Everywhere in Palestine we come upon the evidences of its antiquity. This plain, now made to yield of its abundance under the skilful labour of the German colonists, is no exception, for in the time of the Romans it was the site of the city of Sycaminum, and in the groovings of rocks upon which the sea now breaks we see the traces of what were its baths; in the mounds we find fragments of old masonry and cement; in the depressions we see signs of wells, and in the rock cuttings of tombs. Only the other day I found, while digging in the garden for the prosaic purpose of planting cabbages, a fragment of polished agate which probably formed a part of the tessellated pavement of some Roman villa.
So the process of decay and reconstruction goes on, and man is ever trying to rear something new on the ruins of the old. Let us hope that the sixty or seventy substantial houses of the new colony are but the outward and visible signs of that moral edifice which these good people have come to Palestine to erect, and that from the ruins of a crumbling ecclesiasticism they may build a temple worthy the worship of the future.
Haifa, Feb. 7.—It was my fate as a child to live in a country-house in Scotland, of which one half was some centuries old, with stone walls several feet thick, and circular stone steps leading up into a mysterious tower, which was supposed to be haunted, and in which it was rumoured that a secret chamber existed, built in the wall, and I remember perfectly that certain places seemed to sound hollow to blows of a crowbar, which as I got older, I used to apply to suspected localities. It is more years than I care to think of since those days, but I can trace a resemblance to that childish feeling in the sensations by which I am animated when I wander over the gloomiest recesses of Carmel alone in search of caverns.
It is called in some ancient Jewish record “the mountain of the thousand caves,” and has been inhabited from time immemorial by hermits and religious devotees. Independently of the Biblical record, we have historical traces of its holy character. According to the most ancient Persian traditions, sacred fire burned at the extreme western point of Carmel. Suetonius speaks of the oracles of the god of Carmel, and Alexander the Great repeats the saying. The Syrian city, Ecbatana, alluded to by Pliny, was situated on this mountain. Pythagoras lived here in retreat for some time because it had a reputation for superior sanctity, but Strabo mentions the caves as being haunts of pirates. They were doubtless used as places of refuge for bad characters, as well as of seclusion for pious ones. Others were used for tombs, others for crusaders' sentry-boxes, and now they are the retreat of flocks and herds, and in some instances storehouses for grain.