literally signifies, "God's vineyard," was synonymous with everything beautifu!; and any one who should spend months, as I have, exploring its infinite variety of wild and hidden valleys, will not fail to understand why this should be so. If in imagination we build up its now ruined terraces and cover them with vines; if we clothe its hillsides with pendulous for. ests of heavy timber, and fancy its level plateaus and fertile valleys waving with grain; if we crown almost every eminence with stately towns, where now we find fragments of columns, carved capitals, immense rock-cut cisterns, huge stone olive-mills, and wine-presses hewn from the solid rock, we may begin to realize the nature of the architecture and of the industries of its once teeming population. Now, with the exception of two small villages whose united population does not amount to a thousand souls, all is silent, desolate, and waste: one rides for hours without meeting a soul, following the cattle-tracks which lead through the thick brushwood - now under lofty beetling crags perforated with caves, now across high breezy plateaus, now along smiling open valleys, now into gloomy gorges, until we almost despair of exhausting the novelty and variety of the scenery.

ber of about thirty feet square. The walls and roof of massive blocks of limestone, which had formed part of some ancient edifice, for Esfia is built on the ruins of an ancient site, secured me midday coolness; and for the few hot hours, we determined to put up with the odors and the insects-waging, nevertheless, incessant war against the latter with powder and other appliances. Then I hired from a Bedouin encampment in the neighborhood their largest tent, and procured from Haifa a number of rafters and mats. The Bedouin tent I stretched on the rafters, which were supported by uprights, so as to form a roof; the walls I made of mats, which were each six feet square, and could be bought for a shilling apiece. This gave me a room thirty-two feet long, seven feet high, and twelve broad, which I sub divided into apartments; besides which, I had an ordinary fourteen-roped canvas tent, and put up a kitchen and shelter for the horses with brush wood. I also strewed as many branches on the roof as the Bedouin tent would bear-thus gaining additional protection against the sun. By these means I obtained accommodation, such as it was, for our whole party, which generally numbered six, and on the occasion of visitors eight, and sometimes even ten, including several ladies; but not, of course, without some unfortunates being condemned to sleep in the vault, to which on any hot days we all repaired for our siestas. On these occasions it often used to represent the mixed appearance of an artist's studio, a schoolroom, and a dormitory, as we pursued our varied avocations of sketching, studying Arabic, writing, and snoring. As soon as it got cool enough in the afternoon, we made exploratory expeditions on horseback, sometimes taking with us our afternoon tea. In the course of these I visited, within easy riding distance of my camp, no fewer than twenty sites of ancient towns and villages -six of which I had the interest and pleasure of discovering, and at all of which the massive remains bore testimony to and on your arrival find your housethe vast and highly civilized population hold, or rather "camphold," consumed which must have at a former period inhab- with an anxiety which is principally comited this historical mountain. Putting it pounded of disgust for having been kept at a very low estimate, Carmel, which has so long waiting for dinner; or else you a circumference of thirty five miles, con- give yourself up to a day in the tombs. tained probably a population of at least This is a more lively occupation than it fifty thousand souls, who must have made sounds. You provide yourself with a of this enchanting highland region a per- candle and matches, and go to certain fect paradise. Indeed, from the nature ruins, in the neighboring rocks of which of the frequent references to it in Holy you have "marked down tombs. How Writ, it is clear that in Biblical days the torn and hot and dusty you get by the "excellency" of Carmel, or, as its name | time you have examined a dozen of these

