According to the reports of most travellers, the mountain well deserves its Hebrew name (see above). Mariti describes it as "a delightful region," and says the good quality of its soil is apparent from the fact that many odoriferous plants and flowers, as hyacinths, jonquils, tazettoe, anemones, etc., grow wfld upon the mountain (Travels, p. 274 sq.). Otto von Richter {WalJfahrieny p. 64) gives a glowing account of its beauty and varied scenery. Mr. Came also says, " No mountain in or around Palestine retains its an- cient beauty so much as Carmel. Two or three vil- lages and some scattered cottages are found on it ; its groves are few, but luxuriant ; it is no place for crags and precipices, or rocks of the wild goats ; but its but-
CARMEL
125
CARMEL
&oe is corered with a rich and constant verdure** {Let- Un^ ii, 119). "There is not a flower,** says Van de Telde, "that I have seen in Galilee, or on the phiins akmg the coast, that I do not find here on Carmel . . . still the firagrant, lovely mountain that he was of old'* {^anatmey i, 317, 8). " The whole moontain side was dressed with blossoms, and flowering shrubs, and fragrant herbs" (Martineau, p. 639). So Isaiah (xxxv, S) aUodes to " the excellency (splendid ornaments) of CaimeL*' So, on account of the graceful form and verdant beauty of the summit, the head of the bride in Cant, vii, 6 is compared to Carmel. It was also cele- brated for its pastiires, and is therefore ranked with Bashan in Isa. xxxiii, 9; Jer. 1, 19; Amos i, 2; Mic. vii, 14 ; Nah. i, 4. Its conspicuous position is also compared with that of Tabor (Jer. xlvi, 18). Its great devation is referred to in Amos ix, 3. A much less glowing account of Carmel is given, however, by many travelled whose visit has been later in the year-— to- ward the end of summer or ui autumn— and who con- sequently found everything parched, dry, and brown. (See Hackett*s /Otffra. o/*;:fenpto9«, p. 824-326.) The western extremity of the ridge— that, unfortunately, with which ordinary travellers are most fkmiliar, and from which they take their impressions — is more bleak thin the eastern. Its sides are steep and rocky, scant- ily covered with dwarf shrubs and aromatic herbs, and having only a few scattered trees here and there in the glens (CVescen/ ami CWwc, i, 54 sq.).
The structure of Carmel is in the main the Jura for- matum (upper oolite), ^^h is prevalent in the centre of Western Palestine — a soft white limestone, with nodules and veins of flint. As usual in limestone for- mations, it abounds in caves (" more than 2000** — ^Mis- lin, ii, 46), often of great length, and extremely tortu- oos. See Cayb. At the west end are found chalk and tertiary breccia formed of fhigments of chalk and flint (Russegger, in Ritter, Erdk, xvi, 712). On the north-east of the mount, beyond the Nahr el-Mokatta, platonic rocks appear, breaking through the deposited strata, and forming the beginning of the basalt forma- tion which runs through ^e plain of Esdnelon to Ta- bor and the Sea of Galilee (Ritter, i&.). The round stones known by the names of " Lapides Judaid'* and **£l^h*s melons** are the bodies known to geologists as '^geodes.*' Their exterior is chert or flint of a lightish brown color ; the interior is hollow, and lined with crystals of quartz or chalcedony. They are of the form, and often the size, of the large water-melons of the East. Formerly they were easily obtained, but are now very rarely found (Seetzen, ii, 181, 134 ; Par- kmson's Organdc Remmns^ i, 822, 461). The "olives** are more common. They are the fossil spines of a kind of echinus (Cidaris glandifercC) fluent in these strata, and in size and shape are exactly like the fruit (Ptokinson, iii, 46). The "apples'* are probably the shells of the cidarii itselt For the legend of the origin of these "firuits,** and the position of the "fleld'* or "garden** of El^ah in which they are found, see Mis- lin, ii, 64, 66. The whole ridge of Carmel b deeply fonowed with rocky ravines, filled with such dense jon^ as scarcely to be penetrable. Here jackals, ^ves, hyenas, and wQd swine make their lairs, and ▼oodoocks find excellent cover ; while in the open for- est glades, partridges, quails, and hares sport about In the sides of the mountain, especially round the con- vent and overhanging the sea, are great numbers of caves and grottoes, formed partly by nature and part- ly by art and industry in the soft calcareous rock. Carmel at one period swarmed with monks and her- mits, who burrowed in these comfortless dens. Ca- lioiis traditions cling to some of them, in part con- firmed by the Greek inscriptions and names that may (tin be traced upon their waUs. One of them b called tt»e " Cave of the Sons of the Prophets,** and b said to be that in which the pious Obadiah hid the prophets j fnm. the friry of the infamous Jezebel (1 Kings xviii, |
4). In one tract, called the Monks* Cavern, there are as many as 400 caves adjacent to each other, frinushed with windows, and with places for sleeping hewn in the rock. A peculiarity of many of these caverns b mentioned by Shulz {Leittmp^ v, 187, 882), that the entrances into them are so narrow that only a single person can creep in at a time ; and that the caverns are so crooked that a person is immediately out of sight unless closely followed. Thb may serve to illus- trate Amos ix, 8. To these grottoes the prophets Eli- jah and Elbha often resorted (1 Kiags xviii, 19 sq., 42 ; 2 Kings ii, 26 ; iv, 26 ; and oomp. perhaps 1 Kings xviii, 4, 13). At the present day b shown a cavern called the cave of El^ah, a little below the Monks' Cavern already mentioned, and which b now a Mos- lem sanctuary. Upon the north-west summit b an ancient establishment of Carmelite monks, which or- der, indeed, derived its name frt>m thb mountain. See Carmelites. The order b said in the traditions of the Latin Churoh to have originated with El^ah himself (St. John of Jems., quoted in Mislin, ii, 49), but the convent was founded by St. Louis, and its French origin b still shown by the practice of unftirl- ing the French flag on various occasions. Edward I of England was a brother of the order, and one of its most fiunous generab was Simon Stokes of Kent (see the extracts in Wilson's Biblt Lands, ii, 246; for the convent and the singular legends connecting Mount Carmel with the Virgin Mary and onr Lord, see Mis- lin, ii, 47-60). By Napoleon it was used as a hospital during the siege of Acre, and after hb retreat was de- stroyed by the Arabs. At the time of Irby and Man- gles's vbit (1817) only one friar remained there (Irby, p. 60). The old convent was destroyed by Abdullah Pasha, who converted the materiab to his own use ; but it has of late years been rebuilt en a somewhat imposing scale by the aid of contributions fh>m Eu- rope. Carmel is known by the name of Jebel Kurmul in Arabian writers. At present it seems to be called by the Arabs Jebel Mar Elyat, from the convent of Mias near its northern end. (See generally Phil, a S. Trlnitate, Oriental, Beiatbesckreib, iii, 1, p. 166 sq. ; ReLuid, PalatL p. 82 sq. ; Hamesveld, i, 349 ; Schu- bert, Reite, iii, 206 ; Robinson, Re$earcheiy iii, 160, 189 ; Thomson, Land and Book, i, 493 ; Porter, Handbook for Syria, p. 371 ; Trbtram, Land of Israel, p. 496.)