Haifa

Haifa, a seaport of Syria, situated at the foot of Mount Carmel, a place of some 6000 inhabitants. A little distance to the north-west a settlement of the Württemberg 'Society of the Temple' was founded in 1869, who now form a flourishing agricultural colony of 300 persons, chiefly engaged in cultivating the vine and growing fruits. Grain is exported. Gordon Pasha paid visits to Haifa, and here Laurence Oliphant settled in 1882. See his Haifa, or Life in Modern Palestine (1887). A railway from Haifa and Acre (on the other side of the bay) to Damascus was begun in 1892.