THE next morning our camp at Mount Carmel was broken up and we started across the hills of Galilee which arose on the east of us, in order to ride to one of the most interesting spots on the earth. It has always seemed to me that Bethlehem, where out Savior was born, Nazareth, where he passed his childhood and lived until he was thirty years old, and Jerusalem, where he taught in the temple, was crucified and rose from the dead, were of all places on the earth the dearest to the Christian. As we wished to reach Nazareth, about eighteen miles distant, by noon, we were up in the twilight, ate our breakfast in the great dining-tent by candlelight, and by sunrise our tents, beds, cooking-stove, camp-chairs, table-ware, and provisions had been packed on the mules; we had mounted our horses, and were riding up the side of the hills. Within two or three miles we passed through a small village inhabited by the farmers, who are called Fellahin in this part of the world. It was like many other farm-villages that we saw in the East, but is so different from anything that the nice, well-trained young folks who will read [130] this book ever saw, that I will give a brief description.

      The village had about two hundred inhabitants, whose business was to farm the fields lying near to it. No one lives on the farms in the East. All live in villages or towns. The farmers, men, women and children, go out in the morning to the fields and return at night. They feel much safer, in a country which has been so often infested by robbers, to live in villages, and besides, springs are not very common, and hence, at almost every spring or well we find a collection of houses of those who choose that place to live because there is a water supply. There their fathers lived before them, probably for many centuries.

      Just outside of every village we would find the threshing floor, for our readers must know that grain is still threshed out by the ancient methods in the East. When I was a boy on a western prairie, we used to choose a level piece of ground, smoothe it and beat it hard for a threshing-floor, and often when the wheat in the straw was spread over it I have ridden the horses, round and round, until I would be very tired of the business. This is the method in Palestine still. Each village has only one threshing-floor, and the farmers use it by turns. The same threshing-floor has perhaps been used hundreds of years. [131]

      When they cut their grain it is all brought to the village threshing-floor on the backs of mules or donkeys, and stacked until they are ready to thresh it out. Then it is spread over the threshing-floor, a piece of level ground, and the cattle are yoked and driven around over it until it is trodden out. Often they drag a kind of sled, with rough stones on its bottom, around over the grain. I frequently saw the cattle treading out the grain, but never saw muzzles on them to keep them from eating, and I recalled the law of Moses: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." I also observed the men winnowing wheat. They threw the grain into the air with great wooden shovels called fans, and the wind would blow the chaff away. When the chaff accumulates it is burned to get it out of the way. There are many allusions in the Scriptures to these customs. I will ask the Young Folks to examine the first Psalm and the third chapter of Matthew for some of these.

      The houses of this village were built of mud and rough stones, while the roofs were also of dirt beaten hard. In the rainy season the water at last soaks through these dirt roofs, and the poor people have a wretched time in their damp, muddy homes. The floors, too, are of dirt, and often the houses have only one room. In one part of this room is the stable of the cow, the donkey, and the roost of the chickens, while on the other side the [132] whole family live. Not very pleasant are such homes as these, filled with bad smells, filth and fleas, and I do not see how the natives could enjoy life at all were it not that the good God has given them a climate so fine that for about nine months of the year they can lives and even sleep out of doors. Yet these poor people seem contented. They have never known a better way of living, and can never hope to live better until the miserable Turkish government is changed. The tax collectors claim a part of the grain raised as a tax, and there is no telling beforehand how much they will take. Sometimes the poor farmer finds, after all his labor, that he has very little left for his family.

      Our road this morning leads over some very fine country. We ride along under the shade of venerable trees which look like they might have stood a thousand years. Many of them are of the same kind of oak as that in which Absalom was caught by the hair of his head and came to his sad end. The great limbs spread out like those of an apple tree, only much farther, and one who had long, flowing hair, riding under them at full speed, would be very likely to be caught in the scraggy branches. The great oak at Hebron, the "Oak of Mamre," mentioned in the history of Abraham, was of the same species. [133]

      One incident happened on our way this morning that will, I think, be of interest to my readers. As we were ascending from a valley we saw a village called Mejidin on the hill overlooking our road, and on a height still higher than the village we could see several hundred people grouped together. We wondered what it could mean, and some supposed that they had gathered there to have a good look at our procession of about sixty men and about eighty horses, mules and donkeys. Others thought they had taken us for Bedouin raiders from beyond the Jordan, and had gathered on the height to defend themselves. The boys became a little nervous over this strange conduct, but when we saw that our dragoman and our Arab camp-servants seemed to manifest no concern, we were not seriously alarmed, but rode on up the hill watching and wondering what it all might mean. When we had come nearly abreast of the village, with it on our right hand and on a height above our road, we saw a Mohammedan graveyard on our left, about a hundred yards from the way. In it we could see a group of persons making a doleful noise with some kind of musical instruments, accompanying them with a kind of wailing. Just when our long line was stretched between the graveyard and the village the people we had seen on the heights made a rush down, led by a [134] turbaned and bearded Arab, carrying a long spear to which a green flag was attached. With his spear extended as though charging, he rushed upon the center of our line, but passed right on through, followed by four men who were carrying, as fast as they could run, the dead body of a man laid upon a bier which was supported on their shoulders. There was no coffin or burial case of any kind, but the body was wound tightly in a robe, and was partly covered by a sheet as it lay upon the bier.

