The Mountains, Or Huge
Stony Mounds Environing This Rough Path, Have Level Ridges All The
Way Up To Their Summits; On These Parallel Ledges There Is Still
Some Verdure And Soil:
When water flowed here, and the country was
thronged with that extraordinary population, which, according to
the Sacred Histories, was crowded into the region, these mountain
steps may have been gardens and vineyards, such as we see now
thriving along the hills of the Rhine.
Now the district is quite
deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified
waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes;
scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride.
The sparrows are all at Jerusalem, among the housetops, where their
ceaseless chirping and twittering forms the most cheerful sound of
the place.
The company of Poles, the company of Oxford men, and the little
American army, travelled too quick for our caravan, which was made
to follow the slow progress of the ladies' litter, and we had to
make the journey through the mountains in a very small number. Not
one of our party had a single weapon more dreadful than an
umbrella: and a couple of Arabs, wickedly inclined, might have
brought us all to the halt, and rifled every carpet-bag and pocket
belonging to us. Nor can I say that we journeyed without certain
qualms of fear. When swarthy fellows, with girdles full of pistols
and yataghans, passed us without unslinging their long guns - when
scowling camel-riders, with awful long bending lances, decorated
with tufts of rags, or savage plumes of scarlet feathers, went by
without molestation - I think we were rather glad that they did not
stop and parley:
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