By day the whole firmament is of a clear azure--not a cloud sullies its perfect brightness; and at night it seems spangled with a far greater number of stars than in our northern climes.
Count Zichy ordered the servants to call us betimes in the morning, in order that we might set out before sunrise.

For once the servants obeyed; in fact they more than obeyed, for they roused us before midnight, and we began our march.

So long as we kept to the plain, all went well; but whenever we were obliged to climb a mountain, one horse after another began to stumble and to stagger, so that we were in continual danger of falling.

Under these circumstances it was unanimously resolved that we should halt beneath the next declivity, and there await the coming daylight.
June 9th.
At four o'clock the reveille was beaten for the second time.

We had now slept for three hours in the immediate neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, a circumstance of which we were not aware until daybreak: not one of our party had noticed any noxious exhalation arising from the water; still less had we been seized with headache or nausea, an effect stated by several travellers to be produced by the smell of the Dead Sea.
Our journey homewards now progressed rapidly, though for three or four hours we were obliged to travel over most formidable mountain- roads and through crooked ravines.