It was a common notion that the English intended to take the country, the Survey being only preparatory to that step. The land was being parcelled out, and cairns erected on the high mountains where the chief men would build their houses. The surveyors were looking for crosses cut on the ruins, and intended to claim ownership of all such places. Most of the peasantry believed they were seeking for hid treasure, which by incantation would be wafted to England. Sometimes they dug for gold under the cairns; often they pulled them down, and had in consequence to be imprisoned. A shepherd saw the party levelling, and had a vague idea they were making a railway, “Will you let the sea into Jordan?” he asked, “or will the steamships go on wheels?” “The best idea” (says Conder) “was that we were sent by the Sultan to see what villages had become ruinous, and to remit their taxes. We were favourites then!”
The work of the Survey was not carried out without frequent discomforts. For instance, the Bukei’a plain is good corn land, “but seems to have a bad natural drainage, and our mules floundered in deep bogs, sometimes up to their girths. Farther north we began to descend a long valley, and came on a different kind of country, a basaltic outbreak appeared, and cliffs tilted in every direction; the valley bed was strewn with fragments of hard basalt. Passing over a bare ridge we descended into a most desolate valley where a muddy stream was flowing. We had ridden 15 miles, and it now began to rain again. We found to our dismay that this was where we had to camp, as no other supply of water existed in a position central to the new work. We soon made a still more unpleasant discovery. The valley was full of clear springs, but they were all tepid and salt. If the Survey was to be done at all, it appeared that we should have to drink brackish water for ten days or more. Here, then, we sat down on the wet grass, in a driving drizzle of rain, by the brackish stream: not a soul was to be seen, either Bedawi or peasant, and it was evident that food would have to be brought from a distance. The mules soon arrived with our tents and beds, which though soaked with rain, we set up on the bare ground. Of course all the party were cross, and thought themselves injured. I had a very bad cold and rheumatism, and Habib had tic-douloureux. The Arabs looked wretched; but I was glad they should have their share of the hardships, for, unlike our Abu Nuseir friends at Jericho, they were the most lazy and good-for-nothing tribe we had come across.”