      All was plain to us now. It was a Mohammedan funeral, conducted, in many respects, just as funeral were conducted in Palestine when the Savior was on the earth. It was thus that he met, when near the city of Nain, the widow's dead son "borne by four" on a bier. In the same way, too, just as we heard them on this occasion, "the minstrels were making a noise" in Capernaum when the daughter of Jairus the ruler died. We learned on inquiry that the person whom we saw carried to burial was the Sheik (the ruler of the village), who had died that very morning. Hence "the mourning was a great mourning."

      All the graves in this cemetery had two rather tall stones of the same height, one at the head and the other at the foot of the grave. We had seen this in a great many graveyards in the East, and had learned that they were placed there for the two recording angels. The Mohammedans [135] believe that one angel records the good deeds and the other the bad deeds of a man, and after he dies their take their station at the foot and head of the grave and make a comparison of their accounts. If it is found that his good deeds are in excess of his wicked actions he is admitted into Paradise. If the opposite is the case, he is sent to hell.

      Shortly after we left the scene of this burial we saw a farmer plowing by the wayside, the first time we had seen this since we had entered Palestine. He was breaking up the hard ground to prepare it for wheat, which he expected to sow as soon as the fall rains began. His plow, the usual plow of the natives of the East, was drawn by oxen and had only one handle reminding us of the words of the Savior, "He that putteth his hand to the plow, and looketh back upon the furrow is not worthy of me." The picture will give a better idea of it than a description.

      Our ride was over the mountain elevation more than a thousand feet higher than where we has camped the night before. At times we would have a grand sight opened up to view. Sometimes we could catch glimpses of snowy Hermon to the northeast, and dim blue mountains east of the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan, and the mountains of Ephraim to the south. But we did not pause to [136]

ANCIENT PLOW. [137]

gaze at these, for we were eagerly watching to catch the first glimpse of the place which was the home of Jesus for nearly thirty years.

      Already our guides were pointing out objects that tradition had connected in some way with our Lord. Pointing to a hill which on one side ended in a precipice our dragoman said, "That is the Mount of Precipitation, where the people pushed Jesus from the synagogue and tried to thrust him over." But suddenly, as we reached the crest of a ridge, we looked down into a sort of a basin hollowed out among the hills, and the cry burst out from the lips of all, "NAZARETH! NAZARETH!"

      We paused in order to take in the scene before us. We were on the west of the city on a ridge which shut it out from sight until we were within half a mile of its suburbs. On the north was another hill still higher. Another hill rose on the east, while on the south the hills approached so closely as to shut out the view. Nazareth was entirely hidden from the world on every side. It was in this quiet, sheltered nook that there grew up from childhood until he became a man the Person who has changed the face of all the world. It was perhaps a small town then, much smaller than now. His fame has given it an interest to four hundred millions of people, and there are thousands now making it their home just because Jesus once lived here.

      As we look upon it from these heights, we see [138] the white houses, the domes of the churches, the minaret of a mosque, and the great convents of the Greek and Roman religions, and the whole presents to us a pleasanter appearance than any place we have seen before in Palestine. Nor were we disappointed when we rode slowly down the hill, wound around the city on the south until we reached the east side, and stopped at the "Virgin's Spring" for a drink, before dismounting at our camp under olive-trees about a stone's-throw away. We were hot and thirsty from our long morning ride, and asked the women whom we found at the spring with their pitchers to give us to drink. The cheerfulness with which they supplied our wants showed that they at least had learned the lesson of the great Nazarene when he said: "He that giveth a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, shall in now wise lose his reward."

      Our tents were pitched under some great olive trees only a short distance from the fine spring which is called The Fountain of the Virgin. This spring bursts out of the hillside under a great church and monastery which are controlled by the Greeks, and is conducted from this by pipes under ground to the stone fountain where the current pours out into two streams to supply the town with water. As this is the only unfailing spring at Nazareth, and as there are no wells, there are no [139]

VALE AND CITY OF NAZARETH. [140]

water supplies except what is provided by rain-water cisterns and by this spring.

      When we were there in the month of October it had not rained for many months, and the cisterns were mostly empty, hence the poor people of Nazareth would have been badly off had it not been for the unfailing supply of this fountain. I have said in another place that in Palestine it is a part of the duties of women and girls to carry the water for house use in great earthen jars, which they balance on their heads. The jars used for this purpose will hold about six gallons each, and a woman will fill her jar, swing it to her head, poise it so steadily that she need not hold it with her hands and walk off as if her load does not weigh a feather.

