"head of the lake," with the hills of Antioch in front, which is here inserted, with the kind permission of the author and publisher. As Casius forms a most prominent landmark as pointed out from the sea, so, on the other extremity of the entrance into Hamath, it forms as conspicuous an object, and is seen to rise as a mountain whose base is the summit of another, Horha-hor, or literally a mountain on a mountain. The height of the "summit of pass," or "the minimum of crest, and summit level of a road," is 2460 feet, the village of Beshkir is 2513;' but another mountain rises above the summit level of the lower, to more than twice that height.

"Burckhardt, Volney, Adrien Balbi, and others, have looked upon Casius, and the Nosairi hills, as effecting a connection between the Lebanon and Amanus, and hence geographically connecting the systems of Taurus and Libanus; and this view of the subject," according to the able testimony of Mr Ainsworth, "is farther supported by the geognostic structure of the chains."2 The entrance into the land of Hamath thus lies between them at the connecting point, or base of Casius; and the opposite hill bears the name of Djebel Mousa, as if the name of the Hebrew legislator were engraven on the northern frontier of Israel.

An extensive mountain range from north to south, and another from east to west, form, in their respective terminations, the opposite sides of the valley which terminates also the course of the Orontes, or the river of Hamath. That river flowed alike by Hamath and Antioch, through the centre of the land; and it is not an unnatural supposition, though other facts were not known to support it, that the entrance into Hamath

Ainsworth's Assyria, p. 305.

2 Ibid. 305, 306.

from the sea was, in all likelihood, the same as that by which the river of Hamath entered the sea. Immediately at that point, where its waters mingle with those of the ocean, there rises abruptly a very high mountain, from whence an open and direct entrance into Hamath lies in immediate prospect, right inland, which doubtless formed the great thoroughfare from the sea in northern Syria, and opened up a plain way from thence to the cities in the land of Hamath, and led directly to others in the vicinity or on the banks of the Euphrates.

Riblah in the land of Hamath was the Syrian seat of the king of Babylon in the days of the prophets of Israel. Antioch, in its place or immediate neighbourhood, became the seat of the Assyrian monarchs, and was repeatedly the resort of Roman emperors. Its port, of which the remains are yet to be seen, was near to the mouth of the Orontes; and Seleucia, with its port "capable of containing a thousand vessels," lay in the vicinity. Along the coast the lofty pinnacle of Casius was the surest beacon from the sea; and it directed the mariner to the entrance of Hamath, the maritime terminus of which formed the stations of two extensive ports, while at its opposite extremity lay Hamath the Great, or the capital of Assyria. The bounding mountains on both sides precluded any other entrance; while a river, navigable for vessels of 100 tons, with a road on its south side, and a narrow path on the northern bank, where the opposing mountains almost meet, passed through a most enchanting scene, which there is thus strong reason for believing was consecrated by divine promise as ultimately a portion of the northern border of Israel, before the grove of Daphne, planted beside it, was desecrated by heathen abominations. Having the celebrated and opulent city of Seleucia, together with its port and that of Antioch in one end, and the city of