If we combine the tendencies of the sportsman and the archæologist, these rides offer other inducements besides their mere scenic attractions. At one moment you stumble unexpectedly upon a carved stone, upon which you see, or fancy you see, an inscription; you put down your gun to examine it, and up gets a covey of partridges within ten yards of you; you mark them down, and lo, they have led you to an extensive area of ruin, hitherto unknown and unsuspected by Palestine explorers. For the rest of that day you don't think anything more about partridges, but linger so long over your new discovery, that you lose your way in the dark for you naturally despise guides, and altogether dispense with them

subterranean abodes of the dead, scram- | writers have denied — I may mention that bling about on all fours or à plat ventre, I received notice one morning that a tearing away the brushwood which con- Bedouin had shot one the previous night; ceals their arched entrances, and counting and riding over immediately to his tent, I and measuring their kokim and their found he had killed a very handsome loculi, and making plans thereof, and specimen, measuring a little over six feet sketches of such ornamentation as may from the snout to the tip of the tail — the exist! I have become blasé in regard to skin of which I have now in my possestombs: as I have scrambled into certainly sion. at least a hundred, my mortuary appetite is satisfied. I am only tempted now by one that never seems to have been opened. That, I confess, is irresistible.

There is another animal the habitat of which in Palestine has been deemed doubtful. About ten miles from Dahlieh the Crocodile River flows into the sea, and it has always been said to derive its name from the presence of that reptile in its waters. The other day a man brought me a piece of crocodile-skin about a foot square, as a present, which he had himself cut from the belly of the animal, which he had assisted in killing only a week previously in this stream. In regard to other feræ naturæ, I have several times found the quills of porcupines; young hyenas have been brought to me for sale; gluttons are said to exist, and one or two spe. cies of wildcat. In some of the thickly wooded bottoms there are wild boar, and a friend of mine killed one recently in the marsh near Athlit. In the course of the year I saw altogether two deer and five gazelle at different times, but never when I happened to have a gun. Venison is, however, a luxury in which we are occasionally able to indulge, and I took a handsome pair of horns from the head of a buck recently brought to me. But summer shooting on foot is hot work for the sportsman; and if one rides, the rocky and precipitous nature of the country often involves a wild scramble for the horses, more especially as the paths we generally follow are those made by goats. My horse has a habit, when he is going down a perfectly smooth piece of limestone rock, at an angle of 45o, which overhangs a precipice, of stopping to scratch his ear with his hind foot, which interferes for the moment with my respiration, and of which have in vain tried to break him.

Hitherto I have never found anything more interesting than bones, or more valuable than broken pottery jars. There is an odor about a tomb that has never been opened, when you are the first to roll away the great circular stone that has closed it for the last two thousand years, which, I suppose, would kill you if you inhaled too much of it, and is certainly the most sickening smell I know. But how encourag. ing it is! There is a flavor of hope and anticipation in it that compensates you for feeling inclined to faint. Some of these stones are fancifully engraved sometimes with a seven-branched candlestick on each side of the door, sometimes with a sort of cinquefoil or rosette. Moreover, on the stones in the ruins, one comes across some on which are devices indicating various historical periods down to the Crusades, - the Christian warriors having evidently discovered the charms of Carmel, and having their outposts and summer retreats up here, while they were keeping watch and ward in the strong fortress of Athlit, the Castellum Peregrinorum, which was one of the landing-places of the pilgrims to the Holy Land. So we find occasionally their shields and bosses and crosses on these old stones. But it is not without a certain kind of risk that we rummage about for these records of the past; for, as a general rule, they are so overgrown with brushwood, that we have to push our way without being able often to see where we are going, or know-I ing what kind of creatures we may have to encounter apart from the snakes and scorpions which abound—the former, I believe, rarely venomous, the latter sometimes as large as moderate-sized crabs. I have in some of these caves come across traces of more formidable animals. On the soft soil at the bottom of a large natural cavern which I was one day exploring, I came upon the recent footprints of leopard and lest there should be any doubt as to the existence of these animals on the mountain — which, I observe, some

:

In the course of these scrambles I have three or four times come upon curious square erections, which I have not observed mentioned in any work upon Palestine. The largest of these was fourteen feet high by twelve square, and formed of slabs of stone averaging three feet by two, by one in thickness, laid upon each other without cement, but evidently hewn so that the construction should be symmetrical. I thought at first there might be a chamber inside; but on examining one of the smaller ones, I found it to be perfectly

