The young man was presented to the Professor, who expressed our respectful sympathy, and we turned away after a last glance at the loud-wailing group of the indifferent, the silent sadness of those most concerned. Whatever the age or race, "Light sorrows speak, great grief is dumb."
When we left the wady we climbed a precipitous hill, and found ourselves overlooking a deep gorge to our left—the Wady er-Rumman—where abundant verdure showed the presence of water—a rare sight to our eyes, habituated to the aridity of Jerusalem, where running water is so utterly unknown that if for a few hours once a year, after exceptionally heavy rain, it is reported that the Kedron flows, the whole population turns out to witness so extraordinary a phenomenon. As a matter of fact, moreover, the Kedron does not flow, unless far underground, and only a spring—the well of Job or Joab—overflows into the Kedron bed, but the fact is always thus described. Further, we crossed a small tributary stream, where we found a number of shepherds and herdsmen, with camels and sheep and goats. By this time our horses were hot with the climb, and we were forced to deny them the desired refreshment, and hastened on, already somewhat occupied with thoughts of the luncheon promised to us at the fords of Jabbok. When we came—some of us riding in advance with the officer—to a pleasant stream shaded by oleanders we thought he must be mistaken in riding resolutely forward, for we were not yet used to a district in which two streams might be passed in a single day, and were half inclined to wait for those behind. However, we pressed on, and, as no shouts followed us, were glad to have made so much way that it was possible to dismount and rest our horses for a few moments, for the Jabbok, it appeared, was still distant—"over two hills," declared Khalil, when he at last overtook us. They were somewhat stiff hills both to climb and to descend, and not Jacob himself, with his two wives and two women-servants and eleven sons, and all his other anxieties, could have been more glad than we, when, from our last ascent, we saw beneath us a wide expanse of fresh green, showing that we had reached the fords of Jabbok. The river, rising from streams in the hills above Ammân, and sweeping round by the north-west before taking a sudden turn towards the Jordan, accomplishes a journey of sixty miles, not counting its windings, to reach the point which, at starting, was only eighteen miles away. In its descent of some three thousand feet its current gains great swiftness, and it rushes with considerable violence over its rocky bed, as the widely-scattered pebbles—white and water-worn—abundantly testify. Two roads follow its course; and though but a couple of distant villages were in sight, the cultivated land all along its banks showed the near presence of active humanity: a deserted mill among the bushes, and a few fellahin watering their cattle, were, however, our only reminder of human life. We were free to picture any chapter in its history which might strike our imagination—Jacob, occupied with all his family cares and apprehensions, suddenly called upon in the darkness to remember the world of the Unseen; Gideon pursuing the Midianites; the hosts of Chosroes marching from Damascus to the Nile; the Roman legionaries constructing the very road which we have followed to-day; Galilean pilgrims coming up to the Jerusalem feasts by way of Peræa; the propagandists of the Prophet hastening to the north; and lastly, and more enduring than all, the fellahin, with their elementary agriculture, seeking their daily bread like the swallows that are darting overhead or the rat that splashes into the stream, oblivious and indifferent to all other life, and, therefore, permanent and persistent in their own.