the twelve stones said to have been brought from the 

 bed of the Jordan and placed on Mt. Gerizim but I 

 rather annoyed the Samaritan guide by asking (of several 

 of the stones) whether they were to be counted as one 

 or two ; for they were quite separated, and counting 

 them as separate there would have been far more than 

 twelve. In fact, they had the appearance of being a 

 natural shelf or ridge of rock split, as it lay, into any 

 number of irregular pieces ; and this I feel no doubt is 

 the case. Just after breakfast one of the chief men of 

 the Samaritans came down to the tents, and said they 

 were just going to begin praying for ten hours, and 

 asked if we should like to go and see them so occupied. 

 I told him that if prayer was real, it was very wrong to 

 disturb it or make it a public spectacle ; and if it was 

 not real, it was a most painful sight to see, and no one 

 of right feeling would care to see it. He said most 

 English travellers liked to see it, but that what I said 

 was quite new, though, he thought, quite true/ 



April 18. (Near Nain.) c Between this and Shunem 

 we saw a gathering of Bedouins, all fully armed and 

 mounted forty or fifty. They were in " high talk ", 

 and were just concluding as we passed. Our Dragoman 

 heard from them that they had yesterday had intelli- 

 gence of a raid upon their territory by a large force of 

 hostile tribes, about three hours from that part, and they 

 were going to join a general gathering of all their tribes 

 to resist it, and a battle was expected to-night or 