85°, but only occasionally. As the altitude of our camp at Esfia was seventeen hundred and fifty feet, not only did we enjoy a most agreeable climate, but a mag.

however, from that at Dahlieh. There it was panoramic. Immediately at our feet, scarcely a mile off as the crow flies, was the plain of the Kishon, with that stream winding through it, and issuing from the plain of Esdraelon, over which we also looked by the narrow valley formed by the approach of the low wooded hills of Galilee to the base of Carmel. Sitting at our tent-door, we could see the bay and city of Acre, and the seacoast as far as the ladder of Tyre. The irregular outline of the mountains of northern Galilee, the highest reaching an elevation of four thou sand feet, limited our view in that direction. To the north-east we faced Hermon, with its snowy crest. Nazareth, about twelve miles off, seemed almost at our feet; beyond it was rounded Tabor, the plain of Jezreel, with the villages of Endor and Nain, and Mount Gilboa, with the mountains of Gilead plainly visible in the distance. To the south we looked over the hills of Samaria, and on a clear day could make out the outline of the ruins of Cesarea on the margin of the sea, which bounded our horizon in that direction.

solid. From the weather-beaten appearance of the stones, they seem to have been in position from great antiquity; but whether they were altars, or monuments over tombs, or served some more practi-nificent view of a very different kind, cal purpose, I leave for those skilled in such matters to decide. The huge mill stones are numerous, and are to be found, sometimes far removed from any ruin, in the most remote valleys. The lower one usually measures from eight to ten feet in diameter, with a raised rim round the circumference, eight or ten inches high, and a square hole in the centre: they are about two feet six inches thick, but they are often hewn out of the living rock, as well as the basin for the receptacle of the oil below them. Then there are rock-cut reservoirs: the largest I have seen was about one hundred feet by forty-five, and fifteen in depth; but it was half filled with vegetation, and was originally much deeper. And there are traplike and deceptive cisterns, the mouths of which are about the size of a coal-hole in the pavement of a London street; but when there is a bush instead of a lid over it, a false step may land you in a circular pit perhaps twenty feet deep, of a demijohn shape, and with smooth sides, from which escape would be hopeless. It was into such a pit probably that Joseph was let down by his brothers. These cisterns are very numerous at some of the ruins, and prove how dependent the population were upon rain-water, and how glad they must have been when Elijah saw the cloud from this very mountain, after a three years' drought, which indicated a rainfall.

My two summers' experience of Carmel, however, would lead me to conclude that clouds are the rule, and entirely cloudless skies the exception. Whether it is owing to the high Nile at this time of year, as has been suggested, or to whatever cause, the fact remains, that the midsummer heats are remarkably tempered by the cloudy skies. Although rain never falls between April and October, there are many mornings so damp and cloudy in the middle of summer, that in any other country one would certainly predict a rainy day; and although the sun soon drives the damp feeling away, the cloudy sky remains more or less all the day. This, combined with a strong, fresh sea-breeze, always keeps the temperature cool. In Esfia last summer, the thermometer on the hottest days only reached 81° in the vault, and at night it generally fell to 70° in the tent. Here at Dahlieh it is a little hotter, ranging sometimes in the day to

While, however, enjoying an almost unrivalled prospect and a cool climate, our residence upon this exposed mountain-top was not without its désagrémens. As often as not it blew a gale of wind, generally from the south west, and I sometimes feared that our whole fragile construction would be blown clean down the Wady Shomariyeh, eighteen hundred feet, into the plain below. This was a rocky gorge, on the edge of which our camp was situ ated, so precipitous that there was not even a goat-path down it. Then our cui sine left much to be desired. The cook, in his windy brushwood shed, and without even a table to cook on, struggled manfully with dust-clouds and prowling dogs, performing wonders on a couple of little iron tripods, on which he built charcoal fires; but as he generally cooked enough for the whole day at one time, the seven o'clock dinner was merely the twelve o'clock breakfast, sodden and warmed up, with a great deal more dust in it. Our apartments were so breezy that only large stable lanterns could stand the racket: and they are bad to read by — indeed they are not good to eat by, but the less we saw of our food under the circumstances the better. Fortunately we often had partridges,

supposed to have fled from that town, and as he was known to be a friend of mine, was suspected of being in hiding in my tent.__This conjecture was enough to infect Esfia; for two days we were put into quarantine, and prohibited from going to Haifa, and I had some trouble in convincing the police that I knew nothing whatever of the refugee in question.

