Haifa; or, Life in modern PalestineOliphant, Laurence
History
Haifa; or, Life in modern Palestine
Oliphant, Laurence
Palestine -- Description and travel
Securing my host, the sheik, as a guide to a locality which promised to
be so full of interest, we started at a brisk pace across the plateau,
in the teeth of a bitterly cold east wind and driving sleet, and, after
riding an hour, came to the ruins of Nab, situated on a small mound.
They consist of blocks of basalt building-stone, some traces of
foundations, some fragments of columns and capitals, and a tank, dry at
the time of my visit, but which evidently held water at some time of the
year. It had, apparently, been much deeper at a former period, only the
two upper courses of masonry being new visible. It was oval in shape,
and measured sixty yards by thirty. This place does not appear to have
been previously visited or described. Shortly after leaving it I
observed masses of black stone, which, on nearer approach, proved to be
the walls of a fortress that, my guide told me, was Khisfin itself. It
loomed strikingly up from the grassy plain, and gave rise to pleasing
anticipations as I galloped impatiently up to the base of the walls,
and, jumping off my horse without even waiting to tether him, in my
excitement, scrambled up a breach to see what was inside. I looked down
upon a ruin-strewn area, but, alas, no columns, nor capitals, nor signs
of Roman remains. This had evidently been in turn a Saracen and a
Crusading construction. The outer walls measured sixty-eight yards one
way by fifty-four the other. They are nine feet in thickness, and are
eight courses of stone in height, the stones being from one foot to one
foot six inches square; but some are much larger. Within the fort are
the traces of a second or inner wall, forming a sort of keep in the
centre; but the whole area was too much encumbered with ruin for any
accurate plan to be possible in the limited time at my disposal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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