Paneas, after the city had been rebuilt by Philip the Tetrarch
and renamed after him and his Imperial master, there came one day a
Peasant of Galilee who taught His disciples to draw near to Nature, not
with fierce revelry and superstitious awe, but with tranquil confidence
and calm joy. The goatfoot god, the god of panic, the great god Pan,
reigns no more beside the upper springs of Jordan. The name that we
remember here, the name that makes the message of flowing stream and
sheltering tree and singing bird more clear and cool and sweet to our
hearts, is the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

IV

CAESAREA PHILIPPI

Yes, this little Mohammedan town of Baniyas, with its twoscore wretched
houses built of stones from the ancient ruins and huddled within the
broken walls of the citadel, is the ancient site of Caesarea Philippi. In
the happy days that we spend here, rejoicing in the most beautiful of
all our camps in the Holy Land, and yielding ourselves to the full charm
of the out-of-doors more perfectly expressed than we had ever thought to
find it in Palestine,--in this little paradise of friendly trees and
fragrant flowers,

"at snowy Hermon's foot,
Amid the music of his waterfalls,"--

the thought of Jesus is like the presence of a comrade, while the
memories of human grandeur and transience, of man's long toil, unceasing
conflict, vain pride and futile despair, visit us only as flickering
ghosts.

* * * * *

We climb to the top of the peaked hill, a thousand feet above the town,
and explore the great Crusaders' Castle of Subeibeh, a ruin vaster in
extent and nobler in situation than the famous _Schloss_ of Heidelberg.
It not only crowns but completely covers the summit of the steep ridge
with the huge drafted stones of its foundations. The immense round
towers, the double-vaulted gateways, are still standing. Long flights of
steps lead down to subterranean reservoirs of water. Spacious
courtyards, where the knights and men-at-arms once exercised, are
transformed into vegetable gardens, and the passageways between the
north citadel and the south citadel are travelled by flocks of lop-eared
goats.

From room to room we clamber by slopes of crumbling stone, discovering
now a guard-chamber with loopholes for the archers, and now an arched
chapel with the plaster intact and faint touches of colour still showing
upon it. Perched on the high battlements we look across the valley