Wed 21. [21 March 1900] I woke to hear a wind blowing and when I
looked out of my tent at 6 it was very cloudy. However I got up
bravely and breakfasted and it then looked better. I went down to the
cave under the waterfall and it was most lovely, draped in maidenhair.
When I came back I found the tent being taken down and the clouds
gathering. Hanna and I started off together about 8 in the rain and
went up to the top of Siagheh which is Pisgah [Pisga]. It was covered
with ruins of a very rough kind and I saw another summit further on so I
went on to it and had a better view. The clouds were hanging low
over the Judean hills and the n. end of the Ghor, but half the Ghor and
the Dead Sea [(Yam Hamelah, Bahret Lut)] was in sun and sun was
lying half way up the hills and it was very lovely. From thence I saw
Maslubiyeh and Mineh which Tristram says are the 2 other places
besides Nebo of Balaam's divagations. I then rode on to Nebo, the
clouds following me and swallowing up the whole valley. There was
a fine Dolmen on the way up and a stone circle on the top and all
sorts of arrangements of stones in lines - boundary lines Hannah
called them, but said they were very old. It began to stream and we
rode on pretty fast through a ruined village called Kefeir Abu Bat -
because of a great circular stone in it, half sticking out of the ground,
upright perhaps 8 ft high. There is another village called Kefeir Abu
Amud because of a pillar and another called Kefeir esh Shark. The
people were ploughing the fields for durrah and the corn was sown
everywhere else - a foot high or more. The country before us was a
great plateau of rolling cornfield. We soon caught up Tarif and the
mules and rode on in streaming rain to Madeba [Madaba] which we
reached about 10.30. In the street we passed two water-proofed men
who turned out be be an American called Bacon [see also Baker]
and his dragoman. We chose our camping ground and my new
friend carried me off to his Latin monastery where he is staying to be
out of the rain till my camp was arranged. He is apparently a
professional photographer whose expenses are being paid by a big
American firm. He show me lots of photographs and dressed up in an
Arab costume to his own great delight. I was very grateful for the
shelter. At about 12 or a little before he walked me down to my camp
the rain having now stopped. I am on the east side of the town and
looking over Joab's battlefield which is now a great rolling stretch of
corn. I got into dry things and lunched, the rain streaming again. At 2
the rain slackened a little and my friend appeared and we went all
over the town together with his dragoman and another man who is
living here. It is most extraordinary. Wherever they dig they find
churches it seems to me. We went into a 1/2 dozen of cottages with
vaulted roofs and no light to speak of and a mosaic floor, sometimes
fruits sometimes animals, sometimes Greek inscriptions. In one most
characteristic house (with no windows) the brazier was pushed away
from the middle of the floor to reveal a big Greek inscription. The nice
family gave us coffee on the spot. Another, almost quite dark was the
apse of a church and on the floor a goodish mosaic, a gazelle and a
horse with a tree and grapes hanging from it between. And lower
down again inscriptions. Everywhere too there are columns, their
rude basements and capitals are built into every wall. On the south of
the town there are traces of what is supposed to have been a big
basilica. Lower down there is a big birket. The most interesting
mosaic is in the Greek church. It was a map of the whole country, the
part containing Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] is
fortunately whole and the town is depicted quite clearly. One sees on
it the Damascus, St Stephens, the Zion (I suppose) and the Jaffa
gates. It runs up east right out into the desert and marks all kinds of
little monasteries and places which are now ruins. I returned to my
tent about 5 and had tea and sur ce arrived Imr Effendi, the head of
the soldiers to see about my escort. It seemed at one time very
doubtful whether I should get it, but I skilfully branched off to other
subjects, promised to photograph him, and what with one thing and
another, got him round. He then stayed a long time - I gave him coffee
and cigarettes - and he told me the story of his life. He is a
Circassian, has been 7 years here and is awfully tired of it. We also
discussed my marriage! Finally he went off well pleased. Mr Bacon
then came and said he wanted to join the party. I told him to ask the
effendi. It has stopped raining but it is still very windy and cold and I
have sent for a brazier from the village and have a most welcome
charcoal fire in my tent. It is also well trenched so I feel independent
of the weather.