Following the directions of the guide, Frank and his companions went to the western side of the mound, where they found a pool or basin about fifty yards across, in which the water bubbled as in a fast-flowing spring. It was, indeed, a spring, and the flow was large enough to form a stream thirty feet wide and two feet deep. The guide said it was the largest of all the sources of the Jordan, but the stream it formed was not so long as that from Banias, and the latter again is shorter than the Hasbany, which rises near Hasbeiyah. The stream rising at Dan is called the Lesser Jordan on the maps, and unites with the Greater Jordan a few miles below, while all meet in Lake Huleh, as we have already learned. [Illustration: HEAD-SPRING OF THE JORDAN NEAR HASBEIYAH.] There is another spring inside the basin on the top of the hill, but it is much smaller than the great fountain. There was a fine oak-tree close to this spring, and it furnished a grateful shade to the travellers while they were taking their well-earned lunch. A halt of something more than an hour found them ready to move on, and it was an easy ride of three or four miles from Dan to Banias, or Cesarea-Philippi. [Illustration] Here they were at the source of the Greater Jordan, which issues from a cave and forms a brook about half the volume of that which has its source at Dan. There are several mills on the brook, and just below the town is a large terebinth-tree, which forms an important feature in every picture of the place. It is the favorite resort of beggars and other idlers, and the traveller who halts beneath it is sure to be implored for backsheesh. [Illustration: TEREBINTH-TREE AT BANIAS.] Banias is in a picturesque spot; it is surrounded by mountains, and is at the base of a cone crowned by a castle, which is or was one of the strongest in all Syria. The ruins of the city lie all around the base of the cone, and some of them show that the buildings were of great extent. The city was of Phoenician origin, and contained temples dedicated to the worship of the heathen deity _Pan_, from which it was named Paneas. This afterward became Banias, and in the time of the Romans the worship of the Greek god was continued. The name was changed to Cesarea-Philippi, first in honor of Cæsar, and secondly to distinguish it from the other Cesarea on the sea-coast. "We read in the New Testament," said the Doctor, "that Christ came into the coasts of Cesarea-Philippi. Here he asked his disciples, 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?' And then followed the question, 'Whom say ye that I am?' "You know what Peter replied to this. And then Christ spoke the words that have become memorable in the history of the religion that he founded: