138 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



exploration of Palestine, as the most available country 

 for colonisation, and known by the natives as " the 

 breezy land " ; behind which, still further east and 

 north, rise the higher mountains of Palestine, with 

 the rounded summit of Tabor, backed by snow-clad 

 Hermon in the extreme north-east, while immediately 

 to the north the Cannel range shuts in the view. 

 The more one explores the hills and valleys of all 

 this neighbourhood, the more impressed does one 

 become with the numerous traces which abound of 

 the dense population which must at one time have 

 inhabited all this country. Everywhere among the 

 rocks we come upon steps, or grooves, or cuttings, or 

 other evidences of man's handiwork. Here at this 

 hamlet of Summarin my attention was drawn to the 

 ruts in the limestone formed by chariot-wheels, and 

 I found that they led to the remains of what had 

 once been a town. There were the foundations of 

 the old walls ; and at one place the three sides of 

 what had once been a chamber hewn out of the solid 

 rock. Each side contained rows of niches two inches 

 apart each niche being about a foot high, six inches 

 across, and six inches deep. On the most perfect side 

 there were six rows each row containing eighteen 

 niches, and they were continued probably below the 

 debris, Avhich had partially filled in the flooring. I 

 could only imagine them to have served as receptacles 

 for cinerary urns. The peasantry still occupied the 

 little hamlet, which was now to become partly ten- 



