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governments could appeal to the religious sentiment of the people to
support them in resisting, even to a war if necessary, the flooding of
the holy places at Tiberias which they have guarded for so many
centuries.
Nor would this sentimental feeling be confined to France and
Russia. Even in England and America there would be a strong
objection to the Lake of Tiberias, with the historic sites of
Capernaum and the other cities on its margin, which were the
scenes of some of the most remarkable ministrations of our Lord,
being buried five hundred feet deep beneath the sea. Curiously
enough, the project is no less keenly supported by one set of
religionists than it is condemned by the other. The former pin their
faith to the prophecy contained in the forty-seventh chapter of
Ezekiel, eighth to tenth verses, where it is predicted that “fishers
shall stand upon the sea from En-gedi even unto En-eglaim,” but
even this would not be the case if the scheme were carried out, for
then En-gedi would be several hundred feet below the surface of the
sea.
The sanguine supporters of the scheme maintain that it can be
accomplished for eight millions sterling, while its opponents have
entered upon an elaborate calculation to prove that the lowest figure
is £225,573,648 and some odd shillings. Supposing, as seems not
impossible, that the one set prove too little, and the other too much,
if it could be done for fifty millions sterling it would pay a fair
interest. The last year's receipts of the Suez Canal, which cost
twenty millions, were £4,800,000. The whole length of the canal
would be two hundred and fifty miles, of which, however, only about
one hundred and twenty would be actual cutting, but cutting of a
nature unparalleled in the history of engineering. My own impression
is that, both from a political and an engineering point of view, it will
be found to be impracticable; but who can say in these days what
science may not accomplish or what combinations of the Eastern
question may not arise to remove political difficulties?
[2] Since the above was written the dividing range has been carefully surveyed,
and the lowest part found to be between six and seven hundred feet above
the level of the Red Sea.
LOCAL POLITICS AND PROGRESS.

Haifa, Nov. 27.—The native population here is in a high state of

excitement at news which has just reached us. The government, it is
reported, intends transferring the seat of the provincial government
from Acre to this place. This change has been recommended on the
grounds of the superior excellence of the harbour of Haifa, of its
increasing export trade and rapidly growing population, and, above
all, of the constantly augmenting influence of foreigners, which is
the natural result of the inflow of their capital and of their industry
and enterprise.
The old fortress of Acre, at present the residence of the governor,
or mutessarif, contains a population of about nine thousand, pent up
within the walls of the fort and crowded into an area of little more
than fifty acres. They are for the most part fanatic Moslems, which
means a state of stagnation in industry and commercial pursuits;
and in consequence of the military rule which prohibits any
extension of the town outside of the walls of the fortress within
range of the guns, no expansion is possible to the inhabitants. The
population of Haifa, on the other hand, is increasing with great
rapidity, and the place seems to resound from one end to the other
with the clink of the stone-mason's chisel, as new houses spring up
in all directions. These considerations would not alone, however,
account for the resolution at which the government seems to have
arrived.
Three fourths of the population of Haifa are either Roman or
Greek Catholics; in other words, they are under the protection of the
French Consul when religious questions are concerned; and the
policy of the French government in Syria has been to extend its
religious protectorate into political and secular matters, to a degree
which is constantly giving rise to awkward questions and
complications not devoid of danger.
A great part of the house property in the town of Haifa is owned
by the monks of Mount Carmel, who consider the whole of Carmel,
from the monastery at the western extremity of the mountain, to
their chapel at the Place of Elijah's Sacrifice at the other end, as a
sort of private preserve, and push their religious pretensions to such
an extreme that they look with the utmost jealousy upon any
foreigner who attempts to buy land in the mountain, and oppose any
such proceeding with all their energy.
The policy of the Turkish government, on the other hand, is to
prevent any foreigners buying land there, or, indeed, anywhere else
in Palestine, although they are entitled to do so by treaty; and in
pursuit of this policy the local authorities are instructed to throw
every obstacle in the way of foreign enterprise of all descriptions,
but especially to render it impossible for persons not subjects of
Turkey to acquire landed property. They have, on these grounds,
used their utmost endeavors to ruin the Jewish colony of Zimmarin,
which is also in the neighborhood of Haifa, by prohibiting the
colonists from building houses for themselves, on the ground that
they have no right to the land. They have based this claim on the
allegation that the proprietor of the property, who was an Austrian
Jew, in whose name it was bought for the colonists, died childless,
and, according to Turkish law, landed property reverts to the Turkish
government under these circumstances; and the government
therefore claimed the property. It so happened, however, that the
owner did not die childless. Indeed, I know his son myself, but the
government refused to admit the evidence of any but Moslems as to
whether he had a son or not, a demand which, as the deceased
proprietor did not live in Turkey, it was naturally impossible to
comply with. The question has therefore been pending between
Baron Rothschild, who took over the property on the death of its
nominal proprietor, and the Turkish government for nearly two years;
but I understand that permission has at last been obtained for the
erection of houses by the colonists, and the affair has been
arranged.
The fact, however, that foreign questions are constantly arising at
