CHAPTER VI.

CARMEL AND ACRE.

Carmel is best described as a triangular block of mountains, the apex being the promontory on which the Carmelite monastery stands. The watershed runs south-east from this point for twelve miles, to the Mahrakah or “place of burning,” a peak visible from Jaffa in fine weather: south of which lies Wâdy el Milh, and above that valley a large volcanic outbreak near the apparent centre of upheaval of the Carmel ridge. Another centre also exists farther west near Ikzim. The highest part of the mountain is 1740 feet above the sea at the Druse village of ’Esfia. The Peak of Mahrakah is only 1687 feet high, and the promontory by the monastery 500, but the slope of the shed is gradual. Long spurs run out westwards from this ridge and fill up the triangle, their western extremities having steep slopes above a narrow plain along the sea-coast. In the valleys among them are two fine springs, and others smaller. The north-eastern declivity of the ridge is extremely steep, and fine cliffs occur in places. At the foot of the mountain are numerous springs feeding the Kishon, which runs beneath, gradually diverging northwards. The little town of Haifa nestles under the promontory, by which it is sheltered from the south-west wind, its bay forming the best harbour on the coast. On the north side of the bay is St. Jean d’Acre, twelve miles along the curve of the shore from Haifa. On the narrow plain, between Carmel and the sea, there are also many places of interest. Sycaminon, Geba of Horsemen, Calamon, Elijah’s Fountain, the Crusading Capernaum, and the strong and beautiful Château Pelerin with its little advanced port of Le Detroit. On Carmel itself is a ruined synagogue, and on the south of the range beneath the inland cliffs are the fine springs feeding the Crocodile river.

First of all in interest comes the cliff of El Mahrakah, “the place of burning” or of sacrifice, a peak forming the south-east extremity of the main range, and tilted high above the white downs south of the mountain, in consequence, as we discovered, of volcanic disturbance. The peak is a semi-isolated knoll with a cliff some forty feet high looking south-east; beneath it a small plateau of arable soil with olives; bushes and shrubs grow up the cliff, and among them a little modern chapel stands near a large dry reservoir; below the plateau, at the very edge of the steep slope which descends to the plain, is a well, cut in hard rock and shaded by a large locust-tree. It contained water even in December before the rains, though not in great quantity, and it was infested with large hornets. From the summit of the cliff the view was wonderfully interesting: on the west the spurs of Carmel, the yellow sand-hills round Cæsarea, the far horizon of sea; on the north Acre, the Galilean hills, Lebanon and Hermon; on the east Nazareth, Tabor, Nain, Endor, Shunem, Bethshan, Gilboa with Jezreel at its feet, the Great Plain, distant Gilead, the Kishon, and Jenîn; at the foot of the mountain, Keimûn the Crusading Cain-Mons, the Biblical Jokneam.

At least as early as the close of the last century, the Carmelite fathers looked on this peak as the scene of Elijah’s sacrifice. The place seems to fit the account well. A plateau gives space for the assembly of the multitude. A well close by may have supplied water. Fourteen hundred feet below is Kishon, where the priests were slain. The sea is invisible, except from the summit, and thus it was only by climbing up to the top of Carmel, from the plateau, where the altar may have stood, that the prophet’s servant could have seen the little cloud, no bigger than a man’s hand, spreading gradually over the sea, the plain, and the bushy mountain spurs. We require a site for the altar near the summit, or the prophet’s servant must have taken at least an hour for each journey; on the other hand, we require water other than that in the Kishon, if the sacrifice took place near the summit, or the water-carrying would have taken three or four hours to complete. Both requisites are found in the site at El Mahrakah.

