six P.M.
The next morning he procured a number of clumsy waggons , with horses , asses , camels , and provisions ; and his caravan set out , to travel all day over a plain , a `` goodly land , '' the almond-tree in blossom , orange and olive , everywhere lilies , the scarlet anemone , he considering himself so familiar with the way , that he was their only guide , though the morning was misty ; and through the plain of Sharon they wended over the worst roads in existence , until , passing into a country of rocks , they made out afar the mountains of Judæa , whose patches of white stone look like snow in sunshine , on the roads streams of wayfarers , tending all eastward to Jerusalem , lines of camels and waggons , pedestrians with wine-skins , mother and sucking child on the solitary ass , and the Bedouin troop ; but Spinoza was all solitary among fastnesses on the third forenoon when he muttered nervously : `` I must certainly have lost the way '' . Thereupon he called halt , and the caravan turned back to re-find the road , Spinoza prying on camel-back foremost , clad now in the caftan and white robes of the Orient . But all day the caravan wandered out of the track in a white sea of mist : no farmstead , nor cot , but the wild vine , and the wild fig , and twice a telegraph-tree , still with its bark on , and the abandoned hold of a bandit-sheik . Finally , near six P.M. , Spinoza , finding himself in a valley-bottom , sent out the order to pitch camp : upon which the tents were fixed near a brook , waggons grouped around , and animals picketed to grass . Spinoza , the two ladies , and Loveday , then ate together at the door of one tent ; after which he rose and strolled away , thinking how best to handle this crab of Israel . He noticed that the mist was lifting a little ; and suddenly , as he strolled , he stood still , listening : for remote tones of singing or mourning seemed to meet his ear -- from the west : and in some moments more he saw the Mount of Olives -- to the west , not , as he believed that it must be , to the east , he having , in fact , in losing his way from the coast , passed by Jerusalem to the north ; and on the other side of the Mount of Olives , from its foot to the Brook Kedron , spread at that moment over the Valley of Jehosophat an innumerable multitude , covered in praying-shawls , many prostrate , many with the keen and stressful face of supplication lifted in appeal to God , that He would visit His people , and turn again in this latter day to His lost and helpless flock . Every child of Israel who could contrive it , at whatever cost , was there , since it was the prophesied day of -- `` the Coming '' .