Soon afterwards I observed some singular black rocks, which proved to be masses of iron: close by there was a hard limestone containing very fine and beautiful madrepores. Two thick layers of the metal stood up in fragments some feet above the ground. We traced it in one direction for about three miles, when it was again covered by the horizontal sand-stone. They told us that in the other direction the same black stone was found in great quantities; in fact, in the cultivated fields the stones were iron, realizing to the letter the description of the Promised Land--a land flowing with milk and honey where the stones are iron, and from the hills of which copper[298] is melted. We found a good deal of slag, but the working had been merely superficial. I afterwards obtained a specimen of lead from the same neighbourhood. We returned to our home in another place. We had left the camp crowning a knoll. We found it in the evening settled on a plain. Two other douars along our route had also moved, and in the same direction, and we passed one of the migrating bodies. There were neither men nor horses, nor any cattle used in tillage. These were, as usual, employed in the fields. This business belonged to the women and children. The tents and utensils were laden on the spare cows and camels. Every creature that could carry, from the camel to the goat, was put in requisition, and you might see, as when flying before Pharaoh, “their kneading troughs in their clothes upon their backs.” The men returned from their work in the field, without the loss of an hour, to their new abode. By these removals the country for five miles was like a fair. The pasturing flocks, too, were falling in; and at our new pitching ground we had five douars within two miles. We counted them, as if they had been so many vessels that had taken shelter in the same creek with ourselves. We diversified our geological pursuits by dragging a valley for boars, but were unsuccessful: they were, however, round us in thousands; their digging and rooting equalled the ploughing of the natives. We could not take ten steps in any direction without walking on the earth they had recently turned up, and their industry was prosecuted to within a hundred paces of the douar. It was with some difficulty that we regained our geological specimens, for the Arabs had entered into the spirit of the science, which consists in making collections. The expedition reminded me of Dr. Buckland’s equestrian lecture at Oxford. Hitherto a scrutinizing look at a stone had been supposed to endanger a man’s head.