      As all have to fill their water-jars at the same fountain from the two streams that spout out of the stone walls, and as there were more than a thousand homes to supply, there was a great crowd there night and day waiting their turns. From before sunrise until far into the night, from fifty to a hundred women could at any time be seen waiting, struggling for places, pushing, sometimes quarreling and screaming, and keeping up a hideous din. They made such a noise while we were there that when night came a Turkish officer went to the fountain and told them that if they did not keep quiet so as to let the American visitors sleep he would arrest the, This stilled them [141] somewhat, but still, whenever I woke up in the night, I could hear their incessant noise, until just before daylight, when it ceased for an hour or two.

      We know that the women of Nazareth, nearly nineteen hundred years ago, were wont to come to this fountain with their water-jars, just as they come now. There was no other spring to which they could come for a supply, and the women then carried the water as they do in Palestine still. There is not the slightest doubt that the sweet woman of Nazareth called by the name of Mary, often came here for water, for she belonged to the common working people. Nor is there reason to doubt that, after she became a mother, the wonderful Child which was born while she visited Bethlehem often came with her, often washed himself at this fountain, and drank of its waters.

      When we went inside of the great stone church of the Greeks where the spring gushes out of the earth, and drank where we knew that Mary and Jesus had often come and drank, I can tell my young readers that some strange emotions filled out souls. I almost felt as though we stood in the presence of the mother and that Son whose history and glory have made Nazareth one of the most sacred spots on the earth to four hundred millions of our race. We had been walking around for several hours in the hot sun to see various places of interest, and were very hot and thirsty when we came into the church to the fountain head of the [142] spring, and perhaps this had something to do with the delight with which we drank of the water, but I think the thought that we were drinking where Jesus had drunk, perhaps thousands of times, made it taste sweeter than nectar. The Greeks call this church, "the Church of the Annunciation," and declare that it was at this spring that the angel told Mary that she was to be the mother of our Savior. I do not suppose that there is any ground for this statement further than that it was at Nazareth that the angel appeared to Mary, and that she was doubtless at this spring every day.

      I have said that this church belongs to the Greeks. Most of those whom you find in Palestine, who profess to be Christians, are members of the Greek Church, for you must know that more than a thousand years ago the Christian Church divided into two parts. Those in the west were called the Latin Church because they used the Latin language in their church services. We call them now the Roman Catholic Church. Those in the east are called the Greek Church because they used the Greek language. There are about a hundred millions of Greek Christians in Russia, Greece, Turkey and the East. There are some Roman Catholics also in Palestine, and here in Nazareth they have a church and several monks. Not to be outdone by the Greeks, they claim that [143] their church is built over the spot where the angel appeared to Mary. When we visited it they took us down below into a cave, in which there were several rooms, and told us that one was Mary's kitchen, and another Joseph's carpenter shop, and gravely showed us the window through which the angel came when he announced the wonderful tidings to Mary.

      Of course we treated their stories with due respect, and refused to laugh in their faces, but at the same time I thought it would hardly agree with some other Catholic stories. I had been at a place in Italy which the priests show a small stone building which they declare is the identical house that Joseph and Mary lived in a Nazareth. They affirm that it was carried across the Mediterranean Sea by the angels, that they stopped to rest twice by the way, but at last deposited it at Loretto, near Ancona, not far from the Adriatic Sea. Thousands of pilgrims come every year to pray there at the shrine of "Our Lady of Loretto." It is not easy to understand how the home of Joseph and Mary could be taken away from Nazareth across the sea, and yet remain in Nazareth still! Another strange thing, which they do not explain, is that the house is of a different kind of stone from that of any of the houses of Nazareth, or from any that can be found in that part of Palestine.

      One evening a little before sunset a few of us climbed the high mountain north of Nazareth in [144] order to behold the extensive view that is to be seen from its top. We made a "wely," as they call the tomb of the Mohammedan saint, which is on the summit, our place of observation, and were rewarded by a fine view of Galilee, of the mountains of Ephraim, of the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and of the dim mountains of Gilead and Bashan far to the east, beyond the Jordan.

      But I do not speak to this ascent in order to tell what I saw here, but speak of an incident that occurred as we descended. We took one road in the ascent, but a different road down, and were led by the walls of a large building with enclosed grounds on a terrace of the mountain, which we had been told was an orphan school for girls, conducted by some devoted Christian women from America. It was about dark, and not a very suitable time for a visit, but we knocked at the gate, and when the porter appeared we told him we were Americans, and we were afraid that we would have no other time to visit the school, since we expected to leave the next morning. As soon as he heard that we were Americans he said that we might come right in. We declined, however, unless he saw the lady Principal and obtained her permission, but he soon returned with a hearty welcome.

