changed from the time of Abraham to the present day. The village of Sebŭstieh, representing the ancient Samaria, is built on the brow of the great white hill, and immediately north-east of the mud-hovels are the ruins of the beautiful Crusading church of St. John Baptist, where, in a crypt, now held sacred by the Moslem peasantry, the saint was supposed to have been beheaded. The tradition, though erroneous, is ancient, and existed in 380 A.D. The church is a mere shell, its roof and the pillars of the nave having been destroyed. The site of the Paradise of Samaria, mentioned in the Talmud, is perhaps represented by the spring and gardens to the south of the hill. The ancient tombs, which included those of the Kings of Israel, seem to have been situate to the north, on the opposite side of the valley, and none have as yet been discovered on the hill itself. The most interesting ruins, however, are those of Herod’s colonnade to the west of the modern village. This building seems to have run round the hill on a flat terrace, in the middle of which rises a rounded knoll on which the Temple, dedicated to Augustus, and stated by Josephus to have been in the middle of the town, presumably stood. The cloister measures about 2100 feet east and west, and 660 feet north and south; the walk being fifty feet wide in the one case, and 100 feet in the other. The total circuit is thus some 5500 feet, but Josephus (Ant. xv. 8) estimates it at twenty furlongs or 10,000 feet; his statement is therefore considerably exaggerated, but is no doubt to be considered as conjectural only. In the south-west angle there seems to have been a gateway flanked by small towers, the rock scarps of which remain. On the north-east there is another street of columns at the bottom of the hill, running in a line oblique to the sides of the upper colonnade. This seems to have been an avenue of approach 180 feet wide, 1450 feet long; but it may have been a distinct building, as no pillars remain on the upper slopes. The pillar shafts are principally monoliths; they are not, however, of colossal size like Herod’s work in Jerusalem, but only sixteen feet high and two feet thick.