It is possible perhaps to lay too much stress on the name, for its antiquity is not known, and it is thought to be connected with Druse sacrifices yearly performed here. The Druses are not natives of Carmel, and their tradition can therefore scarcely be thought to have come down from the time of Elijah, but is far more probably derived from the monks, with whom they evidently live on good terms, for, as we had occasion to see for ourselves, they present votive offerings to the old wooden image of Elijah in the chapel of the monastery. It is certain that mediæval Christian legends are preserved by the wild Bedawin near Jericho, and there is therefore some probability of more modern monkish traditions, derived from the monastery, remaining current among the Druses of Carmel. There is a second name which has been thought also to have a connection with the grand tragedy of the slaughter of the priests of Baal occurring near the Kishon; this is Tell el Kassîs, “the hillock of the priest,” a name applied to a shapeless mound near the river-bank; but, in this case also, much caution is necessary before accepting the supposed derivation, for Kassîs is the word applied to a Christian priest, and the word Kohen or Kamir would more naturally be expected if there was any real connection with the idolatrous priests of Baal. Yet, however the tradition of the sacrifice became attached to this peak, there is no point on the ridge which appears more suitable for the dramatic incidents of the Bible story or for the erection of a mountain altar.

Carmel, “the place of thickets,” was at one time cultivated, as shown by the rock wine-presses among its copses. In 1837 it had many villages on its slopes, but these were ruthlessly destroyed by Ibrahim Pacha, and only two now remain--’Esfia on the main ridge, Ed Dâlieh on a high spur; both are inhabited by the mountain-loving Druses, and are remarkable for their race of fine handsome men and beautiful women, some with flaxen curly hair and blue eyes. The whole mountain is covered thickly with brushwood, mastic, hawthorn, the spurge laurel, and, on the top, dwarf pines; the luxuriance of the vegetation, rolling down the valleys between the steep grey and rusty cliffs like a dark cataract, attests the richness of the red soil, and the fine mountain air makes Carmel the healthiest district in Palestine. Among the thickets game abounds,--the Nimr or hunting leopard, wild pigs, gazelles, and fallow-deer; partridges and other birds are seen continually in riding about the mountain. To this known fauna we were able to make an important addition.

From natives of Haifa we learnt that a kind of deer called Yahmûr was to be found on Carmel, and, offering a reward, we procured for some of the Arab charcoal-burners a specimen which resembled the English roebuck. The flesh we ate and found excellent, the skin and bones Mr. Drake sent to the museum at Cambridge; and in 1876 I was informed by competent authority that the specimen was indistinguishable from the English roebuck. Now the interest of this discovery lies in the name. The Yahmûr gives a title to a large valley in a wooded district south of Carmel, and in translating the nomenclature I found that it was a Hebrew word used in the Bible (Deut. xiv. 5) to designate a kind of deer. The authorised version renders it “fallow-deer,” but this latter animal is properly called Ayal in Hebrew and Rîm in Arabic. Thus until we were able to ascertain the existence of the roebuck, previously heard of but not seen by Dr. Tristram, and to obtain the name Yahmûr, there was no clue to the true identification of the deer which furnished Solomon’s table daily with choice venison (1 Kings iv. 23).

The history of the Carmelite settlement is interesting and not generally known. The information which I was able to collect in 1875 from their records and by word of mouth from the monks may be briefly summarised.

Carmel has been a sacred mountain from the time of its earliest appearance in history. Elijah himself “repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down” (1 Kings xviii. 30), from which we infer that a sacred place or Makom had existed on the summit of the mountain at an earlier period, though, according to the Talmud, such high places became for ever unlawful after the building of the Temple at Jerusalem. From Tacitus we learn that Vespasian visited a place on Carmel, sacred to the deity of the mountain, but without either statue or altar, and even now, as above noted, the Druses hold the site at El Mahrakah in reverence as a sacred place.

In the early Christian period the memory of Elijah consecrated Carmel, and it became a favourite resort of hermits, to whom in 412 A.D. John, the forty-second Bishop of Jerusalem, gave a rule of life. In 1185, after Jerusalem had been taken by the Crusaders, a church rose over the sacred Grotto of Elijah, and in 1209 another monastery of St. Margaret or St. Brocardus was built in a steep gorge south of the promontory. We visited from Haifa its ruins, with a cave containing sedilia for the monks and an upper open story, a spring with sedilia beside it, and below, at the opening of the valley, a second spring, and a garden of fruit trees, pomegranates, apricots, and figs. The lower spring was called after Elijah, and the title still remains in the corrupted form El Haiyeh (“the snake”), applied to the stream from it. A tradition exists that Elijah turned the fruits of the garden to stone, and the huge geodes in the white chalk of the valley are shown as the petrified fruit. This monastery was sacked by the Saracens in 1238, the monks were massacred and thrown into a rock-cut tank by the lower spring, and hence the place is still called “the Valley of Martyrs.”