Haifa, either out of French pretensions or the claims of the German
or Jewish colonists, and that no such questions are possible at Acre,
where there is but a limited Christian or foreign population, has
rendered it desirable in the eyes of the Governor-general of Syria to
suggest the removal of the governor of the district to this place. The
change has not yet been sanctioned at Constantinople, and the
inhabitants of Acre, where property will suffer an immediate
depreciation, have been pouring petitions into Constantinople to
protest against the change, urging as a reason that they, who were
loyal and devoted subjects of his majesty, will suffer; while the
population of Haifa, composed principally of Christians and
foreigners, will benefit. It is just possible, however, that the
government may consider that the loyalty and devotion of the
petitioners form the best reasons why the governor should be
moved to a place where the loyalty and devotion of the people are
not so assured, and should therefore be watched. At all events,
there can be no doubt that the change, should it take place, will
cause an immediate rise in the value of property here, and that
there will be a considerable influx of people from Acre to this town,
which has the advantage in summer of being a much cooler and
more agreeable place of residence.
Meantime, advantage has been taken of this opportunity to
remove the present governor and replace him by a more intelligent
and active functionary, a change which has caused great
satisfaction, both to Moslems and Christians, as, in spite of his
fanaticism, he had contrived to make himself very unpopular with
the former, while he altogether failed to keep the peace at Acre
between the rival sects of the latter, who, though very limited in
number, were constantly engaged in broils. Moreover, it is not the
habit of the Turkish government to retain its functionaries, under any
circumstances, long at the same post.
The only drawback to Haifa as the new seat of government is its
limited water supply. At present the town depends entirely upon its
wells, and although an abundance of water can be found at a trifling
depth, it is usually a little too brackish to be altogether palatable.
Under these circumstances it became of the utmost importance, in
view of the proposed change, to try and find a spring, sufficiently
copious and near the town to be utilized, and it occurred to a friend
and myself that such a one might exist at Rushmea, where are the
ruins of an old Crusading fort, which I have described in a former
letter, distant about an hour's ride from the town, at an elevation of
about seven hundred feet above the level of the sea. There is a well
here called the Well of Elias, into which I once descended, and found
that it was supplied with water which entered through a tunnel in
the rock, but had no outlet; and the shepherds told me that,
however much they watered their flocks, the water always remained
at the same height, while in winter, although the well was eight feet
deep, the water rose in it so high as to overflow the mouth. Under
these circumstances it was evident that the well was, in fact, a sort
of back-water of some underground stream or rivulet, which found a
subterranean channel for itself. This we determined, by excavation,
to try and discover.
We therefore commenced digging near the well, and about two
feet from the surface struck the roof of a subterranean aqueduct.
Uncovering this, we found that the channel had become silted up
with mud, which required to be removed. We then found that we
were in an arched tunnel, the sides of which were roughly built with
stone, while the floor was paved with the same material, in which a
channel had been cut, but it was four inches higher than the water
in the well. We were therefore obliged to take it up, cutting,
altogether, a trench thirty yards long and eight feet deep. On
drawing the water off by means of this channel, we uncovered the
mouth of the tunnel, by which it entered, sufficiently to send in a
man with a light. After wading through the mud for a few paces, he
came upon a vault beautifully cemented, thus proving that in ancient
times the stream had been utilized. It would have involved a greater
expense, however, to clear out than I was prepared to incur, unaided
by the community for whose benefit it would have inured. As it was,
the stream thus discovered was almost sufficient in volume to be
worth conveying to Haifa, a distance of three miles, and could
doubtless be much increased. In the course of our excavations we
came upon several large blocks of square stone, which had formed
part of the ancient tunnel.
The project of the railway from Haifa to Damascus, the concession
for which had lapsed in consequence of the combined greed and
apathy of the first grantees, is now revived under more favorable
auspices, and I have little doubt that the change of the seat of the
government to this place will give it a renewed impetus, so that
before long it will be carried out.
Meantime, unwonted energy is displayed by the government in
improving our communications. Having occasion a few weeks ago to
ride to Beyrout, I saw the surveyors at work tracing out a line for a
carriage road to connect that important city with Haifa. The distance
is about eighty miles, and there are no serious engineering
difficulties in the way. This road is sadly needed, especially now,
when, owing to the cholera in Europe, no steamer touches here on
its way to Beyrout, although we are visited once a fortnight by one
coming from that place after it has performed there a quarantine of
five days. The habit, unfortunately, of the government of making the
road, and postponing to an indefinite period the construction of the
bridges, goes far to neutralize its good intentions. The towns
through which the road passes are heavily taxed, and then, owing to
the want of bridges, it is useless for a great part of the year. Should
this road be completed, Beyrout, Damascus, Jaffa, Jerusalem,
Nazareth, Haifa, Tyre, and Sidon will all be connected by roads over
which stages could run; and this would go far to facilitate travel in
Palestine, and enable tourists to dispense with that system of tenting
which now renders it so slow and expensive.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF ANCIENT SITES.

