The Jordan Valley was now one blaze of beautiful flowers, growing in a profusion not often to be found, even in more fertile lands. The ground was literally covered with blossoms: the great red anemone, like a poppy, grew in long tracts on the stony soil: on the soft marls patches of delicate lavender colour were made by the wild stocks; the Retem or white broom (the juniper of Scripture) was in full blossom, and the rich purple nettles contrasted with fields of the Kutufy or yellow St. John's wort. There were also quantities of orange-coloured marigolds, and long fields of white and purple clover, tall spires of asphodel and clubs of snapdragon, purple salvias and white garlic, pink geraniums and cistus, tall white umbelliferous plants, and large camomile daisies, all set in a border of deep green herbage which reached the shoulders of the horses. Even the Zor was green, and Jordan's banks covered with flowers, while the brown Turfah or tamarisks and the canebrake hid the rushing stream, and the white marl banks stood out in striding contrast.
Rain, and Bedawîn unpunctuality, delayed our move for several days, but on Tuesday the 10th of March we got to Wâdy Fâr'ah--the open plain north of the S[)u]rt[)u]beh, which Vandevelde marks as "beautifulâ on his map. Drake and the men went on before, and I sat on a box waiting for the camels. Six Arabs appeared, at last, on horseback, escorting a drove of about fifteen camels, ranging from a patriarch with a pendent lower lip to a little woolly thing not as high as a pony, who came along making constant attempts to get refreshment from his mother. Very picturesque no doubt! but they had no proper saddles. The owners proposed to put our boxes in sacks, as they put their own camp-furniture. We bound the things on somehow, and various little negro boys mounted the humps of the camels. They had no bridles, and took seven hours to go as many miles, stopping to crop the grass at intervals; but we were thankful to get any beasts at all in this wild region.
We commenced the triangulation from the new camp at once, and rode out on the 11th to a hill north of it, whence a fine view of the Ghôr could be obtained. On the south was the wide valley, flanked by steep ranges, with the S[)u]rt[)u]beh in the foreground, and the gleaming Dead Sea in the far distance. On the north the valley became narrower, and its surface was broken into mud-islands, and marl mounds scored with hundreds of intricate watercourses--a region well called by the Arabs "the Mother of Steps.â In the middle of it the snaky Jordan wriggled along, with brown tamarisk swamps on either bank; far away were black volcanic ranges and the white dome of snowy Hermon, with the long white line of Anti-Libanus to the west Eastward was the rugged Mount Gilead, crowned by a Crusading castle (K[)u]l'at er Rubud) and on the west the shapeless hills north of Nablus, the mediæval land of Tampne.