daring in their depredations that they would come in broad daylight into the vineyards of the Esfiotes and carry off their grapes under their eyes, without the latter venturing to make any resistance. That they had not suffered that summer from any of these predatory incursions the villagers attributed, rightly or wrongly, to my presence. Under these circumstances they declared, in the first flush of their enthusiasm, that they would present me with a building-site. This I declined, preferring rather to pay a small sum for the land. In my innocence I took their offer for a bond fide one; and it was only when I came to make them what I be.

to vary the stews of chicken and mutton, and plenty of leben or sour milk, tasting very strongly of goat. The flavor of goat is an acquired taste. Then we were rather short of water. All of this necessary of life had to be carried nearly a mile up a steep rocky path: two donkeys were perpetually employed on this service. There was a spring nearer, called "the spring of the leeches." Unwarned When I expressed to the natives of by the name, I once watered my horse Esfia my intention of building at their there, and for some days afterwards was village, the proposal was received with occupied extracting leeches from under his acclamation. My presence, they said, tongue and the recesses of his throat. I would be a protection against the thieving pulled out eleven altogether, so the spring propensities of the inhabitants of Tireh was not misnamed. I thought of trying-a Moslem village in the plain, with a to use it for bathing purposes, but was notoriously bad reputation - who were so afraid the ladies might object, even though the alternative involved a certain economy in tubbing arrangements, which did not comport with our usual habits. We also had nightly visits from jackals, which sometimes had the boldness to poke their noses into our bedrooms in the dead of night, causing our small dog to burst into frantic fits of barking, and producing general consternation and wakefulness. Now and then a scorpion was found under a pillow or in a shoe. But these were little incidents which gave an interest and piquancy to existence unknown in civilized life. I merely mention them to show why, in order that they should not become monotonous, we determined not to sub-lieved was a reasonable proposal, that I ject ourselves to them another year, but discovered they had been indulging in to build something more substantial than complimentary figures of speech, and that our mat-shed. There was, by the way, they demanded one hundred and fifty naone especial inconvenience, a recurrence poleons for a piece of ground which was of which was, it was to be hoped, not to certainly not worth above twenty. Albe anticipated, and this resulted from the though they came down in their price one visitation of cholera in Egypt. When it hundred napoleons at a bound, they had was reported that some cases had oc- shown the cloven foot in too marked a curred in Beyrout, a panic was produced manner for me to choose them as neighin Haifa. A cordon was put round the bors. It would be no satisfaction to me, town, some six or eight families of the I remarked, to protect from the thieves richer native inhabitants flying from it, of Tireh as big a set of thieves after anand taking refuge in Esfia. All postal other fashion, and I declined having any. communication by land and sea was thing more to do with them. It must, in stopped. For two months we were with-justice to the Druses, be remarked, that out news of the outside world—even the telegraph was forbidden to perform its functions, lest news should be conveyed of the spread of the disease which should increase the panic. The consequence was, that the wildest rumors were afloat of the daily mortality in Beyrout, which had never exceeded two doubtful cases in all; and the scare was only thereby increased, till it culminated in a visit to my camp by the police in search of a Haifiote who had been in Beyrout at the moment when these deaths occurred, who was

this part of the village did not belong to them, and that the chief offender in the matter was the head of the Christian community there.

It was about the middle of last winter, when I was beginning with some perplexity to revolve in my mind summer schemes for avoiding the heat of Haifa, that I one day received a visit from a venerable old man with a grey beard and a dignified bearing, who announced himself as the kiatib or spiritual sheikh of the Druses of Dahlieh. His story was a pitiful one.