      Several ladies met us, invited us into their large school-room, and then the Principal stated that their pupils had been sent to take their evening [145] bath before retiring for the night, but she would have them dress again and gather in order that we might see them. We pled with her not to go to so much trouble, but she insisted. The bell rang, and in about fifteen minutes ninety Syrian girls, neatly attired and looking fresh and clean, ranging from twelve to eighteen years old, marched into the room and took their places. Then they engaged in singing for a while, singing the songs in their native tongue and then singing them in English also. One of the songs sung was "Jesus if Nazareth is passing by," which certainly sounded very impressive when sung by Syrian girls in the very Nazareth where Jesus lived for about thirty years.

      For about an hour we were entertained in a delightful manner by these good women, who told us many interesting facts about the school, and by the bright-faced pupils. We thought that a great work was being done for this benighted country in training these girls to become intelligent, refined Christian wives and mothers.

      After our evening meal, when we had gathered in our tents as usual, Will asked if Nazareth was named anywhere in the Old Testament.

      "Of course it is not," exclaimed David. "There is no mention of it anywhere before the second chapter of Matthew, where it is said, Joseph 'came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth.'"

      "I would like to know then how it comes to be [146] stated by the prophets, 'He shall be called a Nazarene,'" exclaimed Bayard.

      "The word from which Nazareth is derived is named in the Old Testament, though the city is not named. It was predicted that Christ should have some of the characteristics indicated by that word."

      "How large a city was Nazareth in the time when Jesus lived there?" asked Will.

      "It must have been small, nor did it bear a very good reputation. When Nathanael of Cana of Galilee was told that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, he at once exclaimed, 'Can anything good come out of Nazareth?' (John 1:46). The manner in which the Jews here treated Jesus when he preached in their synagogues show that they were a rude, high-tempered, violent people."

      Indeed, I am sure that Nazareth is much better and larger than when Jesus lived here, and it is much larger than it was thirty years ago. Many of the houses are new, well-built, constructed of stone, and look white and clean. We saw several houses in the process of erection, and among other signs of modern ideas, we found a steam flouring mill, the only one I saw in Palestine except at Joppa. It is hard to get the real number of inhabitants in an Eastern town, since there is no reliable census, and some said that Nazareth had 10,000 people. I suppose it has about 6,000. Of these about 4,000 call themselves Christians, and mostly [147] belong to the Greek Church. About 2,000 belong to the Mohammedans, who are the rulers of the place as well as of all Palestine.

      Since I wrote the above I have seen the report of Mr. Schumaker, a German who lives in Haifa, who took the census in Nazareth in 1891 for the Turkish government. He says that there were then 7,419 inhabitants, of whom 3,820 were Greek Christians, 1,310 Roman Catholics, 1,825 Mohammedans, 212 Protestant Christians, and 252 Maronite Christians. He tells in his report many interesting things of the place which was so long the home of Jesus. Almost every family owns its home. There are 200 "stores," or places where some kind of goods are sold. There are 23 men who follow the old trade of Joseph, which Jesus also learned. There are ten churches, five mosques, thirteen schools and two hotels. Nazareth, he says, is the largest city in Galilee.

      On a bright morning in October, about sunrise, we rode out of Nazareth, where we had been two days, and started on a journey of sixteen miles to Tiberias, an old city on the Sea of Galilee that stood there when Jesus was upon the earth. I have told you that Nazareth was in a sort of hollow basin surrounded by high hills, and our course led us up the hill east of the city, on a road which was a very good one for Palestine. We did not [148] get a sight of the rising sun until we had climbed up the long hill that lies between Nazareth and Cana, and stood on its crest.

      When we had reached the top we paused a short time to enjoy the beautiful prospect in the fresh, bright light of the morning. Nazareth, with its white houses, the domes of its churches, the minarets of mosques, and the mission schools perched on the hillside, seemed to be at out feet. A few miles to the north could be seen a city famous in the time of Christ, though not mentioned in the Bible, Sephoris by name. Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived about Christ's time, says that it was in his day the largest city of Galilee and the capital of the province. Some believe that the parents of Mary, the mother of Christ, lived at Sephoris, but I think it more likely that they lived at Nazareth, and that Mary was brought up there. Nearer to us, only a mile or two distant, was a little village called Gath-hepher, which is mentioned in the Bible as the place where the prophet Jonah was born. Far to the northeast could be seen the snowy top of Mount Hermon, and to the east and south there was a wide sweep of mountain, valley and plain embracing many famous places in Bible history.

      After a short pause we rode on, for we wished to finish our ride before the sun became too hot. In Palestine usually about noon the heat becomes very oppressive, and hence it is best for the [149] traveler to start very early in the morning, to take a long rest at noon, and then to travel late in the evening. Our way was down a gentle descent, not nearly so steep as on the side toward Nazareth, and over a rather fertile country. The soil in most parts off Galilee is good, though portions of the country are thickly strewn with loose stones.

