Even the negligent tillage of the peasantry produces fine harvests. The Germans ploughed deeper, and were rewarded by a crop of thistles, which to a good farmer would have been a subject of satisfaction as proving the existence of virgin soil, only requiring to be scoured by other crops for a year or two in order to yield fine harvests of corn. At this time of year, the barley had been gathered in, and only the dry stubble was left.

Our first ride was not a long one, as we only intended to reach Ramleh that night, and we arrived before sundown in sight of the town, which is first visible from a rise of ground on the road. The long olive-groves here formed a dark oasis in the treeless plain, and above them rose the beautiful tower of the “Forty,” belonging to the fine old ruined building called the “White Mosque,” built in the fourteenth century by the son of Kalawûn. The Forty were, according to the Moslems, companions of the Prophet; according to the later Christian tradition, forty martyrs of Cappadocia. A second mosque, now in use, exists in the middle of the town. This I was afterwards able to visit, and found it to be probably the most perfect specimen of a fine twelfth century church in Palestine, unchanged except that the beautiful western doorway is closed, a prayer recess scooped in the southern wall, and the delicate tracery of the columns defaced by whitewash and plaster—a vandalism not peculiar to Moslem restorers.

This fine church, which we were the first to examine and plan, is probably that visited by the old English pilgrim Sir John Maundeville, dedicated according to him to the Virgin, “where Our Lord appeared to Our Lady in the likeness which betokeneth the Trinity.”

Ramleh, like many another town in this ruined land, is full of contrasts of past prosperity and of present squalor and decay. The walls of fine stone houses are enclosed in wretched hovels of mud. Here and there an ornate Cufic or Arabic inscription is left, telling of Moslem conquerors and munificent Caliphs; but the bazaars are deserted, and starved dogs and helpless lepers meet the eye on every side.

Many attempts have been made to identify Ramleh with some ancient site. Thus the learned Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela regarded it as the birthplace of Samuel, while Christians have supposed it to be Arimathæa or Ramoth Lehi. But, against all such views, the testimony of historians, both Moslem and Christian, is decisive. They agree in representing Ramleh as founded by the son of the Caliph ’Abd el Melik early in the eighth century, after the destruction of Lydda. In Crusading history the town, which was then walled, plays a conspicuous part, and under the early successors of Saladin it rose to considerable importance; but the site, which is, as its name indicates, “sandy,” is not a natural one for a great city, and the water-supply is entirely artificial, from wells and huge tanks having Cufic inscriptions on their sides. Picturesque as is the scene, especially from among the palms on the east, Ramleh is nevertheless a modern place, when compared with the high antiquity of sites near to it.

In crossing Palestine at any point three districts are passed through, each of which receives a distinctive name in the Bible and in Jewish writings. First we cross the flat sea plain, in part sandy and barren, scattered with the black tents or reed cabins of the small encampments of Bedawin, a pastoral race gradually losing ground before the peasantry; in part a cultivated and very rich corn land, with wretched villages of mud perched on eminences whence the breeze is better felt. To the new comer these hamlets, most of which represent sites older than the time of Joshua, have a deserted appearance. The eye misses the contrast between roof and wall, and the glazed windows and wooden doors seen in Europe. The peasant hut in the lowlands of Palestine consists merely of four walls of mud, with a roof of boughs covered also with mud; hence the village, which consists of perhaps fifty or sixty such cabins huddled together without plan or order, and gradually climbing the slope so that the floor of one is level with the roof of another, has an uniform grey colour only broken by the whitewashed dome of the little chapel dedicated to the patron “Prophet” or Sheikh. In the plain there are scarcely any springs, and the village is supplied as a rule by cisterns and by a pond of stagnant rain-water banked round freshly every year. The most conspicuous object outside is the huge rubbish-heap where refuse of every kind is thrown. Savage mangy half-starved dogs keep watch above, and annoy the stranger until boldly attacked in turn. They belong to no one, are cared for by no one, and their only food appears to be an occasional carcass of a donkey or bullock. It is said that they eat mice and beetles when nothing else is to be found. All night they vie with the jackal in their howls, and they are often really dangerous when rearing their puppies.

Upon the refuse-heap, in the shade of the wall, the village elders may be seen seated smoking in rows, whilst the blue-gowned women toil up the hill with the goat-skin water-bags bound to their heads or the red pottery jars balanced upon them, holding in their tattooed lips the corner of the white head-veil which prevents their mouths being visible.

The plain once passed, the traveller enters the district called Shephelah, or “lowlands” in the Bible, consisting of low hills, about 500 feet above the sea, of white soft limestone, with great bands of beautiful brown quartz running between the strata. The broad valleys among these hills forming the entrances to the third district produce fine crops of corn, and on the hills the long olive-groves flourish better than in either of the other districts. This part of the country is also the most thickly populated, and ancient wells, and occasionally fine springs, occur throughout. The villages are partly of stone, partly of mud; the ruins are so thickly spread over hill and valley that in some parts there are as many as three ancient sites to two square miles. All along the base of these hills, commanding the passes to the mountains, important places are to be found, such as Gath and Gezer, Emmaus and Beth Horon, and no part of the country is more rich in Bible sites or more famous in Bible history.

With dawn on the 9th July we entered the “lowland” district, and before us were some of the ancient places above noticed. South of the great road, Gezer, on the road, Latrûn, north of it Emmaus.

The recovery of the site of Gezer we owe to M. Clermont Ganneau. The position is one well suited for an important place, and Gezer was a royal city of the Canaanites. The modern name, Tell Jezer, “Mound of Gezer,” represents the Hebrew exactly, the meaning being “cut off” or “isolated.”

The origin of the title is at once clear, for the site is an outlier—to use a geological term—of the main line of hills, and the position commands one of the important passes to Jerusalem. As is the case with many equally important places, there is not much to be seen at Gezer. The hill-side is terraced, and the eastern end occupied by a raised foundation, probably the ancient citadel. Tombs and wine-presses, cut in rock, abound, and there are traces of Christian buildings in a small chapel, and a tomb apparently of Christian origin.

Beneath the hill on the east there is a fine spring, which wells up in a circular ring of masonry; it is called ’Ain Yerdeh, or the “Spring of the Gatherings,” and its existence is a strong argument in favour of the antiquity of the neighbouring site.

The little Mukâm, or Moslem shrine, on the hill, commands a fine view of the plain of Sharon. On the south-west are the bare sandy dunes of “barren” Ekron, beyond which is Makkedah, and Jamnia famous for its school of learned doctors of the law,