Letters from Palestine / Written during a residence there in the years 1836, 7 and 8

by J. D. Paxton

This church is said to be the house of Peter. It is an old building, with an arched roof, but has no just claims to an origin so early as the days of the apostles. There is, I think, another reason given why it is called the house of Peter, that is, it stands on the place where our Lord appeared to the disciples, and put the searching question to Peter—"Lovest thou me?"

Among those travellers who spent the night in the court of the church, was a sick man for whom we felt most deeply. He lived near Constantinople, and had visited the Holy Land as a pilgrim. He had left a family at home; was well dressed; rode a good horse, and travelled with a company of the better sort of pilgrims. He had been unwell for several days; but as his company could not or would not stop, his great unwillingness to be left induced him to travel on, when under a raging fever. On Sabbath morning he was utterly unable to rise—and seldom have I seen a person that more needed medical aid. We tried to do what we could for him; but I had not the medical knowledge which his case called for. While I stood over him and felt his pulse, he gazed on me with a brightening countenance; no doubt in the hope that I might give him relief. He tried to make me understand the nature and seat of his pain; but he spoke modern Greek, and we had no one that could interpret; and, moreover, his case was one that was utterly beyond my skill. Never did I feel so deeply my need of medical knowledge; never did I feel more deeply how impotent is man to save his fellow-man. When I turned from him in despair of doing anything that would at all benefit him, he seemed to read my feelings; and never did I see a deeper disappointment than was expressed in his looks. It seemed to say, You see I am dying, and yet you do not save me.

We gave him some simples, which might possibly afford momentary relief. His company had left him. We prevailed on the Greek priest to take him into his family, and had him conveyed there. What became of him I know not. There was little prospect of his living.

The lake is a pretty sheet of clean, fresh water, about twelve miles long and six miles broad, of an oval shape. The water deepens very gradually on the western side where I visited it. I saw many small fish in it; but saw no means for taking them. It is said, however, that the Jews have a fishery at the southern part, and take a good many. I saw but one boat on the lake. It would hold eight or ten men—it lay off the town—but I saw no one in it during the time I was there.

The banks of the lake were more precipitous on the eastern than on the western side; and as it seems to have been on the eastern side that our Lord healed the demoniac, and permitted the devils to enter the swine, I could not but think that it did argue that the swine were possessed, that the whole herd should leap from the top of such a precipice into the sea.

The town of Tiberias stands on the western side, about mid-way of the lake, and on the edge of the water; it is walled, and has a small garrison in it. The population is but a few thousand, possibly not above 3,000. Most of these are Moslems; there are a few Christians of the Greek church, and a small number of Jews.

The whole district about the lake, as far as I saw it, is volcanic. The walls of the town, and of most of the houses are built of lava, and most of the rock that lies about the town, and the bottom of the lake is lava. There is a mixture of limestone among it; for the whole district is based on limestone. The volcanic district extends north of the lake, and also far to the east of the Jordan, according to my best information.

There were originally many towns about this lake—most of them have disappeared; and the very sites of Chorasin, and Bethsaida, and Capernaum, on which the Lord pronounced a woe, are not with certainty known.

The Jordan rises some distance to the north-east of Tiberias, and passes through another small lake called the waters of Merom. It was by it that Joshua defeated the second confederacy of kings. (Joshua ii. 5.) Passing through this lake, the Jordan enters the lake of Tiberias at the north-east corner, and leaves it at the south end, and passes through the plain of Jordan from sixty to eighty miles, and falls into the Dead Sea. There is no outlet to this sea. The waters are carried off, as is supposed, by evaporation.

There is a fine district of country, it is said, about the waters of Merom, and formerly the towns of Cesarea and Philippi stood there.