Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and AdventureConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Palestine -- Description and travel
First of all in interest comes the cliff of El Mahrakah, “the place of
burning” or of sacrifice, a peak forming the south-east extremity of the
main range, and tilted high above the white downs south of the mountain,
in consequence, as we discovered, of volcanic disturbance. The peak is a
semi-isolated knoll with a cliff some forty feet high looking
south-east; beneath it a small plateau of arable soil with olives;
bushes and shrubs grow up the cliff, and among them a little modern
chapel stands near a large dry reservoir; below the plateau, at the very
edge of the steep slope which descends to the plain, is a well, cut in
hard rock and shaded by a large locust-tree. It contained water even in
December before the rains, though not in great quantity, and it was
infested with large hornets. From the summit of the cliff the view was
wonderfully interesting: on the west the spurs of Carmel, the yellow
sand-hills round Cæsarea, the far horizon of sea; on the north Acre, the
Galilean hills, Lebanon and Hermon; on the east Nazareth, Tabor, Nain,
Endor, Shunem, Bethshan, Gilboa with Jezreel at its feet, the Great
Plain, distant Gilead, the Kishon, and Jenîn; at the foot of the
mountain, Keimûn the Crusading Cain-Mons, the Biblical Jokneam.
At least as early as the close of the last century, the Carmelite
fathers looked on this peak as the scene of Elijah’s sacrifice. The
place seems to fit the account well. A plateau gives space for the
assembly of the multitude. A well close by may have supplied water.
Fourteen hundred feet below is Kishon, where the priests were slain. The
sea is invisible, except from the summit, and thus it was only by
climbing up to the top of Carmel, from the plateau, where the altar may
have stood, that the prophet’s servant could have seen the little cloud,
no bigger than a man’s hand, spreading gradually over the sea, the
plain, and the bushy mountain spurs. We require a site for the altar
near the summit, or the prophet’s servant must have taken at least an
hour for each journey; on the other hand, we require water other than
that in the Kishon, if the sacrifice took place near the summit, or the
water-carrying would have taken three or four hours to complete. Both
requisites are found in the site at El Mahrakah.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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