The Wadi Hamam begins gently in eastern Galilee near the village of Eilabun.

I follow a winding stream through the canyon known as Wadi Hamam. The water offers focus; it splashes across gravel, slowing only occasionally to waller in mudholes. Dense vegetation crowds the water’s edge. It is a narrow passage of brush and boulder, soft willow and thorny jujube, one that Dorsey calls “virtually impassable today” (1991:96). I can see why.