Doubts and difficulties have often been expressed as to the possibility of the law being read on the opposite mountains of Ebal and Gerizim whilst the people were encamped between them. It has been said that at so great a distance the voices must have been inaudible. Some commentators have felt this so strongly that they have sought for an Ebal and Gerizim elsewhere. Infidels have made merry over the assumed incredibility of the narrative.[198] But no real difficulty exists. Just where the valley begins to narrow a deep depression indents the sides of the opposing mountains, up which at the height of a few hundred feet two level _plateaux_ confront each other. At this spot, which seems as though it had been created for the very purpose, the reading of the law probably took place, the priests standing on the plateau on either side, the people in the plain below. We tried the experiment under the most unfavourable circumstances. A very high wind was blowing down the valley, carrying the sounds away from us. Neither of the readers had powerful voices. And yet not only could we who remained in the valley hear them, but they heard one another with sufficient distinctness to read alternate verses, each beginning where the other left off. Had the day been calm or the readers possessed voices of greater power, every word would have been distinctly audible. This is due partly to the conformation of the hill sides forming, as it were, a double amphitheatre, partly to the elastic quality of the dry atmosphere of Syria which conveys sound to an amazing distance. The side of Ebal, the mountain of the cursing, is barren and rocky as compared with that of Gerizim, the mountain of the blessing. The latter is clothed with abundant pasturage to the very summit. The ascent is steep and difficult, but it well repays the labour, even if it were for the view alone. Nearly the whole extent of Palestine is visible—the hills of Galilee, the mountains of Benjamin and Judah, the Mediterranean and the great Philistine plain, the valley of the Jordan, the plains of Bashan and the mountains of Moab. Hermon is just hidden by an intervening height. The Samaritans assert, and many modern scholars maintain, that here, and not on the southern Moriah, Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac. A more imposing site could hardly be found, and reading the narrative on the spot the imagination is strongly enlisted in favour of the opinion which has found so able a defender in Dean Stanley. [Illustration: RUINS ON THE SUMMIT OF GERIZIM.]