some places a few hundred feet. This you find generally enclosed on all sides; there likewise the vapours are condensed. And so you advance under the shade of the foliage along the living waters, and charmed by the melody of a host of singing birds—for they, too, know where to find their best quarters—while the perspective fades away, and is lost in the damp vapoury atmosphere.”[196] To enjoy this lovely scenery in its full perfection, we must spend the evening hours on one of the flat roofs of the city. One such evening I shall never forget. Ebal and Gerizim were glowing in the light of the setting sun. The long stretch of orchards and gardens along the valley were already dim in the purple shadows. The noise from the crowded streets died away. The stars began to peep out. The landscape faded from view. Our evening hymn of praise ascended to the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, who “sendeth darkness and it is night.” The abundance of water to which Van de Velde refers raises the question why Jacob should have dug a well so deep, with so much cost and labour, when the natural springs of the valley would have sufficed him? Why, too, should the Samaritan woman have come hither from the city, nearly two miles distant, to draw water, when she must have passed numerous fountains by the way? The reply to the first question is, that throughout the East water is jealously guarded by the inhabitants, who resent the intrusion of strangers upon their rights. In the book of Genesis, as amongst the fellahin and bedouin of to-day, we find no case of contention as to pasturage, but numerous instances of feuds arising out of the use of wells and fountains. And, as Dean Stanley remarks, we have here an illustration of the characteristic prudence and caution of Jacob, who carefully avoided all causes of quarrel with the tribes amongst whom he had settled. The reply to the second question is probably to be found in the fact that there are indications that the ancient city extended farther to the eastward and nearer to the well than the present. There may, too, have been reasons for preferring the water drawn from hence. Its superior quality—orientals are epicures in this respect—or the hallowed associations connected with the well may have prompted the Samaritans to fetch it from a distance, though there were fountains close at hand.[197]