      In less than two hours from the time that we started we were in a valley enclosed between the hills, planted with olive and fig-trees, which presented an inviting appearance, and at last paused at a fine spring, the waters off which were discharged into a great stone trough a little longer than a man, and large enough to make a comfortable resting-place for the human body. As soon as I saw the trough I knew what it was. It was called a sarcophagus, a Greek word which means a "flesh eater," because after a time all the flesh of the bodies buried in them, disappeared. It is a stone coffin dug out to contain the human body as its burial-place. I had seen many of them at Ephesus and about Tyre and Sidon. These were dug out of a solid block of stone. The dead body was placed in it, and then a great flat slab was placed on top. They all belong to a very ancient period, and the one that we now saw had probably two or three thousand years agog contained the remains of some old Tyrian or Sidonian.

      This did not interest us so much as the exclamation of our dragoman: "This is the spring from [150] which the waters came that the Savior turned into wine!" By turning to the second chapter of the Gospel of John you will see that the Savior attended a wedding at Cana, at the very beginning of his ministry; that his mother was there also, and that it was at this place that he worked the first miracle which showed his divine power. The place must have been near his old home at Nazareth, and this place which we had no reached was only five miles distant. If you will look on the map of Palestine until you find Nazareth you will see Cana very near it, a little to the northeast.

      We could see the modern village of Cana a short distance from the spring, partly hidden by the trees, and this is the only spring near; hence it must be true that the water in the great water-pots at the wedding was carried from this spring.

      Of course we wished to taste the water of so famous a spring, and the women of Cana who were there with their water jars in order to get their daily supply for home use were glad to grant our request for a drink. Indeed "a cup of cold water" was always cheerfully given in Palestine whenever we asked it of the women, who are the universal water-carriers. Possibly our imagination had something to do with the idea, but to us the water of the spring seemed to be unusually sweet and pleasant. [151]

      "How is this?" asked Will, who had been examining his pocket-map of Palestine while we were pausing at the spring. "I see two Canas on this map; this one where we are, and another farther to the north. Is this a mistake of the map?"

      "No," said I. It simply means that there were two towns of the same name in Palestine. Just as we often have two towns of the same name in our country, so it was in Palestine. We have Springfield in Illinois, one in Missouri, another in Ohio, and another still in Massachusetts. So there were in Palestine two Canas; two or three Bethlehems; more than one Salem, etc."

      "Can we be sure that this Canas was the place of the first miracle?"

      Some have thought that the Cana to the north of Nazareth about ten miles was the one where the Savior attended the wedding, but I think it was the Cana here nestled in the hills close to Nazareth. The language of the New Testament gives the impression that it was near Nazareth. This Cana is in the right place, has the right name, and seems to have been always thought to be the spot. We know that for more than twelve hundred years it has been held to be the place."

      "Is Cana named elsewhere in the Bible than in connection with the wedding and the miracle?" asked Bayard.

      "It is not named in the Old Testament, and in the New is only mentioned by John. It is spoken [152] of in the second, fourth and twenty-first chapters of John's Gospel. In the last, it is said to have been the homeland of Nathanael, `the Israelite in whom there was no guile.'"

      It is hard to tell what a town or village was in the time of Christ from its condition now. Probably no other country has been tracked and torn by armies as Palestine, and the modern places all stand on the ruins of those which flourished before Palestine was destroyed by the Romans. The modern Cana is a wretched little village of about one hundred and fifty inhabitants, who live in one- or two-roomed stone hovels, amid the filth. There are some pleasant towns in Palestine, one of which is Nazareth; but most of the villages are miserable and dirty beyond description. Yet these people of Cana, dirty, wretched-looking, living worse than the horses and cattle of kind American owners, do not forget that once the Lord visited this place, and there wrought a wonderful miracle.

      In the midst of the town is an old Greek church cared for by one or two monks, and on it is an inscription which reads: "Here our Lord turned the water into wine." These monks pretend that their church stands on the very spot where the wedding-feast took place, and where the miracle was wrought. We were not disposed to take their word for this, and were content to believe that it was somewhere in this locality. Nor will we believe the monks when they pointed to some great [153] stone-jars, holding several basketfuls each, and told us that these were the very jars that contained the water which the Savior changed to the wine! We had seen too many water-jars like them in Palestine not to know that they are a very common modern article, and we know, too, that the monks are not always strictly truthful about relics. Perhaps, though, these monks believed their story. The jars were probably there before they came, and they believed what they were told about them. We could more easily believe these stories if they always agreed. A traveler who was here over a thousand years ago said that only one jar remained then, but there are more now! Besides, another story says that all the jars were carried off by the Crusaders and taken to France about eight hundred years ago.