In 1245 St. Simon Stock, a Kentish man, became General of the Carmelites. He is said to have received from the Virgin the scapular or distinctive tabard worn by the monks of this order; for sixteen years he lived in a cave on Carmel, and was visited by St. Louis during his stay in Palestine.

A monastery of St. Bertoldo rose round his cave, and its ruins are still shown on the slope north-west of the present building, under the lighthouse, near the chapel containing the cave of Simon Stock. In 1291, however, the Saracens fell upon the monks whilst chanting the “Salve Regina,” and massacred them all.

The history of the two subsequent monasteries gives a good example of that energy and persistence which once formed the main characteristics of the Church of Rome. In 1620 the order of Carmelites was extinct in Palestine when a certain Father Prospero, of the monastery of Biscaglia near Genoa, was ordered by his General to proceed with his monks to Persia--probably he was found to be a dangerous man at home, for his history bears witness to his ambitious and energetic character. He got no farther than Carmel, where he left his companions and returned to Rome to obtain leave from the Propaganda to establish a missionary hospice on the mountain. In a second journey he obtained from the Pope the title of Prior for himself and his successors, and, in 1631, he bought the land round the Grotto of Elijah, where the present monastery stands, and round the cave called “School of the Prophets” (now El Khudr) at the foot of the promontory. He erected chapels in both places, but a Moslem derwish succeeded in establishing himself at the latter place, and in 1635 the Moslems took it by force and made it a mosque. Quarrels and persecutions followed; in 1653 robbers stripped Father Prospero and tied him to a tree. Soon after he died, and was buried in the upper chapel.

In 1761 the famous Dhahr el ’Amr, of whom there is much to be said later, had already made himself lord of Acre and king of Galilee; he despoiled the monastery, and in 1767 ordered its destruction on the plea that it was in a dangerous position on the slope of the hill. In 1775 he was beheaded at Acre, and his son ’Aly in revenge massacred all the monks.

In 1799 the sick of Napoleon’s army were sheltered in the monastery, but, on his retreat, they were all killed by the Moslems. A pyramid in the front garden of the monastery marks the grave where their bones were afterwards laid by the monks. In 1821, by order of the Pacha of Acre, the monastery was destroyed, and the new monks arriving from Europe saw it in flames on the hill-top.

Warned by the natives not to land, they returned to Europe, but three of them came back in 1825--Fra Gianbattista of Frascati, Fra Matteo of Philippopolis, and Fra Giusto of Naples. They built the present monastery from a design by the first named, and so strong has it been made, with high walls and an apse which affords flank protection on the east (where also, as being more exposed, there is a ditch), that the monks need scarcely fear further massacres. In 1830 other monks arrived. In 1872 Fra Matteo died in extreme old age, the last survivor of the three founders. This information I obtained in 1875 from Fra Cirillo, the lame lay brother, a courteous old man who delighted in stories of the monastery.

Situate at the end of the ridge, five hundred feet above the sea, reached by a steep ascent of steps, and guarded by a carefully-constructed entrance to the courtyard and by savage dogs, the old monastery stands facing the fresh breeze, and surrounded by vineyards and gardens, among which small chapels are dedicated to the Virgin, to St. John Baptist, and to St. Theresa, patroness of the bare-footed or reformed Carmelites. The huge pile, square and lofty, with a dome to its chapel and a broad flat roof, looks more like a castle than a house of devotion. Seventeen monks inhabit it, but there is room for thirty, and beds are provided for twenty-eight guests besides. The monastery owns three hundred goats and twenty oxen, the monks dry tobacco for snuff, and make a scent called “Eau de Carme” from the flowers of the mountain. They are supposed only to eat meat when ill, but it is said that if a deer is shot, some of the brethren are at once placed on the sick list; fish they may eat, and they include under this category anything staying longer in the water than on land--as for instance wild-duck and other sea-fowl. Living in the monastery for six weeks, I found the monks to be good-natured and fond of gossip, but fully convinced that in England the sun was never seen, and that the people all lived on potatoes and cold meat.

