A few hundred feet north of Jacob’s well, in the same “parcel of ground,” is Joseph’s tomb. The structure over it is modern, and is an ordinary Mohammedan _wely_. There is, however, no reason to doubt the authenticity of the tradition which fixes upon this as the sepulchre of the patriarch. The deep alluvial soil would not allow of the interment being in a rock-hewn grave; but if the coffin were of granite or alabaster, like those of Egyptian magnates, it might yet be recovered if excavation were permitted. We have, however, already seen, when speaking of the cave of Machpelah, that the Mohammedans assert that the body was removed from its original place of sepulture and placed with those of the other patriarchs at Hebron. [Illustration: EVENING ON A HOUSETOP. _From an original sketch by W. J. Webb._ ] The valley leading up to NABLUS, the Neapolis of the Romans, the Sychar or Shechem of the Jews, is one of rare beauty. Dr. Porter says, with slight exaggeration, “it is the finest in Palestine—in fact, it is the only really beautiful site from Dan to Beersheba.” Without the grandeur of the snow-crowned peaks of Switzerland, it yet reminded me of the Swiss-Italian valleys in its bright colour and rich vegetation. Van de Velde’s description of it is graphic and truthful: “Here there is no wilderness, here there are no wild thickets, yet there is always verdure; always shade, not of the oak, the terebinth, and the carob-tree, but of the olive grove—so soft in colour, so picturesque in form, that for its sake we can willingly dispense with all other wood. Here there are no impetuous mountain-torrents, yet there is water; water, too, in more copious supplies than anywhere else in the land; and it is just to its many fountains, rills and water courses that the valley owes its exquisite beauty.... There is a singularity about the Vale of Shechem, and that is the peculiar colouring which objects assume in it. You know that wherever there is water, the air becomes charged with watery particles; and that distant objects beheld through that medium seem to be enveloped in a pale blue or grey mist, such as contributes not a little to give a charm to the landscape. But it is precisely these atmospheric tints that we miss so much in Palestine. Fiery tints are to be seen both in the morning and the evening, and glittering violet or purple-coloured hues where the light falls next to the long deep shadows; but there is an absence of colouring, and of that charming dusky haze in which objects assume such softly blended forms, and in which also the transition in colour from the foreground to the farthest distance loses the hardness of outline peculiar to the perfect transparency of an eastern sky. It is otherwise in the Vale of Shechem, at least in the morning and the evening. Here the exhalations remain hovering among the branches and leaves of the olive-trees, and hence that lovely bluish haze. The valley is far from broad, not exceeding in