In 1187 A.D., a chapel of St. John stood near the caves of certain hermits, which were opposite Castel Pelegrino, now ’Athlît. A glance at the Survey shows caves still existing east of that fortress, and near them is a little Mukâm of the Prophet Ahia, which is the native name of John the Baptist. Here, then, the Moslems have again adopted a Christian shrine. In 1432 A.D., Bertrandon de la Brocquiére was shown a mountain between Gaza and Hebron, called the “Penance Mountain of St. John.” A hill called “the place of separation of Ahia” is still shown by the peasantry in that direction. Nor is it Christian tradition alone which is thus absorbed. Jacob Shelleby, the Samaritan, complained to me that the Moslems had robbed the Samaritans of the “Mosque of the Pillar,” which the latter now believe to have been the scene of Joshua’s “pillar by the oak,” near Shechem, just as they robbed the Christians of the little chapel at the Hizn Y’akûb, also close to Nâblus. It might, perhaps, be argued that the reason of this adoption of Christian sites by Moslems is to be sought in a common origin of Christian and native tradition, and that the adoption proves the sites to be authentic. It is easier to advance this theory than to disprove it; yet the tomb of Samuel is now fixed by a tradition, which was not generally accepted until after the twelfth century, and the venerated tomb of Moses, which is connected with the site of an old monastery, is now shown _west_ of Jordan, in plain contradiction to Scripture. Surely these, at least, are not genuine sites; but above all, the tradition still preserved by the Bedawîn which connects the “high mountain” of Our Lord’s Temptation with a hill 500 feet below the level of the Mediterranean (see page 205) cannot be regarded as anything but a monkish legend. Stories may be collected among the peasantry which are evidently garbled versions of Scriptural episodes. The actors are sometimes local worthies, such as Sheikh Samat, whose tomb seems to be the supposed sepulchre of Samson, which was shown by the Jews in the fourteenth century; in other cases they are the companions of the Prophet, and especially Imâm ’Aly, while the enemies of the Faithful are represented as Christians.