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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILBEN POUNDATION*

Cohen, the Jewish missionary from Safet, who accompanied us the two next days as far as Acre. On Monday morning we crossed the mountains towards the plain of Megiddo, going in sight of two villages, the one named Beer Yacob, the other seated in a deep dell with a rich mantle of trees, but whose name our guide knew not. We crossed the plain of Megiddo towards Carmel, on approaching which the rising ground was covered with a forest of oak-trees and the grass rose to the chests of the horses, mingled with spikes of gay pink hollyhocks. This did not reach to the foot of Carmel itself, where we found a small village called Beled-el-Sheikh, containing, like several other settlements on the sides and at the foot of Carmel, a great number of bee-hives made of pyramids of mud perforated

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* This oak, though not the same as our English one, is much larger in leaf than the one at Mamre, and resembles the Italian Ilex.

with large round holes. This village has the privilege of paying no taxes, granted to it by a sultan at the instance of some favourite sheikh connected with the place; but it is obliged in return to give gratuitous lodging to all strangers, a part of this engagement which is (as I was informed by one who had tried it) not very decently or religiously carried out. Farther on, beautiful springs of water and pools introduce us to the river Kishon, whose ancient renown is connected with such high events in the sacred chronicles, the overthrow of Sisera*, and the destruction of the prophets of Baal†, now haunted by turtle-doves and wild marsh-swallows. Then we entered Caipha, a poor ruined fishing-town in the bay of Acre, where the roar of the surf broke gratefully on our ears, all hot and thirsty as we were. There seemed to be one good building in the town, the house of the Russian consul, which, joined to those of some other consular dignities, was in process of erection.

We visited the house of a chief Jew, who was an Algerian, whither several of this people speedily resorted. They told us that there were thirty Jewish families resident in the place, but Mr. Cohen estimates them at no more than

* Judges, iv.

† 1 Kings, xviii. 40.

JEWISH SYNAGOGUE AND SCHOOL OF CAIPHA. 265

twelve or thirteen: they are chiefly, if not entirely, from Morocco and Algiers. While inquiring about the numbers of the Jews, one of them observed, "It was a sin to count the children of Israel." The Rabbi was a very poor but not an ignorant man: a rummage into his little heap of books exposed the covers of an Englishprinted Hebrew Testament, the interior having been previously extracted as too dangerous to modern Judaism.† We found in the small and dirty synagogue a school of about twenty children; a little lad of the age of twelve read very easily from a Hebrew class-book at Mr. M.'s request there seems, indeed, always a wonderful thirst for knowledge among these Jewish children.

There is no harbour here except such as the Bay of Acre affords, and the value of this may be gathered from the numerous fragments of wrecked vessels which appear half buried in the sand all the way round the bay.

From Caipha to the monastery on Mount Carmel is but half an hour's ride, through a thin woodland of oak trees, and a road cut in

* Jewish Intelligence, Feb. 1847, p. 66.

†The name of the book should be printed on the outside.

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