manded, saying, Go and draw toward Mount Tabor, and take with thee ten thousand men of the children of Naphtali, and of the children of Zebulun." Here also, according to the earliest and best Christian tradition, confirmed by Origen little more than two centuries after the birth of Christ, and St. Jerome, who wrote in the fourth century, but questioned by Baedeker and by the Rev. John Lightfoot, the Hebrew scholar, who died in 1675, took place the Transfiguration of the Saviour in the presence of St. Peter, St. James, and St. John. this point, however, I shall have more to say.

On

The slopes of the holy mountain are thickly clothed with oaks, other trees, and various kinds of scrub. Strangely enough, Tabor has always been considered holy; by the early Jews, the Christians of all ages, the Saracens, and the people of Palestine of to-day. This reputation, moreover, is quite independent of the circumstance of the Transfiguration, except of course in the case of Christians. As we rode upwards we passed the tents of an encampment of Bedouins, who have the reputation of being among the most lawless of their turbulent race, but they did nothing more than stare at us. Scrambling along the steep zig-zag path, a ride of about an hour brought us to the summit of the mountain, which is said to be three kilometres in circumference. Passing beneath the ancient gateway we rode to the Latin monastery, known as Residence de la Transfiguration, now in charge of the learned Père Barnabé, O.F.M., Missionaire Apostolique, and an assistant brother. The Father had not returned from some expedition when we arrived, but, upon presenting our introduction, his subordinate entertained us kindly.

We inquired at once for the fresh horses that our American friend had so generously promised to send to meet us here. Our chagrin may be imagined when

we learned that these horses arrived on the previous day, but, as we were not there, had returned to Nazareth, or, for aught we knew, to Jerusalem. Indeed this was nothing short of a blow to us, since to attempt the journey across the plain of Esdraelon and the mountains beyond upon our weary crocks would be a bold undertaking. What made the disappointment more tiresome also, was the certainty that it had not been brought about by chance since, to our knowledge, the dragoman in charge of the horses had received strict and full orders from his employer as to when and where he was to meet Unfortunately, however, the American gentleman, in his forethought and generosity, had impressed upon us that we were to pay nothing for these horses, an injunction which, of course, we intended to disregard. Without doubt he had told the dragoman, or owner, the same thing, whereon that astute Eastern, not knowing our intentions, fulfilled the letter of the law, but broke its spirit. That is to say, he came to meet us, but on the wrong day, and forthwith vanished, so far as we are concerned, for ever.

us.

CHAPTER XVII

TABOR, CARMEL, AND ACRE

LACKING other consolations in our sad circumstance, we took such comfort as we could from tea and the old saying about tears and spilt milk, after which we set out to see the ruins. Both that afternoon and for three hours on the following morning in the company of Father Barnabé, I examined these various and fascinating relics very closely. I do not, however, propose to attempt any detailed description of them; first because it would occupy too much space, and secondly, for the reason that this has already been done in a fashion which I could not hope to rival, by Father Barnabé himself, in his work Le Mont Thabor (J. Mersch, Paris).

These ruins, that are surrounded first by the remains of the encircling and ancient wall built by Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian of the Roman wars, which protected the whole top of the mountain, and, secondly, with the broken fortifications reared by the Saracens and destroyed by them also between 1211 and 1217, may for the present purpose be roughly divided into two parts, that lying to the west of the modern Latin monastery, and that which extends to the east. To the west, at the foot of the garden and beyond it, are caves which at some period probably served as tombs, but were afterwards, doubtless during the first few centuries of the Christian era, used as the habitations of hermits. In certain of these can still be seen