The chapel of the monastery is octagonal, and under the high altar is a cave five yards long and three yards broad, with an altar of rock dedicated to Elijah. Lighting two tapers, the old lay brother drew back a curtain and showed us the statue of the Madonna del Carmine over the high altar, well modelled in wood, life-size, and robed in white satin, with the infant on her right arm, and in her left hand some of the little square black charms so often worn round the neck in Italy. The statue was made in Genoa early in this century. The niche is surrounded with silver lamps offered by pilgrims.

Tradition says that in the “little cloud” over the sea Elijah beheld the future Virgin Mother typified. It is remarkable, however, that the native Christians prefer to offer vows to the old wooden statue of Elijah on a side altar. It is covered with chains, bracelets, and anklets, presented by peasants. A gold Austrian coin, worth five Napoleons, is hung round its neck, with a filigree silver cross presented by an English convert.

There is nothing remarkable in the chapel, which is gaudily painted in modern Italian style. Over a side altar to the south, the heart of the Count of Craon lies entombed, having been brought to the monastery in 1864.

Carmel is remarkable for the profusion of its flowers. In November we found on its sides the cytisus, crocus, narcissus, the pink cistus, and large camomile daisies, the colocasia, and the hawthorn in bud. The Judas tree I have also twice found in remote parts, and in spring, wild tulips, the dark red anemone like a poppy, the beautiful pink phlox, the cyclamen, little purple stocks, large marigolds, wild geranium, and saxifrage, with rock roses of three kinds, pink, yellow, and white. Butterflies also flourish: orange-tips, sulphurs, the great swallow-tail (Machaon), and a transparent species something like the Apollo, apparently peculiar to the mountain, are the commonest.

Leaving the wild ridges of Carmel we must, however, descend to the plain beneath, to the thriving town of Haifa, which has gradually grown in size as Acre has sunk into decay, and which bids fair to be a place of much importance should the prosperity of Palestine ever become greater.

Napoleon is said to have held that Acre was the key to Syria. The natural advantages of the position are great. The bay is the only harbour of importance south of Tyre; from Acre roads lead into Upper Galilee, and southwards they ascend gradually to the watershed of Judea. The whole of the great corn harvest of the Hauran finds a port at Acre, and the rich Plain of Esdraelon close by forms a natural highway across Palestine. But while Acre is the more important town, the south end of the bay at Haifa is the best harbour, both because the projection of the Carmel promontory breaks the force of the sea, and because the high ridge of the mountain forms a shelter against equinoctial and other south-western gales.

Haifa is not noticed in the Bible. In the Talmud it appears under the same name, which means “a haven.” In the middle ages the place was called Porphyreon by a strange mistake, the real town of that name being north of Sidon. It was also known as Cayphas, and the derivations given are very curious. Some supposed the name to come from Cephas, “a stone,” from the stony mountain; others thought it was named from Simon Peter, who was said to have fished here; whilst Sir John Maundeville boldly asserts that it was built by and named after Caiaphas, the high-priest.

The curious rock cemetery is mentioned by many Jewish travellers. It is of value as showing both kinds of loculus to have been used by the Jews, the tombs being close to the present Jewish graveyard, and having the golden candlestick more than once represented on the façades. The place appears, indeed, to have been always a favourite resort of the Jews, and over 1000 are still to be found within its walls, forming a quarter of the population, which includes 1100 Moslems and 1000 Greek Christians, besides Latins, Greek Catholics, and Maronites.

The town is walled and well-built, with a mosque, a court-house, and many large private dwellings. On the west side the extensive ruins of “Ancient Haifa” stretch along the shore beyond the German colony; and the magnificence of former buildings is attested by the fragments of marble, granite, porphyry, and green-stone lying in the shingle on the beach.

Two miles farther south-west are the remains of another large town, at the place called Tell es Semak. There can scarcely be a doubt that this is the ancient Sycaminon, often confused with Haifa, but a place distinct and named from its sycamine fig-trees--a stunted specimen of which still stands near, with its little figs growing out of the stem.

