<A JOURNEY IN THE EAST: 359 



numbers of slender lizards and fat frogs, while swarms of 

 insects, big and little, infested .the place. 



Suddenly Salim stopped and announced that we had 

 reached our destination ; and we saw before us a stream that 

 came down from the mountains, and flowed between steep 

 earthy banks straight through the plain to the Jordan. 



These watercourses are of an interesting formation. Con- 

 fined on both sides by perpendicular crumbling walls of earth, 

 they present a scene of the wildest confusion. In the middle 

 flows a stream, small at this dry season of the year, and about 

 it is a medley of big stones, muddy places, dense, literally 

 impenetrable thickets, trees, rotten trunks, mould, and debris 

 of every description a primeval forest within a small space, 

 for nowhere does the distance from bank to bank exceed two 

 hundred yards. 



Some of the guns were now to keep on the top of the right 

 bank and others on the left ; the Bedouins with their dogs 

 were to remain on the lower level and beat through the 

 stones and bushes in line ; while Salim was to stay beside 

 me and direct the whole proceedings. 



The beaters ran and sprang about the bed of the stream, 

 hurling stones and shouting incessantly ; and the shots 

 cracked merrily as one Partridge after another got up and 

 soon fell again among the bushes. Chukar and Key's Part- 

 ridges, Quails, and song-birds of various kinds flew out of 

 their hiding-places. Rollers and Bee-eaters were nesting in 

 the crumbling banks, and in the muddy places we found the 

 tracks of Wild Boars and Porcupines, also the quills and 

 earths of the latter ; but unfortunately this shy animal creeps 

 underground at the slightest noise, so that one can hardly 

 ever kill it during the day. 



We had been shooting for some time and had gone a good 

 way along the banks, when the dogs all at once gave tongue 

 in an almost impenetrable thicket. I happened to be at the 