Haifa, Dec. 13.—The researches which I have been making into

the oldest authorities, with the view of identifying the sites of the
numerous ancient towns that once formed the homes of the
extensive population which in ages long gone by inhabited this
coast, have only served to reveal to me the enormous difficulty of
the task. This difficulty is created partly by the confusion introduced
by the crusading nomenclature and traditions, partly by the
inaccuracy of the itineraries of early pilgrims and travellers, and to
the discrepancies existing in the most primitive maps, and the
contradictions in historical records. Thus between this place and
Tantura, a distance of fifteen miles, I have visited the ruins of no
fewer than nine ancient towns or villages, some of them of
considerable size, not one of which, with the exception of Tantura,
which is the Biblical Dor, has been positively identified. I do not
include in these the ruins of towns a mile or more inland, which
would double the number and convey some idea of the denseness of
the population which once inhabited this section of the country. At
the same time it is possible, from the varied character of these ruins,
that some were far more ancient than the others, and that they may
have existed as traces of a still more early people, when other cities,
also now in ruin, were rich and flourishing. Thus we have on this
coast remains of the early Phœenician period, of the Greek period,
of the Roman or Byzantine period, and, lastly, of the crusading
period—the latter too modern to be of any archæological interest.
They consist merely of constructions built from the materials of the
civilizations which had preceded it. Not content with using up these
materials, the crusaders gave the towns and forts which they built
wrong names, refusing to adopt the Saracen nomenclature, which
was generally a corruption of the original Canaanitish or Hebrew,
and attempting to identify them according to their own ideas of
Biblical topography, or reading of Roman history, thereby introducing
inextricable confusion. Thus we have William of Tyre, one of the
crusading historiographers, gravely informing us that “Duke Godfrey
de Bouillon awarded, with his usual magnanimity, to the generous
and noble Tancred the city of Tiberias, on the Lake of Genasereth, as
well as of the whole of Galilee and the sea-town of Kaypha (or
Haifa), which is otherwise called Porphyria.”
The Carmelite monks still cling to this tradition, although modern
research has proved beyond a doubt that the site, at all events of
one Roman city of Porphyrion, was at Khan-Yunis, a ruin, eight miles
north of Sidon, and at least seventy miles from Haifa. To escape this
difficulty some have supposed there were two Porphyrions, and that
one was here, basing their argument on the fact that in the
Onomasticon of Eusebius and Jerome there is a city marked at the
point of Carmel, called Chilzon, and that Chilzon is the Hebrew for
the murex, or shellfish which produced the purple dye found there in
great quantities; hence Porphyrion, or the purple city.
In carefully examining these ruins, and remarking the great
quantity of carved porphyry which is peculiar to them, I have
thought it furnished a stronger argument in favor of what would
seem an appropriate appellation. The crusaders even confounded
the Sea of Galilee with the Mediterranean; thus they supposed a
connection to exist between the town of Caiapha, or Caiaphas (the
modern Haifa), which Benjamin of Tudela asserts to have been
founded by Caiaphas, the high-priest, and Cephas, the Greek name
of Simon Peter. Hence near Haifa the crusading clergy showed the
rock where Simon Peter fished, called to this day Tell el-Samak, or
the Mound of the Fish. Laboring under a similar confusion of idea,
they built a fort out of the ruins of a place called at the present day
Kefr Lam, a name which, no doubt, dates back before the times of
the crusaders, and which they twisted into Capernaum, that place
being, as we all know, on the Sea of Galilee. The Capernaum of the
crusaders, however, is a village on the Mediterranean shore, thirteen
miles down the coast from here.
The itineraries of the pilgrims and early travellers are scarcely less
perplexing. They are generally careful to record the distances
between the various places they visit, but rarely with accuracy. Their
remarks, however, are naïve and amusing. I have just been reading
the journal of a certain Antoninus, the Martyr, who travelled in
Palestine about the year A.D. 530. Writing of Tyre, he says:
“The city of Tyre contains influential men; the life there is very wicked; the
luxury such as cannot be described. There are public brothels, and silk and other
kinds of clothing are woven.”

