After a pleasant ride, skirting the plain of El Buttauf, we halt for tiffin in the pleasant orange grove of Lubieh, where in 1799 the French, under Junot, held their own against a vastly superior army of Turks, and succeeded in reaching Tabor just in time to fall on the rear of the force then pressing hard upon the main body under Napoleon. Soon after, we catch a glimpse of the little lake of Galilee or Tiberias, at one time, in the bright sunshine, looking like an emerald in a golden setting, and at another time, when a passing cloud veils the God of day, like a jasper diamond set in an agate frame. We put up at the Latin Monastery in Tiberias or Tabarea, where we are entertained by the Father Superior hospitably as we were on a former occasion. Before leaving Tiberias, we trot along the shore to visit the hot Sulphur Springs and old Roman Baths, which are still greatly used.
The tombs of Jethro and Habbakuk are said to be in the hills above the town.
Mount Carmel.
CHAPTER II.—Tiberias to Hâsbeyâ.
Tiberias was our last halting place. After a grateful dip in the buoyant lake waters we leave early next day for Safed, the highest inhabited place in Galilee, said to be the “city on a hill that cannot be hid,” for it is situated so high that it is visible far and wide, but the term ‘city on a hill’ might almost equally well apply to Bethlehem, the “city of our Lord.” In the distance the snow-white houses of Safed glisten on the dark mountain side like diamonds set in the breast-plate of a mighty giant. Leaving the Latin Convent of Tiberias, we ride along the shore of the Sea of Galilee for about an hour, until we reach Medjil, or Magdala, the home of the Magdalene, now a collection of wretched mud hovels, then across the fertile but neglected plain of Gennesaret, in the midst of which we see a fine stone circular fountain, evidently once the centre of a great city, considered by some to be Capernaum; it is now overgrown with vegetation and the centre of a wilderness, no other trace of a town near. We pause awhile to think of those great cities which in our Saviour’s time lined the shores of the lake, and see how thoroughly their doom has been fulfilled. Tyre still exists as a place to dry nets on, and Sidon as a habitation for fishermen; but Chorazin, Capernaum, the two Bethsaidas and the other great lake cities—where are they? Their very sites are not a certainty, and on the lake, where the Romans once fought a great naval battle with the Jews, are now only three wretched fishing boats, in one of which we take a voyage. They were “exalted to heaven,” they are indeed “brought down to hell.” We leave the sites of these formerly great cities on our right, and soon after pass along sloping ground where there is much grass (here, in all probability, Christ miraculously fed the multitude). A mountain near by was in the middle ages known as Mensa, alluding perhaps to the place where our Saviour made a table for the multitude in the wilderness. We lunch at Ain-et-Tabighah, a pleasant spring in the mountains, said to be the site of Bethsaida (there are ruins near by), and starting again skirt the Wady-el-Hamân, or Valley of Doves, and soon after find ourselves high up in the mountains of Naphtali, near Safed; we ascend the hill behind the city to the ruins of the old Crusaders’ Castle, whence we obtain one of the finest views of Palestine. To the east we look over the Sea of Galilee, across Basan and the wild Hauran, almost into the Arabian Desert, taking in, in the far south-east, the mountains of Moab and Ammon, with a long stretch of the Jordan Valley—on the south and south-west we see Carmel and Tabor—on the west the sea-coast—on the north the view is bounded by the high mountains of Lebanon. We hire a Moslem house for the night, after, of course, being asked for a month’s rent; we put our horses in the basement and sleep in the upper room, as usual without any kind of furniture or glass window, and the floor a mud one, but the view from it is magnificent. The Jews cook for us, but are so fanatical that they will not taste the food they themselves have prepared for us. Our bed is a stone ledge a few feet from the floor, but better however than we have in many other places; we soon learn the way of making ourselves as comfortable as circumstances will permit, sleeping often sounder on our stony couches than many do on down beds. My dragoman shares my apartment, the others sleep outside in the open. It is 5 a.m. when the Muzeddin, from the summit of the minaret chants out the first hour of prayer, and we set about enjoying our frugal Frühstück, as the Polish Jews here call it, and soon after are in the saddle.
Safed Olim Saphet, one of the four sacred cities of the Jews, is built on terraces one above the other on the side of the mountain, so that the flat roofs of one terrace serve very well as promenades for the houses immediately above, also affording extra facilities for cats and pariah dogs, jackals, &c., to intrude upon our nocturnal privacy. From Safed we travel up and down the mountains, having beautiful views of the plain where Jabin of Hazor gathered together his iron chariots against Joshua; of the waters of Merom (Lake Huleh), and the swamps and jungles of the Jordan, with herds of half wild buffaloes almost hidden in the high rushes. On our left we pass a large khan, built to accommodate the Circassian cut-throats, exiled for committing the Bulgarian atrocities; then on our right is a rock-hewn cistern of vast size, evidently made for some other purpose than to supply a few sheep here in the wilderness.