The road had another interest for me. Forty-two years ago, before the railroad came this way, the _Quaker City_ pilgrims toiled up through the summer heat, setting out on the "long trip" through the full length of Palestine. Nobody makes it in summer now. Few make it at all, except by rail and in carriages, with good hostelries at the end of every stage. Still, I am glad those first pilgrims made it, or we should not have had that wonderful picture of Syrian summer-time, nor of "Jericho" and "Baalbec." Those two horses are worth knowing--in literature--and I tried to imagine that little early party of excursionists climbing the steep path to Palestine on their sorry nags. It is warm in Syria, even now, but we were not too warm, riding; besides, we were going steadily uphill, and by-and-by somebody pointed out a white streak along the mountain-top, and it was snow. Then, after a long time, we got to a place where the vegetation was very scanty and there were no more terraced hills, but only barren peaks and sand, where the wind blew cold and colder, and presently the snow lay right along our way. We had reached the highest point then--five thousand feet above the sea. In five hours we had come thirty-six miles--thirty-five in length and one straight up in the air. Somebody said: "Look, there is Mount Hermon!" And, sure enough, away to the south, though nigh upon us it seemed--so close that one might put out his hand and touch it, almost--there rose a stately, snow-clad elevation which, once seen, dominated the barren landscape. It was so pure white against the blue--so impressive in its massive dignity--the eye followed it across every vista, longed for it when immediate peaks rose between, welcomed it when time after time it rose grandly into view. With an altitude of between nine and ten thousand feet, Mount Hermon is the highest mountain in Syria, I believe--certainly the most important. The Bible is full of it. The Amorites and the Hivites, and most of the other tribes that Joshua buried or persuaded to go away, had their lands under Mount Hermon (all of them in sight of it), and that grand old hill looked down on Joshua's slaughter of men and women and little children, and perhaps thought it a puny performance to be undertaken in the name, and by the direction, of God. Joshua established Mount Hermon as the northern boundary of Palestine, and from whatever point the Israelite turned his face northward, he saw its white summit against the blue. It became symbolic of grandeur, stability, purity, and peace. It was to one of its three peaks that Christ came when, with Peter, James, and John, He withdrew to "an high mountain apart" for the Transfiguration. So it became sanctified as a sort of holy judgment-seat.[5]