Page:Traditions of Palestine (microform) (IA traditionsofpale00martrich).pdf/31

 often reposed there while he thought on the events which had taken place on this spot, or in scenes on which his eye rested. While the wild animals and birds were his only companions, he had often remembered that he stood where Barak assembled his hosts before he went forth against Sisera; that Sodom and Gomorrah were once visible where now dark exhalations only shewed where they had been built; that the walls of Jericho arose on the horizon, before they fell at the blast of the trumpets of Israel; and that the waters of Jordan might hence be seen, where they parted to admit the passage of the Ark of the Lord. Often had he gazed on the snowy peak of Hermon, and on the sea of Galilee; and often had his eye rested on the town of Nazareth, as it sloped from the ridge of a hill into a deep vale, while he little knew that it would be hereafter sanctified as the abode of the Hope of Israel. Now, as the eyes of the travellers turned towards the mountain, they saw that its wonted stillness and solitude were disturbed. Groups of people were hastening in all directions over the plain towards Tabor; and on the mountain itself, moving figures