It is safer to dismount after passing this spring, as we now have to cross the smooth surface of the limestone rock as we follow the steep path that leads up to the ruin of the old monastery, the position of which is indicated by the remains of an enormous wall which nearly reaches across the gorge, looking from below like some huge dam, and which must have concealed the monastery itself from public gaze, except from the hills above. We are now struck by the extraordinary petrifactions over which we are passing. The path is worn deep by centuries into the soft limestone, in the sides of which appear layers of petrified twigs and branches of the bushes of a bygone period. They are perfectly white, except where fractures exhibit the black flint core; but in some instances the form of the branch is perfect with all its twigs. Passing under the projecting buttress of the dam-like wall, we suddenly open on a terrace covered with vines and fruit-trees on one side, and find ourselves at the mouth of a large cave on the other. Entering this, if we are willing to brave the fleas—for, as it is generally inhabited by an Arab family, they abound—we find that we are in a spacious apartment supported by a column of solid rock, while all around are mangers for horses, cut out of the stone. Of these we count fourteen, which will give some idea of the size of the cave. Probably in crusading times it was a cavalry outpost, affording, from its strong natural position and proximity to the plain of Sharon, a splendid point of vantage from which to pounce upon an unsuspecting enemy. Ascending from the cave by some steps to the terrace, we come unexpectedly upon a delicious spring overshadowed by spreading fig-trees, which fills with crystal water a basin that has been hollowed out of the overhanging rock; from this it trickles into another stone-cut reservoir, from whence it is led by a stone channel, hollowed by the monks, to the monastery itself, one small room of which is still standing. The rock rises perpendicularly behind, and is scooped here and there into recesses, which were formerly, doubtless, the cells of monks, while the cool shade of spreading fruit-trees, the beauty of the view, the presence of running water, and the ever-blowing southwest wind, of which they got the full benefit, must have modified to a considerable extent the austerities of their existence.