Thence Conder was off to Damascus, Baalbek and Hermon, away from Palestine itself. The ascent of the 9,000 feet of mount Hermon was begun at 10.30 a. m., and at 2 o’clock the summit was reached. But we must pass over the glowing description of the panorama that unfolded itself to the gaze of the explorers. After three months in the north, tents were struck, and the party marched out of their pleasant mountain-camp, bound for Jerusalem and the hills of Judah. Of the many pen-pictures which Conder draws, we will stay only to regard one--the description of Bethar, where Bar Cochba made his great effort at recovering Jewish independence (about the year 135 of the present era). Conder locates the fortress at the modern village Bittîr (at which there is now a railway station). It is about thirty-five miles from the sea, and about five from Jerusalem. “On every side, except the south, it is surrounded by deep and rugged gorges, and it is supplied with fresh water from a spring above the village. On the north the position would have been impregnable, as steep cliffs rise from the bottom of the ravine, upon which the houses are perched. The name (Bittîr) exactly represents the Hebrew (Bethar), and the distances agree with those noticed by Eusebius and the Talmud. Nor must the curious title be forgotten, which is applied to a shapeless mass of ruin on the hill, immediately west of Bittîr, for the name Khurbet el Yehûd--Ruin of the Jews--may be well thought to hand down traditionally among the natives of the neighbourhood the memory of the great catastrophe of Bethar.” Whether this place is the true site of Bar Cochba’s Bethar may be seriously questioned, but no other view can claim to be more certain. “The site of Bethar must still be considered doubtful,” says that good authority, S. Krauss, who himself is inclined to the theory which places the fortress much further north, near Sepphoris.