We do not altogether see the connection in this last sentence.

Going on, he remarks:
“Thence we came to Ptolemais (the modern Acre), a respectable city, where we
found good monasteries. Opposite Ptolemais, six miles off, is a city which is named
Sycaminus, under Mount Carmel. A mile from Sycaminus are the hamlets of the
Samaritans, and above the hamlets, a mile and a half away, is the Monastery of
Heliseus (or Elijah), the prophet, at the place where the woman met him whose
child he raised from the dead. On Mount Carmel is found a stone, of small size and
round, which, when struck, rings because it is solid. This is the virtue of the stone
—if it be hung on to a woman, or to any animal, they will never miscarry. About
six or seven miles off is the city of Porphyrion.”

Now there are as many mistakes as there are sentences in this

quaint account by the holy man. It is a matter of dispute which are
the ruins of Sycaminus. Two ruins claim that honor, and one of these
it undoubtedly is. They are only two miles apart, but the nearest is
thirteen miles from Acre, instead of six, and the other fifteen. A mile
from Sycaminus, he says, are the hamlets of the Samaritans. These
have been identified beyond all doubt as a ruin called Kefr es Samir,
two miles and a half beyond one of the abovementioned ruins, and
four miles and a half beyond the other. The Monastery of Heliseus,
the prophet, “a mile and a half away,” I have described in a former
letter. It is the picturesque gorge and ruin called Ain Siah, but the
place where Elijah met the woman of Sarepta was, if we are to
believe the Bible, “at the gate of that city,” at least fifty miles distant
from Carmel. There is no doubt as to its site, between Tyre and
Sidon. As to “the stone of small size, which, when struck, rings
because it is solid,” it happens to ring because it is hollow. I have an
interesting collection of these geodes, found near Ain Siah, their
peculiar shapes having given rise to the legend that they were
melons and other fruits which the proprietor refused the prophet
when he was hungry, and which the latter therefore blasted with
petrifaction. And then comes the final statement about the unhappy
Porphyrion, which he puts six miles off, thus probably identifying it
with Athlit, and making confusion worse confounded. First we have
the Jerusalem Itinerary, distinctly placing it to the north of Sidon, a
position confirmed by other authorities; then we have William of
Tyre identifying it with Haifa, and now we have Antoninus putting it
six miles off.
I will not inflict upon you all my reasons for coming to the
conclusion that the ruin at Tell el-Samak, the Mound of the Fish
already alluded to, is the site of Sycaminum, though I doubt whether
a larger population did not inhabit the city two miles nearer Haifa,
where the porphyry fragments abound. To judge by the fine carvings
at both places, they must have been wealthy as well as populous,
and their most prosperous period was in all probability during the
first three or four centuries of our era. The coins which I have found
so far are of that epoch. Exploring the ruins of what must have been
the upper tower of Sycaminus, distant about four hundred yards
from the Fish Mound, and two hundred feet above it, a few days
ago, I came upon a cistern with four circular apertures. Upon being
let down into it I found it was seventy feet long, hewn out of the
solid rock, twenty feet broad, and twelve feet high from the débris at
the bottom, but in reality much deeper. The roof was supported by
three columns, four feet square, also hewn from the living rock. The
cement was still in some places perfect, and the cistern must have
been capable of containing a vast supply of water. It was about
fifteen yards from an angle of a wall composed of rubble, from
which the ashlar had been removed, about four feet thick, and still
standing in places to a height of four feet. In others the foundations
of this wall were easily traceable. As the whole ruin seems to have
escaped the observation of the Palestine Exploration Survey, I
measured it, and found the east wall to be one hundred and twelve
yards long, the south wall sixty-five, the west wall seventy, and an
intersecting wall forty. I could find no traces of a north wall. It was
probably a fortress, which was supplied by the cistern already
mentioned. In the neighborhood were some fine rock-cut tombs, two
with six loculi, each in a good state of preservation. I also picked up
a piece of white marble on which was an inscription in early Arabic
characters, but only the word “Allah” and two or three more letters
remained on the fragment.
At Kefr Lam, the crusaders' Capernaum, which I had occasion
recently to visit, I discovered two very remarkable vaults, each forty
feet long by twelve broad and seven high. The roof was supported
by five arches, each arch composed of a single stone four feet
broad, on the top of which huge flat stones had been laid. I have
never seen any constructions like these vaults, and think they
probably dated from a very ancient period. In the immediate
neighborhood the peasantry had recently opened an ancient well,
thirty-five feet deep, the water being approached by a flight of steps
round two sides of the well, the shaft of which was about thirty feet
square. There were no fewer than seventeen handsome rock-cut
tombs in the neighborhood of the village, and I regretted that I had
not time to prolong my investigations, as I feel convinced that the
vicinity would repay examination. As it is, I have obtained from the
villagers several good specimens of terra-cotta lamps, two curious
alabaster saucers, some coins, and other antiquities.
THE SEA OF GALILEE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST.

