Gladly dismounting after the exploits of such a day, we led our jaded horses over the flag-paved streets of the city, exciting the curiosity of an idle crowd of Shechemites, and affording them fresh materials for village gossip. It was nine o’clock when we found our host, who was the Christian school-teacher of the Protestant Mission. Receiving us with great politeness, he led us up a long flight of stone steps into a large clean room, where, after a simple repast, we spread our mats and blankets for the night. Illustration: NABLOUS. Ranking with Damascus, Hebron, and Jerusalem in the antiquity of its origin and the importance of its history, Shechem, or the modern town of Nablous, is among the oldest cities in Palestine. Coming from Chaldea, Abraham pitched his tent on the fertile plains of Mukhnah, “in the place of Sichem, in the plain of Moreh.”[477] Nearly two centuries later his grandson Jacob came from Mesopotamia to “Shalem, a city of Shechem, and pitched his tent before the city, and bought a parcel of a field, at the hand of the children of Hamor, for one hundred pieces of money, and erected there an altar, and called it El-Elohe-Israel.”[478] Here Simeon and Levi plotted the murder of the whole male population of the town to avenge their dishonored sister, and, exposed by this act of indiscretion to the insults and attacks of the adjacent villagers, Jacob was compelled to remove to Hebron.[479] Retaining possession of these pasture-fields, hither he sent Joseph to search for his brethren, whom “a certain man found wandering in a field,” and directed him to Dothan.[480]