      I wish to mention one thing more that I saw here. You have read in the Scriptures: "Two women shall be grinding at the mill; one shall be taken and the other left." The wheat is still ground in Palestine by women on handmills where two women turn the upper stone of the mill. On several occasions I saw them at work, once at this time. The mill has a lower stone which is fixed so as not to turn, and an upper stone that is movable, and is a small affair, looking somewhat like a box. The women sit on the ground on each side of it and turn the upper stone back and forth as rapidly as they can, by wooden handles which [154] are fastened into it. The wheat is thus crushed and ground, but the bran is not separated from the flour. This is done imperfectly by sifting.

      Soon after leaving Cana our road led us into a fertile plain called El Buttauf, which extends to the east for full ten miles and is one or two miles wide. It had been mostly cultivated in grain, which had been harvested and was gathered at the threshing-floors of two or three villages which were near our road. As we rode to the east the road became more rocky and, instead of white limestone, we rode over dark volcanic rocks. At last we saw upon our right hand a curious mountain with three peaks which we learned was called the "Horns of Hattin." We turned aside from our road and slowly made our way to the top of this mountain. As we reached the crest a glorious sight burst upon our view. To the north we could see the white houses of Safed, "the city set on a hill whose light cannot be hid." Still further to the northeast the great Mount Hermon raised its snowy head. To the south we could see Mount Tabor and the Mountains of Gilboa.

      But it was to the east that we saw a scene that made us forget all the other objects of interest. Down, far below us, locked in by mountains, was the Sea of Galilee, looking like a sheet of silver as it reflected the bright rays of the sun. Yonder, at [155] the north, where the line of green can be seen, is where the Jordan enters as it rushes down from the mountains. That spot of green that we see at

HORNS OF HATTIN.

the foot of the mountain on the northeast shore is where the Savior fed the five thousand men. Further west we can locate the spot where Capernaum, in which Jesus lived, stood 1800 years ago, and close to it upon the northwest shore is seen the "Land of Gennesaret," a level and very fertile [156] plain. Across the sea, where the mountains seem to push down to the edge of the water, is where the Savior healed the man who had a demon, and where the swine rushed into the sea. Those tall mountains which w see beyond are the mountains of the "Hauran," a wild country now inhabited by very lawless robber-tribes, among whom it is dangerous to travel. It is the home of the Bedouin. And to the south we can almost see where the Jordan leaves the sea and carries the waters down its swift current until at last they empty into the Dead Sea.

      Thus you perceive that this body of water, though called a sea, is really a lake in the course of the Jordan. As we stand here we can see almost every part of it. It is shaped a good deal like the picture of a pear, with the small end to the south. In its widest part it is about seven miles wide, and is about thirteen miles long. Many of the place named in the Savior's history were once upon its shores, and he sailed many times across its bosom. No wonder he loved to dwell beside it, for it is a beautiful sheet of water. If the mountains around it were less desolate-looking it would be one of the loveliest lakes in the world. We will now mount our horses and ride down to our camp just south of Tiberias, right upon its shores.

      Before we start, however, I will tell you about this mountain, called "the Horns of Hattin," from [157] whence we have been looking at all the objects around the sea. In the Gospel of Matthew, at the beginning of the fifth chapter, we read: "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit," etc. This is said to be the mountain there spoken of, and there on that rock, from whence he could be seen and heard by thousands on the level place just below, is the place where our Lord is said to have sat when he spoke the famous Sermon on the Mount. Some of our company were not content until they had heard the Sermon read from the same place.

      It was here our Lord said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God," and this is called "The Mount of Beatitudes." Yet, right here, seven hundred years ago, blood was poured out like water in a dreadful battle fought by soldiers who were called Crusaders, because they wore the cross, and claimed to be fighting for Christ. A hundred years before they had taken Jerusalem from the followers of Mohammed, and made one of their own number King of Jerusalem. Now, however, after a hundred years, a fierce soldier named Saladin sought to drive them out of Palestine, and he came with a great army and laid siege to Tiberias. The king of Jerusalem gathered his Crusaders and marched [158] against him. All day long they fought on the plain over which we have been riding, and when night came on all the Crusaders who remained took refuge on this mountain. It was very hot and they had no water, so the king of Jerusalem and all his soldiers were soon forced to surrender. Ever since that time the followers of Mohammed have been the masters of Palestine.

      Now we ride slowly down this mountain, gallop across the plain, and then descend down a steep hill to the level of the sea, and are soon at the walls of the old and very dirty city of Tiberias.

