groups--motionless and distinct
against the hot purple air.

Look again; a little to the left on the sea-shore there are the
white walls of a fortified town, glittering in sunlight, or black in
shadow.

The fortifications themselves run out into the sea, forming a port
and a haven against the wild Levantine storms; and a lighthouse
rises out of the waves to guide mariners into safety.

Beyond this walled city, and far away to the left still, there is
the same wide plain shut in by the distant rising ground, till the
upland circuit comes closing in to the north, and the great white
rocks meet the deep tideless ocean with its intensity of blue
colour.

Above, the sky is literally purple with heat; and the pitiless light
smites the gazer's weary eye as it comes back from the white shore.
Nor does the plain country in that land offer the refuge and rest of
our own soft green. The limestone rock underlies the vegetation, and
gives a glittering, ashen hue to all the bare patches, and even to
the cultivated parts which are burnt up early in the year. In
spring-time alone does the country look rich and fruitful; then the
corn-fields of the plain show their capability of bearing, 'some
fifty, some an hundred fold'; down by the brook Kishon, flowing not
far from the base of the mountainous promontory to the south, there
grow the broad green fig-trees, cool and fresh to look upon; the
orchards are full of glossy-leaved cherry-trees; the tall amaryllis
puts forth crimson and yellow glories in the fields, rivalling the
pomp of King Solomon; the daisies and the hyacinths spread their
myriad flowers; the anemones, scarlet as blood, run hither and
thither over the ground like dazzling flames of fire.

A spicy odour lingers in the heated air; it comes from the multitude
of aromatic flowers that blossom in the early spring. Later on they
will have withered and faded, and the corn will have been gathered,
and the deep green of the eastern foliage will have assumed a kind
of gray-bleached tint.

Even now in May, the hot sparkle of the everlasting sea, the
terribly clear outline of all objects, whether near or distant, the
fierce sun right overhead, the dazzling air around, were
inexpressibly wearying to the English eyes that kept their skilled
watch, day and night, on the strongly-fortified coast-town that lay
out a little to the northward of where the British ships were
anchored.

They had kept up a flanking fire for many days