had ever seen. The countenance was truly Jewish, but with a healthy rosy colour which 
I have seldom seen out of England.” 1 
The conscription, a great source of suffering in all despotic governments, assumes 
in the East the shape of a national calamity. In the midst of all this beauty and brightness, 
“ as we went,” continues the Artist, “ to show our passports at the house of the Deputy- 
Governor, we found many women weeping on the steps, and the Deputy engaged in the 
examination of a number of the unfortunate inhabitants who had been seized by the con¬ 
scription. They were brought out in succession from a filthy-looking dungeon, and after 
inspection were handcuffed, and sent off.” 
The surrounding country abounds with legendary sites. The “ Village of the Virgin” 
is supposed to have been one of the resting-places of the Holy Family in their flight into 
Egypt. A fine oak represents the Tree of Abraham; but it seems not improbable that the 
“ Haram,” or Mosque, whose massive enclosure seems of Jewish building, covers the Cave 
of Macphelah. Into this enclosure, however, no Christian is permitted to enter. 
1 Roberts’s Journal. 
RUINS OF SEMUA. 
The mountain ridge which commences not far from Carmel, and runs W.S.W. to the 
solitude of Beersheba, formed the natural boundary, on this side, of the higher tract, 
or “mountains of Judah;” while the lower region, farther south, extending quite round to 
Beersheba, constituted the uttermost border “ toward the coast of Edom, southward.” 
The country between Wady Mousa and Hebron has evidently been once the seat of 
a large population; every hill seems to have had its town, as probably every valley had its 
tillage and pasture. But the towns are chiefly ruins, and the valleys are abandoned to the 
precarious cultivation of a peasantry with whom everything is precarious. 1 
Semua (now variously pronounced, and which stands probably on the site of the 
Eshtemoa of Scripture 2 ) is reduced to a village, in the midst of pasture lands, filled 
with flocks and herds at certain seasons. At the time of the Artist’s visit, the cattle 
had been driven away to other pastures; and the inhabitants had migrated along with 
them. There might be an additional reason for the general solitude. The Conscription 
had been in force, and the young men, by whom the Egyptian service was hated, on those 
occasions generally fled to the mountains. 3 
The ground is strewed with large stones, the remains of vast ancient buildings, the only 
portion of which left standing is a tower, a relique, probably, of Roman fortification. 4 
1 Biblical Researches, ii. 626. 2 Josh. xv. 50 ; xxi. 14. 
3 Roberts’s Journal. 4 Kilinear. 