      Tiberias is quite an ancient city. It was founded by Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, during the time the Savior was on the earth. It was named Tiberias in honor of Tiberius Cæsar, the wicked Roman Emperor who lived when Jesus was crucified. It is mentioned in the New Testament, but there is no account that Jesus ever came here. Herod made this his capital, and he was a wicked, unscrupulous man. He put to death John the Baptist, and Jesus did not care to thrust himself into such dangerous hands unless there was some good cause. It is now a place of three or four thousand inhabitants, of whom a large part are Jews. It is surrounded by a strong wall, and can only be entered through the gates. We lunched at noon on the north side of the city, close to the [159]

SEA OF GALILEE FROM THE BATHS NEAR TIBERIAS. [160]

walls, in the shade of a great ruined castle, which must have been built many hundred years ago. Of course we were curious to know its history, and in answer to our questions Joseph told us that it was built by the Crusaders, who held Tiberias for a great many years. Saladin, the great Mohammedan warrior, that fought the battle at the Horns of Hattin, of which I have already spoken, was besieging Tiberias when the king of Jerusalem with his Crusaders marched to its relief. Saladin met them on the plain over which we rode, and after he had defeated and captured their army he took this city. It has belonged to the Mohammedans ever since.

      Our camp was pitched south of the city on the shore of the Lake near the Baths which you will see in the picture, and we were to remain here for two days, but we did not go at once to the camp. We were all eager for a sail on the famous sea on which the Savior had so often sailed, and our attentive dragoman had three boats ready for us as soon as our lunch was finished. These boats could either be rowed or propelled by sails, very much such boats as those in which Jesus sailed, each having a crew of five Galileans, four to row and one to manage the helm. These boats had been brought by the rowers to the foot of the hill on which the old castle stood and were moored about [161] twenty feet from the shore, which was as near as they could come on account of the shallowness of the water's edge.

      We soon gathered on the shore, but how were we to get into the boats? Were we to wade out and them climb aboard? That was soon settled, for the board shouldered boatmen were motioning to us to get astride of their backs. So, in great glee, we mounted in succession, and were carried out and deposited safely in the boats. Two of our company were very heavy men, weighing more than two hundred pounds each, and it was all that the boatmen could do to stagger out over the rocks with such loads, but soon we were all aboard. The Galilean style of embarking seemed to us very laughable at first, but we soon got used to it, for it was repeated wherever we landed.

      Soon we were moving over their clear waters, in which we could see the fish sporting, and when the wind sprung up so as to fill out sails we made fine speed. Our course led directly to the ruins now called Tel Hum, which in the opinion of most persons are the remains of Capernaum, the city where the Savior lived, and where Peter and Andrew had a home after they became apostles. This is situated closed to the northern end, while Tiberias is on the southwest shore; hence we sailed almost the length of the lake.

      Our sail was delightful. The sky was bright and the water was smooth. On either shore we [162]

THE SEA OF GALILEE. [163]

could see such places as Magdala, Dalmanutha, Gennesaret, and Gergesa, and the plains where Jesus fed the five thousand men, which are all named in the Bible and which we afterwards examined more closely. We remembered that in the time of the Savior this sea was crowded around with cities, and great fleets of boats were on its surface. But all was silent now. There are only six or seven boats on the sea, and Tiberias is the only city. Bethsaida, and Chorazin, and Capernaum, are so completely ruined that it is hard to determine even where they stood. Jesus said that they would be cast down on account of their sins, and his word was wonderfully fulfilled.

      But now we are nearing the shore. A hill rises gradually from the water and we can see that it is covered with the stones of fallen houses. Not a house is standing. The only people we can see are a Bedouin family, living in a tent, and pasturing their goats and black cattle among the ruins of the city where our Lord once lived. It was called then "the Lord's own city." A historian who lived then says that it had 30,000 people. Now it had not a single permanent inhabitant. There are of course, now, no piers, and our boats come to a stop twenty feet from shore, and cannot come nearer on account of the shallow water. Our Galilean rower leap out into the water and bend over [164] for us to mount them. We climb on their backs, throw our arms around their necks, and are carried to the dry land. Then we walk over the ruins overgrown with weeds and thorns, and along the streets of Capernaum and think of the day when our Lord taught in its streets. How we would have liked to have been there then! But, as I beheld the desolation around us the words of Christ, uttered here, kept ringing in my ears: "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." How this teaches us the lesson that if we have great opportunities our responsibilities will be great also!

      Presently we are led to some ruins much grander than any others in the place. The stones do not belong to that locality, but have been brought from afar off. We know from some of the sacred symbols and vessels cut upon the stones that it was a Jewish synagogue. We know from certain marks in the style of architecture, which I cannot now explain, that it was built about the time of the Savior. There was a good centurion in Capernaum, whose servant Christ healed, of whom it was said, "He loved our nation and has built for us a synagogue." There is reason to believe that this is the very synagogue which he built, [165]

CAPERNAUM. [166]

and the synagogue in which Jesus often taught in that city.

      As we thought of these things we could almost see the building arise, stand whole once more, filled with people, listening with breathless interest while the Great Teacher spoke to them such words as man had ever spoken!

