eed, there is any such a thing leading to this historic place, which
is about six miles from Nazareth. It was only a little past four
o'clock in the morning when we started, and the flat top of the
mountain, two thousand and eighteen feet above sea level, was reached at
an early hour. Mount Tabor is a well-shaped cone, with a good road for
horseback riding leading up its side. There is some evidence that there
was a city here more than two hundred years before Christ. Josephus
fortified it in his day, and part of the old wall still remains.
According to a tradition, contradicted by the conclusion of modern
scholars, this is the mount of transfiguration. By the end of the sixth
century three churches had been erected on the summit to commemorate the
three tabernacles which Peter proposed to build (Matt. 17:1-8), and now
the Greek and Roman Catholics have each a monastery only a short
distance apart, separated by a stone wall or fence. The extensive view
from the top is very fine, including a section of Galilee from the
Mediterranean to the sea of Tiberias.

In the Book of Judges we read that Israel was delivered into the hands
of the Canaanites, and was sorely oppressed for twenty years. The
prophetess Deborah sent for Barak, and instructed him with a message
from God to the end that he should take "ten thousand men of the
children of Naphtali and of the children of Zebulun" unto Mount Tabor.
This he did, and Sisera assembled his nine hundred chariots "from
Harosheth of the Gentiles unto the river Kishon. So Barak went down from
Mount Tabor and ten thousand men after him. ... Howbeit, Sisera fled
away on his feet to the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kenite,"
and she drove a tent-pin through his temples while he was lying asleep,
(Judges 4:1-23.) The song of Deborah and Barak, beginning with the
words, "For that the leaders took the lead in Israel, for that the
people offered themselves willingly, bless ye Jehovah," is recorded in
the fifth chapter of Judges.

I was back in Nazareth by ten o'clock, and spent some hours looking
around the city where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the words:
"Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee" (Luke 1:28).
These hours, with what time I had already spent here, enabled me to see
several places of interest. Tradition points out many places connected
with the lives of Joseph and Mary, but tradition is not always reliable,
for it sometimes happens that the Gr