“Thence we came to Ptolemais (the modern Acre), a respectable city, where we found good monasteries. Opposite Ptolemais, six miles off, is a city which is named Sycaminus, under Mount Carmel. A mile from Sycaminus are the hamlets of the Samaritans, and above the hamlets, a mile and a half away, is the Monastery of Heliseus (or Elijah), the prophet, at the place where the woman met him whose child he raised from the dead. On Mount Carmel is found a stone, of small size and round, which, when struck, rings because it is solid. This is the virtue of the stone—if it be hung on to a woman, or to any animal, they will never miscarry. About six or seven miles off is the city of Porphyrion.” Now there are as many mistakes as there are sentences in this quaint account by the holy man. It is a matter of dispute which are the ruins of Sycaminus. Two ruins claim that honor, and one of these it undoubtedly is. They are only two miles apart, but the nearest is thirteen miles from Acre, instead of six, and the other fifteen. A mile from Sycaminus, he says, are the hamlets of the Samaritans. These have been identified beyond all doubt as a ruin called Kefr es Samir, two miles and a half beyond one of the abovementioned ruins, and four miles and a half beyond the other. The Monastery of Heliseus, the prophet, “a mile and a half away,” I have described in a former letter. It is the picturesque gorge and ruin called Ain Siah, but the place where Elijah met the woman of Sarepta was, if we are to believe the Bible, “at the gate of that city,” at least fifty miles distant from Carmel. There is no doubt as to its site, between Tyre and Sidon. As to “the stone of small size, which, when struck, rings because it is solid,” it happens to ring because it is hollow. I have an interesting collection of these geodes, found near Ain Siah, their peculiar shapes having given rise to the legend that they were melons and other fruits which the proprietor refused the prophet when he was hungry, and which the latter therefore blasted with petrifaction. And then comes the final statement about the unhappy Porphyrion, which he puts six miles off, thus probably identifying it with Athlit, and making confusion worse confounded. First we have the Jerusalem Itinerary, distinctly placing it to the north of Sidon, a position confirmed by other authorities; then we have William of Tyre identifying it with Haifa, and now we have Antoninus putting it six miles off.