All the great
things have been done by the little nations. It is the Jordan and the
Ilyssus that have civilised the modern races. An Arabian tribe, a clan
of the AEgean, have been the promulgators of all our knowledge; and
we should never have heard of the Pharaohs, of Babylon the great and
Nineveh the superb, of Cyrus and of Xerxes, had not it been for Athens
and Jerusalem.
Tancred rose with the sun from his encampment at Hebron, to traverse,
probably, the same route pursued by the spies when they entered the
Land of Promise. The transition from Canaan to the stony Arabia is
not abrupt. A range of hills separates Palestine from a high but level
country similar to the Syrian desert, sandy in some places, but covered
in all with grass and shrubs; a vast expanse of downs. Gradually the
herbage disappears, and the shrubs are only found tufting the ridgy tops
of low undulating sandhills. Soon the sand becomes stony, and no trace
of vegetation is ever visible excepting occasionally some thorny plant.
Then comes a land which alternates between plains of sand and dull
ranges of monotonous hills covered with loose flints; sometimes the
pilgrim winds his way through their dull ravines, sometimes he mounts
the heights and beholds a prospect of interminable desolation.
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