128 THE MARITIME PLAINS.
eomes out towards the middle of this plain, which forms the third and last offset from the great north-eastern recess. SeffurieKis all that remains of the ancient fortress of Sepphoris or Diocaesareia, anciently one of the strongest and largest places in Galilee, and often mentioned by Josephus, but never in the Bible. It is the reputed home of the parents of Mary, the mother of Our Lord. Semunieh is the poor remnant of the village of Simonias mentioned in Josephus and the Shimron of Joshua xi, 1 ; xix, 15.
The fourth great recess of the Plain of Megiddo lies between the mountain range of Nazareth and the isolated cone of Mount Tabor on the north, and J ebel Duhy or the Mountain of Neby Duhy, also Little Hermon, on the south. It is crossed by the waterparting between the Mukutt'a and the Jordan Basins, which descends from the summit of the Nazarene range about a mile east of Nazareth, and reaches the plain on the east of Iksal (biblical Chesulloth), passes to the middle of the plain on a south-easterly course, and at two miles from Iksal turns for about a mile to the south- west, and then southward to the foot of Jebel Duhy, ascend- ing to the summit of the mountain by one of its shoulders on the east of the village of Nein, the Nain of the New Testament, where the widow's son was restored to life ; Luke vii, 11-18. Two miles from Nein, on the edge of the plain, is the village of Endor, retaining the name which it bore in the far-off days of Saul.
This portion of the waterparting divides the heads of Wady el Muweileh, an affluent of Nahr el Mukutt'a from those of Wady esh Sherrar, which becomes Wady el Bireh in its lower course to the Jordan. The receding plain begins between Tell Shadud on the Nazareth Eoad, and el Fuleh at the western foot of Jebel Duhy. It extends eastward for 12 miles, as far as the junction of Wady Shomer from the north, where the hills close in upon the descent of the valley to the Jordan. The length of the recess is equally divided between the two basins ; but the width, which is from three to four
miles up to Mount Tabor, becomes reduced to one or two
