SYRIA, THE LAND OF LEBANON
bly associated in the thought of the Arabic-speaking world.[1]
Hermon is by far the most conspicuous landmark in all Palestine and Syria. I have seen it from the north, south, east and west. I have admired it from its own near foothills and from a hundred and fifty miles away. Viewed from every side it has the same shape — a long, gently rising cone of wonderful beauty; wherever you stand, it seems to be squarely facing you; and from every viewpoint it dominates the landscape as do few other mountains in the world.
This sacred peak influenced the religious idealism of many centuries. Upon its slopes lay Dan, the farthest point of the Land of Promise. "From Dan to Beer-sheba," from the great mountain of the north to the wells of the South Country, stretched the Holy Land. Hebrew poets and prophets sang of the plenteous dew of Hermon, its deep forests, its wild, free animal life. Upon its rugged shoulders the Greeks and Romans continued the worship of the old Syrian nature-gods. Hither, in the tenth century, fled from
- ↑ C. R. Conder, the eminent Palestinian archaeologist, points out that Arabic grammar necessitates our translating Jebel esh-Sheikh "Mountain of the Sheikh," and derives the appellation from the fact that in the tenth century the founder of the Druse religion took up his residence in Hermon (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. "Hermon"). But no one who has seen the white head of the tall, strong mountain can help thinking of Hermon as itself the proud^ reverend sheikh of the glorious tribe of Syrian peaks.
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