

(a? ) 



April 6. (At the Monastery of Mar-Saba.) c One of 

 the monks was tending a small garden, and the one who 

 went round with us plucked some flowers for us out of 

 the very few in the garden ; it seemed to go to the heart 

 of the poor gardener, who probably knew what little 

 store travellers generally set by them while who can 

 tell what they might have been to the lonesome monk ? ' 



April 7. c Bethlehem a striking-looking place, both 

 from the Mar-Saba road, and also from that leading to 

 Solomon's Pools. . . . Saw numbers of flocks on the 

 hills attended by their shepherds, just as they might 

 have been under David, or when our Lord's birth was 

 announced.' 



April 8. (Near Hebron.) c Saw skins preparing for 

 water-carrying looked like a field covered with pigs on 

 their backs, who had died of repletion.' 



April 13. (A swarm of locusts at Beeroth.) c The 

 whole atmosphere for two miles at least looked exactly 

 like bees swarming. There was a sort of dull roar from 

 the noise of their wings, and they cast quite a shadow 

 on the ground, like a cloud. They were pitching in 

 many places, but apparently not permanently, as they 

 soon took flight again at least most of them. I watched 

 narrowly, but could not see that any of them devoured 

 herbage of any kind. They seemed tired and quite 

 quiet as soon as alighted. We rode right through the 

 flight, at least three miles; and in many places where they 

 had pitched they were so thick that you could not see 



