The excellence of Carmel, which here rises into view, has in a great measure passed away. The curse denounced by Amos has fallen upon it,--"The top of Carmel shall wither;"--for it is now chiefly remarkable as a mass of barren and desolate rocks. Its sides are indeed graced by some native cedars, and even the brambles are still intermingled with wild vines and olives, denoting its ancient fertility, or more careful cultivation; but there are no longer any rich pastures to render it the "habitation of shepherds," or to recall to the fancy the beauty of Carmel and of Sharon, and to justify the comparison of it to the glory of Libanus. It owes to its name and to its prominent situation on the coast, as a sentinel of the Holy Land, all the interest which can now be claimed for the mountain on which Elias vindicated the worship of Jehovah, and where thousands of holy Christians have spent their lives in meditation and prayer. The monastery which stands on the summit of the hill, near the spot were the prophet offered up his sacrifice, was long the principal residence of the Carmelite friars. It appears never to have been a fine building, and is now entirely abandoned. During the campaign of the French in Syria, it was made an hospital for their sick, for which it was well adapted by its healthy and retired situation. It has been since ravaged by the Turks, who have stripped its shrines and destroyed its roof; though there still remains, for the solace of devout visiters, a small stone altar in a grotto dedicated to Saint Elias, over which is a coarse painting representing the holy man leaning on a wheel, with fire and other instruments of sacrifice at his side.[164] CHAPTER VIII. _The History of Palestine from the Fall of Jerusalem to the Present Time_.