Tues 20. [20 March 1900] Up at 5 and off after 6. Fetched the Mudir
on the way who vowed first he was coming to Ain Musa ['Ain Musa]
then said he would go to the bridge and send a guide Ismael with me,
and was finally persuaded to turn back at the slime pits. It was so hot
and lovely it felt like an early morning ride in Persia. At the bridge I
met Hanna and my two muleteers, Mohammad and Ali. There is a
long bit of valley at the other side, full of trees. The white tamarisks all
in flower. We were here joined by 2 cheerful parties from Bethlehem
[(Beit Lahm)], a fat one riding a donkey and another walking, both fair
and handsome. The fat one asked me if I was a Christian and said he
was Al hamd[?] lillah. The wild crocus had blossomed like a rose. At
first between thorny plants, and then in fields waist high, sheets of
flowers - wild stock[?], ranunculus, yellow daisies, white and purple
things, a beautiful bright blue prickly thing a charming thing white at the
bottom, topped with purple leaves and lots of other little flowers I did
not know. A purple garlic and the usual white one. The silent Ismael
supplied me with them. The way was enlivened[?] by the mens trying
to shoot pigeons, Rukty they called them, but the rukty were too wily.
Presently we came to corn strewn in great patches by the Adwar, and
barley already in the ear. We saw two branch made watch towers
where men were standing and frightening away birds and people.
One was piping. Far away some black Bedouin tents on the side of a
little Tell with tombs on it, which I take to have been Kefrein [Kafrein].
Tarif said the rain fall was not enough for the corn but that they had to
irrigate. There is plenty of water and it might be a great cornfield - but
then the flowers would disappear! We crossed the Wady Hesban
[Hisban] at a place called Akweh were we hoped to find a dry place
for lunch but it was all damp - Mishra Akweh Tarif called it. So we went
on up the hills, Hemra they call the rise out of the ghor, to a little clump
of trees with an old tomb, Salih, or Sualih as the Arabs call it and
lunched there. 11.30. It was a perfect garden added to the usual
flowers, a white round sort of umbellifer, poppies. The trees were full
of birds and their nests, a tremendous twittering was going on. They
call these trees anameh, they are apparently evergreens and have a
coral flower which had just fallen. 2 men came riding down, they were
from Salt and knew Tarif. We went on uphill for an hour, lovely full of
flowers, anemones, the little iris and the pink [space left blank] began
to appear as we mounted. We saw a flight of storks and an eagle.
They love the storks because they eat the locusts. There are lots of
wild pig in the ghor. As we climbed we saw several fallen columns, of
very rough workmanship and at the top of the hill a regular sort of
building with some stones standing upright. There were piles of
stones in honour of Nebi Musa [Nabi Musa] and over the brow some
little heaps to commemorate murders. Lots of corn here and few
people for that reason. They sow one year, go away lest the animals
should eat it, the next year they live in that place and sow in the former.
We now saw a big encampment of Arab houses of hair and here we
parted from Ismael who went on to Madeba [Madaba] while we turned
down into the Wady Ayun Musa where there were more tents above
the springs. Belgawiyyet or Ghanimat which Hanna explains as Abu
l'Ghassam. Tarif found me a most lovely big dark purple iris, very
sweet-scented. We passed two springs with some built up hermit
caves above them and camped on a delicious bit of ground, looking
up to the water fall and down the valley across the Ghor to the Judea
hills now rather clouded. The people soon came round and sold us
chickens, milk and laban, eating grass like animals while they
bargained. We are just under Siagheh [Pisga]. There is a cuckoo on
the hills. At the top of the pass, a little below it we passed a tomb not
marked on the map - Kabr Ali el Iswy.