Now, what are the facts remaining at the present day? Upon the same plain with Cuf'r Saba, and within sight of it, at hardly six miles' distance, is a large mound capable of containing a small town, with foundations of ancient buildings, bits of marble, Roman bricks, and tesserae scattered about,--but especially a large strong castle of Saracenic work, the lower courses of the walls of real Roman construction; and at the foot of the mound rises the river _Aujeh_ out of the earth in several copious streams, crowded with willows, tall wild canes, and bulrushes,--the resort of numerous flocks, and of large herds of horned cattle brought from a distance, and (as I have seen there) counted by the Government inspector of the district, for the levying of agricultural taxes upon them. {133} This is our Ras el 'Ain. For a considerable extent there is capital riding-ground of green grass, so rare in Palestine. Let any one familiar with that country answer, Could Herod have selected a better spot for a military station, (as Antipatris was,) just on the border, descending from the hill-country upon the plain? With this description in view, we understand all the more vividly the narrative of Felix sending St Paul to Caesarea. To elude the machinations of the conspiracy, the military party travelled by night over the hilly region; and on reaching the castle of Antipatris, the spearmen and other soldiers left him to continue the journey with cavalry upon the plain to Caesarea, about three hours farther, (Acts xxiii. 23, and 31, 32.) It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that this is the true site of Antipatris; and as for Josephus calling that neighbourhood "the plain of Cuf'r Saba," that must be for the same reason as another part of the same vast extent was called the Plain of Sharon,--or as it is now very much the custom for modern travellers to call the whole Philistine plain by that name. As for the statement that a river encompassed the city itself; I imagine that the town was not upon the elevated mound,--this was probably occupied by military works and a temple,--but upon the level of the water, among the serpentine separate streams, which soon combine into one river, the Aujeh, with its water-mills, and which was navigable for some distance inland to the north of Jaffa. In the course of ages some of these streams may have somewhat changed their direction. The mound has still a dry trench around it, which must have anciently had its current of water through it. It cannot be that the deep trench dug by Alexander from Antipatris to the sea (Antiq. xiii. 15, I, Whiston) can have begun at this village of Cuf'r Saba, where no water rises, and which is far away from the hills in an open plain. Although the words are distinctly, "from Capharzaba," the trench must have originated at the river head, _i.e._, Antipatris, where there was a fortified castle, and passed round the nearest town, viz., that of Cuf'r Saba.