So papa and Suleiman made their arrangements. All that we
wanted was a guard of Arabs; everything else we had already.
The rain ceased after the third day; and early in the morning
we went out of the eastern gate of the city and moved slowly
down the slope of the Kedron valley and up the side of Mount
Olivet.
It was my first ride in the environs of Jerusalem; and I could
hardly bear the thoughts it brought up. Yet there was scant
time for thoughts; eyes had to be so busy. The valley of the
Kedron! I searched its depths, only to find tombs everywhere,
with olive trees sprinkled about among them. Life and death;
for if anything is an emblem of life in Palestine, I suppose
it is the olive. They looked sad to me at first, the olives;
their blue-gray foliage had so little of the fresh cheer of
our green woods. Afterwards I thought differently. But
certainly the valley of the Kedron was desolate and mournful
in the extreme, as we first saw it. Nor was Olivet less so.
The echo of forfeited promises seemed to fill my ear; the
shades of lost glory seemed to tenant all those ways and
hillsides. I could but think what feet had trod those paths;
what hands of blessing had been held out on these hills;
turned back and rejected, to the utter ruin of those who
rejected them. The places of Solomon's splendour and David's
honour, in the hands of the Moslem; or buried beneath the
ruins of twenty desolations. And in the midst of such thoughts
which possessed me constantly, came thrills of joy that I was
there. So we mounted over the shoulder of the Mount of Olives,
and the day cleared and brightened as we went on. Then came
the ruins of Bethany. I would have liked to linger there; but
this was not the time. I left it for the present.
"We must dismount here, Daisy," said papa the next minute. And
he set me the example. "Our own feet will do this next piece
of road most satisfactorily."
We scrambled down, over the loose stones and rock, the very
steep pitch just below Bethany. I do not know how deep, but
hundreds of feet certainly. Our mules and horses came on as
they could.
"Is this to be taken as a specimen of Palestine roads, Daisy?"
"I believe they are pretty bad, papa."
"How do you like it?"
"Oh, papa," said I, stopping, "I like it. Look - look yonder -
do you see that glimmer? do you know what that is, papa?"
"It is water -"
"It is the Dead Sea."
"Thirty-six hundred feet below. We have a sharp ride before
us, Daisy."
"Not quite so much below us - we have come down some way.
Papa, don't you enjoy it?"