water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their 
faces: and they said. The Lord he is the God; the Lord he is the God .” 1 
At the foot of the ascent is an Oratory, now Turkish, covering a grotto, which is 
said to have been inhabited by Elijah. Among the ruins of the Convent is another 
grotto, containing an altar dedicated to the Prophet. A monk even told one of our 
latest travellers that he had seen Elijah, whose person and habits he described with 
minuteness, though his vision was palpably the dream of a sick bed . 2 The mountain 
was once the favourite refuge of pilgrims and anchorites; its heights are perforated in 
every direction with their caves; and, independently of its sacred character, the grandeur 
of its prospect, the purity of its air, and the refreshing coolness of its elevation, in the 
burning summer of the shores below, must have made it an incomparable retreat, alike 
from the fire of the plains and the troubles of the world. 
1 1 Kings, xviii. 36—39. 2 G. Robinson. 
RAMLA. 
On the strength of a more than doubtful tradition, this town has been long regarded 
as the Arimathea of Scripture. It lies on the eastern side of a broad, low swell in 
the sandy plain, from which it has obviously taken its present name (Er-ramlah, the 
sand). The soil has the general fertility of this part of the coast, and the approach 
is through olive-groves, and gardens productive of remarkably fine fruit of various 
kinds. The Kharub, Sycamore, and Palm, are not unfrequent in its neighbourhood . 1 
Kamla has been rescued from the general decay of the sea-shore towns, by the 
annual passage of the Great Caravan between Damascus and Egypt. This has pro¬ 
duced some struggling trade, and partially supports three thousand inhabitants, of whom 
one-third are Greek Christians. The town contains several Mosques, some houses 
built of stone, and of considerable size, and the largest Latin Convent in Palestine. 
It lies nearly N.W. of Jerusalem, at a distance of about eighteen miles. 
The Artist visited the Convent, and was well received by the Superior, a Spaniard, 
who, with some of the brotherhood, accompanied him on a walk round the town. 
“ On the west Were the Tower and ruined walls of a Mosque, which the Monks, as 
usual, pronounce to have been once a Church, but the style is decidedly Saracenic. 
Within its quadrangle remain some subterranean chambers, which were probably tombs, 
and bear evidences of Poman origin .” 2 
The Empress Helena, the great authority in all the legends of Palestine, claims the 
credit of having built the Churches of Ramla; but the chief Mosque is stated, on less 
shadowy grounds, to have been the Church of the Knights of St. John. 
Biblical Researches, iii. 27. 
' J Roberts’s Journal. 