The appearance of the bay in winter was very fine. In calm weather we looked northwards to the long ridge of Galilean mountains, with the strong walls and white minaret of Acre beneath, and the snowy dome of Hermon above. For five minutes every evening a glorious crimson flush spread over the mountains, gradually dying out as the cold blue shadow crept up the slopes. In the morning the long curve of the bay, the misty hills, the beautiful line of palms along the dunes, with the sun rising behind, made a subject fit for Turner’s pencil. The town itself, backed by the Carmel bluff, was equally picturesque, with the old tower above its walls, riddled by English shot and shell in 1840, yet still mounting one gun. As the winter went on, the heavy seas came rolling in round the promontory, and a cormorant, or a Mother Carey’s chicken, might be seen hovering over the waves, or a flight of wild duck bobbing on the rollers. Great shoals of fish came in, and were caught with the primitive cast-nets of the naked fishermen; and, after the storm, the beach would be found strewn with shells, amongst which the _Murex trunculus_ was common, from which the Tyrian purple was derived.

The Khilzon, or murex, is, indeed, closely connected with Carmel. The Rabbis understood the expression, “riches of the deep,” to refer to the Khilzon, and to be promised to the tribe of Zebulon as an inheritance. The Khilzon was fished at a place called after it, and as far north as Phœnicia. Its name still exists in the modern Wâdy Halzûn, a valley tributary to the Belus River, near Acre, in which river the murex was found. The expression in the Song of Songs, “thine head ... like Carmel ... the hair of thine head like purple” (vii. 5), was also understood by the Jews to refer to the Khilzon, and, by a natural elision, to its being found under Carmel.

The murex gave many colours, from green and deep blue to red, but the Tyrian purple was the dark blood-colour, like the darkest of “black roses” as the ancients called them, and only one drop of the dye was found in the vein of the mollusk, which circumstance accounted for the expensiveness of the Tyrian garments.

The Kishon, as noticed in a former chapter, enters the plain of Acre by a narrow gorge under the cliffs of Carmel, on the north side of the ridge. From this point it gradually works away north-west, and is fed by fine springs from the foot of the mountain, and also from near the low hills on the right bank. Most of these springs, but especially ’Ain S’adeh and the ’Ayûn el Werd, flowing from among the rocks near the foot of Carmel, are perennial. Thus, beneath the main ford, west of El Harathîyeh (Harosheth of the Gentiles), the river is full of water even in autumn. Above this point its stony bed is hidden by the oleander bushes, but below it flows slowly through a barren, marshy plain, between banks some ten feet high--an impassable stream, having a fall of eighty feet in the last five miles of its course.

The mouth is curious; the prevailing winds blow from the south-west, and the dunes are gradually heaping up and advancing on this side, so that the river is always forming new mouths farther north. The lagoons now existing behind the dunes on the left bank are perhaps results of the former course. The river breaks through the sand and flows to the sea when the wind is from the east; but, even in wet years, a bar is formed whenever the wind is in the west, blowing on shore. Thus I have found it almost impassable in September, before the rains, but quite dry in January, after they had fallen, according to the wind.

Few scenes more picturesque and more thoroughly Oriental are to be found in Palestine than that at the mouth of the Kishon. The palms, which flourish only on the coast, where water and sand occur together and frost is never experienced, are here found all along the dunes and round the lagoons; the banks, some thirty yards apart, are fringed with rushes and a sort of pink, fleshy-leaved plant. Along the sides stand the grey herons, watching for fish, whilst here and there a white egret steps daintily about, and on the sand the Kentish dottrell runs hastily seawards as the waves ebb out, and the red-shanks and sandpipers skim along in large flocks. Behind all rises the dark steep slope of Carmel, with white piles of cloud above, and a foreground of palms sets the scene in an appropriate frame.

The birds are very numerous. Wild-duck and snipe are found in the marshes, the African king-fisher hovers over the stream, and various species of gulls flit along the shore. The crabs swarm along the line of the bay, and occasionally a great number of rays and skates. In the deeper water a porpoise is sometimes to be seen, and many species of good edible fish are caught.

