In crossing the hills of Galilee from Esdraelon to Nazareth, we pass three villages, each with a place in the inspired record. The first is Sôlem, the ancient SHUNEM. It lies at the foot of Little Hermon, about three miles from the fountain of Jezreel. Luxuriant orange groves and corn-fields, fenced with hedges of prickly pear, encompass a cluster of mud-walled, flat-topped hovels. The inhabitants seemed a merry, good-humoured, contented race, fearing nothing but a Bedouin raid, or a visit from the Turkish tax-gatherer. Blocks of marble, with traces of sculpture upon them, probably brought from the ruins of Jezreel, are worked into the mud-walls of the village, and the largest house has a couple of willow-pattern plates, like those we noticed at Bethel, with a dish to match, over the doorway. But there is nothing to remind us that this is the scene of one of the most touching incidents which the Bible records. It was here that a “great woman” of the village, “the good, kind Shunammite,” made “a little chamber on the wall, and set there a bed, and a stool, and a candlestick,” that the prophet might freely pass in and out. Content to dwell “among her own people” she refused to “be spoken for to the king, or to the captain of the host.” And when a son was granted to her old age her cup of happiness was full. Whilst scarcely a trace of the ancient village exists, the surrounding scenery remains unchanged. It was in these luxuriant corn-fields that the child, smitten by sunstroke, “said to his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother. And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died.” We follow the bereaved mother, choking down her sobs, and saying “It is well,” as she rides hurriedly across the plain to the prophet’s haunt on Carmel, and sympathize with her joy as she receives back her son.[237] [Illustration: TABOR.] A little farther to the north stands another village, to which a more tragic interest attaches—ENDOR, the goal of Saul’s journey the night before his death. The Israelites, as we have seen, were encamped near the fountain of Jezreel on Mount Gilboa, the Philistines at Shunem, about midway between Endor and the camp of Saul. The king at the peril of his life gropes his way past the outposts of the enemy to reach the woman who is to reveal to him the secrets of the future. The village retains its ancient name unchanged. And one of the numerous caves still, as formerly, used as dwellings may have afforded a fitting abode for the miserable and wicked woman whose heart relented towards the doomed and despairing king.[238] [Illustration: NAIN.]