It may be here observed that at that period this
Cæsarea Philippi was not a secluded spot, as commentators generally make it, because Banias is so now; but the town was one of notoriety, adorned, as we have just seen, with expensive public edifices.
* * * * *
On returning to the tents, the shaikh of the village came, attended by some of his relatives belonging to Hhasbeya, begging for some quinine medicine: I gave him eight of my twelve remaining pills. On the adjacent plain there must needs be fever and ague; in fact, so unwilling was I on account of malaria to remain longer at Banias, that we resumed our travelling by night.
At three o’clock, a.m., we were mounted—there was a little rain at the time, and clouds that threatened more of it obscured the setting moon; there was lightning also in the same direction. I even altered my plan of going on to “the bridge of the daughters of Jacob,” (the thoroughfare between Safed and Damascus,) in order to escape from the plain as quickly as possible. For this purpose we turned westwards, and had to struggle through marshes and rough ground by starlight and lightning. Most unwisely we had neglected to take a meal before starting, not expecting the district to be so plashy and unwholesome as it proved to be. The plain, north of the Lake Hhooleh, is traversed by innumerable channels of water, among which rice is grown, of which I gathered a handful as a
trophy to exhibit in Jerusalem. And there were lines of tents of the poor Ghawârineh Arabs upon dry ground, besides small scaffolds standing in the rice marshes, from which elevations the people watch the crops and fire upon wild beasts that come to injure or devour the crops; dogs barked as we passed, and fires were visible in several directions.
Arriving at the bridge of El Ghujar, my companion and I both felt sick, and had to dismount and rest for a time.
Our guide’s account of the river differed from that given in Robinson; instead of the stream being the Hhasbâni and the bridge named El Ghujar, he averred that the river is El Ghujar, and that it rises out of the ground like the waters of Banias and of Tell el Kâdi. Perhaps this may account for Porter more recently placing the bridge El Ghujar in a different situation, much farther north. The circumstance is not without value in inquiries as to the collective formation of the Jordan.
As daylight broke we could see herds of buffaloes among the marshes, or swimming in the water with only their heads raised above the surface; the village of Khalsah was half way up the hill-side.
From this point the road was level, dry, and comfortable, running due southwards along the western margin of the plain, but with streams occasionally crossing it, rushing from the hills towards the lake.