Haifa, Feb. 12.—A more thorough examination of the rocky hillsides of the Carmel promontory in the vicinity of the celebrated monastery than I have been hitherto able to give it, has revealed many spots of interest, and one in particular, which seems to have escaped the observation of the Palestine Exploration Fund Survey. About two miles and a half from Haifa the road to Jaffa passes between a projecting spur of the range and a mound about a hundred feet high, which formed the centre of the ancient city of Sycaminum, and which probably conceals some interesting remains, which I hope some day to be able to unearth.
It projects out into the sea, and on the flat rocks at its base, over which the waves break in stormy weather, there is a large circular bath excavated by the Romans, about twenty feet in circumference, with a channel cut through the rock, which admits the rising tide. All round this mound are fragments of columns, carved capitals, and blocks of polished marble, some of the lightest of which I have carried away; but it is upon the unknown contents of the mound itself that my imagination is prone to speculate. On the left of the road are caverns and rock-cut tombs, some containing the remains of loculi; and the surface of the smooth limestone rock leaves traces of ancient steps, and cuttings, showing that in old times the hand of man had been actively employed upon it. I had often examined these, and thought I had reached their limit, when, pushing my exploration farther up the steep hillside a few days ago, through the low brush by which it is covered, I unexpectedly came upon a plateau eight or ten acres in area, and about two hundred feet above the level of the sea, covered with the débris of ancient ruins. It was evidently the upper part of the old city of Sycaminum, and commanded a magnificent view of the coast-line southward, and of what was formerly the lower town, which has heretofore been supposed to be all that there was of the city.
This upper town, from its cool and delightful position, was probably the residence of the wealthier inhabitants; here, too, were fragments of marble columns and carved capitals, and conspicuous among them two gigantic old olive millstones, one about eight feet in diameter and two feet thick, and the other of less diameter, but of more than three feet in thickness. There were, moreover, many rock tombs with loculi, the foundations of ancient walls of immense thickness, and here and there fragments of the wall itself standing, in one place to a height of about five feet. But the most interesting find was a triangular piece of marble, on which was an inscription in a character which may possibly be ancient Syriac. It is certainly not Greek, Roman, or Hebrew, though at the first glance I thought it was the former. Unfortunately, the stone has been cut since the inscription was engraved, and there are only a few letters of each word, one below the other, but it was evidently originally a long one, consisting of many lines. I also discovered here a cistern, with four circular apertures; causing myself to be lowered into it, I found it to be seventy feet long, supported by four pillars hewn from the living rock, lined with cement, and twenty feet high, from the débris with which it was partially choked. Altogether the place is well worth a fuller and more careful investigation, which I hope to give it.