EN OAKS BETWEEN JOPPA AND CARMEL]

Drawn by Boudier, from a pencil sketch by Lortet.

Here, behind a screen of woods and mountain, the enemy would concentrate
his forces and prepare resolutely to meet the attack. If the invader
succeeded in overcoming resistance at this point, the country lay open
to him as far as the Orontes; nay, often even to the Euphrates. The
position was too important for its defence to have been neglected. A
range of forts, Ibleam, Taanach, and Megiddo,* drawn like a barrier
across the line of advance, protected its southern face, and beyond
these a series of strongholds and villages followed one another at
intervals in the bends of the valleys or on the heights, such as Shunem,
Kasuna, Anaharath, the two Aphuls, Cana, and other places which we find
mentioned on the triumphal lists, but of which, up to the present, the
sites have not been fixed.

* Megiddo, the "Legio" of the Roman period, has been
identified since Robinson's time with Khurbet-Lejun, and
more especially with the little mound known by the name of
Tell-el-Mutesallim. Conder proposed to place its site more
to the east, in the valley of the Jordan, at Khurbet-el-
Mujeddah.

[Illustration: 197.jpg ACRE AND THE FRINGE OF REEFS SHELTERING THE
ANCIENT PORT]

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Lortet.

From this point the conqueror had a choice of three routes. One ran
in an oblique direction to the west, and struck the Mediterranean near
Acre, leaving on the left the promontory of Carmel, with the sacred
town, Rosh-Qodshu, planted on its slope.

[Illustration: 198.jpg Map]

Acre was the first port where a fleet could find safe anchorage after
leaving the mouths of the Nile, and whoever was able to make himself
master of it had in his hands the key of Syria, for it stood in the same
commanding position with regard to the coast as that held by Megiddo
in respect of the interior. Its houses were built closely together on a
spit of rock which projected boldly into the sea, while fringes of reefs
formed for it a kind of natural breakwater, behind which ships could
find a safe harbourage from the attacks of pirates or the perils of bad
weather. From this point the hills come so near the shore that one is
sometimes obliged to wade along the beach to avoid a projecting spur,
and sometimes to climb a zig-zag path in order to cross a headland. In
more than one place the rock has been holl