First of all in interest comes the cliff of El Mahrakah, "the place of burningâ or of sacrifice, a peak forming the south-east extremity of the main range, and tilted high above the white downs south of the mountain, in consequence, as we discovered, of volcanic disturbance. The peak is a semi-isolated knoll with a cliff some forty feet high looking south-east; beneath it a small plateau of arable soil with olives; bushes and shrubs grow up the cliff, and among them a little modern chapel stands near a large dry reservoir; below the plateau, at the very edge of the steep slope which descends to the plain, is a well, cut in hard rock and shaded by a large locust-tree. It contained water even in December before the rains, though not in great quantity, and it was infested with large hornets. From the summit of the cliff the view was wonderfully interesting: on the west the spurs of Carmel, the yellow sand-hills round Cæsarea, the far horizon of sea; on the north Acre, the Galilean hills, Lebanon and Hermon; on the east Nazareth, Tabor, Nain, Endor, Shunem, Bethshan, Gilboa with Jezreel at its feet, the Great Plain, distant Gilead, the Kishon, and Jenîn; at the foot of the mountain, Keimûn the Crusading Cain-Mons, the Biblical Jokneam.
At least as early as the close of the last century, the Carmelite fathers looked on this peak as the scene of Elijah's sacrifice. The place seems to fit the account well. A plateau gives space for the assembly of the multitude. A well close by may have supplied water. Fourteen hundred feet below is Kishon, where the priests were slain. The sea is invisible, except from the summit, and thus it was only by climbing up to the top of Carmel, from the plateau, where the altar may have stood, that the prophet's servant could have seen the little cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, spreading gradually over the sea, the plain, and the bushy mountain spurs. We require a site for the altar near the summit, or the prophet's servant must have taken at least an hour for each journey; on the other hand, we require water other than that in the Kishon, if the sacrifice took place near the summit, or the water-carrying would have taken three or four hours to complete. Both requisites are found in the site at El Mahrakah.