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THE SOUTHERN BORDERLAND. 20y
Moab, on its western and eastern shores. The volume of water thus discharged into it has
been calculated at six million tons daily, for which there is no apparent, or, indeed, conceivable
outlet, the immense evaporation which takes place being sufficient to maintain the level of the
lake.
The wilderness of Engedi is as grand but dreary a sight as can well be imagined : a
broad rolling expanse, shut in on every hand by high ridges with jagged summits, their sides
deeply scored by torrent beds, and intersected here and there by broad valleys of white marl,
with not a tree, and scarcely a shrub, to be seen for miles around (see page 208). From
time to time a small Arab encampment or a few isolated figures come in sight, and with
their primaeval costume, and their wild and savage air, seem like some weird vision of David
and his outlaw band conjured up by a highly wrought fancy, rather than the ordinary inhabitants
of the place.
From the city of Abraham we proceed to another spot connected with the history of the
patriarch, Beersheba—variously interpreted, " the Well of the Seven" or " the Well of the
Oath"—where he dug the well, and gave seven ewe lambs to Abimelech in token of an oath
of covenant with him (see page 209). There were once seven wells here, two of which are
still filled with water, and another, in a fairly perfect condition, is dry; they are all built of
solid masonry. In the immediate vicinity may be seen traces of the other four wells. An
Arab tradition says that, " The Beni Murr dwelt by seven wells (seba hiyur) ; each well
had seven tanks, each tank had seven troughs, and each trough had seven horses drinking
thereat." Round the two wells which contain water are rude stone troughs, which appear to be
very ancient. The southern bank of the valley is banked up with a strong wall of solid
masonry, extending for a few hundred yards along the part opposite the wells, which are thus
protected from the earth falling in and filling them up. The hillside behind them is covered
with ruins, though, from the confused state into which they have fallen, it is impossible now to
make out with any certainty the original ground-plan of the town. Higher up in the valley are
the foundations of a Greek church. The country around Beersheba consists of a rolling plain,
intersected by the wady beds of Seba' and Khulil. In spring, when the rains have fallen, it is
often covered for miles around with grass, flowers, and herbage ; at other times it is nothing
but a dry parched land, bare and desolate as the desert itself. Strange and solemn are the
thoughts which such a place inspires. Here were the very wells, in all human probability,
which the Father of the Faithful dug. The name he gave it still clings to the spot; the
Bedawin, to whom the Scriptures are unknown, still point with pride to the great work
which their father Ibrahim achieved, and as they draw water from it for their flocks and herds,
the ropes that let the buckets down still glide along the same deep furrows in the masonry
which, mayhap, the ropes of the patriarch's servants first began. It was to the wilderness of
Beersheba, too, that Elijah fled for his life from Ahab and Jezebel (1 Kings xix. 3).
We now take a final farewell of Hebron and its sacred memories, and, providing ourseh
with an escort of the Jehalin or the Hawetat Arabs, set out upon a journey through the wilder- |
