Merom). Although Hermon is only 10,000 feet high, I am not aware of any mountain which rises so suddenly or so directly from its base. Take, for instance, Chamounix. If you want to go to the top of Mont Blanc, you know that Chamounix is many hundred feet above the platform of the Mediterranean. It is true that Mont Blanc is many thousand feet higher than Mount Hermon, but from its immediate base it is not so high. When you get up to the Grand Mulets you are not so far from the summit of Mont Blanc as you are at Lake Huleh from the summit of Hermon. The consequence of this is that you have brought together in that spot a greater contrast of produce, animal and vegetable, than I have found anywhere else. You have the arctic climate of the north on the tops of the mountains, and a tropical climate in the Jordan Valley, where, in the month of January, I have been glad to sleep in the open air, the thermometer never being below 80° at midnight. At the east and south you have the dry sandy desert; so that you have four distinct climates within view of each other. I can stand on any of the hills of Judea and see the snow-capped tops of Hermon and Lebanon, and look over this vast desert eastward and down to the seething tropical valley of the Dead Sea.
"Now, with all that, there is nothing in the physical character of that country which is striking or phenomenal, as people would call it. It is about the most commonplace and ordinary country in the world that I have ever seen. There are no startling features, but there is endless variety in it, and I cannot help thinking that there is something very providential in the extraordinary variety which is brought together within a district of the Holy Land, which is not so large as the six northern counties of England; because I remember that it was chosen as the country in which was written a Book, which was to be for the teaching and guidance of all mankind in every country
