Jordan Bridge. Sun. Feb. 5. Dearest Mother. I now begin a long letter, I expect! We left Jerusalem [(El Quds esh Sherif, Yerushalayim)] this morning at 8 in a howling tearing wind and under a threatening sky. We had however very little rain and jogged down the familiar Jericho road comfortably enough, Mikhail, who is a great talker, telling me the while many tales of his past journeys. He is a cheerful capable man. We got down to Jericho about 2, but I had resolved not to camp there as I had always had a desire to pitch a camp down by the great Jordan Bridge, the Bridge of the Desert. We stopped to buy corn and straw for our beasts and went on with the muleteers. After about an hour a sharp shower followed and overtook us. By this time we had got to the edge of the strangest bit of all this strange Jordan valley. It consists of mud hills about 100 ft high cut up into very steep slopes and ravines, and the road - save the mark! - winds on top and along the precipitous sides of them. With a very little rain they are turned into hills of soap, inconceivably slippery and quite impassible. We hurried on and fortunately the rain stopped, but only just in time. We had to get off and lead our horses - mine slipped and began to slide down the bank but he regained his feet almost miraculously. It lasted only about ½ an hour, but it was with many Thanks be to God! that we came to the end of it. People have been known to have been caught in rain in that Sodom and Gomorrah - it's about the site of them I believe - and to have remained there all night, quite unable to move. We got to the Jordan at 4 and pitched camp in a delightful open place with a little grass and a few tamarisk bushes just this end of the Bridge. A little scrub of Spina Christi bushes divides us from the river. The muleteers have made a great fire and are collected round it under the stars, listening to the tales of a negro who has appeared from Lord knows where, like a dog turning up where there may be food, and is a bit of a wag in his way. There passed through this morning 900 soldiers on their way to help Ibn Rashid in Central Arabia. It's good luck to have missed them.

Salt Feb 6. [6 February 1905] There came a furious wind in the night and this morning was threatening, but warm, for I was 2000 ft Bellow the sea. We set off and rode all across the great eastern plain and then turned up into the hills. Though I have been through this country twice I have never been exactly over this road and it was very charming, up long valleys full of cyclamen and anemones. We had a few showers but nothing to speak of. As we climbed the long hill, however, it grew pretty cold and by the time we got to the top it was regular mountain misty weather. So at Salt I was busy looking about for some place where I could sleep, not in a tent, and there came to me a charming old party who said I must without doubt be his guest. So here I am, installed in the house of Yusef Succar, who with his nephew and children waits upon me most attentively and is now going to give me dinner! I have also some other friends here, the sons and daughters of the old man who taught me Arabic at Haifa, and they have all been in to see me and fallen on my neck. Meantime the great thing is to get plans here for the Jebel ed Druse [Duruz, Jabal ad] and it's not easy, but I think I shall do it all the same. I may have to go out to the Bedouin and get an escort from them. Anyway, we are talking it over here - great is the discussion. I find I can send a letter from here so I shall post this and trust to the vagaries of the Turkish post office. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude