley of gravel,” and found a triangular encampment of thirty black tents. The tribe was that of the Tâ’amirah, or “cultivating Arabs,” so called because they have actually degraded themselves by sowing barley, which they sell in Bethlehem. They have a very bad name as thieves and murderers, but we found them extremely willing and civil, and the chief, ’Abd el Gâder (as they called him), was a capital fellow. The tribe is remarkable for wearing the turban, which none of the other tribes use, the heads of the Bedawîn being usually either bare, or covered with the _kufeyeh_, or shawl. The Tâ’amirah also wear shoes, instead of sandals, and they are indeed not true Bedawîn, but of the same stock with the peasantry. We now found that the storm which had driven us to Jerusalem in the winter had saved us from greater misfortunes. Even after the winter rains had fallen, we still found hardly any water in the desert, and there can have been none before the wet season, at the time of our first attempt to reach this district; in addition to which, the climate had been so unhealthy during the past autumn, that if we had gone down into the desert at that season we should, in all probability, have had a repetition of our Jericho experience, under circumstances even more unfavourable. On the 27th of February the Survey began, Sergeant Armstrong marching out with one Arab in the Engedi direction, while Corporal Brophy accompanied me northwards. The country was almost impassable, and our progress was painfully slow. In four and a half hours of hard riding we advanced only six miles, so deep were the valleys which we were obliged to cross. Our guides were disgusted, and ’Abd el Gâder was afraid of the high-fed and frolicksome mule which we gave him to ride, feeling sure, as he repeated with a resigned air, that it would end by breaking his head. We gained a lofty peak, called Er Rueikbeh, where we put up the instrument, and got our observations finished, just as a haze or fog began to spread over the view. This afterwards cleared off, but threatened at first to develop into a simoon, or dust-storm, such as we had once before experienced in the Jericho plains in autumn. The wonderful strength of the Arabs was here exemplified, for at least one thousand feet below us was an encampment, from which three men came running up to the top of the hill, and they never ceased to shout as they came, and mounted up with wonderful swiftness, though one of them was quite an old man.