‘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 débris 
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 Hey’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 
