Crossing the valley, we see before us the site of Jezreel on a knoll 500 feet high. The position is very peculiar, for whilst on the north and north-east the slopes are steep and rugged, on the south the ascent is very gradual, and the traveller coming northwards is astonished to look down suddenly on the valley, with its two springs, one ('Ain Jâlûd) welling out from a conglomerate cliff, and forming a pool about 100 yards long, with muddy borders; the other ('Ain Tub'aûn), the Crusaders' Fountain of Tubania, where the Christian armies were fed "miraculouslyâ for three days on the fish which still swarm in most of the great springs near.
The main road ascends from near these springs and passes by the "Dead Spring,â which was re-opened by the Governor of Jenîn, and now forms a shallow pool between rocks of black basalt, covered with red and orange-coloured lichen, and also full of little fish; thence it passes on the east side beneath the knoll of Zer'în (Jezreel) to the plain on the south. Climbing up to the village, we are again struck by the absence of any traces of antiquity; the buildings, including the central tower, are all modern, and only the great mound beneath, and perhaps some of the innumerable cisterns, seem ancient; yet the site is undoubted, and has never been really lost. Here from a tower, perhaps standing where the modern one is erected, the watchman could see down the broad Valley of Jezreel as far as Bethshan, and watch the dust and the gleam of the armour advancing. The course of the two horsemen and of Jehu's chariot was distinctly seen beneath the hill, and the distances are sufficiently extensive to give time for the succession of events.
On the east and south-east there are rock-cut wine presses on the rugged hills, where no doubt the "portion of the field of Nabothâ and his vineyard are to be placed,--a good instance of the decay of vine cultivation in Palestine.
It was by the "fountain which is in Jezreelâ that Saul pitched before the fatal battle of Gilboa. The Philistines removed from Shunem to Aphek, and, according to Josephus, to Rangan. Perhaps these are the modern Fukû'a and 'Arrâneh, in which case the strong position of Jezreel was turned on the south-west, where it is most assailable, and the doomed monarch was hemmed in between the enemy on the south and the precipices of the mountain on the north.