Page:Domestic Life in Palestine.pdf/375

368 ever the land in this district was left uncultivated or fallow, the wild colocynth had sprung up plentifully. This fruit on an average was three inches in diameter, and firm and hard as a stone, with a smooth, green, white-and-yellow rind, marked like fine marble. We filled our saddle-bags with it, for it is only regarded by the Arabs as a weed. Squills, too, grow profusely, but are plowed up and destroyed.

We went down to the seaside, and found a pleasant strip of shade under the low cliffs, where there were mountains of melons waiting to be carried away in Arab boats, and the camels were coming and going quickly along the winding road from the cliff to the shore.

We watered our horses at a stream called Abu Zabura. It had not sufficient force to reach the sea, but formed a shallow lake not far from it.

We soon afterward caught sight of the picturesque ruins of Cæsarea, and alighted there at half-past ten, and rested in the shade of a large stone gateway. The horses were all unsaddled, and we made arrangements to remain there during the heat of the day. In a short time nearly all of our party were fast asleep. I tried to follow the example, but in vain; so I climbed up the cliff and looked about.

Not a human being was visible. Thorns and thistles grew among fallen columns and huge masses of masonry. The site of an ancient Christian church is marked by four massive buttresses, which stand erect and firm, though the walls they were intended to support fell long ago. The most important relic of ancient Cæsarea is the mole, which stands far out at sea, beaten by the waves, and fringed with surf. The large beveled stones and granite columns have fallen into strange and complicated disorder; but they seem to cling together, and to support each other in their desolation. I came down on to the sands again, and made a careful drawing of this remarkable ruin, stone by stone, while I sat exactly opposite to it, in the shelter of a short tunnel, which pierces the cliff in a sloping direction toward the sea. I supposed it to be part of an ancient