Acre is a walled town, with a single gate on the south-east. Its trade is now much reduced, and the bazaars are deserted; the richest inhabitant is not worth £1000. The ramparts, blown up by the English in 1840, remain in ruins, and the whole place has a desolate appearance. The port was filled up in the seventeenth century, by Fakhr ed Din, and, in the whole space between the walls and the old Crusading pier--a breadth of 700 yards east and west, by 350 north and south--the greatest depth of water is only six feet, the average being two or three. The appearance of the town outside is picturesque; with brown walls, a tower on a rock in the sea, called, from the fourteenth century downwards (and perhaps earlier) El Manâra, yellow stone houses, with two higher buildings, roofed with red tiles, and with green shutters; above all, the large white mosque of Jezzar Pacha, a square building, with a dome and a graceful minaret, surrounded by palms, and with chambers for the students, covered by rows of little round domes; behind this, the modern barrack, on the site of the old Crusading castle.

Entering the town, I found many of the bazaars turned into cavalry stables, and only about one shop in ten inhabited. In the southern part, however, a busier scene may be witnessed.

Near the Greek convent I found, in ruins, the tombs of two English officers, who fell in a sortie in 1799, Major Oldfield and Colonel Walker, of the Marines. The name-plate of the second had been stolen, and the whole monument was in a disgraceful condition. I afterwards had these two tombs repaired, and a new title and head-stone made by Mr. Shumacher for that of Colonel Walker, whose name I obtained from the English Consular agent. I had them railed in, and thus protected from insult, and public proclamation was made by the Governor to cause them to be respected. Unfortunately, I have never been able to revisit them since they were repaired, though I believe they are still in good order.

The walls of Acre are of masonry, drafted after the fashion used by the Crusaders, and they probably date in part from that period. The powder magazine, blown up in 1840 by the English, is still in ruins; rusty guns are pointed in the embrasures. On the north and east are bastions with a very slight projection, a glacis, and ravelin. Two mortars were shown as left behind by Napoleon, and English cannon-balls are visible sticking in the walls of the castle.

The great mosque of Jezzar Pacha is built of materials brought from ’Athlît, Cæsarea, and Haifa. The north entrance, from the rudely-paved street leading to the castle, is flanked by a beautiful little fountain with rich lattice-work of marble. The square yard within is paved with black and white marble in bands; lofty palms grow between the paved walks, and a colonnade runs round, supported on shafts of marble and red granite, with rude capitals not originally made for the pillars. In the centre is an octagonal fountain of marble, some five feet high, surmounted by a wooden dome, once beautifully painted. The mosque within has a porch, with lofty granite columns, capped with marble. It is a large square building, cased in coloured marble, with little cloisters on three sides, the dome above painted and whitewashed, with a gallery round the drum. The fresco-painting is much worn. An English clock is placed at each side of the door, set to Arabic time (six o’clock being noon), and standing in a high case of walnut. The Mihrab, or prayer-niche, on the south wall, is handsomely adorned with flagging of marble, and is high enough to stand in.

The Moslems were at prayer. A peasant, in a gorgeous head-shawl, a dark blue jacket, and a robe (kumbâz) of pink and white stripes, was performing the usual genuflections and prostrations. A wooden torch, six feet high, in imitation of the wax torches brought from Mecca (such as exist at Jerusalem in the mosque), is placed on either side of the Mihrab, and to the right is a handsome marble pulpit. A long inscription in yellow letters on a blue ground runs round the walls of the mosque. Two beautifully carved stone tombs are shown in the courtyard near the minaret; but the tomb of the founder is in the north-east corner of the town.

Passing through the crooked, narrow, ill-paved lanes of Acre, where huge camels jostle the crowd of bright-coloured peasants and Bedawin, we visited the “galères,” or convict prison, so much dreaded by the natives, because hard labour is enforced on the prisoners. The dark vaults are entered by a wooden door, from between the bars of which heads and arms were stuck out, the convicts shouting for charity--the whole scene a perfect pandemonium.

There were no less than 300 cavalry in Acre, well mounted on fine half-bred horses; but the place has no real strength, and its fortifications could not resist the attacks of modern warfare.

Acre is not a city famous in Scripture. It is noticed, indeed, under the names Accho and Ptolemais; but the Jews were not a maritime people, and it had not, therefore, in their eyes, the importance which afterwards made it “the key to Syria.”

