126 TEAVEL, ADVESTTTJRE, AND SPOET. 



seems here almost honeycombed with caves. These 

 are worth stopping to examine, though they look 

 mere holes in the rock. Some of the apertures are 

 so filled up with debris that an entrance is impossible ; 

 but if we lie down and peer in, we see the marks of 

 cuttings in the rock, showing that they have been 

 inhabited. Others are larger, and have been carved 

 into rude doorways; and in these, again, are stone 

 divisions, as though the occupant had made himself 

 a stone bed. Some are cut into oblong shapes resem- 

 bling sarcophagi, and suggest that they may have 

 been used for tombs. Everywhere the steep lime- 

 stone rock bears marks of having been much in- 

 habited : flights of steps are cut into it ; square cut- 

 tings exist where solid blocks have been taken out of 

 it. In one place there is a complete corridor behind 

 a series of flying buttresses of rock, where flocks of 

 goats take shelter now. In the crusading days Car- 

 mel must have been a perfect rabbit-warren of hermits 

 if all these caves were occupied and those I have 

 so far examined certainly have been. There is, how- 

 ever, also a theory to the effect that they served as 

 sentry-boxes to the crusaders. At any rate, not a 

 twentieth part of them have been examined, for they 

 abound all through this limestone mountain, and here 

 alone is occupation enough cut out for the winter 

 resident. From the point where these first caves are 

 situated we have a magnificent view of an unbroken 

 line of beach for about twelve miles, and on a pro- 



