Priest,) which name may be a traditional remembrance of Elijah, slaying
the priests of Baal; but inasmuch as the word "Kasees" is in the singular
number, the appellation may be more likely derived from some hermit
residing there in a later age. At any rate, this Tell lies immediately
below the site of that memorable sacrifice, and at the point where the
Kishon sweeps round to the foot of the mountain a path descends from the
"Mohhrakah," _i.e._, the place of the burnt-offering, to the river. It
must therefore, have been the spot where the priests of Baal were slain,
whether the hill be named from the fact or not; and nothing can be more
exact than the words of the Bible in 1 Kings xviii. 40.

We were preparing to remount for continuing the journey when our guide
espied four wild-looking Arabs walking with long strides up the hill, so
as to pass behind and above us; they were well armed, and made no reply
to our challenge. As our horses and the guide's spear would have
benefited us little on the steep hill-side, but on the contrary were
tempting prizes, and as our fire-arms were not so numerous as theirs, we
thought fit to pace away before they should obtain any further advantage
of situation over us.

In another quarter of an hour we left the straight road to Caiffa, and
struck out northwards, crossing the Kishon at a fort opposite a village
on a hill called _El Hharatheeyeh_, just before we should otherwise have
come to a low hill covered with a ripe crop of barley, which, from its
formation and other circumstances, bore the appearance of an ancient
fortified place. This hill was named _'Asfi_, as I wrote it from
pronunciation. This, with the _Hharatheeyeh_, one assisting the other,
would prove a good military defence at this end of the valley, as Kaimoon
and the Kasees were at the other.

Dr Thomson, in his "Land and the Book," chap. xxxi., considers this site
to be that of "Harosheth of the Gentiles," (Judges iv. 13,) and I have no
doubt that his supposition is correct; the topography agrees, and the
etymology in both Hebrew and Arabic is one, viz., "ploughed land." This
author, however, makes no mention of _'Asfi_ though he speaks of "the
double Tell."

Whether 'Asfi was an aboriginal home of the people in the modern _Esfia_
on the summit of Carmel, I have no means of knowing; but that a
population, when emigrating to a new settlement, sometimes carried their
name with them, appears in Scripture in the ins