      Presently we entered our boats and sailed to the place where Bethsaida, the home of Andrew and Peter, is supposed to have stood, about two miles southwest of Capernaum. A fine stream, fed by springs among the hills, empties here, and is used to turn an ancient mill. The stream is now called "the Stream of the Mill." We could see the fish darting around our boat in great numbers while we were anchored here, and we were at once reminded that the word "Bethsaida," which means "House of Fish," implies that it was a fishing town. From here we sailed to the "Plain of Gennesaret," which was near at hand, a very fertile and well-watered plain extending several miles along the seashore and reaching back a mile or two to the hills.

      But what village is this that are now approaching at the southern extremity of the plain of Gennesaret, where the mountains again crowd down to the sea? It is now called Medjel, and is so hidden among the fruit trees which surround it that we do not discover how wretched it is until we go on shore. Yet, it has a name that has been [167] carried to all the world and has been given to many an institution founded to help the fallen to a better life. It is the place called Magdala in the New Testament, the place which is supposed to have been the home of that unfortunate woman

MAGDALA.

whom Jesus restored, called Mary Magdalene. My readers will all remember her story, how well she loved her Savior, and that she was the first to whom he revealed himself after he arose from the dead.

      It was now nearly sunset, and time to start back to our camp. We had not gone very far until the wind fell, and the boatmen had to take to the oars. [168] With so large a boat and a load of fifteen men, this was not rapid work, and it was long after dark when we rowed past the city of Tiberias to our camp. A strange sight attracted our attention. On the flat roofs of a great many of the houses we could see a sort of tent or booth, built in part from the branches of trees, lighted with lamps and filled with people. They seemed to be feasting and enjoying themselves very much. What does all this mean? Dragoman Joseph, who was in our boat, answered that this was the week of the Feast of Tabernacles. We then remembered that at the time of this feast the Jews in old times were accustomed to live for a week in tents, or "tabernacles," the word tabernacle meaning a tent, in memory of the time when the nation lived for forty years in tents in the wilderness. The Jews at Tiberias still, every October, keep up this ancient custom.

      When we landed below the city at our tents the night was very beautiful. The moon was shining brightly, the lake was smooth as a mirror and looked like a sheet of silver, and the surrounding mountains seemed as happy and peaceful in the moonlight as if they had never been dyed red with blood. After dinner we retired and were soon dreaming of the old times on this mountain-girt sea, when we were awakened by the roar of might winds, the rush of waves, and the shouts of the Arab camp servants as they drove deeper our tent [169] pins to keep our tents from blowing over. I arose and looked out on the lake. The sky had disappeared, the waters were dark, and mighty billows were chasing each other, like sea monsters which were seeking to reach and devour us. Our boats could not have rode such a sea, and I felt very glad that we had got safely back to camp before the storm came. How freshly this brought before us some of the storms that took place when the Savior used to sail across this sea! It was such a storm that came up while he was sleep in the boat, and so frightened Peter, John, Andrew and the other old sailors that they awakened him, crying, "Lord, save us, or we perish!" Then it was that he said, "Peace, be still!" and the wind and waves obeyed his voice.

      The next day was Sunday, but we could not spend it entirely as a day of rest, where Jesus had so long lived, and where so much was to be seen. I have space to speak of only a few things more. We had our worship at eleven o'clock in the great dining tent, and in the afternoon we took a walk through the streets of Tiberias. It was not a very pleasant walk from the fact that the streets were the filthiest we had yet seen. They were very narrow, about eight feet wide, and the people are accustomed to throw their garbage and every kind [170] of filth into them. One wonders, when he sees so much foulness, that the people do not all die off from epidemic sickness. Many of them did have a sickly look. We met many Jews in the streets, and were struck by their peculiar dress. They wore on their heads great shaggy fur caps, and there were hanging down on each side of their faces long locks of hair which had been left uncut until they reached their shoulders. They were a sallow, unhealthy-looking race, and were said to be very dishonest and tricky. Indeed, we could not expert to find a noble people living in so foul and wretched a place as Tiberias.

      Just south of our camp were the Hot Sulphur Springs. You can see the Baths in the picture. There are four springs, all warm, and one is nearly hot enough to cook an egg. The water emits a disagreeable smell, and is very unpleasant to the taste, but is thought to be very healthful as a bath. It is conducted into large basins, in which the patients take a plunge. The temperature of the water, and the black volcanic rocks everywhere, show that this section is liable to be shaken up by earthquakes. Indeed it has had many terrible ones. The last were in 1837, a little more than fifty years ago. It was very destructive and did great damage in Tiberias. Indeed, this is a very curious region. The level of the water of the Sea of Galilee is more than six hundred feet lower than the level of the ocean. Here one is already [171] in a part of that deep gorge which continues to descend, deeper and deeper, as we follow the River Jordan southward, until we reach its mouth, where we find the level of the waters over thirteen hundred feet, a quarter of a mile, before the surface of the Mediterranean Sea. [172]

[YFBL 130-172]