a quarter of a mile broad, and very steep on every side, except to the south-west, which was probably the camp of ancient besiegers. To the north of this is an irregular rising ground, where there are great ruins of vaults, some of which appear to have been reservoirs. To the north-west of this place, and about a mile to the north of the city, is another rising ground, surmounted with the ruins of a very strong square tower, a mosque, and other great buildings, called Abouotidy, from a sheik who was buried there. * Half way between this place and Acre is a fine well. About five miles to the north-east of the town, a narrow valley, watered by a rivulet, runs for some way between high hills: at the end of it rises a hill, supposed by Pococke to be Mount Feret, bearing a fortress anciently belonging, probably, to the knights of St. John; and at the bottom of the hill is a large building of hewn stone. "This place," he says, "is called by Europeans the enchanted castle." On leaving Acre, and turning towards the south-east, the traveller crosses the river Belus, near its mouth, where the stream is shallow enough to be easily forded on horseback. This river rises out of a lake, computed to be about six miles distant, towards the south-east, called by the ancients Palus Cendovia. Of the sand of this river, according to Pliny, glass was first made; and vessels from Italy continued to remove it for the glass-houses of Venice and Genoa, so late as the middle of the seventeenth century. Further southward, towards the south-east corner of the bay of Acre, the traveller fords" that ancient river, the river Kishon," (Judges v. 21.) a larger stream than the Belus, supposed to have its source in the hills to

This account is taken from Pococke, book i. chap. 13.

the east of the plain of Esdraelon, which it intersects. Being enlarged by several small streams, it passes between Mount Carmel and the hills to the north, and then falls into the sea at this point. "In the condition we saw it," says Maundrell, "its waters were low and inconsiderable; but in passing along the side of the plain, we discerned the tracks of many lesser torrents, falling down into it from the mountains, which must needs make it swell exceedingly upon sudden rains, as doubtless it actually did at the destruction of Sisera's host." Mount Carmel extends from the sea eastward as far as the plain of Esdraelon, and southward to Cesarea. Turning the foot of this mountain towards the west, you arrive, at Caypha, which is on the south side of the bay, opposite to Acre; supposed to have derived its name (Kepha) from the rocky ground it stands upon, out of which many sepulchres are cut, mostly like single coffins, but not separated from the rock, and probably of Jewish origin. Caypha," says Dr. Pococke, "is said also to have had the name of Porphureon, from the purple fish found on this coast, with which they made the ancient Tyrian dye. It was a bishopric, and there is a well-built old church entire, which might have been the cathedral. There are also ruins of a large building, that seems to have been the castle; and they have built two forts, as a defence against the corsairs; for this, in reality, is the port of Acre, where ships lie at anchor, it being a bad shore on the other side, where they cannot remain with safety, by reason of the shallowness of the water."

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There are two roads from Acre to the holy city; that by Cesarea and Joppa, which runs for some way along the coast, by which St. Paul came to Jerusalem, on his return from Macedonia (Acts xxi.); and that

by Nazareth, taken by Dr. Clarke. We shall pursue the first route as far as Jaffa, on the authority chiefly of Dr. Pococke.

Opposite to Caypha, the learned traveller ascended Mount Carmel, to the Latin convent of the Carmelites, inhabited at that time by only two or three monks. * Great part of the present convent, and particularly the church and refectory, are grots cut out of the rock, this place not long having been made a monastery, at the period of Dr. Pococke's visit. Towards the foot of the hill is a grot, one of the finest, he says, that he ever saw. "It is like a grand` saloon, and is about forty feet long, twenty wide, and fifteen high. It is cut out of the rock, and is now converted into a mosque. Over this convent are the ruins of the old monastery, where probably the order of Carmelites was instituted: it might at first be inhabited by the Greek caloyers of the order of St. Elias, who had possession of these parts before the Latins were established here. Near it is a chapel in a grot, where, they say, Elias sometimes lived, which is resorted to with great devotion even by the Turks, as well as by the Christians and Jews, on the festival of that saint. We staid all night in the Latin convent, from which

* When Captains Irby and Mangles visited it in 1817, they found the building entirely deserted, and the only friar belonging to the convent residing at Hepha (Caypha). It was pillaged and destroyed by the Arabs after the retreat of the French army from the siege of Acre; the latter having used it as an hospital for their sick and wounded, while their operations were carrying on; and in the places where the poor fellows were lain, the numbers still remain by which they were arranged. Near the convent they noticed some prostrate columns, and in front of a cave, shewn as the place where Elijah had his altar, the remains of a handsome church in the Gothic style, ascribed, like every thing of the kind in the Holy Land, to the empress Helena.

there is a very fine prospect. The next morning we descended the hill, and turning to the west side of it, went a little way to the south, and then to the east, into a narrow valley about a mile long, between the mountains, and came to the grotto where, they say, Elias usually lived. Near it is his fountain, cut out of the rock. Here are the ruins of a convent which, they say, was built by Brocardus, the second general of the Latin Carmelites, who wrote an account of the Holy Land. Over this, on the top of the hill, is a spot of ground which they call Elias's garden, because they find many stones there, resembling pears, olives, and, as they imagine, water melons: the last, when broken, appear to be hollow, and the inside beautifully crystallized."

In this legend we have a specimen of the absurd fictions coined by illiterate monks, which are the only species of information the traveller is able to obtain from the guardians of the supposititious sacred places -fictions not having the slightest pretension to the character of local traditions, and often in palpable contradiction to the sacred history. Yet, it would once have been deemed impious to call in question their truth, and they have been gravely repeated by the most learned Protestant travellers, with marvellous credulity. It is observable that the scene of every remarkable incident in the Scripture narrative, has been laid, by the monks, in grottos or caves; in defiance, frequently not of credibility merely, but of possibility, as well as in opposition to the known habits of the Jews. The real origin of these caves is an interesting question; but the disposition to attach a sanctity to such excavations, whether natural or

* Travels in the East, book i. chap. 14.

artificial, seems common to all nations; it discovered itself in the ancient Egyptian and the classic Greek, the Christian monk and the idolatrous Hindoo, and has been displayed even by the North American Indian. They have been converted into tombs and temples, have been the scene of heathen mysteries and Romish mummeries, the hiding-place of prophets and saints, the cell of the hermit, and the den of the robber. Thus, motives of the most various kinds have led to their formation, and to their being tenanted.

*

Mount Carmel is described as a flattened cone, about 2,000 feet (some say 1,500) in height, and very rocky. Captain Mangles describes it as now quite barren, though at the north-eastern foot of it there are some pretty olive-grounds. But the name properly denotes a range of hills, extending six or eight miles from north to south, having on the east a fine plain, watered by the Kishon, and on the west, a narrower plain descending to the sea. The summits abound with oak and other trees; and among brambles, wild vines and olive-trees may still be found, indicating its ancient state of cultivation, to which an allusion occurs, Amos i. 2; where it is denounced as a punishment upon Israel, that "the top of Carmel shall wither." There was another Carmel, apparently a pastoral district, situated within the tribe of Judah, and not far from Maon.+ It is not always easy to determine to which of these the reference is made, or whether, in all cases, the word is used as the specific name of a place. To this Mount Carmel, however, on the top of which Elijah sacrificed, the prophet Amos obviously refers, when, speaking in the

* 1 Kings xviii. 4. Heb. xi. 38.

+ Compare Joshua xv. 55. 1 Sam. xxv. 2. 2 Sam. iii. 3.