Of the city which once stood upon this site scarcely any trace remains. A careful examination of the ruins of a Christian church, probably of the date of the Crusades, shows that it has been built out of an older edifice. The size of many of the stones and the peculiar bevel on the edge shows that the original edifice was Jewish. The foundations of other ancient structures may be traced on the hill-side, and near its summit are the remains of a tower which still rises to a considerable height. Nothing has yet been discovered to fix the site of the temple which Jeroboam built here to rival that at Jerusalem, or of the altar where, as he stood to offer incense, he was rebuked by the fearless prophet, followed by the withering of the monarch’s arm, and the miraculous overthrow of the altar.[179] A Jewish tradition tells us that the temple was so built that the idol-priests could look down upon that of Solomon on Mount Moriah. From the top of the tower this cannot now be done, but the Mount of Olives is distinctly visible almost to its base. Jerusalem is hidden by an intervening hill. I was told by my dragoman that a few years ago, before the upper courses of masonry had been removed, the temple platform could be seen, and it was evident that a very small addition to the height at which I stood would render this quite practicable. It was somewhere in the rock-strewn moorland, which stretches around the city, that Jacob, travelling northward, a fugitive from his father’s house at Beersheba, received the mysterious vision, which formed the turning point in his career. Standing amongst these heaps of stones and sheets of smooth, bare rock, it is easy to realize the scene as “he tarried there all night because the sun was set, and he took of the stones of the place and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.”[180] [Illustration: RUINS OF BETHEL.] [Illustration: STONE CIRCLE NEAR BETHEL.] The historian goes on to tell us that “the name of that city was called Luz at the first,” implying an earlier Canaanitish settlement. A curious and interesting trace of this fact is found in the stone-circles, resembling those in our own country, which still exist on the east of the city. There are numerous instances in Palestine of the occurrence of dolmens and rude stone circles. We must doubtless refer them to the early settlers, antecedent to the Hebrew conquest.