Yes, this little Mohammedan town of Baniyas, with its twoscore wretched houses built of stones from the ancient ruins and huddled within the broken walls of the citadel, is the ancient site of Caesarea Philippi. In the happy days that we spend here, rejoicing in the most beautiful of all our camps in the Holy Land, and yielding ourselves to the full charm of the out-of-doors more perfectly expressed than we had ever thought to find it in Palestine,--in this little paradise of friendly trees and fragrant flowers, "at snowy Hermon's foot, Amid the music of his waterfalls,"-- the thought of Jesus is like the presence of a comrade, while the memories of human grandeur and transience, of man's long toil, unceasing conflict, vain pride and futile despair, visit us only as flickering ghosts. * * * * * We climb to the top of the peaked hill, a thousand feet above the town, and explore the great Crusaders' Castle of Subeibeh, a ruin vaster in extent and nobler in situation than the famous _Schloss_ of Heidelberg. It not only crowns but completely covers the summit of the steep ridge with the huge drafted stones of its foundations. The immense round towers, the double-vaulted gateways, are still standing. Long flights of steps lead down to subterranean reservoirs of water. Spacious courtyards, where the knights and men-at-arms once exercised, are transformed into vegetable gardens, and the passageways between the north citadel and the south citadel are travelled by flocks of lop-eared goats. From room to room we clamber by slopes of crumbling stone, discovering now a guard-chamber with loopholes for the archers, and now an arched chapel with the plaster intact and faint touches of colour still showing upon it. Perched on the high battlements we look across the valley of Huleh and the springs of Jordan to Kal'at Hunin on the mountains of Naphtali, and to Kal'at esh-Shakif above the gorge of the River Litani. From these three great fortresses, in the time of the Crusaders, flashed and answered the signal-fires of the chivalry of Europe fighting for possession of Palestine. What noble companies of knights and ladies inhabited these castles, what rich festivals were celebrated within these walls, what desperate struggles defended them, until at last the swarthy hordes of Saracens stormed the gates and poured over the defences and planted the standard of the crescent on the towers and lit the signal-fires of Islam from citadel to citadel. All the fires have gone out now. The yellow whin blazes upon the hillsides. The wild fig-tree splits the masonry. The scorpion lodges in the deserted chambers. On the fallen stone of the Crusaders' gate, where the Moslem victor has carved his Arabic inscription, a green-gray lizard poises motionless, like a bronze figure on a paper-weight. * * * * * [Illustration: Bridge Over the River Litani.]