Haifa, Dec. 26.—In reading the works of Dr. Kitto and other writers
who have endeavoured to present a picture of the manners and
customs of the population which inhabited Palestine in ancient times,
I have been much struck by the erroneous impressions which the
descriptions of those writers are calculated to convey in many
important respects. This has arisen from the fact that while they
have portrayed, with tolerable accuracy, the rude civilization of the
original inhabitants and the subsequent civilization grafted upon it by
their Jewish conquerors, they have left out of consideration the
changes worked upon, and the modifications introduced into, the
social conditions thus produced by that still higher and later
civilization which resulted from Greek and Roman invasions. Thus
while they carefully trace back the habits of the modern fellahin, and
show that they differ slightly from those of the peasantry of the
country in the time of Christ, and invoke the testimony of modern
Bedouins as evidence of a mode of life which has undergone no
perceptible alteration since the days of Abraham, they leave out of
account altogether that magnificent Roman and Byzantine
civilization, traces of which still exist in such abundance as to
astound the traveller with its splendor and its richness, but which
has passed away like a dream, leaving nothing behind but the coarse
barbarism which has succeeded it, and which is almost identical in
character with what it supplanted. Hence it is that these writers have
found those resemblances between the modern and ancient
manners and customs of the inhabitants of this country by which
they were so much struck, and which they have given to the public
as furnishing an accurate picture of what ancient Palestine was like.
We are so much in the habit of confining our interest in this
country to its history before the time of Christ that it will probably
strike many with surprise to learn that the most flourishing epoch of
its history was subsequent to that time; that never before had the
arts and sciences reached so high a pitch; that never before had its
population been so wealthy and luxurious, its architecture so grand,
its commerce so flourishing, and its civilization generally so
advanced. It is true it had lost its independence, and was only a
Roman province, but it is just because it was one, and not a Jewish
kingdom, that our impression of its actual condition at the time of
Christ is apt to be so erroneous.
This fact has been very forcibly brought to my notice in a recent
trip which I have made along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, more
especially along its little-explored northern and eastern coasts,
where the evidences of the wealth and luxury of the former
inhabitants still remain in unexampled profusion. In reading in the
Gospels the narrative of the works and life of Christ, so much of
which was spent upon the shores of the lake, in one of the cities of
which he for some time took up his abode, most of us have
endeavoured, probably, to picture him to ourselves amid purely
Jewish surroundings and conditions closely resembling those which
we have been in the habit of associating with that previous period of
Jewish history with which we are familiar in the books of the Old
Testament. So far from that being the case, the part of the country
in which his ministrations were principally exercised, was beyond all
others a centre of Roman life, with all its luxurious accompaniments.
Nowhere else in Palestine was there such a congeries of rich and
populous cities as were crowded round the shores of this small lake.
Nowhere else could the Jewish reformer come into closer contact
with the rites of a worship alien to his own.
On the shores of this lake might be seen temple after temple
rearing their vast colonnades of graceful columns, their courts
ornamented with faultlessly carved statues to the deities of a
heathen cult. Here were the palaces of the Roman high
functionaries, the tastefully decorated villas of rich citizens, with
semi-tropical gardens irrigated by the copious streams which have
their sources in the plain of Genesareth and the neighbouring hills.
Here were broad avenues and populous thoroughfares, thronged
with the motley concourse which so much wealth and magnificence
had attracted—rich merchants from Antioch, then the most gorgeous
city of the East, and from the Greek islands, traders and visitors
from Damascus, Palmyra, and the rich cities of the Decapolis;
caravans from Egypt and Persia, Jewish rabbis jostling priests of the
worship of the sun, and Roman soldiers swaggering across the
marketplaces, where the peasantry were exposing the produce of
their fields and gardens for sale, and where fish was displayed by
the hardy toilers of the lake, among whom were those whom the
Great Teacher selected to be the first recipients of his message and
the channels for its communication to after ages.
Thus it was, as I rode along the margin of the sea the other day,
that I was enabled to repeople its shores in imagination by the light
of the remains with which they are still strewn, and, overtaken in its
desolation by the shades of night, to fancy its now gloomy shores
ablaze with the scintillations proceeding from the lamps of at least a
dozen large cities, and the almost continuous street of habitations
which connected them, and to illuminate its now dark and silent
waters with countless brilliantly-lighted boats, skimming over its
smooth surface, containing noble ladies and gallants on their way to
or from scenes of nocturnal festivity, or indulging in moonlight
picnics, with the accompaniments of wine and song and music. That
life in these cities was profligate and dissipated in a high degree we
may gather from Christ's denunciation of Bethsaida, Chorazin, and
Capernaum, which he declared to be so much more wicked than
Tyre or Sidon, or even Sodom, that it would be more tolerable in the
day of judgment for those cities than for the three he was
denouncing. That among these Capernaum was the one of the
greatest splendor, and was puffed up therefore with the pride of its
own pomp and magnificence, we may gather from the indignant
apostrophe: “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven.”
It may have been because he considered this city the wickedest, as
it appears to have been the largest on the lake, and therefore the
most in need of his ministrations, that he chose it for some time as
his residence. Hence it came to be called “his own city.” This
circumstance invests it with a special interest in our eyes.
Unfortunately, a violent contest rages between Palestinologists, if I
may be allowed to coin the word, as to the exact site of Capernaum.
The two places which claim this honor are now called Khan Minieh
and Tell Hum respectively. Until lately the weight of opinion was in
favor of the former site; latterly the researches of Sir Charles Wilson,
on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, have convinced that
accomplished archæologist and careful explorer that the true site of
this celebrated city is to be found at Tell Hum. It would weary my
readers if I were to quote all the texts relied upon by the disputants
to maintain each hypothesis, supported by calculations of distance,
the accounts of Josephus, and of early pilgrim or Arab travellers. The
subject has been pretty well thrashed out, but I doubt whether it is
even yet exhausted. I incline strongly to the Tell Hum theory, but as
Khan Minieh comes first on our way as we glide from Tiberias to the
head of the lake, as it is unquestionably the site of what was once a
city, and as it is a highly picturesque spot, and one, moreover, full of
Biblical interest as being, if not Capernaum itself, within three miles
of that city, and therefore a spot which must have been the scene of
some of Christ's labours, will begin by describing it.
The plain of Genesareth, the unrivalled fertility and luxuriance of
which, though it is now uncultivated, I described in a former letter,
when I crossed it eighteen months ago on my way to Safed, is
terminated at its northern extremity by a mountain range, which
projects in a lofty and precipitous crag into the lake, and renders any
passage round it by land extremely difficult. This projection forms a
little bay, or rather rush-grown lagoon, running back into the head of
the plain. Into it falls a small stream, powerful enough, however, to
turn a mill. It is this building and the ruins of an ancient khan near
it, which was itself constructed from the remains of an ancient city
about three hundred yards distant, which is now called Khan Minieh.
The true site of the old city is not, however, where the khan now
stands, but not far from a fountain, shaded by an old fig-tree, from
which the fountain takes its name—Ain el-Tin, or the Fountain of the
Fig-tree, which suggests the idea that either the name is very new
or the fig-tree very old. A plentiful supply of water flows from it,
slightly brackish, with a temperature of 82° Fahrenheit. The water is
crowded with fish and surrounded with green turf. It appears to be
one of the seven fountains mentioned by Theodorus, A.D. 530, as
being two miles from Magdala, the city of Mary Magdalene, in the
direction of Capernaum.
Near this fountain are some old foundations and traces of ruins,
but these for the most part cover a series of mounds where a few
walls are visible, but no traces of columns, capitals, or handsome
blocks of stone, and much smaller in extent than those of Tell Hum.
Indeed, the whole area is not more than two hundred yards long by
one hundred broad, and this is one reason for supposing that it
cannot be the site of that important city. The khan itself is at least as
old as the twelfth century, being mentioned by Bohaeddin in his life
of Saladin. A road from here leads up the steep hillside to Safed. The
view from it, as we ascend to some elevation above the plain, is very
beautiful. That fertile expanse which Josephus calls “the ambition of
nature,” lies stretched at our feet, with the waters of the lake
rippling upon its pebbly beach, while we look right up the gorge of
Hammam, its beetling cliffs on both sides towering in rugged cave-
perforated precipices to a height of twelve hundred feet above the
tiny stream which, compressed between these lofty walls of
limestone and basalt, winds its way to the lake.
But it is not up the wild mountain-side that our present way lies;
so, taking our last look at the crumbling walls of the old khan, at the
picturesque water-mill, the ruin-strewn mounds, and the grassy
lagoon, we prepare to skirt the rocky flank of the ledge which here
dips into the waters of the Sea of Genesareth, and by which we
hope to reach the ruins of Bethsaida.
THE SCENE OF THE MIRACLE OF THE FIVE
LOAVES AND TWO SMALL FISHES.

