CARMEL  , the

mountain promontory by which the seacoast of Palestine is interrupted south of the Bay of Acre, 32° 50' N., 35° E . It continues as a ridge of oolitic limestone, broken by ravines and honeycombed by caves, running for about 20 M . in a south-easterly direction, and finally joining the mountains of Samaria . Its maximum height is at `Esfia, 176o ft . It was included in the territory of the tribe of Asher . No great political event is recorded in connexion with it; it appears throughout the Old Testament "either as a symbol or as a sanctuary"; its name means " garden-land." Its fruitfulness is referred to by Isaiah and by Amos; Micah describes it as wooded, to which was no doubt due its value as a hiding-place (Amos ix . 3) . It is now wild, only a few patches being cultivated; most of the mountain is covered with a thick brushwood of evergreens, oaks, myrtles, pines, &c., which is gradually being cleared away . That the cultivation was once much more extensive is indicated by the large number of rock-hewn wine and olive presses . Vines and olives are now found at `Esfia only . The outstanding position of Carmel, its solitariness, its visibility over a wide area of country, and its fertility, marked it out as a suitable place for a sanctuary from very ancient times . It is possibly referred to in the Palestine lists of Thothmes III. as Rosh Kodsu, " the holy headland." An altar of Jehovah existed here from early times; it was destroyed when the Phoenician Baal claimed the country under Jezebel, and repaired by Elijah (1 Kings xviii .

30) before the great

sacrifice which decided the claims of the con-tending deities . I The traditional site of this sacrifice is at El-Muhraka, at the eastern end of the ridge . The Druses still visit this site, where is a dilapidated structure of stones, as a holy place for sacrifice . On the bank of the Kishon below is a mound known as Tell el-Kusis, " the Priest's mound," but the connexion that has been sought between this name and the slaughter of the priests of Baal is hardly justifiable . Other sites on the hill are traditionally connected with Elijah, and some melon-like fossils are explained as being fruits refused to him by its owner, who was punished by having them turned to stone . Elisha was stationed here for a time . Tacitus describes the hill as the site of an oracle, which Vespasian consulted . Iamblichus in his life of Pythagoras speaks of it as a place of great sanctity forbidden to the vulgar . A grove of trees, called the " Trees of the Forty " [Martyrs], still remains, no doubt in former times a sacred grove . So early as the 4th century Christian hermits began to settle here, and in 1207 the Carmelite order was organized . The monastery, founded at the fountain of Elijah in 1209, has had many vicissitudes: the monks were slaughtered or driven to Europe in 1238 and the building decayed; it was visited and refounded by St Louis in 1252; again despoiled in 1291; once more rebuilt in 1631, and, in 1635 (when the monks were massacred), sacked and turned into a mosque . Once more the monks established themselves, only to be murdered after Napoleon's retreat in 1799 .

The

church and the monastery were entirely destroyed in 1821 by `Abd Allah, pasha of Acre, on the plea that the monks would favour the revolting Greeks; but it was shortly afterwards rebuilt by order from the Porte, partly at `Abd Allah's expense and partly by contributions raised in Europe, Asia and Africa by Brother Giovanni Battista of Frascati . The villages with which the mountain was once covered have been to a large extent depopulated by the Druses . (R . A . S .