The Crusaders recognised at once the value of its position, and Baldwin I. besieged it in 1103, as soon as Jerusalem was secured. The garrison were relieved by a fleet from Tyre; but, in the following year, it fell into the hands of the Christians, after twenty-five days’ siege. In the disastrous year, 1187, Saladin took it without a blow; but the place was too important to be lost, and the Christians again took it in 1191. In 1229, the Knights Hospitallers settled here, whence its modern title, St. Jean d’Acre; but it was finally lost, in 1291, when the son of Kalawûn levelled it to the ground.

In its palmy days, the town contained a church to St. Andrew, of which a few arches still remain near the sea; a second of St. Michael, now destroyed; a third of St. John, possibly now a mosque; a castle, where the modern barrack stands; a hospital of the Knights of St. John, now the military hospital; and a patriarchate, now perhaps a monastery. On the south the mole ran out south-east and east, closing in the port, and terminated by the rock and tower of El Manâra. There were two lines of wall on the north and east, and in the angle was the famous tower called “Tower of Flies,” or “Maledictum,” which long resisted King Richard, when besieging the town from the great mound called Turon, on the east, where also Napoleon made his attack.

There was a sort of suburb on the north, with a double wall, which now seems to have disappeared entirely, though the sea-rampart is, in all probability, Crusading work. The southern quarter of the town belonged to the Venetians, and north of them the Germans had several streets. The Templars and Hospitallers had each their Custodia; and, in the thirteenth century, the Teutonic knights had wide possessions, in the plains round Acre, and among the villages, or “casales,” as they called them, of Lower Galilee.

The splendid buildings of the Christians were levelled to the ground, and the place remained desolate until 1749 A.D.

The rebuilding of ’Akka, as the town is now called, was effected by the celebrated Dhahr el ’Amr, of the Zeidaniyîn family. The rise and fall of this famous house forms a natural parallel to that of the native Jewish ruling family of the Hasmoneans. Zeidan was a chief of Arab race settled in the town of ’Arrâbeh, north of the Buttauf plain. The power of the family gradually extended, until Dhahr el ’Amr, his grandson, became virtually King of Galilee. Under this famous Sheikh, who paid no tribute, and who governed all Lower and a great part of Upper Galilee, eight districts, including 162 villages, were ruled by his eight sons. Strong forts were erected all over the country, many of which still remain, while in the other cases the foundations only are visible. The mosque and Serai (or court-house) of Haifa, the castles of Shefa-’Amr, Jedin, and Seffurieh, the fortress of Deir Hanna, the walls and mosques of Tiberias, and part of the fortifications of Acre, were built by this family, while many mills and works of irrigation by the Sea of Galilee date from the same period. The country appears to have been prosperous under the rule of its native chiefs, and their buildings are remarkable for good workmanship and well-chosen positions.

But, in 1775, Dhahr, who had long been governor at Acre--where his walls still stand, with an inscription on them, giving the date of their construction--was seized and beheaded by the cruel Bosnian Pacha called Jezzar, or “butcher,” from his many murders. The old man was nearly ninety when he died. His family decayed in power, and it has been so persecuted by the Turks, that now only one representative remains in the village of B’aîneh. From him we obtained lists of the possessions of the Zeidaniyîn, of their fortresses and towns, their mosques and public buildings, with the names of the various builders and approximate dates.

Under Jezzar Pacha, Acre again declined in prosperity. The cruelties of this governor are well known, and remembered among the people. His murder of seven of his wives, whom he beheaded with his own hand, the mutilation of his servants, and of all who offended him, are often spoken of. It was Jezzar whom Sir Sidney Smith assisted, in 1799, against Napoleon, when besieging Acre from King Richard’s Hill, and the defeat of the Emperor was followed, as before noticed, by the massacre of the sick on Carmel.

Jezzar died in 1804, and, since then, Acre has had no history, excepting in 1840, when the English fleet bombarded the town, and drove out the forces of Ibrahim Pacha, who had taken it in 1832. There are many inhabitants who can well remember the short, sharp engagement, and the terrific explosion of the powder magazine, which killed 2000 Egyptians. Since this disaster, the prosperity of the place has dwindled more and more, so that it now contains only some 8000 inhabitants. Should Palestine, however, be destined to form the theatre of future military operations, the name of Acre will no doubt be often heard again in English mouths.