The Tabernacle and Ark remained so long at this spot that it was regarded by the Jews as only second to Jerusalem in sanctity. A curious peculiarity of their worship is noticed in the Mishna, where they are said to have been allowed to eat certain sacrifices at any spot whence the Tabernacle could be seen, but not farther from it. As Shiloh was shut in by mountains, the effect must have been to gather the congregation much oftener to this remote valley, than when, at Nob or Gibeon, the same sacrifices (the second tithes) might be eaten in any of the cities of Israel. The road from Shechem to Samaria leads down the course of the western valley through groves of ancient olives with gardens of pomegranates and figs. The olives are more picturesque than in Judea, as the trees are not regularly arranged in quincunx order, but grow almost wild with a tangled underwood. Those in the valley beneath Nâblus seem to be of great age, and have split up into two or three stems from one root, with numerous suckers. Leaving these groves, the road climbs the side of a white chalk swell, where the ground is strewn with gravel from the huge blocks of beautiful brown flint conglomerate like agate, which runs in bands through the rock. It finally descends into a valley, open and well watered, and passes beneath the Hill of Samaria, which is thickly covered with olives. Samaria is in a position of great strength, and though it would now be commanded from the northern range, it must, before the invention of gunpowder, have been almost impregnable. It stands some 400 feet above the valley, the sides of the hill being steep, and terraced in every direction for cultivation, or perhaps for defensive purposes, as Josephus tells us the hill was scarped by Herod the Great (Ant., xv. 8, 5); broad and open valleys stretch north and south, and the hill is thus almost isolated, being joined only by a low tongue on the east to the chain of Ebal. The view northwards extends to the high ridge a few miles off which divides the Nâblus district from the outskirts of the great plain. On the east the lower slopes which run out of the great dome of Ebal are visible, on the south and west the flat Samaritan hills stretch away, covered with olives, and crowned by numerous villages which stand on high knolls, generally with a central tower or larger house. It is wonderful to reflect how great the antiquity of most of these hamlets is. For four thousand years, in some instances, the little hill has been covered by a succession of probably just the same sort of cottages which now rise upon the ruins of their predecessors; for four thousand years the women have gone down to the same spring, quarrelled, talked scandal, and returned with their brown jars on their heads; for four thousand years the cattle have trampled the corn and the wind has borne the chaff from the great yellow corn-heap; for all this time the same race has lived on, and has handed down the same village name, scarcely