About the time of Christ, and for four or five centuries afterwards, it must have been in its full loveliness, its hillsides terraced with vineyards or clothed with magnificent forests, and its summits crowned with towns adorned with the grace and beauty of the architecture of the period. The discoveries I have made in proof of this I will postpone to another letter, as my intention now is to describe the present population by which the mountain is inhabited. It is a curious fact that to this day there are no Moslems on Carmel proper. There are five or six Moslem villages at its base, on the various sides of the triangle which comprises the district, and they have lands running up into the mountain; but the actual population consists of two Druse villages, numbering together about eight hundred souls, and about fifty Christians, besides the twenty-five monks who inhabit the monastery. The mountain is nevertheless capable of containing a population of many thousands, as it evidently did in old times, and is a much larger district than is popularly supposed. The eastern side, from the apex of the triangle, is thirteen miles in length, the western twelve, and the base nine, giving a total circumference to this highland region of thirty—four miles. The tract comprised in this area is beautifully diversified by wild gorges, grassy valleys, level or undulating plateaus covered with underwood, and rocky summits; and the scenery in places is as romantic as can well be imagined. The two Druse villages of Esfia and Dalieh are situated two miles apart, about three quarters of the way down the triangle from its apex (the projecting promontory on which the monastery is built), and occupy the most fertile part of the mountain. When the Druses first settled here they founded no fewer than eight villages, but when, forty years ago, this country was conquered by Egypt and governed by Ibrahim Pacha, his rule was distasteful to the majority of Druses, and the inhabitants of six villages abandoned them, and migrated to the Jebel Druse. All these villages occupied the sites of ancient Roman towns, and were constructed of the ancient stones. In the course of my rambles I have visited them all. Of the two villages which remained, one, Dalieh, was occupied by some families which had migrated direct from Aleppo; the other, Esfia, is peopled by Druses from the Lebanon. There is a marked difference between the two, and the people of Dalieh are far superior to those of Esfia.