It was no slight task selecting the furniture, bedding, cooking-utensils, and comestibles for a party of seven, and it took eight camels, besides sundry donkeys, to carry all our necessaries. In order to understand the nature of the path over which we had to travel, the reader must get rid of the popular notion conveyed by the word “Mount,” which is usually applied to Carmel, that it is a solitary hill. So far from such being the case, it is a mountainous district about fourteen miles long and twelve wide at its base. It culminates in a promontory, which projects into the sea at its apex, but we are established ten miles from Haifa, the path ascending abruptly from that town, and following for nearly three hours' travel the backbone of the ridge, disclosing views of wondrous beauty down gorges on the right and left. It is “a rocky road to travel” for a delicate lady, involving steep, precipitous ascents, for which sure-footed donkeys are best; but we were obliged to resort to a chair and a litter, each carried by four bearers, who, as they stumbled and clambered up the narrow path, seemed bent upon capsizing their human burdens. Now, however, that we have safely endured the perils of the way, we are amply repaid for them. The nights and mornings are of ideal beauty. The effects of sunrise and sunset, ever varying, over the vast landscape that stretches around and beneath us, are a constant source of wonder and delight. From the vine-covered terrace on which our camp is situated we look down a wild, rocky, precipitous gorge eighteen hundred feet upon the plain of the Kishon, scarce a mile distant, so steep is it. To the right this gorge widens into an amphitheatre, and the hillsides, sloping more gently, are terraced with vines, figs, and pomegranates, and at its head is the copious spring which supplies us with water, to which one of our donkeys makes several pilgrimages a day with a large earthen jar slung in a straw cradle on each side. Here, morning and evening, files of Druse women resort, and stand and gossip round the cistern into which the water gushes from the rock, their bright-coloured dresses forming a charming contrast with the dark-green foliage of the gardens and orchards that are irrigated in the immediate vicinity. Besides about five hundred Druses there are fifty Christians in the village, who do not harmonize with the Druses very well, and there is a hot rivalry for our favour, so that we have to exercise a considerable amount of diplomacy to keep on good terms with all.