Only a few days now remained to the time when he was to meet Myron at Dan. After taking a friendly leave, he directed his course to Megiddo, which lies between the fragrant plain of Sharon on the south, and the great plain of Jezreel on the north. Megiddo is celebrated for the battle in which the kings Ahaziah and Josiah were killed fighting against Neco, king of Egypt.[125] Helon had come hither to see the great route of the Phœnician commerce, which pursued a course parallel to the sea. He passed Tunis Stratonis, a small and now almost abandoned town, but possessed, as he remarked, of an incomparable harbour. Here he was a hundred stadia from Jerusalem. Keeping to the north from Turris Stratonis, he came to Dor, which is also on the sea-coast, and thence by Magdiel to the foot of Carmel.
Carmel joins the plain of Sharon to the south, and the hills of Ephraim to the south-east; and on the north the bay of Acco and the plain of Jezreel or Esdraelon, through which the Kishon runs, rising in mount Tabor, and falling into the sea at the foot of Carmel, after having divided the lands of Issachar and Zebulon. Helon ascended the mountain; it is of great height, and has a wide and beautiful prospect both by land and sea. It is distinguished, as its name expresses, by its fertility. Its very summit is crowned with pines and oaks; its lower regions abound with olives and laurels. Helon, as he stood on it, thought with sacred awe of the victory which the worship of Jehovah had gained over that of Baal, through the energetic zeal of Elijah of Thisba, and of the slaughter of the priests of Baal, which made Kishon run purple to the sea.[126] As he descended, he found a multitude of Phœnician fishermen engaged in taking the shell-fish from which their celebrated die is made. There are two species of this fish; one is caught by bait, the other, which is particularly abundant on the shore of Carmel, is gathered from the rocks. The die is contained in a white vein or bladder in the neck; the Phœnicians made from it fourteen shades of purple, of which the most highly prized, the bright red and the violet, were manufactured with inimitable skill at Tyre. A shepherd’s dog which had fed upon the fish, and had thus stained his mouth of a beautiful colour, is said to have furnished the first hint for this lucrative article of commerce.