The term of the annual draft of conscripts | great saving of money to use them. Most for the Turkish army had arrived, and his only remaining son, the husband of a very beautiful young woman whom I remembered having seen, was to be carried off as a soldier. The old mother, and the young wife, who had a baby, were in despair. One son, they said, had been taken under the conscription ten years before, had deserted to his co-religionists in the Hauran, and had been lost to the family forever; and now its last prop was to be snatched from it, unless fifty Turkish pounds were forthcoming to purchase a substitute. The object of the old sheikh's visit was to borrow this amount from me. It occurred to me that if, on inspection, Dahlieh suited as a summer resort, I might kill two birds with one stone, by helping the sheikh out of his difficulties and obtaining a site for a house. I had already visited the place and been struck with its beauty, but I had not looked on it as a possible residence, and I now lost no time in riding up on a tour of inspection. The result was in every respect satisfactory; for it so happened that, besides the sheikh being the owner of a good vineyard, the best situation in the village for a house belonged to him. We therefore had no difficulty in coming to an arrangement to our mutual satisfaction, whereby he saved his son from the army, and I became a landed proprietor in Dahlieh.

of those I took were undrafted stones. And are they not as well preserved in the walls of my house as lying on the barren hilltop? I was in hopes of finding some with devices or inscriptions. Many of those which have been procured from here by the villagers of Dahlieh, and built by them into the walls of their houses, are thus decorated; but I was not so fortunate. There is a handsome sarcophagus, some fragments of columns and stone basins, however, which I have my eye upon, and which at some future period I may succeed in transporting to my new abode. Meantime, curiously enough, I had no sooner begun to dig the foundations of the house, than I struck those of one of a period long gone by. I found, when I got two feet below the surface of the ground, that I could put the whole back wall upon a solid basis of hewn masses of stone, which were so appropri ately placed that they might have been put there to order. I also came upon great quantities of tessere, and hoped to find a tesselated pavement also ready for immediate use. In this I was disappointed; but I came upon a good stone floor, in which was cut a groove about three inches deep and two wide, the object of which did not at first occur to me. Loath to cover it with any cement, it now forms, in all its original rudeness, the floor of a back pas. sage. Near this the workmen came upon I now found I had no time to lose if the a dozen or more iron rings, from two to house was to be built before the hot three inches in diameter, attached to nails weather. Fortunately there were exten- about eight inches long, which had been sive ruins of an ancient town a mile off; clinched at the opposite end. These were and here was an unlimited supply of found about three feet below the surface, stones which had been cut for me by the and were, of course, heavily rusted. I Romans, or possibly an anterior race. think it is likely that they may have been The name of this place is Dubil. It is used for fastening horses. At any rate, I situated on a hill about two hundred feet have passed some of them through the higher than Dahlieh, from which it is sep-fire, and find them excellent as stable arated by a valley terraced with orchards and gardens; and upon comparing it with the numerous other remains of ancient towns which I have visited, I have little doubt that in old times it was the principal city of Carmel, though it has not, so far as I am aware, been identified with any known historical place. It has served as a quarry for the surrounding country for so long, that all its best stones have long since been carried off-indeed I felt myself somewhat guilty in following the general example. But in the absence of any law for the preservation of ancient monuments, it is difficult to be the only person in the country who respects them, the more especially when it involves a

rings. The others I have kept as curios. ities. Besides this, we came upon a large fragment of a carved cornice, which I had carefully put on one side, and which, to my intense disgust, the workmen, by mistake, squared into a building stone; also half a stone basin, a copper coin of the time of Constantine, and a great quantity of broken glass and pottery. In moving a stone wall for a new terrace, I found one of those curious huge rollers mentioned in the Survey of the Palestine Exploration Fund, and which seem peculiar to Carmel-at least I am not aware of their having been found elsewhere in Palestine. There are some twenty of them scattered over the ruins of Dubil, and