Curiosities of Christian History Prior to the Reformation

by James Paterson

The Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias, or Gennesaret, is pear-shaped, tapering towards the lower end. In its central part it varies from 60 feet to 165 feet deep. It is 12½ miles long, and its greatest width is 8 miles. Bethsaida, now called Tabiga, is on the upper shore of Galilee, and consists of a few huts and mills. Some hot springs here flow into the lake, and great numbers of fish crowd round that spot, which cormorants and gulls watch and feed upon. Here was the miraculous draught of fishes. Here Christ stood in a ship a little from the shore and addressed the multitude. There was also a Bethsaida on the east of the Jordan at St. Tell, where the five thousand were fed. The site of Capernaum, as related (p. 62), is now doubtful; but Mr. Macgregor thought it was at Khan Minyeh, about a mile west of Bethsaida and on the shore of Galilee. Magdala is on the west shore of the lake near the middle, now called Midgel, and is a poor village without beauty or cleanliness. It gives the name to Mary, who is known over the whole world. Behind Magdala the hills rise abruptly to about 1,000 feet. Tiberias is three miles farther down the west coast than Magdala, and is now a filthy town, especially in the Jews’ quarter. Christ seemed never to have entered this town, and the chief reason given is that it was full of foreigners.

FISHING IN SEA OF GALILEE.

The boats now used on the Sea of Galilee have dwindled to about six, of five oars each; and for half a century travellers seldom have seen more than one or two on the lake. The fish in the lake were said by Macgregor to be the carp and the cat-fish, or coracinus. When Dr. Tristram visited the country in 1869, he found a mode of fishing in vogue which was to scatter poisoned bread crumbs, which caused the fish to die and float on the surface in large shoals. He was told that there were fourteen species of fish in the lake, but only three sorts were eatable. He also saw a man wade in naked to guide his seine net round, and then draw it ashore. The storms or squalls on the Sea of Tiberias are often violent, and this is said to be owing to its depth below the level of the sea, where the air is so rarefied and causes a gap in the continuity of the atmosphere. The steep place where the herd of swine ran down into the Sea of Tiberias is judged to be at Kersa, directly opposite to Magdala.

THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN.

Mr. Macgregor, with the Rob Roy canoe, about the year 1868 explored the sources of the Jordan, which are three. One is the Hasbany, due north, near which is the Pool of Fuarr, which the natives all believed to be 1,000 feet deep, being unapproachable by them; but when sounded it was only 11 feet deep. There is a weir made to form this pool, and to supply a mill near this point, and also a bridge with two arches crosses the stream a little lower down. Two miles to the east of the Hasbany is another source of the Jordan, called the Leddan; and on the east bank is a mound, about 30 feet high and 600 feet wide, said to have been once the town of Dan, where Jeroboam set up the idol (1 Kings xii. 28). Near this spot is an impenetrable thicket, covering a pool 100 feet wide, supplied by a subterranean stream. The natives believed the pool bottomless, but it was found by the Rob Roy to be only 5 feet deep. This pool also supplies a mill. About fourteen miles farther east is the third source of the Jordan, issuing out of a cavern at the village of Banias, which was once the town of Cæsarea Philippi, where Christ asked His disciples who they thought He was. Near this spot was supposed to be the scene of the Transfiguration. Near this also are the vast ruins of the Castle of Subeibeh, built by the Herods, and held by the Crusaders. It is 1,500 feet above the plain.

THE HOOLEH, OR WATERS OF MEROM.

The three sources of the Jordan—the Hasbany, the Leddan, and the Banias—unite, after running about 12 miles, at a place called Tell Sheik Yusuf. The Banias is about 70 feet wide before it reaches this point, and the banks are 20 feet high and abrupt. The united river is called the Jordan from this point, being then about 100 feet wide, and 8 or 9 feet deep. After running about 6 miles, the river becomes dispersed into small channels, and these are soon lost in a vast morass, called the Hooleh, or Waters of Merom, choked with reeds and papyrus, and swarming with leeches. These obstacles prevent even a canoe passing. The passage being thus blocked for half a mile, the water is again collected in a central pool or lake about 60 yards wide. A clear channel of a 100 feet wide and 10 feet deep flows from this pool, between thick walls of papyrus, which grows to a height of 15 feet above the water. And this is said now to be the largest papyrus ground in the world. Pelicans and water-fowl abound in Hooleh, and Mr. Macgregor killed a pelican which measured 10 feet between the tips of the extended wings. The Hooleh lake, or that part of it which is clear of the papyrus, is about 4 miles wide and 6 miles long, tapering to a point at the lower end, where the Jordan again issues as a river. The lake is not deeper than 15 feet, and is more usually 9 and 10 feet only. The Jordan, on its issuing from Hooleh, is about 60 feet wide; and after running 10 miles very rapidly, falls into the Sea of Tiberias or Galilee, or Lake of Gennesaret.

THE RIVERS OF DAMASCUS.

When Naaman the Syrian went to Elisha to be healed of leprosy, and was told to wash seven times in the Jordan, he exclaimed, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” In 1868 Mr. Macgregor, with the Rob Roy canoe, visited these places. Damascus was picturesque in its situation, but the houses and people exceedingly dirty. It is said to be the oldest inhabited city in the world. Vines and orange trees relieve the mud walls, but there is nothing really beautiful except the scenery surrounding this city. The population is said to be now 150,000. The river rises a little to the east of the source of the Jordan out of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, and flows due east past Damascus. It is a deep and rapid river about sixty feet wide, with high banks, without trees, and with fruitful plains on each side. Tortoises and land crabs abound. The Rob Roy canoe sailed down to the Tell of Salahiyeh, which is a small green hill like Primrose Hill, near London. There are many canals used for irrigation in the course of the river. The river then divides into three branches, on one of which is the spot known as Abraham’s Well, now called the village of Harran. These three branches become lost in a large morass called Ateibah. The Rob Roy explored this morass, and found it perfectly still water, choked with reeds and osiers about five feet high. The natives never go into it, believing some of the pools to be bottomless. The morass or lake is of a double form, and the whole is about fourteen miles long and four miles wide, seldom visited except for wild ducks and the myriads of other fowl which are the only active inhabitants of the spot, and make the only noise that can be heard. A few villages are dotted over the surrounding plains. The river Pharpar flows parallel to the Abana in a line about twelve miles more to the south. It also runs into a large morass, south of which is the land of Bashan. Here wild boars have their tracks through the reeds. The “bulls of Bashan” are shaggy buffaloes, which stand up to their middle in the marshes enjoying the coolness, till the Arab herdsman with a long stick drives them away, when they bellow and snort, raise their tails and scamper off, spreading terror all round.

POPULOUSNESS OF GALILEE IN CHRIST’S TIME.