name of God, he says: "If they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence." * But, as the height of the mountain will not altogether account for the expression, "hide themselves," it is far from improbable, that there is an allusion to the caves with which it abounded, and which seem to have been places of refuge in the time of Elijah. The "excellency of Carmel," + if this district be alluded to, may denote either the vineyards and olive-grounds which once clothed the sides of the mountain, or the rich pastures which the range of hills so designated seem to have afforded, and which rendered it" the habitation of shepherds." + Pursuing the line of the coast, the traveller comes to a castle on a small rocky promontory, extending about a quarter of a mile into the sea, and nearly half a quarter of a mile broad, having a small bay to the south. The place is said by Pococke to bear among the Franks the name of Castle Pellegrino, but to be called by the natives Athlete. It was formerly called Petra incisa. "There seems," he adds, 66 to have been a town to the east and south-east of the promontory, as appears from the walls which are almost entire, and are built of large hewn stone rusticated." The castle he describes as very magnificent, and 66 SO finely built that it may be reckoned as one of the things that are best worth seeing in these parts.”. "It is encompassed with two walls, fifteen feet thick ; the inner wall on the east side cannot be less than forty feet high, and within it there appear to have been some very grand apartments. The offices of the fortress seem to have been at the west end, where I saw an oven eighteen feet in diameter. In the † Isaiah xxix. 17; xxxiii. 9; xxxv. 2. Amos ix. 3. castle there are remains of a fine lofty church of ten sides, built in a light Gothic taste: three chapels are built to the three eastern sides, each of which consists of five sides, excepting the opening to the church; in these, it is probable, the three chief altars stood. The castle seems to have been built by the Greek emperors, as a place for arms, at the time when they were apprehensive of the invasions of the Saracens." * When Pococke visited the spot, it does not appear to have been inhabited; but Captains Irby and Mangles found here a modern village situated on the promontory, and apparently constructed from the ruins of the ancient city. "It is," they say, "of small extent, and would appear from its elevated situation and the old walls which surround it, to have been a citadel, as there are the ruins of two other walls without it. The outer one, which we may suppose to have included the remainder of the ancient town, incloses a considerable space of ground now uninhabited." Referring to the ruins of the church, they state that its form was originally a double hexagon; the half still standing has six sides. On the exterior, below the cornice, are human heads and heads of animals, (those of the lion, the ram, and the sheep, are distinguishable,) in alto-relievo. The exterior walls have a double line of arches in the Gothic style, the architecture light and elegant. "From the commodiousness of the bay, the extent of the quarries in the neighbourhood, and the fine rich plains near it, though now but partially cultivated, it would seem," they add," that this place was formerly of much importance, and that the neighbourhood, though now very thinly inhabited, was once populous." Travels in the East, book i. chap. 15. About ten miles to the south of Castle Pellegrino is the small village of Tortura, supposed to be the ancient Dora, with a port to the south for large boats, which are sometimes forced to put in by stress of weather. To the north of the port is a small promontory, on which there is a ruined castle; and here, probably, was situated the old town. Captain Mangles says: "There are extensive ruins here, but they possess nothing of interest." Between three and four miles south of Tortura, the traveller crosses a small river called Coradgè, supposed by Pococke to be the Kerseos of Ptolemy; and, about three miles north of Cesarea, he passes the river Zirka, the flumen crocodilon of Pliny, and the river Cesarea of Palestine of Reland. Dr. Pococke was credibly informed on the spot, that there are crocodiles in this river, agreeably to Reland's statement, and that some of these had been brought to Acre. “They say, the crocodiles are small, not exceeding five or six feet in length, but that they have taken some young cattle that were standing in the river; so that it is probable, a colony from some city in Egypt that worshipped the crocodile, came and settled here, and brought their deities along with them." Cesarea is still called by the Arabs Kissary, but not a single inhabitant remains where once stood the proud city of Herod. "Perhaps there has not been," remarks Dr. Clarke, " in the history of the world, an example of any city that in so short a space of time rose to such an extraordinary height of splendour as did this of Cesarea, or that exhibits a more awful contrast to its former magnificence, by the present desolate appearance of its ruins. Its theatres, once resounding with the shouts of multitudes, echo no other sound than the nightly cries of animals roaming for their prey. Of its gorgeous palaces and temples, enriched with the choicest works of art, and decorated with the most precious marbles, scarcely a trace can be discerned. Within the space of ten years after laying the foundation, from an obscure fortress, (called the Tower of Strato, as it is said, from the Greek who founded it,) it became the most celebrated and flourishing city of all Syria." It was named Cesarea by Herod, in honour of Augustus, and dedicated by him to that Emperor, in the twentyeighth year of his reign; and it was called Cesarea of Palestine, to distinguish it from Cesarea Philippi, or Cesarea Paneadis. It was afterwards called Colonia Flavia, in consequence of privileges granted to it by Vespasian, who made it a Roman colony. It is reckoned to be thirty-six miles from Acre, thirty from Jaffa, and sixty-two from Jerusalem. * Though conveniently situated for trade, Cesarea had originally a very bad harbour; but Herod, at a great expense, made it one of the most convenient havens on the coast.+ A mole is mentioned, which was carried out 200 feet into the sea. Dr. Pococke observed flat rocks about the port, on which some works were probably raised to protect the vessels from the westerly winds. The supposed sites of the ancient edifices are mere mounds of undefinable form, affording no basis for topographical conjectures. The aqueducts, however, still remain, as monuments of its ancient magnificence; they run north and south. The lower aqueduct, which is to the east of the other, * On a medal of Marcus Aurelius it is called COL. PRIMA FL. AUG. CAESAREA. Josephus, Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 13., and De Bello Jud. lib. i. cap. 21. The On a is carried along on a wall without arches, and of no great height; it is thirteen feet thick, and seems to have conveyed a great body of water in an arched channel, which is five feet six inches wide. The other aqueduct, forty yards nearer the sea, is built on arches ; the side next the sea is a rusticated work, but the east side is plastered with a strong cement. Both aqueducts are now almost buried in the sand. The walls of the town are said to have been built in the time of the Crusades, by Louis IX. of France; they are of small hewn stone, and about a mile in circumference, defended by a broad fosse. ancient city extended further to the north. point of land stretching from the south-west corner of the walls, there are the ruins of a very strong castle, to which Pococke is disposed to assign the same date as to the walls, and which he describes as full of fragments of very fine marble pillars, some of granite, and a beautiful grey alabaster. Captain Mangles says, that it has apparently been constructed on the ruins of a Roman temple, as immense pillars of granite form the foundation. These, no doubt, are some of the materials used by Djezzar Pasha in the construction and decoration of his palace and the public buildings at Acre. "Within the walls," continues Pococke, "there are great ruins of arched houses, which probably were built during the time of the Holy War; but the ground is so much overgrown with briars and thistles, that it was impossible to go to any part where there was not a beaten path. It is a remarkable resort for wild boars, which abound also in the neighbouring plain; and when the Mahommedans kill them, they leave their carcases on the spot, as it would defile them only to touch them. There is no other remarkable ruin within the walls, |