My next attempt was made with a friend who knew the way, and who led me along a corresponding ledge upon the opposite side of the valley, into a side gorge, which we followed past a wall of rock, in which were two or three small caverns, which I entered, the largest not more than twelve or fourteen feet square, and showing no signs of having been inhabited. A huge rock detached from the mountain-side, and hollowed into a sort of gallery, is so celebrated among the natives that it has a name of its own. Just behind it we turned to scramble almost straight up the mountain-side, covered with a scrub composed of camelthorn, odoriferous thyme, sage, marjoram, and arbutus, and then found we were at the foot of seven clearly defined terraces, completely encircling the rounded hill, upon the top of which stood the crumbling walls of an old fort, and which formed portions of its defences. On one of these stood a shepherd's hut, and inside the enclosure made of bushes was the entrance to a cavern, about thirty yards long, four feet high, and twenty or thirty feet across. In it, when they were not out feeding, the shepherd kept his flock of long-eared goats.
Ascending to the ruin, I found it to consist of the remains of what had evidently been a fort, the walls of which, enclosing a space of about sixty yards long by forty broad, were standing to a height of eight or ten feet, and were composed of blocks of limestone. At one angle a portion of the fortress had at a later period been converted into a church, the apse, with its arches, being in a tolerable state of preservation. The name of this ruin is Rushmea, and according to the most reliable sources of information to which I have had access, it was used by Saladin to watch the progress of the siege of Acre when that place was held by the crusaders. Prior to the crusades and the formation of the order of the Carmelite monks, the mountain was inhabited by anchorites, some of whom claimed to have inherited the sacred character of Elijah and Elisha. For some time seven of them seem to have divided the claim between them, and one of them is reported to have lived in a cave at Rushmea, which is said to contain carving and inscriptions. It was for this cave I was especially in search; but though I have visited the locality three times in all, twice with guides, and have found some seven or eight caves, one of which had a carved limestone entrance, none of them seemed of sufficient importance to answer the traditional description. A magnificent view is obtained from the ruin over the Bay of Acre, with the town in the distance and the plain of Kishon beneath, and plainly visible the famous well for the possession of which Saladin and Richard Cœur de Lion fought. I have visited this celebrated source, with its massive masonry and crumbling cistern, in the centre of which there is now a flourishing fig-tree. During the siege which Haifa then withstood, the town was completely destroyed, so that the crusading army had to remain in tents, and here it was that the lion-hearted king caught that severe fever which gave rise to reports of his death, and which resulted in his remaining for four weeks at Haifa to recover his health. That plain is as unhealthy now as it was then, and the date-groves, which are its most striking feature, must have existed then, for they are mentioned in the records of the year 1230, when King Amalrich II. died of a surfeit of sea-fish, for which the place is celebrated.