A short distance further on, the traveler comes to another branch, where a mule-path turns off to the left from the main road, and leads up the mountain. The ascent is steep, but the path is so guarded by a parapet on the outer side wherever required, that it awakens no sense of danger. The declivities of the mountain, above and below the path, are clothed with trees and herbage, with gray walls, forming picturesque cliffs, and precipices, appearing here and there among them. There is a profusion, too, of wild flowers of every form and hue, which attract and charm the traveler, wherever he turns. He looks off at every salient point that he passes in his ascent, over the bay. He sees the white walls of the city of Acre rising from the margin of the water at the extremity of it, far in the distance--and never ceases to admire the smooth and beautiful beach which lies spread out before him, its broad expanse broken, perhaps, here and there on the side toward the sea, with the wrecks of ships which lie there half buried, and enlivened on the land with trains of mules or of camels passing toward Acre or Haïfa, or by some picturesque group of tents pitched upon the plain--the encampment of some wandering tribe of Arabs, or of a party of European travelers. Further inland, he surveys broad fields of luxuriant vegetation, variegated with every shade of green and brown, and groves of trees that extend along the margin of the rivers, and crown the summits of the distant hills. In a calm and clear summer's morning, the observer looks down upon this brilliant scene of verdure and beauty, as upon a map, and lingers long on his way, to study minutely every feature of it. [Illustration: THE ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN.] THE RIVER BELUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF GLASS.