Palestine is so small a country that from many points the whole of it may be overlooked[339].  Toward the east, from all points, may be seen the high plateau of Moab and the mountains of Gilead.  Snow-capped Hermon is always visible on the north.  In the heart of the land rises the beautiful mountain Tabor, clothed with vegetation to its summit.  It is almost a perfect cone, and commands the most interesting view in all directions.  From its top, to which you ascend from Nazareth by a path which Jesus may have trod, you see to the northeast the lofty chain of Hermon (Jebel es Sheikh = the Captain) rising into the blue sky to the height of ten thousand feet, covered with eternal snow.  West of this appears the chain of Lebanon.  At the foot of Tabor the plain of Esdraelon extends northerly, dotted with hills, and animated with the camps of the Arabs[340].  The Lake of Galilee gleams, a silver line, on the east, with Bashan and the mountains of Gilead in the distance, and farther to the southeast the great plateau of Moab rises like a mountain wall beyond the Jordan.  The valley of the Jordan itself, sunk far below the level of the Mediterranean, is out of sight in its deep valley; nor is anything seen of the Dead Sea.  To the northwest rises rocky Carmel, overhanging the Bay of Accha (or Acre), on the Mediterranean.

The whole country stands high.  Hebron, at the south, is three thousand feet above the level of the sea; Jerusalem is twenty-six hundred; the Mount of Olives, twenty-seven hundred; and Ebal and Gerizim in Samaria, the same.  The valley in which Nazareth stands is eight hundred and twenty feet above the sea; that at the foot of Tabor, four hundred and thirty-nine; while the summit of Tabor itself is seventeen hundred and fifty.  From Judaea the land plunges downward very rapidly toward the east into the valley of Jordan.  The surface of Lake Galilee is already five hundred and thirty-five feet below that of the Mediterranean, and that of the Dead Sea is five hundred feet lower down.[341] Palestine is therefore a mountain fastness, and most of the waves of war swept by, leaving it untouched and unassailed.  From Jerusalem to Jericho the distance is only thirteen miles, but the latter place is a thousand feet lower than the former, so that it was very proper to speak of a man’s “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”

The Jews belonged to what has been called the Semitic race.  This family, the only historic rival of the Japhetic (or Aryan) race, is ethnologically composed of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Phoenicians, the Hebrews and other Syrian tribes, the Arabs and the Carthaginians.  It is a race which has been great on land and at sea.  In the valley of the Euphrates and that of the Tigris its sons carried all the arts of social life to the highest perfection, and became mighty conquerors and warlike soldiers.  On the Mediterranean their ships, containing Phoenician navigators, explored the coasts, made settlements at Carthage and Cadiz, and sailing out of the Straits of Gibraltar went as far north as Great Britain, and circumnavigated Africa two thousand years before Vasco da Gama.  This race has given to man the alphabet, the Bible, the Koran, commerce, and in Hannibal the greatest military genius of all time.