There are other memories which this famous view calls up to the mind. The little town of Nain, where the widow’s son was brought out to meet the Saviour and His followers; the long road from Shunem to the wilds of Carmel, pursued by the mother who went to seek Elisha; the paths leading to Cana and to Bethabarah; the many chapels which recall episodes in the life of the Christ. These spots have all become sacred within the last nineteen centuries, and their associations mingle strangely with those of battle and disaster; but Galilee always holds a different place in our minds from any other part of Palestine, because it is the cradle of Christianity and the chief scene of the Gospel narratives.
Of Nazareth itself there is little to be said. It was always a secluded and unimportant place, and probably at the present day is larger and more important than even when it was the see of a Latin bishop. The cave-cisterns, which have been traditionally regarded for many centuries as the “Holy House,” of which part was carried by angels to Loretto, are enclosed in a modern church on the foundations of a Byzantine chapel, converted later into a Crusading cathedral. The Greek church farther north, over the spring head, is the reputed site of the Annunciation, according to the Eastern belief. Another Christian sect was busy, when I first visited Nazareth, in consecrating a round table of rock, which seemed to be newly hewn, but which was to be revered as the Mensa Christi, where Jesus had once sat with His disciples. Such sites have little claim to attention, since no hint is to be found in the Gospels of their locality or preservation. Nor are the mediæval legends connected with the “Leap of our Lord,” at the cliff where the road runs up to Nazareth from the great plain, of interest, save to the student of the curious Crusading chronicles. Antoninus, the pious pilgrim of the time of Justinian, says that “in this city the beauty of the Hebrew women is so great that no more beautiful women are found among the Hebrews, and this, they say, was granted them by the Blessed Mary, who they say was their mother.” The same is said in our own times of the Christian women of the town, and of those in Bethlehem also. Certainly their type of beauty is very superior to that of the peasant women of Moslem villages. The Nazareth girls are more Italian than Arab in feature, and often very comely; but there are many ways of explaining this besides the theory of Crusading ancestry. We must not forget that in Syria mixed types, half Aryan, have long existed, due to Greek, or Italian, or Frankish forefathers, and the blue eyes sometimes seen in Syria may be due to yet later admixture of European blood. More weight is, I think, to be given to such facts than to a comparison with blue and green eyes in the faded pictures at Karnak, which represent the Canaanites. The fairness of the Nazareth women is denied by Père Lievin’s orthodox guide-book, and by the Franciscan fathers—mainly Italians—who have monasteries at Nazareth and at Bethlehem.
North of Nazareth lie the two sites which have at various times been regarded as representing Cana of Galilee. It is curious that Robinson, usually so careful, has confused them together. The one is the Christian village of Kefr Kenna, which was certainly regarded, before the Crusaders arrived, as the true site. Thus Antoninus places it three miles from Sepphoris, which can only apply to Kefr Kenna. The other site is the ruin of Kânah, four miles farther north. The distances given by writers of the twelfth century show most clearly that this was the supposed site in Crusading times. Robinson has twisted the earlier traditions, making them to apply to the more distant ruin; but the reader can measure the distances on the map for himself. This is not the only case in which the views of the Frankish monks of the Latin kingdom differed from the earlier traditions of the Eastern Church, but it is hard to say which is in this case the more reliable, though the opinion of most writers is in favour of Kefr Kenna.[42]
The Buttauf plain is for the most part arable land, well cultivated, but towards the north there is a pestilent swamp surrounded by reeds—whence the name Kânah, from the “canes.” Camping on the borders of this unhealthy morass, we suffered from the inevitable fever, as well as from the most notable mosquitoes in Palestine. The delay at this spot was, however, unavoidable, since the line of levels had to be carried across this plain from the Mediterranean to the Sea of Galilee, and accurate levelling is not rapidly completed in any country. Here also we examined, more closely than our predecessors, one of the smaller synagogues, and I was interested to find that its dimensions were multiples of a cubit of sixteen inches, as are also many dimensions of the Jerusalem Temple. The researches of the great Jewish writer Maimonides point to this length for the Jewish unit of measurement, which was not the same as the Egyptian cubit of about twenty-one inches—a question which is of no little importance in the study of Jewish antiquities.
On the east side of the Buttauf plain, not far north of the curious cromlech now shown as the scene of “Feeding the Multitude,” rises the dark crag of the “Horns of Hattin”—a place celebrated for its connection with the great battle in which Saladin defeated the forces of Christendom. The story of that battle, of the fatal dissensions among the Christians, and their lack of strategical skill, their vacillation and rashness, forms one of the most remarkable incidents in mediæval history. The unhappy King Guy of Lusignan had lain with his hosts by the fountains of Sepphoris for many months, awaiting the attack which it was foreseen would follow the loss of the Castle of Banias and the defeat of the Grand Master of the Templars near Tiberias. Whether through evil fortune or because of hidden designs, the Templars seem always to have been responsible for the great failures of the Latin kingdom. Raymond of Tripoli gave good and disinterested advice, for though his lady was besieged in Tiberias, he was willing to lose all, seeing that the only chance of victory lay in the choice of a battle-field close to the springs of Sepphoris. “Between this place and Tiberias,” he said, “there is not a drop of water. We shall all die of thirst before we get there.” But the Templars prevailed, and on the night of the 1st of July 1187, in the hottest season of the year, the army moved out over a plain which, east of Kefr Kenna, is entirely waterless.
The Saracens had, therefore, the advantage, for there were several springs behind their position. The Arab and Kurdish horsemen harassed the heavy-armed knights and set fire to the dry grass and stubble, which, in 1875, I saw in flames sweeping over this plain and destroying great part of a village by our camp. There was no water for the Franks, but a hot sun, with clouds of dust, smoke, and flames. The issue of the day was not long doubtful, and the army melted away as the deserters threw down their arms and begged for water from their enemies. Only 150 knights gathered round the royal standard on the rocky Horns of Hattin, and here the chiefs and princes of the kingdom were taken alive. The Holy Cross was lost, and with it went the Latin kingdom. Only Raymond, with Balian of Ibelin and his followers, were able to fight their way from the scene of this great disaster, and thus escaped to Tyre.
Renaud of Chatillon, the proud and treacherous lord of Kerak—his great castle by the Dead Sea—whose misdeeds were among the chief causes of the destruction of Crusading power, was the only prisoner whom Saladin slew, having first offered him his life if he would become a Moslem. Iced sherbet was ordered for King Guy in the conqueror’s tent, and the King handed the cup to Renaud. “Thou hast given him drink, not I,” said Saladin, and so pronounced the doom of a foe more feared by Islam than any other Christian in the kingdom; for he had sailed with his men almost to Mecca, and threatened the very centre of Mohammedan faith.