an old khan, “intended as a stopping place for caravans and as a station for soldiers to guard the road and the pools.”  The two upper pools were empty when I saw them, but the third one contained some water and a great number of frogs.  As we went on to Hebron we got a drink at “Philip’s Well,” the place where “the eunuch was baptized,” according to a tradition which lacks support by the present appearance of the place.

Towards noon we entered the “valley of Eschol,” from whence the spies sent out by Moses carried the great cluster of grapes. (Num. 13:23.) Before entering Hebron we turned aside and went up to Abraham’s Oak, a very old tree, but not old enough for Abraham to have enjoyed its shade almost four thousand years ago.  The trunk is thirty-two feet in circumference, but the tree is not tall like the American oaks.  It is now in a dying condition, and some of the branches are supported by props, while the lower part of the trunk is surrounded by a stone wall, and the space inside is filled with earth.  The plot of ground on which the tree stands is surrounded by a high iron fence.  A little farther up the hill the Russians have a tower, from which we viewed the country, and then went down in the shade near Abraham’s Oak and enjoyed our dinner.

Hebron is a very ancient city, having been built seven and a half years before Zoar in Egypt. (Num. 13:22.) Since 1187 it has been under the control of the Mohammedans, who raise large quantities of grapes, many of which are made into raisins.  Articles of glass are made in Hebron, but I saw nothing especially beautiful in this line.  The manufacture of goat-skin water-bottles is also carried on.  Another line of work which I saw being done is the manufacture of a kind of tile, which looks like a fruit jug without a bottom, and is used in building.  Hebron was one of the six cities of refuge (Joshua 20:7), and for seven years and a half it was David’s capital of Judah.  It is very historic.  “Abraham moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built there an altar unto Jehovah.” (Gen. 13:18.) When “Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan, * * * Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.”  At this time the worthy progenitor of the Hebrew race “rose up from before his dead, and spoke unto the children of Heth, saying, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you:  give me a possession of a burying-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”  The burial place was purchased for “four hundred shekels of silver, current money of the land. * * * And after this Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave in the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan” (Gen. 23:1-20).  Years after this, when both Abraham and his son Isaac had passed the way of all the earth and had been laid to rest in this cave, the patriarch Jacob in Egypt gave directions for the entombment of