‘A JOURNEY IN THE EAST, 347 
face, with its piercing black eyes and sharply drawn mouth, 
on which played a mocking smile, was by no means calculated 
to inspire confidence. 
These men, genuine Arabs both in their habits and appear- 
ance, and utterly unlike the Hebraic natives of Bethlehem, 
had come to sell me three young ibex, and were also desirous 
of arranging a shooting-excursion for us in their barren 
mountains, where the Arabian Ibex, a fine animal with long 
knobby horns, is very abundant. I bought the young ibex; 
but as for the excursion, that was, alas! out of the question, for 
it would have drawn us away from the Jordan valley, and 
several days of our already very circumscribed time would 
have been spent in going along the shore of the Dead Sea 
down to its south-western extremity. I was therefore forced, 
though with a heavy heart, to console the dusky sons of the 
steppe with a backsheesh and send them home again. 
The camp was struck with the usual incredible quickness, 
and the large caravan started for Mar-Saba under the leader- 
ship of Mr. Howard. Riding down a narrow valley between 
grey-green hills, we soon lost sight of Bethlehem, Tantur, 
Mar-EHlyas, the stony mountains, the plateaus, and the culti- 
vated slopes, and exchanged the Mediterranean type of 
country for that of the Asiatic steppes, with their monotonous 
hills covered with short grass, and their winding valleys, 
where one could never get a distant view. The road was 
very good at first, and one could sometimes even ride over 
the little meadows at a fast pace; but the further we went 
the higher grew the mountains and the narrower the path, 
which at length ran along the steep hillsides, as the bottom 
of the valley was nothing but a stony ravine. A Bedouin on 
a badly groomed, but very handsome bay rode in front as 
our guide. He was the Sheikh of a tribe living in these 
mountains, and his attire, consisting of a loose dark cloak 
thrown over light-coloured under garments, as well as his 