Haifa, Jan. 6, 1885.—If, as I stated in my last letter, students of

Biblical topography have been much exercised in their minds as to
the identification of the ruins on the northwest shore of the Sea of
Galilee, which indicate the site of the once famous city of
Capernaum, and have applied not only a great amount of
antiquarian research and of time in the way of minute local
examination and literary labor in the hope of definitely settling this
knotty point, there is another upon which they have no less
anxiously expended their ingenuity. This is to solve the vexed
question as to whether there were, in the time of Christ, two
Bethsaidas or one. This question would never have arisen but for the
confusion introduced into the scriptural narrative by the puzzling
accounts given in all the four gospels of the miracle of the feeding of
the multitude with five loaves and two fishes, the scene of which the
four evangelists are unanimous in describing as having been in a
desert spot which must have been on the eastern side of the lake,
for immediately afterwards “they crossed over to the other side,”
arriving at Capernaum, which was on the western side. But
according to one (Luke) this desert place (on the eastern side)
belonged to a city called Bethsaida; and according to another (Mark)
Christ, after the miracle, “constrained his disciples to get into the
ship and go to the other (or western) side before, unto Bethsaida,
while he sent away the people.” Hence the confusion; starting from
the western side, they take ship, cross over to a desert place
belonging to Bethsaida; the miracle is performed there, and the
disciples are constrained by their Master to take ship and cross the
lake back again to what must be another Bethsaida. Then the storm
arises, he comes to them on the waters, and they finally reach
Capernaum in safety.
Reland, the learned geographer of the last century, was the first to
invent the second Bethsaida on the western side, which is not
mentioned by either Josephus or Pliny, the latter of whom distinctly
puts it on the eastern side; and I have not been able exactly to
discover upon what authority Reland hit upon this easy solution of
the problem. The only historical Bethsaida of which we have any
certain record was a place at the northeastern extremity, originally a
village, but rebuilt and adorned by Philip the Tetrarch, and raised to
the dignity of a town under the name of Julias, after the daughter of
the emperor. Here, in a magnificent tomb, Philip was himself buried.
On the other hand, we have indications of the existence of another
Bethsaida in the mention of a Bethsaida which was the birthplace of
Peter and Andrew and Philip, which Mark tells us was “in the land of
Genesareth,” and therefore on the west shore of the lake. Supposing
Tell Hum to be Capernaum, and the western Bethsaida to be on the
site usually assigned to it, this hypothesis would give us two
Bethsaidas only six miles apart, not a very probable supposition; or
else we have to suppose that the land of Genesareth extended
across the Jordan to the east side, which we know to have had
another name, and to have been in another province; or to suppose,
as Dr. Thomson—who resolutely refuses to have two Bethsaidas—
does, that half the town was on one side of the Jordan and half on
the other, and that the half on the west side was called Bethsaida in
the land of Genesareth, though the plain of that name is five miles
distant. Moreover, there are no ruins conveniently placed to support
the presumption, which is very strained. Altogether the subject is
one which has puzzled every Biblical geographer hitherto, and, after
a careful examination of all their arguments, I find myself just as
much in the dark about it as when I entered upon the investigation.
As, therefore, after visiting all the disputed localities, I do not feel
any the more competent to enlighten your readers, I will confine
myself to describing the different places which have been suggested
as the sites of these cities, as well as of others which I visited in the
section of country to the east of the Jordan, some of which I was
the first to discover, and none of which have been positively
identified.
Meantime, the scene, which the tradition of many centuries
located erroneously as the spot upon which the miracle took place,
is exactly above us as we wind along a rocky path cut in the
precipice which overhangs the Sea of Galilee. This huge impending
crag is crowned by an artificial plateau, which is two hundred feet
long by one hundred broad, and in the northwest angle are the
remains of a wall and the ruins of a building, probably a fortress of
some sort. This spot was known in the middle ages as the Mensa
Christi, or Table of Christ. In olden time the great Damascus high-
road ran just below, and the fort above doubtless commanded this
pass; but it has become impassable, and the path now follows the
channel of an aqueduct hewn out of the living rock. For about two
hundred yards we find ourselves riding along the narrow floor of this
ancient watercourse. On our left the smooth rock rises precipitously,
and on our right it forms a wall from three to four feet high, over
which we could drop a stone perpendicularly into the waters of the
lake. The aqueduct which thus forms our singular roadway is about
three feet wide; emerging from it, after we turn the angle of the
rock, we find ourselves overlooking a little bay, into which rushes a
brawling torrent, the largest which enters the lake excepting the
Jordan, and which here turns a mill. It is, however, only a few yards
long, as it bursts from the ground in great force, in what is by far
the most powerful spring in Galilee, and is, without doubt, the
celebrated Fountain of Capernaum mentioned by Josephus as
watering the plain of Genesareth. This it did by means of the
aqueduct which we had already traversed, the distance from the
fountain to the plain not being above a mile. Besides the principal
fountain, which is estimated as being more than half the size of the
celebrated source of the Jordan at Banias, there are four smaller
fountains, all more or less brackish, and varying in temperature from
73° to 86°.
One of the special subjects of interest connected with these
fountains is the presence in them of the remarkable fish called the
coracinus. The only known habitats of this fish in the world are in
the Nile, in a fountain which I have also visited in the plain of
Genesareth, called Mudawara, and in this spring. Josephus accounts
for its existence here, as well as in the Nile, by a hypothetical
subterranean water communication with the great river of Egypt.
Modern geologists point to it as an evidence of the fact that in some
long bygone period Palestine might have been included in a great
Ethiopian basin. However the circumstance is to be accounted for, it
is most remarkable, and was doubted until Canon Tristram verified it
twenty years ago by a somewhat singular experience. Crossing the
little stream which issues from the fountain of Mudawara and flows
into the lake, and which happened to be very low at the time, he
was surprised to observe a quantity of fish wriggling along in single
file, and so close together that the mouth of one touched the tail of
the one before it. In places there was so little water that they had to
flop across intervals of almost dry land; here he caught them easily
with his hand, and, as many averaged three feet in length, he was
not long in making a good bag. What surprised him most, however,
was to find that as soon as he laid hold of one it began hissing and
screaming like a cat. Making a bag of his cloak, he carried them off
in triumph to his camp, which was three hours distant, and could
hear them hissing and caterwauling in it all the way. He describes
them as being a most delicious fish to eat, something like an eel in
flavor, and possessed of extraordinary vitality, as some of them were
still living after they had been two days out of the water. The last
volume just issued by the Palestine Exploration Fund contains a print
of this extraordinary creature, which has a long, slender body,
apparently not much thicker than that of a good-sized eel, with two
long fins, one on the back and one on the belly. The mouth, with its
long, cartilaginous streamers (I do not know the ichthyological term
for them), somewhat resembles that of a catfish. I unfortunately had
no means of fishing for them on the occasion of my visit, and they
did not happen to be migrating to their spawning grounds, which
they were evidently doing when Tristram caught them; but my late
experiences on the shores of the lake have been so full of interest
that I propose to make another visit in the spring, when I hope to go
supplied with tackle, and to give you my own piscatory experiences.
There is a small tract of fertile land in the rear of the mill, but no
ruins except those connected with mills or water-works.
Nevertheless, it is impossible almost to conceive that a position so
favored by nature should not have been the site of a town, and it is
on this spot that many geographers place the western Bethsaida.
There are no apparent grounds for their doing so beyond the
necessity of finding a spot somewhere which should support their
hypothesis. If, however, they must have a second Bethsaida, I
should rather put it a mile farther off, at Khan Minieh, instead of so
very close to Capernaum as this would be, always supposing Tell
Hum to be Capernaum, which is only two miles distant from this
spot. Dr. Thomson's theory that El-Tabghah, the modern name of
this place, was the grand manufacturing suburb of that large city,
from which its fountain took its name, seems to me rational. Here
were the mills, not only for it, but for all the neighbourhood; so also
the potteries, tanneries, and other operations of this sort would be
clustered around these great fountains, a theory somewhat borne
out by the name, Tabghah, which resembles the Arabic word
Dabbaga, meaning tannery.
There is no doubt that in this neighbourhood somewhere,
probably on the plain of Genesareth, was the location of a town far
older than any of those whose sites we are now discussing, and this
is the Chinneroth mentioned in the Old Testament, from which the
lake, in days long anterior to those of Christ, took its name, and
which the Talmud renders Ginizer, which is therefore doubtless
identical with Genesareth. Indeed, it may be noted as a curious fact,
which has been forced upon me by these investigations, that the
towns noticed in the Gospels, excluding the large cities, such as
Jerusalem, Tyre, and Sidon, are almost all places not mentioned in
the Old Testament. Nazareth and Capernaum, Bethsaida, and
Chorazin and Tiberias are names never occurring in the Hebrew
Scriptures; and the scenery of the life of Christ lies, as a rule, apart
from the centres, religious or political, which reappear again and
again in the earlier episodes of Jewish history.
CAPERNAUM AND CHORAZIN.

