I certainly felt a little afraid, but my pride would not allow me to confess the truth; so our people received the order to be prepared to set out at midnight.
Thus we four persons, alone and totally unarmed, travelled at midnight through the wildest and most dangerous regions.
Fortunately the bright moon looked smilingly down upon us, and illuminated our path so brightly, that the horses carried us with firm step over every obstruction.

I was, I must confess, grievously frightened by the shadows! I saw living things moving to and fro-- forms gigantic and forms dwarfish seemed sometimes approaching us, sometimes hiding behind masses of rock, or sinking back into nothingness.

Lights and shadows, fears and anxiety, thus took alternate possession of my imagination.
A couple of miles from our starting-place we came upon a brook crossed by a narrow stone bridge.

This brook is remarkable only as having been that from which David collected the five stones wherewith he slew the Philistine giant.

At the season of my visit there was no water to be seen; the bed of the stream was completely dry.
About an hour's journey from Jerusalem the valley opens, and little orchards give indication of a more fertile country, as well as of the proximity of the Holy City.