A dramatic residence, indeed, for a man of God and for his followers! Here, in the splendid desolation of this valley amongst the hills, one could well imagine an anchorite turning his thoughts to things beyond the ken of the dweller in the cities. There is an atmosphere of expectancy in these desert cañons, a feeling that something lies waiting around the corner, a sense of elusiveness inviting a search, a mysterious suggestion of an impending event which I do not know how to describe, but which might well be interpreted by a religious mystic as a revelation of a higher power. The feeling that one is watched, and indeed watched benevolently, is experienced, I should think, by almost all travellers in the desert; and there is no locality where one may lie down o’ nights with a greater sense of security, nor any place where words may be whispered to the unknown, with better hope that they are heard. The people of the Greek age in Egypt, offering prayer to Pan in this desert, were wont to make their supplication to Pan who was “within hearing”; and now, though the old gods are dead and the new God sometimes seems very far off, those who journey in the wilderness still may believe that there is Something listening and always “within hearing.” Continuing our way up the valley a short distance farther, we came, just before sunset, to Bir el Ain, where we proposed to spend the night. As we approached the end of our journey we had noticed that the vegetation, such as there was, was fresher in colour, as though more fully watered; and several birds were observed hereabouts. A black and white wheatear flew from rock to rock beside us; two little pink-beaked finches rose from a tamarisk as we passed; and, in a soft feathery tree of the acacia family, which grew solitary in the gravel bed, two very small birds--warblers of some kind--flitted silently from branch to branch, their little weight hardly stirring the twigs upon which they alighted. The nearness of the water thus was obvious; but the charmed surroundings of the well were an extraordinary surprise. After the heat and exertion of the day, and the long ride through the almost sterile valley, the scene of our cool camping-ground beside the water possessed a charm which perhaps it would have held in lesser degree under other circumstances. To me it appeared as a kind of fairyland.