nearly level with the ground, and is probably the entrance of a sepulchre, but we had no opportunity of clearing away the soil to ascertain that. The ornamentation seems to be that of laurel leaves. Near adjoining is a fragment of a round pillar, partly buried; but on seeing Hebrew writing upon it, I cleared it away partly. Some of it was but indistinct. I could only read it thus—
—from which not much signification can be gathered. Perhaps some cracks in the stone have disfigured the characters; but how and when did a Hebrew inscription come in such a place? The site is very agreeable, with streamlets of water tinkling among trees by the roadside.
Thence we mounted up to the village of Jish, the place of John of Giscala, the antagonist of Josephus. This seems to have been the centre-point of the dreadful earthquake in 1837, from which
Safed and Tiberias suffered so much. It occurred on the New Year’s day, while the people of the village were all in church; and just as the priest held the sacramental cup in his hand, the whole village was in a moment destroyed, not one soul being left alive but the priest himself, and, humanly speaking, his preservation was owing to the arch above his head. All the villages around shared the same fate, and the greater part of the towns above mentioned. Much damage was sustained all over Palestine; and a heart-rending description of the events has since been printed, though little known in England, by a Christian Israelite, named Calman, who, together with Thomson, the American missionary, hasted from Bayroot on hearing of the calamity, and aided in saving many lives of persons buried beneath the ruins of Safed and Tiberias, during several days after the catastrophe.
This sad event serves for an era to date from; and the Jews there, when referring to past occurrences, are accustomed to say, it was so many years before (or after) the שער (the earthquake.)
Among the ruins of Jish are no remains of antiquity, except a fragment of the thick shaft of a column and a small sarcophagus, only large enough for a child, in a field half a mile distant. The Jews appropriate this to Shemaiah Abtelin.
We passed between Kadita and Taitaba, over land strewn with volcanic stone, beginning near Jish and extending almost to those villages. The
crater, of very remote times, noticed by Robinson, is about one-third of the distance from Jish to Safed; not very imposing in appearance.