132 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



by a hole in the rubbish at our feet, we scramble into 

 it, and find ourselves in a dark vault, the dimensions 

 of which a lighted lucifer-match fails to reveal ; but 

 this is only a visit of reconnaissance, so we do not 

 waste time over it, but proceed on our exploration, 

 enabled only to gather vague ideas as to the former 

 shape and aspect of these massive ruins ; for they 

 have been built over by the squalid group of peas- 

 antry who have made them their home, and whose 

 huts, nestling into them in every direction, render 

 examination difficult. Then they have for centuries 

 served as a quarry, from which ready-cut blocks of 

 stone could be taken away to build the fortifications 

 of Acre, or construct mosques or public buildings in 

 the towns on the coast. No doubt all that was finest 

 in the shape of columns or stone-carving has long 

 since been removed, but from the fragments that 

 remain we are enabled to form some idea of the past 

 grandeur of the place. Situated on a projecting prom- 

 ontory, washed on three sides by the sea, Athlit was 

 protected by a sea-wall, the massive fragments of which 

 still remain, and which has evidently succumbed to 

 the ravages, not of the ocean, but of man. On the 

 occasion of my visit there was a heavy sea rolling, 

 and the effect was inexpressibly grand. I stood on 

 the edge of the ruin, some fifty feet above the rocks, 

 and watched the breakers swirling over them, and 

 dashing themselves upon the ancient masonry, through 

 the base of which here and there breaches have been 



