The Maccabaean

THEY came nearer. Gradually they could, through their glasses, distinguish the details. In the road at Acra and at the foot of Carmel, many ships were anchored. Behind the ships the line of the bay could be traced; the northern end of Acra stood out in the old beautiful Oriental order of architecture. Great fortress walls, huge cupolas, slender minarets raising themselves in the morning sky. In this direction not much had changed. But to the south of this renowned and much-tried city, near the coast, much that was new was to be seen. Thousands of beautiful white villas stood amid beautiful green gardens. From Acra to Carmel seemed to be one great garden, and the mount itself crowned with shimmering buildings. As they came from the south, the spurs of the hill covered the panorama, now the harbor, and the town, however, lay before them. Kingscourt indulged in a rapid flow of innumerable devils. A beautiful city lay by the deep blue sea, gigantic stone jetties ran far into the water, and the strangers saw at once that the finest and most secure harbor of the Mediterranean was before them. Vessels of all sizes, shapes and nationalities were anchored in this protected spot. Friedrich and Kingscourt were dumfounded. There was nothing in their twenty-year-old sea chart of this harbor town that seemed to have arisen as though by magic. During their absence