Soon after passing the northern end of the lake the snowy summit of Hermon, which has been previously visible at intervals for some days, comes full into view, and forms a fine feature in the landscape. A cool, refreshing breeze flows down from its glittering heights, and is doubly welcome in the sultry plain over which we are toiling. The contrast between the near and the distant landscape is very striking. The plain of Hûleh might be a portion of tropical Africa. Droves of black, hairless buffaloes wallow in the swamps. The Gawarineh Arabs, almost black and quite naked, live in reed huts like many negro tribes, and twist their hair into a tuft like the inhabitants of the Gold Coast. The intense heat produces a semi-tropical vegetation. But we have only to turn our eyes to the northern horizon to see a long stretch of snow as bright, and clear, and cold as that of Switzerland. [Illustration: HERMON FROM NEAR TELL-EL-KADI.] We cross a fine old Roman bridge which spans the picturesque gorge of the Hasbany, and soon reach a remarkable mound or _tell_, from the foot of which gushes out a stream of water so broad and deep that we may almost call it a river. This is one of THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN. The mound above it is called the Tell-el-Kadi (_the Mound of the Judge_), a rare instance of a name being retained not in sound but in meaning. “Dan” in Hebrew, like “Kadi” in Arabic, means judge; and here stood the CITY OF DAN. The history of the conquest is graphically told in the book of Judges.[273] The tribes, finding their territory on the borders of Sharon too strait for them, sent spies northward, who reported that “the land was very good, a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth.” The Zidonian colonists, far from their mother city, were leading lives of luxury and licentiousness; “they dwelt carelessly, after the manner of the Zidonians, quiet and secure; and there was no magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in anything.” The warlike Danites burst upon them, stormed their city of Laish, conquered the whole territory, and transferred the head-quarters of the tribe to their new home. The exquisite fertility and beauty of the country justifies the report of the spies. But, like Lot under a similar temptation, they seem to have succumbed to the evil influences around them, and to have sunk down into a condition of semi-heathenism from which they never emerged. The mounds of ruins which mark the site of the city show that it covered a considerable extent of ground. But there remains no record of any noble deed wrought by the degenerate tribe, and, as we have seen, their name disappears from the roll both of the natural and of the spiritual Israel.