The sun underwent strange changes of shape in the thick vapours--now almost square, now like a domed temple--until at length it slid into the sea, and went out like a blue spark. Our tent was pitched in the hollow, and six beds crowded into it. Until one in the morning we continued to observe the stars, but the cold was very considerable, though no snow was left, and the only water we had was fetched from a spring about a third of the way down, and tasted horribly of the goat-skin. In the morning I ran to the peak, and saw the sun emerge behind the distant plain, and the great conical shadow, stretching over the sea and against the western sky, becoming gradually more blunt, until it shrivelled up and was lost upon the hills beneath. The top of Hermon consists of three rocky peaks; two, north and south, of equal height--the third, to the west, considerably lower. On the southern peak are the ruins called Kŭsr esh Shabîb--a rock-hewn hollow or trench, and a circular dwarf-wall, with a temple just below the peak on the south. On the plateau is a rudely-excavated cave, with a rock-cut pillar supporting the roof, and a flat space levelled above, probably once the floor of a building over the cave. Of all these objects of interest we made careful plans, as well as of the shape of the summit. There is one remarkable natural peculiarity of Hermon still to be noticed--namely, the extreme rapidity of the formation of cloud on the summit. In a few minutes a thick cap forms over the top of the mountain, and as quickly disperses and entirely disappears. In the accounts of our Lord’s Transfiguration, we read that whilst staying at Cæsarea Philippi, He retired with His disciples to a “high mountain apart;” and there can be but little doubt that some part of Hermon, and very probably the summit, is intended. From the earliest period the mountain has been a sacred place; in later times it was covered with temples; to the present day it is a place of retreat for the Druses. This lofty solitary peak seems wonderfully appropriate for the scene of so important an event; and in this connection the cloud formation is most interesting, if we remember the cloud which suddenly overshadowed the Apostles and as suddenly cleared away, when they found “no man any more, save Jesus only, with themselves.” (Mark ix. 8.) CHAPTER IX. SAMSON’S COUNTRY. On the 24th of September we left our pleasant camp at Bludân, and on the 29th we started southwards from Beirût, reaching Jaffa on the afternoon of the 3rd of October. Thus, in a continuous march of five days along the sea coast, with pack-animals, we had come 144 miles--a distance equal to the total length of Palestine--and not one of our beasts was laid up, or refused its feed in the evening. Although I have, subsequently, ridden farther at a stretch than the distance we rode on any one day in this march, we never undertook another journey so trying to our animals.