Haifa, Jan. 20.—Perhaps the most interesting spot in the world to

those deeply under the influence of that charm which association
lends to places hallowed by the ministrations of the Founder of
Christianity is to be found in a desert, rock-strewn promontory on
the northwest shore of the Lake of Tiberias; for among these piles of
hewn blocks of black basalt still remain the ruins of a great
synagogue, within whose walls, the foundations of which may still be
distinctly traced, were collected the multitudes who flocked to hear
the teaching of Christ. While modern tourists resort in crowds to
Jerusalem to visit the mythical sites which are supposed, upon the
vague basis of ecclesiastical tradition, to be identified with episodes
in the life of the great Teacher, scarcely one ever finds his way to
this remote locality lying just out of the beaten track along which
Cook leads his herds of sightseers; and yet it is probable that the
greater part of that period in the life of Christ, the record of which is
contained in the four Gospels, was spent at Capernaum, which the
most careful investigation, by the highest authorities in such
matters, has identified with these ruins of Tell Hum, amid which I
was just now standing. Here it was that Christ cured Peter's mother-
in-law, restored the paralytic, called Matthew, cured the centurion's
servant, raised Jairus's daughter from the dead, and obtained the
tribute of money from the mouth of a fish. It was here that he spoke
the parables of the sower, the tares, the treasure hid in the field, the
merchant seeking goodly pearls, and the net cast into the sea. Sir
Charles Wilson, whose researches on this spot led him to identify it
as being the site of the city of Capernaum, believes this synagogue
was, “without doubt, the one built by the Roman centurion (Luke vii.
51), and, therefore, one of the most sacred spots on earth.” It was
in this building, if that be the case, that the well-known discourse
contained in the sixth chapter of John was delivered; and it was not
without a strange feeling, says the same explorer, “that, on turning
over a large block, we found the pot of manna engraved on its face,
and remembered the words: “I am that bread of life. Your fathers
did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.”
This very synagogue was probably the scene of the healing of the
demoniac and of the delivery of many of those divine lectures on
faith, humility, brotherly love, and formality in worship, as we read at
the end of one of them: “These things said he in the synagogue as
he taught in Capernaum.” Perhaps it was in the little creek, where a
boat was now riding at anchor only a few feet from the shore, that
Christ taught the people from the boat so as to avoid the crush of
the multitude. It was doubtless in one of these inlets that James, the
son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, were mending their nets
when, being called, they left their ship and followed him; and it was
on this coast that Andrew and Peter were casting their nets when
they were summoned to become fishers of men. It has a higher
claim to be called the birthplace of the religion which has since
revolutionized the world than any other spot upon it; and it is a
matter of some surprise to me that neither the Greek nor the Roman
Catholic churches, in their zeal to discover holy places, which may
serve as levers for political intrigue, have yet thought of occupying
this one, which would seem the holiest of all. Perhaps it would lead
to a comparison between their practice and the teaching of which it
was the scene, which might give rise to some inconvenient
reflections.
Apart from their associations the ruins themselves are not
particularly striking. They cover an area of about half a mile in
length by a quarter in breadth, and consist chiefly of the black
blocks of basaltic stone which formed the walls of the houses. The
traces of the synagogue, however, remain sufficiently for the building
to be planned. Built of white limestone blocks, it must have formed a
conspicuous object amid the black basalt by which it was
surrounded. It was seventy-five feet by fifty-seven, built north and
south, and at the southern end had three entrances. Many of the
columns and capitals have been carried away, but enough still
remain to convey some idea of the general plan and aspect of the
building. The capitals are of the Corinthian order, and there were
epistylia that rested upon the columns and probably supported
wooden rafters. There are also remains of a heavy cornice and
frieze. The exterior was probably decorated with attached pilasters.
Two miles north of Capernaum are the ruins of Chorazin. There is
no difficulty in identifying the site, which may be determined partly
by the itineraries of early travellers, and partly by the similarity of
the modern name, Kirazeh. The path to them leads up the sloping,
rocky hillside, but, owing to the peculiar character of the masonry,
which is barely to be distinguished at one hundred yards from the
rocks which surround it, the extent and importance of these ruins
have been overlooked until quite recently. They cover an area as
large as, if not larger than, those of Capernaum, and are situated
partly in a shallow valley, partly on a rocky spur formed by a sharp
bend in the Wady Kirazeh, here a wild gorge eighty feet deep. From
this spot there is a beautiful view of the Lake of Tiberias to its
southern end; and here, too, are gathered the most interesting ruins
—a synagogue with Corinthian capitals and niche-heads cut, not, as
at Capernaum, in limestone, but in hard black basalt. The
dimensions of this building are about the same as those of the one
at Capernaum, but the interior is a mass of ruins. Two pedestals still
remain in situ, and a portion of the wall. The characteristic of this
synagogue is an excess of ornamentation of rather a debased kind.
The niches are most elaborate, and remain as sharp as when they
were cut in the hard material used. The mouldings of the door-posts
are similar to those used in other synagogues, and there are many
stones cut with deep mouldings and pieces of classical cornices
strewn among the ruins.
Many of the dwelling-houses were until recently in a tolerably
perfect state, the walls being in some cases six feet high; and, as
they are probably of the same class of houses as that in which Christ
dwelt, a description of them may be interesting. They are generally
square, of different sizes, the largest, however, not over thirty feet
square, and have one or two columns down the centre to support
the roof, which appears to have been flat, as in the modern Arab
houses. The walls are about two feet thick, built of masonry or of
loose blocks of basalt. There is a low doorway in the centre of one of
the walls, and each house has windows twelve inches high and six
wide. In one or two cases the house was divided into four chambers.
We now pushed on to the point where the Jordan enters the lake,
distant about three miles, for it was only on the other side of that
river that my exploration of new ground might be said to commence.
I had been attracted hither by rumours which had reached me of a
remarkable stone which was said to be in the possession of an Arab,
on which were pictorial representations and inscriptions. As my
information on the point was somewhat vague, I rode up to a
Bedouin encampment, near which was also a collection of mud
hovels occupied by fellaheen, which were situated on the west bank
of the river. They were naturally so suspicious that I pretended at
first to be merely anxious to have a guide to show me the ford, but
it was not until the old sheik himself appeared that I could find any
one willing to offer me the slightest assistance. They gazed at me
with open-mouthed stupidity, real or assumed, and the sight of silver
scarcely moved their stolidity. Far different was it with the eagle-
eyed old gentleman who, having seen the group assembled round
us, strode up from the Bedouin encampment, and at once entered
into the spirit of the thing. Not only was he prepared to show me the
ford, but, for adequate consideration, would take me to all the ruins
in the neighbourhood, with the positions of which he professed an
accurate acquaintance, if I would only wait until he went for his
horse. This I was only too happy to do, and in a few minutes he
galloped up with his kufiha and abbaye fluttering in the wind, a
genuine son of the desert. We forded the Jordan by following the
little bar which it makes on entering the lake, the water reaching to
our saddle-flaps, and, following the shore, here a grassy plain for
half a mile, reached a large square building, charmingly situated
near some trees on the margin of the water. This was the granary
and storehouse of the great Arab proprietor of the neighbourhood,
the only building with any pretensions for miles round; and it was
the local agent of this man, himself a resident in Damascus, whom I
now found to be in possession of the relic I had travelled so far to
see. My disappointment may be easily conceived when I was told
that he had gone to Damascus, and would not return for a week. My
disgust, as I squatted beneath the walls of this detestable building,
making a lunch off hard-boiled eggs, and revolving burglarious
schemes of entry, all of which came to naught, may easily be
imagined. The fact that the building itself was surrounded by ruins
was small consolation, for these consisted only of large hewn blocks
of black basalt, and the foundations of houses which were clearly to
be traced, but the area they covered was not extensive, and I could
not find any indications of any public building. The name of the spot
is El-Araj, which signifies The Lame, but I was unable to identify it
with any Biblical locality.
DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT SYNAGOGUE.

