As a precaution, we now encamped on the top of the fatal Tell by Elisha's Fountain, beneath which we had suffered so much three months before. It was no longer a mound of dust, but a hillock, hidden deep in luxuriant mallows with immense round leaves.
We visited the Dead Sea once more, to fix up poles for observing the water-levels; these poles had been carefully made in Jerusalem, and were marked with figures. The first we drove, without difficulty, at the water's edge, but the second it was almost impossible to fix. Floating on my back, I held it upright in the water with my feet, while Drake swam and drove it with a mallet. There was a strong current, which made the operation most difficult, but at length it was so far fixed that I was able to climb on to it, and to drive it down farther with the mallet from above. We were nearly an hour in the water, and Drake suffered from the over-exertion. Within a week the Arabs pulled up the poles, for the sake of the iron, in spite of the reiterated assurances of the Sheikhs that they should be respected.
We next visited the spring encampment of Sheikh Jemîl, and, after the coffee, we were treated to a repast consisting of a sort of omelette and a dish of sweet rice, both very good, as was also the thin wafer-like bread just baked. From the tent-door we looked out on the flowery slopes and the gleaming lake, on the children, camels and donkeys, goats and kids, and lambs with speckled fleeces, such as Jacob chose from Laban's flocks. Here and there a female figure stole out, robed in the dark green and indigo-coloured sweeping garments peculiar to the Bedawîn women; and inside the black camel's-hair tent, on bright cushions and carpets, our friends sat round--Jemîl, the educated chief, who could read and write; Jedû'a, his brother, the great hunter of the ibex; the young flaxen-haired Sheikh who had been one of our principal guides; and many others with faces then quite familiar to me.
On Tuesday the 26th of February we struck camp, and marched north to Fusâil, the ancient Phasaelis founded by Herod. Our procession was spread over a quarter of a mile as I reviewed it from a hillock beside the road. Five Englishmen on horseback came first, eight mules, and eight camels followed, we had four Bedawîn guides, seven muleteers, six servants, and a Bashi-Bazouk, three donkeys, and Sheikh Jemîl's dromedary--in all, twenty-seven individuals and thirty-four animals, including six dogs.