I': GENERAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE 'WILDER NESS.-II will be seen from the foregoing remarks, that the country embraced in the Wilderness of Wandering' extended from the borders of Egypt and the Mediterranean on the west, to the plateau of Arabia on the east. How much of the latter it included cannot be determined, because the eastern boundary of Edom is indefinite ; and even were it minutely defined, it would be impo,sible to ascer tain how close to or how far from it the Israelites travelled. There can be little doubt that their march was never conducted, like that of a modern army, in one dense column. It bore a far closer resemblance to the migration of an Arab tribe, whose flocks, herds, shepherds, and guards, with their families spread over the country for many miles. The writer has more than once passed through a moving. tribe whose outer extremities were twenty miles apart. The southern limits of the wilderness were marked by the Red Sea and its gulfs ; and the northern by Canaan, Moab, and Bashan.
This vast region is divided by the Gulf of Akabah, and the deep valley of the Arabah, into , two great sections. The western section is tri angular in form, the base being marked by the Mediterranean coast and the hills of Judah, and I the apex by Ras INJohammed on the extreme south. The physical zeography of this region is very remarkable, and, as it formed the chief scene ot the wandering,s of the Israelites, it must be de scribed with some minuteness.
From the shore of the Mediterranean a great plain extends inland. At first it is very low, and studded with mounds and ridges of drifting sand. It rises gradually, and the sand gives place to a white, flinty soil, which scantily covers the lime stone strata. As the elevation increases, long reaches of rolling tabk-land, and broad ridges vvith naked crowns and long gravelly slopes, stretch away far as the eye can see, while shallow naked wadys, and bleak rocky glens, seam its surface and wind away waterless to the sea. Towards the east the table-land becomes still more uneven. The ridges rise higher and are more rugged, and the valleys are deeper arid wilder. Here, however, are some smooth expanses of upland plain, and broad beds of wadys, coated with a light but rich soil. Springs and wells also become more frequent, and occasionally a streamlet may be traced for a mile or two along its tamarisk-fringed bed. At length the plateau, having attained an altitude of about 2000 feet, breaks down abruptly, in a series of irregular terraces, or wall-like cliffs, to the great valley of Arabah.
Such are the general features of the Desert cf Its name is remarkable. Et-Tih signi fies The Wandering ;' and is doubtless derived from the wanderings of the Israelites, the tradition of which has been handed down through a period of three thousand years. It was at the eastern border of the plateau, in the valley of Arabah, that the camp was pitched so long around the sacred fountain of Kadesh ; and it was up the wild passes that lead from the Arabah to the table-land, that an infatuated and rebellious people attempted to force their way, against the divine command, into Canaan, when they were chiven back with disgrace by the hardy Amalekites (Num. xiv. 40-4.5)• On the north the plateau of Et-Tili rises gradu ally to meet the swelling hills and green vales of Palestine. On the south it also rises in long, bare, gravelly slopes to Jebel et-Tih, which sweeps round like the arc of a bow, aatd regular as a colossal wall, frora Suez to the head of the gulf of Akabah.
Et-Tih is called a desert ;' but if by desert is meant a region of shifting sand, or of barren, gravelly, or rocky plain, it is not a desert. The Hebrew word dbar (1Zin ; DESERT), which is generally applied to it in the O. T., describes its physical character perfectly. It is a pastoral country ; unfitted as a whole for cultivation, be cause of its scanty soil and scarcity of water. Dur
ing the rainy season, however, it is clothed with a sparse vegetation, on which goats, sheep, and camels feed and fatten. Large sections of it were at one time under cultivation. Some of the valleys have a rich soil, which even to this day amply re pays the labours of rude Arab husbandry. The remains of large towns and villages are also studded over it, strewn around fountains and ancient wells. In the torrent beds, cut deeply through the gravelly soil and calcareous rock, and in the blasted trunks of old trees which here and there linger in the valleys and on the hill-sides, we see evidences of a bygone age when rain was more abundant, and when forests covered in part at least the surface of the desert of Et-Tih. Though the hand of the improvident Bedawy has been employed for long nes in the work of destruction ; thouch trees have been cut down, buildings ruined, -fields neglected, wells suffered to become choked up with rubbish, the traces of ancient industry and of a compara tively numerous population have not been wholly destroyed. Field enclosures are seen in many places ; extensive thickets of tamarisks are found extending for miles along the moist bed of some of the deeper valleys (Stewart, The Tent and the Kltan, pp. 185, 19o), Of the district of Eboda, in the centre of Et-Tih, Mr. Drew says : Soon after starting this morning (from Wady Jaifeh) we came upon patches of ground under cultivation, and growing barley and oats. Further on we found extensive traces of field enclosures. At 11.3o we reached Berein (` the two wells'), and rested under the shade of the first group of trees we had seen since leaving the garden at Sinai. The whole country around Eboda was evidently under cultivation. Wide gmssy swards, and ploughed fields, just before we reached this Wady Abeyad, where we are now encamped, show that this region was included in the south country' (Scripture Lands, p. 4). In another place he thus writes As for the soil, the thin and scanty verdure, barely cover ing the limestone which spreads almost everywhere beneath the desert surface, sufficiently explains its nature. Here and there patches of deeper earth, and richer swards, with clumps of trees, vary these pastures of the wilderness ; as again they are broken by wide areas, thickly covered with shrubs of con siderable height and size. These features mark not only a sinking of the rock surface, but the abundant presence of water, which is seldom lack ing in any part of this region' (Id. p. 7). Farther south along the upper parts of Wady el-Arish, the tamarisk, juniper (or vett/a), and other dwarf trees and shrubs, abound (Bonar, Desert cf Sinai, pp. 268, 281). Away at the south-eastern extremity is a high plateau, the bleakest and barest in Et na ; and yet in the wadys which intersect it Dr. Robinson found herbs and Seyal trees. As he .?.dvanced to the interior he says : The smaller wadys were now full of herbs, and gave to the plain the appearance of a tolerable vegetation' (B. R. i. 177). Many other places are described by him as clothed with vegetation, and capable of tillage ; and he states that traces of running water were seen in some of the wadys (pp. 188, r89). Of Wady el-Ain he writes We reached the deep gully which forms its watercourse, and found it bordered with grass, daisies, and other small flowers, most refreshing to the eye. Indeed, we had found to-day more vegetation in the desert than before in all the way from Egypt. . .. After crossing the watercourse we came upon a broad tract of tolerably fertile soil,.capable of tillage, and apparently once tilled. Across the whole tract the remains of long ranges of low stone walls were visible, which probably once served as the divisions of cultivated fields' (p. rgo).