Another holy peak was Carmel, "the fruitful field," or perhaps originally "the domain of the god." It was in Mount Carmel that the mountain ranges of the north ended finally, and the altar on its summit could be seen from afar by the Phoenician sailors. Here the priests of Baal called in vain upon their god that he might send them rain, and here was "the altar of the Lord" which Elijah repaired. The mountains of the south present no striking peak or headland like Hermon and Carmel. Even Tabor belongs to the north. Ebal and Gerizim alone, above Shechem, stand out among their fellows, and were venerated as the abodes of deity from the earliest times. The temple-hill at Jerusalem owed its sanctity rather to the city within the boundaries of which it stood than to its own character. In fact, the neighbouring height of Zion towered above it. The mountains of the south were rather highlands than lofty chains and isolated peaks. But on this very account they played an important part in the history of the world. They were not too high to be habitable; they were high enough to protect their inhabitants against invasion and war. "Mount Ephraim," the block of mountainous land of which Shechem and Samaria formed the centre, and at the southern extremity of which the sacred city of Shiloh stood, was the natural nucleus of a kingdom, like the southern block of which Hebron and Jerusalem were similarly the capitals. Here there were valleys and uplands in which sufficient food could be grown for the needs of the population, while the cities with their thick and lofty walls were strongholds difficult to approach and still more difficult to capture. The climate was bracing, though the winters were cold, and it reared a race of hardy warriors and industrious agriculturists. The want of water was the only difficulty; in most cases the people were dependent on rain-water, which they preserved in cisterns cut out of the rock.