Haifa, Feb. 2.—I narrated in my last letter the disappointment I

experienced when, after making a pilgrimage to the north end of the
Lake of Tiberias for the express purpose of seeing some stones
covered with inscriptions and pictorial representations, said to be in
the possession of the agent of a rich Arab proprietor, I found their
owner gone and the relics locked up in a building of which he had
taken the key, and all ingress to which was impossible. The Bedouin
sheik whom I had picked up as a guide at a neighboring
encampment, seeing my chagrin, comforted me by the assurance
that if I would only follow him he would take me to a place where I
could find others which were quite as good. I mounted my horse,
therefore, in somewhat better spirits, as from his description of the
locality I knew it must have escaped the attention of all former
travellers, and consoled myself by the reflection that a discovery of
some importance might still be in store for me.
Our way took us due north across the fertile plain of the Butêha,
an alluvial expanse about two miles in length by one in breadth,
formed by the detritus which, in the course of ages, has been
washed down the Jordan, and the winter torrents which rush into
the plain down the wadys that descend from the elevated plateau of
Jaulan.
The Butêha is not unlike the plain of Genesareth. Both are well
watered and extremely fertile. Butêha has the largest and most
prominent brooks, Genesareth the most numerous and abundant
springs. The old traveller, Burckhardt, says that the Arabs of the
Butêha have the earliest cucumbers and melons in all this region. It
was on this plain, at the foot of the hill or “tell” we were now
approaching, that Josephus fought the Romans under Sylla,
concerning which battle he says: “I would have performed great
things that day if a certain fate had not been my hinderance, for the
horse on which I rode and upon whose back I fought fell into a
quagmire and threw me to the ground, and I was bruised on my
wrist and was carried into a certain village called Cuphernome or
Capernaum.”
The tell which rises from this plain, about a mile and a half from
the lake, is thickly strewn with ruins, consisting of hewn blocks of
black basalt, with which, in the ancient times, all the houses in this
region were constructed; but as yet no traces of any large building
have been discovered. It has, indeed, been very rarely visited, but it
is considered by many to be the site of Bethsaida-Julias and the
scene of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. At present all we know
for certain is that one of the Bethsaidas was somewhere in the
Butêha; that Josephus in his descriptions advanced it to the dignity
of a city, both by reason of the number of inhabitants it contained
and its other grandeur; and that inasmuch as the plain of the Butêha
contains many heaps of ruins, none of any very great extent, any of
them may be Bethsaida, while if it were a large city in our modern
acceptation of the term, the whole plain would not be large enough
to contain it.
Indeed, one is much struck in exploring the ruins of the country
by the limited areas which they cover. I am afraid to say how many
sites of ruined towns I have visited in Palestine, certainly not less
than forty; and I think one could crowd them all into the area
occupied by the ruins of one large ancient Egyptian city—Arsinoë in
the Fayoum, for instance; but then the ruins of an Egyptian city are
composed mainly of mounds of potsherds, while these consist of
large blocks of building stone, either limestone or basalt, measuring
generally two feet or two feet six one way, and a foot or eighteen
inches the other. Then they are usually comparatively near together;
all around the Lake of Tiberias, and in the country in its vicinity, they
are generally not more than from one to three miles apart; so that
this section of country must have been very thickly peopled. The
ruins of Et-Tell are now built over by the Arabs, who live in a squalid
village among the basalt blocks which formed the mansions
inhabited by the more highly civilized race which occupied the
country in the days when all this region was the favourite haunt of
Christ and his disciples.
Leaving Et-Tell on our left, we followed the east bank of the
Jordan for more than a mile. This river is here very rapid, and,
splitting into numerous streams, whirls past the small islets they
form. It is the very ideal of a trout stream, on which on some more
propitious occasion I propose to cast a fly. Meantime, even had I
been provided with the requisite tackle, I should have been obliged
to forego the temptation. It was on the steep rise of a hill, about a
hundred yards from the river, that my guide suddenly stopped. Here
was a small collection of Arab hovels, recently constructed, and it
was in their search for stone, last summer, that the natives had for
the first time uncovered the ruin which now met my delighted gaze.
I found myself in the presence of a building the character of which
I had yet to determine, the walls of which were still standing to a
height of eight feet. The area they enclosed was thickly strewn with
building-stones, fragments of columns, pedestals, capitals, and
cornices. Two at least of the columns were in situ, while the bases of
others were too much concealed by piles of stone to enable me to
determine their original positions. My first impression, from the
character of the architecture which was strewn about, was that this
was formerly a Roman temple; but a further and more careful
examination convinced me that it had originally been a Jewish
synagogue, which at a later period had been converted to another
use; probably it had been appropriated by the Byzantines as a
basilica, or Christian church. This was the more probable, as the
existing walls had evidently been built upon the foundations of a
former structure. The massive stones were set in mortar, which is
not the case with the synagogues hitherto discovered; and I should
doubtless have been completely at fault in classing this building had
my attention not been already directed to the remains of the
synagogues brought to light recently by the exertions of the
Palestine Exploration Fund.
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