in the Bay of Acre. Mr. Zeller kindly undertook to conduct him to that place, where, by the aid of the British consul, as we afterwards found, he procured an Arab boat, and rejoined the yacht at Beyrout.

At forty minutes past nine A.M. on Wednesday, the 6th May, we left Nazareth. Our destination was Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee; and we had sent off an hour before, and by the shortest road to that place, two of the mukharis and Gaetano with our tents and baggage. As we intended ourselves to travel by a different road which would enable us to visit Mount Tabor, we took the chief mukhari, Ahmed, along with us to be our guide. The country between Nazareth and Tiberias is generally considered to be somewhat unsafe, except for travellers who are well armed. Happily, however, we were none of us haunted with any fears on that score. There was not a single weapon of any sort in all our company save the gun carried by one of the Nazareth people, whom we engaged to accompany us as far as Tabor. The road we took after crossing the little basin in which Nazareth lies, wound up the hills on its eastern side, and conducted us in the same direction over many heights and hollows, and all the while in the heart of the hills, for about an hour. All through these uplands, oats were everywhere to be seen growing wild-most fit emblem of the stony-ground hearers -for there was no corn in the ear. When shall there wave on the top of these mountains even an handful of that better corn, the fruit whereof shall shake like Lebanon! As we came nearer to Tabor, whose broad summit had been appearing every now and then through some southward opening of the hills, we entered a fine oak forest, at the farther side of which we found ourselves looking down a wooded valley which opened out upon the plain. On the eastern side of this romantic valley, a projecting spur from the Galilean range of hills runs right out to Tabor, and merges into it at a height of three or four hundred feet above the level of the plain at the valley's mouth. This valley, which reaches far back among the hills, collects into it the waters that

form the main stream of the Kishon.

Nothing can be more picturesque than the aspect of Tabor as seen from the point of view at which we had now arrived. As seen from the west in crossing the plain of Jezreel, it is the narrow and naked end of the hill that meets the eye, springing sharply up from the smooth expanse before it. As seen from the north, it is its broad side, clothed from base to summit with many tinted woods, that faces us, and with the exquisitely varied foreground between, of the opening valley at whose mouth it stands. On the margin of the plain, and close to the entrance of the valley, is the village of Debûrieh-marking the site, and preserving in its name a memorial of the ancient Daberath, one of the cities granted to the Levites in the territory of Issachar.

Our ride from Nazareth, the greater part of which was over very rough and rocky ground, occupied the better part of two hours. It was near twelve o'clock when we began the ascent of Tabor. The north face of the hill is considerably less steep than any of the other three sides, which drop down all but precipitously upon the plain. Upon the north, as already explained, it is connected with the adjacent hills of Galilee by the beautifully wooded ridge that forms the east side of the valley by which we approached it. Above the point at which this ridge touches the mount, a series of zig-zag paths enable those who are so disposed to ride up without dismounting, to the very summit-no doubt the very paths which led up in ancient times to the town which stood upon it, and of whose walls and fortifications extensive remains exist to this day. The top of the hill is about half a mile in length, and about a quarter of a mile in breadth, save towards its western extremity, where it narrows to not more than a hundred yards From this point there is a magnificent view of the whole plain of Esdraelon, or Jezreel From this western extremity of the top of Taber, we locked over to Silem, the ancient Shunem, on the western slope of the little Hermon. Here it was that the good Shunammite lived who prepared a über for the prophet Elida A little nearer us and on the

northern slope of the same hill, is the village of Nain, where our Lord restored to life the widow's son. By the help of the good glass we carried along with us, we could descry every tree and bush, every rock and ruin, about both of these interesting places. Beyond Nain eastwards, and at no great distance from it, the site of En-dor was pointed out, where Saul came to visit the woman who had a familiar spirit. The sea is not in sight from Tabor. By a slight curve in the Galilee range of hills, they overlap in the distance the range of Carmel, so as on the west entirely to shut in the plain. Owing partly to the great extent of the plateau on the top of Tabor, and partly to the circumstance of its being covered in most places with dense thickets of dwarf oaks and other trees, it is impossible from any one part of it to see all round the hill. Upon this plateau there is a beautiful open space, carpeted with rich grass and bestrewed with wild flowers, and all but completely encircled by a broad belt of wood. This sheltered and most attractive inclosure is towards the east end of the summit of the hill, and all around it there are massive remains of walls, and bastions, and vaults amply sufficient to show how strongly the hill was fortified in ancient times, and to explain the fact which Josephus relates, that Placidus, one of Vespasian's generals, who was sent to seize it, found the enterprise too hard for him, though he at length gained by fraud what he was unable to take by force. The fact that this town existed on the summit of Tabor in the times of our Lord, and that there was another town upon its base, is of itself sufficient to shake all confidence in the tradition which placed on this hill the scene of the transfiguration. To have taken the disciples to Tabor, would not certainly have been to take them to "a hill apart " -a hill where they should be alone. Of the true scene of the transfiguration, I shall have occasion afterwards to speak. Among the ruins already spoken of, a few natives still live, one of whom accompanied us to a point at the south-eastern angle of the summit of the hill, where the finest view is obtained of the whole country to the north, east,

and south. East from Tabor there spreads out what may be called the continuation of the plain of Jezreel. That plain passing out, as formerly described, in two arms—the one arm between Tabor and the little Hermon, and the other and broader arm between that hill and Gilboa-stretches away onwards to the valley of the Jordan. Seen from the height of Tabor, it has the aspect of a nearly level country, though, in point of fact, as we found in crossing it the same afternoon, it is full of undulations quite sufficient to hide the distance, and to make it very easy to lose one's way. The whole of this extensive tract of country was covered with the richest verdure; bare as to trees, but clothed all over with strong vegetation-partly corn crop, partly grass, and partly, or rather chiefly rank weeds and thistles. This broad expanse of green seems as if, along its eastern margin, it joined on to the rugged mountainous country of Gilead and Bashan beyond it. The Ghor, or Jordan valley, at which it really terminates, is entirely hidden in its own deep hollow. Tabor, the little Hermon, and Gilboa, stand upon the watershed between the Mediterranean and the Jordan valley. The Kishon, issuing into the plain at the north-western base of Tabor, falls into the sea at Carmel. Another water-course which descends from the hills of Galilee immediately to the north-east of Tabor, makes its way in a south-easterly direction to the Jordan. It is across this country on which Tabor thus looks down, that Captain Allen, as noticed in an earlier chapter, would fain have his canal dug from the Bay of Acre, in order to let back the sea into what he holds to have been its ancient bed in the Jordan valley. Happily, there are too many difficulties-physical, political, and financial-to leave any chance for his barbarous proposal of drowning 2000 square miles of the most interesting historical country in the world, in order to find a shorter water-way to India. From Tabor an immense stretch of the hill country, that runs along the eastern side of the Jordan is visible. Beginning at the great Hermon, with its snowy summits at the head of the Jordan valley, far away in the north-east, the eye ranges south