From historical association it must ever remain one of the most interesting spots in the East, while, even from a purely picturesque point of view, the wild and rugged grandeur of the scenery amid which it is situated cannot fail to stamp it upon the memory. As I believe it is intended to continue excavations, we may hope for still further results, and there can be no doubt that, when once the obstacles which are now thrown in the way by the present government, to all scientific or antiquarian research in Turkey, are removed by the political changes new pending in the East, a rich field of exploration will be opened, not at Ephesus alone, but throughout the little-known ruined cities of Asia Minor.
Haifa, Nov. 27, 1882.—The more you examine the countries most frequented by tourists, the more you are perplexed to comprehend the reasons which decide them to confine themselves to certain specified routes, arranged apparently by guides and dragomans, with a view of concealing from them the principal objects of interest. There is certainly not one tourist in a hundred who visits the Holy Land who has ever heard of Athlit, much less been there, and yet I know of few finer ruins to the west of the Jordan. To the east the magnificent remains of Jerash, Amman, and Arak-el Emir are incomparably more interesting, and these, of course, are also almost ignored by tourists; but that may be accounted for by the fact that special permission from the government is required to visit them, while an impression still exists that the journey is attended with some risk. Practically this is not the case. It takes a long time to remove an impression of this kind, and it is the interest of a large class of persons who live on blackmail to keep it up. But in the case of Athlit there is no such drawback. Probably the neglect with which it is treated is due largely to the fact that no scriptural association attaches to the locality, and people would rather go to Nazareth than examine the majestic remains of Roman civilization, or the ruder superstructures of crusading warfare.
The easiest way to reach Athlit is to go to it from Carmel. As the monastery there is a most modern structure, about fifty years old, tourists often get as far as that, because the guide takes them there; but they know nothing of the mysteries of this sacred mountain, second only to Sinai, in the estimation of the modern Jew, in the sanctity of its reputation, and they turn back when, by riding a few miles down the coast, they would follow a route full of interest. The road traverses a plain about two miles in width. On the left, the rugged limestone slopes of the mountain are perforated with caves—in the earliest ages of Christianity the resorts of hermits, from whom the order of the Carmelites subsequently arose. Here tradition still points out the spot where the crusading king, St. Louis of France, was shipwrecked; and in a gorge of the mountains may still be seen the foundations of the first monastery, near a copious spring of clearest water, where the pious monarch was entertained by the first monks, whom, out of gratitude, he enabled subsequently to establish themselves upon the site occupied by the present monastery, and to found an order which has since become celebrated. Along this line of coast there is an uninterrupted stretch of sandy beach, upon which the full force of the Mediterranean breaks in long lines of rollers, and which would afford an interesting field of study to the conchologist. Among the most curious shells are the _Murex brandaris_ and the _Murex trunculus_, the prickly shells of the fish which in ancient times yielded the far-famed Tyrian purple. The Phoenicians obtained the precious dye from a vessel in the throat of the fish.