There are few episodes in the Old Testament more picturesque than this of the defeat of the Canaanites. Tabor, the central position, a mountain whose summit is 1500 feet above the plain, is bare and shapeless on the south, but to the north it is steep, and wooded with oaks and thickets in which the fallow-deer finds a home. About three miles west are the springs from which the Kishon first rises, and from this point a chain of pools and springs, fringed with reeds and rushes, marks, even in the dry season, the course of the river. Along this line, at the base of the northern hills, the chariots and horsemen of Sisera fled. The sudden storm had swollen the stream, “the river Kishon swept them away, that river of battles the river Kishon.” The remainder fled to Harosheth, now only a miserable village (El Harathîyeh), named from the beautiful woods above the Kishon at the point where, through a narrow gorge, the stream, hidden among oleander bushes, enters the Plain of Acre. The flight of Sisera himself was in an opposite direction, under the slopes of Tabor and across the great lava plateau on which stood, near Bessûm, the black tent of Heber the Kenite. The Bedawin have a delicious preparation of curdled milk called Leben, which is offered to guests but generally considered a delicacy; from personal experience I know that it is most refreshing to a traveller when tired and hot, but it has also a strange soporific effect, which was so sudden in its action on one English clergyman after a long ride, that he thought he had been poisoned. It was perhaps not without a knowledge of its probable effects, that Jael gave to her exhausted guest a tempting beverage which would make his sleep sound and long. One final illustration may be added. In the magnificent song of Deborah, the great storm which swelled the Kishon is described: “They fought from heaven, the stars from their courses fought against Sisera” (Judg. v. 20). The season was probably that of the autumn storms which occur early in November. At this time the meteoric showers are commonest, and are remarkably fine in effect, seen in the evening light at a season when the air is specially clear and bright. The scene presented by the falling fiery stars, as the defeated host fled away by night, is one very striking to the fancy, and which would form a fine subject for an artist’s pencil. [Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. ANNE, SEPPHORIS.] CHAPTER V. THE NAZARETH HILLS. Past Gilboa, Jezreel, Shunem, Nain, and Endor, we sped to the foot of the great cliff 1000 feet high, which rises straight from the plain by the narrow pass to the Nazareth hills. From the middle ages down, this cliff has been shown as that from which the Nazarenes would have precipitated the Saviour. Old Maundeville quaintly terms it “the Leap of our Lord,” and other pilgrims were shown a hollow where the rock had become soft as wax, and formed a hiding-place where Christ was said to have been concealed.